Dancing With the Zebra - some kind of dance music, I think

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As someone who has tended to mostly write music with sampled instruments rather than synths, I don't have a lot of experience with the latter. But recently, I downloaded u-he's Zebralette and I've really been enjoying it. So I put this track together. It's some kind of EDM with an orchestral element, although I'm not really sure how to describe it beyond that. I'd love to get some feedback (whatever comes to mind), particularly since a lot of you know your way around a synth far better than I do!

https://soundcloud.com/davidstiles/danc ... -the-zebra

Aside from Zebralette, I used the sounds of Mulab 6, as well as some 8Dio strings and some Cinesamples Brass, and a bit of Impact Soundworks Cinematic Synthetic Drums.

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Beautiful song, really! Wery emotional string melody has nice contrast to the electronic basses.

Btw, to me this song sounds like an orchestral piece with some EDM elements, not vise versa. :wink:
You may think you can fly ... but you better not try

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Good job on this. Very varied and entertaining. :tu:

It reminds me more of disco, which often blended synths and strings, than EDM. I think some of the synth sounds could be improved but it is still impressive for a synth beginner.

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Thanks for your comments, recursive one and Frantz! I'm glad you both enjoyed it.

I see what you mean about it being more of an orchestral piece, recursive one. I guess it started out as more of an electronic piece, and then I just kept putting more and more orchestral stuff into it as I went along.

I hadn't thought of it as being like disco, Frantz, but I see your point there. I agree that the synth sounds could definitely be better. Any suggestions as to how? Do you think that the synth composition should be more complex or should I focus more on making more interesting and unusual sounds with filters etc.?

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davidstiles wrote:I agree that the synth sounds could definitely be better. Any suggestions as to how?
I think the sound at 0:18 is trying to be a dubstep wobble but it sounds more like a quacking duck. :) The bass that starts at 0:36 has a long decay. Dance music would normally use a punchier bass with a quick decay. I also get the feeling that it is a grab bag of sounds rather than a coherent sound palette.

If you want to improve your sound design skills make a bunch of completely electronic tracks using only Zebra with sounds you made starting from the Init patch.

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Frantz wrote: I think the sound at 0:18 is trying to be a dubstep wobble but it sounds more like a quacking duck. :)
lol! I wasn't trying for either of those things, exactly... but I see your point.
Frantz wrote:The bass that starts at 0:36 has a long decay. Dance music would normally use a punchier bass with a quick decay. I also get the feeling that it is a grab bag of sounds rather than a coherent sound palette.
Interesting. The incoherence of the sound palette might be partly because the bass that starts at that point (as well as a few other things) isn't from Zebralette - it's from the Mulab sound set.
Frantz wrote:If you want to improve your sound design skills make a bunch of completely electronic tracks using only Zebra with sounds you made starting from the Init patch.
That seems like a good idea - I'll give that approach a try. Thanks for your thoughts!

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The point 0.35 is nice ! I like the pad chords :tu:

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Thank you, Daniel! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

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Nice composition. My favourite parts were from 0:36-1:08 and 1:32-2:03. I loved the combination of the warm bass sound with the strings and percussion. I seem to be in agreement with recursive one regarding these sections and their melody, and don't really see this as an EDM track.

As far as developing your Zebralette patches goes, just play around with that init patch. You'll be making amazing sounds within 5 minutes. I just tried it :wink:

Good work :)

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Thanks, seismic1! I'll definitely spend some more time playing around with Zebralette (and maybe think about investing in the full version of Zebra at some point if all goes well).

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Nice! Very entertaining, I like the scenes that you create. I see EDM being anything created with electronics and has a beat. Your track mixes soundscape with a beat- I dig it. Put me in a club and play this, I will be taken back at first but I think I will love it. Put this in a movie score of a secret detective. BAM! Fisuck sound design, I mean I know its important but that train of thought can be very limiting when trying to put a track together. Well, I suppose fine tuning sound design come at the near end the song creating process. But I like this joint and after listening to it 4 times, I have grown to like the sound design of the mysterious spy.

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Thanks, Zeus117! That's kind of how I define EDM as well, although I completely understand that others may not agree. Glad you liked the track!

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wow, how did i miss this? theres some mean bass going on here, but it is pleasantly complimented
by crisp percussion and gorgeous strings and brass. i think i would have given the brass a little boost in the 8-12khz band
to further compliment that low end. a nice listen all around. :tu:
HW SYNTHS [KORG T2EX - AKAI AX80 - YAMAHA SY77 - ENSONIQ VFX]
HW MODULES [OBi M1000 - ROLAND MKS-50 - ROLAND JV880 - KURZ 1000PX]
SW [CHARLATAN - OBXD - OXE - ELEKTRO - MICROTERA - M1 - SURGE - RMiV]
DAW [ENERGY XT2/1U RACK WINXP / MAUDIO 1010LT PCI]

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Thanks very much, layzer! That's a good tip about the brass - I think I'll experiment with that a bit.

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