(Heavy/Industrial) Nightmare

This forum is for sharing your Reason creations with the rest of the community. If you post a song expecting feedback please take time to leave some for others.
Forum rules
Remember to begin your thread subject with a genre, ie.: (Hiphop) New instrumental
Post Reply
strangers
Competition Winner
Posts: 793
Joined: 06 Mar 2017
Location: NJ

08 May 2022

I've been working on mixing electronic elements with guitars and finally starting to churn out productions I'm happy with. I wrote and recorded everything in Reason (11 Suite). My goal with this song was to get dark, spooky and heavy. The song title speaks for itself. I was aiming to capture various elements of a nightmare and then abruptly waking up.

Enjoy the ride...



https://officialstrangers.bandcamp.com/track/nightmare

Open to any comments, criticism, likes, dislikes, etc.

User avatar
zoidkirb
Posts: 752
Joined: 18 Nov 2018
Location: Brisbane Australia
Contact:

09 May 2022

I like it.
Personal taste perhaps but
I'd like to hear a slightly bigger kick, and maybe a touch more reverb on the snare.
Overall you have a pretty clean sound but maybe since you're not trying to hide the electronic side of it, you could be more generous with FX in general.
Final point, have you considered down tuning a little further? I know that's almost overdone these days but hey it does work.

User avatar
mimidancer
Posts: 636
Joined: 30 Sep 2021

10 May 2022

strangers wrote:
08 May 2022
I've been working on mixing electronic elements with guitars and finally starting to churn out productions I'm happy with. I wrote and recorded everything in Reason (11 Suite). My goal with this song was to get dark, spooky and heavy. The song title speaks for itself. I was aiming to capture various elements of a nightmare and then abruptly waking up.

Enjoy the ride...



https://officialstrangers.bandcamp.com/track/nightmare

Open to any comments, criticism, likes, dislikes, etc.



like it.

Mich01
Posts: 130
Joined: 18 Jan 2015

10 May 2022

Great piece. The change at the end is a great surprise.
Good heavy track!!

greetzz Michel

strangers
Competition Winner
Posts: 793
Joined: 06 Mar 2017
Location: NJ

11 May 2022

zoidkirb wrote:
09 May 2022
I like it.
Personal taste perhaps but
I'd like to hear a slightly bigger kick, and maybe a touch more reverb on the snare.
Overall you have a pretty clean sound but maybe since you're not trying to hide the electronic side of it, you could be more generous with FX in general.
Final point, have you considered down tuning a little further? I know that's almost overdone these days but hey it does work.
It's funny you mention the kick... I have two different kicks layered. One of them is a little beefier. One of the last mix choices I made was to turn that down a bit although I didn't have a specific reason to. I also agree with you on being more generous with effects. I'm primarily a guitarist and always opted for a minimal setup that had little to no effects outside of delay and reverb. Once I got into the electronic world my biggest struggle was and still is incorporating effects. The minimalist in me seems to leave them on the back burner.

Down tuning guitars a few more steps would have been preferrable except I got a little lazy. I recorded a few takes. One was at a lower tuning. I scrapped the lower tuning because I was working on a few other songs at the same time that are in odd tunings and didn't want to deviate too much in fear of forgetting the tunings for the other songs. I'll surely deliver something in the future that's even lower and sludgier.

I really appreciate the feedback especially since you hit on some solid points.
mimidancer wrote:
10 May 2022
like it.
Glad you liked it!
Mich01 wrote:
10 May 2022
Great piece. The change at the end is a great surprise.
Good heavy track!!

greetzz Michel
Glad you liked it, too! I came up with so many different ending sections and wasn't happy with any until I took a few days away from the track, came back and sporadically wrote a totally different ending which is what I kept here. I almost considered extending it and ultimately decided not to. I wanted to stick with the original plan of figuring out how to wake up from a bad dream and conveying that same idea with a semi-abrupt ending.

User avatar
Quarmat
Competition Winner
Posts: 459
Joined: 11 Feb 2021
Location: Europe

11 May 2022

Sounds great. There is clearly true craftmanship and knoweledge in this piece. Excellent track, good job!

User avatar
TritoneAddiction
Competition Winner
Posts: 4219
Joined: 29 Aug 2015
Location: Sweden

12 May 2022

Nice track. :thumbs_up:
I agree that the kick gets lost in the mix at certain places of the track. It's mainly during the more agressive parts, for example at 0:16. It's fine at 1:02. Sometimes the answer isn't always to raise the volume, since it can get too boomy. It might work to make an EQ boost at the clicky frequencies during the aggressive parts. For me though, rather than reach for the EQ, this is where I would reach for my old trusted Disperser. Sometimes it can make things like this cut through the mix without having to raise the volume. But there's never a one way that always works. Maybe it's a synth sound that drowns out the clicky part of the kick? Could always try experimenting with the EQ on the synth in that case.

