Engine of Creation

hello! i just revamped my site and i am looking for a few kind listeners to give some feedback. actually, i'm getting ready to send out demos to favored nations records (and a few others) so i also need the most brutal individuals to critique my music before i send it out :)

if you liked Satriani's Engines of Creation CD you'll probably enjoy my music. my music is a fusion of instrumental guitar with electronica - guitar centric electronica i guess you could call it. some of the tracks are guitars doing their best to sound like agressive synths, while other tracks feature more traditional tones.

my site is http://rustcycle.com

thanks in advance!

*Disclaimer* - Please don't take any comments I make the wrong way. I don't mean any offense by anything I say - I'm just offering some brutal criticism you asked for :)

Daisho - The tone of the first guitar is a bit harsh to my ears at the beginning the track, but it's ok once it becomes part of the background. The second guitar lays down a nice rhythm, and the third guitar part is beautiful. The clean guitar is a good breather from all the other distorted guitar. One thing I would suggest is to add a bit more spice to the drums during the harder parts of the song. Another thing that I might change is that rather than repeating the theme of guitar #3 a third time after the second clean part, you could perhaps variate the theme more drastically or introduce a new theme altogether (i.e. - take a solo). Overall, though, the song got and held my attention well. Very good.

Android Guitar - This song starts off well with theme devlopment and motif repetition. When the song kind of stops and picks back up, the picking up seems slow. To me, it takes too long to get back into the theme (50 seconds from drop off to picking back up). Perhaps you could shorten the the part where it's just drums. It seems that the solo lacks the intensity of the main theme - consider pumping up the part from 3:15 - 3:40.

Sapphire - In my opinion, the melody in the beginning could use a bit of a volume boost. In fact, throughout the song the rhythm section seems a bit too loud. I like the ideas a lot, though.

Rusted - I like the rhythm to this song. You've got some good, tasteful playing here. I'd like to hear the rest of this one - very good.

Lotus Carving - I like the driving rhythm near the end of the song, as well as that one sustained note throughout the vocals. My only problem was that I couldn't make out what you were saying because the rest of the song was too loud. That might just be my speakers, but I think the vocals need to come up the mix a bit.

Silver Strand - I like pretty much everything about Silver Strand. Very good job.

Some of the tones you use are quite unique and nice. What gear do you use? Good luck with the demo. Good music, I'm sure you'll do fine.

thanks for the feedback amigo! i appreciate the in-depth listens you gave :)

as far Daisho goes, i may take your suggestion and change up the drums a bit on the chorus. on Android i'm not sure what i'll wind up doing if i decide to add elements to the drum/turntable solo area - maybe i'll add some strangely distorted percussion to add interest...very valid points on the other tracks as well.

here's a sample of another track that will be on the demo - Overclocked: http://rustcycle.com/OCsamp.mp3

(the demo will be Daisho, Rusted, Android, and Overclocked)

in a couple days i'll upload the full tracks of Overclocked and Rusted for some friends of mine - it won't be visible from the main site, but i'll post a link here if you like.

as far as gear goes i run my Ibanez JS1000 into a Sherman FilterBank, to a whammy pedal and Alesis AirFX, then into a Pod Pro, then into the software effects in Logic Audio Gold.

All in all pretty cool... Definitely different. Kept thinking of the Blue Man Group for some reason though, don't know why, maybe the sounds... Hmmm...

I didn't feel like Android Guitar got to the meat of the song quick enough. Thirty seconds is a bit too long... You probably only got that much time to make your whole point, considering A&R guys have to rummage through thousands of CD's...
My advice is to only send your 3 absolute best songs, and make the first song a quick attention getter. If they want to hear more songs, they will ask you...

Good luck, break a string! (Leg) (or whatever...)

good tip on using 3 songs...i was wondering about 3 versus 4!

i'm also working on a CG music video - if you're interested in seeing a test render, here's a few seconds of animation (10 MB):

http://cs.uccs.edu/%7eabjohnso/html/world6.mov

in this test render i'm checking the ambient lighting of the CG world, the texture envelopes of the platforms (you can see the top surfaces pulse to the beat of Daisho), and the inverse kinematics of the servo arm for the guitar (in the future, you too can trade in your guitar strap for a versatile mechanical fixture :)

my main machine is working on test render 2, where the guitarist is actually animated and i have a particle effects system creating sparks wherever the guitarist's fingers strike the fretboard. should be a nice surreal effect when i pull everything together.

i'm still formulating my strategy...i think perhaps if i can demonstrate that i'm working on not just audio but a complete "music experience" i will score more points with the A&R guys. thoughts?

Hell those guys barely have enough time to pop a cd in. but add it as a seperate thing on a seperate disk.

To be honest...I havent actually listened to your songs. I dont have time now...but will be sure to check them tomorrow or the next day. They sound interresting.
I just posted this to wish you he best of luck.
Hope it goes well.

point taken - i've never been totally happy with the EQ on that song. i'll slap a link up monday when i fix it :)