Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

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Cloaked
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Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Cloaked »

Second time I've posted ambient shit in here, I know it's not techno, but in case anyone is trying to sleep.


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Hades
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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Hades »

it almost sounds a bit too rushed for what I'd expect to be ambient (but maybe that's just my expectations of course), though that's not necessarily a bad thing.
and there are a few parts where the shimmery stuff is almost disturbing your ears, especially in the first minute or so (0:10 to 0:30 as a rough guess)
and the filter thing at 0:38 : a bit abrupt considering the general atmosphere of the track.

Call me a cunt, but I miss some reverb to mellow it all down a bit. :)
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Cloaked
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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Cloaked »

Thanks for listening mate. All fair points. There's plenty of reverb but it is too bright, for sure. It's from the Analog 4 and it just keeps going up in a way that digital doesn't seem to... no EQ at all.

Thanks again anyway, I appreciate your time.

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Hades
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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Hades »

Cloaked wrote: but in case anyone is trying to sleep.
1. as much as I'm sure you meant this to be a joke, good ambient both can make you relax and still hold your attention, especially for people like us, who usually hear far more detail than your average listener (no offence to them) :)

2. might I recommend you the fabulous "Sleep" album from Max Richter ?
I have been a big Max Richter fan for many years, but it seems the last 2 or 3 years, everyone's (finally) discovering this guy.

Anyway, he made this album about 2 years ago, saying he wanted something for his kids to be able to relax to, since he wondered if they ever had time to relax in our ever accelerating world. It's an album meant to listen to late at night, and the composer even prefers people to just fall asleep to the album and listen to it while sleeping. (the total length is 8,5 hours)
I've put the album on during a long car drive and had my youngest (5) fall asleep to it in maybe 10 minutes time, and I literally saw her smile constantly and even move her feet around to the rhythm of the music. It was lovely to see.
If you want to buy this on CD, it's gonna cost you far too much. I paid 80€ for it (8CD's + 1 blue-ray that can play the whole album in full length),
but I've seen prices go up to 200€ (!!!),
but you can get it in digital format for far less.

This album is highly repetitive of course, but I am an extremely hyper-active and nervous person (even though most can't tell when they meet me in person),
and yet, every time I listen to this album I get completely zen.
It's a total trip. One of the most relaxing and rewarding listening experiences of my entire life (and I don't say this lightly).
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Cloaked
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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Cloaked »

Nice one! Love Richter, but haven't heard this - will check it out.

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jordanneke
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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by jordanneke »

I've listened to this a few times. Aside from what hades says about the digital brightness, I can't really add any other feedback.

Good stuff man

Cloaked
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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Cloaked »

thanks jordan!

strange you say digital brightness - it's 100% analogue, no digital processing at all - who says analogue is warmer :-)

defo needs taming though! thanks again mate, i really appreciate your time.

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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by suppressor »

The bass is lovely and subtle in this track, appears at all the right times.
I feel like a few more dynamic changes could help with the progression of this song, for an ambient track it feels very full of sound.
Really cool track :)

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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by dubdub »

Nice track!

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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Aurongroove »

I find the harmonic content from a music theory perspective to be too plain; It's nothing that wouldn't have been done 200 years ago and put into a string quartet.

A good way to bring antique harmonies up to date, without having to RUIN your music with dissonance, is by subtly adding, upper partials, (7ths 9ths, 11ths) with quieter voices then those used for your triadic intervals, Or, using these in lower voices, (again quietly) to give your chords a feeling of not being grounded to the extent of being harmonically pastiche.
Something I do a lot of is add parallel harmonics to what would other wise be considered, less important intervals, i.e., in the C minor triad, re-enforce a high harmonic of the minor 3rd (in this case E) and use that as a means of pulling your chords into a strange place.


The production seems grand, nothing to complain about. but yes it is on side of the "a bit bright".
The luxuriously long fade away ending is nice but there is a distracting "jolt" that occurs @ 4:04, that really doesn't serve any purpose except to sound like you didn't clip the end of the track soon enough.


I like the kinda 'fucked up' filter transition @0:28. It give a little bit of balls the the whole affair.
I wouldn't mind see it happen once or twice more, even if less severely.

