Ok I tried my best on this one production wise. I tried to strike a balance between quality and making it sound like it was made on crunchy lo-fi hardware (the synths were but it's all mixed ITB).

I had difficulty taming with what in retrospect was a sonically clashing palette (everything seemed bunched up around 300-500 hz) and things always being on the edge of distortion (but kind of liking it that way). Still, I learnt a lot and it feels like a step forward.

I'm reasonably happy with it so I'm going to move on but any mix tips would be gratefully received.

https://soundcloud.com/crx091081gb/postrush

It's always difficult to come to any conclusions on ambient material. People seem to have enormously wide ideas on what fits the genre. For me, the insistent percussion, leaves it as hypnotic, but not what I would call chill (which people usually seem to think of as an essential ingredient).

Having said that, (whatever style you call it) I found it an enjoyable track with just enough variation to keep it interesting. The audio 'squiggles' after the drop were a surprise and I'm it two minds as to what I think of them.

It sounds fairly well balanced to me, but I can't comment on the quality of the mix much. For one thing I'm on a crappy mid-fi at the moment, and for another, I've quite a thick cold which does nothing for my hearing

However, that might be a good thing, because your audience is not likely to be listening on studio quality gear! Have you tried listening to it on a car stereo? That is always very revealing.

Usual disclaimer:
There are people on here that know a lot more than me!

Genre identifications is a nightmare, I'm currently trying to pigeonhole my less dancefloor/more headphone/post-club output as 'pastoral acid' but tbh it's all inspired by a love of the early warp stuff, melodies, synths and the countryside.

Yeh the squiggles get a bit of a mixed response, one friend seemed to really like them when I showed him the track early on and someone on another forum seemed to hate them. They were supposed to come out of nowhere and signal the track was coming to an end (breaking the spell as it were), really I suppose I just had another synth I wasn't using and that's what came out of a few minutes noodling, he liked it so I kept it. They have no reverb on because I wanted them to stand out compared to the rest, I think they could perhaps do with some attention maybe something else would serve their role better. I really wanted to get some field recordings from where the track was inspired by but I didn't get time, perhaps that's the answer. I've kind of spent too long on it to spend any longer right now without driving myself mad.

The car stereo test needs to be done, I've listened to it round my mates on his crappy pc speakers and sub and it seemed ok. Cheers for listening and the feedback though.

Edited by crx091081gb (13/02/13 06:51 PM)

I really enjoyed it!

All the way through I had the nagging feeling that it reminded me of something good from the distant past, and finally it clicked in my head.

Different tempo, but here's the track from way back in 1971:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec8BGEb7_iA

And I intend this as a big compliment - keep up the good work


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Cheers Martin, that means a lot coming from you. Tonto are amazing, their gear gives me serious gearlust, more importantly they were really adept at getting the best from it.