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Blingless

By laguna on April 24, 2016 11:52 pm

First of all, I want to give proper greetings to fellow WBeater m2k7, who kindly give me his superb wavetable synth pMEX. That synth is really a lbour of love and an excellent instrument, and I wish I had a more mature track to show up its possibilities, but I had both severe time constrains and CPU limits. The bass and some transitions were created with m2k7's pMEX, and I'm sure I'll be doing intensive use of it in the future, as long as my i5 processor allows me smile

About the track itself... Well, I'm afraid this one's a little messy. I had a few hours on Sunday to work on this. Tried and tried to achieve certain strenght in the sound but I felt it lacked enough low end. I would have layered more drums but the deadline demanded me to keep working on the structure.

As a post the arrangement, you'll see the idea is very basic: just one break plus some melodic line heavilly filtered, gated and bitcrushed. That synth line is the cloned, "phasered" and sent to a resonator. All that mess is sent to a delay with is sidechained to the bass drum, separated in an aditional track.

DOn't know if it makes enough sense. I'm really sleepy and tired. I'm really looking forward to catch up with your music and comments and learn from your work, which I'm sure will be quite more interesing than this.

Deep respect to all WBeaters out there and thanks again for your generosity, M2K7.

* Short edit: some further details on the track, taken from my response to Q-Rosh kind comments

"The track was based on a sketch project from my early days of Ableton, back in 2009. I was following a tutorial on "Follow Actions", which allowed me to trigger one different slice randomly every 1/4th note, so I could let the machine "create the breaks". Fortunately, automated breaks are varied but not very rhythmic-friendly (a lot of misplaced snares) so I let it run for maybe 16 bars and then edit the most interesting parts. Along with the breaks there were other loop (meldy plus break) that was triggered along. That generated enough variation for a start.

I'm quite disciplined when it comes to organize old projects. Quite often, when I'm blocked, I open old projects (starting from the late 90s!) and convert them in a sample bank, a set of clips or a basic arrangement. Once I've moved that sketch it "rises" in importance so I know quite quickly which ideas are close to completion. "

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Wooooww the drum beat on the intro it's pretty sick!

Congrats, this track is really dope!

Dude sooooo groovy love this

just a break and a melody... but a pretty great break and a pretty great melody. And the synth sound is pretty great-- rubbery without being cartoony.

The lack of bass gives it an airy ethereal feel, though I can see how more weight would make it heftier in service of moving butts

wholy moly that drum break is the J  A  M
I think this is one of those tracks where the emotion and mood came through and you got out of the way.  Glad you did!!!!

Super groovy, that drum break is sweet, and the synth sound is great. Awesome job!

Naikymusic wrote:

Wooooww the drum beat on the intro it's pretty sick!

Congrats, this track is really dope!

Gracias Naikymusic. Creada usando chops de un break bastante plano, e improvisando con los cortes wink

donnyjankowski wrote:

Dude sooooo groovy love this

Thanks Donny. I posted my weekly thing... Now working on remastering the tracks I own you smile

CrazyBob wrote:

just a break and a melody... but a pretty great break and a pretty great melody. And the synth sound is pretty great-- rubbery without being cartoony.

The lack of bass gives it an airy ethereal feel, though I can see how more weight would make it heftier in service of moving butts

Thanks, CrazyBob. Glad to hear I didn't messed up with the break. The synth is excellent, and with m2k7's Reaktor work it's really easy to get that acidic feeling without sounding like a TeeBee303 wannabee.

I agree on the lack of bass. I wanted to give it a proper sinoidal sub bass for certain regions but due to limited time I prefered not to mess with an already almost distorted mix and maybe build a proper string bassline (hand played) carefully. I like the idea and the energy of the track, but it certainly needs some further work.

Thanks again for such positive feedback!

orangedrink wrote:

wholy moly that drum break is the J  A  M
I think this is one of those tracks where the emotion and mood came through and you got out of the way.  Glad you did!!!!

Yeah, I'm listening on Monday morning and really like the energy of it, although the mix is a little bit mushy. It needs more work, but maybe the urgence to build something powerful gave it that punchy vibe (hope so)

Thanks for listening and leaving your thoughts, Orangedrink smile

Martiln wrote:

Super groovy, that drum break is sweet, and the synth sound is great. Awesome job!

Thanks man! i wish I had your super-mastering skills on Ableton. Your tracks are always an example of perfection to me smile

Woah man  This sounds super solid!!  Real organic.  Love the way those grooves are chopped and the constant delay on the background elements is lush!!  Love this!

cTrix wrote:

Woah man  This sounds super solid!!  Real organic.  Love the way those grooves are chopped and the constant delay on the background elements is lush!!  Love this!

