omniiq

[monkeylizard]

Hi all

After much pondering, and encouragement from one of the senior (not age) members here, I've finally decided to post some tracks online.

www.soundcloud.com/omniiq

If you get the chance and you fancy a listen, that would be much appreciated. But it's a busy world and there's lots of music out there, so if you don't that's cool as well.

Most of it is sort of mellow, ambient, droney stuff with a bit of melody sprinkled in. One of them most definitely isn't...

Thanks.

[JohnLRice]

Wow, excellent stuff! I think I liked greyd and dyfph the best. You should consider putting together some videos because your music would really work well as the sound track.

Keep up the great work!

[seraph]

nice stuff, maybe more recognizable titles would help...

[monkeylizard]

Thanks for the kind thoughts.

John - never really considered the video side of things and wouldn't really have a clue where to start, but you've got me thinking

Seraph - I could say that the titles are chosen purposely so as not to give the listener any preconceptions. Or I could just admit to being an Autechre fan

[seraph]

[monkeylizard]

Another new track posted:

www.soundcloud.com/omniiq/aqeamul

A sort of ambient-ish, mellow-ish, drone-ish thing.

(Ongoing apologies to Seraph for the lack of catchy titles )

[monkeylizard]

More new stuff:

www.soundcloud.com/omniiq/yx2

Not really sure how I would describe this one - it seems to have turned into a bit of a horror soundtrack type thing.

I had lots of trouble with this one trying to get everything to sit right, especially the 'vocal'.

Any thoughts, comments, constructive criticisms or suggestions would be most welcome.

[JohnLRice]

[monkeylizard]

[JohnLRice]

My pleasure!

I've found that I'm much more productive when I'm just doing live synth performance stuff and then spicing it up with some video. When I try to fo multi-track stuff I have the hardest time finishing it!

For video work I highly recommend Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. It's well under $100 street price. I've done all of my videos with it.

If you don't have a video camera get a nice little one (HiDef if you can affor it, mine isn't) Try to budget a large studio light with a softbox if you can. Video likes lots of light!

Most of my more recent video have video content i licensed from www.pond5.com It makes it easy to do a nice video but the cost adds up FAST!

Thank you for the kind words and best of luck on your music and future videos!
John

[monkeylizard]

Thanks for the info, John.

I had a quick look at the Sony Vegas software - am I right in thinking it's PC only? (I'm of the Mac persuasion).

The only things stopping me from trying to create my own videos are a) lack of funds, b) lack of talent and c) the fact that any time spent making videos will be less time spent making music. But apart from that...

[JohnLRice]

[smueske]

Cool! I listened to the first three tracks. Good stuff. Reminds me a lot of Harold Budd's work. I agree with Seraph that these need better titles. I understand your argument, but a good title provides a good frame.

Looking forward to listening to more from you.

[monkeylizard]

Thanks for the thoughts, gentlemen.

John - er, yeah... I think the Mac has iMovie. Although I've never actually opened it, so I'm assuming it's the same thing. I liked the videos you linked to - I preferred the second one as I felt the overlaid text on the first detracted from the experience somewhat.

Steve - the only work of Budd's that I've heard is his Plateaux of Mirror with Eno, but I take what you said very much as a compliment (even if 'reminding of' is a world away from 'as good as' ). The song title issue does seem to be a recurring theme, and not just from people on here, so I concede that I may have to reconsider things in that area.

I appreciate you both taking the time to listen and comment. Thank you.

[monkeylizard]

I guess sometimes it's possible to be too obscure so feedback has been taken on board and all of the tracks I have up on soundcloud have been renamed.

Thanks for the input, guys.

[smueske]

Cool titles! I'll listen again with the titles in mind. I'll be back in a day or two...

Edit: The titles work for me with the mood you set. Were it me, I'd reconsider "Midnight Promises" just because it sounds like some kind of cheesy pop title.

It gave me an excuse to listen to your tunes again.

[monkeylizard]

Thanks for listening again and for commenting.

Your point about Midnight Promises is one that I can understand. And sort of what I was trying to avoid with my previous ultra-obscure track titles. It can now give the preconception that it's a cheesy pop song, but hopefully sounds nothing like that. To be honest, it was the one title I was least comfortable with, but personally has much darker connotations than the cheesiness it hints at.

