KVR Audio

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:45 pm

I decided to take a break from the remix/revisitation process for a few weeks. This is my first new piece of music in over 2 years. This took 8 hours to record/mix/master in Feb/March 2013. It began as an ambient piece but then acquired rhythmic trappings. I made a drone by processing a synth sawtooth bass through Audacity using Paulstretch. I then layered, pitchshifted, reversed, filtered, reverbed, delayed, looped, timeshifted until I had some harmonic interaction and added some synth and percussion. I used the A/B output facility in µTonic to alternate between straight and Permut8-processed percussion. I currently see this as an intro passage to a longer piece.

Updated 20130318: This is no longer a WIP.

Updated 20210716: mp3 link deleted

as a 320Kbps mp3 on SoundCloud

http://soundcloud.com/whatsisname/axis-part1-wip

EDIT: 20130314 - changed Shimmer signal routing and EQ - remastered - replaced SoundCloud upload

EDIT:20130317 - Shimmer HF tweak - added SampleMoog Taurus bass - remastered - replaced SoundCloud upload

EDIT:20130318 - Shimmer HF tweak - mix HF tweak - remastered

Recorded/Mixed in EnergyXT2.7beta - Audio processing in Audacity 2.0.3

CM101
DominatorCM
µTonic
Permut8 (Beatrick F/W)
SampleMoog Taurus
Valhalla Shimmer
REFLEX Free
EnergyXT Delay
FerricTDS
T-Racks Linear Phase EQ
T-Racks Opto Compressor
T-Racks Vintage Equalizer
T-Racks Brickwall Limiter

DR - 13

EDIT: 20210622

Remixed in 2021 - A cosmetic update of the original track (from 2013). Update from EnergyXT2.7beta to EnergyXT2.7 revealed that some of the internal parameters had been "shuffled around", although they were retrievable. I re-arranged the project parameters, and then re-panned the percussion and added a little reverb. I then updated the EQ settings, adding a couple of "surgical" Equivocate edits to the Valhalla Shimmer output. I replaced FerricTDS with Satin on the master bus, and mastered the track using T-Racks5. This has a cleaner sound than the original (in the first post of this thread). I'm hoping to release this on an album sometime in 2022.

Recorded in EnergyXT2.7beta/Remixed in EnergyXT2.7/Audio processing in Audacity 2.0.3
Mastered in T-Racks 5

https://soundcloud.com/whatsisname/axis ... ks5-master

CM101
DominatorCM
µTonic
SampleMoog Taurus
Valhalla Shimmer
Permut8
REFLEX Free
EQuivocate
EnergyXT Delay
IK CSR Plate
Satin
T-Racks Linear Phase EQ
T-Racks Opto Comp
T-Racks EQP-1A
T-Racks Brickwall Limiter

DR - 11

Shangsean · Post by **Shangsean** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 12:59 am

If you're going to change it, don't change it too much. I think it works well as is. The second half could possibly use a little something more such as some light rhythmic patterns to add interest, but as a lead-in to a longer piece it doesn't need too much more.

hollo · Post by **hollo** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 1:11 am

Don't know about those stuff, BUT:
You'v got wonderful drone and all the incoming colors! Congrat!

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 1:31 am

Shangsean wrote:If you're going to change it, don't change it too much. I think it works well as is. The second half could possibly use a little something more such as some light rhythmic patterns to add interest, but as a lead-in to a longer piece it doesn't need too much more.

Thanks for checking this out, Sean. I think you're probably right about the percussion. I'll probably double the µTonic/Permut8 up so I can have A+B instead of the A or B which is currently present. I was also wondering about some long sustained bass during the last couple of minutes, but it might interfere with the low end of that delayed synth. Glad you liked it

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 1:51 am

Nice one Tim! This makes a great change up from your more beat oriented work. Lots of interesting complexity in those layers to keep the ears happy. I love the flood of sound that comes along with introduction of the beat. I really don't hear a need for any further embellishment myself... it's very pure the way it is now to me.

Frantz · Post by **Frantz** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 1:57 am

It must be nice to start something new.

Unfortunately, the drone has a concentration of white (pink?) noise in the high frequencies that is almost painful for me to listen to. I'm not sure if anyone else would have the same reaction. It's a shame because I would probably like it otherwise.

I am preparing a spectrogram to demonstrate what I am talking about.

