 Welcome back. Welcome to Anfa live monthly actually Anfa and John the Bard live, but John is gone Where's John? Where could I be? I really can't find you. Uh-oh. You are there, but you're not there How come? I'm a ghost Yeah, ooh Yeah, I bring messages from the other side We have a lot of good musicians here. Oh, I see what happens. Okay, the cropping is You've been there out of existence Okay, I hope everybody can hear you. I think so Yep, I think yeah, cuz people were talking about how my voice is coming out of nowhere So, okay, so the sound was there before the site and now we have both Hopefully Alrighty, it is time for music submissions We have eight tracks to listen to today and We're just gonna go through one by one the first one is by trans wolf and it's Said it's called. I don't know if I should I don't know if this is a Family-friendly track name. I'm gonna call it summer You're all just Wait, where is it? Yep. It's it's summer Truck is out of summer. It's a work in progress. Let's go Okay, so that's a typo We have confirmed No Like that. Yes Now it's good corrected love a kick Maybe it's just my headphones but the highs are a little bit painful to me I think your mic is a bit quiet. Yes. Sorry. I turned the volume down. Yeah, everything else sounds very nice But I think those chords the big Super saw is really noisy Yeah, it was a bit too high heavy for me sounded a bit painful, but my I know my headphones are bright, so might not be the same for everyone I Sounded weird on my monitors, too, which are I Would trust that treble on I would tame them a little with a high shelving filter or something But overall really cool. I love the drums. I love the bass really bouncy stuff So that was summer come louder and with a typo By trans Wolvey and it was made with LMMS and Zenats of FX The author also writes very work in progress the final version will have some vocal effects, but both Ardor and the Z-Rhythm Borked Too bad well About Ardor Borking. Yes, I think I know something about that. Yeah Awesome really nice track. I really like this uplifting trans we are getting on these streams It's not something I generally listen to but every time I I listen to track you guys start submitting I It really makes me smile The next one is called cloud skipper also work in progress by quantizer Let's go that was lion growling logo says So that was cloud skipper by quantizer made with LMMS the Zenats of FX vital and audacity And quantizer also writes there is still a lot of sound design and mix work to do on this track But I feel the composition is solid base lanes Baselines are made in vital and also the plaques background choir and Sims and sims are Zenats of FX percussion is mainly layered samples. I really liked the drums and The rhythms I think rhythm is the very strong Rhythm and sound design are the strong elements in this track I wasn't sure about the melodies because I'm not sure if it were some it's a Sound a bit atonal sometimes like the song is changing keys very unpredictably, I don't know it It's hard for me to tell if it was intentional or not But it has some very melodic moments that I really liked Yeah, I think you're I agree with you on the rhythmic interest because Yeah, they were the quintuplets over for the lead which was the melody was strange Sometimes it was good. Sometimes it was strange and then the layering between the basses and Various melody elements going in and out. It's really good. The mix is kind of all over the place But that you will probably already know Yeah, it's pretty cool the kick hits pretty well There wasn't very much sub bass, but I could tell it's there and it's in the right frequencies But that's just another mix issue. Yeah, it's pretty cool Yeah, it was refreshingly strange. I Think about the mix. I think the basses are a bit overshadowing the drums I think the kick and snare could be louder in comparison to the basses And I think it would all sit a little bit better then because I was like I wanted to turn it up But then I felt a little bit overwhelmed with the bass high frequencies of the basses mids and highs so if the sub was as loud and the drums then it would be fine, but It's a bit Maybe yeah, not not perfectly balanced yet Your quantizer says he has trouble making regular melodies, but I think that's more of a strength than a weakness But that means you get weird melodies sometimes You got some really cool weird melodies in here. Yeah, so sometimes it felt chaotic and I Didn't know if it was intentionally strange or just You got lost anyway, that was really cool and And That's the second track using lms ends in us of effects, but also vital this time Right so cloud skipper by quantizer and now let's listen to a Civilized hanging by fast a key or I think that's what should pronounce it I really liked the plucked guitar sounds especially in the intro and at the end With the delay also like triple a delay pretty triple dotted delay Very pleasant sounds that the sort of guitar solos sometimes also were really cool They get louder especially Yeah, I like a lot of it It sounds kind of strange on my headphones. I think the snare is pan to the left and then I Felt