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Like srsly, the best song you'll hear all day like*


xanderbeanz

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Morning my KSS minions, today I finished my masterpiece, a 10-minute half soundtrack/half song/half wtf? called "The Elephant Man".

 

After starting with a dark AMBIENT CREEPY section, we move into JARRING industrial synths before a BIG ASS bassline takes over, the song starts up and moves through some melodic elements before some DISTORTED ASS vocals (ala schizoid man) take over, then IT'S ONNNNN...BIG TRIBAL DRUMS COME CRASHING IN, TO BE TAKEN OVER BY A BIG THWOMMPP BASS AND A MASSIVE PHYRIGIAN RIFF...then it all dies down, there's a nice JOHN WILLIAM'S-ESQUE bit before a big SMASHINGY PUMPKINY style end section, then THE TROMBONES COME IN! and finally, there's a piano outro...

 

Who the hell WOULDN'T want to listen to it after that vibrant description? What are you waiting for?

 

http://soundcloud.com/elmosexwhistle/the-elephant-man

 

also, i photoshopped him wearing gay glasses, that's good for a laugh right?

 

artworks-000010315798-tpl3i8-crop.jpg

 

Go listen, and then report back here with any critiques or comments you have :p

 

*Unless it isn't.

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ok I was a bit skeptical after reading your rather dramatic descriptions of the various passages of the song. So I thought WTF I'll give it a spin, and..................DAMN!

yo got some heavy *sh*t* goin on here.

I'm into prog rock but enjoy all types of music and I have to say this is "most excellent!"

Usually I can find something in forum songs that I think could be done differently, but not in this one. I enjoyed everything and can't think of one thing you could change.

After a bit of a long intro I kept saying to myself "please add vocals please add vocals" and sure enough they came in strong and very well done.

 

I'll give you 5 out of 5 stars for this song.

Whether it'll be the best song I hear all day is still in question. I plan on listening to the new Yes cd "Fly from Here", some Dreamtheater and Explorer's Club so we'll have to wait and see on that.:lol:

 

Thanks for allowing people to download this, your song is now in my computer.:eek:

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this is nice!

 

>I've never had the same song remind me of Korn (only slightly, I promise), Nine Inch Nails, and Dream Theater. That was awesome.

 

That does sound awesome (and it is) apart from Korn haha - actually I think they might have been good when they started, I saw them on Beavis and Butthead and I think the boys said they "rocked".

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I dug it. Being not so much into industrial type stuff didn't really dig it off the bat. But the concept/prog song lover in me made me listen to all of it. Great! I like the development and character changes within it. Many different vibes, all smoothly transitioned to. Keep it up, let us know when there's more.

 

p.s. - how long did you spend on this one?

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Splendid stuff! :thu:

 

 

I have only one minor niggle - in the chorus part (I guess that's a chorus), you kinda lost the punch you had in the distorted intro riff, the drums and guitars lost quite a lot of volume and/or depth. Perhaps thicken it up somehow, so it remains heavy and kickin'? Or was it intended to be the way it is?

 

 

Otherwise, awesome, dude! :thu:

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The song is well-done and has some cool sounds and excellent playing, but the style does not intersect that which I like personally. I am just not a fan of various forms of distortion applied to vocals, which is a technique used considerably on the track and in many different types and levels of distortion. My impression was NIN-style song, but I am not hearing much DT in there... maybe a little of the old Kevin Moore stuff but not much.

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Not sure the DT references are because of my comment or not, but in case it is, I was saying I was going to be listening to DT later in the day, and was joking about whether this song would be the best song I heard all day, not that the song reminded me of DT.

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Not sure the DT references are because of my comment or not, but in case it is, I was saying I was going to be listening to DT later in the day, and was joking about whether this song would be the best song I heard all day, not that the song reminded me of DT.

 

I think it's my comment's fault. :p

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ah yes..ya know I reread the thread a couple of times to see if I missed something, and oops there it is!

 

For punishment you have to listen to "Falling into Infinity" 3 times while balancing a bottle of adult beverage on the top of your head.:lol:

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Holy crap! :eek: I wasn't expecting that many comments! Excuse me one second...(Goes inside a telephone booth and changes avatar.) That needed updating!

 

Looks like i have some replying to do! So not to flood the boards with posts, i'll try to answer this all within one post :p

 

You do realise that you can sing Red Right Hand to the section around 3 mins.

 

Haha i just noticed that! I'm more shocked that no one spotted the blatant rip off of 21st Century Schizoid Man, or shall we say homage? That i put in the middle of the song, just before everything kicks off.

 

Also, could you please tell me what that patch is that goes 'arrrrooooooo' early on? Just wondering how you got that particular sound and what on?

 

I think i know which sound you mean...After the ambient intro, the big stabs start, initially with prepared piano sounds, but then this demonic, distorted arooo sound comes in the left speaker, right? That's a choir patch i made on my DW8000, i called the patch, "Choir of the damned" and ran it through a delay pedal and into a marshall stack. Luckily for you, i sampled this sound for use in NI Kontakt, as part of my recent DW8000 collection, free download link here:

 

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4559370

 

Usually I can find something in forum songs that I think could be done differently, but not in this one. I enjoyed everything and can't think of one thing you could change.

 

That was a lovely comment and one that made me feel very proud of my work :)

 

Technical details, please. We await a full report before EOD.

