Man this is awesome. Love the rolling feel of the bassline, plus the rise and fall of the velocity. The only thing I didn't really like was that sometimes you sat a little too long on the root chord and I felt like it lost a little bit of interest, like with some chord switches at those points it would be more interesting to listen to. Mainly :53 - 1:03, I was kind of disappointed that phrase didn't lead into another chord (as eventually you get to at 1:15).
Anywho, apart from that fairly minor issue I felt this was a great and emotional piano piece! Welcome to the 1 day music club... perhaps you'll stick around a little longer? ;-)
I agree about 0:53-1:03. That's the kind of thing I'd normally spend a lot of time on, so that it just goes through things without those little boring bits. I could make a decent amount of music in a day, but I don't feel like it'd be good enough. :P
Bounce down those tracks and keep going. I believe in you bro.
It's pretty great so far, I just feel like it's a little too sparse in between the bits that have interest (the synth in the first half and the "dubstep" (lol) in the second half) - the ambient sections don't hold my interest as much as everything else does. That would be my biggest complaint. My other problem is that the "dubstep" section seems a little too sparse. It's quite hard to explain why this is, but it feels weirdly empty (even though it's exploding with crazy noise). I think that with more things going on (little melodic flits and pads to fill out space perhaps) it would come together better.
The synth solo in the beginning sounds great to me. If you pressed me I'd say that the melody is a touch more undirected than I would prefer. Like 2:35 really sounds on the verge of something, but is slightly off in terms of rhythm I think. I think if you fiddled with the rhythm it could be better. I like the blues notes.
That synth lead is a little too quiet but other than that the mix is perfect in my eyes. Nice thumpy kicks and heavy base. :)
The sound design (or should I say effect design) is amazing. I don't even know what's going on in the drops but it sounds amazing. The way it takes the same instrument but brings to the front different frequencies of that instrument is great.
On the fence between 8 and 9 but 8 is to low for such sexy sound design so 9 it is!
P.S. Fadeout ending is best ending so no points docked. :3
(Actually that's not true... it does sound pretty incomplete - probably because it is :p I wonder if this is how my songs sound with a fadeout ending. O_O)
Spare is right, I guess. Different things we enjoy though, since I like more ambient bits. :P
The dubsteppy bit is kinda empty, though I'm guessing you mean more after 4:13. If that is where you meant, then I'd entirely agree - that's about where I ran out of ideas. If you want more things going on before that, I'm going to have to get you to try and mix that monster yourself, because it was a nightmare already.
Melodies and stuff weren't really my focus at all, I was almost entirely focused on the sound design and atmosphere.
Sound design stuff you're gonna hate me for, because it's basically 3xosc plus some effects on it like a bitcrusher and waveshaping. :D Oh also some other samples of cardboard I had lying around, I could get those to you - shoot me a message on Skype or something.
>I wonder if this is how my songs sound with a fadeout ending.
Yes. It is if there's no conclusion. It also sounds like that for all those techno songs that just end on a pattern that's meant to loop. Do you see why I dislike fadeout endings now ;_;
I really like the vibe and chords, I'm getting a total tropical feel from the marimbas and the easygoing progression - but I have serious difficulty listening to this all the way through because the buzzy bass is so abrasively loud! Could you turn it down a little?
Thanks for the tip, "john" ;D I'm experimenting with widening my bass synths, and trying to improve sound quality, so I've started to EQ the highs on the bass more, which in this case makes it buzzier.
Glad you pointed out the marimbas, that was kinda what I was going for. In contrast to the spacey feel.
I took down the bass a little, it was a little too loud which got a little annoying.
Thanks again for listening and leaving a helpful review, much appreciated!
I just want to talk about melody, so that's what I'm going to do. THE REVIEW SYSTEM WON'T HOLD ME BACK!!!
One thing that's important is that most melodic phrases are legato, which means that if you're writing a melody, and it's a coherent idea, and it's played on an instrument that can manage it (not e.g. guitar) there shouldn't be any gaps of silence in it, in general. Just listen to a singer in your favorite pop song - they slur all their words together so that the phrases are legatoed properly. I was hearing a lot of gaps in your melodies, which is really jarring and might make people think that they're disjointed.
But even still, that won't help you get much better at melodies, it just fixes some minor issues. Now I'm going to tell you how to actually write good melodies:
Go and take ye favorite instrument (I seem to remember you being a fan of the cello, though I can't figure out why I think that lol). Bring it near your computer and play some of your favorite songs on the computer, and see if you can play the melody on your instrument as the song plays. DON'T try to get it perfect, just keep going on to new songs.
In this way you'll start to build a subconscious understanding of how melodies work. This is important because writing melodies isn't a conscious skill. afaik great musicians don't sit down and think about music theory in order to write good melodies - they just sorta feel it out subconsciously to see how the melody wants to go. It is this skill that you're developing.
It will take you a very long time to master this skill (I'm still practicing every day) but you will probably notice differences in your melodic approach almost immediately (I did).
Aside from that, I have one other very simple tip (which I even fail to follow a lot.. lol). MAKE YOUR MELODIES MORE REPETITIVE. It sounds crazy because a lot of the time people are like "zomg musical repetition is the root of all evil!!!" However, if you listen to some pop song you like, you'll realize almost immediately that the melodies are REALLY repetitive. Not only do they repeat entire phrases over and over, but the phrases themselves are really repetitive - like they may play some notes, and then play them again slightly lower or something.
Seriously, sit down one day and listen, really listen and analyze the melodies in some of your favorite tracks. You'd be amazed how repetitive they are - and yet how successful that makes them!
Last, I have a challenge for you, which kinda ties into what I've been saying up above. I want you to do a song with theme and variation. Take some melodic theme - it can be as short as a couple of notes - and then then make a bigger melody out of reusing it, modulating it up or down, or playing it under different chords. Not only is there a ton of space to explore here (you're basically looking at the foundation of classical music here), but it'll teach you to make your melodies more coherent.
Anyway... I kinda 100% disregarded your song here but I hope this is more helpful than a piecewise dissection of your track (LSD, BO and LE kinda got that in the bag anyways).
Final thing - melody writing is HARD and you shouldn't let this get you down. You're doing pretty great for being 16. Go listen to my tracks when I was 16 (in 2007) if you want to feel much better about yourself hahahahahah
Thanks so much, Johnfn! :D I really appreciate your advice about the melodies. For some reason, the mixing got really screwed up when I tried incorporating some more legato elements into the piece, and I agree it is a little too pizzicato-esque. I've been playing the cello since I was 9, btw! ;D Thank you so much for all the advice on making good melodies. I'll try experimenting with that as soon as I have the time, which reminds me: DANG IT, JOHN!!! Don't you know it's midnight in Boston and I should really finish studying for my Biology midterms! ...oh, wait, of course you don't know. You're not psychic. I forgot. Sorry....
No, but seriously, thank you again for the extremely helpful advice. Don't be too hard on your 16-year-old self, btw. I have a feeling DAWs weren't as advanced then as they are now.
Thanks again! ^^
Now then, the structure of mitochondria... ;)
Another awesome piece. I'm going to say something more substantive here because I copped out on my last review hahahah
This song is just filled with a lot of awesome ideas. I'm going to list my favorite here: The end of the melody at :27 really caught me, because it seems like it's directionless but then it is justified really nicely at the end. Dat arp at :41 !!! (Reminds me of gerudo valley from OoT!) The beautiful higher range piano at 1:08.
Minor nitpicks. The piano seems to have been EQ'd weirdly, like it has no bass at all. I think with some more powerful bass this would be a little better. It's really quiet, just crank up the gain somewhere.
Slightly more substantive thoughts: Well, you called it jumpy because of the left hand, but I actually feel like jumpy adequately describes the entire piece, which may not be a good thing. It feels like it moves between great ideas a little too fast, like an overenthusiastic friend excited to show me things - I almost don't have enough time to appreciate the last thing by the time I get to the next one. Also, the great ideas are scattered in with some ideas that aren't quite as great.
I think this is an easy thing to fix - just make the song a little more repetitive! (How often have I given that advice?) If you were to repeat your good ideas, I think the song would flow better. I also have this problem where you're going between moods too fast, like it goes from sad -> mysterious -> open and happy and then back in any variation really rapidly. Allowing repetition to stretch out the arrangement of the song could help here, too.
The other thing I wanted to point out is that the chord progression is quite tricky to get a grasp on. Actually, now that I relisten, there is no repeating chord progression! Maybe this is why I was having a problem... haha. I guess it's again a problem of lack of repetition then...
Anywho... great work. I complained a lot but really (as evidenced by my score) I think the piece is great and your composition is really inventive. This puts you solidly on my list of people to keep an eye out for ;-)
=> Yeah, I like that place too; when I came up with it (quite long ago now) I remember being pretty happy with it.
"Dat arp at :41 !!! (Reminds me of gerudo valley from OoT!)"