like there was a lot of Like high mids like for a range and not a lot of low mids In a lot of the sounds, but otherwise. I don't I like the I like the song I like the intro pluck melody with all that Delay I like the three note Groupings on the melody to make it Feel like it's a triplet, but it's not because it's still on the four four It's like Paulie meter No, it's not it's it's quarter notes It's regular quarter notes and four four, but they're just they play three and then move to the next one So it feels like it's in three four if you listen to just the guitar until the last one has a I think it's five to round it out to 16 notes, whatever one of those numbers Yeah, it works cool. Yeah, I felt a lot of like It got very emotional Especially in the middle for me The very end felt a little bit drawn out. I was missing a some variation. It felt like maybe it should go even bigger by the like latter half of the finish like this part here or Go quieter and like slowly fade out because it was like we were on the same level of Intensity throughout this whole last part and that felt a little bit like a missed opportunity to me if there was some motion and Maybe some maybe just some Significant variation on the theme. Maybe I don't know some instruments go out some instruments come in Something mixed up for the for the latter part of this to to make it stand out We don't have such a long piece of unchanging Music in the before that I think we can you can see that there's almost always something is different something is changing it makes me think of a Bucket does structures like this where he has a lot of variation in the beginning And then he just does a heavy outro for like five minutes. That's just ripping guitar solo So he lures you in and then he smashes you over the head with a guitar. It's so good Yeah, basically So that was fast a keys civilized a civilized hanging and this was made with our door guitarics drum gizmo air windows Lsp and s'fizz Nice quite an unusual set of of tools. I haven't haven't heard these used in a stream submission that configuration at least and Fast a key also writes trying my hand at actually playing an instrument for my current talents This is only possible of extreme amounts of Ardor slip editing All glory to fixing and post. Oh, yeah, I know what you mean Yeah, that reminds me of recording guitars for the project I made with my wife called deeper than ether some tracks you can hear in the warm-up section of the live streams where I played lots of guitar and solos often require lots of editing to make them Timed right and yeah, sometimes it went pretty naturally like one take and was like wow This is just almost perfect. And most of the time it was try repeat and Cut something out. I Haven't even tried to pretend I can play a guitar solo. I Would never never call myself a guitarist. No, you're a bassist. Do you make bass music? That's no, that's a bass Okay, the next track is titled Sunrise by Jobin Rezai. I hope I'm pronouncing that right Three two one go. I love that We like the drums and how it worked with the bass overall very nice acoustic sound to it Maybe I'll read What was used? So this was oh You were talking and you were probably wondering why am I not stopping talking and why I'm talking over you, right? This was made with Ardor 7.2 on Ubuntu Matei 2020 point 04 plugins used our surge XT calf reverb calf equalizer Mda piano black pearl drum kit calf compressor calf sidechain compressor called fetish delay Yoshimi and Dext See who says calf sounds bad Dude, I made like all my albums were made with calf plugins in Yeah, the the only thing I thought was a bit weird is it almost sounded like a Digital noise on top of the guitar It was very I don't know I feel like there was no body to the guitar, but it wasn't really fighting with anything in the mix I felt like there could have been I loved the countermelodies between the piano and that like subtle bell sound in the background and I really loved the way the rhythmic elements It's Simple 4-4, but it almost feels like Two groupings of three and then a grouping of two between the drums and the guitar melody, which was really cool They're the guitar rhythm that melody Jobin Rizai also writes I switched to using Ardor for music production I wanted to learn more about Ardor so I started making this track which I ended up finishing This track has a calm feeling to it. The vocals are purchased samples That was overall an excellent track. I I pretty much don't have anything To say about what could be improved there Maybe just one thing that the tambourine was quite harsh in the high frequencies as tambourines do So I would I personally would throw a debass on it and Tame the high frequencies with that or just EQ it until it's not an issue But also I know my my headphones are bright. So this might not be as bad of a problem to more people Listening on different systems. That's just the only thing I really can think about what I would Try and improve an excellent song really. Yeah, it sounded great on my I listen to it on all my systems It sounds yeah, good. There's like I said some weirdness in the high end That maybe it is