Thanks, cTrix. I know it's a little mushy but sometimes a quick mix preserves the energy of the feeling. Glad you liked it

Ipaghost wrote:



Very very great track. I wonder how you have done this in such short time on sunday!!!
So precise funky and sharp. I love your hip hop beats.

Q-Rosh wrote:

Very very great track. I wonder how you have done this in such short time on sunday!!!
So precise funky and sharp. I love your hip hop beats.

Thanks Q Rosh

The track was based on a sketch project from my early days of Ableton, back in 2009. I was following a tutorial on "Follow Actions", which allowed me to trigger one different slice randomly every 1/4th note, so I could let the machine "create the breaks". Fortunately, automated breaks are varied but not very rhythmic-friendly (a lot of misplaced snares) so I let it run for maybe 16 bars and then edit the most interesting parts. Along with the breaks there were other loop (meldy plus break) that was triggered along. That generated enough variation for a start.

I'm quite disciplined when it comes to organize old projects. Quite often, when I'm blocked, I open old projects (starting from the late 90s!) and convert them in a sample bank, a set of clips or a basic arrangement. Once I've moved that sketch it "rises" in importance so I know quite quickly which ideas are close to completion.

Believe me, it took me years to find a suitable workflow. Sorry for the long rant smile

Thanks for listening and for supporting this hip hop head

It's always funny when someone whose music is just about perfect says things like "this one is a little messy."

Edmund Snyder wrote:

It's always funny when someone whose music is just about perfect says things like "this one is a little messy."

Thanks for such kind words, Edmund. Really appreciating the support, although I'm sure that as an artist you understand the weird feeling of "not sounding in the speakers like what you hear in your head".

smile

laguna wrote:
Edmund Snyder wrote:

It's always funny when someone whose music is just about perfect says things like "this one is a little messy."

Thanks for such kind words, Edmund. Really appreciating the support, although I'm sure that as an artist you understand the weird feeling of "not sounding in the speakers like what you hear in your head".

smile


Yes, I definitely understand that. I don't have the technical proficiency on anything I do to sound as good as what's in my head.

Very direct and punchy, but still spacious mix!

And I love that bass synth. Is the wave sampled from a famous synth? Sounds so familiar, almost a little bit Larry Heard in the way it modulates.

Max Normal wrote:

Very direct and punchy, but still spacious mix!

And I love that bass synth. Is the wave sampled from a famous synth? Sounds so familiar, almost a little bit Larry Heard in the way it modulates.

Thanks, Max!

No, m2K7's pMEX is a wavetable synth in the line of the classic Waldorf Microwave, so it's based on extra small single cycle waves that could be sampled or mathematically generated (I hope m2K7 will forgive me if I'm misunderstanding anything).

I'm still discovering it but it has a sweet acidic overtone when overdriving. In a way, the thing I liked most from it is that it sounds quite familiar while always being its own thing. m2K7 built a fantastic set of presets and I'm still discovering its possibilities.

What they all said. Great, really great.

yup. i also think the intro drum break is quite tasty.

Christian Grey wrote:

yup. i also think the intro drum break is quite tasty.

Thanks Christian! The drum break from the intro is basically the same, with the extra kick drum removed and a lot of high pass filtering. I raise the frequency every bar to remove the low end slowly so the complete arrangement kicks in with extra impact.

Jim Wood wrote:

What they all said. Great, really great.

Thank you , Jim! Really appreciate your continous feedback smile

Another great track, beat hits hard on this one, just wish it was a little longer, I was really starting to get into the track and then it ended.  Thanks for all the comments on my tracks this week, appreciate it.

Jason Nijjer wrote:

Another great track, beat hits hard on this one, just wish it was a little longer, I was really starting to get into the track and then it ended.  Thanks for all the comments on my tracks this week, appreciate it.

You're welcome, Jason. THank you for always commenting and listening smile

I too would wish it was longer, but I had several time constrains and prefered to keep a fresh arrangement than bore you with some copy and paste.

Ah yeah, dig it! Agreed, with others -- longer, but it's a tasty little break as it is.

miraclemiles wrote:

Ah yeah, dig it! Agreed, with others -- longer, but it's a tasty little break as it is.

Thank you, MiracleMiles... I'll try my best the next time... Maybe I could do some remix with proper intro smile

A groovy track & digging that break! Nice job!

Tone Matrix wrote:

A groovy track & digging that break! Nice job!

Thanks, ToneMatrix. Now I'm running to keep up with life and WB. Sorry if I've been out of youch lately

Yes groovy, great job!
Thanx smile

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