=> That is probably my favorite part! I love Gerudo Valley, so it might be that some element of it has snuck into this piece :D
"The beautiful higher range piano at 1:08"
=> It's funny that you like this part, since it is actually one of the worse parts imo, but that might be because of the poor mixing :D
"Well, you called it jumpy because of the left hand, but I actually feel like jumpy adequately describes the entire piece, which may not be a good thing. It feels like it moves between great ideas a little too fast, like an overenthusiastic friend excited to show me things - I almost don't have enough time to appreciate the last thing by the time I get to the next one. Also, the great ideas are scattered in with some ideas that aren't quite as great."
=> I agree with you on every point. The fact that the transitions are so sudden and that the song lacks repetitivity are also reasons for the composition's name :) When I made this song, I spent no time on caring about actual arrangement, I just let my hands follow their own will, and took every idea they gave me without qustion (tip: one shouldn't always do this). Ofc, that is just running away from the criticism haha :D
"I think this is an easy thing to fix - just make the song a little more repetitive! "
=> You know, with all the different parts in this song, I could at least double, probably triple the length of this song, without it getting too iterative. I mean, the beginning is never brought back! The only things that repeat, are 1: that jumpy left hand. 2. that odd transition at 0:50 and at the very end. I might follow your advice and expand upon this some day!
And yes, I've noticed from the previous reviews that the mood switches very abruptly too! I actually had some difficulty realizing this myself, since I wasn't really (if I recall correctly) in any special mood when I made this song; I was simply feeling creative. So whenever I listen to this song, the only thing going through my head is: oh, it's this song. That is almost sad... This might be a good song for people with short attention spans though XD?
"Minor nitpicks. The piano seems to have been EQ'd weirdly, like it has no bass at all. I think with some more powerful bass this would be a little better. It's really quiet, just crank up the gain somewhere."
=> Actually I don't think it's the EQ, I think it's some other thing I used (Probably too much air and too little bass in UpStereo). What I should have done though, is EQ the lower register of the song, so you're still right. I didn't think about it, but now that you mention it, there is pretty much no real bass sound in this :D
"The other thing I wanted to point out is that the chord progression is quite tricky to get a grasp on. Actually, now that I relisten, there is no repeating chord progression! Maybe this is why I was having a problem... haha. I guess it's again a problem of lack of repetition then..."
=> Oh, you noticed :D Well, almost. There is actually some hidden repeted chord progression, but it's pretty subtle. Well, if one wants to be nitpicky, many of them are variations of the same chord. That is, F might be replaced with F7 or so on.
In the beginning this progression is played twice: D minor, Bb (flat, I mean), C, F and A. However, the time given to each chord varies a little. If you count the right hand you might make those chords D minor add 9, and so on, giving the illusion of no progression.
Using the same rule, the one progression that repeats the most is: D, Eb, F and Gm.
The only other progression that repeats is: Gm, Eb, F, D.
All the other parts use those same chords as well, and the A is completely forgotten D: Which is dumb, because some A's would really be cool >:( Well, at one point there is an Ab, but that doesn't even fit too well!!!
Ha, now who is rambling XD Sorry for that, I went slightly off topic. Also, there are better ways of explaining that, but my knowledge about music theory is very lacking :)
I'm being even more nitpicky than you! Basically, you are right. There is not much repeting chord progression in this song :'D
"Anywho... great work. I complained a lot but really (as evidenced by my score) I think the piece is great and your composition is really inventive. This puts you solidly on my list of people to keep an eye out for ;-)"
=> Wow, thank you so much, I really appreciate it! I don't really see it as complaining, since you were right about every "complaint" as well! I'm glad to see that you enjoy the odd music that I produce! And sorry for the long reply... When I start writing, I don't easily stop :)
Man this is even better than my piece. I feel like I should write a lot here because you usually write a good deal but honestly its just great and I can't say too much more. I regret not coming by earlier.
You play piano really well btw. 5 years paid off. :D
Heyyyy!!!
Thanks for checking my stuff out, and for writing a review! It's much appreciated :D
"Better than my piece."
=> Then again, your piece was a real improvisation! This song was simply based on one, so I could think much more about how I wanted things to sound. Also, I actually like Snowy Night more than I like my composition. The melody in your song is much better imo :p
"I feel like I should write a lot ... it's just great"
=> First of all, thank you! And I'm just happy you decided to drop by! It's not easy to write reviews for all kinds of songs, and I often find that piano music is one of the most difficult 'genres' to write long reviews for :)
"I regret not coming by earlier"
=> Well there's no need to do that :') I was happily surprised to see a review from you now, so the time doesn't really matter ;)
Aside from that, thanks once more for complimenting my piano skills; I too think that the years of playing have paid off :'D
~SW~ Windswept 
~SW~ Extrote 
Spacewalk 
Grone Lunden Cover 
The Door - Platform 
Jumpy 
Big Booty 
The Forgotten Past 