Frantz · Post by **Frantz** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:09 am

Taking a page from layzer's playbook, I ran a spectrogram of "Axis" vs. fate atc's Fire Prayer in Samplitude. I captured about 10 seconds of sound starting from 3:03 in each piece. Bright colors indicate a strong concentration of energy at a frequency. Dark colors indicate little energy at a frequency.

You will notice "Fire Prayer" has very little sound (mostly black) above 7kHz. While "Axis" is bright green up to 19kHz. (ouch!)

Furthermore, "Fire Prayer" has no yellow/orange bands above 1.5kHz. While "Axis" has many yellow/orange bands between 1.5kHz and 10kHz indicated with red arrows.

I guess this was caused by pitch shifting the drone into higher frequencies multiple times. This may only be an issue for me and my peculiar hearing but I wanted to point out that the frequencies in your track are unusual. Hope this helps.

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:56 am

great buildup on this one. i liked the shifting drone and i will never get tired of the good ol krafty Q snaps! as far as the mix, even without looking at it
with the freq analyzer i can confirm Frantz's observations. hf's a bit loud in the high end. up till the bdrum kicks in, theres almost no sounds below 100hz which further accentuates the HFs. would be interesting to hear a version with a boost to 100-50hz and a slight cut from 7khz - 10khz and a sharp rolloff cut from 12khz and above. good to hear NEW seismic stuff!

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:56 pm

hollo wrote:Don't know about those stuff, BUT:
You'v got wonderful drone and all the incoming colors! Congrat!

Thanks for listening and commenting, hollo. Glad you liked my drone. I was surprised at how easy they are to "tune".

TrekStar · Post by **TrekStar** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:34 pm

nice one tim! I really liked the slowly evolving overtones and it remindet me of the overtone singing technique. also the beginning of the percussion @ 00:57 is subtle and tasty. i could imagine this tune very good as an intro for another song. keep it up!

cheers

wolf

kryptonaut · Post by **kryptonaut** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 10:57 pm

Mmm... nice! I like the way you slowly build things up in the first half, keeping us in suspense before the more beaty second part. Lots of interesting things happening to keep the attention. Good stuff!

S1gnsOfL1fe · Post by **S1gnsOfL1fe** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 11:34 pm

I freaking love this track. Who else would take an ambient/drone piece to almost 2/3 the way through and then break out into a techno frenzy? Whatsisname, that's who!!!

Most excellent my friend. And btw, Frantz, I hear what you're saying but I suppose my ears are used to overly high pitched frequency. Personally, I would have EQ'd that drone differently but overall I think it fits the piece quite nicely.

But hey, that's what WIP is all about right? Work in progress!!!

You're definitely making progress with this one Tim.

Cheers!!!

-S1gns

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 11:59 pm

polyslax wrote:Nice one Tim! This makes a great change up from your more beat oriented work. Lots of interesting complexity in those layers to keep the ears happy. I love the flood of sound that comes along with introduction of the beat. I really don't hear a need for any further embellishment myself... it's very pure the way it is now to me.

Thanks for checking this out, Matt. Glad you liked it

I'm probably going to just let this be for a while. The only things I had planned for this were a few possible modifications to the percussion sequencing and maybe some long sustained bass notes towards the end, but I'm not sure yet. That may depend on how Part 2 pans out. I'm also going to have a look at the mix EQ, but I wasn't intending to do too much to that, for reasons that may become clearer later.

BradColeman · Post by **BradColeman** » Thu Mar 14, 2013 3:40 pm

Nice atmosphere, the high frequencies don't bother me that much, but it might depend on the kind of speakers. Perfect music for tripping I'd say

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:57 pm

Frantz wrote:It must be nice to start something new.

Unfortunately, the drone has a concentration of white (pink?) noise in the high frequencies that is almost painful for me to listen to. I'm not sure if anyone else would have the same reaction. It's a shame because I would probably like it otherwise.

I am preparing a spectrogram to demonstrate what I am talking about.

That "noise" is all coming from the reverb. It was a deliberate move on my part, in much the same way as I reverbed the pads on Mirror with Shimmer. Unfortunately, I used Shimmer as an insert effect post-EQ here

So I put the wav file through spek and saw that I was getting signal up to about 20.5 khz. I changed the routing in eXT, applied an EQ cut from 15khz on the Shimmer output and remastered with a slight cut in the HF EQ. The spectrogram looks a lot quieter up in the high end now.

The revised file is up on SoundCloud now.

Yes. It felt good to be making some new music after such an extended hiatus.

Thanks for checking this out

Axis Part 1 (ElectroProg - Seismic Phoenix)