Hello there. ( ・u ・) I'm Alix ― a self studying musician learning how to write lyrics and acoustic & electronic sounds. This is a journey to that point. [Enoqi]
This song man. I haven’t written anything in a long time. I’ve written songs on guitar, plenty of those. You didn’t hear any. I haven’t, however written anything like this a while. I’ve been feeling pretty bad lately. Like, real bad. I turned to mike at work the other day after the drink machine started spewing syrup all over the walls and floor and asked him if he ever felt like there was a god, and he is just pissing on you. I didn’t see his response. I’m pretty sure no one uses that expression, so I doubt he’d have agreed. In this case it was a more tangible god that was pissing on me - the syrup pump thing that gives us drink. Needless to say, that’s not why everything has sucked, but it doesn’t exactly help things along.
I really like what you made here, it’s really catchy and loopable! :D You are right because this certainly does have a tinge of sadness and happiness to it. I love the rhythm here, it’s very unique. I’m also very drawn to the interaction of the strings and backing — it all works very well together. Just a few suggestions for this:
The drum instrumentation could use a little more realism (though that’s my personal preference) because it also sounds kind a lot more like game music, but from what I read you kind of wanted that feeling so perhaps it’s appropriate.
The strings would sound good if it was lengthened until the next string, with a little more echo. It might sound nice too with a little bit of pitch bending with the transitions to give it a “lazier” sound. An example of what I mean: I frequently use cello sounds, and my sister usually tells me that she usually expects solo cello / strings to sound lengthened until the next note. So for you, the part that I notice the most is the end of the 1st melodic phrase. (I hope that made sense.)
The voice might sound good if it came in a little earlier or was faded in. I was really used to listening to the instrumental so I didn’t expect a voice to appear out of the blue.
All in all, I like it a lot. I imagine something playful, the closest thing I can imagine is Vanellope and Sugarland from Wreck it Ralph, if you’re familiar with the movie. Not sure exactly why. She’s sweet, but also a character with a lot of depth, which is what I feel in what you made here. Nice work Connor. :D (And by the way — I hope you don’t mind me reducing your post, it was a little long to reblog.)
Spirit Wolf’s hardcore track really got me thinking, “What if I took the hardcore sounds, but made them more trance like?” The end result was this remix. I personally had a lot of fun re-imaging “Daydream” into something of my own. It’s one of my older remixes, but I’m pretty happy with how this turned out.
Hey Emark. (New nickname?) This sounds great as with your other songs. :) Still surprises me that no one’s glomping over you because of it. Anyway, I never really commented mainly because I didn’t know what to look for, but I think that I’ll try to leave some feedback for you because there’s some things on my mind. (Some of these points could probably also apply to the other tracks that you’ve made in the past.) So without further ado:
Still workin’ on it. I’ll do something with the melody when I have a better idea of where I want to go with it, but for now, I’ve just applied a few suggestions from Soulfully/DystopianMyopia/other tumblr folks, and fixed a few issues.
Still need to run this through some proper monitors for a good mixdown - seems like it has a dent in the middle on the ones in class - but that can wait for now. I’ll probably take down the other WIPs and tidy up my front page a little once WIP 5 is posted.
I really like all the subtle changes that you’ve made here. :D Here are some thoughts and suggestions that I’m writing down as I listen to it along the way.
Not enough work done to be a full WIP. Just experimenting with some things so I can show Dystopianmyopia what I’m planning on doing. Also on my to-do list; a proper white noise transition. That Xfer cymbal sample is nice but it’s too short.
Oh I love the kicks you added at the beginning! I actually internally spazzed because it made all the difference from WIP #3.
Anyway, I want to focus more on asking you questions so I figure out what direction you want to take this song in. What do you want to make out of this? Is it to focus on sound design, melody, or …? (Just for the note of it, I’m listening to both WIP 3.5 & 3 — 3 for the specific times because you uploaded that on Soundcloud.)
I believe that there’s a small, perhaps accidental transitional error at the very beginning (could it be the one that you wrote about?) — it’s the part where the ambient noise where sound / white noise repeats itself? It’s sort of like this leftover echo. I can’t get an exact time on this, but on WIP #3 it’s exactly at 0:35 seconds.
The song from 0:36: it gives me a feeling of wonder and enchantment, almost ethereal. It’s like the soundscape to a fantasy world but that’s my interpretation. It’d be a good time to think about what you want to achieve emotionally and technically in Places I Knew. It’s an obvious question, but as much as the song means and reflects yourself, what is it that you want to feed your listeners with?
The melody is simple, and I like simplicity! The only part that I’d suggest working on are those 3 consecutive notes (first appears from 1:33 - 1:35). The three notes make the song feel stuck in one place and doesn’t help to make the song move forward, which is what I feel you’d want. If what you want is familiarity, then you could stick with it. However, it does seem a little odd to do that considering “Places I Knew” seems to be a reflective song — on change and moving on. I could come up with 3 ideas with what to do: 1) change the 3 notes, 2) keep it but make it somewhat dynamic (not the same volume, make the notes fade out a bit)
1:47 - 2:11 feels a little confused, it sounds like a filler. I think you could do something interesting those chimes / ambient noise, because they’re there waiting to do something. Maybe something pleasantly unpredictable. The transition 2:11 is fine. Smooth transition in. (Edit!!:) I think I know what I was hoping for. How good would it sound, do you think, if you reversed the ambient noise from 1:47 - 2:25? A little like what you did at the beginning. It would transition out to a suspenseful peak. Here’s what I’m talking about, although it’s a very simple example from me. Unlike the example though, it should be more complicated — it’d sound very interactive if you reversed and reversed it (almost like a tape) and made the ambient noise a little louder than your synths. Perhaps shift the focus to it for 1:47 - 2:25?
