Okay so I had a proper listen to it all by now. Based on the skipthrough I had earlier today, I guess my expectations were mostly met, in a good and a bad way (?).
The synths were really on point and worked really well for the vibe you’re going for – at least what I assume you’re going for. The bass sounds all were extremely cool and liquidy acidy and I found the pads to be well balanced with the leads.
Can’t really say much composition wise, it all had a good groove and flowed pretty well, but I’m generally not listening to a lot of this branch of music. Every track got my head nodding to the flow at one point or the other, hah. The technoid track in the middle was placed nicely in the context of the rest of the songs, it’s a good refresher.
What I was longing for throughout the entire EP though was a change in character of the drums, even if for just during a short break. All of the percussion instruments are very snappy and clean, very upfront in the mix. Isn’t a bad thing in itself, but maybe an acoustic sample or some eq/saturation would’ve given a bit more perspective (?) – similar to how the techno track in the middle was a good grounding moment.
Overall I think I liked Memory Hole the most, I guess all of the pieces of the puzzle fit best together on this track for me. The change in the bassline caught me a little off guard, kinda fitting with the title hehehee.
Edit: Haha and funny happy little accident on the choice of colour I guess. But the strong blue goes well with the desaturated sand colour (?). And the framing of the photo is cool too!
Thank you so much for the in depth analysis, it really means a lot to me. The song in the middle does break up some of the more, in your face energy of the rest of the album.
Perhaps the drums being so up front and snappy would be due to a few factors. I record all drums in mono because I dont have any inputs left on my interface. All drums are Machinedrum so they’re really digital, and my volume levels on the drums are always the loudest out of the mix. Would you have any ideas on making the drums sit in the mix more? Maybe just a simple volume decrease? I have been thinking of getting some type of saturation pedal for the Machinedrum to add some analog flavor. Let me know if you have any ideas! Thank you @Lauli
Had good fun with BBD delays once, the saturated/lowpassed type sound it gives the rhythmic delays of the clean source creates a nice movement in ‘image’. Difficult to get the low end toms and kick to sit well though sometimes.
Or maybe some of the synths have a kind of pitch bend & envelope section, this also produces a different tone in the percussion.
Although right now the drums do sit pretty stable in the mix, I was more thinking about just changing them for a short section in the track, somewhat in line with the composition.
Was a good listen!
My Deckard’s Dream is coming along slowly. PSU and control boards are done, now starting on the main board. Figured I’d start with the simplest boards first before tackling the voice cards.
It has meant #Jamuary was deprioritised, I just want to play some soaring synth lines