The Making of: Suntasia Remix

Today let’s take a closer look on Remix of Suntasia by known Marce De Buur, for a request of my home label Tecnomind Music.

Luckily the remix request came soon after lockdown in Poland. My company sent everyone for (paid) vacation so I had a couple of extra weeks I could spend on anything – of course the best option was to make some music. So I sat down and worked every day, finishing it in about three weeks. Which is quick related to normal release schedule – been waiting months for other remixers to complete their task 😛

The Making of “Live While You Can”

From the very beginning, this track was meant to be simple. An uplifting cookie-cutter inspired by eurotrance from 2000s, especially my favourite duo Nu-NRG. I just wanted to go and try if I can create something “normal” without oversophisticated sound design and composition. After all, the majority of trance nowdays is a copy-paste of each other.

New freebie: Bliss

I initially made this track in 2015. It felt wrong, though, so I tweaked it over and over. Finally I realized it is simply off the genre has no commercial potential at all – no matter if it’s mixed properly or loud. So now I give it away for free.

Artistically, I find it a success – I had an idea and realized it. The track is just what it was supposed to be. Just the idea was wrong to begin with. Maybe it would work better if I picked other scale than major, now it seems to be way over the top.

Jurgen Vries – The Theme (Warmonger 2015 Rework)

I was always big fan of that track, but the original missed some power and drive. So I made my own version :). Proper 138 trancer.

It may not be very sophisticated, but loud and banging for sure. I tried to stay close to original and only changed instrumentation and mixdown to something more modern. Acid, guitar and more acid.

If you like that track, show me some love on Soundcloud (via likes and follows) and I might share it someday 😉

Other news:

• I’m recently working on two-track “Violin” EP. First track called “Bliss” is already finished and it’s oustanding. Unfortunatelly can’t share it, really want it released.
• There were no mixes recently, I’ve been waiting for new DJ gear. It is coming this month for sure 🙂

New track giveaway: Investigations

Ideas – we all have them. My single from last year, “Investigations”, is a collection of ideas not correctly developed. The more I listened to and played this track, the more scared I was. Behold! It’s now free for download.

The track was originally made in summer 2014. I played it a number of times since then in different versions. Finally reworked it just yesterday with new mixdown setup and some tricks which make it sound clean and bouncy. This way you can it all clearly, be it good or bad.

It also turns out that making trance sound very good and proper is easy – once you know how to. For all these years I was lost in details and messed up the basics. The base is correct bass and kick interaction as well as lots of dynamics. Once you got this done, every sound follows easily. Just check it out on your own.

A random observation: Soundcloud stats since some time act randomly, going up and down. Don’t know what to think about that, or how many people actually enjoyed the track.

Woven Drops once again

Forget previous post and previous version, it was all wrong. NOW, this is it!

That was my contest entry for a competition I submitted about 4 months ago. The competition deadline was 2 months ago, unfortunatelly, the results were never announced It seems that hosts have lost their credibility and this is going nowhere.

Another work in progress

Hey, this is something I made recently

I mostly wanted to present progress on technical side, that is mixdown and mastering. The track is far from complete yet,what you hear is about 30-40%. And no, it will not be an uplifter. Here’s short playlist that I’m after:

Kai Tracid – 4 Just 1 Day (Energy Mix)
Lost Tribe – Gamemaster (Original mix)
John Askew – Bastard (Original Mix)
Peter Plaznik – Operator Bandit (Original Mix)
Jurgen Vries – The Theme (Club Mix)
Running Man – Earth (Proyal Energetic Remix)

As you may have noticed, four of these tracks have memorable lyrics. That’s the thing which is missing, it will be a suprise 😉

Stay tuned for more.

Ocean Star Empire – Woven Drops (Warmonger Remix)

My entry for remix competition is ready!

It’s been published for a few days now, but it took a while to get any response from OSE themselves. Not yet sure what will happen next, but I can share with you what I have now.

The version you hear is my own quickly mastered version. OSE got it unmastered as they wanted. The track is uploaded full length, but downloading is disabled to leave some options for release.

As to the track itself – I wasn’t sure what to do, so I made everything at once. You can hear some agressive psy-tech banging at 140 BPM, but also typical progressive break and huge dancy supersaw, which is my trademark now 🙂 Overall, I tried to balance the melodic and club part, keep it twisted but not noisy. I believe it makes sense. Ahh, it’s also my best track to date. In fact, every next becomes better and better.

The downside is, I already know what could be improved in this one – the bass has been crippling me since forever, but for other reasons I considered. This will be fixed (already is) in next project, which I don’t reaveal at the moment for greater suspense 😉

A few more words about production in general. Many producers just keep saying: “choose right kick”, “make right bass”, “add right loops with some reverb”. So far I believed they can’t really explain what they are doing, possibly not understand it either and just trust the blind luck. But in fact, this is how the production looks like. With some experience you just know what is next step, what will work together and what will not. From among infinite number of options, you choose the right ones and move forward quickly. Track composing becomes less perfecting the matserpiece and more like throwing random ideas and tweaking them to work together. Anyhow. It’s like managing chaos. You will surely notice it in Woven Drops remix – just a ton of catchy sounds blended and glued just to work well together, now matter how weird the result is. But it just works. The amount of chaos and predictability even out, what makes track original yet acceptable.