I love the use of silence as transition at 2:25. It could, however, mislead listeners into thinking that it’s the end of the song. (I almost closed the tab at this moment, which is bad) I’d give a little more echo so there’s no misunderstanding.
2:27 to the end: There’s potential here to work on the melody, like I mentioned in #3. The purpose of this part sounds more like a cooldown — which is why I suggested the reversing idea earlier. If it is meant to be a cooldown, then I have nothing else to say about it. What do you think is the purpose of 2:27 - end? Is it to bring the song to a resolution, or to introduce something after that? You might work on this part more because it doesn’t introduces anything new (despite the noise in the background). However, that might be good if this is supposed to be the end of the song.
I guess that’s it for now. In a wrap: The beginning is made brilliantly. The melody and ending could use some work overall. The transitions only need minor fixing (like at 0:35). I really like Places I Knew so far. Good luck.
This is probably the first “song” I’ve made, in that it’s a brain fart with structure. It’s just over two minutes so far, but I plan on adding more.
(Constructive criticism would be amazing, by the way. This is all independent study, so I haven’t got anyone in class to give me feedback and advice.)
Hiya! I saw this a bit back (before I was tagged) and I actually did want to write up something for you but sdjfladjfa I’m late @_@ I hope you don’t mind
I actually really like your grainy opening, as your first song I think it’d heading off in the right direction. I mean that. And I love the electronic elements you’re incorporating here :D
There are some off-tempo parts, and I would actually give the specific second it occurs (like 2-3 instances) but this doesn’t seem to be a soundcloud file so I can’t view the times. If I could get some track times then that’d be helpful c:
Some others have mentioned that it sounded a little dissonant. I think it might be the bass sounds / beats in relation to the the piano
After checking the notes just now, I think the piano melody might be another reason why it’s dissonant: it goes F, D, B, then C in that order, right? The jump between the B and C is a minor 2nd, (1 step apart on keyboard) which is a dissonant interval. F, D, & B combined is actually a B chord, which is considered diminished. I don’t actually know quite all that much about them, except diminished chords are dissonant sounding and therefore their combined frequencies are unpleasing to the ears when you play them all together. In your song, it doesn’t sound off to the ears until you get to that jump: from B to C. This isn’t the complete melody of course, but the rest sound composed of the same minor 2nd intervals
It’s not necessary to change your piano melody at all even though I wrote that above, because it’s the added effect of the key of your bass + beat sounds that’s making people feel there’s something off — so it’s not specifically the notes. I actually kind of like the minor 2nds, because I rarely see people do anything with them.
Halfway through, it might be good to give your piano some melodic variation, change some notes around, tempo, or volume — take your song in a new direction. Don’t worry too much about music theory, it’s kind of like a complicated friend that either helps or confuses you even more, I would know ;_;
I don’t really think there’s anything else to point out, I liked listening to it. It reminded me more than a dark forest than a sleeping one, I was imagining getting lost in these ominous woods
And lastly, this is pretty much something I write in all my feedbacks but ask yourself, what’s your purpose in writing this song? What do you want to express? What images or feelings do you want to express to your listeners? What’s your vision?
Good luck working on Sleeping Forest, looking forward to the next WIP! :)
This actually had a C section when I wrote it on the keyboard, but I forgot the chords that I was going to use, and ultimately thought that a song having its stomach cut open was a bit dark.
It’s been a bit since I last posted and I’ve just sort of been fooling around with chords and stuff. This is more of my ever prevalent rhodes piano tomfoolery that I like to do. The trick is to take some minimalist song on the piano, switch it over to rhodes piano and immediately have it sound cuter/prettier than it previously would have. It’s another time where I was writing it with maybe a movie soundtrack in mind. Maybe like, some cutesy romantic-comedy-drama-coming of age clusterfuck of genres. I got no clue yo.
I actually started writing this yesterday, but I’m sickish, and it got the best of my mood, stopping me from writing. I figure now that I’m rested and feeling a bit better, I might as well figure it off, right? Who needs to go to work. Not me.
Just listened to this and here’s what I think:
Perhaps it’d be a good idea to lessen the echo on the rhodes, if you can? The excessive reverb from it makes the chord sound more dissonant than it actually is. This first point’s probably the most important out of the bunch I’ve written down here.
What I like about this one is your interesting choice of chords here, it makes people listen carefully. I don’t find it displeasing nor pleasing to listen to, it just gives off a different listening experience.
The drums actually come in very abruptly. For the first whole minute, there’s no beats at all, then there suddenly is. So it was surprising for me to hear it come so late. Maybe you can transition a little more slowly to the drums, or start it earlier on?
I like the background melody, do you think it would sound better amplified? Especially halfway through with those flutes.
The main melody here sounds more like the chords, rather than the right hand higher notes, is that your intention? If not, then it might be good to work on the melody because you got the chords down and it repeats a lot — the listeners get used to it and start wanting some change.
While you mentioned it’s supposed to be a cute romance song, I get a more melancholic vibe. That’s not bad, but it might be if you want your message/ interpretation to reach your audience
