february contest - GOSSIP

[Sleek Month]

sleekmonth - you are right, proper 70's tone with the pedal steel in there. quality. TOP smooth production too. very pro sounding.
the voice reminds me in passing of elvis costello. hope thats not too bad...

Hmm...never heard the Elvis thing before...I used to get a lot of "Ray Davies", but I'm singing huskier these days...not a bad thing, though...we loves the Elvii in all their myriad forms.

Thought I'd mix things up a bit this month, bring in some untouched stylistic elements and confuse the Europeans to boot .

"Oh, dear, Louis (IIXIX). I'm afraid that this entry sounds very...American. Can't we have more continental Kraftwerk/Genesis noodlings?"

Is it just me or does making "electronic" music on a computer seem mildly redundant?

-S.

[You™]

...Thought I'd mix things up a bit this month, bring in some untouched stylistic elements and confuse the Europeans to boot .

"Oh, dear, Louis (IIXIX). I'm afraid that this entry sounds very...American. Can't we have more continental Kraftwerk/Genesis noodlings?"

Is it just me or does making "electronic" music on a computer seem mildly redundant?

Right on. Though I don't know about the "untouched stylistic elements" - I hear Jason and the Scorchers are going to have their redneck attorney slap a summons upside your head for infringing on their punk-a-billy oeuvre. Right after they get done with Southern Culture on the Skids.

Oh yeah about that electronic music comment: I have this theory that every possible audible sound has been heard already - long before the advent of the electronic oscillator. I've been using harmonicas and kazoos as vocoders for a long time. They're far more CPU efficient, but they are breath hogs. I have a recording I did in the mid 80's on a 4-track cassette where my cheesy TR-505 (all my gear was cheesy back then) had a conniption and decided to play all the samples back at double the pitch or something. (I don't know what happened to it and I've never been able to reproduce the glitch.) Anyway, I made a track out of it and, well if you heard it with an open mind, you might think it sounded something like a bad DJ of more modern DnB or jungle stylings. I guess that's pretty passé now, eh? Well it was ahead of its time when I did it!

The other day listening to a bluegrass show on the radio I heard a, like 70-year-old song by Obed (Dad) Pickard done entirely on jews harp that would have easily fit in on some weird Warp compilation.

BTW, I appreciated your entry. You got cahones, my friend!

[mr.me]

UniCon wrote:
ixox - hello! wow. I thought you said you couldn't sing?

I thought all French guys could sing, and they're good with the ladies too.

Remember his cover song from Dec, it must be true.?

[AndreasE]

andreas erhardt - sounded to me like a harpsichord with loads of spring reverb! really dramatic peice with the subtle pads and strings moving things around a little.

UniCon, thanks for your comment

[Beardedone]

UniCon wrote:
btw - youtm - i spent from the ages of 11 to 15 trying to dance like a robot. I think enough is enough!


I still dance like an unbalanced washing machine and I spent years 11 to 15 much like the rest of my later years: trying to convince girls to disrobe in front of me

OK Bet you dance better than me by a mile.

Here's a thoughty We need to have a KVR dance contest à la Frank.

Cheers,
Gordon

[mystahr]

mystahr - ooh i liked the first noises. everyone knows I like the odd 'blapp' sound but the 'grawwwww' sound is pretty cool too.
hectic beats what BPM is that?!

I guess a remnant of last months contest

Yet still only 95 bpm

[Sleek Month]

Right on. Though I don't know about the "untouched stylistic elements" - I hear Jason and the Scorchers are going to have their redneck attorney slap a summons upside your head for infringing on their punk-a-billy oeuvre. Right after they get done with Southern Culture on the Skids.

Oh, I just meant unheard around here. You're more likely to hear a Virtual-Analog Calliope based Ambient Soundscape than country twang.

You know, KVR, home of tightly defined "ecclecticism"

We're so different we're verging on sameness

-S.

[Beardedone]

You know, KVR, home of tightly defined "ecclecticism"

We're so different we're verging on sameness

Good one Sleek!

Gordon

[Sepheritoh]

Sepherito - woah hello - who are you?

