# Is there any edm/electronic music producer to give feedback on my piece?



## Marcin M (Sep 6, 2017)

This is piece I made quite a time ago just as a test what I can do in this genre. And now I can say it's definitely not my type of music, I prefer instrumental music, but as this happened I thought it would be cool to get some feedback just to know how bad it is.

About a piece itself: Every sound comes from Kontakt Factory Library from 'electronic' section, every instrument except groove is changed from default state. Part from 1:02 to 2:17 has no sense. Sound quality is bad. Enjoy!


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## Grim_Universe (Sep 6, 2017)

*Part from 1:02 to 2:17 has no sense. Sound quality is bad. Enjoy!*
^Lol. I love the description. Electronic music guys have a really great taste in terms of sound design. They make very simple music most of the time, but it has great and insteresting colors due to their sound design skills. I feel like your piece can be used in computer or mobile game as a background thing. It's not so bad, your main theme is actually memorable, but sound design is weak and not inspiring at all.


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## mac (Sep 6, 2017)

Hey Marcin. Ok, there are a few ways this could be improved. First, you need a stronger kick drum, something with a bit more snap. Then you need to up its volume. It seems you have quite a muddy mix too. Cut out the lows from ~400Hz down from everything bar your bassline and the kick. This is EDM, you can be brutal with EQing. Then you need to see where your kick is peaking, and notch that frequency out of your bassline (hopefully around 80Hz). You could try some sidechain compression too, either on the bassline, or on the majority of the rest of the tracks. depending on the feel you're going for.

The mix also a bit too busy. I'm struggling to figure out what the lead line is. the is as much a mix issue as it is a structural issue. Same as orchestral, make sure there's one lead line you want us to follow, and make sure each instrument has its own section of the spectrum to sit in.

I hope that makes some kind of sense.


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## Tyll (Sep 6, 2017)

This is just my two cents. I'm not a grammy winner either, so just take it as one small opinion from a guy on the internet.

On a hobbyists' scale I'd give it a 6.5/10. On a professional scale it's more of a 3.5/10. 

The beginning is good with a memorable melody, purposeful sounds and a clear mix. However, the development is all three of these sections is not what it could be. 80% of the song has the same melody, which paired with a similarly flat evolution of the sounds gets tiring for the listener.
As you add some layers, your mix gets worse too. You will want to create space in the mix when introducing a new instrument/sound for it to sit in. 

This sounds very harsh, but there are also good elements in this song. As said the melody and harmony basics are just fine. Now, electronic music is not said to be very rich in either way, but the hard part is to balance the simple melodic content with interesting sound design and production. So you either need more interesting melodic content (uncommon in pop music, could work in more sophisticated formats) or a more detailed, diverse sound design.

Also it is worth mentioning that the chosen sounds are not horrible by any means. It seems that you have thought about the picked elements and their purpose. However, there is always the risk of lifeless sounding music due to less randomness and less expressiveness in sounds. To counter this, layering synthesizers is a common technique. This again has the risk of a muddy mix. 

All in all, just keep it up! In your next attempt put some more time into EQing and panning clashing sounds (you also could try dynamic sidechain-EQing) and a little more focus on variety in sounds, fills and fx and it'll be a big overall improvement. 

Thanks for sharing


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## ctsai89 (Sep 6, 2017)

in EDM/trailer productions good sound quality is not only a must but you must make sure the wave form matches your reference tracks or just something that you're shooting for to sound like. 

Your track sound much more like an attempt to become a trailer track than it is to be an EDM. 

The melody can be good if you used better sounds.


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## Marcin M (Sep 7, 2017)

Grim_Universe said:


> *Part from 1:02 to 2:17 has no sense. Sound quality is bad. Enjoy!*
> ^Lol. I love the description. Electronic music guys have a really great taste in terms of sound design. They make very simple music most of the time, but it has great and interesting colors due to their sound design skills. I feel like your piece can be used in computer or mobile game as a background thing. It's not so bad, your main theme is actually memorable, but sound design is weak and not inspiring at all.



Thanks for reply, I don't know a thing about sound design but I have in plans learning it. This piece was just made for fun as experiment and since then I respect those guys making edm, because they are really creative. When I was making this I spend some time just looking for sounds in KFL. And when finally I found those sounds that You hear, invention left me after 1:02 . And that's what I admire in those guys, some of their pieces have 5 min or longer but they somehow manage to keep attention for entire piece.



mac said:


> Hey Marcin. Ok, there are a few ways this could be improved. First, you need a stronger kick drum, something with a bit more snap. Then you need to up its volume. It seems you have quite a muddy mix too. Cut out the lows from ~400Hz down from everything bar your bassline and the kick. This is EDM, you can be brutal with EQing. Then you need to see where your kick is peaking, and notch that frequency out of your bassline (hopefully around 80Hz). You could try some sidechain compression too, either on the bassline, or on the majority of the rest of the tracks. depending on the feel you're going for.
> 
> The mix also a bit too busy. I'm struggling to figure out what the lead line is. the is as much a mix issue as it is a structural issue. Same as orchestral, make sure there's one lead line you want us to follow, and make sure each instrument has its own section of the spectrum to sit in.
> 
> I hope that makes some kind of sense.



Thank You for that comment  It's really informative and will help me in the future. I know mix is too busy, I had no idea what to put in this piece because I simply don't listen electronic music. It was just experiment and my bad habit of making everything complex took lead. You could simply delete 2-3 melodies/instruments I wrote and piece would become only better 



Tyll said:


> This is just my two cents. I'm not a grammy winner either, so just take it as one small opinion from a guy on the internet.
> 
> On a hobbyists' scale I'd give it a 6.5/10. On a professional scale it's more of a 3.5/10.
> 
> ...



Thank You for that comment, it helps a lot  The melody is the only thing that I did right. After 1:02 I had no idea what to do and that's why I respect guys who make even 5 min long tracks and they are interesting. I will try to learn sound design to make something interesting and I see that it's common practice in not only electronic but also trailer music. I know that I put too much content in this piece, but it's just my bad habit of complicating things. As for sounds I tried to find the best what KFL has to offer. 

Btw what is sidechain-EQing? I heard of sidechain compression but EQing? Damn there's a lot of things for me to learn...



ctsai89 said:


> in EDM/trailer productions good sound quality is not only a must but you must make sure the wave form matches your reference tracks or just something that you're shooting for to sound like.
> 
> Your track sound much more like an attempt to become a trailer track than it is to be an EDM.
> 
> The melody can be good if you used better sounds.



Yep, I need few more years and maybe I will finally learn how to make good mixes  I didn't really think about trailer music while making this, maybe it has some feel of it on the intro but my purpose was to make electronic music. I actually imagined something like night car chase while writing it You know, sth like tokio drift, fast and furious thing hence the title. As for sounds I used the best and most fitting sounds I could find in KFL


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## stixman (Sep 7, 2017)

1. Quote 'Neutron's Masking Meter allows you to visually identify perceptual frequency collisions, which can result in guitars masking lead vocals, bass covering up drums, and other issues that can cause a "muddy" or overly crowded mix. Toggle seamlessly between any two tracks to carve out sonic space and ensure that each instrument has its own place to shine'
Groove3 and MacProVideo are cool for tutorials.


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## dannymc (Sep 7, 2017)

sorry OP but as an ex EDM dj & producer i found this track very hard to listen too. my ear couldn't latch on to anything here, so much so by 1min 40secs in i had to stop listening. the rhythm seems a bit all over the place especially from 1min on.

one thing that EDM has to be is structured and rhythmic, one core idea with variation. also it should be able to make you and your audience dance. can you honestly say you could get clubbers to dance to this?

it seems it sort of trailer EDM hybrid but its not enough trailer and not enough EDM to be either.

when i post here i'd rather people were honest with me so that i could improve so i hope you don't mind my blunt opinion.

i would suggest listening to lots of top EDM tracks to get an idea about how top class EDM should sound. my background is trance but you could use any good EDM genre references. 

here's a great track from Andre Rayel on Armin's label that is kinda doing what you are trying but in a very effective way. hope it helps 



Danny


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## Marcin M (Sep 7, 2017)

stixman said:


> 1. Quote 'Neutron's Masking Meter allows you to visually identify perceptual frequency collisions, which can result in guitars masking lead vocals, bass covering up drums, and other issues that can cause a "muddy" or overly crowded mix. Toggle seamlessly between any two tracks to carve out sonic space and ensure that each instrument has its own place to shine'
> Groove3 and MacProVideo are cool for tutorials.



Thank You very much  I'll definitely read more about it.



dannymc said:


> sorry OP but as an ex EDM dj & producer i found this track very hard to listen too. my ear couldn't latch on to anything here, so much so by 1min 40secs in i had to stop listening. the rhythm seems a bit all over the place especially from 1min on.
> 
> one thing that EDM has to be is structured and rhythmic, one core idea with variation. also it should be able to make you and your audience dance. can you honestly say you could get clubbers to dance to this?
> 
> ...




Thank You for opinion  I know it's terrible track, I don't know how to classify this track. I didn't really listen any edm or electronic music while making it so I had no reference, was just using electronic instruments and using them. As I said before I had night car race in my mind and this was my inspiration.

By the way, about making people dance in the club: in my opinion if we would remove beat from any song people would find it hard to dance to it. It's all in the beat it's rhythm and tempo not in the track itself. I saw videos where people danced to nothing but 1 note bass and beat with changeable rhythm.

Edit: I would forgot. Great track You sent  it reminds me of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time OST, probably because chord progression is similar. I like all the parts without beat, when beat comes sound is cutted and I find it hard and tiring to listen


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## mac (Sep 7, 2017)

dannymc said:


> Danny




Man, someone played that track at Leeds festival last weekend and it was [email protected]@king brilliant. Sun had gone down. everyone was having a blast, good times.


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## jmvideo (Sep 7, 2017)

The synth lead notes during the intro are too short. The track would be a lot better if those notes had a longer decay, giving them more rhythm. It almost sounds like they're out of sync because they decay too quickly.


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## davidgary73 (Sep 7, 2017)

Just echoing what has been mentioned, the best is to listen to tons & tons of EDM music from Dash Berlin, W&W, Armin, Martin Garrix.

Also, side chain is used on lots of EDM tunes and getting good VI synth like Spire or Sylenth1 helps too. 

Armin van Buuren @ 

Dash Berlin @


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## Harry (Sep 7, 2017)

mac said:


> Hey Marcin. Ok, there are a few ways this could be improved. First, you need a stronger kick drum, something with a bit more snap. Then you need to up its volume. It seems you have quite a muddy mix too. *Cut out the lows from ~400Hz down from everything bar your bassline and the kick.* This is EDM, you can be brutal with EQing. Then you need to see where your kick is peaking, and notch that frequency out of your bassline (hopefully around 80Hz). You could try some sidechain compression too, either on the bassline, or on the majority of the rest of the tracks. depending on the feel you're going for.


As high as 400Hz? Interesting. Is that normal in this style - or any style where the lows (kick and bass) need good seperation from the mids (eg pads)?


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## davidgary73 (Sep 7, 2017)

Harry said:


> As high as 400Hz? Interesting. Is that normal in this style - or any style where the lows (kick and bass) need good seperation from the mids (eg pads)?



More likely around 200-300Hz for EDM and making them mono. 

Read Luca Pretolesi’s interview *"So what are you doing to make things 300Hz and below mono?” *@ http://modernmixing.com/blog/2015/04/06/psychology-of-a-mix-engineer-luca-pretolesi/


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## mac (Sep 8, 2017)

Harry said:


> As high as 400Hz? Interesting. Is that normal in this style - or any style where the lows (kick and bass) need good seperation from the mids (eg pads)?



I used 400Hz as a ball park, but it's a good starting point. 400Hz is fine for bassline driven music which has rich harmonics, but if your track is more of a low/sub bass affair, then yeah, you could start at 200Hz. It's all about separation in dance music, rather than having a blend like in orchestral.


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## TheNorseman (Sep 9, 2017)

I have no background in creating EDM, but I am a fan of it and do listen to it occasionally. Unlike some of the critiques here, I think this has a lot of potential. Right away before anything else, the kick needs to be way bigger. It needs to explode... and the melodic synths should be super saturated.


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## ctsai89 (Sep 9, 2017)

TheNorseman said:


> I have no background in creating EDM, but I am a fan of it and do listen to it occasionally. Unlike some of the critiques here, I think this has a lot of potential. Right away before anything else, the kick needs to be way bigger. It needs to explode... and the melodic synths should be super saturated.



+1. It'll help to put a overdrive plug in over the melodic synths. Also don't forget to use a limiter on the master bus and push the gain all the way up till the limiter limiting the +5 decibels. If you look at the wave form of the EDM tracks produced these days, they have all fought the loudness war and the wave form basically almost don't have much gaps. Almost always hitting the 0 decibels and exceeding it pushed down by the limiter.


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## Grim_Universe (Sep 9, 2017)

I don't think OP wanted something like that. His music is very similar to Michael McCann background music WITHOUT kicks and all typical EDM stuff. It's like orchestral music, but with electronic instruments if that makes sense.


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## dannymc (Sep 10, 2017)

Grim_Universe said:


> I don't think OP wanted something like that. His music is very similar to Michael McCann background music WITHOUT kicks and all typical EDM stuff. It's like orchestral music, but with electronic instruments if that makes sense.




great reference track if you are looking for hybrid electronica orchestral score but the OP said EDM so maybe he's confusing the two. 

Danny


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## R. Soul (Sep 10, 2017)

Grim_Universe said:


> I don't think OP wanted something like that. His music is very similar to Michael McCann background music WITHOUT kicks and all typical EDM stuff. It's like orchestral music, but with electronic instruments if that makes sense.



Man, it took a long time, but finally somebody said it. All the references to Armin etc. is way off here. This track is 'Ambient/Downbeat electronica'. OP specifically said 'EDM/Electronic' and somehow everyone seemed to ignore 'electronic' - which it most certainly is.

Anyway.... as several have mentioned, I do find there's so many instruments fighting each other.
I think first of all, removing the pluck track that appears around 0:19 min. will help clear things up.


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## mac (Sep 10, 2017)

To my ears, I think the OP is trying to create a Tiesto cinematic type of dance sound, but as the energy isn't there, its accidentally falling into the ambient category.


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## Marcin M (Sep 10, 2017)

Ok I probably shouldn't mention edm in the title  This wasn't make as edm nor aimed to be it. I don't know this field of music so I just assumed that edm is just electronic music with synths as my piece.

And even though it's far from that(excellent) Deus Ex OST I think it's in the same category. If I could choose to put it somewhere I would put it in some Need For Speed like game


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## dannymc (Sep 10, 2017)

R. Soul said:


> Man, it took a long time, but finally somebody said it. All the references to Armin etc. is way off here. This track is 'Ambient/Downbeat electronica'. OP specifically said 'EDM/Electronic' and somehow everyone seemed to ignore 'electronic' - which it most certainly is.
> 
> Anyway.... as several have mentioned, I do find there's so many instruments fighting each other.
> I think first of all, removing the pluck track that appears around 0:19 min. will help clear things up.



nobody is ignoring anything. EDM stands for electronic dance music. actually i hate the term myself as it never existed in europe to describe club music. its only when the explosion in popularity of the genre happened across the water then the Americans started using the term. but to call hybrid synth based score EDM is way off.

Danny


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## mac (Sep 10, 2017)

Marcin M said:


> This wasn't make as edm nor aimed to be it.



Liar!


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## R. Soul (Sep 10, 2017)

dannymc said:


> nobody is ignoring anything. EDM stands for electronic dance music. actually i hate the term myself as it never existed in europe to describe club music. its only when the explosion in popularity of the genre happened across the water then the Americans started using the term. but to call hybrid synth based score EDM is way off.
> 
> Danny


Sure it's way off....just as somebody who is unfamiliar with Rock might mention 'Indie Rock' when the track is indeed 'Glam Rock'.
Or somebody not into Heavy metal might mix up 'Thrash metal' and 'Black metal'.
Or somebody not into Hip hop might mix up 'Crunk' with 'G-funk'.
Or somebody not into Orchestral might mix up 'Baroque' with 'Renaissance'.

Let's not even get into all the 100 different electronic styles. I mean 'Deep house', 'Tropical house', 'Italo house', 'Electro house', 'Latin house', 'French house' and 'Progressive house' - it never ends.


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