The Musician's Gig Room Chat V1 - Songwriting and Sound Design for all! - Creationism Corner

This has a cool vibe, it reminds me of the Doom4 soundtrack. I especially like how hard everything hits. The rhythm is really strong. I like this too. It sounds extremely clear and the way everything is spaced is very atmospheric. It actually reminds me of Turok for some reason. I put this together as a bit of music for a game. I'm going for an 80s zombie movie kind of sound. I'm still a complete amateur at mixing tracks so any feedback on that would help tremendously. https://soundcloud.com/dayscanner/the-boat-can-leave-now

Cheers, never intended to mimic Mica Levi, just put that picture up randomly but I kinda see your point. Needs more horrifying high-pitched strings. You got some sweet sounds in your track, I'm not really into metal typically but grungy industrial stuff like this is right up my alley. Drums/guitar, all good mate. Also gibberish is the best kind of lyrics, using the human voice as an ambiguous instrument can be so much fun. Definitely evoked some retro sounds in there, I swear one of those synths sound almost exactly like their from the deus ex soundtrack. But its messy and there isn't much harmony between the notes, like too much is going on without really meshing together. I'd try to simplify it if I was you, remove some of the sounds that aren't necessary.

Oh haha, I didn't even notice the picture was from that movie! Nice. I just thought the music sounded that way.

Must of been subconscious

Yeah I see what you mean. I think I'll go back over the composition and re-record it. I often try to create harmonies but it ends up being just two melodies fighting eachother. Thanks for the feedback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2rItZRqgSA Made some harsh noise that started out as a homage/sequel to The Gerogerigegege's Yellow Trash Bazooka, but evolved into its own thing over the course of six hours.

https://soundcloud.com/branden-borysewich (obligatory soundcloud plug) If you like rap, hip-hop etc.. I did 3 freestyles for 3 days in a row. Check me out, any crits? Would love it.

Reference for the last two posters: https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/611/2ff4ed2d-24d7-4519-bfd2-040e92e3cb9b/image.png Even if you're just plugging, please read the OP and follow the rules of the thread, thank you

I'm really enjoying the retro vibe you have going here, especially that lead synth sound. I do notice that there's a background percussive sound that is slightly off time though. In terms for mixing advice, some of the percussive sounds are a little too dry. I'd try giving some sounds a little touch of reverb and also EQ the other sounds for more oomf. I find that a lot of deep house bores me now, but this actually had a cool feel and showed a lot of soul. As someone who gets pissed at the, in my opinion, mediocre state of house and techno, you've got something really unique in this, please keep it up. The suggestions I would give would be to play around with the stereo effects on each sound to give it more range. https://youtu.be/A75y6FKkakg I finished an album and this is a song off it. Check out the rest of my bedroom electronic punk noise album about mind control: https://soundcloud.com/ghille556/sets/brain-chemicals

I hope I'm not reviving an ancient issue that is no longer relevant to you, but this thread came up when I googled Jeskola buzz and reaper. I was in the same boat. Wanting a tracker but also wanting certain features that REAPER provides. I wrote an open source tracker plugin for REAPER that you can use as alternative to the MIDI editor. It doesn't have sample playback built in, but it can be used to enter notes and automate VST FX. https://github.com/JoepVanlier/Hackey-Trackey

I really dig that first song. It's definitely got the retro feeling down; almost reminds me of the Stranger Things intro at a few points. I wasn't the biggest fan of all the dischordant parts, but I know that was kind of the point of the song so to each his own I guess. The album is very good; the production value is excellent on all the tracks. Again it's not my kind of music but I can still recognize the effort and talent that went in to all the tracks. Here's my newest track. Was bored over the weekend so I shat this out in a couple hours. Enjoy https://soundcloud.com/papkee/freefall

Not bad, but I feel like the mix could be better. The noise from 0:38 is too robotic and weird, I suggest adding some fx to make it more dynamic whilst increasing the high freq's. Kick's a bit too low; snare could use some high end. Piano's a tad quiet and could use some reverb. Overall you need to eq the side more Tried my hand at IDM https://soundcloud.com/xuzul/xuzul-xfa

