FroBot - House Sucks (Original Mix) by FroBot
Hey everyone! I released 2 new tracks today! Awwww yea! The first one is called "House Sucks" and is an ironic electro house track. "I hate house music...I hate techno, I hate house, I hate electronica, whatever the FUCK you call it...it SUCKS". What a great line! I actually scarfed this clip from a youtube video -
Funny hey! I thought you guys would like to know where I am picking up my samples from...and I thought this guy was just perfect. Thanks youtube...and the "I hate techno guy".
Anyway, from a technical stand point, I was trying to do some different things in this track. I was using a much rounder kick and no real bass line for part of it. Hoping to see if I could create a different feel on the dance floor with that little change. That is why the track is short, because its more of a crowd-switcher-upper. Also, I tried doing some weird things with swing placement and clap placement. At the beginning of the track, the claps are not on the 2 & 4...I was just looking for a different kind of swing. I then switch back to the stand 2 & 4 soon after and it makes the swing really heavy. I also tried really taking things off time during the breakdown...and I just kind of triggered in what I wanted. Also, bringing the vocals and kick back in on the 7th beat instead of 8 worked out nicely with the audio samples.
The 2nd track I am releasing is a collaboration I did with a new friend. This is a really cool story. Living in Osaka, Japan...which is right dead-center between Kyoto, Nara, Kobe (and is the 2nd biggest city in Japan)...there are tons of tourist and backpackers who come through. So, as you might guess, my couchsurfing.org account is pretty active. I dont usually have time to host people...but I leave it up there in case any producers or musicians are rolling through. I always have time to make some music with people...and since I have a nice studio here...its nice to collaborate with international musicians. I can usually throw together a drum circle, or sit around and produce...so I leave my account up there stating just that. Anyway, a guy named Jasper (Flirtphonic) messaged me saying he was a dj/producer in South Korea...and we should make some tunes. So, long story short, he came to my place...and we put together this track. It came together in 2 days. It is actually the same track I talk about in one of my youtube tutorials -
This was a little bit more of an experimental track with some darker sounds. We also used a lot of Nintendo low-fi glitches all during the 2nd half. We really played around with panning, autopan, and removing record quantization. When you put headphones on, the low-fi glitchy sounds want to bounce through your brain. The vocal samples were from some random youtube video which I have since lost...a guy speaking at a music conference. Sounded nice and the audio was already in a HQ format.
If you want to listen to some of "Flirtphonic's" music, his soundcloud is here - FLIRTPHONIC SOUNDCLOUD.
Also...for those of you who have been reading my blog a while...I tossed 1 extra track up that I am not promoting. Its the first track I ever made...so I thought you guys might get a kick out of it. It has a lot of problems...but at least you can see where I came from. You gotta go to my soundcloud account to get it - FroBot SoundCloud.
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy! I am still working on new tracks now...and each time getting a little bit technically better than before as I learn all this. I am still learning ableton just like the rest of you...and learning what works well on bigger speakers.
The only real problem I am having recently is with producers GAIN SMASHING their tracks just to sell more online. Some people like to smash or over compress so it sounds louder when compared to other tracks. They do this at a cost of removing dynamics from the tracks. I have asked my mastering engineer to slightly gain smash all my tracks....so I can test them in the club and see which sound better. I dont release there, they are just for testing. Obviously, ruining dynamics of a track is not a good thing, and something I dont really want to do...but, I still want to test how the club speakers feel about them. So, my tracks mastered volume sometimes feels a smidge lower than some other producers tracks right now. But since I am not in a huge hurry to SELL to tons of people at the expense of lower sound quality....for the time being, I will just use Tarekith's Guide to Metering idea where checking the average RMS of a track, and bringing other tracks down to that level...then pumping the master volume on the club mixer up....will keep all my tracks at the same volume. This way, I can still get equal volume on MY tracks, without ruining dynamics. I still have a lot of decisions to make later on about this topic.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy! Comment if you feel it! Thanks!
Peace!
FroBot
