Harderstate - Hardstyle & Hardcore Forum

@EMi
First thing that I noticed is that the bass directly at the start is not well mixed. take out just a few of that low frequencies and lower the volume a bit. Also in the intro you have to mix the sounds a bit better. Kick is fine but the sounds and screeches need more hights and less low's. Same with the vocals. Sound design and arrangements are cool tho melody is too happy for my taste but thats no critic but personal taste hahaha
Your stuff got way better! Keep it up man!
Oh and sorry for not being that active at skype haha Have had nearly no time for producing in the last couple of months...

after a while of not producing at all I recently bought Adam Szabo's Viper and wanted to try it out a bit what dou you think?
Its not a full grown track just some ideas for the intro and the melody.

@daniro29
Hey, I Really this one, this is what hardstyle should be, a strong kick and a good melody but i think the bass needs to be a little quieter. Anyways good demo and im looking forward to listen to full version.

Here is my unfinished demo ( the kick is not mine)

@Tragonvalo Really like the track. Nothing that really stands out to me.
I made a track. I think it's ok but might need more work, but you be the judge(kick is not mine).
Warning:includes Psytrance!!

First of all, c'mon guys. You are capable of better feedback than that.

Tragonvalo:@daniro29
Hey, I Really this one, this is what hardstyle should be, a strong kick and a good melody but i think the bass needs to be a little quieter. Anyways good demo and im looking forward to listen to full version.

Here is my unfinished demo ( the kick is not mine)

I like your overall track. Your melody sounds a bit random at times, but the synth is good. I like the way you break down from the drop to the break. Your clap comes in a bit too harsh for me, but that could be more personal taste. Try to "announce" your drop a bit more. Add more effects, maybe an edgy pre-drop drumfill and just more fx leading up to it. Reversing a cymbal or stuff like that does wonders. Adding another lead or screech in the drop won't hurt you either. At this moment, you have the same kind of sounds the whole time. Which can get boring after a while. Like you said, the kick isn't yours. Try creating some kicks and keep creating them. In the beginning, they will sound shit indeed, but as you make more and more kicks, they will get better and better. You simply can't send out a demo with a kick that isn't yours.

I made a track. I think it's ok but might need more work, but you be the judge(kick is not mine).
Warning:includes Psytrance!!
[/quote]
The chord progession and vocal fit good. Clap/snare are a bit loud in my opinion. And your vocal lifter could be a bit smoother. Your white noise downriser is a bit too loud, try adding an automation for the volume, and give it a fast decay. So it won't crash with the kick and bass (the frequencys won't really cause a messy mix or something, but it's just taking up space that isn't necessary, making it annoying). Furthermore, when your hardstyle kick begins to play, your screech dominates too much. Your kick is too much in the background and your punch isn't coming through. You can fix this with compression (I'm no hero with compression, so I won't really give that much advice about it. Best you can do is watch some tutorials on it, ask other producers and experiment a bit yourself). Your kick does have a very nice character in it, especially in the higher pitches. Love that. Keep working on your tracks and I'm sure you will come up with some good tunes.

I don't really produce hardstyle anymore, but I find it fun to give feedback every once and a while.
Don't think it'd be appreciated if I share my uptempo tracks here, lol.
If anyone still has a piece of music they want me to give feedback on, I'd be more than happy to.

@daniro29

At first, I thought that the tail of your kick is clipping or something but actually I think its the hardsound fighting with the kick in the lows. Not that sure though but something is there which distorts the whole mix. And its worse in the midintro than in the mainbreak so I suppose its the hardsound.
The melody fits the midintro perfectly, and apart from that it seems well written. I like it.
The lead really lives from the treble frequencies. For me its maybe a bit too much or I would go another way around that: I would turn the treble frequencies down a notch and add a layer which is responsible for the treble frequencies (just maybe do a normal supersaw, route it to a channel, add an EQ on it with a highpass at 5000/7000hz or something and then bus it to your mainlead channel). This will take care of that much whitenoise in your mix and will add something in the treble frequencies again which isnt particularly only white noise.
This is criticism on a high level though and the issue I have with the treble could be also caused by soundcloud instead of you
Overall I miss a bit variety and Percussions like crashes or something.
With the variety I mean like right now, its pretty simple: Midintro with one mainsound, then break with the melody then a drop with the melody and thats it. I know you said its not finished but I would touch upon that if you keep working on it. And you should be working on it, its great man!