the tambourine I was hearing but it's otherwise. It's fantastic Everything comes through so clearly. Yeah, very well composed very well engineered Really cool The next track will hear is titled solo by chance by my lo-fi Oh, is this his bespoke project? Yeah. Yeah, let's go So even know what to say I Didn't know what the name meant, but I think I know now. It's about like soloing instruments Randomized soloing instruments. I don't know Yeah, that sounded like generative playing for sure. Yeah I think the progression was set and I think the baseline was mostly set I think I feel like the melodies were generally Either stochastic or fully programmed by hand But the arrangement probably was a bit. I don't know randomized I'm not sure That bell melody in the middle felt basically completely random to me But lo-fi may just be capable of writing completely random music Yeah, I absolutely adored this the dyke bells like ring modulated solo in the middle Yeah, it was so nonsensical so perfectly nonsensical and if I didn't know my lo-fi and Didn't haven't heard dozens of amazing tracks is composed I wouldn't be sure if that was intentional, but I'm absolutely sure it was a joke and I love that Yeah, yeah, lo-fi's never made a mistake in his life Ever not once so we know for sure So this track was made with bespoke synth, which if the list if you guys don't know it's a modular live performance environment where you take blocks and you connect wires and use Program some things and set parameters into blocks and they make sounds and sequences and notes This is one patch Carla on the output with LSP EQ LSP compressor to tape 5 slew 3 and x42 DPL I'll link the patch on my SoundCloud page right By the way, I am collecting Collecting SoundCloud links or like but generally links from artists submitting music. I just forgot to paste them Into Into a live stream submission is your live stream descriptions because it's just Yeah, one more thing Yeah, you know, I haven't I haven't used bespoke very much, but it's always seemed really cool But when I used it initially it wasn't ready enough and now I just I always forget about it until someone posts the track Then actually I think I built it the other day. Yeah, it wasn't working in Ubuntu studio I downloaded the official release But apparently the official release is for Ubuntu mate. I think or was it Exubuntu. No, it's exubuntu So I guess it only works in Xfce Ubuntu because it didn't work for me, but it works in gentoo. So Weird stuff Yeah, I think bespoke seems like that a great Tool for live performances and dullness jamming not necessarily composing things in a traditional sense of laying out a structure and sculpting a set temporal experience It's more about creating systems and controlling them in real time. I think Yeah, I think so too, but I'll find a way to make it compose tracks regularly. That's what I did with VCV Yeah, VCVrack seems to and or cardinal, which is what I use And is probably a kind of the similar thing. So very different. So I Guess they both have their strengths and weaknesses. Yeah bespoke is more of a do-it-yourself kind of thing than cardinal is which kind of expects you to use a lot of Modules really made for what you're doing where bespoke if you want like a Mogue style filter you build yourself a mogue style filter Oh really? Yeah, I think so, huh? That's that's the impression I've gotten and then you can create little What would it be called? Like presets little bricks, which you can then have full of stuff and then load them up and close them I don't know someone will tell me that I'm completely wrong Because you can load plugins in it. So yeah, you can do that too. You could just drop a Mogue flow pass plug-in. You totally could. Yeah, you could load cardinal in it Yeah, and within a cardinal load bespoke and Because we've been cardinal load Carla within Carla load bespoke and like go nest Add infinitum. Yeah, I think logos coder says bespoke is in between VCV and pure data and I think that's pretty accurate You can do a lot of pure data ask stuff without which VCV really doesn't It doesn't really intend for you to go that crazy though You can but bespoke really intends for you to be able to go that crazy and then pure data can't load plugins Maybe you can but and plus it's it's not very convenient. I Feel like it would be really hard to compose a full track Yeah bespoke kind of is more of a DAW contrary to its name Chee-choo says isn't bespoke more DAW and cardinal more synth. Yeah, I would say so although Achieve similar results in both you can make pretty full songs in either one Yeah, both have sequencers and LFOs and sound generators and modulators everything. Yep. All right. Let's move on The that was solo by chance by my lo-fi. The next track is titled It's not titled yet. It's to be announced. It's a work in progress preview by adventuner Three two one go great melodies and I really liked the progression. I really liked the second drop especially Although we need some sub bass. There's like none the kick is actually quite punchy, but There's no real bass the bass line is pretty cool. I Wish the bass would go down and octave at some