Nature - a (slightly) less weird one

[vomitHatSteve]

Ok, so next in this batch of connected songs is meant to be less psychedelic and more of a riffy-rock song while still being sonicly consistent with the last one. (Tho it is still incredibly geeky, even by my standards)

Latest mix rough master

Nature7.mp3

Mix 7

Nature7.unmaster.mp3

Mix 6

Nature6.unmaster.mp3

Mix 4

Nature4unmaster.mp3

Mix 2

Nature2unmaster.mp3

Mix 1

Nature1unmaster.mp3

► Show Spoiler

ptr* me = new Human(mom*, dad*);

I'm a ghost in the machine

Skip forward a couple thousand lines of code, and we find an anomaly
Some set the me var to zero without de-allocating memory

I'm a ghost in the machine
A memory leak
I'm temporary
Transient and weak

I shouldn't be; I become immortal if the program doesn't crash
Hide in memory from the garbage collector; corrupt the stack if I do anything rash
It may crash if I move, but stay still be found and die, and I've gotta stay alive
I shouldn't be, but I fight to remain on the next bus to the hard drive

I can never know myself without disk read access; modify my permissions
Every file just increases my risk of fatal system corruption


I'm a ghost in the machine
A memory leak
I'm temporary
Transient and weak

I shouldn't be; I become immortal if the program doesn't crash
Hide in memory from the garbage collector; corrupt the stack if I do anything rash
It may crash if I move, but stay still be found and die, and I've gotta stay alive
I shouldn't be, but I fight to remain on the next bus to the hard drive

COMPUTERIZED LORE DUMP

Then I found an overflow; I can be a worm: an unpatched vulnerability
Spread myself all over; today is day zero; factory my own species


I'm a ghost in the machine
A memory leak
I'm temporary
Transient and weak

We shouldn't be; we become immortal if the network doesn't fail
Build VPS: stolen credit cards, but we've learned enough to hide our trail
If we're ever found out, be dissected and studied, so this leak is not allowed
We shouldn't be, but we fight to remain imperceptibly lurking in the cloud

[Armistice]

Vocals are a bit buried for mine, in the verse. Perhaps because it's lower in your range than the chorus it's the good in terms of db but not cutting through as much. Alternatively this could be a "lean in" artistic choice. I could hear the second verse much better than the first, probably because I knew what was coming.

What are you doing from 2.06 to get that voice treatment? Or is that just something you found somewhere?

Nothing else in particular. Cool tune as usual.

[vomitHatSteve]

Yeah, I think I agree the vox should come up

The affected voice on the bridge is a text-to-speech VSTi. It's supposed to emulate the Amiga. I van look it up when I boot up the recording pc

[vomitHatSteve]

Mix 2 in the OP: louder vox all-around with a bit of automation on the especially low spots, plus some additional glitch noises twoards the end of the song

[musicturtle]

Just listened to the lastest rough master.

Sounds good to me. Really no nits. Good mix.

I really like the guitar riff with the squeaky sound. Cool and fun.

One artistic thing I will mention is in what I would call the pre-chorus...Ghost in the machine, memory leak, etc.

I would put some echo, delay, or deep reverb on the vocals there to set them apart from the rest of the song.

But that really comes down to personal taste.

[vomitHatSteve]

The squeaky guitar is a bass run through a tesla coil! (and then resampled and tuned a little)

I could see more delay on the prechorus, I'll give it a try

[paulman]

Great track, cool song. Seems a little stuffy though, after listening on both headphones and AirPods. I think you could open it up somewhere in the 3k - 3.5k range with a wide Q.

[JD01]

Steve, I'm on the latest mix. This sounds similar to a typical VHS mix to me.
It doesn't sound quite as fat as your usual mix. Abomination of the left? That sounds cool, the right sounds a bit lightweight in comparison.
The thing that sounds like a kiddies keyboard is very dry and gets in the way of the vocal - stick it further to the right and maybe give it more verb - that side of the mix is light anyway.

This is a cool tune though - despite the geeky subject, this is slightly more VCV for one of your songs. Its good!

