I Am The Creator

Post by **Neil B** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 4:51 am

This file has expired and is no longer available here. The owner of the topic can re-upload the file, or post a link to an off-site file. <a name="planetz-tag"></a>Genre: Trance <a name="planetz-tag"></a>Uses: Pulsar Mixers copyright © 2005 Neil Buxton _____________________________________ Hi everyone (he says sheepishly) and a Happy New Year to you all.
Okay, it’s been nearly 12 months so apologies for absence (if anyone noticed). I’ve missed you guys, missed the banter, the general discussions and missed hearing your music too.
Don’t ask - 2004 was a really lousy year! It started badly and got worse with car smash, partial deafness for a while, deaths in the close family, caring for the bereaved, our plan to move to the coast fell through again to name but a few tragedies and catastrophes. So all in all it’s not been good for being creative and being into the music.

Anyway, I’ve was remotivated towards the end of 2004:
We’ve had a Performing Arts Company at our church for a few weeks running a DJ/MC/remixing course for some of our youngsters. On top of that we widened it out to include dance acts, singers and everything else so in the end it became a sort of “Popstars” every week, with nobody being ejected though (nice church

)

I was asked to write something a bit quickly for one of the dance acts and this is the result. This is the instrumental version – the live version had some MC work and narration/talkover in parts of it from Genesis Chapter 1.
Sounded okay in the church hall in its rough, live form and I’ve decided to finish it, but now I’ve listened to it on 4 or 5 different hi-fi’s I can’t figure out whether the mix is any good, whether my ears are fully recovered or what! You know the story – sounds great in the studio, great in the car, okay from another room, rubbish on your mate’s hi-fi etc.

So can I ask you fine gentlemen for comments and tips on the mix please – this version is based on my studio monitor setup (Spirit Absolute 2’s & Spirit Folio mixing desk) so any comments you pass on can help me set my studio up better too! On a serious note I may just have to tweak my studio “output” (desk eq’s for instance) so I can trust it more than my ears.
You can even comment on the track too if you wish (it’s spelt C---R---A---P).

Hopefully I’m back with “Z” and a have lot of catching up to do!

Trackname: I Am The Creator (6 Mins:40 Secs)
Filename Neil_B_Creator.MP3 6.3 Mb
Recorded only at 16 bit and mixed down to MP3 at 44.1 @ 128 thingies.

Pulsar 3.1c SFP, Cubase VST 5.1/32, Recycle 2.0 and other odd little gadgets and tools
Kenton Control Freak
Pulsar II Mixers and Orbitone 303.
VST Synths: Atmosphere, Superwave 8, Vanguard, lots of Kontakt tracks (all the percussion, choir) and a few samples mangled/doctored beyond recognition.
Quite a few VST effects.
Choir samples courtesy of Spectrasonics “Symphony of Voices”
Santa gave me Wavelab for Christmas but I haven’t used it properly on this track yet – I think it is too far down the line.

Neil B

_________________
Neil B

[ This Message was edited by: Neil B on 2005-01-13 04:41 ]

[ This Message was edited by: Neil B on 2005-06-05 02:48 ]

Gordon Gekko · Post by **Gordon Gekko** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 5:25 am

cheers neil, welcome back

Post by **hubird** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 10:39 am

Hey Neil, welcom back :-0
not a year for the roses...hope things will get better for you in 2005

Great track you've made, must have sounded huge in that church

One thing: the bassdrum (and related drum instruments) could be placed more in the front to my taste and for the matter of the style.
Specially as it was made for a dance show

Anyway, you must have earned a ticket to heaven now

Post by **Neil B** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:32 am

Thanks Legros – I’m looking forward to rejoining the community now that my depressions have eased and my hearings getting back to normal. It’s also nice to be back in a musical mood. Been reading some of the off-topics and it seems that I’m not alone in having a bad time recently. Still, that’s life & my heart goes out to anyone else having a rough time of it.

Hey Huub – nice to hear from you.
What, aren’t I worth a smiley????
Yeah it was a bad year but Austria was great (thanks for your email help). Are you skiing again this winter?

Thanks for your reply. It’s strange because on my studio monitors the separation and mix seems okay. On the hi-fi in the lounge the bass end is dominant and even though the hi-hats etc are separated well it felt that the kik drum and lower frequency stuff was overpowering the mix.
This is my dilemma. Do I adjust the bass eq on my studio desk a bit for future tracks or is it simply a matter of volume levels as opposed to separation (in this case the kik drum that you commented on)?

Anyone got a better set of ears spare until mine are fixed?

Post by **hubird** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 12:12 pm

separation is good, it's just taste or what's usual in party dance

I still must be carefull not to loose that balance in my studio doing dance tracks

no skiing this year, I need two TFT's

Smilie? Ok:

............ ' Can't hear anything anymore, but my ears are ok '

[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2005-01-07 12:26 ]

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 12:31 pm

Hiya Neil

Good to see the English contingent growing...welcome back!

