[Techno/Dance] Rebellion (MP3)

[bvanoudtshoorn]

A glitchier, more off-the-beat track based around a C# pedal point. This one was fun to write, because I got to play with the various sound effect and drum kit libraries I have, and slice up some effect loops from my libraries, too.

Download MP3
Download Source (won't play - it's all Kontakt, but you can look.

Cover art:

[uncloned]

I like this Barry - were there not replies to this?

It is interesting - you keep changing things up in neat ways.

[Sam_Zen]

Nothing much to add, Barry. Very neatly done, with nice detailed work.
Although the title would suggest a more 'wild' approach..

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Thanks for the feedback, Clones & Sam.

@Clones:
You're the first to give me feedback here. I'm glad you found it interesting -- I wanted to do something a little bit more, well, interesting than my standard electronica tracks, so I had fun putting the beat in strange places, and basically treating Kontakt (a sampler) as though it's a full-blown additive synth. You can do quite a surprising amount with it like that, so I'm gonna probably explore the possibilities more over the next while.

@Sam_Zen:
Yes, I know what you mean about a more 'wild' approach. To tell you the truth, I'm not always entirely convinced by the titles of my tracks. A lot of the time they tend to be working titles that just stick around. To me, the title of a piece of music isn't actually that important a lot of the time -- it's the music that matters. Of course there are titles which can inform the listener's interpretation of a piece of music, and quite a few of my titles do do that. As you say, though, this one doesn't.

Again, thanks for the feedback, guys -- as always, I really appreciate you taking the time to listen and comment.

[KrazyKatz]

Great construction. Nice application of so many elements. I can even hear 'chip tune' in it.

I have to know how you mixed that Base Drum. What a fantastic thump!

[tvdude]

Heya Barry.

I actually listened to this shortly after you uploaded it, but didn't have time to respond until now.  It's a good piece, and as always, the engineering makes me a bit envious.  It is definitely a bit different than what I'm used to hearing from you, but not in a bad way, just different.  I like it.  I know what you mean about putting beats in strange places, I very rarely do that, but sometimes, I'll just make something up just for fun, and they turn out to be some of my best, yet quirky pieces.  Sometimes its just fun to explore and see where it leads.

Keep making music!

[bvanoudtshoorn]

@KrazyKatz:
I'm glad you like it! Yes, there are a few 'chip' elements in it -- as I wrote it, I actually thought to myself at times, "Hmm, that's a very 'tracker' style", which is probably what you hear.

As to the bass drum... Well, I didn't actually do very much to it to get that sound. All I did was put a tiny bit of saturation on it. I think that what helps it to stand out, though, is the fact that in the drum line, it is never played simultaneously with anything else, so its sound is never diluted. Oh, and no other effects at all -- no reverb, no delay, no convolution, nothing that will diminish its starkness. Oh, and it's a great sound to begin with.


@tvdude:
Glad you enjoyed it. I agree with you -- exploring for the sake of exploring is fun. I think that that might be one of the things that keeps me so interested in music: the fact that no matter how far you explore, there's always something else to discover just past where you can see. Oh, and I'll definitely keep making music.


@both:
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'm grateful for the time you've taken to let me know what you think.

[unfa]

You deserve it!  

Well, very nice piece of music. I think you handled well a lot of different sounds and... it's harmonic. I'am listening to "Rebellion" and what i think is that: that's the kind of music i most like  

Nice mix of dirty distorted bass and soft strings and hard and noisy percs. Nice arp also

Can you tell us what plugs have been used here  :?:

[mrvegas]

Excellent -- just about perfect.  Very high quality composition and sound -- could easily be a commercial piece.  Exactly the right length for the material.

When I listen to your music, I always enjoy your pop/dance stuff the most -- precisely because it's not really pop/dance music, although it could serve that purpose.  Some of your "classical" pieces sound a little too derivative to me -- like you're doing them for a music theory class.  (I'm sorry if that sounds harsh.  Those pieces are certainly quality work also, so don't take  that in the wrong way.)

Whenever you label something as dance or techno or whatever, that's when I know I'm going to hear something interesting.  It's like you let yourself go a little bit, and your musical knowledge -- which is obviously solid -- shapes the piece more creatively.  It's what I would actually like to hear on the electronic music stations, rather than repetitive patterns with a 4X4 kick drum for 10 minutes.  (I guess that's what sells on the dance floor, though. I'm certainly not one to know what the kids are listening to these days.)

[bvanoudtshoorn]

@unfa:
I'm glad you liked it, unfa. Yeah, I had fun with the arp. I don't often use an arp like this, so it was fun to play with one this time round. I only used one plugin for this -- Native Instruments Kontakt 3. (* See shameless Kontakt fanboi-ing at the end of this post.)

@mrvegas:
Thanks! I'm really pleased that you think it's commercial grade. I know what you mean about my orchestral/classical stuff sounding a bit too 'music theory class'-ish -- I guess that, as you suggest, I stay within the boundaries a lot more with them.

@both:
Thanks for the feedback, you guys. It's really great that you both went to the effort of downloading and commenting.


* Shameless Kontakt fanboi-ing:
Kontakt is my workhorse -- 99.9% of the time, it's the only plugin I'll use. Kontakt's a sampler, and with the sample library from Kontakt 2, the sample library from Kontakt 3, some sample packs, and my own collection of samples, I've got around 60GB of samples to work with. That's basically why I so rarely need to use other plugs -- I already have most of what I want. In short: Kontakt is probably one of the best investments I ever made in my life.

[unfa]

Thanks for the answer

Do you mean that Kontakt it's a Sampler? No synthetizer(s) used here?
Personally I sometimes use samples is MODPlug but in 95% cases only for drum section. Any other melodic sounds are all VSTi Synthetizers.

BTW: Yesterday I was listening to your track for about 35 minutes looped. I was stuck in a very crowded bus, unable to move

But I'am not completly fed up with it yet

This is significant I think  :lol:

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Yeah, Kontakt is a sampler -- that is to say, it's a VST instrument that's capable of doing really awesome things with samples. So no, I didn't use any synthesisers. I did use sampled synthesisers, though, and leveraging the power of Kontakt allows me to do some very 'synthesiserish' things to these samples, to mutate them into something completely different.

I'm glad you're not completely fed up with it yet!

[unfa]

I'am glad too, and waiting for more of your compositions.

And once again: Sample feeded Synthetizers - amazing !

[psishock]

I would call this something like "electro-chiptune" imo. =)
"Dance" is something with more regular beat and more simpler approach, much less technical. "Techno" can be a very wide range, but usually it's something like "hard" on my dictionary (this music piece isn't "that" hard =). It has a nice break-beat like drum line, and some raw electronic sound, so it fits the "electro" genre great imo. It got many chiptune elements, as the other ppl noticed before.