Like "aftershocks" if you will.
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Hades
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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Hades »

Aurongroove wrote:I find the harmonic content from a music theory perspective to be too plain; It's nothing that wouldn't have been done 200 years ago and put into a string quartet.

A good way to bring antique harmonies up to date, without having to RUIN your music with dissonance, is by subtly adding, upper partials, (7ths 9ths, 11ths) with quieter voices then those used for your triadic intervals, Or, using these in lower voices, (again quietly) to give your chords a feeling of not being grounded to the extent of being harmonically pastiche.
Something I do a lot of is add parallel harmonics to what would other wise be considered, less important intervals, i.e., in the C minor triad, re-enforce a high harmonic of the minor 3rd (in this case E) and use that as a means of pulling your chords into a strange place.
.
you give some lovely detailed feedback,
but I'm afraid the above part might get too "academically theoretic", so to say, for most people here. :D
I have no idea what Cloaked's background is, but even with mine I gotta use my brain quite a bit (or maybe my brain just hurts too much this morning)
But then again, I take it you at least had enough harmony.
I always felt it was a disgrace how they taught us so much, but almost never decent harmony, unless you really took it as a separate subject.
Or maybe teenagers (which I was at the time I finally said I had enough when I quit the classical training and bought my first synth) are simply not much interested in harmony, who knows ? :)
One of the things on my to do list is properly learn my chords again.
I can improvise, and I play chords by instinct, but I wouldn't be able to name them without hurting my brain.

It makes me wonder though : if you think this hard about composition when you make music, don't you have the feeling you are theorizing it at times too hard ?
I mean, kind of like there's more theory into the game than practice.
I suppose it's safe to say most people here never play stuff in, but just click in their notes.
I already feel happy I play in pretty much all my parts, but I'm not sure if I'd still feel spontaneous enough if I'd really think it through that hard.
Guess I'll only know if I take some time off to learn it all again.
I'm sure they taught some basic shit when I was young, but never in a from where you learned to use it practically.
Kind of like they taught us numbers, but never how to do math. Such a waste, if you only learn it that way. :|

Gonna try out those tips some day though, thx for sharing. ;)
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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Aurongroove »

You might be right Hades.

It's at least fair that I clarify to OP that my trip down "Harmony jargon street", wasn't an attempt to bamboozle anyone with fancy words or make myself sound important :D .
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Hades
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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Hades »

ow you certainly didn't come across as that,
but maybe it might clarify stuff for other readers : what was your education and how many years or from what age to what age ?

I only did the most typical classical piano education (and all the music theory you were forced to do with it) until I was 16,
and I was sick of playing Bach and quit and bought my first synth in 94.
I once took piano lessons again for 1 year when at univ, but it was clear that I had long passed the point where they made a lot of sense,
at least in the classical music school system,
and harmony, but that was my first year of that, and I was there more stoned than sober, stupid me...
Back then I was seriously in doubt if I wanted to try out conservatory,
but knowing my slight hatred towards classical music, I decided not to do it.
Since I dove so deeply into electronic music since then, I don't regret not doing it, but I would have LOVED to have learned more about harmony and composition.
Since then I have regained my love for classical music, even so much that the only radio I ever listen to (unless it's an internet station) is classical radio.
I can't stand commercial radio stations.

But yeah, my education was pretty basic, but it was nonetheless about 10 years of my life, and I'm extremely happy I always kept playing afterwards,
and I taught myself how to improvise. You can't imagine how many classically trained musicians I meet who are simply puzzled I can play and make my own music.
(or well, you probably can imagine)
As if it's some kind of total mystery, while it feels so natural.
I can admire their technical skills, but I simply can't understand they're just happy playing other people's music and that alone.

hey Cloaked, sorry if we hi-jacked your topic, but you know I'm a cunt. ;)
return to normal any time you feel like it.
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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Kromasome »

Hades wrote:ow you certainly didn't come across as that,
but maybe it might clarify stuff for other readers : what was your education and how many years or from what age to what age ?

