Wow, thanks, I didn’t know about that one so I didn’t even include it in my post so you stop saying it!
That’s not a solution. That’s a workaround for another workaround. If we want to make Lemmy become a useful resource, communities need to grow. And there is no better way to promote content besides posting it on other relevant spaces. I don’t run a shitposting space, it’s educational content and I post stuff once in 3-5 days, so I’m not spamming anything. If you have an alternative method for growing a community, I’ll hear it out.
Fun video and great analysis from squash! I think nobody was under impression that type beats were there to stay, but we see a lot of sentiment nowadays how “music gets easier and cheaper to make” and how “the artist market is oversaturated”. It applies to visual art, animation, film etc. And every single time that sentiment is used to say that there is a lot of bad [form of art] out there now and how it’s hard to make money from [said art].
Here’s the thing, yes the market gets oversaturated with amateur producers doing the easy and simple things to get cash. But music being easier and cheaper to make means more opportunity for people to develop their skills into something unique. It also makes it easier for you, if you take a bit of time necessary to learn better tools.
The monetary value we try to put on art is unhealthy because art will never fit into economy on it’s own merit as art, since economy puts value on things based on immediate demand. People who make their self-esteem based on the value of their art set themselves up for failure and complain about it instead of adapting to it. We have natural needs like food, water, shelter, sleep, etc, but when we go further away from that our desires start becoming influenced by society. Sometimes people can’t know they want something if they never experienced it. Music can often be like that and this is the key to creating value in music.
For example, diamond is a rock most people don’t have a practical use for and it’s actually quite abundant. It’s value was created by limiting the available supply and creating a mostly artificial demand in form of the wedding ring and expensive jewelry as symbols. This surface-level useless thing is desired because people have attached it to their relationships and interactions with society. You can say that this is where the real value is created. A lot of people listen to music in the same way. Sometimes, the quality of the music itself as art is secondary. The opportunities it creates for bonding and topical discussion is what really makes it worth it for most people.
What I’m trying to say is that no matter how great the music is, it’s only worth as much as you successfully market. Marketing low-effort music and having great success is kind of a feat on its own, there are tons more type beat tracks that didn’t get almost any traction. And a good track might market itself and it will definitely make your other marketing efforts more effective… but we shouldn’t bet everything on just having a good song/album. Almost every successful niche artist is doing some stuff behind the scenes to get their music out there and seen. Playing that game well is what brings you fame and money. Whether you consider it success or a part of success is entirely up to you!
Thanks for sharing, it’s been an interesting addition to my day!
I used to have a friend back in middle school who was getting a music education at the time. That was right around the point when I just started producing and he mentioned that my music sounded like it was from a videogame. And well I kinda took that to heart and looked up a bunch of itch.io games. I found a cool project and they were just in need of a soundtrack, so I said “let me give it a go”. They liked my drafts and the rest is history. I’ve learned so much since then. Working on the game for the past couple of years boosted my skills into something release worthy. I even rewrote the whole thing twice because the skill gap was so massive between the first and the last track in the playlist. This last rewrite is gonna be final, and gonna become my portfolio in case I want to hit another studio after this. Hope it works out!
Ah, I used to be in a chorus myself back in elementary, though it was an after-school activity for me. One vivid memory I have of it is that I hated sitting in classes because I was so bored and wanted to move. Guess that one might count towards my ADHD diagnosis and it certainly counts towards my music taste. I actually hated music for a while after that and it wasn’t until 13 when I started to listen to a lot of cool stuff that eventually prompted me to try and make something myself. And I actually liked it! Maybe I was always meant for it? ;)
And those are some interesting channels mate, thanks for sharing. I watched a bit of Andrew Huang myself, his “producers flip a sample” series was amazing inspiration for me, but he’s got this intense youtuber vibe that makes his content hard to watch for me. Sonic state and JNJ seem really interesting, much appreciated!
I’ve been making music for roughly 8 years now, starting at the age of 14. No, I’m not a child prodigy! I made some really crappy music right until I hit 18 since I didn’t really care about being good (which may have been a great thing!) I guess I’ve only been seriously producing for the past 4 years. I normally spend about 6-10 hours a week to produce, and if I’m doing a project I really like, that time can fly all the way up to 20s and 30s!
I really liked Jungle and DnB for as long as I can remember. Broader EDM was my bread and butter in my teens and I’m into electronic rock and metal these days. I suppose all of those genres are really high in energy, that’s what I enjoy about my music and the music that I listen to.
I really like Professor Kliq, he makes some great albums and soundtracks. His rhythms and arrangement are top notch, he never made a dull production. ALEPH sound is one of those producers that make you question the limits of the musical medium. He manages to make near-noise productions that sounds satisfying and don’t grate on the ears. Combichrist is great at dark moods, their lyrics are really densely packed with literary devices and their industrial (metal?) sound is something you can’t get from any other band.
