how do you get feedback here?

[little ruin]

/\ ?

[astral parcel]

Tried posting a song?

[little ruin]

may times lol. i usually dont get a response. ik its not just me tho it seems to happen to most posts here

[merry plover]

That is how it is on most platforms tbh. Either feedback posts are just self promotion or if they are genuine, no one wants to give feedback. I tried reddit and discord. I guess mostly you need to find a core group of a few people who really want to help or something.

I posted here yesterday and got reply from one guy who was very detailed and thorough in his feedback. Great guy. But that is very rare.

[viral remnant]

I’m trying to respond to people and help where I can. Can you tag me in your post?

[foggy jackal]

Post one here.

[little ruin]

well theres this one. for the most part im pretty happy with the structure but for one i can never do endings and two im not sure if there needs to be some other part to keep it more interesting. also for mixing im pretty new to all of that. is it possible to make a professional sounding song on ableton? @foggy jackal @viral remnant

[zenith marsh]

Feedback is easiest to obtain when you ask for specific help. Asking for feedback is too open ended. Target your question more! For example I dont know what you want to know here. It would be worth spending the time humanising all these parts if I were you. The quantised nature of this song clashes with the reality of it being band music.

Also, check out underbelly's server "We Suck At Producing" and utilise their roastb4post channel. You have to provide quality feedback before sharing your track. This allows for everyone to have a fair go, and you will get named and shamed if you do a crap job at offering Feedback.

The other thing is be the change you want to be. If you don't already, offer feedback yourself and do it regularly.

[little ruin]

"the quantised nature of this song clashes with the reality of it being band music" wdym by that? and I agree my questions could have been much more specific. I do rlly appreciate the in depth respose thank you!

also wdym be humanising the parts?

[zenith marsh]

It sounds like midi rather strongly is what I mean. Make it sound like some humans played it through timing differences, veolicty variations, MPE if possible, vibrato, slides etc hammer on/offs all the human musician things

And no worries!

[foggy jackal]

Sounds like the first tracks you record as a beginner. Practice using instruments, make them sound real, learn to not always record exactly on the grid, use different velocities, find harmonically sounding sounds to write your other instruments, learn some music theory, etc. Walk, then run.

[viral remnant]

I was super busy yesterday so I saw you tagged me. I’ll take a listen as soon I get home in a few hours

[astral parcel]

Could be interesting to practice playing each part until you can play it on a keyboard and then record a few takes of playing the parts rather than programming them.

In Live’s Quantize settings you can set the quantize amount to less than 100%. This is really powerful, it will allow you to move notes closer to the grid without snapping them all exactly to grid, which can make takes all sound more natural.

[little ruin]

currently working on tabbing out the guitar parts and recording them with an actual instrument. i seem to have made some impossible or at least tricky chords tho lmfao. i’ll send it when i have it done

[astral parcel]

That’s exactly what starts to give it away as MIDI… that you hear bits of the playing that are just humanly impossible.

[viral remnant]

I know it’s like a week later but I got super busy and kept forgetting to come back and listen to your track and answer your questions. But I finally made it back onto Discord.

1. In regards to endings, it’s kinda whatever you can imagine. I’d recommend listening to your favorite songs and seeing how they end it. It’s kinda an endless world of possibilities.

2. I’d say this track is kinda out of my wheelhouse so I don’t know if any of my feedback on making it sound interesting would be helpful. But I think my cheat code to making something sound more “interesting” is speeding it up a bit. Other than that I feel like the song develops over time. I think like Just Who said, tightening up the playing of each part would help the song sound a bit tighter (unless you were going for something much more loose).

3. It’s 100% possible to make a professional sounding song in Ableton. I think it just comes down to further developing your skills. Over time you learn how to make things sound more “professional”. But I also think professional is kinda a term I’d use loosely because how a song sounds is kinda subjective. Punk Rock is gonna sound a lot more harsh than a Pop record for example but the genre kinda dictates what a “good” song sounds like in the genre.

[weak prawn]

You should post your own separate topic for this.

[weak prawn]

It sounds very constrained to me, at least for the drum/percussion parts. How were the drums created/recorded?

Are you using reference tracks?

What vibe are you going for?

[little ruin]

i’m just using free vst drums with splice. i don’t have a drum kit at my house so recording actual drums isn’t much of an option for me. i tried putting some audio effects on it but my drums usually do end up coming out a little stiff.

as for reference tracks no not rlly. i usually just kind of make things as i go, sometimes i have some song as inspiration in my mind but for this one i don’t believe i did.

and vibe? kind of sad, kind of happy, maybe a little nostalgic. maybe like the vibe of looking back on a good vacation and having to go back to the real world that kind of thing

[weak prawn]

What specific VST plugin are you using for the drums?
Also, are you using Live 12 Suite or something else?
I ask because I might know of some options for enhancing the drum elements.

[little ruin]

rn im running ableton live 12 suite. I just looked back at the project and i actually wasnt using a VST i was using the dry session kit that comes free with ableton. It doesnt transpose 1:1 so im gonna have to put some work in for it, but using a VST would def go along way it making the drums sound less stock 😅

[weak prawn]

Do you have any examples of the kinds of drum sounds you're trying to achieve?

[weak prawn]

How do these drums sound?

Session Drums dry kit, plus Drum Buss to beef them up a bit, then an Audio Effect Rack with two chains:

1. Convolution Reverb Pro (100% wet) + Compressor, with the Compressor configured to use the signal from the second chain as the sidechain input
2. Utility, which just serves as a dummy device for the first chain's Compressor to use as a sidechain source.

Map the Compressor threshold and the Convolution Reverb gain to macro knobs.

Now you can dial in a good value for the reverb's loudness, and also adjust how much the dry signal causes the wet signal to duck. The reverb won't smear the drums, while it will still come through just enough to make the drums sound more realistic.

The Drum Buss is boosting the transients a bit, and adding a bit more boom to the kick fundamental, while also adding a parallel compression stage. This makes the drums sound more evened out, more powerful, and more "close to the listener".