"This Life" - new beat w/hook by Cryptic Wisdom

[AtomicBeats]

Here's our latest beat! This beat has a more serious vibe, with bass and guitars by A.G.C. and it was produced by Mart85. We had to chance to work with Cryptic Wisdom on this beat, and he made this great hook for us. For those who don't know him, se's a very promising rapper, with a unique rock/rap style, so make sure to check the beat out!

Listen: http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10839448

Download: http://www.soundclick.com/util/downl...fm?ID=10839448

Let us know what you think!

Left feed to: http://www.rapbattles.com/forum/show...259/index.html
http://www.rapbattles.com/forum/show...209/index.html

[H.A.S. - D.4.L.]

the beats real poppy. nice progressions would sound so much netter on real instruments not synths. hook vocals sound like an emo singer, lyrics are iffy. over all its decent but needs work. stay up.

[DopePoet]

Thats what it is it goes in

[AtomicBeats]

the beats real poppy. nice progressions would sound so much netter on real instruments not synths. hook vocals sound like an emo singer, lyrics are iffy. over all its decent but needs work. stay up.

thanks, but it's actually all live instruments. Well, not the synths, but all the guitars and bass are live, recorded and played A.G.C.

[J-min]

intro is dope......

got a rocky feel to it man deffo diggin this man *bopping*

u mind if i try recording some vocals to this ?

i like the reverse on one of the guitar notes sounds dope .

[Shea]

Hmm idk man.. coulda been a really cool song, but those really aweful sounding guitars kinda killed it for me. Even some simple guitar soundfonts would've done a better job imo if mixed well, which the guitars in this track sadly weren't. During the chorus it works I guess, but during the verses that guitar being panned so close to the bass (overlapping even I think) it has a really hard time getting through in the mix, as it's masked by the bass all the time. Also the cymbals sound really bad except for that crash panned hard left which I kinda like. Overall, the instruments sound really bad. Haven't heard such a terrible sounding piano in a while. The song in itself is really nice and the chorus is actually very cool and I like it, the lyrics, too. Just, well those instruments... Also, I'm not really sure why you didn't put more focus on the guitar (brought up its level and stuff), it being pretty much the lead and all. It's like you know the song is leading somewhere but you can't really pinpoint where, cause the guitar is so hard to hear through the mix.

So.. basically you could say:
Composition: Pretty cool, the hook is actually great.
Instruments: Aweful. Might be due to bad recording or simply well.. bad sounding instruments. Get better recording equipment and/or instruments or use VSTi's instead. Layering the recorded instruments with samples or VSTi's can give a really nice sound, too, so maybe try that next time.
Mix: Not bad per se, just _personally_ I would've put a lot more focus on the guitars.

Keep up with the good composing but use some better sounding instruments next time!

Btw, I'm gonna post one of my own pieces entitled "The Storm" pretty soon, so if you could look out for that, and drop me some feedback eventually, I'd appreciate that.

[AtomicBeats]

thanks j-min, yeah sure, let us hear what you come up with when you're done

and thanks shea for the long detailed feedback

The reason why the focus is not on the guitars is because we want to leave room for the vocals (rappers who might use it). And same thing for the hook, we want the vocals from Cryptic Wisdom to be the main focus. I know it's "tempting" to have the instruments in your face, but we try to keep in mind that we're making a beat that's gonna be used by rappers/singers, so we have to leave room for them in the mix.

In a rap song, the drums are probably the most important thing so they have to be really loud. Then obviously, the vocals need to be loud too lol... So yeah, if you add on top of that a lot of guitars, piano etc... not everything is gonna be in your face.

About the guitar that is hard to hear in the verse, I assume you're talking about the strumming guitar, not the lead melody. If so, yeah, that was done on purpose, it's to make it blend with the drums. Or maybe you were talking about the muted guitar, but I would say the same thing for that too. Maybe the best thing would have been to keep less elements in the mix, and only have one instrument that would "shine", but we went in a different direction and we're happy with it.

But we really appreciate long feedback like this, it's good that people spend time to analyze our stuff, even if they criticize it lol

[Shea]

Just for clarification's purposes.. yes, you're assuming right. It's the strumming guitar I was talking about. I suppose general lack of sleep plus the tiredness from spending hours working on a song resulted in bad wording and stuff. (Not like I actually had any sleep since though lol) And btw I wouldn't actually call it criticism, but rather providing a different opinion. When it comes to music there is no "right" or "wrong" after all, it's all just a matter of personal preference.

[Jayrbeatz]

damn bruh this track is dope as hell, I think the guitars were great, I don kno why some people said they sounded awful, I really don even have any constructive criticism keep doin ur thing bruh, please return the favor when you get the chance http://rapbattles.com/forum/showthre...677/index.html