Finally Completed... Really Creepy Industrial

Share and discuss your LMMS music projects here, and see what people think!
If you're not a horror enthusiast this one might not be for you.

This genre takes a very acquired taste and is not that popular (possibly the least popular subgenre).

That said, here's a completion of a previous post, made using LMMS of course. (Length @ 4:53)


"It's Santa" (I changed the name):

http://sndup.net/cmhw

Enjoy! Honest critiques are very welcome. (I can take it LOL.) :-)
Electropocalypse wrote:
Sat Jun 25, 2022 10:56 pm
If you're not a horror enthusiast this one might not be for you.

This genre takes a very acquired taste and is not that popular (possibly the least popular subgenre).

That said, here's a completion of a previous post, made using LMMS of course. (Length @ 4:53)


"It's Santa" (I changed the name):

http://sndup.net/cmhw

Enjoy! Honest critiques are very welcome. (I can take it LOL.) :-)
Hi Electropocalypse,

Very good I like the ambience the different sounds go well together and I really love that metallic sound. It's a very cool track.

I don't know if it comes from the website (sometimes they add lot of compression on tracks) but the music sounds very low. Maybe you can add more loudness. You can check it using a reference track as a comparison.

Other than that good job !

Cheers,
RD
Thank you for compliments the tip there! I noticed that too, though I had a lot of instruments playing at once in some parts (a fair bit of layering) so I ended up turning down the volume knobs on several things and automating volume on certain instruments to make them more audible. I then put a TDR Nova compressor/equalizer on the master channel to help balance everything out.

I added an amplifier to the master just now. It still starts at green but went from yellow to a red on the loud parts.

Not sure how to improve that. Learning this is far more complicated that most people can imagine.

I'm thinking I should just link that amplifier to a modulation track and adjust it that way so everything stays in yellow.

It's a bit of a pain but worth it for professional sounding music. :-)
Electropocalypse wrote:
Sun Jun 26, 2022 10:08 pm
Thank you for compliments the tip there! I noticed that too, though I had a lot of instruments playing at once in some parts (a fair bit of layering) so I ended up turning down the volume knobs on several things and automating volume on certain instruments to make them more audible. I then put a TDR Nova compressor/equalizer on the master channel to help balance everything out.

I added an amplifier to the master just now. It still starts at green but went from yellow to a red on the loud parts.

Not sure how to improve that. Learning this is far more complicated that most people can imagine.

I'm thinking I should just link that amplifier to a modulation track and adjust it that way so everything stays in yellow.

It's a bit of a pain but worth it for professional sounding music. :-)
Yes I agree that making something professional is very hard. I also struggle with this and my results are still far to sound professional. But we are here to share and improve. I'll try to give you some tips related to my small experience :

In order to have an idea of the loudness of your track better use a loudness analyzer. Like this you'll know the exact value of the peak and the loudness rather with just have ideas with colors. Usually a finished track has -14LUFS loudness and the peak around -0.2 to -1 dB (after mixing + mastering).

About the compressor you can use a multiband compressor on your master in order to improve the mix and also a saturator. You will definitely gain with this.

Also the kick is clipping. You can check how it hits on a spectrum and make some EQ. You can use the lmms spectrum or SPAN which is free Also you can add on the kick a Wave-shaping signal clipper like the VST Gclip (free as well) to remove a little the huge peak that your kick probably have. And apply sidechain when the kick hits to make it more present and louder without increasing its sound (you have some tutorials on Youtube about sidechaining in lmms).

You can cut a little the low frequencies using EQ on the sample at 1:30 as well. I think this sound + the kick are hitting too hard the lowest frequencies.

Also don't hesitate to use some panning and stereo effects to give more space to the track.

Also MeldaProduction provides a good set of effects like compressor/limiter, saturator, loudness analyzer for free, etc... It's not that hard to use and results are good.

Cheers,
RD
Reiodust wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 8:22 pm

Yes I agree that making something professional is very hard. I also struggle with this and my results are still far to sound professional. But we are here to share and improve. I'll try to give you some tips related to my small experience :

In order to have an idea of the loudness of your track better use a loudness analyzer. Like this you'll know the exact value of the peak and the loudness rather with just have ideas with colors. Usually a finished track has -14LUFS loudness and the peak around -0.2 to -1 dB (after mixing + mastering).

About the compressor you can use a multiband compressor on your master in order to improve the mix and also a saturator. You will definitely gain with this.

Also the kick is clipping. You can check how it hits on a spectrum and make some EQ. You can use the lmms spectrum or SPAN which is free Also you can add on the kick a Wave-shaping signal clipper like the VST Gclip (free as well) to remove a little the huge peak that your kick probably have. And apply sidechain when the kick hits to make it more present and louder without increasing its sound (you have some tutorials on Youtube about sidechaining in lmms).

You can cut a little the low frequencies using EQ on the sample at 1:30 as well. I think this sound + the kick are hitting too hard the lowest frequencies.

Also don't hesitate to use some panning and stereo effects to give more space to the track.