point or get reinforcements That's a several later one octave down Yeah, I think all it needs is a sub oscillator But otherwise it's very good. The mix is very good. Otherwise, so I feel like our listener doesn't have a subwoofer our Track creator producer. There we go. Our producer does not have a subwoofer. Also. We have very nice transients on the kick like It's nicely dynamic. No squashing here. I really liked the general upbeat tone of this and Kind of cheesy Pulse wave leads with delay. I mean, I don't know. I just I love that it tickled me the right way. It's a good era Yeah, it sounds very nostalgic Even though I wasn't big into trans in the 2000s But yeah, it kind of takes me back Really cool. So that was an unnamed track by adventuner It was made with LMS Synthesizers where synth one not open source Even worse probably abandoned where leads pads surge one voice saw dirty low saw lead Well, that's a mouthful opxd base Samples from a bunch of places music writer product producer spot hexwave 200 run 200 drums machines Tony Starks 271 hi-hat samples pack Yeah, that's all Okay, we're taking a bit long. I think we should speed up a bit Alrighty this time. It's time for another track by OV. This one is titled I guess it's 140 maybe or maybe. Oh, maybe it's 70. I don't know. Oh Maybe it's even less Interesting. We'll hear so this time truck is titled demon. Let's go. This feels like two step I don't know why Crazy though. I almost feel like as logo says is a very wide track I almost feel like there's a mid side EQ on the master and the mid channel is just off But otherwise that's pretty crazy Absolutely smashed into a limiter too. There is no Anything but limiter in that drag. Yeah, no dynamics at all That's a sausage massive. Yeah Yeah Yeah, I the only thing I wish was I mean two things maybe is that highs were quite harsh at times So I think it's intentional because the track is Obviously trying to be painful. So I think it achieves that So I also think it would could use more bass, but it would need more dynamics because you know It doesn't have enough sub bass because it's just so saturated and so limited It just doesn't have room for a solid sub bass or it would just turn into ring modulation to the sub bass Yeah, when I'm when I'm adding some bass to these style tracks, I will just take a separate Sign all the way down and then I'll just smash it into DPL and then afterwards I'll EQ it so it's like It's got What's it a high shelf Going down so that the bottom of the subs are louder than the top of the subs and then it's completely brain-dead and it just Slaps if you're trying to absolutely have no dynamics and just smash sub bass in the listener's face That's the easiest way. Yeah, I love the composition. It was really crazy. I really like the rhythmic switch ups and The the half tempo section that comes in and Generally I can tell OV is having a lot of fun and I had lots of fun listening. I just wish there was more dynamics because The build-ups were just as loud as the drops and I don't think that's just it. I feel like it's a wasted potential Because I would really like to turn this up, but it's got to be painful and not fun And if you if you'd give, you know ten decibels for the drums to just speak at I Could turn this up way more and have way more fun with it without being getting deaf and like cringing from pain you can also put a Gain some kind of I use the ace Whatever, but just any kind of gain plug-in after the limiter and then bring it down like 3d Be before the drop and then just raise it really quick right before the drop So it's back to zero don't go above zero because then you're gonna push above your limit, but if you keep it Yeah, but if you Yeah, if you just use it to bring the volume down for different sections you can add Macro dynamics that way though You still want some more actual dynamics if you look at this section right now The red is the kick drum and you can see that it actually is quieter than the rest Track because there's it's just so sausage Yeah, it's just oh and it's really wide um there's way too much with I don't know why there's way too much with But there's way too much with I like that this and didn't bother me, but I Think maybe it's some special kind of saturation. You know, there's like a little bit might be stereo noise And then everything is just squashed to like one bit so Just 100% with if you have any difference in stereo channels You're rounding it up to one There you go. It almost feels like that. I think maybe Robert van den helms Loudness war winner was used here with the win harder dial all the way up We didn't check out this plug and he also has a Safety limiter which beeps out SOS and Morse code if you go above the threshold What the heck not invented here plugins are really cool I Think we've demonstrated today that Oh, no, did I get oh no, I got sent all right never mind. It's just my end. I hit the back button on my mouse Oh as well. No, it's it's going. It's gone. Okay here So that was made with our door Vitalium as enough sub effects LSP and air windows. I suspect this LSP have a multi-band limiter. I Think I don't know if they do they might