@Tragonvalo
So in the midintro, you change up the pattern the screech is playing at 0:24. For me the change actually doesnt bring something really new (which comes next is critique on a really high level btw) nowadays in rawstyle its pretty common to change up something completely after 8 bars already if you're not in a mainpart with a melody. With screeches you wanna not just change up the hights of your tones but also maybe the rhythmic pattern. or you switch the kickdrum, add another screech on top etc etc. I think youll get what I mean. Changing only the pitch of the screech doesnt seem to be enough here.
The chords of your break dont really fit the midintro and really sets it apart from it. This is because the midintro is on a Emin scale and the break starts with a Fmin or Cmin I'm not so sure (bass Pad plays C but it feels more like a Fmin). Both (Emin & Fmin) dont really get along very well. Maybe try to write the break starting with Emin and then you'll go with Amaj like you do already. Pretty much a similar issue with the melody for me... key switches don't really make much sense and sound off.
Ok so I didnt wanna just throw around with criticism so I opened up my FL to come up with a better solution for you. And here it goes:
As for the mainmelody, the last 8 beats need work. There the melody starts doing different stuff than before, and I think its doing too much. Try to find a way to incorporate the note E on the 1 & 3, like you did before also in the last part. The melody always starts with an E and has two following notes which change up depending on your key you're in, thats your main idea behind the melody. It would make it more fluent if you could do it on the whole melody.
Also your bassnotes/kick pitches go the following, each note for 8 beats:
E, F# (I think), E, D#.
Try going for:
E, F, C, B. That should sound better.
Same goes with your second mainpart.
After the maindrop, I like the bells a lot, give it a really nice feeling.
So one last thing, if you got a limiter on your master, turn it off. The waveform looks a bit like it. If you have no limiter on the master, then start thinking about doing a mixdown. Almost every sound sounds clipped a bit, that is because all sounds are too loud. Doing a mixdown helps you to get rid of that problem (and many more problems aswell in general).
Keep it up man!

@dawed1999
Nice idea with the psydrop for sure but I would build it up differently. Psydrops nowadays really work well when dropped out of nowhere. So in the buildup, maybe try to trick the listener into having a normal drop with a normal kick. And then, when the drop comes, cou drop with the psykick. Having the psykick in the buildup already takes away the surprise effect almost every track has with a psydrop. Regarding the kick itself, i would work out the punch a bit more, it seems to be ducked down a bit or was just quiet in the first place. Maybe a simple treble boost would do the job already.
Really great vocalcuts, works really great and goes with the flow.
At 1:04, you again drop with the psykick and I just wouldnt do that. The psykick is almost always used as a crowd control/surprise effect which fades away after 16 bars (thats just how our ears are used to hardstyle). I would cut out the part from 1:04-1:30 completely and go with the part from 1:30 on. The screech sounds really crazy and thats a good thing, the normal hardstyle kick though its really pushed behind in the mix and needs to be louder to contest the screech in the mix. Right now, the screech is the mainfocus and the kick is not in that part, I would change that.
The part from 2:00 on sounds really great but again is too long for my taste as it goes on until 2:27, just cut it in half and you're done with that.
Great synth, but in that part I just keep missing something in the background, maybe add a pad behind it or something. The mainpart could work like that, I really like it. The key switch later on though comes really unexpected and needs a build up I would say, it really catches you off guard which I would like to prevent actually.
The keyswitch itself is a great idea though, definitely keep it, just build it up within 8 beats or something.
So one last thing, and thats nitpicky maybe: after the keyswitch you have the vocal again and then, again the melody in solo. After that you drop with the melody. But because you already dropped with the melody in the first mainpart you dont really need to present the melody once again, although its in a different key. Try to build your second drop up in that part where the melody plays solo already and then drop it right after it. I mean, you're kinda already doing it because you drop right after the melody plays solo, but letting a melody play solo only works really once, and that is in the mainbreak. Use that time from 4.10 to 4:22 for a real and full buildup towards a drop. Oh and also, I would take out the tapeeffect right before the drop, doesnt sound really clean.
Overall its a solid job man, but you gotta shorten your parts from time to time to keep your track fresh throughout the whole thing. This could turn out really great man!



____________________________
After a long time in this topic I got something new again I'm pretty happy with the outcome, although some feedback I got said that I just reproduce a few techniques with are common nowadays and not being really innovative. The perks of getting totally in the zone I suppose... but I can see where the feedback is coming from.. do you?

