Caltrops - No Stairway to Heaven

Forum Overview :: No Stairway to Heaven

by fok 03/27/2003, 6:10pm PST

Entropy Stew wrote:

Again, spot on. I could deal with the Elfman-aspect, but the drum sounds really bring everything down. The lack of harmony (or layering, at least) also bugs me, but thats mostly a matter of taste. My answer to everything is "add more synth layers". Listening suggestions: VNV Naton - Ascension and .mods.

I guess I'm a little fuzzy re: the whole "anemic drum sounds" issue. They are dry as a bone, I'll admit that. And they sound fake, which is on purpose. They could certainly be tweaked to sound "better" but, as I said, since this is a purely queer Squarepusher fanboy epic, I was trying to emulate his drum sounds. I actually tweaked them fakier than they started as presets. Is there some objective standard of drumsound quality before a track doesn't suck?

In closing, I'd never listen to this song again, but if it was my first attempt at the genre, I'd certainly be proud of it.

Total agreement yet again. What sort of setup are you using to do this? I tried several mod trackers several times and was totally fucked in the ass by how difficult they were to operate (also, how badly documented they were), and this is coming from a UNIX admin. I don't have any musical background either, which caused me furthur confusion. This sounds far more advanced (and pricey) than a tracker, of course, but I'm still curious.

-/ES/-

It's not a mod tracker, just a regular old "trial" version of Cubase SX. The pizz and tremolo strings are coming from an E-MU Virtuoso 2000 (bought for $900 3 years ago for a film scoring class, never used properly before), the drums are a Boss DR-660 (bought used for $100) and the synths are all VST... which is a pain in the ass, any time I open a web browser the VST instruments start fucking up. I have been trying for years to get this shit to work right, so although the song has flaws, I was at least able to finish it, which is a personal victory for me.

So, anyways, if you don't like the pizz sounds or drum sounds, the rest of it was free.

My latest. Is this supposed to be in CV, or here? by Fullofkittens 03/27/2003, 3:44pm PST NEW

review! by Fussbett 03/27/2003, 4:40pm PST NEW

Re: review! by FoK 03/27/2003, 5:13pm PST NEW

More gay descriptions of musical ideas. by Fussbett 03/28/2003, 4:53am PST NEW

Re: review! by Entropy Stew 03/27/2003, 5:52pm PST NEW

Re: review! by fok 03/27/2003, 6:10pm PST NEW