Author Topic: [Music] Pushing some buttons  (Read 15303 times)

Sapz

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[Music] Pushing some buttons
« on: July 28, 2014, 10:44:35 AM »
So I've been playing around with FL Studio on and off for the last while and started making a couple of things (originals, not really interested in covers/arranges etc for the time being). Feedback of any kind would be super appreciated as this is still definitely a learning experience and I know there are a lot of areas to be improved on. :V

Temple of the Jaguar - here's something I finished yesterday after spending a couple of days on it; it was originally intended to be psytrance-ish but wound up sounding a little more like game music somewhere along the line. I guess I'm pretty happy with how it turned out though so hey, whatever. :derp:

There are also a couple of older things on my soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/sapzdude/) in different styles (Ripples, Amen Broken) which are somewhat less polished (re: various things, song structure/mixing etc), but feedback for those would also be really cool if anyone takes a listen.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to check this stuff out!
« Last Edit: July 28, 2014, 12:09:37 PM by Sapz »
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Kaze_Senshi

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2014, 03:53:35 AM »
I am not a big fan of eletronic music but that Temple of Jaguar sounds OK for me, the problem is that it sounds a bit repetitive. I can hear the 'main theme' with some little variations being repeated until 3:00. With the time it starts to become annoying until 3:00 where the things really seems to change. Anyway nice job with the instruments and the percussion.
My youtube channel with my creations: https://www.youtube.com/user/KazeSenshi2929
( ゆっくりしていってね)>

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2014, 11:04:13 PM »
Yeah, on reflection it could probably have done with a little more variety, I guess that's why it ended up sounding more like bgm than 'music' music. :V Thanks for the response anywho, keeping it in mind for next time (currently midway through something a little different).
Let's fight.

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #3 on: August 08, 2014, 10:41:58 PM »
I pushed some more buttons - Sundance.

Originally this was supposed to be a really chilled out track (and there are still quite a few parts like that), but it wound up having some more intense buildups which I wasn't really planning on when I started. These never really end up how I imagine at the beginning, but that's part of the fun I guess. :V

Hope someone enjoys this, and once again, any feedback greatly appreciated. Still a learning experience, of course.
Let's fight.

Kaze_Senshi

  • Ehhhhh...
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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #4 on: August 08, 2014, 11:03:43 PM »
I enjoyed this one because it reminds me Vectorman music :) but for me you could make the percussion sounds a bit higher or apply more reverb to see how it becomes.
My youtube channel with my creations: https://www.youtube.com/user/KazeSenshi2929
( ゆっくりしていってね)>

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #5 on: August 09, 2014, 07:08:00 PM »
Thanks for the feedback again; took it into account along with a few other issues I noticed upon more repeated listens and make a couple of tweaks here and there. This is the final version since I need to leave and go on holiday. :V

Sundance (final ver).
« Last Edit: August 10, 2014, 12:56:30 AM by Sapz »
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Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2014, 11:58:34 PM »
Orbital Deviation.

Finished another one, sorta DnBish I guess. Basically was just experimenting with the Phrygian scale (and a few other ideas) and wound up with this rather dark-sounding thing. I tried to get a bigger sound and a more upfront bass presence since I felt it was a bit lacking in previous tracks, I think it worked to a degree. Maybe it's up someone's street. :V
Let's fight.

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #7 on: September 20, 2014, 03:10:20 PM »
A Golden Age.

This one's a lot more melodic compared to most previous stuff I've done; really pleased with how everything came together here in general. Hoping someone else likes it too. :V
Let's fight.

Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #8 on: September 29, 2014, 07:30:56 PM »
My only complaint is that the bird chirping sample might be a little too loud. A good rule to follow is that higher pitched sounds generally don't need to be very loud to be clearly audible.

Keep the music coming, don't let the lack of feedback put you down. People are just shy sometimes. :V

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #9 on: October 05, 2014, 08:45:34 AM »
Late, but noted - really, I'm still trying to find a good balance with volume for a lot of different instruments. Definitely still not quite there yet, but it's a learning experience. :V Thanks for the feedback!

Started working on a psytrance track for the umpteenth time, hopefully it'll actually get somewhere this time.
Let's fight.

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #10 on: December 06, 2014, 01:43:26 AM »
Artificial Gravity.

Psytrance idea didn't really pan out, so after a few false starts I did this instead. The aim I guess was to do something with a bit more energy and I think it turned out pretty well by the end, although I got stuck for a while halfway in and nearly trashed the whole thing. :V
Let's fight.

