I had to look up schwere geburt but well done even if it was a long, difficult process. I don’t know that high level stuff but I hope it gets faster and easier the more you do it (like everything with bass). Still a lot of work though. Did you compose everything in that song? If so, that’s awesome. A lot of skills and knowledge went into that. I like the instrumentals around the two-minute mark. Catchy and interesting. Cool song.
1 Like
I did! Well done!
1 Like
Yes, everything was built from the ground up … except the drums. I always have tunes in my head right before I sleep or when I wake up. This is my way to get rid of those…
Programming drums for electronic music is easy (cause: no rules!), but it’s not for “hand made” conventional stuff. And I wanted to have a “band” feel for this one.
So, for the drums in this song I took some inspiration from MIDI drum loops and changed them in a way I liked and added my own ideas, especially at the end.
I hate to have stock stuff in my songs though, but you need to work around your limitations. It’s a process…
This is track #5, (ever!) so I’m still learning. I promise that I’ll not be using stuff done by others by track #10 
Mission accomplished!
In fact, my skills and knowledge are very limited.
What you need:
- Insomnia that gives you song ideas.
- A way to hum your ideas into a recording
- A DAW and not too many plugins that just keep you from doing real stuff.
- People like @howard and @TheMaartian that help you when you get stuck with technology. And you’ll get stuck often, cause there are just too many options and only 10% is really useful.
- A patient (girl)friend that is willing to support you
- Stubborn patience, patience and more patience. Just like with everything that you want to master.
4 Likes
Wow! This is awesome! Very well done! Your girlfriend has a great voice!
3 Likes
Yeah, she is great in every respect, really, but this was a new discovery for me.
I feel guilty that I made fun of here all those years when she was singing softly to herself when doing stuff. But she makes fun of me when I do other stuff, so it’s only fair
I wasn’t sure about the idea of her singing until we sat at the diner table, both with head phones, beats playing from an app, lyrics on my tablet and the microphone pointing in her general direction. A very clandestine operation, this is how her father must have spent his time at the KGB (without the singing :-))
But then I heard her doing her thing and I knew it had potential. It was a WTF moment … and I cannot even use the more sensual sounding stuff, as this would have been too much for this little fun ditty.
Of course, a professional singer has more control over pitch and timing. But just like I need to practice playing bass or fumbling my audio production software, she needs to get comfortable and trained in front of a microphone. And she is willing to do that, very cool!
Maybe you can (ab)use your husband for creating songs? It will give another dimension to an already great relation - highly recommended!
5 Likes
Yeah, it’s why I only have like 12 full covers in seven years 
Original music is different though. Harder in some ways, easier in others. My problem is creative block up front more than the mixing at this point.
1 Like
For me it’s the other way around.
A great ‘trick” for getting all kinds of creative ideas is insomnia!
The moments before your mind gives up and you finally fall asleep or you wake up, but your brain is not quite working are the best, especially if you’re not sure if you are still dreaming or not.
Also, the f#cked up feeling of never getting enough sleep, combined with the extacy of having slept at all adds greatly to the necessary mood for all kinds of non comformistic ideas…
You should try it
(everything else s#cks about that though…)
I’ve had it for 35 years so… I would like to stop trying it. (specifically, Delayed Sleep Phase disorder).
This is great
2 Likes
I said it before here - what really helped me to get to sleep are the Soundcore Sleep A30 earbuds.
I have modified some wave sounds that match my requirements exactly, as they rock me into sleep. You can also use the A30s also for podcasts, if that is your thing. The new version of the A30s holds power for 8 hours in Bluetooth mode and don’t beep when the battery goes down.
Also, they are small enough for side sleepers.
I cannot recommend the A30s enough, they really are a life saver, at least to me - I fall asleep much easier now, though my mind often finds tricks to keep me awake. But it’s nothing like before!
You can test them and send them back if you don’t like it. Amazon or Souncore direct is best, maybe there are even better options in Japan?