Great track, mix/separation sounds good to me, but only listened to it at work on cheap 'n' nasty headphones thus far (will check it out at home).

Royston

nitty gritty · Post by **nitty gritty** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 3:50 pm

Knocked together you say??

Sounds great on my c-r-a-p advent pc speakers at work.

Welcome back to the forums.

I'm with Royston --- good to see more uk contributors.

AudioIrony · Post by **AudioIrony** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:15 pm

Great to see you back Mr Neil,
I played your track through my patented C--R--A--P ™ hyper filter all in one sun glasses and rain coat COMBO and felt there wasn't enough C--R--A--P to be filtered

Hope 2005 is your year
cheers
Brett

Post by **Neil B** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 4:19 am

Thanks for your replies folks.
Royston - I seem to remember that word "work" but it's over 2 years since I retired now. Can't remember associating it with headphones though - you must have a good job

Look forward to how it sounds to you at home.

Nitty Gritty - thanks for your input too.
Funny, but I've never thought in terms of the "Brit" contingent on the site. I've always felt it to be more like a different planet somehow.

Brett - Thanks for your reply too. Nice to see that you've changed to sunglasses and raincoat instead of staring at a fence with underpants on your head

- was that one or 2 years ago? And what sort of person must I be to remember it?

Seriously though everyone - thanks for your help and comments to date. It makes me feel that I can TRUST what is coming out of my studio monitors for mixing/mastering.
Much appreciated.

Right, we're currently being battered by 80MPH gales so no mountain biking today - time to start on a new track.

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 5:25 am

Good to read you and hear some music from you again.

I am sad too to hear the sorrowful occurrences that past you last year and I´am glad that you came out of them with a new motivation and ideas for music.

To the track.
I can´t say much about the overall quality because I can hear it through small speakers only, covered somewhere in the computer monitor, my bavarian studio will be setup in few weeks.
But I can say something about the structure.
I like the sound and drums you used, bass fits with the BassDrum and those filter sounds and pads seems to fit too.
Rhythm is fine and works, you know my sympathy for trance stuff, so I was glad to hear a more Neil(ish)

music from mark 3:20.

I am really happy to hear some music from you again, trance or whatever, so welcome back Neil. I am curious in your next track, more luck in 2005 to you and your family.

cheers

_________________
Music starts where any language ends

[ This Message was edited by: ChrisWerner on 2005-01-08 05:26 ]

Post by **Neil B** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 10:06 am

Nitty Gritty -
Forgot to mention regarding the "knocked up".
What I meant really was that I haven't spent much time varying the velocities on the hi-hats, cymbal, shakers etc to humanise it.
You also prompted me to have a look around and realise that the Brit contingent is quite active at the moment - yeah, it's good to be a Brit

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 11:39 am

Welcome Neil. Was thinking of you at Christmas wondering what had happened. Very glad you've returned and things are on a better track for you

Your attempts to move to the coast sound like the same success rate as my attempts to leave the steaming tropical sun of Queensland and head far south...

Nice clean dance. Nothing too tricky to catch out the dancers. I like the quote - is it something from the original Star Trek series ?

The only problem I had with this is that, especially at the beginning, the drums sounded like they were lagging, like not quite in time, or perhaps too much 'groove' effect, or, more likely, too heavily pumped in compression. I especially noticed when the voices came in that something almost sounded distorted - just hitting too hard and chopping a huge ledge out of the sound somewhere.

But overall I liked it. Simple, but not melodically cliched. Hate those songs where you can predict every progression !

Welcome again

AudioIrony · Post by **AudioIrony** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 2:13 am

On 2005-01-08 04:19, Neil B wrote:

Brett - Thanks for your reply too. Nice to see that you've changed to sunglasses and raincoat instead of staring at a fence with underpants on your head - was that one or 2 years ago? And what sort of person must I be to remember it?

Yeah, that was New Years Eve 2003-2004 - Ironically, (or moreover inexplicably) switching to the the Sunglasses and Raincoat Combo means I never have to leave the house, and therefore, fences no longer hold a fatal "underpants on my head" fascination.

I'm flattered you remembered the episode - I think the comment was triggered by another combo - alcohol and someone's great music

I'm now working on perfecting my Spandex Jump-Suit and Guitar Combo - I'll let you know when it's ready

Post by **Neil B** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:15 am

Hi Spirit,
Must be one of those "X-Files" thingies too 'cos I was thinking about you over Christmas. We had some snow and of course someone quoted Captain Oates "Shan't be long, just stepping outside the tent". Reminded me of your track a while back- spooky!

Thanks for the comments and appraisal.
The wave file is fine and I didn't check the MP3 before I uploaded, but when I play the MP3 through my Windows MPlayer I too noticed a few glitches.
I took the MP3 back into Wavelab but there isn't any obvious clipping or anything - strange.

