making beats
Out of context: Reply #3151
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- mg331
mantrakid,
Listening now while I work on a project around 12am.
There's some really cool stuff in here, but 35 tracks is a lot. Are you familiar with Prefuse 73? Some of his best albums like Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian (amazing album name and cover art), Extinguished, and Preparations, have around 23 - 29 tracks. I love putting these albums on while I'm working and I never really pay attention to how many tracks there are. Honestly, I didn't realize until just know that those albums have that many tracks.
But on albums like Sacrifices and Fudge Beats, that track list is smaller, but the songs feel consistently longer, and the songs change gears a bit more; I always describe Prefuse 73 as like listening to someone just constantly changing a radio dial. There's so much variety, but it's cohesive. It's got similarities to Aphex Twin's slower stuff, nothing like Syro which is something altogether from another planet.
Also, on something like Ampexian, pretty much every track blends into the next. Go listen to that album, listen to the last 15 seconds of a track and the first 15 of the next one. It all flows wonderfully and despite all the variety, it just works.
I think that's what this needs. It needs to feel like a giant song, and every track blends into the next. You've got some good transitions here and there, like Grubby Unit > Ballerina Shoes, and Mermaid Theme > Airship (on this one, I'd cut Mermaid Theme at 2:12, remove that fade out, and sync that final beat in Mermaid Theme to be the first beat in Airship.
A few other ideas as I skip around:
If you're up for changing the track order... put Simple Syrup before Syncope. That fade out in Simple Syrup is nice but it doesn't sound right going into Moments After Death. Moments After Death needs to be a smooth, calm track that's faded into after something with more of a beat.
Another suggestion - take out NighCrawler and transition from Take Notes to Past the Garden. Nightcrawler feels too fast and aggressive; so much of everything else is just really chill. Past the Garden is a nice ender and the most ambient thing on here. I love it and Supplant.
I'll give it another listen next time I'm working on my project for a few hours straight. Since you're looking for critical feedback, I hope this is helpful. Once I've got my print shop fully up I'm getting back to my album, which I put on hold early in 2025 to focus on art. Different style of music altogether, but I'm neurotic for song transitions and how the mood ebbs and flows and doesn't feel disjointed.
Questions: how did you record this? Master it? Any plugins you used in the final mix / master chain? I feel like I've got a good ear for when things are mastered the "right" way and when they're just exported out of a DAW. I'm on good speakers so the, eh, how to say... rawness of this stands out. Putting it through something that adds saturation, maybe something with light warped vinyl effect / super minimal tape warble to it, I bet that would enhance it a ton.
- ADHDs will love it!mort_
- Holy smokes this is awesome feedback and exactly what i needed to hear!!! Thank you so much!mantrakid
- ALL tracks were recorded dawless basically straight off the OP1 and OPXY into my phone. I did that deliberately because they are all basically live performed...mantrakid
- And i have a little performance video to accompany each one. That said, i have definitely been feeling like the cohesive WHOLE needed work.mantrakid
- So having some sort of final form = mixtape / mix session would actually be 100% on point and still part of the same aesthetic. ie. live mix them all...mantrakid
- Into the final album, run through SP404 mk2 compressor / saturation / tape, could add just the final glue it needs (and give me ability to do one more layer...mantrakid
- of variation to tie it all together! Dude. this was massively helpful and inspiring, thank you so freaking much!!!mantrakid
- You're so welcome, man. Are you on IG? Connect with me at @mg33_art and/or @theagelesssea.mg33