NO TUNES

After ~ 34 liters rosé, 28 sausages, 9kg cheese, 23 baguettes and +- 450h of work, I finally release my first EP “NO TUNES”.
The project started in started in 2020 with the first few sketches. From June-(mid)August’21 I stayed for two month in an beautiful environment of south France (an area close to the village Pied-de-Borne),
to (re-)track, produce, mix and release 6 tunes plus two bonus tracks: “No Tunes #22 (Assertion & Reason)” contain some sound design experiments borrowed from I&EDM genres,
while I break new ground with “No Tunes #18 (Time)” — the first time that my attempts at singing don’t end at the bathroom door.

My focus on dealing with mixing techniques, workflows and tools in the summer months has given me an amazing experience. Such many insights have made the respect for this discipline grow again and tempt me to start all over again. But at some point you have to let go — next time everything will be better :-).

https://linktr.ee/markevertz

No Tunes #1

I recently created a passion for prog rock music. This is the first release of my “No tunes” project. A journey to learn, write and mix music of that genre with its heavy and powerful vibes.

No Tunes #14 (Spanish Lie)

I have no idea how No Tunes # 14 got that pseudo-Spanish touch. I was looking for something that contrasts the mid tempo rock / funk groove that makes up the main vibe of this piece without introducing a lot of new elements. The descending bass line you hear at 12:10 a.m. inspired me to do a more fusion-like solo ~ 2:00 a.m.

When mixing, I followed a recommendation to use reference songs a little differently. I made a track that has about 16 snippets of different matching songs from different bands, each about 20 seconds long. Jumping around in these references should avoid clinging too much to the frequency spectrum of just one track. It’s not quite what I want to sound like yet, but it’s moving forward. By the way: The visual comparison of the waveforms of these snippets is quite interesting. You can clearly see how very differently dynamics are dealt with. It looks like recent recordings in this genre are less brutally compressed. Although according to the loudness meter (compared to LUFS) the songs are actually on the same level. Plini songs, for example, are much more dynamic than comparable songs. I wonder if this is a side benefit of the modern streaming world?

No Tunes #26 (Gravity)

Heavy, intense and fast. I tried to create a lot of excitement in a shot period of time.

No Tunes #8 (Spare Shadows)

Prerelease of my latest one. A bit less proggy, but a more atmospheric vibe. Still challenging to me to guide the listener better with more automation i.e. track volume. While I feel to actually progress with my mixing skills, all in all the whole process is very time consuming and a lot of work. I am thinking to pay someone in the future for that.

No Tunes #2 (Moving)

“No Tunes” develops a simple motif that I tried to move through different chords until 02:25. After that I actually forget everything, rack’n’roll riffing until the end 🙂

No Tunes #24 (Cheesy Weather)

While I enjoy the summer evening hours in a mountainous area in the south of France, I got inspired for a more easy-going kind of rock tune. The piece is walking around a simple, cleaner guitar riff in E Minor (Dorian), followed by a pre-chorus and chorus using different diatonic chords in the key D Major. Melodic parts are dominated by a “Strat-like” lead guitar sound mainly using the E Minor pentatonic.

No Tunes #22 (Assertion & Reason)

Playing around with some stutter, glitch and other effects I enjoy while listening to E&IDM music, I came up with this vibe. It didn’t developed into a full song. Hence, I decided to add it as a short bonus.

No Tunes #18 (Time)

I fooled around with my voice and recorded myself singing for the first time.
Originally I didn’t planned to add the track to the No Tunes project, but after introducing it to friends & family, I felt encouraged to add it as the 2nd bonus track. I hope you like it.

It’s the time we know
It’s the time we grow
The time is passing by
We fly

The words we say
The games we play
Reasons to stay
Time is passing by

The life we live
To give and forgive
The time is passing by
bye bye