Neko:

Show spoiler

@daniro29

At first, I thought that the tail of your kick is clipping or something but actually I think its the hardsound fighting with the kick in the lows. Not that sure though but something is there which distorts the whole mix. And its worse in the midintro than in the mainbreak so I suppose its the hardsound.
The melody fits the midintro perfectly, and apart from that it seems well written. I like it.
The lead really lives from the treble frequencies. For me its maybe a bit too much or I would go another way around that: I would turn the treble frequencies down a notch and add a layer which is responsible for the treble frequencies (just maybe do a normal supersaw, route it to a channel, add an EQ on it with a highpass at 5000/7000hz or something and then bus it to your mainlead channel). This will take care of that much whitenoise in your mix and will add something in the treble frequencies again which isnt particularly only white noise.
This is criticism on a high level though and the issue I have with the treble could be also caused by soundcloud instead of you
Overall I miss a bit variety and Percussions like crashes or something.
With the variety I mean like right now, its pretty simple: Midintro with one mainsound, then break with the melody then a drop with the melody and thats it. I know you said its not finished but I would touch upon that if you keep working on it. And you should be working on it, its great man!

@Tragonvalo
So in the midintro, you change up the pattern the screech is playing at 0:24. For me the change actually doesnt bring something really new (which comes next is critique on a really high level btw) nowadays in rawstyle its pretty common to change up something completely after 8 bars already if you're not in a mainpart with a melody. With screeches you wanna not just change up the hights of your tones but also maybe the rhythmic pattern. or you switch the kickdrum, add another screech on top etc etc. I think youll get what I mean. Changing only the pitch of the screech doesnt seem to be enough here.
The chords of your break dont really fit the midintro and really sets it apart from it. This is because the midintro is on a Emin scale and the break starts with a Fmin or Cmin I'm not so sure (bass Pad plays C but it feels more like a Fmin). Both (Emin & Fmin) dont really get along very well. Maybe try to write the break starting with Emin and then you'll go with Amaj like you do already. Pretty much a similar issue with the melody for me... key switches don't really make much sense and sound off.
Ok so I didnt wanna just throw around with criticism so I opened up my FL to come up with a better solution for you. And here it goes:
As for the mainmelody, the last 8 beats need work. There the melody starts doing different stuff than before, and I think its doing too much. Try to find a way to incorporate the note E on the 1 & 3, like you did before also in the last part. The melody always starts with an E and has two following notes which change up depending on your key you're in, thats your main idea behind the melody. It would make it more fluent if you could do it on the whole melody.
Also your bassnotes/kick pitches go the following, each note for 8 beats:
E, F# (I think), E, D#.
Try going for:
E, F, C, B. That should sound better.
Same goes with your second mainpart.
After the maindrop, I like the bells a lot, give it a really nice feeling.
So one last thing, if you got a limiter on your master, turn it off. The waveform looks a bit like it. If you have no limiter on the master, then start thinking about doing a mixdown. Almost every sound sounds clipped a bit, that is because all sounds are too loud. Doing a mixdown helps you to get rid of that problem (and many more problems aswell in general).
Keep it up man!

@dawed1999
Nice idea with the psydrop for sure but I would build it up differently. Psydrops nowadays really work well when dropped out of nowhere. So in the buildup, maybe try to trick the listener into having a normal drop with a normal kick. And then, when the drop comes, cou drop with the psykick. Having the psykick in the buildup already takes away the surprise effect almost every track has with a psydrop. Regarding the kick itself, i would work out the punch a bit more, it seems to be ducked down a bit or was just quiet in the first place. Maybe a simple treble boost would do the job already.
Really great vocalcuts, works really great and goes with the flow.
At 1:04, you again drop with the psykick and I just wouldnt do that. The psykick is almost always used as a crowd control/surprise effect which fades away after 16 bars (thats just how our ears are used to hardstyle). I would cut out the part from 1:04-1:30 completely and go with the part from 1:30 on. The screech sounds really crazy and thats a good thing, the normal hardstyle kick though its really pushed behind in the mix and needs to be louder to contest the screech in the mix. Right now, the screech is the mainfocus and the kick is not in that part, I would change that.
The part from 2:00 on sounds really great but again is too long for my taste as it goes on until 2:27, just cut it in half and you're done with that.
Great synth, but in that part I just keep missing something in the background, maybe add a pad behind it or something. The mainpart could work like that, I really like it. The key switch later on though comes really unexpected and needs a build up I would say, it really catches you off guard which I would like to prevent actually.
The keyswitch itself is a great idea though, definitely keep it, just build it up within 8 beats or something.
So one last thing, and thats nitpicky maybe: after the keyswitch you have the vocal again and then, again the melody in solo. After that you drop with the melody. But because you already dropped with the melody in the first mainpart you dont really need to present the melody once again, although its in a different key. Try to build your second drop up in that part where the melody plays solo already and then drop it right after it. I mean, you're kinda already doing it because you drop right after the melody plays solo, but letting a melody play solo only works really once, and that is in the mainbreak. Use that time from 4.10 to 4:22 for a real and full buildup towards a drop. Oh and also, I would take out the tapeeffect right before the drop, doesnt sound really clean.
Overall its a solid job man, but you gotta shorten your parts from time to time to keep your track fresh throughout the whole thing. This could turn out really great man!