 

I could write an essay on the technical details! I might just point out a few interesting things instead to save time:

 

- The intro uses lots of samples taken from a really beaten up piano which was donated to work one day. I took a plectrum to get some nice scrapes and bashed it a bit with my foot to get some nice low pad beds.

- The orchestral sounds come from a mix of Chris Hein Horns, Epic Horns and VSL Horizon Chamber Strings 1 (Great Portamento Strings!)

- The Verses have a little bit of crunchy synthy guitar in, this made use of the Soundblox Multiwave Distortion Pedal, It makes your guitar sound like a broken megadrive!

- The "Kick Off" Section has many many different tribal drums, one part was a distorted timbales part, one was a sample of a real military tattoo, they were playing in triplets so i had to cut the sample into slices and rearrange into a 4/4 pattern, and the other drums came from a close-miked very abused coke can that i banged and smacked!

- The whole thing was mastered by Chris Daniels at ukmastering.com, i sent him the Backing Track and Vox seperately and, after a bit of back and forth about levels, we got the perfect master. I don't envy the job he had to do, mastering this hell of a song! He did a bang up job.

- Female vocals are just me going through Virsyn Klon, a voice doubler where you can add an octave-up harmony (or whatever harmony you want) it sounds pretty good i think.

 

I here some Gabriel/Genesis in there.

 

I was listening to alot of Melt & Security at the time and i think it shows! Other artists that I can hear in there include Tool/A Perfect Circle and Massive Attack.

 

I've never had the same song remind me of Korn (only slightly, I promise), Nine Inch Nails, and Dream Theater. That was awesome.

 

Thanks, I actually thought The latest Korn album had some good stuff on, there was one track with some really interesting effects on the ride cymbals and some good drumming going on.

 

Skeptical Puppy is skeptical...


*listens*


... well {censored}. NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE!

 

Classic.

 

I dug it. Being not so much into industrial type stuff didn't really dig it off the bat. But the concept/prog song lover in me made me listen to all of it. Great! I like the development and character changes within it. Many different vibes, all smoothly transitioned to. Keep it up, let us know when there's more.


p.s. - how long did you spend on this one?

 

Yeah I'm a bit of a prog-head too, I like narrative driven stuff alot, and i kinda have musical ADHD so like to put lots of different styles into one song lol.

 

There's plenty more about (probably not mixed or recorded to quite the same standard, but listenable) at my band's myspace:

 

http://www.myspace.com/elmosexwhistle

 

PLUG!

 

Oh, and yeah the whole thing probably took me 2 months start to finish it was quite quick as i'd written all the parts in my head so just thrashed out the recording.

 

I have only one minor niggle - in the chorus part (I guess that's a chorus), you kinda lost the punch you had in the distorted intro riff, the drums and guitars lost quite a lot of volume and/or depth. Perhaps thicken it up somehow, so it remains heavy and kickin'? Or was it intended to be the way it is?

 

Yeah that section caused me no end of problems! I wanted this spectoresque wall of sound thing going on, and it was very very hard to mix with so many layers. There were numerous problems because it didn't master well with the rest of the track, it was too middy and not bassy enough and also pushed the limiter too hard and sounded clippy, so we had to drop the volume of certain parts. I've learnt my lesson though and am going to try and mix things better in the future. I'm just glad the section sounds nice and warm and is sitting in the song ok to be honest!

 

For some reason I was picturing something way more avant-garde or something, but I love it! EXCELLENT

 

Yeah I'm pretty much an old school songwriter type, i do like noise and avant-garde stuff, i just like to put it within a pop/rock framework i guess.

 

The song is well-done and has some cool sounds and excellent playing, but the style does not intersect that which I like personally.

 

I think it's really nice when someone who doesn't care for the genre you're producing has something positive to say about your work, i'll lay off the vocal distortion for my next one :)

 

That wouldn't be out of place on a Mr. Bungle album.

 

Love Mr Bungle, amazing compliment :) GIVE A DOG A BONEEEE!

 

To be honest, that's a fair away from being anything I could ever get into, but, it was very well done. Sounds like there's a King Crimson -- Discipline era, influence happening.

 

Been listening to quite a bit of KC lately, I'm loving that everyone's recognizing the large influence prog rock has had on my work.

 

Very good job. Impressive.

 

Thanks, download it and send it to all your friends/slaves/minions etc.

 

I like it. Very Much.

 

:)

 

For punishment you have to listen to "Falling into Infinity" 3 times while balancing a bottle of adult beverage on the top of your head.

 

And film it!

 

Job done, thanks everyone :)

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Hey don't change your style because one person doesn't care for it. The world would be boring. If everyone did that. I think the use of vocal distortions was interesting and well done and appreciate how it was used.

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Wow. That was really, really great! Definitely the best song I've heard all day. I'm really a jazz/R&B kinda guy, but this hit me just right! The vocals sound amazing, and I especially love the coda/outro after about 7:15. It's really the perfect ending to this thing. Beautiful work! You've inspired me to go write a few things now, actually... thanks for sharing!

 

The one thing I would say is that when everything cuts out and it's just the piano at 6:00-ish, I think the piano ought to be quieter. There doesn't seem to be enough contrast in between the big huge wall of sound and the lone, soft piano.

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