Well I did say I'd "attempt" to do a dance track...

ZV Yoda

The relates back to this thread

I said I’d have a bash at doing a dance track. I was going to try writing a track from scratch, but I ended up using one of our own tunes as the basis for a dance track. I posted 2 versions of the song for comparison. Both were done in fairly basic home set ups:

- An early band demo of the song. It's our singer’s original scratch vocal track, (she wasn’t around to re-record a "final" vox/harmonies), me on acoustic drums & our guitarist playing everything else

- A “dance” version. For this, I just retained the original vox. I re-did everything else in my own place. I'm playing mostly VIs/midi using standard Pro Tools plug-ins (Xpand2, Structure, Boom etc). I played some rhythm guitar in there too (Note - I never claimed to be a good guitarist or keyboard player!)

Well, it’s definitely not techno but it a lot more dancey than what we’d normally do. So, I probably failed miserably in my attempt to produce a techno/dance track, but I did succeed in trying out some new musical ideas. All in all, it was an interesting exercise.

Anyway, feel free to dissect at will – I’m thick skinned. It’s not a polished mix by any means, but I’m not sure I’d get it sounding a whole lot better without getting some feedback first.

ICN

Wow.. The vocal is excellent.

If you dont mind me saying so.. compared to the original backing, the vocal really gets your attention.

They're like 2 completely different songs. The original wouldn't really be my cup of tea tbh.. but I could actually hear the tune / lyrics / melody with the Electronic version. Seemed to be less cluttered & the different sections sounded different.

The other music was quite "magnolia" in comparison. The new version really makes it come to life IMO.

The drums / something sounds a bit sloppy / slightly out of time or something in the chorus.. Maybe its a quantize thing. It seems to be the rides / bright hihats.

Thats very good Mate.. Listened to twice now. AND - to tell you how good I thought it was, I'm only after realising that its called "Stay".

I'll be totally honest - normally I choke when I hear of yet another song using that word..There must be millions of them out there.. Think I also had one at some point :D

But this sounds v.good! Definitely keep working on it & maybe keep a little bit of that style going forward.

Not House / Techno - But a good song. Well done Mate!!

ZV Yoda

Cheers for that ICN... those points are very valid... I liked the old version, but you're spot on - the overall sound is bland next to the newer version.

To be fair, the original version was just a rough demo (hence those timing issues... I did quantize one section of drums, but the guitars were out too & I was using a pre-mixed MP3 of bass, guitars & keyboard, so couldn't do much with it). I wrote the song an acoustic guitar originally. That was the first time we recorded the song together as a band - so we didn't really spend any time on arranging... it was just a rough take of a song that we were going to work on.

The big eye opener for me was how easy it is to get a clean sound when you use "in the box" instruments (even though my mix isn't perfect). No ambient room worries, no phasing, no snare pops, no kick pedal squeaks... it takes a lot of the "technical" tracking problems out of the equation altogether. Also, timing issue are very easy to fix.

So, the big takeways for me... "in the box" removes a lot of the technical/musicianship headaches. Depending on your viewpoint, this may be a good thing or a bad thing. I felt making music this way was more about combining sounds/samples to construct a song, whereas traditional recording for me is more about the playing/emotion.

I'll definately be getting more into the electronic side of things - I think a good balance of both is what I'll be after in the future. It's making me re-consider the uphill struggle of getting a good drum sound in a small room like mine

Any other comments welcome too!

ICN

Cool Man..


Just want to say again that the Vocal is excellent. Sounds brilliant.

Neurojazz

Yeah nice tracks - i'd go even further and create an ambient intro so that the tracks keeps that melancholic feel up to the point at when the second version kicks in at 1:00min or so - the lift would be incredible - i'd so love to produce this, very jealous - great singer to be inspired by there.

woodsdenis

Great stuff ZV. Not really a techno track but who cares.

The electronic version is soooo much better than the original, well done.:D

Here is an idea. Why not let those who want to, remix this. It would be the same idea as the previous Nickleback one but obviously this is original and has a lot more scope to expand on. In a real world situation remixers would be given tracks like this to do club/alternate mixes .

It also gives scope for the Dance guys to do their thing, and anyone else to aswell.

