Description : Made on an Itouch in Beatmaker
First attempt at Dub, so all you Dub heads out there feel free to give some advice. Lots of loops from looperman! My thanks to Dubmaster321, MimouNaMamiA, Ensam and Dextdee! All vocal samples are royalty free licence goodness from soundbible.com's royalty free section. About the only thing originally mine is some drums. And yes, that is Barack Obama's State of the Union address.
*Edit After some good advice, cut out some vox sampling, added a reverse piano pulled from a track (with permission) of DanielGtrman. It's minor changes, but I hope it warrents a relisten.
*Second Edit- After more advice added a Bassline made using Argon synth (ipod VST)... I wish I could have just played it on bass, I'm terrible at keys and even worse at virtual ones.
FX'd Obama clips, and cut gunshot sound bites too, as I only have a maximum of 16 loops/instruments and needed room for bassline
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Comments (12)
If you have time take a listen and give Thethanx some feedback.
I really like this. Very mellow and relaxing. Awesome reggae synths man. everything feels right in this track. Make a me a wan' hit da big spliff and take da ganja straight to de dome!!
This is a haunting style of dub! I love that you made good use of the organ, I'm a sucker for organs! Great use of sound effects, I think that's what makes this track dub! Interesting bass, it really growls! Good effecting of the vocal clips too! Nice work man!
Thanks or the review Spiv! Always appriciate your kind words. I´m currently working on another Dub track, I hope you´ll check it out when it happens!
I like it, kinda ska intro moving into the harlem acoustics, different but works, if this is your first attempt then its a good one, its Dub music without a doubt, digging all those sound effects, great Dub beat also, good job man.
Sorry for so long on the response, Appriciate the listen and appriciate the words! I´ve got more dub in my future for sure. I love the feel of it, and I love a good Bassline. Thanks again for the listen!
Really like this tune. I especially love the reverse piano. It's amazing how the simple act of reversing a loop can lead to a totally different feeling and sound. The organ is really what makes me even think of this as a dub tune, or else I would have no idea how to categorize this. Love the pads you bring towards the latter half as well. My only criticism would be the that the bass sounds maxed out and distorted, especially in the few bars where it's the primary sound. Maybe you could eq that and make it more of a sub for those few bars, while leaving the rest as is. Keep up the good work.
I have no idea why I took so long to reply to these, but Thanks for the review and thanks for the advice. Right now it´s a bit hard for me to EQ individual parts of a song without it effecting the whole thing (I´m using an ipod app) but once I get a real DAW I plan on remastering all my tracks. I will definitely fix that bassline! Solid advice and thanks again!
Quite honestly, I have no idea what the genre dub should sound like. What I can say is that I enjoyed this track, very very much. It is so well constructed. Perfect use of fx and the transitions are seamless. An all around sweet piece of music.
Wow thanx, very interesting track here man. Never a dull moment IMO, well constructed. The bass is fine in my opinion as well, could be a lil less squelch I think though. Just a tad brother, just a tad.
Great use of vox saples, the percussion really keeps it moving! Synthwork is on point, and the reggae sub synth really rolls the track along.
Great track, as mentioned, only ish i have is the bass personally. But maybe thats just me lol. As a matte of fact, screw it, just keep it, its great as is. Haha
EDIT:
Nah I think I was trippin Thanx, its fine.
it does? How so?
Thanx Scythe, It's funny that you're review of my track sounds so much like my review of yours... good criticism though, once you mention it I can see hear it myself. I think I still have the synth saved in Argon, once I replace my headphones maybe I'll go back and alter it... Thanks again.
Essentially it is a Dub track but I think some of the loops you have used make it some sort of dub/fusion hybrid. I think some of the early reviews hit the nail on the head. Needs some deep bass and needs a load of fx in various places. Fx loops and individual notes. Mix up the fx you use for variation. Experiment with panning. Overall the levels need a good tweak. Not too shabby though for your first dub. Good effort.
dub/fusion I can live with. Took your advice and added a bassline, used an itouch app called argon synth. also added some fx as well. Unfortunately, one of the limitations of beatmaker is how fx are handled, and panning as well. I Think beatmaker was more designed with a live production sort of mindset, and if you want to adjust panning on a loop or section for only a short section, It's only possible live. Same with applying fx, when I add an fx (and I only have 2 channels) it affects the loop in EVERY section, unless I make a copy of the loop and waste one of my precious 16 available pads on a clean version as well.
I'm curious about the levels as well. I'm quickly discovering getting good levels is one of my weaknesses, probably due to inexperience and shitty headphones... So even just some "turn the bass up a bit, and the drums down" type advice would go a long way. Thanks again!
Real chilled out vibe. What catches me alot is the reverse piano. Gets kinda dark with it then comes back to the sunny side. Gave it another listen. It's got a dope vibe with the acoustic coming in at around 29 sec or so. It's a sick combo with the organ and all that. I guess I kinda key on dark sounds more. Also the perc and drums are really varied. Gives it a bigger sound. It's a trip all this was done on a Touch. Only advice I can give is, play with some delay and reverb a bit. Dub music loves delay and hard spring verb sounds. I like it as is already so dubbin some stuff to it might add some new flavor. Cheers :D
Thanks for the review! actually the piano was totally a happy accident, I meant apply a different effect and accidentally clicked reverse, but I gave it a listen and was like "woah that sounds sweet" I took your advice (and the advice of many others) and added some reverb and delay... at least to a lot of the vocals. One of the sad restrictions of Beatmaker is that it only has 2 channels for fx, only 4 of them, and if you want to apply delay to something like the drum track, it affects the drums for THE WHOLE SONG... Otherwise I would have added some reverb to the drums in certain parts. maybe when I pony up the dough for a laptop and invest in some REAL equipment, I'll come back and tweak it some more. Thanks again!
the vocals get washed out at times, and the reverb on em makes it hard to hear what is being said. but you have a really good song here man. i like the sparseness, i think it helps move the song along at a relaxing pace. nice and uncluttered. good use of samples too, im gonna have to check out this sound bible. good job man.
Soundbible is very cool for free sound effects and such... thanks for the comment on the vocals. I ended up reducing the vocals over all in favor of a nice backwards piano loop, but I think I pulled most of the loops that got washed... Thanks though mastering is something I really need to work on.
Sounds a little too happy to be a Dub to my ears (not a bad thing bro) but maybe you could add a little more music and a little less of the samples. A tearing B line wouldnt go a miss. Good use of Mr B A BarakObama not over powering.
Thanks for the tips! Any chance you could help me place it in the right genre then? It sure ain't reggae...
I took your advice, cut some samples (especially on the vocal ones I think I over did those) and added another loop.
Edit: Bassline added.
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Great use of vox saples, the percussion really keeps it moving! Synthwork is on point, and the reggae sub synth really rolls the track along.
Great track, as mentioned, only ish i have is the bass personally. But maybe thats just me lol. As a matte of fact, screw it, just keep it, its great as is. Haha
EDIT:
Nah I think I was trippin Thanx, its fine.
it does? How so?
I'm curious about the levels as well. I'm quickly discovering getting good levels is one of my weaknesses, probably due to inexperience and shitty headphones... So even just some "turn the bass up a bit, and the drums down" type advice would go a long way. Thanks again!
this is the kind of stuff I like - I see a big future ahead of you.
Some people don't know how to use samples they find in anything.
Two thumbs up!!
You might need to send me some of your other stuff in the future.
Nice laid back vibe, chilled me right out.
Keep the interesting beats coming...
B line (Bassline)
I took your advice, cut some samples (especially on the vocal ones I think I over did those) and added another loop.
Edit: Bassline added.