Music creation is always balancing between two extremes. To succeed, you need to know what makes sounds feel similiar and dissimiliar. Then just balance it for the right result.

Warmy

Full On Epic promo mix

Here it is!

artwork

The word “epic” has been abused recently. Now it’s almost as popular as “cool” was when I was young. People use it to describe anything that’s good. Luckily the term “epic trance” still functions with its own, primary meaning.

Epic trance – spectacular and breathtaking. Orchestral, symphonic, instrumental. Anthem breakdowns. Strings. Powerful leads. Opera arias and beautiful pianos. Also, acoustic instruments. They’re all in here.

Now, enjoy the mix.

Tracklist

01. Kai Engel – Calls and Echoes
02. Gomer Edwin Evans – The Portal to Inner Peace (Original Mix)
03. Aeden – Apple Seed (Rain Sonata Remix)
04. Tranceangel feat. Damian Dziechciar – Nobody Looking (Original Mix)
05. Sebastian Brushwood – Oceania (Original Mix)
06. The Cloudy Day – Aurora (Original Mix)
07. SoundLift – Freedom (Afternova Remix)
08. Michael Retouch feat. Beatsole – Brilliant Sunrise (Haig & Raffi Remix)
09. Dreamy – Overflow (Original Mix)
10. Laker – Breathing (Original Mix)
11. Simon O’Shine – Wuthering Heights (Original Mix)
12. Suplifth – Victory (Emotional Mix)
13. Vash & Solaris – Divinity (Behind The Sunset Remix)
14. Sunset Heat – Hearts of Iron (Original Mix)
15. Catching Dreams – Theme From Movie Perfume
16. Michael Retouch – When The Angels Cry (Original Mix)
17. Ahmed Romel – Victory (Original Mix)
18. Bluefire – Dreamnasia (Photographer Remix)
19. Amos feat. Somna – Riser (Amos & Riot Night Remix)
20. Geert Huinink & Mike van Fabio – The Kingdom (Original Epic Mix)
21. E.T Project – Fallout (Original Mix)
22. Essonita feat. Irina Makosh – Don’t Try To Love Me (Dreamy Vocal Mix)
23. Warmonger – Applied Magic (Original Mix)
24. Sebastian Brushwood – Kashya (Original Mix)
25. Avenger – Orca (New World Intro Mix Remaster)
26. Emanuele Congeddu & 4Seas – Butterfly Effect (Original Mix)

Download from 4shared

On a personal note, I find this set a big achievement. It took me a while to complete the tracklist to get the right flow and completely matched keys. I used my recent mixing setup to ensure the flow is as smooth as possible. It’s good to feel every next mix is getting better. i hope you’ll enjoy it as well!

Spring Mix is coming on March 22, as always. In the meantime I want to finish Woven Drops remix, which is almost done but I can’t find the time for it all. But it’s coming sooner or later.

Sooner than later.

Applied Magic is ready

Yes it is!

Just as I wanted. Loud, banging, but also clean and melodic. Not oversaturated or hissing, like most of modern productions. Also, the bass is huge in this one, just as I like. Actually I’m afraid some people may not stand it, but according to meter, it’s not overcompressed. For trance, the rule is the bigger => the better. It’s important to be louder than competition without sacrificing dynamic range. Making the tune from scratch and tweaking every part is the only way to achieve that, and I believe it was a success.

Too bad I didn’t get much feedback for this one, possibly due to recent Soundcloud and KVR issues. Anyway, here it is. Brace yourself, the magic is coming!

Here is the DR meter result.

Could be more, but it’s pretty typical for trance. I’ve seen some commercial releases with as little as 3.5 dB dynamic range, but they were unbearable in a long run.

And yes, I trust DR Meter more than my ears. My ears, are, well, mine and only subjective. DR Meter is objective and hopefully will work for the people who do not certainly enjoy powerful or overcompressed tracks, as I do.

As to the tune itself, it was supposed to be normal and typical. No extraordinary elements or sophisticated details. I just wanted to make something quickly, based on a knowledge I already have. There are some typical elements on bassline, typical percussion with prominent clap, melodies, single break with pads and huge Nu-NRG supersaw in the finale.

And the title? “Magic” means mystery, beauty and fantasy. There are many subtle sounds in the abckground which should work with that. I tried to avoid any modern / industrial sounds typical for tech and electro, leaving only 5 pianos or so. Why “Applied”? Well, that obviously stands for “applied siences”, since I’m an engineer :). The beauty comes from artistic inspiration and tehcnicla skills combined. I hope you enjoy this tune as much as I do.

Will try to hit the labels in a few days once I get more feedback on this track.