March Contest: Gossip

[adj]

... since disco at the time was *THE* shizznit.

Not in my 'hood Mr Doodoo face!

[adj]

@Tim Conrardy

WOW

Very excellent submission!

Bar is raised yet again! Nice one Tim -- glad to see you in here finally!

Now maybe I'll have to enter after all -- since it appears that it's becoming a rather historic contest month...

Speaking of months...expecting Sleek any day now...



Cheers
Alex

[Nils_B]

@ emdot_ambient : Thanks ! No, I don't know Novalis. But there are some similarities, right. I've listened to a bunch of albums from that period, mostly english bands...I love Genesis and Yes etc...

@ Marc JX8P : Thanks !

@ mellotronaut : Thank you ! I don't know those GDR-Bands. I once saw a documentary about those bands. But that didn't convince me....

[core]

Core: never thought I'd hear the Camel classic done like this. Interesting interpretation, but if you were really going for that 70s sound the drums are far too modern in their breakbeatishness (I'm listening from the KVR contest radio so I haven't read your submission notes, if any--or the rest of this thread, so I have no clue how you interpreted the contest). I don't really like the grunge put on the drums, but overall you've done an interesting take on a very dear old classic.

Thanks for listening Emdot. You're right about the drums, no 70's sound there at all. It wasn't my intention either. Since I wouldn't be able to get the real drum sound the way I'd want it I thought I'd add a more modern sound to an old theme (I also wanted to play the guitar part but I couldn't get it the way I'd like it either, the original is so beautiful...) So, not much "prog rock" in my version of this song I guess

[Hovmod]

Hm. The server barfed, I think, and my thank you note went missing.
Let's see. What was it I said?
Oh, yes:

Echo, Mello, Marc and Emdot: Thank you for reviewing, and thanks for your good reviews for Miromurr. I had a blast making it, got really involved and stood up and made faces and stuff while playing the synth solo. It's clearly my best synth solo ever, that is the peak level of my keyboard skills so thanks for noticing. See how Reason can sound analog if you just tweak a little?

[duncanparsons]

duncanparsons: Nice work on the overall sound but that panning effect is making me dizzy! It sounds very programmed. No one back then could have panned like that. Interesting composition, but the keyboards are far too quantized. They sound sequenced. The snares are too bright, too high up in the mix and the cymbals are too widely dispersed in the sound field. Live drums didn't get that kind of stereo separation back then...so you're close but not quite "there."

The panning organ is a leslie

A real one or an emulation? I don't remember ever hearing one quite so drastic in its panning. Is it time sync'd to host? Maybe that's it.

I did all those reviews by headphone, so the stereo aspect of it was even further enhanced in them.

It's NuBi from before the NuBiLE days (the old double manual, overdrive and leslie all in one plug version from nearly 3 years ago..), the Leslie is set at the std non-chorus speed as specified by Hammond (415RPM Tweeters, 43RPM Bass.. Sorry to be geeky). But yes on headphones it is rather other worldly, it's also fed into by Springline emulation (beta3) which might acentuate some stuff. I actually mixed on headphones since I only have little laptop speakers, so I'm aware of the sensation Still, when that remix gets done for the 'live' album (I'll get Tony Visconti to do it...), I'll narrow the field a little!

DSP

[Marc JX8P]

Marc JX8P: Nice composition. Way to digitally clean. That Leslie type sound is a bit drastically panned. Very nice keyboard/bass work, though. The drums sound mixed well, but there's not enough wankery in them. Needs more noodling with the drums. Drummers have egos too, you know. Well, except Ringo, and he doesn't count for Prog

Thanks! I know, I know... I love those complex drum tracks (in fact, it's one of the criteria I gave in my short description of what I feel constitutes prog rock) but it's way to difficult and contra-intuitive to program such a track for me. I've been thinking of getting some drum pads just for such situations where you want to go with the flow while drumming. I've never been much of a keyboard drummer. I agree the mix sounds too clean, too modern. In hindsight I should have maybe done some work on getting the mix to sound older. On the other hand, consider it a prog rock classic remastered from the original tapes!

[Marc JX8P]

Legion Hush: Um . . . okay. 70s maybe. Prog? Nein.

My submission is a joke, i meant it as a joke and yes, i do realize it is not prog

I'm just going to be flat out blunt here, you have got to be a real moron to assume a musician participating in these Music Cafe contests does not understand the difference between Disco and Prog Rock.


.....or shall i say get a sense of humour??

My reviewer-side does not have a sense of humour...

To be nit-picky though: I don't think I said that you didn't know what prog was, just that the track wasn't prog. And to be honest, I've got the feeling that I may not recognize some variations of the genre myself so sometimes I will state that so the original artist can correct me on an erroneous assumption on my part. So actually it's more about me being unsure about the genre.

[tconrardy]

@Tim Conrardy

WOW

Very excellent submission!

Bar is raised yet again! Nice one Tim -- glad to see you in here finally!

Now maybe I'll have to enter after all -- since it appears that it's becoming a rather historic contest month...

Speaking of months...expecting Sleek any day now...



Cheers
Alex

Hi Alex

Thank you very much! I tried to get all the elements of a 70's piece. You got good 'ol rhodes( Mr Ray), mellatron, minimoog and guitar antics. While there is a touch of a jazz feel, it kicks into some prog stuff in the middle. I think Prog was a mixture of everything( or else it would not be Prog)

I guess I could have placed the instruments more in a stereo field, but it seems to be OK. I was considering adding a real bass, but thought it might get too busy then.( its already pretty busy!)

Thanks for your comments, and glad to be finally submitting something. Its my 50th this 25th, so need to celebrate and do something a bit new

Tim

[emdot_ambient]

Where did that melody come from?

Thanks for the review emdot. It's a Jeff Beck tune written by Max Middleton...in the hands of a working man

Ah, knew I'd heard it before.

[emdot_ambient]

@Marc JX8P: Have you ever looked into things like Jamstix? Something like that might be better for getting drum variation rather than a MIDI drum controller. I've got an old Roland Octapad II but never use it. Programming it and then learning to play it would take me way more time than fat fingering a basic beat in a MIDI track, time correcting it manually, cut/paste and add variations by hand, which is what I do using Battery 3. But the articulation features in Battery 3 allow for some extremely realistic noodling. Been doing a lot of that lately for a friend's second CD. Slow but the results are good. Something like Jamstix, though, might make getting the basic beats/variations done quicer. Spruce things up with some manual editing and you'd be good to go.

[emdot_ambient]

Has anyone added this tip yet:

MORE COWBELLS!

[duncanparsons]

BOC were never prog!!!

DSP

[Marc JX8P]

@Marc JX8P: Have you ever looked into things like Jamstix? Something like that might be better for getting drum variation rather than a MIDI drum controller. I've got an old Roland Octapad II but never use it. Programming it and then learning to play it would take me way more time than fat fingering a basic beat in a MIDI track, time correcting it manually, cut/paste and add variations by hand, which is what I do using Battery 3. But the articulation features in Battery 3 allow for some extremely realistic noodling. Been doing a lot of that lately for a friend's second CD. Slow but the results are good. Something like Jamstix, though, might make getting the basic beats/variations done quicer. Spruce things up with some manual editing and you'd be good to go.

Looks interesting... I'm not to sure if it'll work for me, though. I guess I'm a bit of a control freak, it irritates me when a program starts being creative on my tracks...

[oddbods finger]

BOC were never prog!!!

do you mean Boards of Cult or Blue Oyster Canada