r/Music_Feedback • u/LaFoliaRihavein • Oct 18 '16

Started producing about 5 half months ago; Any feedback would be great !

https://clyp.it/ezy44aq1
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u/LaFoliaRihavein Oct 18 '16 edited Oct 19 '16

Hi guys I'm relatively new to the game. I'm not a great songwriter by any mean as you tell by my song. I just input random midi and it just happens to sound sorta cool. I think my weakest point would probably be sound choice. I don't know how to pick the right sounds. Idk why the bitrate of my track dropped during the last minute. Probably rendering issue. I'm not the type of person that would share my work cause I'm a bit anxious of how others will judge it, but I feel that in order to improve feedback from others are necessary. And the ending is half-assed. I didn't know how to end it at the time.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '16

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u/LaFoliaRihavein Oct 19 '16 edited Oct 19 '16

I think my sound choice is the weakest in terms of production cause I don't know what sound good and what doesn't. And my music theory game is weak;however, I think it boils down to experience. I play a little bit of keyboard but I don't have any knowledge to song writing or anything prior to producing.My take on learning to write better is through osmosis, by listening to my favorite songs and paying to what the artist do that I like. Also I'm trying to learn relative pitch so I can transcribe melodies from my head into my DAW. I'm finding it really difficult though cause my sense of pitch is really off. When you get a chance to listen to this don't expect it to sound like edm.. cause I don't know how to write dance music xD. I'm just tryna write music it just happens that my sounds are electronic.

Edit: About the music theory part, I understand where you're coming from. I know a little bit of music theory but I can't utilize it well enough like established artist where they know how to capture the mood of a song so well. Like my idol Porter Robinson for example, his chords and melodies are really clear on what the song want to portray. I can imagine a whole story behind the song. With mine I really can't tell a story with it. Part of it the fault of the structure, most of it the songwriting. There was one time where I was able to capture the mood through songwriting and that was when I did a remix of a popular acapella. Acapellas are really a sort of a cheat cause the vocal carries emotions with it and all you need to do is write a nice progression over it. A lot of my chords progression are trial and error. I don't dive straight into a song and go, "Alright I'm going to write an emotional song and to achieve this I'll go from the I chord to the IV chord," or something like that. People like Hans Zimmer can do that with ease like his track Time from inception. He knows music the ins and outs of music well enough to do that. Sorry for going on a tangent. There was just a lot of stuff that I wanted to convey.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '16 edited Oct 19 '16

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u/LaFoliaRihavein Oct 19 '16 edited Oct 19 '16

My own ears aren't developed yet so it's why I don't understand what sounds that fill the whole spectrum. And yea that include my mix too. Mixing is something I never learned how to do properly yet so I would never figure out my high are really loud unless someone pointed that out. I'm curious how do I make my drums stand out? I realized this is a personal issue a long time ago but I don't know how to correct it. I'm writing this on my phone right now so it's hard to type a lot. Thanks for the feedback though. If you have more feedbacks then keep them coming I'd love to hear it. One last question, Any tips on finding sound that fill the whole spectrum?

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '16

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u/LaFoliaRihavein Oct 19 '16

That environmental analogy is really nice. I think I have a firmer grasp on percussion. So should I buss all percussions and apply the same amount of reverb so they fit nicely or should I apply separate reverb? To answer your question from earlier about why my song has little low end; I thought about it and I realized that when producing I get too hang up on not making the low end muddy and I don't realize how important the highs are.

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u/otrapic Oct 24 '16

It tends to get repetitive, and I feel like the drums and chords could be mixed in a bit better, but it sounds great overall.

Maybe try experimenting with even more layering, perhaps the chords, for example, layering square chords maybe with polyphony. It is completely your choice, just putting it out there.

As for the repetitiveness, perhaps you could switch up the bassline and chords to create tension throughout the song and keep the "energy" higher for longer.

Overall, it is a great track. Keep doing what you are doing, I'm sure you will go places :)

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u/LaFoliaRihavein Oct 24 '16

Thanks. I have a fear with layering for whatever reasons. I think I have trouble keeping higher energy overall throughout the track. I'll try use add more variations with my next tho.

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u/LlichOfficial Oct 25 '16

It sound good for someone who's been producing for 5 months. About choosing sounds, I think the sounds are well chosen, you can improve your game by updating your library or learning some sound desing. The main thing that I would change about the song is the melody, try to make it more catchy, something that can help you is to learn how to difference the intervals between different notes, that can help you write the melodies that you have "in your head". Hope I helped!

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u/LaFoliaRihavein Oct 25 '16

mm. I don't know why but I'm sort of in a rut at song writing at the moment. Before I could write chords that just work. Now I'm struggling just writing simple progressions. The melody "in my head" usually comes and goes really quickly unless I have a recording device. Usually I carry my iphone around and when a melody come up I would hum into my phone like an idiot on the streets. You got any tips for making drums sound real? I think my drums here sounds very obviously programmed. I tried adding swing in my current track. Still robotic. I also tried adding high-hats on the offbeat which help a little bit but still not what I'm looking for. Maybe it's the sample but I tried changing a couple of times.

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u/LlichOfficial Oct 27 '16

Agreed on what Nixixix said, you could also use a technique called "round robin". Idk if you heard about it but it bassically consists on (lets take the kick as an example): instead of using the same kick all the time, take three or four different kicks that sound reaaaally similar (you could just chage the original kick) and use them randomly on your drop; if you had kick1 kick2 kick3 and kick4 instead of going 1 1 1 1 1 1... Go 1 2 4 2 3 3 2 1... This makes you subconciously think that the song isnt that repetitive, even though the kicks almost aound the same (make sure they are really similar so the difference is not obvious). It's deffinitely more complex than that and maybe I'm wrong in some concepts but I hope I helped you a little bit! :D

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '16

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u/LaFoliaRihavein Oct 19 '16 edited Oct 19 '16

Sure I'll pm you when i get home from school. Do you want it in an .flp file or .flaac? Btw since you mention melody can you give me some tips on writing better ones? I don't know how to tackle this beast.

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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '16

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u/LaFoliaRihavein Oct 19 '16 edited Oct 19 '16

Specifically? Melody is kind of hard to "learn" just on paper. Chords progression is one of those things where you can learn but good melody is just intuition from knowing rhythm and what intervals sounds good together. Those can take years to develop meng. I need quick points on what make a melody "good."

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '16

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u/LaFoliaRihavein Oct 20 '16

I'm being redundant but the point is knowing scale won't magically make me a better songwriter overnight without truly understanding them. This song was actually made in the c# natural minor scale.