yeah, I made a multi-band limiter with LSP and x42 just But it sounds this sounds a lot harsher than mine did So they might be using LSP's actual limiter. I haven't liked the LSP limiter to be honest I love LSP stuff, but Limiter I've had bad results with I Fought it not to be particularly good at limiting so it still can sound great Although it means that weird definition of limiter you said earlier So I guess it is. Yeah, it just you know Every limiter is different. I like x42 because I Fully control what I clip and what I not clip because x42 limiter is so clean You can smash things into it insanely loud and never never crunches never crunches the base Which is Something that no other open source limiter. I've tested does all of them crunch base like crazy So they pretty much acts like saturators and but x42 DPL does not so I like to saturate my stuff In a controlled manner and then limit it also in a controlled manner But you can do both with a limiter that has character Honestly x42 is better than a lot of proprietary limiters. I've used to It's it's just really good. It's not the best limiter of all time, but it sure is up there Shoutouts to funds andre and sen. I think who has created the algorithms that the x42 plugins are based on same with ortho tune Right and let's go on with it because we're already streaming for an hour This is turning into a whole day streaming session. Alrighty, so that was demon by OV quite a haunting track indeed It definitely haunted the limiter and Now let's listen to a track by logos coder titled space flicker and it's a whip whip Let's go and comes out of nowhere. That's really good so far kind of non-secular ending I Like that was a way that piano came in very slowly Yeah, I was titled space flicker and this was made using our door and As logos coder writes me playing my grandma's piano surge xt Vitalium drug-on-fly haul reverb and some automation love Yeah, automation played a big role. I think it gives this micro dynamics macro dynamics, sorry We can see the envelope on the waveform pretty much There's this, you know Yeah, whole shape I think it's going to be progressive house judging by the Plus logos has been talking to me a bit about this What's it yeah, he writes genre is long automation sweeps Logos writes this song was started because John De Bard challenged me to make a progressive house track and this is my progress so far The intro is loosely based on strobe by dead mouse. Okay. That's why space flicker. It's the name I guess Okay, so this is going to be progressive house That's funny. I told him yeah a while ago I told him that a good way to start Getting structure in your tracks is to take an already existing track and basically rip off its structure And just do whatever that track does Trace the outlines. Yeah, fill it in Exactly, which is you're totally allowed to do. There's no copyright. Yeah, no copyright on structure Yeah, also no copyright on chords progressions, etc because I Mean it's there's so many Songs that use exactly the same chord progressions that would be insane trying to like kind of know Stop people from doing that. It will also very hard The whole field of creativity Yeah, exactly so Yeah, it's a good method for if you're trying to learn how to Especially if you're trying to take your songs out of the loop phase and turn them into full tracks Just find a song with a similar main section feel and kind of recreate what it does around it How it introduces the elements how it comes into it. Oh, he says one take on the piano. Good work nice First try and compose an outer screen. Okay That's all for today. Oh no. Oh no Oh The crop it's about two power. Oh, no John I crop your face is cropped. Okay, you're back. You're back to being alive Good man. It's rough in the other world. You don't want to go there. That was painful I must have heard all right Thank you, John for being my co-host for the stream as you always do Thanks for having me Thanks to everyone who has submitted their music so we can play it and discuss it Huge thanks to everyone who is supporting me on patreon and Libra pay Your support is greatly appreciated and Helps me keep doing this even when it's difficult. I Like the track that's playing in the background. It's called Cardinal synth Wow Maybe with Cardinal. Maybe I'll finish it one day I need to mute it quick No Didn't want to start another track No, I can Maybe it doesn't even play here. Oh, no, it was in my head. Oh, it was in my head Not so silly, you know, this is music so well just by reading the name the track starts playing in his head No, I have I have a slider and I can play it to myself. I thought it was playing for everyone But no, it was just for me. So I was like, oh, yeah, I love this track And I showed you the title and the spectrum analysis analysis, but that was it Okay, I think time for me to go Yes, thank you so much And I'll see you will we will see you next next month hopefully this time on Sunday as Usually planned this day. This this stream was a was an exception And also we probably should do it a bit faster because we're like hitting the free hour mark It's a bit overkill. I think Alright, bye