User avatar
killhamster
Posts: 132
Joined: 02 Aug 2019
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

12 May 2022

Very cool, this sort of thing is right up my alley (among a ton of other things, I can't be nailed down) and I'll be looking forward to more. I don't mind the kick, kickdrums aren't really the main focus of this kind of music as opposed to more dance-oriented things. What did you use to program/record the drums?

My only complaint is the mp3-iness of it, but that's not production, that's just a conversion/output thing. Your high end suffers a lot from it and that kind of mp3 distortion has always been a huge distraction for me.

User avatar
Uman's
Posts: 316
Joined: 17 Jun 2015
Location: France

12 May 2022

Hi

For me, it's downright a cover of "Juno Reactor - Hotaka" with someting which
balances between "U2" and "Prodigy".
This is not a criticism but an observation which makes me find a certain lack of originality.
Regardless, everything is well worked out, the theme well exploited and above all you have
to listen to it very loudly to enjoy! :lol:
- Former member of the disappeared forum "Reason France" -

strangers
Competition Winner
Posts: 793
Joined: 06 Mar 2017
Location: NJ

13 May 2022

Quarmat wrote:
11 May 2022
Sounds great. There is clearly true craftmanship and knoweledge in this piece. Excellent track, good job!
Glad you liked it!
TritoneAddiction wrote:
12 May 2022
Nice track. :thumbs_up:
I agree that the kick gets lost in the mix at certain places of the track. It's mainly during the more agressive parts, for example at 0:16. It's fine at 1:02. Sometimes the answer isn't always to raise the volume, since it can get too boomy. It might work to make an EQ boost at the clicky frequencies during the aggressive parts. For me though, rather than reach for the EQ, this is where I would reach for my old trusted Disperser. Sometimes it can make things like this cut through the mix without having to raise the volume. But there's never a one way that always works. Maybe it's a synth sound that drowns out the clicky part of the kick? Could always try experimenting with the EQ on the synth in that case.
Good ideas and suggestions here. I haven't seen Disperser go on sale in a long time. I'd give it a try if/when it goes on sale. I'll keep the kick in mind for upcoming songs. I must have gotten lost in writing the song to notice the kick getting a little buried in the busy sections. Appreciate the feedback and will keep this in mind since other songs I'm working on are similar to this.
killhamster wrote:
12 May 2022
Very cool, this sort of thing is right up my alley (among a ton of other things, I can't be nailed down) and I'll be looking forward to more. I don't mind the kick, kickdrums aren't really the main focus of this kind of music as opposed to more dance-oriented things. What did you use to program/record the drums?

My only complaint is the mp3-iness of it, but that's not production, that's just a conversion/output thing. Your high end suffers a lot from it and that kind of mp3 distortion has always been a huge distraction for me.
The kick is always a tricky thing depending on the genre. I'll pay a little more attention to it with upcoming songs. This song was heavily inspired by Mick Gordon's Doom soundtrack. It's been a wild ride creating sounds and songs in a similar style. As for drums, I used EzDrummer 2. I'll usually finger drum the entire track to lay down the structure and then dive into editing and programming the details within Reason's sequencer. From there, I always make use of EzDrummer's multi outputs to run each drum to its own mix channel to bypass EzDrummer's internal mixer. I have a few expansions where drums are the raw recordings so I can do whatever I want with them. It used to be a really time consuming process that I've gotten pretty quick with due to running through this process so many times now.

I'll have to double check my export settings for MP3 uploads used with SoundCloud. Now that you mention it I hear the same wonkiness in the high end when listening on SoundCloud. I'll have to play around with the export options to see how I can clean that up. Thanks for the feedback!
Uman's wrote:
12 May 2022
Hi

For me, it's downright a cover of "Juno Reactor - Hotaka" with someting which
balances between "U2" and "Prodigy".
This is not a criticism but an observation which makes me find a certain lack of originality.
Regardless, everything is well worked out, the theme well exploited and above all you have
to listen to it very loudly to enjoy! :lol:
I'm a little confused by this. :lol: Never heard of Juno Reactor nor do I see how my song is a cover or any resemblance to U2 or Prodigy? Out of curiosity, I'm listening to Hotaka now. I guess I can see how you'd pick up similarities based on simply having a mix of electronic elements and guitars. Outside of that, calling it a cover and lack of originality is a bit of a slap in the keyboard. Sure, this is the interweb and won't be everyone's cup of tea but still a pretty lame remark considering how much time I put into writing and finalizing the song. Either way hopefully there were some parts you enjoyed. If not, keep any eye out for my upcoming work that could be labeled 'Now That's What I Call a Cover' Volume 35.