This sounds a little like Squarepusher, Ceephax and a little bit of Plaid all mixed together. Its really well mixed but I suggest adding for instance a little more atmosphere to the track, in my opinion anyway Even if its a tiny thing like some tape fuzz or a dissonant vocal saying something. It can add to the vibes heavily. Well, I haven't posted in a long ass time in this thread. I think its been like two months now or something. I've mostly been busy with creating music as I've recently been signed to an independent record label as a solo artist for one of my other projects. I don't have anything to show of that one yet, but I'll come back in a few weeks with some sneak peaks of that. I ended up forming into a duo with my friend and we created a new name for our art called 'The Summits'. We decided to release a 12 track Demotape Proto LP with the same name and we put it up on Bandcamp at the end of February. Its got a bunch of live instruments, guitars, and samples and we recorded the entire thing through discord. We then followed this up with an additional full-size EP also simply called 'Extended Plays'. This one goes more deep into our IDM/Ambient sound and is more of a continuous mix record. Thank's for the support from everything here previously over the months. And peace Choose your dose~ Music | The Summits

I really like how textural your stuff sounds. The saw in that first song can really be felt, and the gritty pads from early in the album create a rich atmosphere. Some of it reminds me of Akira Yamaoka's work which is a plus. I like the way you make dissonance work. Thanks. I got a Reface CS a few months ago and I've been enjoying experimenting with old sounds. I took a stab at a new track, I took a bit more care with the drums in this one and layered in the reverb. https://soundcloud.com/dayscanner/ice

How well do you find your reface interacts with your DAW? It's USB, right? I've been thinking of getting one myself.

I really love all the sound design and the percussion choices, my only standout critique is maybe having a more obvious chorus. If you aren't going for that then that's fine but I can't help but wonder what it'd be like if the percussion "in time" and it having more of a change from the rest of the song. I'm no IDM expert though. So I might've missed the point completely. --- Is this finished? I don't know. It's a banger though. https://soundcloud.com/chazwasa/touch

It can send or receive midi via USB or a midi connector and I never ran into any problems. I was interested in getting one mainly because it's portable but also very punchy; it's a lot of fun to mess around with.

I believe the mix is unnecessarily loud. never forgo dynamics for loudness! you can just get an amp or raise your volume if you want it louder. that said, the intro plucks could be a bit louder, or rather, the rest of the sounds can give up a few db's. The organ at 0:20 is a bit too loud, the snare from 0:40 isnt loud enough and is drowned in the main synth (you may not have noticed this, but it stands out when you hear it from a phone). I dont believe the kick needs to be distorted, but that may be just me it's also hard to hear the vocals clearly due to both the main synth and the background one: try working with polarities and see if you get somewhere new as for the arrangement, 0:40-2:10 there isn't enough variation to justify such length. I got uninterested after a minute, it seemed to drag on. The ending has the same problem, its not original. see if you can add some cymbals or some fx that clearly define parts of the track. I like the bass at the very end, the fadeout not so much as for me I'm having a blast working on braindance thingies, it's way more free than house or other genres, you can do so much and experiment heavily https://soundcloud.com/xuzul/mpr/s-I7c4T

I really like the chord pattern in this. That plus the well-arranged percussion gives it a really nice groove. I can get down to it even though the genre isn't my cup of tea. Not the biggest fan of the overly tube-compressed bass but I'm assuming that's probably a personal taste thing. Anyway here's a song I shat out in a day. Still refining things now and then but eh, it's a brain fart I had this weekend. https://soundcloud.com/papkee/in-the-morning

I don't think I've ever posted my original stuff here. Is there a thread where I should post a track or should I just dump it in here?

you can post it here as long as you provide feedback to your fellow musicians

The intro has a nice sounding arp but it lasts for quite a while. I see you introducing one element at a time but the intro is a tad long, though it may be part of the genre. I think you can introduce more drum work in the intro if you want to keep it that long. The pad build up is nice, but you do have room for more lowend. I think you do yourself a disservice in the drop by having some audio leak around 1:17 - silence is an extremely powerful precursor but I still hear something going on in the background there, it underwhelms the drop. I can see what you're trying to do with the drop - the elements are there but the quality of the elements needs some tuning - the cymbal is too washy and loud in my opinion. A lot of the energy in the drop is lost because of the mix of your drums. I can't really hear any low end in the kick, and I think your sidechain can be stronger. After a while it just starts blaring at you - digging into cleaner, more powerful drums will help you get a groove out of your drops. Breakdown is a nice breath of air. The buildup again is quite long and again, same issues with the drop as above. Didn't realize we had so many producers here, posting some of my work: most recent remix: https://soundcloud.com/itsoksami/mariah-carey-we-belong-together-oksami-remix wips: https://soundcloud.com/itsoksami/chug/s-HnPfq https://soundcloud.com/itsoksami/cruise/s-z9wZ3 fe