I use these sleep sound: Waves Ionic Sea. The 70/80/90/100 refer to the panning. You need to find out what works better for you.
Playback is done in a loop, where I enabled repeat for one song and crossfade between songs.
If you test those samples through ordinary headphones, you know what I mean with “rocking to sleep”.
I’m thinking of creating my own beach/wave sounds with a synth, from scratch, to match the frequency spectrum I need (not too high, not too low), as well as with the right tempo and stereo panning (possibly with some binaural effects, to “fill” my brain).
The “natural sounds” are ok, but not perfect (I think that a more regular/predictable pattern with a enhanced rocking effect would be even better).
Thank you!!!
2 Likes
Ok, next: Atme (atme mich) [Jessie’s 80085 Version]
A friend of mine is DJ and she wanted to have a house/techno version of “Atme (Atme mich)” - less guitar, more sensual atme…
It was quite hard, I have to admit. First I wanted to make the original track sound housy, but it didn’t work out. It just sounded cheesy and cheap.
So then I just took the vocal samples and replicated the rhythm of the vocals as a bass line, added more and more detail and based the whole house version on it.
Also, I pictured a good friend of mine dancing, as she always plays the “air piano” when dancing. I wanted to make something she would dance to.
It start’s with a dominant bass line but quickly the track morphs to real techno/house, so … sorry!
This is it:
One interesting thing: there are some acoustic illusions in this track. It made me almost go mad today, as I could not explain certain effects I was hearing. I checked and rechecked the MIDI, and it was not in the individual MIDI tracks, but somehow created by the sum of tracks. There are some melodies and pitches that are not in my notes.
Also there is some kind of 3d effect in it, probably cause of the plugins … though the plugins are not 3d per sé.
My girlfriend just listened to this version, and this was the first thing she noticed: “this is a drugs song!”.
Well …
Bottom line: this whole acoustic illusion thing got me intrigued - will do some research how to become more elaborated.
4 Likes
Cool. I love stuff like this. One common thing is that your ears can easily perceive sounds an octave off (usually higher) than the sound’s fundamental, if the first harmonic of the tone is strong enough. And the same goes for other harmonics tending to have an effect with other notes near them. So your ears think they are hearing a melody or harmony you did not play.
I have a cover where it sounds (to me, anyway) like a a pad is playing in a different octave for one note each measure because of this.
3 Likes
Thanks!!!
The funny thing is: my friends that partied hard on techno and house in the 90s love it. My friends that partied after Minimal Techno became mainstream find it to busy … so they hate it.
I lived in Cologne when one of the major minimal labels (Kompakt) became a thing, so many of my Cologne friends back then were Minimal producers and DJs.
I always detested that sound, as it is so lazy and unpassionate. It’s like listening to a cheap sewing machine. I was pretty sure it would do something to their brain and now I know I was right
When I studied psychology and cognitive sciences, I was very interested in optical illusions, as those reveal a lot about how cognitive processes work.
I never really thought about acoustic illusions, but this is the next rabbit hole I will disappear in. I imagine that you can do a lot of fun stuff with knowledge of the principles behind it.
You got me curious! Link? Link!!!
By the way, I am working on a real song, you know, with verses and chorus and all that sh#t. It’s going sloooooow, but I do have a title (“How to kill your Gods”) and some lyrics scribbles.
I have to decide if it will be angry punk, melancholic wave or ironic blues. Let’s see where the lyrics will lead me…
And then there is the recurring issue of having a singer. My girlfriend cannot do angry and I really really really cannot sing (even Melodyne gained consciousness when listening to my voice recordings and wanted to commit suicide by crashing :-)).
Also, I have a Dutch accent (much like the guy from Gold Member), which only goes for the ironic blues version, certainly not for the melancholic stuff. And my upbringing prevents me from raising my voice, so no punk for me too…
So: I need a male singer - and most male singers I met were @ssholes (unlike the females)
2 Likes
original:
my cover:
I am playing exactly the same notes on the synth pads as the original but to my ears it sounds like every third note of the repeating pattern on the high patch goes to the opposite octave of the original. This is purely an interaction of the two patches I am using.
