[LAU] My second album is done!

[Gabbe Nord]

Julien: :D

Very well worth all the trouble. I'm speechless, thank you for the great
feedback! I will try and respond to it:

* I actually have sidechain compression on more or less all tracks of the
album, in various forms. I wouldn't call it overcompression per say, as
it's just acting as a tremolo, but I do compress a fair bit too. For the
pumping effect, I generally compress a little of almost everything (even
cymbals and crashes), which I think helps a little with the rhythm in the
song.
As for generally compressing as in "master compressing" (or what to call
it), the electronical songs especially I compress a lot, as that's how I
like them personally (thick and in your face kind of). I do however realize
that that's not what everyone likes. I have however "grown out of" a lot of
overcompression, at least if I can say so myself, as I no longer push my
mixes further just for the loudness. Who knows, maybe I'll dare mixing even
more dynamical next time around! ;)

* Ha! I was hoping you'd recognize brushing your teeth in the middle of my
album! ;) Thank you for the great samples, I put a link to them together
with a thank you on my website
(http://www.zthmusic.se/Ordinary_Day_Montageif you haven't seen)

* Full Moon: I tend to agree with you. It ended up being less
interesting/more "chilled out"-than I intended. Next time it'll be more
interesting, I promise! ;) And hahaha, skål! Lättöl är gött!

* Right on the money there with the german in the lecture hall. I liked the
ambient sample so much due to the clarity and stereo qualities of it, that
I just had to incorporate it to the name somehow.

* Interesting that Kojan actually exists! To make a long story short, koja
means something like "tree house" or "pillow fort" (not entirely accurate,
but still) in Swedish, and it's something I've come to call my "studio"
(read: corner of my apartment where I record music) just because I've put
up so many blankets for the acoustics (dunno if it helps, but it's fun)
that it looks like a koja. So that's why that got named like it did!

* With whitenoise, I'm just a sucker for it. That's one of the elements I
love the most about modern electronic music. I also love ambient sounds
(wind and waves in particular), and as it somehow sounds reminiscent of
wind and waves at the same time, it's something I really like and almost
always end up using.

Again, thank you very much for this Julien! It's always awesome to read
your feedback and thoughts, and I learn a lot from your observations that I
hopefully can improve on 'til next time. Speaking of next time, my current
plan is to make sure that the next kind of thing like this I do is 100%
with vocals on every track, in one form or another. Feels like it's time! ;)

Thanks again!


On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 12:11 AM, Julien Claassen <julien at mail.upb.de> wrote:

> Hello Gabbe!
>   Before I begin to say any word about the music you made, I will say:
> thank you for all the troubles you got up to to give me a chance to listen
> to it. This is very kind of you and - be assured - very much appreciated!
>   As a whole, I very much agree with Dave's vote of the clear sound and
> good mix. The mixes have power, sound well balanced to me. What's even
> better, is that they fall on willing ears. In recent weeks I've turned more
> and more towards electronic music.
>   the intro is a good introduction to the sonic world of your album.
> Slowly taking me in, preparing for the Skandinavian sound and feel. The
> width and openness. Only to surprise me later on. there is that
> Skandinavian feel poking through, but not as obvious as before. I like the
> bassdrum of the intro. It appears later on again. It has bite and pumps a
> little, not in a compression artefact way. It's somewhere between an edited
> acoustic bassdrum and something purely electronic. It might even fill the
> four-to-the-floor niche.
>   It is alive is the nice four-to-the-floor piece. And it already shows
> something, which characterises the whole album. The tracks flow seemlessly
> from one into the other. Not only by ambient sounds, but by concept. If it
> had been me, I'd have mixed the snare louder. But that way it keeps the
> attention, while still deliviering. I can't completely let go with that,
> because, there is that small bit, which seems so uncharacteristic. I also
> love the somehow oneiric harmonies. Tending towards minor, yet rarely pure
> minor chords. While having a touch of 90s nostalgia about it, the mix
> sounds very much like the current decade. Do you use "overcompression" to
> get this slightly pumping effect? I noticed that throughout the album and
> had been wondering. If so: how do you compress? The whole song or only
> certain groups of instruments? - Again the bassdrum is nice, crisp and very
> well defined. Ha! The blend to Still is lovely. I recognise the sound and I
> must admit, that I never dreamt it could be used in such a place. Well sed.
>   Still: I think here the bassdrum is a little too loud in the mix, but
> not so loud as to bannish the thought of enjoyment. :-) And so we have
> turned to a more hiphop styled track. And it still keeps in the spirit of
> the earlier tracks. As I said: it's a sonic world, this album. Listening to
> it again, I feel, that so far, it appears more like a change in arrangement
> and style than in harmony. It's bordering on my threshhold of boredom. If
> it wasn't for the very nice mixes and well executed styles and the morphing
> of one into the other... but there is that and it holds me. You know, that
> my threshhold of boredom is quite low. Since I'm still more of a prog and
> baroque listener than electronica.
>   Come and play; why not. I'm game. :-) This sets a much lighter tone. I
> love the slight touch of breakbeat in this piece. Also the main instrument
> is interesting. the way the piece changes from almost elevator music into
> almost dubstep is great. The way the movement picks up and the arrangement
> fills up from almost meditative spheric guitar to the full beat. Teh
> effects you used, the well-placed delay and how you managed to use that to
> instantly isolate the main "lead" and the rhythm in places. Well done. good
> trick!
>   Full Moon baffled me at first. Perhaps because I approached it with
> preformed notions, of what it should have been. That way it's the piece,
> that I still perceive as the weakest piece on this album. It sounds to
> common place for me. To worldly. The introduction and the "bridge" are the
> best bits. They talk to me of a full moon and the quiet night. The rest is
> more of the beach party next door with its drinking, barbecuing crowd. At
> least it's a Swedish party and not one of those Mallorca crimes, that they
> probably call "a beach happening" or "afterwork holiday". :-) Get out the
> "let oel" and let's say "skol" (sorry can't spell it and didn't find it
> quickly :-) ).
>   I wonder, what you thought, when you called the next composition
> "Touchdown Germany"? Was it the ambient sound from the lecture hall at my
> uni? Or is it the plump beat? That beat, which makes me think of Flaubert,
> who said something about music of the heavens, that we hear, but only
> produce something, which sounds like it's being played on rusting tin
> drums, written for crippled bears. :-) It has a very raw edge this piece,
> while keeping with the flow of the dreamy melodies.
>   the Circus reminds me even more of dubstep. Not really, but the
> stuttering rhythm and this change from third notes in a quarter beat. Only
> your version of it is like Debusy's sweet juicy apple eaten with knife and
> fork in comparison to Gershwin. Neither is wrong or right, but one is more
> tamed than the other. Rhythmic acrobatics in pensive music. A circus
> indeed. :-)
>   Have you ever been to Korea? If my quick look at google didn't lead me
> astray completely, it should be somewhere in South Korea. Whereever Kojan
> is, we have returned to the good, old idiom of hiphop with the drumkit from
> the first track. If I were to analyse this piece, I'd say the instrument
> reminiscent of an electric piano in the middle has a slight touch of typica
> Asian harmony and the sawtoothy synth almost gives an impression of
> chiptunes synthesis. With the impressions we get, I might suggest, that
> this is to conjure up an idea of all those game consoles, that the
> youngsters over there love so much or at least use so much. One of my old
> classmates would at least agree with the interest in game consoles, if not
> wioth my implications on this piece. :-) In a way it's a good song to lead
> me out. It seems so much more worldly. The applause, the crowd, the rest of
> the world, that stands so far removed from the images of moonlit nights -
> parties or no parties - and the still, windy atmosphere of the album. You
> worked a great deal with white noise, which gives one the feeling of wind
> in the dunes. It's a sound I heard a lot in radioplays and this white noise
> patch - or patches - are close to that sound. Somewhere between wind and
> waves or the mixture of the two?
>   All in all, it's a good album and I will be sure to listen to it again.
> Perhaps not in one go, as I did today, but now I've taken in teh
> atmosphere, I can quickly travel back there. It's a good piece of work
> Always slightly dreamy, dark, depressive and still with a consoling
> lightness behind the pregnant beats and occasional distorted synths. A good
> balance between the single mindedness of centre beats and basses and
> parnoramic harmonies and effects. I like it. And I hope, that you will get
> a whole load of feedback and a couple of new listeners.
>   What will you give us next time? Perhaps once more something with the
> occasional lyrics? Some Swedish hiphop or some English song of longing? Or
> something different?
>   Warm regards and thanks for sharing
>          Julien
>
> ------------------------------**----------
> http://juliencoder.de/nama/**music.html<http://juliencoder.de/nama/music.html>
>
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