Voidloss 2.0 - Crushing Futile Stupidity

[Lost to the Void]

I don`t put my stuff up here much.
But if anyone is interested in what I am up to these days with the Voidloss project, this is a good representation.
Voidloss 2.0 is an experiment with 170bpm Drum and Bass fused with Industrial leaning techno.



This is a bit of a shitty master, but come release this will all be cleaned up, as I`ve had more distance between making this music there`s a bunch of stuff I`ve noticed I want to do to change in the master... but it gives you an idea of where I am at.

[Amøbe]

DID I JUST SPOT A WILD STEVE IN THE MEMBERS SECTION??!??

That track is amazing! I have always been kind of awestruck of good Drum and Bass' way to be both super fast and quite slow at the same time, and then when you mix it with that sound world (is it mangled samples? is it synthetic? is it long fx chains? Steve, must know), it really takes you somewhere

[over9000]

Definitely top notch production as far as i can tell.
Not my style, but it has a nice perpetual groove though, sucks me in nicely.
Only thing i miss is some brighter maybe bleepy sounds, that would contrast the rather dry and somehow grey sounddesign. Also as a fill maybe
But thats a style / taste issue
Great work!

[Lost to the Void]

(is it mangled samples? is it synthetic? is it long fx chains? Steve, must know), it really takes you somewhere

Yes, all of the above. Granulised samples, long fx chains and synths, lots of automation to keep things moving around.

[Amøbe]

(is it mangled samples? is it synthetic? is it long fx chains? Steve, must know), it really takes you somewhere

Yes, all of the above. Granulised samples, long fx chains and synths, lots of automation to keep things moving around.

Make them videos so I can steal more ideas

No but in all honesty, I really dig the organic/synthetic sound you have going! It's really impressive <3

[Lost to the Void]

(is it mangled samples? is it synthetic? is it long fx chains? Steve, must know), it really takes you somewhere

Yes, all of the above. Granulised samples, long fx chains and synths, lots of automation to keep things moving around.

Make them videos so I can steal more ideas

No but in all honesty, I really dig the organic/synthetic sound you have going! It's really impressive <3

Cheers man, I work hard to try to get things to sound acousmatic. I really don`t like synths that sound like synths that much any more.

[Duffdeal]

Rinsin sound! F'kn brilliant.

Expect a knock from the patriotism police for misappropriating a statue for subversive means.

[illit_]

Yeah this is grand. I am interested in hearing a "proper" master, as this sounds dazzling as it is. I wonder what your ears are picking up

[Lost to the Void]

Yeah this is grand. I am interested in hearing a "proper" master, as this sounds dazzling as it is. I wonder what your ears are picking up

**I`m halfway through writing this reply, and I`ve realised it`s turning into a long ambling essay, so warning on this.... However I hope the thought process might be useful**

Well, it`s really difficult to master your own music, it`s difficult to objectively remove your emotional connection to your own work. So if I have to master my own shit, I usually have to have at least a few weeks between me "finishing" the mix and then taking it into the mastering room, to allow myself to lose some attachment to it, and just to let my ears forget it.

This master was done quite eagerly, just to send out to a few places as I`m excited about what I am doing at the moment.

These mixes are a fucking nightmare. I did so much to these mixes that is problematic and hard to reign in. The mix bus chain alone on the mixes is layers of distortion and saturation. It doesn`t sound super distorted, but it actually is. The channels are all processed and fucked up.
I`m trying to create a sound that is abused and broken, really hot and goopy.....like molten metal, but also be clear and punchy and crisp on a big system.

**this is the waffle section skip if you want**

So I was producing this with a certain..... expectation of the mastering being a creative part of the process.
When I master commercially, unless specific given free reign by the client, I try to work as objectively as possible.
I work very clinically and methodically, I take the "do no harm" approach, where my concern is making the music balance and translate, to make the music sound as clear and represent itself as best is possible.
So the emphasis increasing the clarity of what is already there, rather than enhancing what may not be..
I try to keep subjective/artistic decisions out of the process.
If the client wants me to, then I will take a more active creative part in the mastering. And there I would be looking at combing artistry with technicality. For example I might decide to give a track a specific tone that I would feel enhances the mood of the piece. I might create movement in the stereo field to enhance a breakdown by going from stereo and squeezing down to mono and then bursting out to stereo at the drop.

**back to the question here**

With this track (And the series of tracks it is a part of) I decided to add mastering to the creative process, but with no clear picture as to what that process would be.

So the mastering on this is also a little experimental.

Aanyway, what I want to change is:

Better dynamic control of low end. There is a lot of low end in this. That low end is saturated to all fuckery, so it`s very harmonically rich and hard to control clarity. I need to clean out some more of the upper sub, to give it a little more room to breath.,
I need to enhance the medium transients in the 80-110hz range, so the kick drums have a little more.... kick and punch, against the background of the sub. So more gut punch from the kicks basically.

Top end lacks just a touch of sparkle.

The mid range percussion that comes in after the mini break...after the main break... needs just a little more dynamic and transient snap.

The bass section in this is quite hard to tune at the mix stage as it`s all one thing. It`s a mash of kicks and sub and noise all going into a seriously overdriven 100% wet delay (there is only one actual kick every 4 beats, all the kicks are the delay) and then that is getting pumped and squeezed with compression and distortion, so the distortion is changing with the dynamics. It`s a mess, but it makes a nice beat. In mastering I have a lot of tools I can use to shape the transients to get it all to sit in a "clean" way.

