need an honest review for a dubstep/techno track.

[shaolinsoul]

Hey guys,

just would like some feedback on a track i finished last night. Guess this would be a good place to a start huh..

Link to the track.
http://soundcloud.com/basic-g/piano-loco



Any idea on the final mix? I.e. the sound dynamics etc..

thanks.


shaolin

[blue monk]

It is an OK start if you are 15 years old.

Turn off the BD. Does it still have drive?
Play your own chords. Learn to program sounds.
Pick a few tracks that you like very much and listen closely how the beat is constructed.
"Program first, think later" is not the way to go.

Would you buy this music?

Try harder and good luck.

[Derp]

I thought the last poster was being kind of harsh until I actually heard it. It's a pretty monotonous track. Mix things up a bit. Bring in more changes, more elements, more melodies, more continuity...

[Konketsu]

Everyone starts somewhere. I'm not gonna blow smoke up your ass and tell you that you're a creative genius, but you have ideas that you want to express through music and if you keep it up and give every track you write your best effort, you will eventually see your labour bear fruit.

For now, listen, REALLY listen to tracks by your favourite artists and dissect them in your mind. How does the hihat move in relation to the main beat that drives the track? How does the kick play off of the bassline? When does the track open up and make you really get into it? What is happening with the mix when the track opens up? Listen consciously, sit down in front of the speakers and listen. Ignore everything around you like the internet and the cellphone or the xbox and just listen. As you train your ears in this way, you'll start to hear little things beyond the obvious elements like the kick and the lead line and once you hear those things you'll start to figure out how to put them in your own music.

Keep it up, don't be discouraged, and give your music everything that you can.

[hugol]

Sorry I didn't like the track at all and I agree with the comments in the original reply. However ---- don't be disheartened everyone has to start somewhere.

The good thing is you've stuck at it and finished a track - keep doing this and you're going to improve. So many people just get stuck at the 4 bar loop stage (I know I've been there).

By the way listening to finished commercial tracks isn't necessarily the best way to go. You should definitely do this for ideas, but don't expect to be able to copy what they've done from this because this is going to be extremely difficult to work out what's going on with a polished mastered track.

I'd suggest learning from tracks where you've got access to the source material. The demo tunes that come with Reason for example are helpful. Spend time analysing these (or something similar) and try to replicate. Also don't get hyped up about equipment whether hardware or the best plugins or soft synths - just stick to the very basics and learn. For example learning how to layer sounds is going to get you so much further than worrying about wizbang gear at this stage.

[sctt_stone]

Hey-

The mix really sucks, but there are good ideas in there.

I felt like the whole thing could be cut down to a minute long intro that leads into another movement.

I like the idea about the flanged pitch part but rather than having it fall up and down slowly I felt that after ascending in pitch for the first time the song should pop into another part.

A chorus for lack of a better word.

Let me take the opportunity to tell you that educating your self about MUSIC THEORY will take you light years ahead of where you are.

I am not saying that you need to major in theory or composition but understanding the basics will really help you, and anyone, to write better music.

I had this discution with some one in another post a few days ago.

A lot of Electronic Music guys think that its all about sound design, but at the day you cant hide bad meat in sauce.

[blue monk]

My initial impulse was not to comment because I don`t enjoy hurting anybody`s feelings.
But many people had read your posting before and did not comment. I thought that was not in your interest.

I have come a long way since I started. My current productions -especially what I got in the pipeline- is music that I am finally happy with.
But it took me too many years where I had a naive idea what creating music is about.
I thought the main idea of a track/song is 90% of the work and production is not a big deal.
It took me long time to find out that I have to give a 100%, trash it, start again, trash it.... until finally I got someting that is good.
Finding a melody or chord progression is the fun part but using this to complete a track is work.
Club tracks only work if there is an interesting rhythm and if you are serious about it, you have to create this yourself.

I encourage you to continue. My original work was rubbish most of the time.
I tried to create a whole song with each new instrument, everything was overcrowded, the individual tracks did not relate to each other - terrible.
That was because I did not use my brain to think about how music works.
Aslong as I am composing individual melodies I listen only to my heart.
But when it comes to production I think: What sequence is the main idea of the track? Is it fresh or have there been hundrets of releases like this before? How can I support the main idea? Is anything getting in the way (of the main idea)? Is it getting boring after a while?

Indeed it takes courage to put yourself on the line. You should keep doing that to get input.
But I also feel that you have to invest a lot more energy into your music to create something that is interesting for somebody out there in a time where more music is available than ever before.

[badmark]

honest review ...

whatever it is, it's not dubstep.

after about a minute, I thought it might get good when the hi-hats came in. But they never did.

it's not actually terrible, just a bit too minimal ("monotonous"). kind of reminded me of a richie hawtins plastikman album I once had which sounded like he'd left his equipment to record itself while he went away and made himself a cup of tea.

it needs a bit of