Also MeldaProduction provides a good set of effects like compressor/limiter, saturator, loudness analyzer for free, etc... It's not that hard to use and results are good.

Cheers,
RD
Thank you for all the great information!

I tried plugins from Melda before but they kept making a hissing sound so I gave up on them. :-/

I tried nearly everything you mentioned and had great results. I'll definitely go back in and add more panning (with some modulation) and add the stereo-enhancer effect to instruments that are too dull sounding.

I was also having a lot of trouble with sidechaining. I deleted the peak controller I had, created a new one and it worked. Very weird...

There's only one major thing I'm struggling with at this point:

The kick doesn't sound great.

I tried using that clipper set to a hard clip and nothing really changed except volume. I have a tiny bit of tube distortion (Camel Crusher) lots of compression on there. If I turn it off though it loses it's 'grit' and sounds too flat. I also added a bass booster. I put some saturation on it and that helped out a lot. Still, I think it could be the sample I'm using. I made it in Audacity using a square wave. I also added EQ to take out some of the mids and high frequencies.

Here's what the waveform looks like:

Image

Maybe I need to mix a sine wave in there and render it? I'm sure there are many ways to smooth out the tail, I'm just not sure which way is the best. I am going for a hard bass kind of sound though.

I also noticed at the very end there's a ringing sound. Not sure what that is though but it seems to come from the bass (I think).

Also, here's a sample of the kick with effects (note @ C3):

https://sndup.net/xcbw/

And without effects:

https://sndup.net/h8t7/


Also, the volume seems low after exporting but in LMMS it's perfect (volume is in the high-green range at the quiet parts and a bit of yellow at the loud parts).


Other than that it is much better than it was. I added a couple extra instruments at the very end of the song too. Still, I'm sure I can do better yet.

Once I improve enough with mastering I'm sure it will be much easier on future projects.

Thanks again for your amazing advice and sorry to take up your time!


Here's the semi-improved version (2.0):

https://sndup.net/8dpb/
Reiodust wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 8:22 pm


Yes I agree that making something professional is very hard. I also struggle with this and my results are still far to sound professional. But we are here to share and improve. I'll try to give you some tips related to my small experience :

In order to have an idea of the loudness of your track better use a loudness analyzer. Like this you'll know the exact value of the peak and the loudness rather with just have ideas with colors. Usually a finished track has -14LUFS loudness and the peak around -0.2 to -1 dB (after mixing + mastering).

About the compressor you can use a multiband compressor on your master in order to improve the mix and also a saturator. You will definitely gain with this.

Also the kick is clipping. You can check how it hits on a spectrum and make some EQ. You can use the lmms spectrum or SPAN which is free Also you can add on the kick a Wave-shaping signal clipper like the VST Gclip (free as well) to remove a little the huge peak that your kick probably have. And apply sidechain when the kick hits to make it more present and louder without increasing its sound (you have some tutorials on Youtube about sidechaining in lmms).

You can cut a little the low frequencies using EQ on the sample at 1:30 as well. I think this sound + the kick are hitting too hard the lowest frequencies.

Also don't hesitate to use some panning and stereo effects to give more space to the track.

Also MeldaProduction provides a good set of effects like compressor/limiter, saturator, loudness analyzer for free, etc... It's not that hard to use and results are good.

Cheers,
RD
Scrapped my original post. I got the kick I was looking for (thanks to the tutorials here). Crossover distortion gave it that nice frequency modulation sound I wanted too. (Decimator does too but much too extreme). Still could be better but I'm very happy with it so far.

https://sndup.net/dvqx/
I listened to it a while ago. It sounds nice. Nice work.
brandystarbrite wrote:
Fri Jul 01, 2022 4:01 am
I listened to it a while ago. It sounds nice. Nice work.
Thank you Brandy! Your compliments mean a lot as you guys are seasoned pros (in my view).

I felt like i was running in circles a lot with so many 'tiny' parts while others went very smoothly.

I'll have to watch some videos on kicks though... getting that perfect sound (heavy bass and distortion but not lo-fi sounding) is a challenge! I'm fairly new at this but I'm very driven. I'll check out some videos and tuts as there is still much for me to learn.

Thanks again. :-)
If you're trying to get a heavy bass, use one of the equalizer plugins, that are included in lmms, like tap equalizer etc. :D
brandystarbrite wrote:
Fri Jul 01, 2022 11:06 pm
If you're trying to get a heavy bass, use one of the equalizer plugins, that are included in lmms, like tap equalizer etc. :D
Thanks for the tip! I noticed it sounded muddy so i turned up kicker (I had that layered over it) and removed bass booster. It's so confusing but I saw in the equalizer plugin it was very high on bass with almost no treble. I do have it at note C3 though. :-/

I think I finally got it right on the button. So many repost!! Sorry guys. :-D

I think this is the final (final) product. Maybe it just needs more panning and amplification but I'll probably move on to other ventures for now.

Mastering is a real pain. ^_^


Reiodust wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 8:22 pm
...
You can disregard all my earlier versions. Sorry about that. :-)

https://sndup.net/sbsm/