Votre Majesté

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jonetsu
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Votre Majesté

Post by jonetsu »

Votre Majesté

... c'est un honneur.

Your Majesty, it's an honour.

Haunting dragging drums, gritty guitars, barnyard.

https://soundcloud.com/nominal6/jam717-votremajeste
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GMaq
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by GMaq »

Hi,

Great groove on this one! Love the drum sounds and the guitar has a really cool metallic tone (not in the heavy sense) that rings out nicely in the mix. Also like the breakdown in the middle with the audio clips. Very nice work!
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by ufug »

Very groovy and dynamic. You have a true knack for blending electronic and organic sounds. Is this something you think of in a deliberate way? I've tried doing it a few times but it always falls flat for me.
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jonetsu
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by jonetsu »

Thanks for the comments !

About the blending of electronic and acoustic, yes, this where I'd like to go. It could be a metaphor on machine/human interaction in a broad sense.

Most of the time it has to groove. Apart from abstract pieces which sometimes I can be doing, there has to be a groove. And some melody/theme. The groove can be subtle (not enough of those, though) or taking a good place in the mix, although a groove is always multi-part. It's not only drums and percs, or a bass or an arp or anything else, but rather a groove is eventually made of the interweaving of those components.

I can't say much unfortunately about how to make the blending as it kinda 'just happens'. An observation would be that every component/instrument has to give way for the whole, more importantly with any acoustic instruments when the base is synthesized. Once the acoustic instrument's sound is modified enough to fit the synths, then some of the original acoustic sound can be blended back. It's a bit like the reverse of adding synths to an acoustic piece, where the synths have to give way. In any case, this goes along with mixing as it plays an important creative part.

I find that so far what I do does not have that much sharp definition. It's not always possible to distinguish cleanly each voice and there's a on-purpose doing for that but, I'd like also to add more definition. I should be paying more attention to which frequencies are used by the instruments and try to limit the overlaps. That's one thing I like from the recent Rated Blue Al Green 'trippy' piece, is that despite the guitar improv being 'psychedelic' (lack of other term) and all over with echo, distortion, flanger, reverb and what have you, the overall impression is that the band's sound is clear.
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by milo »

jonetsu wrote:I find that so far what I do does not have that much sharp definition. It's not always possible to distinguish cleanly each voice and there's a on-purpose doing for that but, I'd like also to add more definition. I should be paying more attention to which frequencies are used by the instruments and try to limit the overlaps. That's one thing I like from the recent Rated Blue Al Green 'trippy' piece, is that despite the guitar improv being 'psychedelic' (lack of other term) and all over with echo, distortion, flanger, reverb and what have you, the overall impression is that the band's sound is clear.
This is really interesting to read. I wonder, how much of an artist's sound is actually experienced by the artist as a limitation? Your sound is really good, and quite characteristic, but you seem to be unsatisfied with some things about it. My sound has a lot of limitations that I would like to break free of. I guess artists are always trying to improve their skills at the craft.

But I wonder how Tom Petty would have sounded with some voice lessons? Would he have been as good, or would we have liked his sound so much? What if Lightnin' Hopkins had taken guitar lessons? Or Kurt Cobain had studied music composition? Would these things have made them better, or would it have spoiled their "sound?"

I like this track. The drums are especially good, I think.
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by jonetsu »

In my case I guess that the question about studying music composition does apply. I do not know much about musical theory. Only the basics, like minor/major/seventh chords. Since my guitars are now for years not tuned in a standard, I even do not mind about finding out which chords are played. I simply play and make things happen and blend. Of course I also developed hooks and patterns within this 'universe' as it's not totally wild.

I find that there's room for more definition in the sounds that I produce. I'd like this year to start a web site and put some re-worked pieces as an attempt to share through 'commercial appreciation' the work on which I nevertheless spend quit some time. Perhaps like a craftsman of some sort who gets some money out of the woodwork he does. And at the same time to widen the distribution somehow (have no idea at the moment) so that more people get to hear the music. In this context I'm looking for ways to 'improve' the sound to add more definition.

