KVR Audio

Rellik · Post by **Rellik** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 3:07 pm

Hey, just finished up a house track called 'Thee Stylish Scalawag'. Made in FL: all sampled stuff is SampleTank2 (Just got it! And it's perfect! Exactly what I need; I've never had this kind of quality or versatility before) and the synth stuff is mostly 3xOsc with distortion among other effects. By the way, the percussion is not loops, although ST2 comes with many great loops; for some reason I just got conditioned to the idea that loops are 'bad', so I don't really use them, unless they are for chopping up.

It's sort of repetetive, but it's intentional (I think you could call it a 'club' track). But since it's not going to be played in a club or anything anytime in the forseeable future, I decided not to make it drag on and on like traditional tracks, instead cutting it short because it was long enough as it is for my taste.

I hope you enjoy it; it makes me want to bob my head... alot.

Leave feedback if you are so inclined; I would appreciate it.

http://www.tjhsst.edu/~alederer/Music/R ... alawag.mp3

Thanks!

kara · Post by **kara** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 3:35 pm

Hi Relik,

Very nice tune

Just one remark : In my ears, the percussion comming in from 0:56 - 1:13 sound out of ritme

If you don't agree, never mined I'm just an old men trying to listen to modern music.

Rony

Rellik · Post by **Rellik** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 4:06 pm

Thanks for the reply, bucodi! I'm glad you like the tune. Yes, the eastern-type percussion coming in at 0:56 is slightly off-beat/syncopated, but I assure you that the downbeats are correctly placed, unless you're hearing something I'm not. I appreciate your help, whether I agree with what you're saying or not, anyway.

mystahr · Post by **mystahr** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 5:34 pm

I'm just curious as to why you would call this house.

Anyhow; a rather enjoyable track that needs a better mixing as I feel the balance of the separate elements a bit off.

I particularly like the oboe (?) which although it sounded digital it was played quite well. And that syncopated percussion was cool

declassified · Post by **declassified** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 7:45 pm

Nice one! While i was listening to your song, i started to play a solo over it which works quite well (perhaps because of the lack of complex chords

). Unfortunately i cannot upload it at the moment since my webspace is down...

I like the (organ?) chord pattern as well as the synth lead which comes in at 2:00. Reminds me of Poets of Rhythm or something like that...

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 7:57 pm

I don't think both the kick (or well, even the main groove) and the bass are pumping enough. There's too much mids and not enough bass IMO.
For a club-ish tune the groove and bass are the most important things.
Try to double the bass with something truly deep and have a look at the groove's EQ settings.
Also, the vocoder-ish sound could be a bit softer IMO. But then, maybe not - in case the groove and bass combination was fattened up.

Rellik · Post by **Rellik** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 9:12 pm

Thanks Mystahr, timewastin, and Sascha Franck.

Mystahr, I call it house because that's what I intended it to be. Did I fail? I guess the most house-ey thing would be the rumbeat. The lead is a sax, but yes, it's played wierd (using ST2's STRETCH algorithm), so I can see why you would think it's an oboe. I'm glad you think it's played well, since I played it be hand =) I'm starting to do that more and more, it's fun. Your comment about the balancing is similar to Sascha Franck's comment about the EQing and the bass, and I agree whole-heartedly with both ideas.

timewastin, yeah, there aren't many complex chords, are there? That's part of the house idiom I was trying to emulate. Too bad you can't upload your solo =( hopefully your webspace will come back. The chord pattern is just gated strings; I'll have to look up Poets of Rhythm, never heard of them.

Sascha Franck, I just tweaked the EQing in winamp and when I turn the EQing off all of a sudden it sounds thin and small and ugly... so I guess you're right about the bass! I may also go back and put in a sub-bass, like you mentioned.

Again, thanks; I probably won't post the updated version, since I don't think anyone would really be interested in hearing it, but I appreciate both your positive feedback and the suggestions (which are working out VERY well; I should have tried this earlier)!

declassified · Post by **declassified** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 5:27 am

My webspace is up again. The solo is here
Listening to it after sleeping it is not that good though...especially the instrument itself doesn't sound that good.
But feel free to check it

Rellik · Post by **Rellik** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 3:01 pm

Hey, cool, timewastin; I agree that it's not the best solo, but I think it's pretty cool. It's an organ, right? (It seems to be played sort of like an organ). Sounds cool (it's played much better than I can play =P) and you actually looped it and made your own repeat and everything! Impressive

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 5:25 pm

timewastin... err, yes, I will be mean now, so be aware, you've been warned! Having said that, I'm not one of the dudes that allways goes like "hey guy, that's kickass" or so. so, if you don't stand criticism, better stop reading.

