My First Dubstep Song - General

So, it seems like from reading this subforum, about half of you like dubstep and half don't. [b]IF YOU DON'T LIKE DUBSTEP DO NOT READ BEYOND HERE OR LISTEN TO MY SONG.[/b] I want intellegent responses on what I can improve, [b]not[/b] dubstep sucks. Your musical tastes are subjective and they don't bother me, I just don't need your crap posts taking up space in my thread, thank you. Now, onto the actual post; I started messing around with fruityloops occasionally about four months ago and stopped. Then I went back and listened to one of my old 8-bit music producers that I really enjoyed ("Monster! Monster!"), and discovered that they were making this genre of music called "dubstep". Not having time to listen to it right then, I downloaded a few tracks and played them in my car, and holy shit- It was like my brain was melting out of my ears. So I decided for once in my life that I should dedicate myself to actually finishing something (I really have a hard time finishing things, and I have a notebook full of guitar songs that never got finished), so I did. I completed this song, and although it's right below two minutes, I'm still proud of my work, as this is my first production with FL and my first attempt at dubstep. The soundcloud encoding kinda fucked with the gain and the bass, so it sounds a bit funny. If you just want me to upload it to an upload site let me know. [b]Some of you may hate that it has spongebob in it[/b] Get over it, it's two parts, and spongebob was my childhood. Without further adieu, here it is, and please, be gentle. [media]http://soundcloud.com/andrewglesener/spand[/media]

This is honestly pretty good for your first dubstep song.

It sounds just like any other dubstep song, which I guess is what you were trying to do

you COULD stand to zazz it up a bit

Comments as I listen Beginning is annoying, doesn't add anything. There is nothing interesting going on, and that fadeout type effect doesn't sound good. The pluck sound doesn't really fit. The second sound effect doesn't really fit either. There's nothing interesting in the piece. It's good that you tried to embellish the melody a bit. There is huge lack of depth. The drums aren't anything interesting and sound dull. There is no sense of direction. My biggest piece of advice is to not admit that you're new to making music when you're posting a piece and don't ask people to be gentle. I'd actually suggest keeping all of your beginner pieces to yourself as they are all going to suck. Having someone say "that's good for a first piece" or "good for a beginner" or anything similar isn't at all a compliment.

This made my bowels release, I'm serious my bowels are going spastic.

[QUOTE=Pepin;27643390]Comments as I listen Beginning is annoying, doesn't add anything. There is nothing interesting going on, and that fadeout type effect doesn't sound good. The pluck sound doesn't really fit. The second sound effect doesn't really fit either. There's nothing interesting in the piece. It's good that you tried to embellish the melody a bit. There is huge lack of depth. The drums aren't anything interesting and sound dull. There is no sense of direction. My biggest piece of advice is to not admit that you're new to making music when you're posting a piece and don't ask people to be gentle. I'd actually suggest keeping all of your beginner pieces to yourself as they are all going to suck. Having someone say "that's good for a first piece" or "good for a beginner" or anything similar isn't at all a compliment.[/QUOTE] Can you give me any advice? You pointed out a lot of flaws, and it'd be cool to know how to fix them.

I like the beginning. I like Spongebob so... You've got an extremely fat (good in my opinion, might be too much to someone else) bass sound going on. You did [I]not[/I] pull that fadeout sound off. If you can make it a bit more dynamic you might be able to use it, but as it is that didn't work. Mostly things that Pepin said... The pluck sound is bad, but could be modified to be more of your own sound/fit more with the rest of the music. Drums sound kinda flat. Overall I liked it. You've got your bass down, which is really the foundation of good Dubstep, now just go work on everything else.

[QUOTE=agnl;27644037]Can you give me any advice? You pointed out a lot of flaws, and it'd be cool to know how to fix them.[/QUOTE] The solution is to make more songs and to move past this idea. You get better with practice. Get comfortable with making songs, using some standard song structures (verse chorus verse chorus), and most of all you should try to recreate what it is in your mind. Take note of some of the techniques your favorite artists use to make their songs interesting and use their techniques. Make things interesting and to throw out bad ideas. I really suggest either thinking out your songs or to try envisioning the music before you make it. A technique I use for making music is to try to describe a story music. Just as an example: a man goes to a club and snorts a bunch of coke, starts going a bit crazy and gets arrested. Sounds pretty simple to imagine. What you have to figure out is how you can make the music tell this story and how it is going to be told. Take the keypoints of the story and figure out how to transition to each one. Obviously the exact meaning isn't likely to get across unless you have lyrics, but I can assure you that it is far easier to make more congruent and meaningful songs if you make it about something. Also, it's not going to sound so much like a bunch of spliced together ideas because you're more likely to instinctively create direction and a purpose for each part. I really suggest this for instrumental electronic music because a large number of the songs I hear sound like a jumbled mess of decent ideas and sounds loosely strung together, and there is a strong lack of purpose and connection.

I'm guessing dubstep Is something you listen to while high?

[QUOTE=Dandyhighwayman;27645861]I'm guessing dubstep Is something you listen to while high?[/QUOTE] Kinda like all other music, but yeah!