'Tis all in the ear of the beholder, I guess.

[monkeylizard]

A slightly longer, piano-improv, ambient drone thing this time:

www.soundcloud.com/omniiq/of-life-and-light

The drone sound was done using Absynth; the piano was courtesy of Logic's EXS; and the pad sound that washes in and out was also done entirely within Logic using my latest favourite trick (which I must be very careful not to start over-using - too much of a good thing and all that).

As always any comments, criticisms, suggestions, etc are most welcome.

[smueske]

First for the good stuff -- I love the drone, really detailed and interesting texture. I also like the sound of the piano. Sound-wise, you're set.

Now for the bad stuff -- right now, to me, the piano sounds too much like noodling. Conceptually I get what you're doing but it would have much more impact if it had its own life. In terms of sonic interest, the close intervals feel too simple. I think you could alter some of that with wide, big chords or a short theme that keeps developing and changing. But I also think you could take the opportunity to automate some interesting things to the piano -- attack time, for example. Or resample some piano segments and do some manipulations with them.

I think you're going for a kind of dialectic with this, which may make my comments above useless. If that's the case, then I'd argue for an even more minimal approach and choose your notes, durations and such very carefully.

[monkeylizard]

Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment again, Steve - your feedback is very much appreciated.

Good stuff - ironically, the drone was the bit I struggled with most. Every time I listened to the track I found something wrong with it, but in the end I decided I just had to 'go with it' as I could have tweaked for weeks and not perfected it.

Bad stuff - your comment about it sounding like noodling is spot on as that's exactly what it was. I let the drone run, and recorded the piano in a single take - the only thing done to it was a touch of reverb. I was aiming for something fairly minimal which just 'felt' right at the time - maybe having that as a target means that it doesn't sound right subsequently...?

Thank you for being honest with your comments - if you just said you liked everything I did, I'd think you were just saying it to be nice. It's good to know that sound-wise everything seems OK as I think it's possible to be more objective about that (there's more of a sense of right and wrong), whereas composition is (thank God or whoever) much more subjective. I think it was an experiment I needed to do.

[monkeylizard]

After years of being frustrated that I can't finish anything, now I'm worried that I'm finishing too much too quickly - maybe my problems are more fundamental than musical ones

Anyway, a simpler, quieter piece this time. The piano has been abandoned in an attempt to concentrate more on texture.

www.soundcloud.com/omniiq/no-longer

Thanks for any thoughts.

[monkeylizard]

Something different this time, at least in terms of technique - no synths on this track just 'real instruments' (as my mum would say).

www.soundcloud.com/omniiq/faintest-trace

[smueske]

Hey, I almost missed this. Could you post new songs in new threads? I didn't click on this thread because I thought it was discussion about songs I've already listened to.

I like this a lot. I have mixed feelings in that this does exactly what the title implies, but I almost wish some of the sounds would "surface" at various points (particular the harmonics) to create another layer. Still, I like the brooding, haunting feeling of this. Really enjoyed the listen.

Steve

[monkeylizard]

Thanks for taking the time to listen again, Steve - I really appreciate the feedback.

I can see your point about wanting things to surface, but there may be a few reasons for this:

1. I'm not sure how you were listening to it (although I would guess at streaming the mp3 from Soundcloud), but there's definitely a lot more going on in the track when I listen to the original through the monitors in my studio. I'll freely admit that mixing/mastering for all eventualities is a weakness and something I need to work on, but I'm not keen on making it sound right through laptop speakers at the expense of everything else. It's a difficult one.

2. Some things were purposely kept back in the mix as I think it enhanced the mood of the track.

3. There's only so much I could do with just one 20 second clip of me playing classical guitar

As for new threads, could I have a mod's input, please? I'm not sure of the etiquette - on one hand there's the problem Steve had of thinking that there's nothing new to see; on the other hand I don't want to fill the Online Music board with lots of threads about me. What's the way to go?

[smueske]

The way I do it is reply in the same thread if it's about the same piece, revisions, etc., but start a new thread for a new song. I'm not chastising you by any means, just letting you know that I nearly missed it and I want to keep listening to your work. If you feel uncomfortable posting new threads, maybe you could PM me or something?