Edify | My First Album

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JosSamLoh
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Edify | My First Album

Post by JosSamLoh »

https://soundcloud.com/jossamloh/sets/edify

Edify is my first full album, starting off with an ambient track, then straight into 3 drum and bass/jungle tracks, then a lofi house track, and to finish it off, back to some nice drum and bass ;). I had a lot of fun working on this album since around october all the way up until the release on my birthday. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed making it :D.

Feel free to ask any questions. Also gonna mention, in this album, The Eastern was made purely using free software! Everything else used Hive 2 at some point.

Appreciate any and all constructive criticism!
DAW    OS
Ardour 7.5.0   Debian 12
https://soundcloud.com/jossamloh

jeanette_c
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Re: Edify | My First Album

Post by jeanette_c »

Hi @JosSamLoh and congratulations on your first full album release!
My comments follow an alphabetical listing of the songs, sorry. :)
Before Anyone Else has an interesting sound aesthetic. It has character. I like the melody sound. Overall perhaps a little too minimal in arrangement for my taste, but that is most likely just me. :) The kick has a lovely bottom end, but lacks bite. The transient sounds a little weak.
Ah, Game Fragments is very old school. This is very 90s, if not late 80s. Good arrangement!
Power again brings good sound choices to the table. Though for Drum and Bass it lacks bass here. The main "pad" has a wavetable vibe that I really like. It speaks of those early wavetable synths, I should know I have a Waldorf Microwave Xt (second generation without the analogue filters). The bass sounds almost vocoder which is captivating. It sounds like drum and bass if it had been around in the mid 80s.
Sky is an interesting one. The sine bass suits it well. You really got me with that one. I was expecting the classic DnB or jungle beat and then that percussion arrived. Great!
Ah Sou brings the classic DnB loop/sample. Samples! I can't say that I am a particular fan of oldschool DnB, but it's fun to hear these. I like the gnarly bass and the processed vocal sample.
The Eastern again introduces a characterful sound palette which is great to hear. I'm not sure the particular "colour choice" represents my favourites, but it certainly represents something out of the ordinary and immediate. A good mix of some recogniseable sounds, mainly the drum loop(s), and the more experimental.
The mixes sound good. Perhaps the "melody" line in Before Anyone Else sounds a touch too loud, but maybe that's because the piece is so sparse and it plays such a big role. Perhaps more breaks could mitigate this impression.
One thing I noticed, in almost all the tracks, is the vintage aesthetic. If you were aiming for an 80s, perhaps early 90s inspired production sound then you are so spot on! If you are aiming for a modern sound there are areas where you could improve. :)
Overall, a good debut album. Which DAW did you use? You said that you used some - or a lot of - Hive for all but The Eastern. Did you use other open or closed source instruments?
Best wishes, jeanette

--
distro: ArchLinux, DAW: Nama, MIDI sequencer: Midish
All my latest music on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rf ... 7jhC1Jnv7g
Albums, patches and Csound on http://juliencoder.de
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Re: Edify | My First Album

Post by JosSamLoh »

@jeanette_c Thanks for all your kind words and I'm very happy to hear you enjoyed the album :D

jeanette_c wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 8:32 pm

One thing I noticed, in almost all the tracks, is the vintage aesthetic. If you were aiming for an 80s, perhaps early 90s inspired production sound then you are so spot on! If you are aiming for a modern sound there are areas where you could improve. :)

So far I haven't really consciously gone for any aesthetic in particular when making a track, though I can definitely see where I got my influences from, I do love the old school stuff :). Been thinking about doing a brostep song for a while now.. Could use that as practice for a more modern aesthetic :D.

jeanette_c wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 8:32 pm

Which DAW did you use?

I use Ardour.

jeanette_c wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 8:32 pm

You said that you used some - or a lot of - Hive for all but The Eastern. Did you use other open or closed source instruments?

Not really, pretty much only used Hive for the rest of the album, I used Yoshimi in The Eastern. Hive is my first synth, so I will probably be using it for a bit longer while I figure it all out, will be looking to expand my synth and plugin arsenal at some point as well.

Appreciate any and all constructive criticism!
DAW    OS
Ardour 7.5.0   Debian 12
https://soundcloud.com/jossamloh

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Re: Edify | My First Album

Post by Impostor »

JosSamLoh wrote: Thu Jan 05, 2023 7:35 am

brostep

Sigh, yet another subsubsubgenre...Is it exclusive to electronic music to assign a new subn genre to any track which does things just slightly different from other tracks in the same subn-1 genre?

How I miss the days when I just called everything house, even if it was techno or ambient or rave or acid or breakbeat or hardcore or.....

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