One Synth Challenge #104 - Zebralette by u-he (Photonic Wins!)

[JKF Flashico]

Voted

[Arcadia]

Hello there!
Just returned from a short vacation.
Many thanks for your comments! I had my problems in mixing, especially that decaying bass in the middle part and the deep "drone" at the beginning, which I couldn't handle. Mostly because I didn't have more time to work on the piece.
Now let's see what you talented guys have made out of Urs' cute little Zebralette. As far as I could listen to, there are (again and as usual with U-He's VSTs) some really nice pieces of music to discover.
Good luck to all the contestants!

[photonic]

Voted!

Some real pearls inside

[marks-a-whybikky]

... 3 days of listening ... now i have big red ears ... voted

Some real pearls inside

indeed, sir! one of them is your track ...

[Sidom]

Voted.

[kokotte]

... 3 days of listening ... now i have big red ears ... voted

Some real pearls inside

indeed, sir! one of them is your track ...

+1

[rockingricky]

VOTED ...

... and as expected a lot of interesting tracks,
not easy to judge

Good luck to all!

Thanks to Urs for giving us this VST-gem for free
and thanks to Brian for his effort every month

( I love using these smilies )

[doctorbob]

Such a hard month to judge with many varied styles. I've done my first vote pass, but I am sure things will change over the next 10 days. Some outstanding tracks. With so many tracks it's hard to not want to be able to give a 6 to the most outstanding track (IMHO, of course!).

dB

[mmGhost]

a little slow to get voting this month... so many tracks, which is totally rad

just a comment... notice on several tracks this month some really nice sound design, melodies and production but then over-limiting to the point where the tracks are audibly distorting and exhausting to listen to. I don't typically criticize in public but i had to say something bc its a shame, there are some gems where some better mixing could have led to some absolute stellar output.

2 cents

[bjporter]

Your feedback would surely be super valuable. Maybe try approaching via pm.

a little slow to get voting this month... so many tracks, which is totally rad

just a comment... notice on several tracks this month some really nice sound design, melodies and production but then over-limiting to the point where the tracks are audibly distorting and exhausting to listen to. I don't typically criticize in public but i had to say something bc its a shame, there are some gems where some better mixing could have led to some absolute stellar output.

2 cents

[Taron]

Tahaah, I shouldn't gloat and it shouldn't make me "happy", but it does feel nice not to be the only one to notice after all this time.
I do understand, of course, what's going on. With "of course", I mean that it is understandable. The "loudness wars" are still raging on under the surface, so to say. I sense that people don't quite realize that they participate on the front-lines there. Some extreme quality tracks are as loud as can be, which creates the impression that such loudness was a mark of quality. But it isn't what makes those tracks great. It's the understanding those guys have about how to engineer this sort of immense punch. Meakaale, for example, is like a maestro of punch, just like Jasinski and Z-Prime and all those mixing monsters, just to name some of the few, who really seem to know what they're doing.
It was through them that I got to know limiters. Prior to that I would've used some compression, possibly, and maybe EQ, but just too timidly. THEN came the big revelation: The Limiter!
Sometime later than came OTT and then...well...the end of eardrums and relaxed listening to playlists.
Not sure, if not the worst that happened was some communal revelation about the frequency spectrum the human ear is most sensitive to, haha, because that's where the worst abuse then came to hammer on.

So, yeah, we should have some really beautiful place with compact mixing tips and some teaching, just to get the basics straight. I sure want very much that everybody's musical and sound design qualities are able to shine properly. (...without my hearing qualities losing their shine!)

[TrojakEW]

I don't typically criticize in public but i had to say something bc its a shame, there are some gems where some better mixing could have led to some absolute stellar output.

Merciful lie- well thats how I call some comments in tracks . Well I think good suggestions are better then merciful lie especially from skilled guy like you. If people feels offended by those suggestions then they missing opportunity to learn new things. Even master can learn new stuff every day because actually there is no such a thing as master. Take for example Tarons comments on my zebralette track - this is how it should be rather then writing sumthing like "cool track" and then you get one point from the same user .
Go ahead and help us.


BTW I have voted. First time I'm missing option to have 0(for own track) or 6 point category for voting.

[ilmai]

Merciful lie- well thats how I call some comments in tracks . Well I think good suggestions are better then merciful lie especially from skilled guy like you. If people feels offended by those suggestions then they missing opportunity to learn new things. Even master can learn new stuff every day because actually there is no such a thing as master. Take for example Tarons comments on my zebralette track - this is how it should be rather then writing sumthing like "cool track" and then you get one point from the same user .
Go ahead and help us.

+1

I'd rather take harsh constructive feedback than empty praise, although a combination of both would be the best

[mmGhost]

rather then writing sumthing like "cool track" and then you get one point from the same user .
Go ahead and help us.

+1

I'd rather take harsh constructive feedback than empty praise, although a combination of both would be the best

i hear ya, and don't necessarily disagree. i prefer to give constructive criticism via PM either on KVR or SC. "merciful lie" may be a little harsh. i always find something unique or cool about someone's track, and i have a pretty strict set of rules for scoring tracks to keep me from weighing towards genres I like more than others. i hope the comments i make encourage people to keep making wicked tunes. maybe i've been too quiet in comments, if you guys don't like that i can be more vocal. just hit me up over PM here or on SC if you want more targeted feedback.

[] Peter:H []

a little slow to get voting this month... so many tracks, which is totally rad

just a comment... notice on several tracks this month some really nice sound design, melodies and production but then over-limiting to the point where the tracks are audibly distorting and exhausting to listen to. I don't typically criticize in public but i had to say something bc its a shame, there are some gems where some better mixing could have led to some absolute stellar output.

2 cents

Hm, I don't know...Loudness in itself is not realy the problem. Loudness in combination with frequencie mud - that is the problem. I don't know if my track is on your list, but anyway, I have a very clear mixing approach of seperating frequencies and have a clean stage. I do a lot of work on bass. EQ, Dynamic EQ, Compressor, MultibandCompressor and even EnvelopeShaper (emphasize Attack or vice versa) in various combinations is your friends. And ...very clever the Limiter. The art of mixing is how to master these thingies on various instruments with their characteristics.
So if you have un-mudded your track and the genre somehow dictates loudness then go for max loudness!
Nobody cares about dynamic mixes on the international dance floors!

Give for instance my new track a go: https://soundcloud.com/p-e-t-e-r-h/eins-zwei-drei-vier
Turn it up! No mud, just punch. But thats probably only me because my Dynaudio Speakers have a very clean display of the sound as it is meant to be...

BTW: how do you listen, mmGhost? Is your Speakers probably the limits? What is the freq response?

Just to give you an impression, I have attached a screenshot of the cubase mixer of "one-two-three-four".
I even process reverbs with EQ and compressor in order to get the output out of the way of my bass.
Probably to subtle to recognize that this has been cut away, but I can tell you, you would notice it if I would not have cut it...For me OSC is a Challenge in mixing and creating soundscapes rather than doing composition...