Mеа

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #11 on: December 11, 2014, 12:57:50 PM »
It was fairly enjoyable. Feels like it didn't really head anywhere, but the bits making up the road sounded rather cool.
Naked expression; purple raspberry flavour

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #12 on: December 27, 2014, 03:52:38 AM »
Apologies for the late reply, but thank you for the feedback. I know what you mean; I think the issue is somewhere between 'not enough patterns' and 'too many of the patterns I made up front instead of being saved for later'. Keeping in mind for next time.

Speaking of which, 'next time' is looking to be uplifting trance, I guess. Song structures are easy and formulaic, but I guess it's a formula because it works. :V
Let's fight.

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #13 on: December 29, 2014, 04:50:57 AM »
Cloud Dive.

Uplifting trance this time, using a real song structure for once. Apparently this is how you get your music to not sound like VGM if you don't want it to. :V This came together incredibly quickly compared to previous stuff, just three days starting from scratch. I guess that's a perk of song structure too.
Let's fight.

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #14 on: February 07, 2015, 07:01:13 PM »
Amen Broken 2015.

Posting it here to keep all my stuff in the same place. This was done (late :V) for the New Year's Challenge thread, and is a rework of Amen Broken, the first track I finished. As a result the original was rather dodgy despite the amount of time I spent on it, so the plan with the rework was to essentially clean it up and replacing parts that didn't work, while trying to keep some of the elements I liked.
Let's fight.

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2015, 05:24:51 AM »
The Endless Road.

I took a very methodical approach with this; planned out the structure from start to finish before doing anything, and then starting right in the middle where the music was to kick in. It seemed to work a lot better than the old 'start at the intro and Frankenstein stuff together as you go'. Funny, that. :V

Enjoy! Feedback greatly appreciated, as always.
Let's fight.

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #16 on: April 08, 2015, 05:46:41 PM »
Wormhole.
Something new, short and snappy compared to previous stuff. I feel like trimming the fat and really focusing on the lesser amount of individual sections helped a lot, and I think this one turned out pretty lean and tight compared to the tracks I made previously.

Hopefully someone enjoys, and as always feedback is greatly appreciated!
Let's fight.

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #17 on: May 04, 2015, 07:55:21 PM »
Dreamscape.

Something different once again - I'm not sure what genre this actually comes under. Electronica? Ambient? Trance? Who knows. You decide!

As always, hope someone enjoys, and any feedback is of course appreciated.
Let's fight.

Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #18 on: May 09, 2015, 06:11:57 PM »
Dreamscape.

Something different once again - I'm not sure what genre this actually comes under. Electronica? Ambient? Trance? Who knows. You decide!

As always, hope someone enjoys, and any feedback is of course appreciated.

Wow! Nice one! :)
It remind me of a BGM of some puzzle game I've played.
Maybe you can play a bit with panning on some effect and (in my opinion), there's some overused looped part on the end of the music.
However, it's just my opinion anyway, everyone's taste might be different. :3
Cheers!

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #19 on: May 09, 2015, 11:39:59 PM »
Haha, thank you. Re: the ending, I was considering ending it 16 bars earlier, but I guess I'm just a sucker for this kind of extended ending - it always feels a bit frustrating to me when I'm enjoying a melody and it gets cut off 'early', so I had it go on until I was satisfied. :V Re: panning - yeah, that's something I need to give more thought to in the future for sure to give it a little more depth. I had a couple of thoughts on how it could have been made more interesting at any rate, food for thought for the next track I guess.

Thanks for the input at any rate, really nice to hear what works and what doesn't. :D
Let's fight.

Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #20 on: May 20, 2015, 03:31:35 AM »
Woah, I just checked out your recent track, and it's pretty good. I listened through some of your other works, and you can hear the significant improvement. I noticed you've begun using more extensive harmonies. Also, I noticed we probably suffer from the same syndrome, in that I can't help but make lengthy songs. It's hard to keep it under 6-minutes; it always feels like you can add more, but it's all good.

With that in mind, I'm kind of curious as to what sort of influences you might have. That Dreamscape song gave me a DnB-esque/drone vibe. Do you perchance listen to ambient or drone music, perhaps such as that of Boris or Earth? They often do stuff in that ambient, progressive style that  you did in that track, where they take a repeated motif and build on it progressively through the song.  With respect to chords, they often use chord inversions and especially seventh-chords to achieve a spacey, jazzy sound, and then layer more harmonies as the song progresses, creating a quiet-loud dynamic built-in to the song structure, as opposed to the instruments alone. I was kind of reminded of that style while listening to your song.

Also, I've been getting a bit of a video-game-ish vibe from some of your more "trance-y" songs. Your song Wormhole kind of gave me that vibe. Not sure if you've played it,  but it kind of reminded of some of the background music in Ar no Surge. It had that futuristic, jumpy feel.

