LinuxMusicians

After years of blindly trying to understand music, I finally learned enough about music theory to actually make a song that isn't a WMD (work of mass desertion). Whether it's good, however, is an entirely different question. I figure it might be a good idea to get some opinions from people who have more experience than I do.

Running Wild

For this copy of the song (I experimented with various tools), I ended up using MusE for sequencing, Yoshimi as the primary synth, Hydrogen slaved to MUSE as a drum synth, and Harrison Mixbus for the mixing and mastering of the song.

This is the first result that I don't particularly hate. In fact, I kinda like it. What do you all think?

Update: Taking advice from some of the other posts on this thread, I have updated the song. Here's the original.

Very nicely done. It is solid.

I think you could call this done. Any opinions I'd tender at this point would only tailor the song more to my tastes... which wouldn't necessarily imply any objective improvement

Kudos!

G

Hi reteo,

Yeah, this isn't bad at all. Instrumental syntish, gives me video game feel, maybe a racing game.

The mixing is fine, maybe the lead synth is a tiny bit too loud, though I could be wrong about that.

The only thing that was a bit wierd to me is the break part without bass. I think it would be improved if the drums switched beat, possibly stopped completely and only made fills during this part. Addionally since there are two such breaks, keep the second as is and make the first one more pronounced.

spamatica wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 5:52 pm The only thing that was a bit wierd to me is the break part without bass. I think it would be improved if the drums switched beat, possibly stopped completely and only made fills during this part. Addionally since there are two such breaks, keep the second as is and make the first one more pronounced.

That's one thing I've been contemplating... the need to change the flavor of the sound for each repetition a bit with different embellishments. Although I'm curious, when you say "stopped completely and only made fills during this part," can you elaborate? I'm not sure how to fill a part with drums that have stopped completely.

reteo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 6:10 pm

spamatica wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 5:52 pm The only thing that was a bit wierd to me is the break part without bass. I think it would be improved if the drums switched beat, possibly stopped completely and only made fills during this part. Addionally since there are two such breaks, keep the second as is and make the first one more pronounced.

That's one thing I've been contemplating... the need to change the flavor of the sound for each repetition a bit with different embellishments. Although I'm curious, when you say "stopped completely and only made fills during this part," can you elaborate? I'm not sure how to fill a part with drums that have stopped completely.

Do experiment, some things work some might not

Here are some alternatives of the top of my head:
1. remove the hihat on the break.
very simple and is probably enough to make the beat different.
You already have a fill on the snare before the break, if you add a cymbal on the first beat of the break it will be even more pronounced that there is a change coming.

2. switch beat, for example change the kick/snare beat from
k-s-k-s-k-s-k-s to
k--kk---k--kk-s

3. make it stop completely for a bit
After the fill only play a kick and a cymbal to mark the stop and have it silent during the two chords and then restart it when the melody comes back. I think this is more or less what I meant.
It's something I would try but I can't assure you that it would work

spamatica wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 6:51 pm Do experiment, some things work some might not

Here are some alternatives of the top of my head:
1. remove the hihat on the break.
very simple and is probably enough to make the beat different.
You already have a fill on the snare before the break, if you add a cymbal on the first beat of the break it will be even more pronounced that there is a change coming.

2. switch beat, for example change the kick/snare beat from
k-s-k-s-k-s-k-s to
k--kk---k--kk-s

3. make it stop completely for a bit
After the fill only play a kick and a cymbal to mark the stop and have it silent during the two chords and then restart it when the melody comes back. I think this is more or less what I meant.
It's something I would try but I can't assure you that it would work

Ah, okay, so by "Fill," you are referring to the transition measure, where I signal a change coming, and then kill the drums once the transition is complete?

reteo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:03 pm
Ah, okay, so by "Fill," you are referring to the transition measure, where I signal a change coming, and then kill the drums once the transition is complete?

I was actually thinking more of adding fills during the break but while listening to it and formulating my reply it made more sense to describe it as a restart.

Trying to find an example I realize that I do a lot of stops in my recordings but seldom with fills.

Here's one with a lot of stops, in the break before the solo (just after 2 minutes) there are some marks that is more or less what I meant.
https://soundcloud.com/cdee/norra-gladjen-pinned

I'm sure I'm just confusing you more by now

I'll admit, I am a bit confused. I know enough about music theory to understand a good part of what you're saying, but I'm going to have to do some further research to really get what you're saying. Forget what they say about math, Music is hard!

reteo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 8:14 pmForget what they say about math, Music is hard!

Music is math.

For whatever it's worth, I thought this was fun to listen to.

Michael Willis wrote: ↑Wed Nov 18, 2020 3:42 am Music is math.

The math parts, I get. It's the vocabulary that can get me, especially when adjectives come into play.

Update: I've remade the song, and made some changes to the open, the breaks, and the close. As soon as I have a moment to render it, I'll post it here to see what you guys think... Although I can see another round of editing coming... I didn't realize until a recent comment in Sound Cloud just how similar the opening is to "Crazy Train," and the changes just emphasize that similarity.

I guess the mix is OK for that genre. I did not find anything wild in there, though. And I do not know what "Crazy Train" is

jonetsu wrote: ↑Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:51 pm I guess the mix is OK for that genre. I did not find anything wild in there, though. And I do not know what "Crazy Train" is

Seriously? You've never been exposed to Ozzy? You poor thing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMDFv5m18Pw

You're welcome.

Okay, the updated copy has been posted to Soundcloud, and I think it's much improved. However, there's something not quite right, and I'm not entirely certain what it is, so might as well get some opinions from the experienced on this one...

reteo wrote: ↑Wed Nov 18, 2020 11:01 pm

jonetsu wrote: ↑Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:51 pm I guess the mix is OK for that genre. I did not find anything wild in there, though. And I do not know what "Crazy Train" is

Seriously? You've never been exposed to Ozzy? You poor thing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMDFv5m18Pw

You're welcome.

I think I've heard part of that song at one time. Not very good, quite blatantly ordinary.

I stopped listening to Black Sabbath after "Vol.4" came out. "Vol.4" was OK though.

Okay, I figured what went wrong with the previous update... With the ending repetitions, I was starting them on the wrong side of the chord progression. I moved them over, and now the ending sounds much better.

Updated "Running Wild"