And I totally agree with singing lessons, perhaps even more. Eg. what would have happened if Neil Young actually took singing lessons very seriously ?
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by jonetsu »

An update was uploaded, a bit more present on the guitar side, and a few touches here and there.
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by Basslint »

I like it, it sounds sorta dub-by, I think there is potential but I'd like to hear a guitar that's more overdriven and audible. There's a band whose guitarist does the "drum and bass on the front" thing very well, Khruangbin. I suggest you give a listen to them (if you haven't already) and let me know your opinion, even if their genre is a bit different.
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jonetsu
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by jonetsu »

Basslint wrote:I like it, it sounds sorta dub-by, I think there is potential but I'd like to hear a guitar that's more overdriven and audible. There's a band whose guitarist does the "drum and bass on the front" thing very well, Khruangbin. I suggest you give a listen to them (if you haven't already) and let me know your opinion, even if their genre is a bit different.
Thanks for the reference. I've listened to some of their material on NPR's Tiny Desk. It's OK, but not much more IMHO. It's incredible the pickup the mics have for the bass player and the guitarist voices. On the first piece the bass player is far from the mic and only doing some kind of murmur and the mic picks it up very clearly as if it was done close to the mic. Then I got distracted by the hilarious comments on the bass player.

So their material is OK, although I don't see the point with the piece I posted. I haven't thought about the drum and bass on the front thing. It was just like that for that piece. Some other pieces I did also have drums and bass a bit like that, but again, it's because they simply happened like that. I played a real bass for some time and like the instrument, how it can interleave with drums so that both can be considered as a single unit.

I also do not think about 'having a potential' per se. There are pieces I've made that if I want to try to commercialize I find could be polished and remixed while others I would leave behind for now. I guess that's evaluating a potential. Although for me it's more at the guts/feel level.

BTW, I don't really know what dub is.
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by lilith »

The track and groove is great. I find the vocal samples extremely irritating. I was two times checking if something else was playing in the background.
Where are these samples from, it somehow sounds familiar? The guitar could be shifted a bit more to higher frequencies.
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by jonetsu »

lilith wrote:The track and groove is great. I find the vocal samples extremely irritating. I was two times checking if something else was playing in the background.
He he.
lilith wrote:Where are these samples from, it somehow sounds familiar? The guitar could be shifted a bit more to higher frequencies.
Evil chuckle, chickens and voice are from Gowler's "Vintage Movie Dialogues" pack at 2£. I'll see about the guitar, I think it could indeed get a tad brighter.
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by Basslint »

jonetsu wrote: BTW, I don't really know what dub is.
Dub is a form of minimalistic Jamaican music in which bass is the central instrument. Genres like DnB, Jungle and Dubstep are its descendants.

When I said "potential" I did not mean in an offensive way, nor was I referring to commercial potential. I meant to say that it could be the core for a sound which can be explored in future tracks.
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Re: Votre Majesté

Post by jonetsu »

Basslint wrote:
jonetsu wrote:When I said "potential" I did not mean in an offensive way, nor was I referring to commercial potential. I meant to say that it could be the core for a sound which can be explored in future tracks.
As I do more and more creative work, it seems that without thinking about it I develop a 'style', a 'way' or some 'signature'. I think what plays a role in this is that I do not know that much about styles in the first place, I do not start a creation by thinking that I will do 'in the style of ...' rather, it just 'happens' and, I do not have the theory nor the practice to be able to play in any style. I actually never found anything gratifying in playing others' songs. When I began playing guitar, all friends were playing "Stairway to heaven" and such, so I also tried, but did not find any joy in doing so. I tried playing a few Neil Young songs, same thing. What I really liked was coming up with original stuff, shared my interest in that and got into a few bands like that.

Today I'm still about uniformity at the mixing level, LUFS and that stuff, rather than analyzing what I did and trying to come up with a 'brand'. It seems to happen naturally. This said, I'm not against all those things. I think that unless one is very famous and can really afford to make albums after albums that are very different (Neil Young with "Trans", "Hawks and Doves", the Shocking Pinks, "Re.ac.tor", "Landed on Water", etc.) it can be beneficial to offer a coordinated style so that people can expect a little bit at least something out of a new production.
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