Sapz

  • There's no escape.
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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #21 on: May 20, 2015, 11:01:53 PM »
Woah, I just checked out your recent track, and it's pretty good. I listened through some of your other works, and you can hear the significant improvement. I noticed you've begun using more extensive harmonies. Also, I noticed we probably suffer from the same syndrome, in that I can't help but make lengthy songs. It's hard to keep it under 6-minutes; it always feels like you can add more, but it's all good.
Haha, thank you! Glad to hear you liked it and that the improvement is evident. Re: long song syndrome, yeah, definitely - as a matter of fact I'm working on a track right now and I don't think it's getting any shorter than 8:30. :V
Quote
With that in mind, I'm kind of curious as to what sort of influences you might have. That Dreamscape song gave me a DnB-esque/drone vibe. Do you perchance listen to ambient or drone music, perhaps such as that of Boris or Earth? They often do stuff in that ambient, progressive style that  you did in that track, where they take a repeated motif and build on it progressively through the song.  With respect to chords, they often use chord inversions and especially seventh-chords to achieve a spacey, jazzy sound, and then layer more harmonies as the song progresses, creating a quiet-loud dynamic built-in to the song structure, as opposed to the instruments alone. I was kind of reminded of that style while listening to your song.
I never got around to checking out those guys in particular, but I'm pretty into some similar stuff - Agalloch and Isis in particular are bands I adore, and then there's also spacey black metal stuff like Darkspace or Wolves in the Throne Room, and doomy stuff like Sleep, Electric Wizard, and Om. Outside of that I guess metal in general is a big influence often despite trying to make things in a more traditionally 'electronic' style - I feel like being in a guitar riff mindset while making things in trance/DnBish style winds up with things sounding a little like video game music, which is a comment I've been getting a lot. There's also the Japanese electronic music scene of course, but that's something I've only been into for a year or two so far.
Quote
Also, I've been getting a bit of a video-game-ish vibe from some of your more "trance-y" songs. Your song Wormhole kind of gave me that vibe. Not sure if you've played it,  but it kind of reminded of some of the background music in Ar no Surge. It had that futuristic, jumpy feel.
I actually have been meaning to play that sometime, looked pretty interesting. I'll get on that someday and see what you mean.

Thanks for the in-depth comment, really interesting to read!
Let's fight.

Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #22 on: May 24, 2015, 05:37:49 AM »
Woah, those are some really cool influences. Sleep's "Holy Mountain" is just a dreamy wall of sound, and I especially love "Funerapolis" by Electric Wizard. It's also great to see Om getting some love, as they are so underrated, with "At Giza" being such a sonic journey. It's cool to see someone who's more on that end of the musical spectrum, which is kind of from where I started out. I can definitely see some of that progressive, groovy, and often ambient influence in your work.

Also, guitar riffs are kind of interesting and can be useful when thinking about bass lines. I noticed that your bass lines tend not to be strictly harmonic, in the sense that they do not merely serve to provide the foundation for the chord progression. Instead, they often contain elements resembling guitar riffs, providing a balance between both harmonic elements and rhythmic elements. With respect to doom bands, they often tend to use blues scales for their riffs. Given that they derive heavily influence from Black Sabbath, who popularized the use of tri-tones in rock music, they often use the hexatonic blues scale, which is the same as a pentatonic blues scale, only including the flat-five, often using it as a passing note. Of course, these riffs tend to be more "bass-y," using the thicker strings of a guitar and are often mirrored by the bass, creating a wall of sound, produce by the resonance of the octaves.

Sapz

  • There's no escape.
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  • It's time to burn!
Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #23 on: May 24, 2015, 11:57:38 PM »
Woah, those are some really cool influences. Sleep's "Holy Mountain" is just a dreamy wall of sound, and I especially love "Funerapolis" by Electric Wizard. It's also great to see Om getting some love, as they are so underrated, with "At Giza" being such a sonic journey. It's cool to see someone who's more on that end of the musical spectrum, which is kind of from where I started out. I can definitely see some of that progressive, groovy, and often ambient influence in your work.

Also, guitar riffs are kind of interesting and can be useful when thinking about bass lines. I noticed that your bass lines tend not to be strictly harmonic, in the sense that they do not merely serve to provide the foundation for the chord progression. Instead, they often contain elements resembling guitar riffs, providing a balance between both harmonic elements and rhythmic elements. With respect to doom bands, they often tend to use blues scales for their riffs. Given that they derive heavily influence from Black Sabbath, who popularized the use of tri-tones in rock music, they often use the hexatonic blues scale, which is the same as a pentatonic blues scale, only including the flat-five, often using it as a passing note. Of course, these riffs tend to be more "bass-y," using the thicker strings of a guitar and are often mirrored by the bass, creating a wall of sound, produce by the resonance of the octaves.
Haha, yes! Funeralopolis feels unbelievably massive, as does that whole album in general. I'm also quite a fan of their Witchcult Today album; the sound/production is pretty different but the riffs and the grooves are too good.