You guys should know my resources by now, I’m an avid youtube learner and whatever information I can dig up, I use. Most of my recent learning was focused on vocals since I was trying to improve my voice for my metal and rock productions. If you care about that, I really like Sibila Extreme Vocal channel, the info is well condensed, nuanced, and you’ll start growling and screaming in no time. I was watching Chris Liepe for a while and I must say, his extreme vocal videos aren’t good for learning but when it comes to clean vocals, he does a great job at getting you into the right mindset of experimenting with your voice and finding out how different ways to sing feel. He helped my clean singing immensely, but if you’re just starting out, a more orthodox teaching method is definitely better.
Great review! I remember there was a website that documented frequency curves of different headphones. When I was doing some research to get my current pair of semi-professional monitors, I used the website to pinpoint the ones with reasonably flat sound. Apparently there are a lot of review websites that post their frequency response charts, so they’re a great tool if you haven’t already used them.
One thing about jumping headphones is that you will get used to your curves even if they’re bad, as long as it’s your only pair. So listening in to bad curves will normalize them in your brain and sometimes give a perception of worse sound when you get on something flatter. I experienced this when I switched from my moderately bass boosted headphones from some Chinese brand to a comparatively flatter curve of Audiotechnica’s ATH-M40x. It felt like a downgrade for a while.
Anyways, I’m sure you know all this already, but I thought it might be helpful context for others. Would be nice if you could dial it similar to your main monitors with an EQ and see if you can overlay the resulting curve with a chart of your DT1990s. I think it would be a helpful point of reference for other buyers.
I like the idea! I think the instruments feel a bit too clean on this one though. I’d add some more reverb and reduce the sample rate on drums especially, but also on the synths slightly. Soft bit crushing may apply here too. I would also add an ambient pad - it would fill out the empty space in the song while still keeping it minimal. Levels may need some work. As for the rest, the track works quite well compositionally, the idea is solid and it fits the lo-fi style quite nicely without being boring or bland. Looking forward to your next work!
I really like it! I feel like if you wanted you could make it into a great intro for something with a pop rock feel. I second @jayemar, right before the end the bend part sounds off key to me.
I honestly have no idea, our government is known to love censorship for dumbest reasons. I don’t want to be specific about it because I don’t want to have these kind of discussions on my music accounts on the regular. Suffice it to say, it didn’t make my life much different as I abandoned posting on SC long before that.
I literally can not use Soundcloud anymore cause it got blocked in my country a while ago. And since it doesn’t allow Tor traffic, I’m just better off going for an alternative. It’s honestly not even that great anymore, considering how bot-ridden it has become and the fact that “soundcloud rapper” is an actual meme speaks for itself. I haven’t used audiomack much rather than to upload examples and stuff, but I really like that it has rigidly defined genres that you can search for. Soundcloud tagging system was a hot pile of garbage. I might even use it as a platform later on, I’ve stopped posting music a while ago and I want to get back into it.
I’ll consider your idea to turn it into vaporwave, lol, sounds like something chaotic to do on a relaxed evening :)
I really dig the breaks in Seed. That’s some proper old-school stuff that I think went out of fashion wayyy too quick. I think on the whole mix and master there is nothing I can add other than watching the frequencies on those basses. When your low bass goes up an octave it can get percievably louder due to (psycho)acoustics: higher frequencies sound louder at the same aplitudes. I’d either compress the mids or add a super gentle high shelf to taper off the volume on higher notes. Sometimes I just directly go to the synth directly and keytrack a low-pass or something. That said, the tracks are bangers. I only got headphones, so I can’t attest to the quality of mastering. I think it sounds quite well, the bass is incredibly juicy, which is great for a dance track. It didn’t get boring or too exciting anywhere, something you gotta be careful with in dance music. Thanks for posting it!
Sounds pretty fun! I’ve noticed you have electronic drums on this. If it were me, I’d do acoustics here, unless this sort of pop-song feel is what you’re gunning for. If I were doing pop style track here, then I’d make the synths more pronounced. I noticed that the only synth is playing in some places as an accent, and I would just add in a second one that will compliment the whole song so that the electronic drumkit doesn’t feel so detached. Then the rest of the work is just tinkering with compression on every instrument.
I’m quite certain you have good grasp on all of that though, just my thoughts! When you were making music in 2006 I was busy being a pre-schooler, lol. I’d give anything right now to be able to play an instrument and record more, but living in an apartment makes it damn near impossible sometimes. It’s a really fun track you’re making, hope to see the final version soon!
The alternative squares do exactly that, and the effects become way more obvious with distortion. Ultimately, changing phases on the same frequencies you need to build a square changes the volume due to phase cancellation and introduces some micro-changes to the sound which is what impacts the way the sound interacts with processing (distortion, compression, all that).
Also, using less frequencies to build a square overall will produce a softer and nicer square sound. Modern software really pushes it when building a proper square by adding a ton of high frequency sines to make it “textbook square” (something that wasn’t done in older hardware due to limitations). That sharpness can be easily removed to get essentially a square that doesn’t cut into your ears. Something to keep in mind if you feel the need to lowpass your squares later in the chain.