I only did the most typical classical piano education (and all the music theory you were forced to do with it) until I was 16,
and I was sick of playing Bach and quit and bought my first synth in 94.
I once took piano lessons again for 1 year when at univ, but it was clear that I had long passed the point where they made a lot of sense,
at least in the classical music school system,
and harmony, but that was my first year of that, and I was there more stoned than sober, stupid me...
Back then I was seriously in doubt if I wanted to try out conservatory,
but knowing my slight hatred towards classical music, I decided not to do it.
Since I dove so deeply into electronic music since then, I don't regret not doing it, but I would have LOVED to have learned more about harmony and composition.
Since then I have regained my love for classical music, even so much that the only radio I ever listen to (unless it's an internet station) is classical radio.
I can't stand commercial radio stations.

But yeah, my education was pretty basic, but it was nonetheless about 10 years of my life, and I'm extremely happy I always kept playing afterwards,
and I taught myself how to improvise. You can't imagine how many classically trained musicians I meet who are simply puzzled I can play and make my own music.
(or well, you probably can imagine)
As if it's some kind of total mystery, while it feels so natural.
I can admire their technical skills, but I simply can't understand they're just happy playing other people's music and that alone.

hey Cloaked, sorry if we hi-jacked your topic, but you know I'm a cunt. ;)
return to normal any time you feel like it.
Sorry to continue the hi-jacking, but I wish I had persevered more when my mum put me in piano lessons. I wanted to be the next Billy Joel (before you start laughing, I was only about 5 or 6 and I thought the way he played the piano was pretty awesome). But my teacher pushed me too hard and made me hate it within the space of about 5 lessons (I know, I should have persevered - but my parents were actually pretty good at not forcing me to do something that didn't make me happy and I was too young at the time to realise that it would have been worth it when I got older).

Back to the track;

Love the opening synth sound - but as mentioned previously it's a bit too bright overall for the duration of the track

Maybe in certain places the "full brightness" would sound great, but the brightness could be toned down in other sections to then later highlight how beautiful the sounds are (ie maybe part way through drop it back to how it sounds at the start and then gradually build it up again from there)

I'd love to experiment with using something like this to either open or close out a mix. I'd probably pitch it up a bit so I could then bring in a track at say 115bpm just to get things off to a gentle start and build it up from there.

I really like the overall atmosphere (I'd be more than happy for it to take a darker turn somewhere along the way, but that's just my personal preference) and the emotion in the track - well done!
Cloaked wrote:thanks jordan!

strange you say digital brightness - it's 100% analogue, no digital processing at all - who says analogue is warmer :-)

defo needs taming though! thanks again mate, i really appreciate your time.
.

Mono should like it then being 100% anal-logs.

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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by TechnoDude »

Sounds a bit like there is some digital distortion somewhere, can't pin point it ... how did you record it?

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Stace
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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Stace »

It is lovely Cloaked.

It kind of reminds me of Koan a little. I have all the time in the world for Koan. I like that you kept it beatless - something that I find very difficult to do TBH.
Lovely, rich, warm sounds. I like the progression of it. I almost feel you could take some of the sounds that are near the end and make it 7 or so mins and really develop it in that way.

Really great :)

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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Cloaked »

Thanks Stacie, I really, truly appreciate your kind words. You have honestly made my day :-)

There's no way to say this without looking like I am promoting my own stuff, but this isn't my favourite from my ambient stuff. If you are ever bored, I have 4 "colours" on my Soundcloud. My plan is to make an entire album. Because a "colour themed" album isn't cliched at all ;-)

Thanks again for your time and your comments.

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Re: Cloaked - Green Field (ambient)

Post by Hades »

Cloaked wrote:Thanks Stacie, I really, truly appreciate your kind words. You have honestly made my day :-)

There's no way to say this without looking like I am promoting my own stuff, but this isn't my favourite from my ambient stuff. If you are ever bored, I have 4 "colours" on my Soundcloud. My plan is to make an entire album. Because a "colour themed" album isn't cliched at all ;-)

Thanks again for your time and your comments.
ugh, be the lazy cunt and make us all look for ourselves huh ? :D
you totally suck at self promo ;)

I remember listening to this one a while ago :



there's some lovely stuff on there.
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