(Electronic) Welcome to my World

[strangers]

COVID19 finally got its dirty hands on me. After I weathered the first three days, I was completely bored in quarantine so what better way to pass the time than to write new music? Here's one of the songs I actually completed.

Enjoy!



https://officialstrangers.bandcamp.com/ ... o-my-world

As always, I'm open to any comments, likes, dislikes, criticism, etc. I'm also really curious if anyone knows why the high end of my tracks are trash only when uploaded to Soundcloud? It's fine on Bandcamp but Soundcloud is a different story.

[integerpoet]

I'm also really curious if anyone knows why the high end of my tracks are trash only when uploaded to Soundcloud?

Are you mastering to peak at no more than -1.1db true?

[Micha1973]

Nice Tune*

[Popey]

Really cool song, no criticism from me

[wowhow]

Woah. I feel like I'm in blade runner with this one. Nice work.

[TritoneAddiction]

Nice track. I like the writing, the sounds and the way it's all put together.
The only thing that distracted me a bit was the cymbals/hihats. They felt very "EQd" for lack of a better word, like it was unnecessarily a bit too sharp sounding. Perhaps you've removed a lot of the lower frequencies in the cymbals? Or perhaps I just perceive them as too loud in the mix. It sounds like the snare also has this almost bright hihat frequencies added to it.
So yeah I really like the track, but the overall cymbal/hihat brightness/loudness felt a bit distracting to my ears.

[strangers]

I'm also really curious if anyone knows why the high end of my tracks are trash only when uploaded to Soundcloud?

Are you mastering to peak at no more than -1.1db true?

I believe I mastered at -0.8 or -0.9. I'll have to try changing that and see if it makes a difference. Thanks!

Nice Tune*

Thanks!

Really cool song, no criticism from me

Glad you liked it. No response can also be a good response so I'll take it.

Woah. I feel like I'm in blade runner with this one. Nice work.

I still haven't watched Blade Runner. It may be time I get around to checking it out.

Nice track. I like the writing, the sounds and the way it's all put together.
The only thing that distracted me a bit was the cymbals/hihats. They felt very "EQd" for lack of a better word, like it was unnecessarily a bit too sharp sounding. Perhaps you've removed a lot of the lower frequencies in the cymbals? Or perhaps I just perceive them as too loud in the mix. It sounds like the snare also has this almost bright hihat frequencies added to it.
So yeah I really like the track, but the overall cymbal/hihat brightness/loudness felt a bit distracting to my ears.

I appreciate the feedback. This is one of the few tracks where overall I did minimal EQ'ing to everything, especially the drums. I mainly cleaned up low end mud and any over the top high end. Listening back I totally hear what you're saying about the cymbals and hi hats. They're too loud and could potentially benefit with some shelving of the high end. There wasn't a lot of low end or even low mids for cymbals and hi hats.I believe I shelved everything below 350 for cymbals and hats even though there wasn't much going on in that range. I'm surprised I didn't catch the volume level. I'll have to see about adjusting that.

I'm also curious to double check the snare. I did layer an additional snare and kick for added girth. That could be where any weirdness is coming from with the snare hits. I usually over-EQ drums which doesn't work in my favor. For this track, I tried to avoid that and focused on volume levels before touching any EQs for minor adjustments. It's always a never ending battle, which I'm sure you're well aware of as well, even though you typically have really solid drum tracks.

[integerpoet]

Are you mastering to peak at no more than -1.1dB true?

I believe I mastered at -0.8 or -0.9. I'll have to try changing that and see if it makes a difference. Thanks!

I should clarify I mentioned -1.1dB true peaks off the top of my head i.e. without actually looking anything up.

This is a sadly deep topic. There is no single standard. Each streaming platform wants a different set of things and each has different consequences for breaking each rule. Some people master for each platform and others try to identify a kind of least-common-denominator "standard" which isn't perfect on any but also doesn't have catastrophic downsides on any.

-1.1dB true peaks is that sort of number for me, but I am a rank amateur and I couldn't tell you where that number came from other than "maybe I saw it on YouTube or something." I can tell you that my SoundCloud postings used to have wrongly angry high ends (clipping? encoding? who knows?) on iPhones (but not web browsers, weirdly) until I started mastering with -1.1dB true peaks, which seems wasteful somehow but not as bad as noise.