|
Along the lines of that reagan song thing, the one I submitted is the first arrangement I've ever come close to finishing. I've done a handful of 3 minute "jams" over the years that might count as songs but listening to them now I really don't like them. So let's stick with the idea that my reagan track is my first ever song. Arrangement has always been the hardest part of music for me, I can read and understand the advice of people that do it but it still feels like a indecipherable skill. It's so easy to set up a four bar loop of four tracks and be all "aww yeah THIS is my masterpiece" and then be unable to get past that. The instructions say to tone down the energy or pull pieces out and build up to that loop again but whenever I adjust or remove a bit the groove falls apart and I drop it and move on to the next thing. For the reagan song I went into it thinking I'd literally copy the structure of daft punk's 'around the world' (or more specifically, a live performance of it from their 2007 tour because that thing never stops building energy) and force myself to finish something. And I know no one's first anything is any good and their first 100 anythings probably won't be good either, song writing takes time and effort. But I'm curious if someone with songwriting chops might wanna take some time to nitpick where the rookie mistakes are: https://soundcloud.com/mrxzzy/trickle-down-beat Basically I don't know what I don't know.
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2022 03:44
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 18, 2024 00:59 |
|
|
CaptainViolence posted:i am hesitant to say i have chops, but i think my main thoughts are that you have some good arrangement ideas which are too subtle, if that makes sense? like at 1:50ish and 2:15ish, you change up the arrangement a bit, but overall the energy level tends to stay around the same level. i think part of it is that you don't have a ton of different voices, so you're doubling up on the repetition of the structure with repetition of texture. i think the best bit is the filter opening up in the beginning, because it has the largest effect on the feeling of the song and sets up that building motion you mentioned. This is something I haven't figured out yet, a lot of very successful artists can settle on a nice loop and chill there for a minute or longer. It's never completely static, they're twiddling filters or whatever, but they're still able to get some massive use out of a motif without boring anyone. 90's techno thrived on the concept.. it doesn't work as well these days I think but even the most chaotic songs are very good at keeping a single idea interesting for long periods. quote:if i were to jump in and punch it up, i wouldn't necessarily change anything about the overall framework. instead, i'd add more layers playing the same parts you already have but try to differentiate them by picking sounds in different parts of the frequency spectrum. with that, you can drop things in and out without the groove falling apart. you could also mix things up with the vocal samples, playing with making them bigger or smaller on certain parts. i think what you have there is good, you just need more of it! I did experiment with adding more layers, but this gets into the sound design problem which is probably another thread. Most of my attempts clashed horribly or turned the song into mush because every instrument was using up too much of the frequency range. So I'm glad this was pointed out, it's something I know I gotta figure out but it's not there yet. But it's nice I more or less got the basics okay. Hopefully the next one is better.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2022 23:24
|
|
|
Putting a "reference track" at the top of your daw is a super common suggestion if you watch youtube videos on the topic. Everyone does it, though internet lawyers suggest that's infringement (they define a song arrangement differently than I do. I'll accept that the melody is part of the arrangement, but I only use the term to describe the song structure which I'm pretty sure cannot be copyrighted).
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2022 18:08
|
|
|
This percolated up in my youtube recommendations, might be a bit of derail in here but I found it pretty interesting to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGCxBVu1-sE As portrayed in the video he spends almost no time on sound design (though to be fair maybe he doesn't need to, he's got decades of experience) but rather does something quick and seemingly random, samples it, and then starts arranging a track out of it. The video doesn't directly focus on it but you can pick up a bit of how he arranges sounds too. So maybe I need to stop obsessing over finding the perfect sound and just slap stuff together.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2022 17:58
|
|
|
Yeah, music confuses me. I do photography too and I know I'll never be famous or make money off it and I'm comfortable with that, but it is trivial for me to go for a walk and capture something I will enjoy and hang on my wall. Doing a song just for myself that I like listening to is still super elusive.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2022 20:21
|
|
|
If you noodle and fish and get stuck in the four bar loop, try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH-zpS7gxxg Don't remember where I got the link to it from, so if it showed up in another thread sorry. But it put my head in a different gear and now instead of giving up on a four bar loop I give up on a 32 bar loop! (mostly because at that point I sleep on it and I hate my sound design in the morning)
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2023 17:29
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 18, 2024 00:59 |
|
|
Of course, but it should work on a single instrument too in the noodle sessions. Chill out with your keyboard or guitar or recorder or whatever you got and play a loop twice, then change something. We all work differently obviously but for me personally the rule of "change stuff constantly" was pretty useful.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2023 18:13
|
|