However, you should really either train yourself quite a bit more or get some serious lessons. Timing and phrasing of your soloing really isn't up to anything halfway useable. There's no lines making sense and timing mostly is all over the place.
I'm sorry to say so, but that's just it - and you have been warned before as well.
Really, I can only recommend getting some lessons (if you aren't getting some allready).
Further, there's some nasty digital clicks in your MP3, starting at around 1:00, getting really awful at 1:30 and truly horrible from 1:50 or so on.

declassified · Post by **declassified** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 5:55 pm

No seriously

, i really can't justify my timing. I've been taking piano lessons way too long to say my timing could be because of the lack of experience. I think it's rather because of the self-trained way how i tought myself "modern" piano styles and got involved too soon in complex rhythms which lead to the fact that i can't play simple, straight anymore. It's a bad habit, but i don't know what to do about.

Sorry about the clicks...They occur periodically and i don't know how to get rid of them.

Regarding the phrasing: Since a solo is a free and spontaneous improvisatiion, i don't know before how long it will be, making some kind of arrangement impossible. Maybe i should do some kind of outline of the passages of my solo.

Did your hear my (other) song posted here? And if so, would you say the same (bad timing, phrasing, no sensible lines) about the solo heard in that song? Sorry for being a bit off-topic, though.

Lies bitte auf keinen Fall den folgenden Abschnitt:
Ach ja, es macht übrigens keinen Sinn über einen Text rüberzuschreiben "Lies das hier auf keinen Fall". Bei mir hat sowas grundsätzlich die gegenteilige Wirkung und ich denke, es geht den meisten anderen auch so. Und wenn du das hier liest, dann bei dir auch

Sielsynth · Post by **Sielsynth** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 6:15 pm

Nice tune. I wouldn't quite classify this as house either. Almost electrolounge or downtempo type category. Thought the overall rhythm was very nice. I do agree that the bass and kick? were very thin. I had trouble locating the kick maybe just my desk speakers. Anyway, I really liked the synth and vocoder type sound. I think you should fatten it up and post it again, I'd like to hear it.

As for the solo: I'm a little nicer than Sascha as I can see what you were attempting. He's right about the timing being off. He's also right about being all over the place during the solo. Solos like hooks and chorus catch our attention because of some repetitive theme that our brain singles out as attractive. Build up to something and resolve it.

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 6:47 pm

timewastin: You're right about the "be-warned-and-read-it-anyways-thing". But then, I wasn't exactly serious with it, all I wanted to say was that my comment wouldn't be along the "kickass, dude" lines.

Anyways, you can learn timing. It's not easy but possible. There's several methods to do so (posting them would defenitely hijack this thread). A very good teacher for rhythmic stuff in general (in germany) is Udo Dahmen, his methods are almost unrivaled.

A sequencer could help immesely to improve timing as well. Setup some, say, 4-bar pattern and have it pause in every 4th bar, but continue to play something over it. Try to hit beat 1 after the pause.
That's just an example but you may get the idea.

You can also learn to improvise in phrases.
I took a LOT of time to teach this to myself and to my students, so I somwhat have an idea what it's all about.
It might for example be a good idea to take a very simple phrase and just alter its rhythmic value(s).
To get a bit further with that, it might make sense to superimpose, say, a 4-note rhythmic pattern over a 4-note tonal pattern.

The next step might be learning how to do pickups, targeting a *nice* final note. Pickups have a tendency to sound very plausible to the listeners ear.

There might be a lot more, if you want some examples, I could perhaps post some.

Just believe me, after a while it just becomes natural to improvise in meaningful phrases - and even those can be completely improvised as well.
I mean, you learned your licks, scales and patterns as well - why not just add a certain "phrasing-factor" to them?

Listen to good improvisers! It's not that I exactly dig George Benson's albums and music, but listen to his soloing! It's all full of themes and melodies!

One of the most impressing things ever is (guitarist) Scott Henderson's second teaching video.
It's almost only about phrasing.
A short example (where he compares phrasing to sentences and narrating): He's playing a rather "normal" phrase. Then he states something like "Well, you don't need top repeat this. It's as repeating a sentence such as "Ed bought tomatoes" - you just wouldn't tell it agein".
Then he proceeds to something more "special" (like some spectacular bendings). His comment on that is "Oh, Ed has sex with his girlfriend! Why not do it again??? REALLY, Ed has sex with his GF (he's slightly altering the phrase)!!! WHY NOT AGAIN??? ED HAS SEX WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND (again slightly altering the phrase)!!!"
Seriously, apart from being pretty funny (especially in case you know that Chick Corea fired him because he was allways after the groupies, at least that's what people tell), you can learn a lot from this!
He's calling it "milking an idea" or so.

That's the whole idea behind phrasing. Tell something without being boring. As soon as the stuff get's more interesting, show the listener some details.
Really, this stuff *can* become a second nature of your improvising if you keep trying hard enough.

declassified · Post by **declassified** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 7:04 pm

Thanks! I just saved your post as a text file. I'm going to print it soon. It is hard to get proper advice on improvisation. I own alot of KEYBOARDS-magazines and there are improvisational topics as well, mostly something like "Walking Bass (III)" or "Pop piano".They tell you how to play these elements, but not how to put them together to a whole.
I've got alot of time to train during the holidays a.t.m. though i'll get my first synthesizer tomorrow or so

Maybe my techniques will be improved in my next songs.

House - Thee Stylish Scalawag