2 Likes
First of all: very cool cover of a very cool song!
Makes me wanna keep the Gretsch hollow body guitar I have here and learn to play it! The way you use the guitar sounds cool, as gives your version that “lonely” feeling at the end, which adds something to the original version…
(I’m a big fan of ending of songs that leave you with a certain feeling!)
So, to be honest, I don’t hear the “very third note of the repeating pattern on the high patch goes to the opposite octave of the original”, but this surely is my untrained ear. I need to listen and relisten. Be patient with me (as I know you are).
Also my ears are burning, cause I’m working on an electro blues kind of song (yes, “How to kill your Gods”!)… which is going nowhere yet. It never does on day one.
I want to rip off my headphones, cause of 6 hours noodling into nothingness
I’m quite interested in your vocal part! Did you use Melodyne? What effects did you use?
This week I’ll meet “my” park punk chick (if her ADHS allows for it), and she can sing, but only in German. And “How to kill your Gods” does not sound great in German … German words have to many syllables, and for this song I need shorter words to fit the message into comprehensive sentences. Also, this song requires a male singer, somehow, don’t know why.
So, I might try it myself, providing you can tell me the secret of tuning my vocals to something bearable
I’m thinking that my Dutch accent might be an advantage, considering the topic and the need to be blunt and ironic…
Haven’t decided yet - the lyrics themselves will show the way…
Thanks! That’s actually a bass. I am using two different basses on this song, one my BB734a for the bassline, and the other a SBV800MF for the lead sound.
2 Likes
Ah, cool! No need to get into 6-string then!
Until now I used a plugin for guitar parts, and for playing chords I still need those.
But I will try to use my bass for some other guitar parts too, never really thought about it, I admit.
I try to avoid playing beyond the 12th fret, but now I have a reason to go beyond to the unknown
1 Like
Two weeks ago we had a heavy thunderstorm that woke me up at 4:00. Loud bangs, VERY loud bangs and machine gun like noises. It was crazy.
I immediately had a melody in my mind and my inner voice was singing the German kids song “Hoppe Hoppe Reiter” to it. It was Alien Sex Fiend vs children’s knee-bouncing rhyme, so that was quite unnerving…
As I couldn’t sleep anymore, I started working on that track.
Although I had the complete song in my mind, the vocals proved to be hard to do. My girlfriend refused to take part in this project and my ADHS park punk chick was really exited to do it, and then disappeared from the face of the earth.
ADHS…
So I “sang” myself. That proved hard (again), as I am definitely not a singer.
I tried to make the best out of my limitations and did the vocals DAF-like, aka “Sprechgesang”, which is the German command-barking form of rap.
Consequently, the song started out being Alien Sex Fiend like and ended up sounding more like DAF.
I wish I had a singer, but after many many many takes, a few filters and MeloDyne corrections, the vocals are good enough for an amateur song.
I will redo the song as soon as I find a singer that won’t disappear though…
One fun fact: I listened to the song a few days ago, and I realized that the “crazy” guitar is very much inspired by the noise the thunderstorm made. It’s very cool how the subconsciousness works!
Also, the slightly changed lyrics work both for kids and for adults. Native German speakers will get what’s happening in the subtext
This is it:
And the version without vocals, which is probably better:
4 Likes
I actually think the vocal version is fine as is - it’s cool. Your vocal effects are pretty much perfect IMO. Some additional compression would maybe be good as they are peaking a little too much and it could help tame that while keeping the effect you want popping the start of the words.
2 Likes
Thanks!!!
Without your help I would sound like a squicky rubber duck
I have set the final compression on max ratio, but then I set the volume level of the vocal track a little higher (sometimes going red) , to add more distortion, as I hoped for a Tuxedo Moon “no tears” effect.
That didn’t happen, but the effect was at least 80s broken…
I will put the learnings of this track into “Wischmop Liebe”, which is more complicated, so it let it sudder for a while…