Re: bass, yeah, you hit the nail on the head - for me at least, bass is the glue that sticks the percussion and the melodies together, and I've found it works for me best when it's dancing around the drums while backing up the other instruments.

On a side note, I now need to check out your stuff in more detail and see if I can recognize any influences myself. :V



Anywho, new track finished!

Point Of No Return.

Wound up 9 minutes or so, far darker than I originally intended but went to some places I thought were pretty interesting. As always, hope someone enjoys it, and feedback is greatly appreciated. :D
Let's fight.

Sapz

  • There's no escape.
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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #24 on: July 04, 2015, 01:18:12 AM »
It's been a while, but here's a new track I was supposed to get finished in June.

Forest In Snow.

I got super stuck with this one in a big cycle of second guessing myself and endlessly rearranging things until, after taking a break for a while, some nice piano melodies floated into my head. I wound up re-reworking the track around those and finally got a finished version out. It's pretty different once again to previous stuff, and I'm not really sure what genre it comes under - not trance, not ambient, not DnB, but electronic with breakbeats and heavy piano use... any suggestions? :V

Regardless, hope someone enjoys, and any feedback greatly appreciated as always.
Let's fight.

Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #25 on: July 12, 2015, 03:55:01 AM »
this is unbeleivable, I need some lessons on music theory so I can get this good.

Sapz

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #26 on: July 14, 2015, 09:57:35 PM »
Track for July done in good time (for once).

Storm Warning.

I took a lot of inspiration for this one from Afterdark by lawy, one of my favourite electronic tracks. If you know it, you may find a certain riff familiar. If not, go and check it out, it's fantastic.

Aimed for brevity where possible with this and I think I managed to cut out a lot of the repetitiveness and excess length that some of my other tracks have had.

As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated, and enjoy!
Let's fight.

Sapz

  • There's no escape.
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  • It's time to burn!
Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #27 on: December 17, 2016, 02:36:50 AM »
Rise from your grave!

Furnace Of The Mind.

This is actually a track I've been sitting on for a year, waiting to be 'finished' and 'polished up'. It's a little rough, but I quite like it as it is, and I don't think I'm ever actually going to change it at this point, so here it is. Pretty experimental, quite industrial, dark, and percussion-heavy. Enjoy!

Hoping to finish the next (currently WIP) track by the end of the month. :V
Let's fight.

BT

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Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #28 on: December 17, 2016, 08:26:17 PM »
I liked it. :3

Can you describe what it's like to make these tracks? Assuming you still use FL, I've installed that on my laptop that's hooked to a keyboard, but I never sat down to learn how to use the program. How'd you start?

Sapz

  • There's no escape.
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  • It's time to burn!
Re: [Music] Pushing some buttons
« Reply #29 on: December 17, 2016, 09:09:12 PM »
Yeah, I'm still using FL Studio. I actually don't even have a keyboard (although I've been toying around with the idea of buying one) - I do it all straight through the program. At the very start I just kind of played around with some default plugins, in particular the GMS Synth that comes with the program, and just tried to make some tunes and/or rip off other tunes that I liked. I made quite a few little doodles that never really went anywhere before I actually finished making a track and learned a lot through those, I'm pretty sure I have them laying around so I could upload a few if you're interested to hear what things initially sounded like (spoilers: mostly pretty bad).

Generally speaking, if there's something specific you want to know how to do, chances are there's a YouTube video for it. It's very worth watching a few basic tutorials before you get started for real and try to follow them as they go, because there's some really essential stuff there, although I can't quite find the one I used myself anymore.

As for what it's like to make the tracks... it varies a lot. I actually got burnt out for a year and a bit and just got back into it recently, but back when I was making music regularly, you'd get some tracks where I just put down an idea and got a track out of it over the course of a weekend, and some where it took the best part of a month of screwing around with various configurations of things. This one was a lot of screwing around in its DnB incarnation, followed by a few days in its current form, followed by a year of leaving it as 'unfinished' before I decided I was actually done with it.

Usually I start with a melody or pad in the background, and then add percussion and bass, then try different configurations of stuff and try adding in instruments/effects where there are gaps that need filling, while getting some kind of idea of where I'm headed overall. For the sake of demonstration, for the track I'm currently working on, here is the original track with the melody idea, and here is a current WIP (fairly near completion) version. You can see how the main melody hasn't changed much, but many things about it have been tweaked and a lot of extra things have been fitted around it, variations have been made to accompany other things, and so on.

I dunno if this really answered your question, but feel free to ask away if there's anything else you want to know. :V
« Last Edit: December 17, 2016, 09:55:55 PM by Sapz »
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