I don't necessarily disagree

I had to go thru basically my own writers camp and figure it all out

The songs in the beginning of the creation were way more loose and still trying to find my footing fully - the songs You Used To, No More Traffic & In My Dreams that were the very first made tracks

Then I learned how to make "proper" songs through the process and some advice from irl music friends - where you get the songs Feel What's Real, To Your Neighbor, I'm A Dog and A New Light

Then the other songs are like a mix of the two of the more "loose" experimental phase and the "proper" phase

I've always wrote random lil lyrics but I never made full songs besides a few Rap songs when I was teen - but now I have a style, template and gauged what works plus a finished set up that now I can write real choruses and structures while still having twists on them that work in the electronic/dance scenes!

And with the set up, style and template figured out and hammered out during the creation of TFIF the next project will go much smoother 🥳

Thank you! One of my fav moments too!

That switch break + the 2nd interlude the brassy one and some of New Light is also me dipping back into and giving respect to my HipHop/Rap roots

No samples, premade loops, beat sites nor AI was used neither for Feel What's Real + THE REST of the other 13 tracks! Digital and also a***og sounds all original from me - sound design and og production is my original background 😈

Thank u for listening to the whole thing and especially for dropping by in the thread to say sumn, I really appreciate the looks and attention

NEW PAGE links repost! AGAIN

• The Future is Forever (ALBUM) 💽

OUT NOW 💧

SPOTIFY:
open.spotify.com/album/7eH1J0Yn2HaiyoPNCYP1DO

APPLE MUSIC:
music.apple.com/us/album/the-future-is-forever/1846665880

BANDCAMP Regular Album Version (WAV DOWNLOADS, Free/Pay What You Want):
denzelwaters.bandcamp.com/album/the-future-is-forever

BANDCAMP Instrumental Album Version (WAV DOWNLOAD, Free/Pay What You Want):
denzelwaters.bandcamp.com/album/the-future-is-forever-instrumental-version

TIDAL:
tidal.com/album/467427915

• YOUTUBE:

🕊️ IN ORDER ALBUM TRACKS PLAYLIST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXlO5QCX__bTF8HwLQC58F-kCXRJr250J

MAIN GENRES: ELECTRONIC, DANCE, RNB 🕊️

One of my fav and ego inflating things is when someone online or irl asks me "or what sample is that on such such??!"

And then I can go "It's not a sample, there aren't any samples or premade loops on any of the album songs 😏😈"

Means a lot to me as production is my original background before engineering or writing/singing

Feel whats real and new light probably my favorite songs yeah I can see the improvement forsure. As a first project you got yourself a nice foundation to build on especially production wise

ofc

#listening

This s*** is fire

We always support ours on here we all we got

Let me know what u think when u got a chance!

I appreciate it n the look, I'm glad you enjoyed it

Those are the top songs on every platform they're top 5 to 2 on everything and highly playlisted - def found a lil formula

Ty so much 🙌

Speaking of the top songs, tomorrow I plan to post popularity stat rankings of listens n playlisted songs for the first week listen of the WINNERS 👑 and LOSERS 💀 of the album songs averaged out across all major platforms!

I think it'll be fun and just good insight 🗣️🤳

Also here are our first round of FUN FACTS for the album! Those that have been around the thread since the Singles were dropping will be familiar with this yapping segment I do posts throughout the thread of

1ST Fun Fact, about things that were left on the cutting room floor of TFIF sessions:

• 1 full song (titled Call It Danger) that was cut that I didn't think fit and I didn't like how "poppy" it felt
• 1 alt song version (You Get Old, different beat but same structure and vocals), which the 2nd version, the final version, made the final album
• 1 half made song i couldn't think how to finish (titled Please Don't Shoot, might revisit in the future)
• 1 song demo with random vocal n lyrics ideas that didn't go far - it's beat is vaulted for now
• 2 beats that weren't used at all, one of them given to a friend at this point

2ND Fun Fact, about song creations throughout the album process:

• I've mentioned it a bit before, but You Used To and No more Traffic was the first two songs made for the project and after those were made I decided to go fully with my personal project idea, then I made In My Dreams as the 3rd song right after which then I got the feel for the production to do

• the final 3 songs were Feel What's Real, To Your Neighbor and 2nd final version of You Get Old - To Your Neighbor also originally didn't have a second verse, it had a refrain in place of it, but I then changed it because I wanted another full "traditional" structure song for the album and I think it was for the better