After a long time in this topic I got something new again I'm pretty happy with the outcome, although some feedback I got said that I just reproduce a few techniques with are common nowadays and not being really innovative. The perks of getting totally in the zone I suppose... but I can see where the feedback is coming from.. do you?

To be honest, this is way beyond the skill I have, and I honestly have nothing to add to this. A job well done, mate. It's not a complete innovation on raw hardstyle, but it's still very well produced. Nothing to complain, I think the feedback you mentioned is more personal taste that technical feedback.

@Dawed1999
Valadia and neko already posted some nice feedback, but I really wanna note that the melody is amazing. The lead is defenitly good, but it's empty nonetheless. Maybe experiment with some pads / plucks. Otherwise you can do something with the vocals ( using it as a pad behind the melody )

Also melody shifting key is nice, but the track is too long. There is defenitly parts you can shorten ( Neko pointed those out ). It refreshes your track

@Neko
Perfection spotted . Honestly sounds amazing and I doubt I can give any usefull feedback. 2:51 - 3:01 is not mah style I guess, but the kick sounds soooo weak. 10/10 would buy

------------------------------
So, was kinda bored last weekend and took some time to make music. Far from completion but this is probably as far as I will take this one x)




edit: fixed link

@Neko powerful, sick kicks, driving song... nothing bad to say honestly. it sounds pretty good on my headphones, so i guess that the mix is good too. just personal taste, if you want to definetly kill it, have you thought about do the 3rd drop "psy" adding some bassline? it would fill imo! good job man!

@Subjetive dude! that sounds sick! im listening that on headphones and i think the kick is a bit quiet, thats easy to fix, the rest its amazing imo! good job!! you should finish that and send it to Euphoric Hardstyle or smt

@Subjective: sounds really nice, lots of reverb and delay! Kick could do with a small boost in the tok to cut through the mix a bit more but other than that! Also I think the melo could be more fleshed out with a few more layers.

@Neko: As usual awesome fx, kicks and stuff

@Dawed1999: Extensive feedback posted but my 2cents; Everything lacks reverb, lead needs layers. I do like the melo tho, also the vocals fit almost perfctly. Noticed a few small mistakes here and there but overall pretty good.

@EMi: Kick is a bit off on the highest notes not correctly pitched. The lead needs more layers, melo not that bad tho. Sounds still pretty good, mixdown could use a bit more work as well.


Here is something wierd I've been working on, silent part are reserved for vocals

@NRx Hardstyle
This is a nice sounding track, well mastered, I pretty like the short "breaks", they're correctly placed (as you said it will be filled with lyrics, can't wait to ear that)
i pretty like how you play with sidechaining, the only thing that is strange in my opinion is the kick used in the climax, well, it doesn't fit with the climax atmosphere, and the lead itself (in my opinion)
The sounds are clear, I don't have anything to add

Ok, since I didn't post for a while, here is just a preview (pre-intro + intro part)
I'll work harder on the kickroll, I'm just posting this to show you the general atmosphere of the track (and also the mastering work)

@KRM-MP, The build up is cool but i think you should rework your intro synth with a more screechy or distorted one, use some saturations on it, your kick drum is lacking punch and the tail as well needs to be more present but the overall idea is cool!

@NRx-Hardstyle, i actually really liked the overall, mixdown seems nice, good job man!

Heres my try :

@Krystaal

I pretty like the lead, also these small pianos notes behind the melody are making a more dreamy atmosphere that sounds pretty cool ! Well done !

So here's Hatred final version, and don't worry, the screechy part comes in the outro

@KRB-MP: The kick sounds weak and i think like the tail is too short.How do you pitch it?
You should work on it. Also i miss some strings, arpegios, voices... on the background, sounds too dry in my opinion.
Try to add also some sweep up/ sweep down in the build up to the drop for better transitions, and use a filter to cutoff frequencies of the lead for example for a better buildup.

Heres my track. Hope you guys like!

Very rough 1st take of a new idea I had, any thoughts? I know theres timing tweaking involved (working on my first song here )



EDIT: song above I really like, good atmosphere and flow to it, nvm mine its not nearly ready yet