Hi Everyone,
The sky was the limit this month and I think we reached it and enjoyed it!
I hope you find something useful in my thoughts.
SoundBeing - "Don't Bail"
Nice rock opening, some “When the levee breaks” inspiration perhaps. Cool haunting vocal melody, and voice! Heard some beautiful 90's grunge angst in that performance. Reminded me of Pearl Jam at times. So I would put it more in the (grunge) rock category than psychedelic rock, but it's rock nevertheless.
I would have liked some extra dynamics. The chorus could have even more impact if the verses were taken back a bit. Or perhaps add another, more distorted, mid-focused guitar in the chorus for extra beef.
Cool track! To really make it feel like a finished track I would prefer a third part; bridge or solo, preferably with some new chords. I hope you do it
Nerdy, less important stuff:
Might be a bit bright and mid-scooped for the genre, but that's nitpicking and very subjective. On second listen, I believe it is the level/tone of the cymbals that make it sound bright to me.
Good stuff, don't bail out man!
Becsei György - Never Again
Cool use of theremin for spacy, spooky 60's vibe.
The groove difference of swung 8ths in the drums and other thing straight 8ths (the guitar echo) was a bit too much for me, especially so early only. Later on the groove settles in, still fairly loose, but I find that very fitting to the style.
Around 2:40 I thought “What should I be listening to?”. There was plenty going on creating a nice vibe, but nothing really taking the lead. When the double time part comes in there is a clear theme. Interesting, on the one hand the Balkan feel (I could be mistaken here) didn't really evoke the psychedelic mood for me, but since it is common for this months genre to blend in other styles, it actually does fit; Just not in a traditional way (like using Indian elements).
Having a full, layered arrangement is definitely one of the hallmarks of the genre, but guiding the listeners attention would highlight your cool themes even more. Let me elaborate:
For example around 1:50 the right guitar presents a theme, the left guitar is doing some variations on it and than there's the shredding organ in the middle. That's quite a lot to take in, especially because they roughly have the same level and are in the same frequency space. Making one noticably louder and/or brighter than the others will help you get more clarity and separation. Volume automation can also be you friend in these cases; for spotlighting certain events.
gruskada - Yesterday Is History
Cool mysterious theme, very phygrian. The extra guitar shredding at the be beginning feels kinda out of place at that moment; we've just established the mood and we're not yet on our epic rock climax.
The voice (around 1:50) is quite loud en full sounding. Since the beat is already relatively soft, this kinda disrupts the groove. You do do you have the spacy effects on it so I don't think is has to be loud to get that psychedelic vibe from it.
Nice, I like the transition into major around 1:40; quite surprising, but fitting.
Hmmm, noisy outro felt too uuh... noisy for me. Or perhaps just too long. Be careful because it's mostly the end that people remember. However, when going for this type of chaos, fade out approach, you could try fading out the drums first and leaving only its reverb (send pre-fader in that case).
Nice job for taking on an odd time signature. In those cases I think its even more important to give extra care to the groove. In the 0:53 section the hi-hat feels a bit rigid; even dynamics throughout. If the has more accent on the on-beats (1,2,3,4 and 5 in this case) and less on the off-beats, that would help I think. Or perhaps more open hi-hat and leave out the 8th notes for that half time rock vibe (“When the Levee Breaks”).
All guitars seem somewhat in front of the beat most of the time. You could try nudging them all 10-20ms back or perhaps all drums forward and see how that feels. I'm a guitar player as well and in my experience guitar players are more often early than late. We just get so excited!
Shea_Living The Dream
Cool a steady groove. Yep, that groove fits well with the title.
Hmm, this combination of the drum, bass and high drone note, with occasional bend kinda gave me a triphop vibe.
The riser at 1:20 does what it should do, but feel out of place in this genre. Kind of an anachronism. But as you mentioned, you kept a modern feel.
In the sections that starts at 2:10 and 3:45 the A on the bass is quite persistent and becomes a bit tedious a times. The rest of the bass uses pentatonic blues licks. You could try and mix with it up by using a walking bass there or alter the rhythm.
2:10 section" Cool use of effects here. Some classic reverse and fuzz tones and some modern elements. Neat! Cool fuzz solo sound! Reminiscent of The Doors in a way.
The voice intermezzos work really well IMO. Good use of dynamics, the groove keeps going, but you spice it up just enough so it doesn't get boring.
At 3:43 there is a a flam on the drop that prevents it from getting on the radio. Awwh shucks
(on a sidenote: "flam on the drop" sounds pretty funny to me)
It depends on what your going for, but if you want to make it feel more 60's/70's you could make the bass less bright and add some (tape) saturation. Or use a bass with flatwound strings.
I began to like like it more each time I listened to it. That's probably a good sign
AFutureInNoise_TheMeaningOfLifre
I kept on hearing “the meaning of life” but the title says “The Meaning of Lifre”. I really wanted to know what “Lifre” means. Alas, I guess I'll never know...
Just messing around
Let's get to it.
Classic mellotron flute and tasty towel drums really captured the 60's vibe.
Really dig that phaser/uni-vibe on the rhodes on the left. I like how all the instruments are introduced one at a time; Very story like.
Cool that is has a lot of different parts. However, the transitions do feel a bit clunky to me. Especially because it transitions the same way three times in such a short track. It would be nice if some sort of groove element keeps on going when going to a different part.
Production wise, you practically checked all the 60's boxes, except for the vocal sound IMO. These are generally a lot thinner - a HPF at 200Hz is a good starting point - and some (fake) double tracking will give you instant 60's mojo. It might sound trivial, but because all other elements neatly capture that vibe, I think it would really tie it together.
Awwh, fade out, so soon? Did not really feel finished to me. Hmm, weird but because I do think you have enough different parts. Maybe it's just that the final parting feels more like a beginning than an ending.
► Show Spoiler
01 (10 pts) - SoundBeing
02 (09 pts) - Shea
03 (08 pts) - Becsei György
04 (07 pts) - gruskada
05 (06 pts) - AFutureInNoise
How do we go from there?