Neurojazz has expressed an interest.

What do you think?

ICN

Haha!

I like that one Denis.. Your suggestion really throws the ball back in the Dance Guys court! Brilliant lob!


Yup - I'm sure many people would like to give it a go.

I'd certainly be willing to do my worst!

I'd have to really try & mangle it as I would not be able to do it justice.

BumbleB

Dont take this personally my ears could be shot mixing all day.

Nice vocal production , singing is excellent but sounds a little off in places.The synth in backround is a little distracting. Its not really 4 to the floor as we know it but so what ?.
If you want to diss me here's my buddy and my production.

http://www.myspace.com/loudvillage

jtsuited

stick together a remix pack and I'll give a go at it.

The standard practice for remix packs is 4/8/16 bar stems of the mix. just take the busiest part of the track and export 8/16 bar segments of the original tracks. Zip em up into a nice little zip file.

Might want to include the full vocal track too.

Four-Percent

I'd love to have a go at this too - never done a remix before.

henessjon

nice yoda both of them.... a remix


Id give it a henno shot,,,,

ZV Yoda

Thanks for all the feedback folks – much appreciated

Neurojazz wrote: »

Yeah nice tracks - i'd go even further and create an ambient intro so that the tracks keeps that melancholic feel up to the point at when the second version kicks in at 1:00min or so - the lift would be incredible - i'd so love to produce this, very jealous - great singer to be inspired by there.

Thanks for that NJ. Funny you should mention a more ambient intro - I did have an earlier mix where the intro was completely stripped back, but I was in 2 minds about whether it was too sparse. I ended up adding in some more rhythms. Yeah, she’s a great singer – she'll lay down some great harmonies when we put down the final vocal, so the final mix will be different. Her harmonies will give some great options to strip back that 1st section.

woodsdenis wrote: »

Great stuff ZV. Not really a techno track but who cares.

The electronic version is soooo much better than the original, well done.:D

Here is an idea. Why not let those who want to, remix this. It would be the same idea as the previous Nickleback one but obviously this is original and has a lot more scope to expand on. In a real world situation remixers would be given tracks like this to do club/alternate mixes .

It also gives scope for the Dance guys to do their thing, and anyone else to aswell.

Neurojazz has expressed an interest.

What do you think?

Thx for the comments Denis. On the remixes – it’s a great idea & I would love to hear how different people would interpret the tune. Having said that, I did the dance version as a sole side project over the past week or so. We haven’t really worked much on this track as a band yet. The band version was just a very rough demo with just a scratch vocal track we put down a few weeks back outline the melody. I’d prefer to finish the track as a complete band first rather than have it out there being remixed in the meantime.

Maybe when we’ve a finished version we could look at doing remixes down the road.

BumbleB wrote: »

Dont take this personally my ears could be shot mixing all day.

Nice vocal production , singing is excellent but sounds a little off in places.The synth in backround is a little distracting. Its not really 4 to the floor as we know it but so what ?.
If you want to diss me here's my buddy and my production.

http://www.myspace.com/loudvillage

No offence taken – you’re right about the vox in a couple of places. It was just a scratch vocal track; the singer will really nail it for the final version.

I agree about that pad synth. It’s starting to wick me too, so I’ll change if for something a bit less obtrusive. It was just there to give a lift to the chorus.

BTW, I checked out your myspace too… nice site. I really liked your stuff too - it’s very chilled, especially “Welcome to loud”. Good stuff!

jtsuited wrote: »

stick together a remix pack and I'll give a go at it.

The standard practice for remix packs is 4/8/16 bar stems of the mix. just take the busiest part of the track and export 8/16 bar segments of the original tracks. Zip em up into a nice little zip file.

Might want to include the full vocal track too.

Four-Percent wrote: »

I'd love to have a go at this too - never done a remix before.

henessjon wrote: »

nice yoda both of them.... a remix


Id give it a henno shot,,,,

Thanks for the offer folks, but like I mentioned to Denis above, I’d prefer to finish this out as a band track first. May take you all up on those offers in the future once we’ve completed the track.

ICN

AWWWWWW..

seannash

id love to hear this but my crap internet doesnt allow me to listen to mysoace for some reason:mad::mad: