shrike

Kick 2 and D16 Punchbox are each heavyweights for kicks. Esp Punchbox, the 808/909 emulation, and sine component is very strong.

Also, be sure to check out Disprove’s drum class in the SG back catalog. Really great, and I believe he uses AD, if I remember correctly.

Psssst-what’s your vote?

Gravekeeper – Half time! That grimey main bass is WIKKED. Digging the Stranger Things vibe with the arps from the outset. Nice job, happy to have you in the challenge.

R4NSOM – you’re doing such cinematic things for these challenges! I feel like this would work very well for a dark film chase scene. As someone who always tries to incorporate story and narrative into my music, I think that is an awesome thing.

Fake – you’re just a little badass aren’t you. No sarcasm. Big ups.

Struktcha – dude that was fucking wikked. That’s like ’98 Ed Rush & Op type stuff, and I love that. I think the mixing could use some love, but it’s a great start, and you’ve got a lot of the music in a great place. Not gonna lie, that stuttering kick drum is kinda throwing me off a bit, I think that would kind whack the dancefloor out a little, and as a dj it would be a little frustrating.

Evasion – that’s a nice mix, nice music, very solid. I have very little feedback on this, other than the build before the drop could maybe use some plussing…or minusing. I’d either amp it up a little more, or let it die a little more, right now it feels like it’s on the fence, but a little non-commital. But that’s just me, and I am a little but psycho. Also, welcome to fray.

My vote goes to: FAKE. Some fantastic entries this month. Fake just keeps doing it and doing it. Well done, my friend.
Evasion, you had a strong entry as well, just slightly edge out by it being a pre-existing tune. Come back next month!

And just a word on the caveating and “embarrassment”…we are lucky to have an extremely supportive and well behaved community here at SG, and we’re also lucky to have members at all levels of experience. We’ve got some pros on here, all the way down to those of you that have only done this for a few months. You will never be laughed at, you will never be ridiculed, and you will always get nothing but support from this group, Harry, myself, and esp the Genie work hard to make sure this is the case. You can call yourself a noob if you want, and you can even claim some embarrassment, but don’t let anything stop you from participating and posting your work. Those that do *ALWAYS* get better, and that is the main reason we are here.

Let’s get those votes in! EVERYONE CAN VOTE, not just the participants. This should be a spectator sport as well, especially if by dipping the toes in via voting, it means we get more peeps participating next time.

RESPECT

Hey now, this is nice! Very creamy mix music is sound, arrangement works just fine.

You might do a bit more reference on your drum mix. They are present, but I feel like they are only at about 80% efficiency. A little more snap on the snare might be in order. It seems like there is a main snare layer that is fairly mono, but it also feels like there is a snare layer, maybe slightly delayed from the main snare, that is wider, more stereo, and I think it’s killing your overall snare transients. If that’s exactly the case, an easy enough fix by just fading that second layer in by ~10-25ms or so. I think I might also narrow it in the stereo field, too. In fact there is some nice width, but it feels a little ‘binary’ to me, meaning that things are either in mono or they are very wide, and that there isn’t much in between. Try narrowing some elements and see what you think. Sometimes when I do that it really helps the stereo field out, even though it may sound counter-intuitive. It’s all about the comparative dynamics, methinks. That upper end of that dominant bass sound could def be narrowed a bit, and I think it would do wonders to filling out the stereo field a little more.

Also the snare and kick could use a little more on top, in the 2k+ region. White noise, cymbal, or maybe even just through EQ. The mids and lows are holding up, but there isn’t much penetration at the top. See if you can’t get the tops of the kick and snare up to, oh, say ~-35 dbfs in the >2k range.

And it holds up pretty well in mono. I can’t be certain, but it feels like there is some stereo signal in your high sub. Without a meter and a download, I can’t tell for sure…just something to check.

Nice work! Would love to hear an update when you have one.

Hey man, that’s cool that you provide that, maybe just as a reference.

The spirit of the competition is to create something entirely new based on the criteria provided, not to pull something from a backlog that best matches the criteria. And hey, maybe I’m off-base, and you did create this very shortly after the contest was announced. But in case not…

And- game on SG’ers! Let your inner squarepusher come out!

Bombs away:

https://soundcloud.com/the_shrike/sh-lamp08-arp-v004/s-lQX5s

Holy shit, almost 40 entries!?!?!… and I know for sure how incredible many of you are.

I’m so proud to be a part of such a strong community, you guys motivate me every single day.

Congrats to the SG massive, big ups all around.