First off, my musical skills blow ass, and I'm not here to promote a goddamn thing, since nobody knows I exist at all, and I want to keep it that way for the time being. Gotta git gud first.
Simply put, I'm experimenting with music and want to merge funk, classical, Lovecraftian styles with EDM instruments.
If I finished this song, would any care to listen, or care to know how the other four monsters die in it?
Nobody? :(
Ain't quite what I meant when I said I didn't want anyone to know I existed...
Sorry, op... i found nothing appealing about it. At least i gave you a bump, right?
Is this you singing?
Yeah. My voice, with a lot of editing. As for people who hate it or find it "bleh," what would help? What should I change to stop it from wallowing in mediocrity?
Honest, as long as you're not fat, you're good to go do gigs.
Get a delay pedal for your live vocals or something. You'll be fine. The electronic stuff is interesting enough.
I wish I could do vocals. I end up doing stuff like this because I can't.
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At least I played all the instruments on the backing track. Even tapped the beat in with trigger pads.
I'll say this though, I looked at the other tune on your channel and it was way better.
This needs a bassline.
This is kind of cool, I don't give a fuck about the stupid monsters though.
You'd probably be better off posting in a soundcloud or bandcamp thread if you want feedback.
I really really like this. Only thing was the beginning was kinda all over the place, you should finish it, i'm subscribed
I don't want to deal with the hippies and the general circle-jerk that is soundcloud. I want actual, anonymous, harsh criticism from people who already couldn't care less.I want to improve, not be told that I should follow my dreams.
As for polhumour, not to sound like a dick, but your musical problem is lyrical repetition. If you added more structure to your stuff, it would be far better. The video you posted was almost like watching a vine on loop.
And I didn't think anyone would care enough to look at to other song I made.
youtu.be
That one is slightly more inspired. Short version: Yusufina X is a singer who disappeared from the web about a year ago, and she managed to take most of her songs with her. It was basically a plea for her to sing again.
The vocals are the strong point. The music needs a bit of cleaning up. Those high pitched percussive noises are too loud and the piano at the end of sounds messy and out of place. I hear lots of potential though.
Interesting, never heard something like that, but maybe it's just because EDM is not my thing. Is that avant-garde music? IDK, just don't give up on it.
>As for polhumour, not to sound like a dick, but your musical problem is lyrical repetition. If you added more structure to your stuff, it would be far better. The video you posted was almost like watching a vine on loop.
Did you actually watch the whole thing?
Look, you know earlier when I said you were good to gig as long as you weren't fat?
That's because your music is terrible, but you can get by on "LOL I'M A GRILL" if you aren't fat.
Just so you know.
reminiscent of crystal castles, in a good way. keep making music
I know the end is shit, the song's not done. But there we go. Something I can use. Which percussive noises? The ticking in the second drum pattern that occurs every other drum loop? Was that the most distracting thing in the instrumental?
>As for polhumour, not to sound like a dick, but your musical problem is lyrical repetition.
Someone doesn't get mashup videos.
Do you know that's Alex Jones you stupid cunt?
Also, totally didn't mean to offend, polhumour. I did listen to the whole thing, and the first minute or so is mostly the same. It's static to my ears.
Again, wasn't trying to be a dick. Also, I'm not fat, and I'm not a girl.
>I'm not a girl.
Your likelyhood of getting gigs just dropped 99.9999%
OP link us to the unlisted video
Which unlisted video? I've got a few of them.
How the fuck is he gonna know, they're unlisted.
To be honest the sound design was god awful. The melody was a decent pop melody, but the synths and drums sound like children's toys and everything was thrown together in an amatuerish way. Not much cohesion between the separate elements.
Not in it for gigs. Trying to improve. The way I make this stuff isn't conducive to preforming them live.
Actually in a soundcloud thread you are more likely to get ignored by 50 faggots who posted their shitty lowfi/ambient/'whiteboy hip hop/'trap inspred beats' then bailed out on the thread without even listening to anyone elses music.
I average less than one play per sc thread, nobody cares about anyone elses music there if you get any compliments, likes, follows or anything they are usually just looking for something good to say so you will be more likely to check out their music.
Holy shit, thank you. I'll redo the drums and clean up the strings. This is criticism I can actually use.
>Not in it for gigs. Trying to improve. The way I make this stuff isn't conducive to preforming them live.
OK, real advice here.
You're ok with beats, but your instrumental game needs work.
I advise you to do a song with no drums in it to strengthen this as an exercise. Without a beat to hide behind, you'll have to try harder.
Also what the other guy said about sound design. Learn about different frequency bands and what you can fit in them.
Sweet. I know next to nothing on that subject. What frequency would you recommend for strings and drums?
gsus nigguh
this is gona take a while
what DAW do you use? First thing you want is an EQ with a graphic readout of the sound so you can see what you're working with
Depends on the strings lol. Strings can be anything from double bass up to viola. Drums are dependant on what kinda kit you're using - but here's a tip to start with. Separate your kick, snare and hats onto their own channels, and EQ them independently.
Just uploaded one of my instrument tests. As for a test of a song that doesn't rely totally on drums, does this style work better? I know the pizzicato is basically a drum in this, but how does it fare?
Retard I am. Forgot to link it. youtu.be
And I make this shit entirely in fruity loops with plugins I found on the net >.>
>but how does it fare?
Well...it's just one chord vamped over and over. Try using more than one chord.
Yeah there's other things playing melody lines, but they just sound randomly generated to be honest.
Here's one of my instrumental pieces.
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>Here's one of my instrumental pieces.
Have another.
This has better sound design in it.
