<remix><pony><Trance> Away (Sonic Rainboom Elemental Mix)

[ph00tbag]

I did a remix of ethansight's Away, because I found the melody to be quite beautiful. I kinda recontextualized the track to associate with the Elements of Harmony binding to their bearers. I sense the original was more about flight. Go figure.



Lemme know what you think!

[ChocolateChicken]

Trance is without a doubt my favorite and most listened to genre of electronic music, and I have to say this is a very well done trance song!

For starters, I think you can afford to turn all the hats down just a little bit.

That's some bass synth you got there. How'd you make that?

That clap/snare you have could use some more reverb to it.

Good job giving the percussion a break at 2:05 and then bringing everything back in at 2:18 with that new synth to keep pushing the song forward.

2:45 I like that release, especially that awesome bass slide at 3:00.

At 3:33, I think you could automate the low pass cutoff frequency of that synth to make the song buildup stronger. Also I have to ask, how did you make that synth? It's wonderful and just screams classic trance.

4:12 Great drop. I also like how you automated the low pass to duck down during the vocal sample and then raised it back up super fast right before the drop.

During this portion of the song, I think you could have used more sustained synth elements to make the song more full.

Those ambient keys at 4:54 sound lovely, and they sound like they could possibly be a bit more prominent in the song; they can barely be heard if you aren't listening closely.

Overall, I'm glad that you didn't make this trance remix to be extremely short. Trance is one of those genres that requires length to properly build, release, and convey it's trance-y atmosphere to the listener, so thanks for not making this a 3 minute long trance song.

I love this. Classic trance.

[ph00tbag]

Thanks for the feedback. I did actually automate the cutoff on the lead, but it's not very noticeable. I suppose it could have been more pronounced.

As for the synth design on that lead, the key to that 90's trance lead feel is a saw wave with heavy pulse width modulation. I layered that with a detuned saw wave to give the spectrum a bit extra body.

With the bass design, are you asking about the sub bass, the mid bass, or the synth stabs in the intro?

[ChocolateChicken]

For the bass, I was referring to the mid bass, but I'm also curious about those synth stabs. I trust that the sub bass is just a pure sine, as it ought to be.

As for the synth design on that lead, the key to that 90's trance lead feel is a saw wave with heavy pulse width modulation.

Do you mean a square wave with pulse width modulation? I've never heard of pulse width modulation of sawtooth.

[ph00tbag]

For the bass, I was referring to the mid bass, but I'm also curious about those synth stabs. I trust that the sub bass is just a pure sine, as it ought to be.

Well, I don't actually have a sine wave subbass. My mid bass is just a detuned saw wave with a quick cut-off envelope. It's really subtle, and mostly there to fill out the chord progression, and you probably can't hear it too easily if you don't know what you're listening for. The main bass, which does double duty, is just done in 3xOsc, like all my basses. It's root is a saw wave, with a detuned square and a detuned "rounded saw" on the other two oscillators an octave up. Throw on a filter envelope, and some external processing (which includes Soundgoodizer, shame on me), and you're good.

The stabs are done with a detuned, FM sawtooth, pretty much. And lots of delay. So much delay.

Do you mean a square wave with pulse width modulation? I've never heard of pulse width modulation of sawtooth.

Whoops! Yeah, that's what I mean. There are two oscillators. One is a detuned saw, and one is a square with pulse width modulation.