Bass and lead are too quiet, also aren't exactly exciting just sounds like a dull noise being played with the volume being LFO'd far too low. If you are LFO'ing don't turn the cutoff to the lowest level, keep it mid-high then automate it. Also don't post your first tracks, you may think they sound good to you but they usually don't sound good to everyone else because you're gonna be using basic techniques. Like Pepin said keep them to yourself until you honestly think that people can listen to your music without thinking of it as 'beginner'. Dubstep usually has an intro that last until around 1 minute mark, then it drops, then it goes out again, then it comes back in for a second drop etc until the outro. Aim to make songs using a structure because at the moment it all sounds like one long chorus. Also, should have posted this in Creationism Corner's Works in Progress thread.

And your first biggest mistake.

[QUOTE=Gibo990;27648362]Bass and lead are too quiet, also aren't exactly exciting just sounds like a dull noise being played with the volume being LFO'd far too low. If you are LFO'ing don't turn the cutoff to the lowest level, keep it mid-high then automate it. Also don't post your first tracks, you may think they sound good to you but they usually don't sound good to everyone else because you're gonna be using basic techniques. Like Pepin said keep them to yourself until you honestly think that people can listen to your music without thinking of it as 'beginner'. Dubstep usually has an intro that last until around 1 minute mark, then it drops, then it goes out again, then it comes back in for a second drop etc until the outro. Aim to make songs using a structure because at the moment it all sounds like one long chorus. Also, should have posted this in Creationism Corner's Works in Progress thread.[/QUOTE] Yeah, I realized that. I realized everything in this post. [editline]25th January 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Pepin;27645587]The solution is to make more songs and to move past this idea. You get better with practice. Get comfortable with making songs, using some standard song structures (verse chorus verse chorus), and most of all you should try to recreate what it is in your mind. Take note of some of the techniques your favorite artists use to make their songs interesting and use their techniques. Make things interesting and to throw out bad ideas. I really suggest either thinking out your songs or to try envisioning the music before you make it. A technique I use for making music is to try to describe a story music. Just as an example: a man goes to a club and snorts a bunch of coke, starts going a bit crazy and gets arrested. Sounds pretty simple to imagine. What you have to figure out is how you can make the music tell this story and how it is going to be told. Take the keypoints of the story and figure out how to transition to each one. Obviously the exact meaning isn't likely to get across unless you have lyrics, but I can assure you that it is far easier to make more congruent and meaningful songs if you make it about something. Also, it's not going to sound so much like a bunch of spliced together ideas because you're more likely to instinctively create direction and a purpose for each part. I really suggest this for instrumental electronic music because a large number of the songs I hear sound like a jumbled mess of decent ideas and sounds loosely strung together, and there is a strong lack of purpose and connection.[/QUOTE] I had no idea any of this, maybe this is why I have trouble finishing a song, because I never actually thought about it as telling a story. That helps a ton. That's pretty much what this song was, a jumbled mess of ideas kinda crushed into a song. And on the first idea, you're right too, I'll take all of this into consideration, and I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out with this. [QUOTE=Mister_Jack;27645271]I like the beginning. I like Spongebob so... You've got an extremely fat (good in my opinion, might be too much to someone else) bass sound going on. You did [I]not[/I] pull that fadeout sound off. If you can make it a bit more dynamic you might be able to use it, but as it is that didn't work. Mostly things that Pepin said... The pluck sound is bad, but could be modified to be more of your own sound/fit more with the rest of the music. Drums sound kinda flat. Overall I liked it. You've got your bass down, which is really the foundation of good Dubstep, now just go work on everything else.[/QUOTE] The pluck and so on was actually a different more 8-bit crusher instrument before, but when I write a song, I almost get bored of the same sounds after listening them a million times so I feel like I have to change them. I should probably adjust them back to what they originally were. Maybe I can turn this into a WIP and tweak it more and more to make something better, but I really appreciate the advice. Also, the bass I feel like I have down because I watched a lot of things on the LFO and adjusting the cutoff rate with the event editor in FL etc etc. I took about ten minutes to create that sound for the bass, I think I just fucked up the gain by using compressors and a bunch of other shit like that, so that was probably my main issue. [B]Thanks for your advice you guys. Any more is welcome.[/B] [editline]25th January 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=ElGrego;27653099]And your first biggest mistake.[/QUOTE] Also, why reply?

"Oh brother THIS GUY STINKS!" :v: In all honesty, I don't really listen to dubstep. But I didn't think It was bad.

Oh god what happened to the kicks and snares and bass

are there drums in this track? really either turn your bass down or bring up the drums

[QUOTE=absinthe;27665179]are there drums in this track? really either turn your bass down or bring up the drums[/QUOTE] Correction: Change the drums completely. I mean, change the songs completely. A good way to grade your music is to imagine your music being played on the radio. Just imagine what people would think if this was played on the radio.

A good way to master the track a little is listening to some other dubstep song and comparing the volume levels of the drums/bass and so on.