• the EASIEST song to make was No More Traffic, the HARDEST song to make was To Your Neighbor (the mixing of all the layered n more "maximalist" sounds to go with the vocals was annoyingly difficult but it worked it the end), the FUNNEST song to make was Come On Over, the LEAST FUN to make song was You Get Old (I almost cut the song before I made the final beat version, the OG beat and it's mixing I wasn't happy for the longest time but I loved the lyrics, vocals and concept of the song - I'm glad it worked out in the end and that it's also popular)

That's all for today's fun facts

Major FAXX 🗝️ 🗝️

I fw how it feels like you're just making music

No More Traffic just doing your thing

i liked it a lot! super fun

the only thing IMO is I find it too bassy but that's personal preference i guess

ID theft me came on and I was like hold on this sounds familiar and then it hit me that I'd heard it before lol

is that your vocals throughout the album? idk what your doing with your voice like mixing etc but I really like it sounds futuristic as hell lol

some of the synths are ever so slightly microtonal (?) at times and it really adds to the atmosphere

I'm glad you enjoyed it and thank u for listening! N I think u were itt for when I released IDTM few months back as a single, u mentioned it reminded you of kraftwerk a lil bit of im not mistaken

And yesss those are all my vocals - literally the only parts that aren't me is the woman gasp sound in the first interlude that's, a vox sound in a random vst - and the "alright now" vocals are from a Club DJ voicelines beat kit. Everything else is me, including the "don't ask another question" voice on No More Traffic, I samples my own voice and degraded it then used a lot of mixing techniques that 90s/2000s UK Garage would do to vocals but with my own twist

Yup that is in there, that's dope you picked that up! I go all over the scale and "in-between" scale and tones, especially for little breaks and transitions such as the short one in the Intro right before my main vocals come in - I'll resample myself to "get more" notes out of it again ever so and play with pitches and such, an other example is the intro to You Get Old iirc

There's a bunch of techniques like how I use polyrhythms at the end of the 1st interlude

I also mixed together digital and a***og synths and also layer them with a lot that gives slight variations of keys and such from me playing them and drawing them in

My main idea is to keep a main groove and theme of a track for the album but then I'm shifting it and making many alt versions of the same throughout to expand upon the track and to keep it interesting for the listener - so there's tons of little techniques and "shadow notes" and little ear candy going on every two to 4 bars on average

A lot of the personal mantra when creating the project was "make something familiar, but different, make something standard, but in a unique way" if that makes sense, and another part of the concept of the album n sound was like mixing techniques and sounds of the old and the modern plus my own twist that is "the future"

@fka_sebastien

Also forgot to mention in the other comment, I appreciate the compliment on my tone mixing for my vocals! It was tough because my own actual voice is odd, you can hear my voice at its driest in Feel What's Real intro and the talking info for the Album Preview video deep down in op. I have a "weird" kinda unique voice because I have some damaged vocal chords from a surgery I had as a baby that was collateral damaged and I had to learn how to push out air to talk a different way, so I had to create a mixing style that suited it.

And once I got the basic down for my texture of voice, I then added to it depending on the track of just creative artistic liberties for the overall vision of the project. And I wanted every song from the beats to the vocals to have its own feel, but then I would bring commonality to it in the mastering phase with them all getting slight variations of the same mastering chain and techniques.

I apologize if the yapping was too much 🫠😂

Ty lmao I wanted the album to have this "casual" feel while having sumn more "complex" n "deeper" there if u want to look a bit deeper.

My idea of music creating in general as an artist rn is "make music that is of substance but still fun and interesting, and make music that is somewhat familiar but also sumn different and sort of unique"

Also for about a quarter to half of the album's creation I was really just flying by the seat of my ass lmao figuring it all out, so this is also true even to a degree unintentional 😭😭💀

Another general idea before I fully fleshed everything to keep my mind on the sound of the album was also to make a Love Letter to many many electronic and dance genres then find a way to combine them with my own spin - so I was also just making music of combining things I loved in a way that felt cohesive and also like my own style

This was the 2nd song made, I DEF was just doing whatever at that point 😂😂

The only real idea I had for the song is that "I wanted a song that could maybe fit a cookout and/or family function setting"

My mixing n mastering goal too overall for every song is that I really wanted to keep the dynamics of the overall sound of the track and instruments and use the frequency - so this is part of why my voice I mixed it more like "an instrument" too where it's moreso on the same "plane" as all the sounds going on, I wanted it blended but not be buried or muffled and I think I achieved that! I also have a pet peeve of vocals that WAY overtake the track and is TOO upfront personally, I mix general clients with the idea of having vocals as the focal point (unless stated otherwise) as most usually want it like that, but I will never make the vocals overtake the entire song and where you only hear like the vocalist and the snare and all the other instruments n things sound like their playing out of earbuds or sumn I f***ing hate that mixing style 💀

I guess this is another FUN FACT already