<Original><Pony> The Equestral Plane

[Navron]

Some of you have likely heard some samples from this song as I was working on it, but here's my finished piece, and as always, comments/criticism is appreciated. Please let me know how it sounds to you guys, or any recommendations you have.

Oh and...the number of psytrance brony musicians is way too low. Hopefully I can fix that.

*Edit* Forgot to mention the story behind this piece.

It's a story of a man who thinks that by trying his hand at Astral Projection, he will be able to live out his dreams of visiting Equestria, however he doesn't realize that Equestria, and the Everfree forest, are dangerous places to be.

http://soundcloud.com/navy-brony/the-equestral-plane

[MixolydianPony]

Nice. Not the kind of music I listen to, but I can see and appreciate the effort that went into this, and it's really cool how you've so effectively captured the feel and emotions of the story without lyrics. Sorry I can't offer any more specific commentary.

[TheSunAndTheRainfall]

+ Mmm, love the twinkly sounds during the intro.
+ I think the snare could benefit from a little more punch.
+ That's a really cool bass line! I'd like it to be more present.
+ Oh man... that bit at 1:37. It's so intricate and mysterious without being in your face. Love it.
+ ... I'm really digging the hi-hat action in here. It's simple, but oh so effective.
+ DAT TEMPO CHANGE UNF
+ I keep expecting this so turn into an eerie dance song. :U


Jesus, I love the vibe in this song. It's spooky and mysterious, and all those subtle sounds you added throughout really, really add to it. The drum programming is top notch, and it works extremely well. Even my small beef with the snare cleared up a bit into the song. If anything, I'd just want the bass to be punchier, to have more presence. Aside from that, wow, this is awesome!

[meletric]

This is a really interesting style, very different from most anything I've heard before.

I especially love the intro and tempo change. I was digging the song throughout, but those two parts in particular blew me away. Great work

[Kryptage]

The part that begins at 1:37 is just fantastic. The feel is really there, and the synths and sounds are pretty crisp. The mix is pretty well balanced a little muddy at parts, but pretty good nonetheless. The song moves well, nothing feels to jagged, and those glitchy feeling parts as I said earlier, like at 1:37, and 4:30 are really groovy.

One thing that could really help is getting the bass drum to stick out more. One Thing that all trance music relies heavily on is the pulse of the bass drum, even if it isn't on every beat, it is very important. If you lose that pulse, the song can have less drive. I think if you can get the bass drum to come out more, it'd be very helpful.

Aside from that. Well as I said earlier, the mix itself could be a bit better, and aside from that....I loved it.

Great work!

[Navron]

Wow! Thanks for all the comments so far! I certainly wasn't expecting this many this fast.

Mastering is still my weak point, as it likely is for many other musicians. This was probably the least muddy song I've created thus far, in addition to being the loudest, but still a tad bit lower than regular standards.

The slow tempo dropped part was more of an accident, lol. I had an LFO assigned to my bass synth, with the target of it being the delay time with a full wet delay.

I had been fooling around with some arpeggios in that section with different instruments, and finally decided, hell with it, turned on the bass LFO, played the arpeggio on the keyboard, and then changed my pants.

[SpaceAnomaly]

The story behind it really set the mood for me, and wow it is dark! The last minute is pure awesomeness. What are you using for that choir-like thing in the background? (Sorry I don't know how else to describe it).

Is the story going to be continued or is this it? It's an interesting premise and I would love to see more of it. This deserves a really cool cover art, something that brings about the unknown, you better make sure of that!

[Makkon]

HOLY CRAP. This gets crazy awesome, man! Love it!
This really tells a story in my head, most electronic music has a tough time doing that.

[Navron]

The story behind it really set the mood for me, and wow it is dark! The last minute is pure awesomeness. What are you using for that choir-like thing in the background? (Sorry I don't know how else to describe it).

Is the story going to be continued or is this it? It's an interesting premise and I would love to see more of it. This deserves a really cool cover art, something that brings about the unknown, you better make sure of that!

It's a male choir soundfont loaded up in Safron (free SF2 player), but Safron has some nice functions besides simply playing soundfonts, so during the slow section the male choir has a wubbing low pass filter synced to the track with some phaser.

Wasn't planning on doing a multiple part story, but that might make an interesting compilation idea.

[Navron]

Thanks again for the tips and recommendations. I tried to follow your advice as best I could, including:

- Adding a bit more punch to the bass and snare drums.
- Changed the walking bass to another type of bass and EQ'd it to stand out a bit more.
- Raised the volume on the background choir to have a bit more presence.
- EQ'd a little out of the trance section to clear up a bit of the muddiness that resulted.

And here is the final, published result:

[bigBerd]

The sound is magnificent. This is a style I've seldom heard in the past, and it's great to hear it. The composition all in all sounds very well thought out.

Though I have one question, how come this has the <pony> tag? Other than the fact this is accompanied by a pony-related story, I don't hear any ponies in this one.

[Navron]

Pony just means it's pony-inspired, versus using samples from the show. The tag for non-pony is for all works that have no samples nor are inspired by the show.

[TheSunAndTheRainfall]

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about! No complaints about this one. Sounds clean and present, and I love it.

[bigBerd]

Pony just means it's pony-inspired, versus using samples from the show. The tag for non-pony is for all works that have no samples nor are inspired by the show.

Fair enough. If the creator of the work says it's inspired by ponies, it's not my place to say otherwise. After all, the pony music I've been working on is strictly lyrical, and the actual music itself isn't pony-derived.

[Navron]

Fair enough. If the creator of the work says it's inspired by ponies, it's not my place to say otherwise. After all, the pony music I've been working on is strictly lyrical, and the actual music itself isn't pony-derived.

Have you given this thread a read? viewtopic.php?f=13&t=817

It goes into a good discussion on instrumental pony music vs instrumental non-pony music.

[Freewave]

Good stuff. Reminds me a bit of some of Frontline Assembly's projects (sort of a mix of electro industrial and ambient dub). Glad to hear it.

[LeafRunner]

Really digging this, it's got a really great groove and mood to it and I can definitely see the story you have playing out to this. That tempo change is just awesome too without feeling out of place. Very cool.