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Author Topic: Ace-Electro song yoke I made  (Read 1187 times)

PkGamer

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Ace-Electro song yoke I made
« on: May 01, 2015, 06:11:24 pm »

https://youtu.be/vH3DSwt7Xus
Song is based around cs:go
Constructive criticism needed, please :)
Thanks

Eagleon

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Re: Ace-Electro song yoke I made
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2015, 08:44:44 pm »

The mix was ok, you know how to compressor, but it was painful to jump straight into the start of the song with headphones. Try to lead up to that point with something that will tell the listener it's coming, it'll build anticipation and make it even more exciting, rather than throw-my-expensive-audio-equipment-against-a-wall annoying. I don't know what you're using for a DAW (if it's FL Studio I can help further), but try to figure out something better than midi piano - rule of thumb, if you don't have good samples for instruments, you had at least better know how to mangle them in the mixer until they're passible as a weirdie retro synth instead. http://www.kvraudio.com/ and http://www.xoxos.net/vst/vst.html are where I've gotten nearly all my synths and effects other than what I've gotten from IL - there are a lot of good free VSTs and sales out there, probably some of them are pianos (though I'd stay far away from Piano One, it's starting to get a little too recognizable and widely used), you just have to be willing to dig.

The second part of the song doesn't really fit together with the first. The melodies were kinda crazy, they don't fit together with a single established scale and you're transitioning them using a fader rather than making one continuous layer - try to focus a little more on consonance with the rest of the music instead of working on parts by themselves and dropping them in without regard for how they flow together.

A big part of composing is listening to something enough times that you can be objective about its faults - you're asking for criticism which means you probably know they're there, but it's really, really difficult to provide that when music is such a varied and expressive thing. For all I know everything I describe could be a product of irony and completely intentional. Learning to really listen to your own stuff without prejudgment is what it ultimately takes to figure out the language.

I hope that helps.
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PkGamer

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Re: Ace-Electro song yoke I made
« Reply #2 on: May 05, 2015, 01:44:28 pm »

The mix was ok, you know how to compressor, but it was painful to jump straight into the start of the song with headphones. Try to lead up to that point with something that will tell the listener it's coming, it'll build anticipation and make it even more exciting, rather than throw-my-expensive-audio-equipment-against-a-wall annoying. I don't know what you're using for a DAW (if it's FL Studio I can help further), but try to figure out something better than midi piano - rule of thumb, if you don't have good samples for instruments, you had at least better know how to mangle them in the mixer until they're passible as a weirdie retro synth instead. http://www.kvraudio.com/ and http://www.xoxos.net/vst/vst.html are where I've gotten nearly all my synths and effects other than what I've gotten from IL - there are a lot of good free VSTs and sales out there, probably some of them are pianos (though I'd stay far away from Piano One, it's starting to get a little too recognizable and widely used), you just have to be willing to dig.

The second part of the song doesn't really fit together with the first. The melodies were kinda crazy, they don't fit together with a single established scale and you're transitioning them using a fader rather than making one continuous layer - try to focus a little more on consonance with the rest of the music instead of working on parts by themselves and dropping them in without regard for how they flow together.

A big part of composing is listening to something enough times that you can be objective about its faults - you're asking for criticism which means you probably know they're there, but it's really, really difficult to provide that when music is such a varied and expressive thing. For all I know everything I describe could be a product of irony and completely intentional. Learning to really listen to your own stuff without prejudgment is what it ultimately takes to figure out the language.

I hope that helps.

Thanks so much most people don't bother telling me what's wrong with what I make just that its okay. Thanks so much I'll try to improve on this.

scrdest

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Re: Ace-Electro song yoke I made
« Reply #3 on: May 05, 2015, 02:11:13 pm »

Disclaimer 1: I am not an expert on this particular style;
Disclaimer 2: I am not an expert on composing, but I'm speaking from my own gripes with my own stuff;
Disclaimer 3: What Eagleon said, I would mostly reiterate myself;
Disclaimer 4: Holy fuck that's a lot of disclaimers.

I think you should primarily focus on improving tension and transitions - like Eagleon said, it's quite noticeable that you're basically trying to string a bunch of separate musical ideas together and the seams are very visible. It creates an unintended effect of 'k, bored with this part now, bbl'.

Dynamics-wise, aside from, as mentioned, a gradual increase in volume in intro, some gunshots around 2:20 mark feel way too loud on headphones - you don't want to hurt the listeners' ears - and the higher frequencies around 1:50 are barely audible at all, masked by the low end.

Harmonically, it's a bit inconsistent - it seems like you've been aiming for some tension, but you transit or pair it with major-y sounding chords, so it feels like a badly-harmonized scale. On a more positive side, I kinda like the dissonance in the piano riff around 2:10, it's a cool musical idea.
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PkGamer

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Re: Ace-Electro song yoke I made
« Reply #4 on: May 06, 2015, 12:13:48 pm »


Thanks :). I did try to squeeze a couple of ideas into a single song which isn't so great I agree.
I am just really bad at following through with one idea, I either get about a 30 second segment really good and don't know how to extend it or I get bored really easily and end up switching synths.
The piano in the song was actually originally in three different synths but I figured out that, that didn't sound so great so I just switched all of them to piano which sounded a lot better. I felt like I should actually scrap the middle section however I didn't really know where to go with it so I just left it be.
And the end was actually inspired by a dubstep song I had been listening to a bit lately I wanted to sort of recreate the vocals and decided to just place it in the song at the end because I got bored of the first bits.
Thanks for the comments scrdest and Eagleon.

scrdest

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Re: Ace-Electro song yoke I made
« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2015, 02:50:43 pm »

I know what you mean - I get that a lot myself. Try to progress the idea harmonically - use the same idea around a different chord or modulate. Repetition also works, but dump too much repetition without changing the main focus (ferex, non-instrumental songs get away with more repetition since the vocal melody is the thing that draws your attention) and you'll just bore people, including yourself.
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