Yes I did apply compression (perhaps too much) to the kik drum and maybe that affected the timing a bit.
Having said that I seem to remember that Cubase processes the arrangement window from the top down and this can affect timing on "busy" tracks lower down the arrangement (perhaps that was on old versions). The percussion and bass were all done in Kontakt and I didn't export them until near the end and they were sitting near the bottom of the stack, so perhaps this was the cause, more than the compression.

Glad you liked and appreciated the track though.

The "I Am The Creator" speech came off a sample CD, not Star Trek. When this was performed to by the dancers the 2nd break or bridge setion with the choirs had an MC reading from Genesis Chapter 1, so yep, it's another Christian based track (perhaps I'll remix "Kumbayah" one day)

Post by **Neil B** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:24 am

GOOD NEWS FOLKS

Just got back from church and our vicar & I have agreed to sell CD's of this track with all profits going to the Tsunami Appeal Fund through Tear Fund or Christian Aid.
Advance orders already from the congregation mean I'm going to be printing sleeves and burning CD's for much of this week!
So it's a big thank you too to all you members that have helped and offered tips over the past couple of years. YOU can know that you too have helped to contribute to the disaster funds through your contributions to Planet Z and your help to me.
A big thank you.

A thought - how about everyone who downloads this track giving $0.5 or 0.5 Euros or £0.50 or whatever to their local Christian appeal funds?
Let me know if you do.

Thanks again everyone.
I just feel sorry for all the "grannies" who buy it expecting a hymn or something

_________________
Neil B

[ This Message was edited by: Neil B on 2005-01-09 05:33 ]

[ This Message was edited by: Neil B on 2005-01-09 05:34 ]

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 6:44 am

Welcome back! Sorry to hear about your misfortunes, 2004 hasn't been the best year for me either, so let's hope 2005 is going to be better.

ok technically there isn't really much wrong with this track, except that it could do with a generous boost in the bass-area, or at least substitute the current kickdrum with something better, because I think they stopped using this sort of thing in 1995

To be honest the whole thing sounds very old school with very clichéd chord progressions in the trance part, although it does get much better in the part with the choirs, which reminded me of the awesome Starchaser tracks you and Chris Werner did a while ago.

btw all drums done with a softsampler like Kontakt are sample-accurate so there can't be any timing discrepencies and it doesn't matter where in the stack they are. I didn't really notice any timing anomalies anyway...

_________________

[ This Message was edited by: King of Snake on 2005-01-09 06:46 ]

[ This Message was edited by: King of Snake on 2005-01-09 06:49 ]

Post by **Neil B** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 10:23 am

Hi KoS
Thanks for your reply. I always appreciate your knowledge of the current scene and especially your up-front honesty

I seem to remember you suggesting that my kik drum needed new skins a couple of years ago - promise to do as I'm told this year!
Truly though I AM grateful for your tips.
Interesting about the Kontakt too. I know that it's sample accurate but I was still thinking of it in terms of midi and it's place in the arrangement window in Cubase. I was planning to have my midi tracks above the audio ones for the next track but I guess it doesn't matter.
Glad you liked the choir bridge anyway.

Sorry to hear you had a poor 2004 too. Let's hope and pray that 2005 will be a good year for us all on "Z".

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 9:04 am

On 2005-01-09 10:23, Neil B wrote:
Hi KoS
Thanks for your reply. I always appreciate your knowledge of the current scene and especially your up-front honesty

hey, no problem!

as for the kickdrum, why not toy around a bit with Adern's KickMe device, there's some great kicks to be had from that thing. I also sometimes just sample a kick from a dance track I like (if it has an isolated kick somewhere) and maybe eq it a little. No need to spend hours designing a kick if you can just nick it from someone else eh?

[ This Message was edited by: King of Snake on 2005-01-13 09:06 ]

Post by **Neil B** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 4:13 am

Hiagain King of Snake -
You've sort of stolen my thunder a bit. I was going to sample a kik drum off your most recent track and use it next time I did a dance track (for a bit of fun), not tell you (at first) and see what comments came up

I have got a lot of kik samples but the one I used seemed to be a bit lonely and looked at me from a corner of my hard disk with those "please use me" pleading eyes, adding "I may sound like 1995, but I must be due for a revival".

I take your point about KickMe, but I seem to remember it requires ModIII or Flexor or something, which I haven't got (yet). It's on my wish list.

Anyway, I promise to use a better Kik next time so that I don't incur the wrath of KoS

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As an update to all, I mentioned earlier that I intend to try and sell a few copies for the Tsunami Relief Funds so to let you know that with advanced orders, sales to date (6 days) and expected orders, it looks like 200 copies at least with approx £1 profit on each copy going to the fund.
Hey folks, I've sold something (not bad eh for someone in their early fifties)

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Finally (for now) I should also like to express thanks to Eddie Gill and the team at
http://www.superwave.co.uk/products.html
If you're into dance, check out their website
- I love their products.

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Thanks again everyone.

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 4:42 am

Kick Me is free and a stand-alone SFP device.
There is no need for any versions of modular.
Time to give it a try, you will love it.
Also it has many presets, enjoy it!

http://www.adern.com/download.php?file=2