How's Clyp? I haven't tried it, but I wonder if it works like Soundcloud as in you have limited uploads unless you pay

Yep, used to be unlimited but they gotta monetize. It's nice to use separately as just this bin for WIPs - annoying to have too many on your soundcloud as I actually have to clean that out.

I like the Ice one. It reminds me a little bit of Frank Klepaki's Command & Conquer soundtrack because you like Minor 7ths, heh. I also love Minor 7ths, so this can only be a good thing. Personally, I found the section where it quietened down at about 2:30 could have a little bit more going on, and that something like a key change could be interesting, but it's generally relaxing and enjoyable to listen to. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but the way the drums are slightly out of sync with the rest of the music is quite an interesting thing to listen to stylistically. Not sure why some links embed and others don't - I guess I will check to see if mine works. Perhaps it only works for things not marked private, or something like that? The pitch bending effect you use at about 0:20-0:40 is really pleasant to my ears. I really enjoyed this piece and can definitely imagine headbanging my way to it, even if I don't listen to this sort of music as much as most people. This song by me is sung badly as always, but it's in an awkward place for me to sing due to a lot of it being high and a lot of it being low, at least for my crappy vocal cords. I think I could get a better recording if I set up a mic and didn't need to play the piano at the same time, but I find that using piano roll to put notes in manually is both tedious and loses a lot of that rubato magic one gets with a live performance. It's not so much an issue with a lot of styles of music, but yeah. Anyway, I'm keen to hear what people think of it on the whole. Cheers. https://soundcloud.com/mikehawkbiscuit/malignantnormalitydraft

Your voice sounds like Thom Yorke's from Radiohead, especially their song Reckoner. It sounds like a rough demo recording without any pitch correcting, but you are very good in my opinion. There are parts where it sounds like you are trying to use vibrato but kinda fizzle. Here's something I made that doesn't really have any structure to it. The track started off as me just improvising a guitar lead randomly and then forming instruments around it. But then I played the synth melody and completely took out the lead guitar and put the synth melody over the track. It's more an improv then a track. https://soundcloud.com/blazing234/spirit-demo

https://soundcloud.com/spokenwolf/time-for-action This took me forever to mix...

All I can say is wow. The pitch bending effect starting at 1:30 is absolutely brilliant. I am glad that you changed the melody throughout the piece so it doesn't get stale, as repetition is a common mistake for musicians, I feel. I also really enjoyed the high notes at 2:40, as they really complement the dissonance lower down. Lastly, the effect near the end for the bass was quite cool. I suppose I'd describe it as a phase effect, if that makes any sense? The drums in this are so great. It really had me moving along with it. I imagined a piano bit I could put over the first section, as I think some counterpoint could be quite pleasant. Right, here's something new I've written. I'm a smoker, so I screw up the first few lines, however I thought it was okay to share it. I recorded it on my phone, so be aware that it won't sound all that great... https://soundcloud.com/mikehawkbiscuit/merely-a-dreamer-1

I really like this. Your choice of chords is really nice, and the chorus flows smoothly. Your singing is expressive and I like your sustained high notes. With a more refined production this song could be quite outstanding. https://soundcloud.com/dayscanner/stasis This is from a few weeks ago, it's a reimagining of one of the first tracks I ever wrote years ago.

This is so gorgeous, especially the first half. I had goosebumps. It reminded me a bit of that period after a night out clubbing when you're sobering up and reflecting on the day, in a state of limited consciousness, feeling extremely nostalgic. M83 are one of my favourite bands, and I got some strong early M83 vibes from this. One suggestion would be that it might be interesting to have a descending arpeggio of D, C#, A, F# higher up than the D, E, F#, A to complement it towards the end of the first section, before the guitar kicks in, but it's just an idea I had. I think a piece like yours works best when fairly minimalistic, so it's possible that my idea wouldn't work so well. Thanks for your kind words in regards to my song, by the way.