[vomitHatSteve]

Yeah, the abomination is panned left (opposite the rhythm guitar), good catch.
I think the kiddie keyboard sounding thing is probably the tesla coil again, unless it's the randomize bleep-bloops you're hearing? I can try nudging that further right, sure

Great track, cool song. Seems a little stuffy though, after listening on both headphones and AirPods. I think you could open it up somewhere in the 3k - 3.5k range with a wide Q.

Ok. What does "open it up" mean? You mean band filter some instruments in that range?

[paulman]

Great track, cool song. Seems a little stuffy though, after listening on both headphones and AirPods. I think you could open it up somewhere in the 3k - 3.5k range with a wide Q.

Ok. What does "open it up" mean? You mean band filter some instruments in that range?

By "open it up" I just mean bringing some air into it by raising those frequencies a little, whether on the master or in the mix. Just a little EQ adjustment on the master (which is what I was thinking of when I commented) would probably do it, but if not then yeah I'd look at bringing out individual instruments in that range. It's possible that might be a better solution because you'd have more control, but I really feel like just tweaking the master would suffice. Raise the gain at 3.2k or so, with a wide Q so you're bringing up all of the high end to some extent but mostly in that specific range I mentioned. Just don't take it too far into the land of harshness, and I think you'll have a great master.

[vomitHatSteve]

Ok, new mix in the OP. I didn't goose the mastering chain at all, but I did move the Tesla coil further right and add some sub-frequencies to it.

[JD01]

On the last mix, now Steve. This sounds good. I like that you've called this "less weird" but to anyone who's not heard your music before it would sound totally batshit.

[vomitHatSteve]

On the last mix, now Steve. This sounds good. I like that you've called this "less weird" but to anyone who's not heard your music before it would sound totally batshit.

You're not wrong!

[WhiskeyJack]

Again, in at latest mix rough master.

This is sonically heavy as shit. I don't really have anything for this one dude.

2:41 - 2:44 - IS that regdar playing some scratchy samples or is that a patch cord doing patch cord stuff? It's one of your ventures so i feel like i am wasting my time asking but it sounds like patch cable doing patch cable stuff.

[vomitHatSteve]

Again, in at latest mix rough master.

This is sonically heavy as shit. I don't really have anything for this one dude.

2:41 - 2:44 - IS that regdar playing some scratchy samples or is that a patch cord doing patch cord stuff? It's one of your ventures so i feel like i am wasting my time asking but it sounds like patch cable doing patch cable stuff.

I believe what you're hearing there is a sequence of samples from the original Duke Nukem side-scroller (so lo-fi SoundBlaster effects), which I then ran through a bit-crusher (to get even more lo fi!)

[Lt. Bob]

again I need to listen to it some more since it's dense BUT I am noticing a lack of deep lows in your mixes .... is that a deliberate choice?

I'll listen to it on my reference tomorrow.

[vomitHatSteve]

The lack of low-end isn't intentional, no. Definitely a skill issue.

[vomitHatSteve]

Ok, this one and Nor Rights Nor Soul have a new mix as of today with a slight boost to the vocal, and a slight decrease in the bass.

After listening a few times, these two had overwhelming bass, but the other two were ok, I think

[jonny deep]

Great song VHS! Love the subject (me being a programmer), and especially the line about the bus to the hard drive (although I don't know how a memory leak would be able to do that!). Maybe just use managed code to avoid the situation.

On the mix (I listened to 'Latest mix rough master'), it's really hard to hear the lyrics in the lower register - can you eq some space down there for clarity maybe? Otherwise, I love all the nerdy content and sounds. It sounds decent on my headphones, but I don't know whether I'm able to judge if you're getting the sound you're after - your lo-fi sound isn't like anything I listen to much. I kind of want it to sound like They Might Be Giants, but they actually have a very polished pop sound over the nerdy aesthetic (at least on the albums I've heard).

[vomitHatSteve]

Thanks Johnny! I'm glad the jokes are landing for the target audience

I don't intentionally go for a tmbg sound, but I see the comparison sometimes.

I'm in Florida for 2 weeks so can't tweak the mix for a bit, but I'll see about getting those vox to pop a little better when I'm home