[illit_]

Ah nice reply! As I am not an engineer my mastering essentially boils down to making something commercially loud. It's basically just in the mix process, sometimes I think it needs a different term for it these days, having a new set of ears to listen to something objectively is mastering everything else is just getting it louder imo.

That is wild you have such layers of distortion going on, I had a listen again taking note of your change points trying my best to hear what was missing, the low end does sound clean and powerful. I shall practice some reigning in techniques, you have spoken about it before and hearing an example makes me want to try it myself

[tsaro]

Cool grooves, I like the contrast between the swampy/broken nature of the sounds molded into a well defined groove/shuffle. Maybe the highs are a little too present/constant for me, though I always tend to shave these off so you could take that with a good helping of salt.

Making grooves in that particular way does give up a lot of immediate control, working in subtle dynamics after the fact can be a nightmare in my experience, so that's quite the huge pile of work you dropped on your own plate there.

Funky shit, in more than one way.

[Lost to the Void]

It's techno, there is no such thing as subtle dynamics.
Most music is mastered to roughly -6rms

However delays to create groove can contain plenty of dynamics, it all depends how you set them up.

Due to all the various delays and compression and shit, one of my problems was too much dynamics. I had to use clippers all over the place to get rid of loads of Uber transients because compression can only go so far.

[dubdub]

The pad/noise stuff around 3:45 is a bit much for me. It's not harsh, it's just ... a lot.

The transients on snare/noise thing are nice and snappy but maybe a touch much? With how dense the mix already is, it's a lot to take in, might get tiring after a while with high density + snappy transients.

I agree on the kick and percussion transients.

Lowend is awesome.

[tsaro]

It's techno, there is no such thing as subtle dynamics.
Most music is mastered to roughly -6rms

However delays to create groove can contain plenty of dynamics, it all depends how you set them up.

Due to all the various delays and compression and shit, one of my problems was too much dynamics. I had to use clippers all over the place to get rid of loads of Uber transients because compression can only go so far.

Controlling dynamics when you use delays (with feedback) is quite tricky, something that sometimes seems to do it relatively painlessly is a multitap with insert effects (and also no feedback), for more control than rising/falling gain (with feedback) you'd indeed have to set up some funky compressor stuff, envelopes/whatever... In my experience it can be a struggle to get enough control over it/depth into it, or out of it without too much fuss, it seems to be a fragile balance. Or maybe I'm just approaching it from the wrong angle.

[Lost to the Void]

It's techno, there is no such thing as subtle dynamics.
Most music is mastered to roughly -6rms

However delays to create groove can contain plenty of dynamics, it all depends how you set them up.

Due to all the various delays and compression and shit, one of my problems was too much dynamics. I had to use clippers all over the place to get rid of loads of Uber transients because compression can only go so far.

Controlling dynamics when you use delays (with feedback) is quite tricky, something that sometimes seems to do it relatively painlessly is a multitap with insert effects (and also no feedback), for more control than rising/falling gain (with feedback) you'd indeed have to set up some funky compressor stuff, envelopes/whatever... In my experience it can be a struggle to get enough control over it/depth into it, or out of it without too much fuss, it seems to be a fragile balance. Or maybe I'm just approaching it from the wrong angle.

I don`t have any issue with delays and dynamics at all. It`s all the other shit around the delays I have trouble taming these days. It just comes hand in hand with piling on lots of wacko fx. Some inter plugin/fx limiting or clipping solves the issue.

[tsaro]

Guess I need to experiment with these types of chains some more to get it right, when they become a beast of their own, and if/when you understand what leads to what you can always mess with the relevant controls (not saying that's the same as what you're doing here, though it has some similarities). though sometimes it can become unwieldly unless you resample, but then you're stuck with that pathway...

Usually tend to go for some envelope (follower) so it reacts dynamically to the incoming delay lines, often I would reach for a filter and by then you will get that sound again, which is nice (when you want to go that way).....maybe the key is to experiment more at that point... Or maybe I'll just make a topic at some point instead of ranting on over here :d

[Lost to the Void]

Guess I need to experiment with these types of chains some more to get it right, when they become a beast of their own, and if/when you understand what leads to what you can always mess with the relevant controls (not saying that's the same as what you're doing here, though it has some similarities). though sometimes it can become unwieldly unless you resample, but then you're stuck with that pathway...

Usually tend to go for some envelope (follower) so it reacts dynamically to the incoming delay lines, often I would reach for a filter and by then you will get that sound again, which is nice (when you want to go that way).....maybe the key is to experiment more at that point... Or maybe I'll just make a topic at some point instead of ranting on over here :d

It`s a nice and simple trick to just modulate the delay rate in sync. Send a synced square wave to modulated between two timings. Or a little midi step sequencer that modulates a number of different timings. Randomising that a bit can also be nice, it can get quite granular with short delay times. Combine that with modulated feedback and you can really start to warp the sound in interesting rhythmic ways. Have 2 delays in series both doing that in different ways and you`ve got yourself a shifting dominant soundscape.

[Merah]

Reminds me of a 3oclock bass rinse out in The End Renegade Hardware tings