Hi Unicon
Formelly known as BloodHound. Decided I needed a more sexy name

South Africa and the blues? both things I love. Your track truncated when I downloaded it. On second attempt it worked fine. Nice and smooth sound with an interesting structure

Thanks for the kind comments and for liking it. We should make more blues here at KvR. I feel like a schizophrenic loving both the blues and electronic music.

- whats your kit? virtual stuff or do you record a lot live?

All mixed & recorded with Sonar 3.1.1 Pro Ed. I used a lot of sampled stuff here with VSampler. String synth sounds are from the Proteus bank and piano from a giga steinway soundfont. Drums are samples from a mixture, mainly the gold kit and evandro soundfonts. Triangle II also features in the first bridge and in the last verse.

Melody was recorded live with a fender stratocaster 64 re-issue and treated with Izotope Trash. I edited the track at a number of places though. I also added some accoustic guitar live (my Yamaha APX) just for extra texture.

Thanks for the interest

[t-willy]

anakha,

thats what i've been waiting for. damn those guitars were fat, great sound. i loved the lead sound too - perfect. so you plan on taking this song further right???? i'm talking vocals, obviously more the 2 minutes, the whole 9 ?????
yes yes yes (as close as i could get to a headbangin' emotion )

lates

t-willy

[VitaminD]

VitaminD - Volume went waaaaayyyyy up.... Very cool production here, trance as trance should be. My only nit was that most of the sounds seem to stay in their place a bit too much, some wider modulation and lfo'ing would have benefitted especially the pads... That part after the break is pretty driving.... Cool track. Great diversity this month allready

glad you like it. I was concerned with the stereo space on the song.. my first mix was REALLY close to center, and I realized that and attempted to space it a bit... but I suppose more of that and extra modulation (cutoff I presume?) would liven it up even more.

few standouts for me so far:

VitaminD, your track is great and could be one of Moby's early underground singles...

early moby? welll its kind of you to say that, but I dont think my music is as aggressive as his (the early stuff)... its something I do try to work with though. I tend to write passive music if that makes sense. Its been commented on before in other forums

Vitamin D - i dont like trance but that might be because I am a spoilsport because I cant do it. But you can

ahh come on.. its not THAT hard to do. And maybe you will learn something new? For instance, I had no clue that I could add shuffle to my drum tracks in orion platinum until I started this month's entry! I was looking for a drumsynth that could do it, then found out orion could do it all along and used that instead!

vitaminD – trance is not my thing at all. this one sounds a bit different, tho. but maybe i just don't know wtf i'm talking about. For instance, i was pleasantly surprised by the long, naked pad. I'm not sure whether it works in terms of trance music, but i like it, as something "experimental" in a way – yes, your track is interesting.

hehe.. actually I believe the long, naked pad is quite cliched in trance.. I just wanted to show off my fav synth1 pad I was going to add some odd, echoy/reverbed stabs in the pad portion but got lazy and didn't.

[rsmus7]

Since I´m not a native speaker I don´t understand the meaning of " I cant knock on this at all"

could you please explain it to me?

It's like "can't beat it with a stick." Don't worry, it's a good thing! It's beyond reproach. And I agree. I like your piece more and more with each listen .

Thank you that is `not nice, it is beautiful`

[mr.me]

Ixox:
That's a strongly romantic song, WOW!!!

I picture a scene in a musicial film.... two lovers on thier way to meet each other under the big moon in the court yard that sits in center of the rose garden...both singing the same song along the way.


Cheers to that, the world needs more romance!

[mystahr]

Formelly known as BloodHound. Decided I needed a more sexy name

Ack......

Never realized before.....

Ahhhh well I'm slow

[Ixox]

Thanks a lot Mr.Me...
The lyrics are not really romantic but i'm glad you find the song romantic.
(There's a link to the original english lyrics by Kriminal in the submission thread).
I like your idea of the musical film ....

Thanks wopelka for your review !
Don't know what you hear for the voice... No special treatment.... Maybe to much high frequencies in the final stage...
What is the french word for 'hook' ?

Garret and YouTm : I haven't listened yet very well to all the entries but congratulation... two great songs !


I also missed the new name of BloodHound... Welcome sepirotoh...