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Your music is defiantly cleaner. Leagues above mine. However, I gotta say, you seem to have a lot of the same repetition issues I'm having; only you've masked it better. The underlying wiggly string-like thing you've got going adds flavor, but doesn't totally remove the crutch I'm trying to shed.
I'd definitely like to know how you go about separating the instruments, though.
Only a minute in a half into this one, and I can already hear the Vangelis influence.
>However, I gotta say, you seem to have a lot of the same repetition issues I'm having; only you've masked it better.
Eh, I'd been listening to a lot of Brian Eno. It's meant to be minimalist like that.
You're right though, it is covered better.
>I'd definitely like to know how you go about separating the instruments, though.
It's about listening with your ears to see what overlaps in teh frequency bands, and trying to seperate them. Or spotting a gap and choosing something small to fill it.
Honestly just keep practising.
>Only a minute in a half into this one, and I can already hear the Vangelis influence.
Never heard of Vangelis.
Huh. It's like the last song, though. Basically a loop with 3-4 supporting synths under it. I can see parts of it working for shows or movies, but as songs themselves, the style isn't quite grabbing me.
You've heard my shit, so take this with a grain of salt, but I would recommend speeding your songs up and then bringing them back down again with a smooth transition. Your style would go well with a sudden swell of excitement, followed by an odd calm.
What about this one?
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Although the mix is horrible on that, I really need to redo it.
It's not meant to be grabbing pop music, it's meant to relax to. I understand what you are saying though.
I don't know if there is a built in EQ in fruity loops but go have a look, if not I'm sure there's a free one you can download with an analyzer.
So open your EQ and look at the sound and the frequency range that it's making. There it is, that's the frequency of that instrument.
If it's a high or midrange instrument then you usually want to cut out any excess low frequencies because it will muddy up your sound.
Generally its better not to cut too much highs out of a low or mid range instrument because they don't clash as bad as lower frequencies and it can make them sound a bit dull and flat.
Often you want to pull out some of the frequencies of an instrument to enhance its fundamental sound and leave more room for other stuff. Every note played by an instrument will have a fundamental and a bunch of harmonics, and also some 'noise' in most cases. You don't fuck with the fundamental, that's like the core part of the note. Often its a good idea to pull down some notches in your EQ to get rid of the noise or undesirable harmonics. For example with kick drums and bass most people will pull down a little notch in the EQ somewhere in the lower-mid range to make a bit more room for other instruments (since the most important part of those ones is the lower bass register) and because certain frequencies tend to sort of just sound like mud, getting rid of some of that makes the fundamental louder and clearer.
This is a mess of advice that is probably not very clear or helpful and I could go on all day but I'm not sure that I'm making much sense here.
This one is definitely more my speed, though the leading synth is missing a certain... "Ooomph" I think. And the drop that occurs at almost exactly 1:50 feels like that's where the song should hit a crescendo, rather than fade to a lower refrain.
>This one is definitely more my speed, though the leading synth is missing a certain... "Ooomph" I think.
Yeah, this mix ia horrible. Pretty much every insatrument lacks oomph. I was drinking heavily when I uploaded that, I should have not bothered.
>And the drop that occurs at almost exactly 1:50 feels like that's where the song should hit a crescendo, rather than fade to a lower refrain.
I'll try this out when I remake it, cheers.
Makes sense to me. I have a bunch of EQ tools, actually. My main problem is I have an awful taste in music and aspire to make a weird mix of bullshit that I enjoy actually work together. I'm like the Susumu Hirawasa of sucking balls.
I almost always meddle with the EQ of my voice recordings, but goddmanit, I never even thought to do the same shit with the instruments. All this fucking time I've been trying to make my voice fit with the tools I have, rather than make the tools fit my voice.
Thank you. So. Fucking. Much. I will try that over the next few weeks and see if I can find a happy balance and actually make this idea go somewhere.
>I almost always meddle with the EQ of my voice recordings, but goddmanit, I never even thought to do the same shit with the instruments. All this fucking time I've been trying to make my voice fit with the tools I have, rather than make the tools fit my voice.
The EQing and mixing on your voice is very nice, and quite an original sound. Definitely keep doing that, even when you fuck with the other stuff.
Good luck man, watch youtube tutorials on mixing for some good advice
I'm glad people like the voice. I was afraid I was entering Alvin and The Chipmunks territory.
One thing people haven't quite commented on yet is the writing. Writing is kinda important to me, since I've already published a book and pride myself on detail.
Do any of the lines feel out of place in the context of a Lovecraftian-inspired song?
And thanks. People like you are why soundcloud can eat my balls. Harsh, honest help and advice is way more useful than the shit I ever got there.
>I'm glad people like the voice. I was afraid I was entering Alvin and The Chipmunks territory.
>One thing people haven't quite commented on yet is the writing. Writing is kinda important to me, since I've already published a book and pride myself on detail.
>Do any of the lines feel out of place in the context of a Lovecraftian-inspired song?
If you want in depth feedback on that, I suggest going to /lit/. They'd probably love to analyse it.
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fuck my shit up :)
Holy fucking shit.
Worst thing about that is the seizure-inducing video. That song is great.
Subbed.
Subbed and liked.
Tone down on the flashing in your videos. Your music speaks for itself, and adding artsy stuff to it doesn't help. You need exposure, not feedback. That shit made me feel like Salieri in in 1984's Amadeus.
I don't know what your problem is with the video, I liked it.
To each, their own.
I could take or leave the video. The song, however, I fucking loved. Only problem with the music itself was that it was sometimes hard to understand the lyrics, which is rich coming from me.
Either way, Mr. Mcqin got himself another fan.