Craig Lea - Parasite, Trace and In Loop

[Craig_Lea]

A couple of old tracks from me.
The last two/three years I haven't given it hardly any attention at all, and am only just starting to pick it up again.

Over the years I've been trying to hone a very dense, intense sound, which started with Parasite.
Quite a deviation with Trace and then back on track with In Loop.

Parasite
Although not my first ever track, this was the first one that I finished that I thought sounded close to where I wanted to be.
It's probably about 6 years old, if not slightly longer.

http://www.craig-lea.co.uk/Tracks/Parasite.mp3

18.4MB 320 Kbit/s MP3

Trace
When trying to make a really hard, loopy track, I happened upon the main hook from Trace.
I decided to see where it would go and ended up with this.
It builds in 16 bar segments, I think it works, although it ended up 10 minutes long because of it.

http://www.craig-lea.co.uk/Tracks/Trace.mp3

22.9MB 320 KBit/s MP3

In Loop
This is the hard loopy track I was trying to make.
I finished it, but there is only the first couple of minutes here, as the rest is a mess frankly.
After completing my current track I'm going to revisit it, and use what you hear here to restructure it.

http://www.craig-lea.co.uk/InLoop.mp3

5.7MB 320 KBit/s MP3

Any feedback at all would be greatly appreciated.

[Abstract Science]

Ok listernd to your tracks there. Parasite upfront 4/4 floor techno. It would me more of a dj tool for me. I think you have left it a bit long before you start to filter the bass/lead line and it could mabye of done with some sort of variation. I would also say it could do with being cut by a few mins.

Trace I liked the sound of this nice build of although it took a while to get there in to some off beat Rush style percussion again the track is far too long and I thought the kick and percussion could of done with with beigng tougher and sitting louder in the mix. Nice melodies though.

Loop track. to be honest I am not really a fan of loop based techno so I am not the best person to comment on this track.

[Craig_Lea]

Thanks for the feedback Abstract.

Parasite is such an old track I'll not be going back to it, but with Trace I could try chopping it down.
Thing is I quite like it long. Epic Techno? Does that work as a new sub-genre? :)

Going to get around to finishing In Loop off properly soon.

Cheers again.

[thomas_figo]

just listed parasite.
i was a bit disapointed with kick after realy nice into at the beginning. i think i could be nice club banger if u would change whole bottom

[Little_Fella!]

Personally I prefered 'Parasite' out of the three... does what it says on the tin

All the elements are there. Clean everything up, bring the kick into the 21st century and using some upto date effects on your lead sounds would breath new life into it...

Shorten it by a couple of mins n get some progression going... sorted :cool:

[Jay Pace]

allo

Really not my style, so don't want to comment too much but I found in loop and parasite unlistenable on headphones - and they're dead good headphones. The distortion drowned out everything.

I'm sure it sounds different on speakers, but it sounds like you've over-limited it and crushed all the dynamics to me. Maybe this is what you were after, but it sounds over driver. The bass and the dynamics seem to both have given way to loudness.

Like I say, not my style but I've head plenty of stuff along these lines and I would expect deep bass and a clear thumping kick to penetrate through the distortion in the middle. I'd spare the limiters, beef up the kick and rebalance it a bit, this would sound much better with more dynamics and a broader frequency range IMO

Trace is more musical, nice highs and synths but there isn't really any bass. The kick should be much deeper and overall the track sounds a bit tinny and overly skewed towards the upper end of the spectrum.

I'd look at rebalancing it all a bit. Maybe listen to things on different speakers and headphones - find the balance that suits a few different listening devices.

Always found it a helpful tip - trying things out on different systems - studio/rig/car stereo/hi fi/studio headphones/in ear headphones etc
A well balanced track should shoud good on all of them.

Some good ideas and direction in there, need a bit more work to make them shine through.

[Craig_Lea]

Cheers for the feedback gents.

I'm re-editing In Loop now, so I'll hopefully have the new version up in a few weeks.
I'll try and take that on board, thanks Jay.