KVR Audio

Polychrome · Post by **Polychrome** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 12:39 am

This is an old track, but I'm posting it now because I haven't posted anything in a fair while, and haven't been working on music recently.

Made in cakewalk, with a yamaha ex5 as the main synth. I forget much of the details apart from that.

http://kevinalbers.com/music/Polychrome_3_Snakey.mp3

At the time, I was being influenced by some ninja tune stuff, Thelonious Monk, and Robert Fripp. And booze.

Comments, love, hate etc welcome.

Wopelka · Post by **Wopelka** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 7:07 am

don't know Robert Fripp
but T-Monk and Ninja tune are big references indeed

great feel, the sound is 'nasty' sometimes.
the instruments are very convincing

did you play the piano live?

respect !

love the 'voices' at 2:13, freaking !

thanks for sharing

Kriminal · Post by **Kriminal** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 7:10 am

Wopelka wrote:don't know Robert Fripp

Kriminal · Post by **Kriminal** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 8:01 am

Yeah, its not a bad tune, got some groovy stuff in there, but there is one thing thats getting right on my charlies...

Why the vinyl noise? it sounds awfull, really. Spoils the track for me.

Prob turn the guitar down a bit too, just a tad. Guitar needs a diff sound too, its a bit blurred, need sharpening up???

Liked it tho, catchy horn riff

Wopelka · Post by **Wopelka** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 8:20 am

Kriminal wrote:
Wopelka wrote:don't know Robert Fripp

is he a trance nerd?

Kriminal · Post by **Kriminal** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 8:26 am

http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyc ... fripp.html

blaster78 · Post by **blaster78** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 9:29 am

nice tune, the piano is great and the groove with the drums/bass and horn stabb if very cool

the vinyl noise i think needs to be less of a loop, maybe a longer sample ?

the guitar noise sounds a little too loud for me, needs dropping back in the mix in my opinion.

the weird vocal sample towards the end is also pretty good.

this is a funky tune though

steve.

whiteaxxxe · Post by **whiteaxxxe** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 10:26 am

wow!!! and once again: wow!!!!!!!!1 thats what I really like ... great!! superb!!!

reminds me a bit on "birds of fire" from Mahavishnu Orchstra especially the parts with the solo-synth!!

and sure do I know Robert Fripp.

) (those who dont sould care about this leakage ...)

wonderful stuff .... more of this. I put it ton my winamp-favorites!!

thx a lot .........

))

bebop · Post by **bebop** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 10:29 am

I liked it too, it's a lovely solid steel sounding ninjatune like acid jazz track indeed

There's just one thing though about the producing : it's limited to -4db and overcompressed, look at that wave form! The result is that it's all loud from start to end, and the nice panning on the brass licks is all smashed against the rest. You could get depth effect by raising the master level to 0db (not more than 0db!) and working more precisely on compressing the tracks independantly, starting with reducing all track faders -6db f.e.) so that it doesn't clip, then starting again compressing and/or rasing levels from that low position. It would add air in it and as a result there wouldn't be that feeling of flatness with everything on the forefront.

Also for instance, panning the lead guitar slightly on one side and sending it on a stereo bus on which you add a reverb would place it naturally in space and could solve the impression it's too loud, etc. That sort of things.

Listen carefully at the samples you use and the way they are produced (brass, voices, etc), they are placed in the space, they contrast with the parts you played which are all flat centered or roughly panned. That contrast is interesting, but you could refine it.

But maybe you wanted it that way, so I don't know, these are just suggestions

If ever you remix it, plz post it again I'd be curious to listen to it again

Polychrome · Post by **Polychrome** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 2:00 pm

Like I said, this is an old track (several years old), and my production chops are MUCH improved these days. I would love to go back and re-do much of the mixing and effects.

Yes, the piano and "guitar" were both played live, although the piano was often played one or two bars at a time.

Thanks for the compliments. It makes me want to see if I can find and salvage the original tracks. I certainly would re-do the drums and tone down that loud vinyl noise.

experimental.crow · Post by **experimental.crow** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 3:57 pm

i quite like this ...
definately worth re-working ...

Markleford · Post by **Markleford** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 4:23 pm

Good start. I think this is one of the only times I've seen a tune here advertised as "jazzy" and actually proved to be true!

I love the vibe, but think some of the phrasing is very sloppy (perhaps it's that 'two measures at a time' thing). Tighten it up!

- m

hao nao · Post by **hao nao** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 5:16 pm

very cool

Polychrome · Post by **Polychrome** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 5:38 pm

Hey, I found my old multi-track cakewalk file from 1999! It looks like I can in fact go back and fix lots of serious problems. It's almost all audio tracks now (few midi tracks), but I have plenty to work with.

On my list so far is-
- transfer all the audio tracks/loops/sections over to cubase sx and re-create the arrangement (I'm not looking forward to this part...I wish I could import a sonar project into cubase)
- re-mix levels from scratch, re-eq everything, and add compression to individual tracks as needed.
- fix some of the sloppy timing errors (I intentionally recorded live improvisations in one take, without quantizing etc, but I think I went overboard and will fix a few critically messed up notes)
- lower the guitar in volume
- re-work the break beat, which has the crackle built into it. This will be the biggest change. Reduce/eliminate some of the crackle, and add some punch. Probably overdub some new drums to reinforce the scruffy breakbeak.
- add some high-end, which was almost completely lacking. Maybe via a crisp hi hat or some such.
- re-do any effects that weren't burned into the tracks, and re-position tracks to give a nice stereo spread.
- tweak the arrangement if needed, but I may leave the arrangement as-is, since I still like it overall.

A question...do any notes sound too sloppy apart from guitar solo stuff? I'm not real bothered about the piano part too much...mainly the very sloppy guitar stuff here and there.

edit: I transferred all the tracks into a cubase sx project, and was surprised at how painless that was.

vishals · Post by **vishals** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 7:16 pm

Hi Polychrome,

Actually nice track with cakewalk.
I'm not professional but work with fl studio and get into
difficulty with other softwares.

such as i recently tried adobe audition that is much a mixing software

Anyway in all nice compose!

scruffy breakbeat jazzy thing