User avatar
Uman's
Posts: 316
Joined: 17 Jun 2015
Location: France

13 May 2022

Sorry, I think the translation chose probably the wrong words. :|
I use Google translate, cause i'm French. Sorry for this.

I didn't mean to minimize your work.
it's just perfect for me and i like it.
My cons is that it makes me think of a lot of things that already exist.
At the first notes I thought it was a cover of "Hotaka" because it's really very similar. (intro)
I don't think that's a criticism, just an observation.

This in no way detracts from the quality of your work which I appreciated.
- Former member of the disappeared forum "Reason France" -

strangers
Competition Winner
Posts: 793
Joined: 06 Mar 2017
Location: NJ

15 May 2022

Uman's wrote:
13 May 2022
Sorry, I think the translation chose probably the wrong words. :|
I use Google translate, cause i'm French. Sorry for this.

I didn't mean to minimize your work.
it's just perfect for me and i like it.
My cons is that it makes me think of a lot of things that already exist.
At the first notes I thought it was a cover of "Hotaka" because it's really very similar. (intro)
I don't think that's a criticism, just an observation.

This in no way detracts from the quality of your work which I appreciated.
I appreciate you taking the time to explain further. That makes more sense to me now and totally respect your opinion. I also have those moments when hearing songs and relating them to other artist's music. We all pull influences from so many sources, whether intentional or not, and even pull from sources we'd have never known about until sharing on places like ReasonTalk. Always learn something new on here with the amount of experience and knowledge everyone has.

User avatar
TheGodOfRainbows
Posts: 640
Joined: 31 Mar 2015

16 May 2022

Great stuff! I liked it so much I bought it. The recording sounds A+ to me. Great production. Inspiring!

strangers
Competition Winner
Posts: 793
Joined: 06 Mar 2017
Location: NJ

23 May 2022

TheGodOfRainbows wrote:
16 May 2022
Great stuff! I liked it so much I bought it. The recording sounds A+ to me. Great production. Inspiring!
Glad you liked it! I'm still waiting to see some new stuff by you. Have anything in the works?

User avatar
TheGodOfRainbows
Posts: 640
Joined: 31 Mar 2015

05 Jun 2022

strangers wrote:
23 May 2022
TheGodOfRainbows wrote:
16 May 2022
Great stuff! I liked it so much I bought it. The recording sounds A+ to me. Great production. Inspiring!
Glad you liked it! I'm still waiting to see some new stuff by you. Have anything in the works?
Yes, I just am slow at releasing. I should release another RYM2612 album in about a month hopefully.

User avatar
Noplan
Competition Winner
Posts: 726
Joined: 16 Jan 2015
Location: Cologne, Germany

05 Jun 2022

Nice. <3

User avatar
Uman's
Posts: 316
Joined: 17 Jun 2015
Location: France

17 Jun 2022

strangers wrote:
15 May 2022
Uman's wrote:
13 May 2022
Sorry, I think the translation chose probably the wrong words. :|
I use Google translate, cause i'm French. Sorry for this.

I didn't mean to minimize your work.
it's just perfect for me and i like it.
My cons is that it makes me think of a lot of things that already exist.
At the first notes I thought it was a cover of "Hotaka" because it's really very similar. (intro)
I don't think that's a criticism, just an observation.

This in no way detracts from the quality of your work which I appreciated.
I appreciate you taking the time to explain further. That makes more sense to me now and totally respect your opinion. I also have those moments when hearing songs and relating them to other artist's music. We all pull influences from so many sources, whether intentional or not, and even pull from sources we'd have never known about until sharing on places like ReasonTalk. Always learn something new on here with the amount of experience and knowledge everyone has.
Expressing oneself in writing and through machine translation is not at all easy.
It would be like listening to music, just by visually deciphering a score! :lol:

I totally share your opinion, this community allows us to learn and share whatever our level.

See you soon, my pleasure to listen to your next tracks! :thumbup:
- Former member of the disappeared forum "Reason France" -

Post Reply
  • Information
  • Who is online

    Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests