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papa bear
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Joined: 01 Mar 2010
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 28 2011 08:16    
getting better? ... new track
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http://johndoe007.bandcamp.com/track/arpeggios-of-the-dragon

found a new sample a couple weeks ago (yes, i'm still just using samples and not instruments ... it's on my "to do" list ... along with learning VST's and MIDI)

majority of it made in Madtracker. final production in Audacity. let me know what ya think

^..^


he who does not continue to learn, has learned nothing ...

d|^..^|b

http://johndoe007.bandcamp.com
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D Vibe
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Joined: 04 May 2003
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 28 2011 17:33    
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Listeningen to it right now.. A fine little piece!

I would use a compressor to fatten it up a bit though. Why not a side chain one to get some real pumping action?


https://www.dvibe.se
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papa bear
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 30 2011 02:30    
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a side chain? .... forgive the noob question ... what's a side chain?


he who does not continue to learn, has learned nothing ...

d|^..^|b

http://johndoe007.bandcamp.com
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D Vibe
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 30 2011 09:25    
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With a side chain compressor you can route an external signal to the compressor to make it react on its sound; i.e. make the channel which the compressor is on to duck everytime a bassdrum hits the shelves... Smile Like Eric Prydz did with Call on me - Retared funk mix.

http://open.spotify.com/track/15mNg4TLFle6p8tCwwVUqx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression#Side-chaining


Try using the Slim Slide Side Chain Compressor VST, which I think follows with the MT2 installation..

Otherwise it's available here:
http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1315.html

Put the VST on one channel which you like to compress; or on the master bus, then choose which channel that should be routed to the compressor (it's a drag'n'drop menu inside the compressor GUI); and experiment that way. Smile

Keep it up, you'll learn the more you experiment! Nothing can be broken if you save your .mt2-files in several versions.

/Daniel


https://www.dvibe.se
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papa bear
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 30 2011 09:38    
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*chuckles*

wow ... just shows me how new to this i really am ... ya lost me at "compressor". i'll check out those links and do more research on this stuff. thanks for your help

Laughing


he who does not continue to learn, has learned nothing ...

d|^..^|b

http://johndoe007.bandcamp.com
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SX001
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Joined: 22 Sep 2006
PostPosted: Tue Feb 01 2011 20:02    
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I really dont understand why all focus about sounds if the main core is about music, melodies and harmonies itself?

forget at once the effects (which have actually very less to do with melody), just make music and new pieces -- thats the best way to make music better, much better than effects and compressors. Smile
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papa bear
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 02 2011 05:57    
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*nods and smiles*

definitely agreed. practice practice practice. i'm sure i'll come up with some shitty music between decent tracks, but it's all about the music


he who does not continue to learn, has learned nothing ...

d|^..^|b

http://johndoe007.bandcamp.com
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SX001
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Joined: 22 Sep 2006
PostPosted: Wed Feb 02 2011 14:22    
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Here comes my little chronicle...

what I have seen in the couple year of my beginners career is that a way too many are focused about sound and recording technics instead of music. Astonishing how far away are we from music itself.
I have used both software and analog stuff, but still the BEST upgrade in studio I see is only one thing -- learning how to be a good keyboardist with musical knowledge. The technics wont make a shitty song better, not even good!

Let me explain... I thought too that technical issues are the
biggest things some years before...
IF I ask suggestions to my own music then mostly the anwer is about mixing, equalizing or compression. Its always
something like "mix up the bass" or "just add a little more punch to kick drum". Sometimes I have heard like "pads are missing". Thats all. At the same time listener is completely missing the fact that snare and hihats have unfortunately phase problems, and I have some false notes which will be unnoticed. Never I hear something about form or composing or actually about swing... OK, well, these technical faults, if I correct them is it all what I need to do to get a PERFECT track?!
well, compressing, better mixing, sounds, these recommendations I hear becouse its only the easiest thing to do for _listener_ and all above he or she does not grab actually. Thats the thing I guess.
well, I felt that I have to get something extra, these compressors and equalizers and what a heck are those aural exciters... I thought that these are good.
Well... When I grabbed a book about "how to play a piano" then I realized -- "stupid me, I have GREAT instruments a real good synthesizers in both analog, digital and only thing what I need is to learn music, otherwize the best thing I can do is to press only that "demo" button on the synthesizer."
It just needs to open a one article about music theory or to learn how to read the notes and every time when I feel foolish and that the best upgrade is in the books. I understand "stupid me! I have a great tools but I use so tiny capacity amount of it AND STILL i am grabbing for next things and only with a wish that technics would make a song good."

and then back to mixing issue... is it all to make a perfect track?
I can make better mixing, correct that phase in hihats, but it makes song only technically correct, but it is still the same.
But at the meantime while I have made that best mixing I should have used the time to make a next (and better) release instead and improve musically!!! Indeed, making a new song takes exact so many days as making good mixing and mastering.
Do not get me wrong here. Good mixing and mastering and sound choice -- It HAS a value to make it, indeed, but making a perfect mixing and mastering to shitty track is only a waste of time! The same waste of time it is too when grabbing extra technics to compensate a shitty composition.... Compare it this way -- beginner still makes poor pictures if she/he will get a professional camera on second day.

But at the same time think this way -- a really good song sounds very good also on the shitty setup. If less than average song sounds poor on hi-end stuff synths then on shitty setup it sounds worse. But if you start on a shitty setup to make something to sound good then on bigger system it sounds bigger. But using many synths to make below average songs...?


So, while I have quite below-average shitty things then I should just forget "adjust that bass and kick, then its perfect!" recommendation. I have made several mixings and masterings on my very first releases and actually --- all is the same -- it actually makes no major improvement. So, I never mind the mastering and I have much less attention to mixing.

But still a way too much is related to sounds and technical issues. In another forum when I said "I want to move on, its very narrow music genre already", then I get answer which goes like that "too bad, becouse all have been talked already 100 times, and we dont have to repeat the subjects about sounds again".
The reader meant SOUNDS, but I meant music theory, harmony, form.
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papa bear
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 03 2011 14:04    
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mmm ... definitely

there's only so much improvement that can be done with post production if you don't have the music in the first place. it's like a cake, where the post production is the icing. nobody wants a cake with nothing but icing, yet a cake tastes so much better with it. your cake needs to have filling, body, and your own special taste to it.

without music theory, there really is no music. i've seen posts on different forums where people feel that electronic music falls into one of those music categories where you don't need a lot of musical talent to make, and i couldn't disagree more. i personally feel that you need a different kind of talent to make electronic music, simply because you're not playing just one instrument. you're actually directing multiple instruments, as a conductor would an orchestra. hand a conductor a violin or trumpet, and he may not be able to play it at all, but he's essential to the music.

personal opinion? ... theory is everything. everything else is just icing

^..^


he who does not continue to learn, has learned nothing ...

d|^..^|b

http://johndoe007.bandcamp.com
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papa bear
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 03 2011 14:35    
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i guess what i'm trying to figure out is whether or not i've got the talent to run with you big guys who have been doing this for years. i know that everything takes practice, and i'm working on that, but i just tend to listen to my stuff and not think that i've got what it takes to make music that other people like to listen to.


he who does not continue to learn, has learned nothing ...

d|^..^|b

http://johndoe007.bandcamp.com
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SX001
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Joined: 22 Sep 2006
PostPosted: Thu Feb 03 2011 22:33    
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papa bear wrote:
i guess what i'm trying to figure out is whether or not i've got the talent to run with you big guys who have been doing this for years. i know that everything takes practice, and i'm working on that, but i just tend to listen to my stuff and not think that i've got what it takes to make music that other people like to listen to.


but make something which is fun to YOU...?


ok, here comes my next thought wondering... sorry, be prepared to read.

I must say that your line about talent is perhaps overestimated. So far I have seen that mostly this attitude comes from thinking that talant is something which is something coming totally without need to learn and without effort. That all comes with ease and its totally effortless. But haa, they -- who say "you have the talent" -- dont know that its effortless after 1000 hours of learning where the man faces many situations of frustration and tears even!!! But NO ONE wants to hear that what is happening in the kitchen side, they only see the result!

But if I say that you have to learn to play piano 20 years before you will be a piano player, then what you think? You have to learn karate 10 years to be good... but just dealing some years and not having at all
patience? And thinking that it must be without effort?
And what about those kids who can play so smoothly the piano? The answer -- they have dealed with it ALL THE TIME, and with pleasure, meanwhile all others are playing ball or with guns.
My point is... in some years its actually not possible to know if you have talent or not... actually what IS talent?

Take it a calm way, but Yes, really -- I have made music for years (4 years), and NOT __decades__. Very Happy Big guy I am not at all. Not even close to those who have made music for decades. And I have thought about these topics as much as you I guess, (and little bit more I write about it). In electronics music its so much wider area than compared to create classical piano music. In piano music its simpler: instrument, playing skills and music theory. In tracking music actually music theory and playing is a tiny piece of our 9 jobbs, and all other 5 jobbs are more technical and backstage which are unavoidable. In electronic music you are besides composing and arranging also...
1. sound programmer (synth presets, drums etc.),
2. mixing engineer
3. mastering engineer (if doing mastering also). IF having big studio then you have to make maintenance also equipment as well as computer(s) -- software/hardware system, backups. And every detail requires its time.
Problem is that its very easy to get lost in technical details and overdo these if actually music theory is what needs upgrade. We learn many things at the same time and just have to prioritize -- do we have to make a effort for better mix/mastering or is it better to start a new track? Do I really have to program new sounds or just choose the first heard sound in synth and compose on?

Actually I have intensively thought about it - what is talent? Do I have it?

I only can compare it with my skills in electronics which I have done more than music. I have thought when I just began that -- "is it that I just CANT??!" when I totally failed to build up 4 electronic kits. So, I was depressed, frustrated as 10..11 year old can be and with half year experience... But I did not had knowledge of those schematics -- these were over my head, and I had no idea that it comes with ease for me just after 5 years of experience.
In this place many of us will just abandon it and leave it (--what my fellows did!)as a overwhelming problem what they cant solve. But if I would have made so, then there would be no progress. I tried and tried and tried until I actually SOLVED!
Then I did not realized that I work on later also the next 10 years in electronics and still that question will rise up again - "so I cant?", but the situation is new.Very Happy Today , after 22 years experience, I have now worked in the several places with my electronic skills and still wondering...
Also I have heard "you have a talent in electronics". They think so becouse they see that its effortless to me with elementary things, BUT I just had the time and dealed with electronics all the time. NOTHING have been effortless to me. NOTHING. While other guys spent time to other things I experimented or readed the numerous books! They saw only result and were not at all aware of the very hard work and these situations where I thought "so I just cant?" and endless nights about these problems which were over my head... they have never seen something like this!
But I got interested deeply about analog electronics becouse of my love of music -- how to build up these things and all other equipment which is for music?
So, only one thing remains -- I just want that so badly!!!
Thats always the driving force to me which keeps me motivated to learn these things which are difficult to understand. I just want to understand and not giving up. As a result I have seen also many many pleasure moments when things begin to work what I have built myself from amplifier and radio transmitter to a big mixing console and noise reducing equipment.

EXACTLY THE SAME THING about computer experts. Of COURSE we have seen those movies about hackers and crackers and computer experts, but they have cut out the real issue -- learning. In real life do you see those guys are studying since-always these things? But this hard work we dont see in film as these are taken as no-cool thing (HEY!!! Who thought that its FUN and COOL to be in SCHOOL?!????). Its not cool to be smart, it must look in the films in warp speed and everything must be sexually stimulating etc..
I thought that "naah I am not good in programming", BUT I have not at all spent so much time and have not been at all so much motivated as these fanatics.

ok ok, back to tracking... and I repeat ... as learning music theory is not cool and its actually hard work, then we often go the easiest way -- give up music theory and focus on mixing and sounds which seems much more cool and fancy. Isnt it so? But this way we use only one button on synth and its "demo" Razz


thats my music I have made so far

http://www.madtracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4374&sid=30cf9b0f9a2f4ed26767e4f07b5e84b4

http://syncemotions.madtracker.net/new/Sync_Emotions_-_Fairytale.mp3

http://syncemotions.madtracker.net/new/Sync_Emotions_-_Grand_Italo.mp3

I have tracked music during 2006-until now, and tracked music also between 1995-2000, so... had a huge pause between 2000-2006. Reason -- i felt that all was really limited and then I were also totally on my own with music. So, thats the area where I have been given up, no progress meanwhile.

And I am seeking the answer to the same question as you are seeking -- if having or not the talent. I still dont know.
Perhaps only one thing -- there is no talent without die hard willpower.

I take it this way -- if it makes me feel good and high then its the right thing to me. or as my fellow says "do you think that Bach made music becouse he was damn bored?!" Smile
But when its a very fun process and provides much of joy then thats what matters.

and then comes next thing -- concerning about the commercial success. so far it seems that it has no correlation with the musical skills itself and has nothing to do with intelligence. Someone can win all just being a right man in the right place, where actually others make hard work and still cant earn a bread. So accordingly to this we are back in the beginning -- why bother about those boring things in theory if it can come with ease? Very Happy Very Happy Perhaps there from comes that thought that electronic music dont need such talent and software with its presets, built-in arpeggios and templates increases that illusion while classical piano has "just" black and white keys.
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SoulEye
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 07 2011 23:17    
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Excellent rant there, and I agree 100%
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papa bear
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 09 2011 14:49    
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... i knew this place was right for me ...

thank you so much. so if i'm understanding you right, make what makes me happy, no matter what anybody else thinks.

i should have realized that a long time ago


he who does not continue to learn, has learned nothing ...

d|^..^|b

http://johndoe007.bandcamp.com
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SX001
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Joined: 22 Sep 2006
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10 2011 10:12    
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papa bear wrote:
... i knew this place was right for me ...

thank you so much. so if i'm understanding you right, make what makes me happy, no matter what anybody else thinks.

i should have realized that a long time ago



yes, it really needs a thing what outsiders will say "a really big egoism and will to deal with your personal things only".

letting too close to your heart others whom you dont know can do harm especially if they criticize with non-constructive way.

but there are other dangerous species around you...
Bad enough, there ARE a why too many people who think
these ways...


1. "spending time to area which does not lead to a high success, is wasted." How they know? Thats YOUR life, not their life. They have no idea how many distractions and obstacles we meet in the music path if there are hundreds of those who say "naah, forget about music". So how it can be succee in this environment? The only thing is to not listen them. (NB! If you dont know them then you dont hear such phrase even and tadaa! better environment to develop Wink ). When you will get older then you may hear perhaps occassionally that in this way "naah, you have to make work and forget about your interests, your time is over and you have to make a real work". Well, the music is a way over their ability? Look at them first, are they satisfied and successful in their own life? Are they HAPPY? Satisfied? If no (as it is in most cases), then it has no use to listen them. But taking their advice seriously leads no longer than following in the same path as they are. Why they do so? Not certain, one speculation may be that they suggest only these things which are familiar to them and all other behaviour they try to smash or recommend other activities. Remember how kids in schools treat those who are not "as others" ? The same thing actually continues the whole life becouse someone will never grow up... Sad
THeir criticue about your music making which would come from them, has eventually NOTHING to do with you or music itself if they think at the same time about money in their head!
In contrary if you would succeed, then to hear from them "you have a talent" means no more than "you have a money" instead! They dont know anymore what is about the joy of playing and never about the time needed to learn becouse its
over their imagination abilities!


2. "if you wanted to be a musician or learn how to play a piano, its too late to you to begin, becouse you arent anymore 10 year old. time is over"
or "you dont have a talent" or even "you dont have enough long fingers to play a piano".
Thats the worst thing to hear at all the times. So will say bad teacher, those who wants more than can give.
Everyone needs time to develop, but hearing that "ouch I am a way too late" does it gives a reason to give up? Instead it -- try and learn this time what you actually have!
Following this way what they say, you are not just limiting yourself, but you give up your own dream and then it did not got any chance! Its no worse than someone says "cats are evil, dont touch them!" but you dont have no idea.
And the worst part in it is that then you dont even know if you had your talent or not. But the most mysterious -- how they know if you have or not the talent if you never actually tried and did not had a time to develop? How they know that you dont have that opportunity to learn quickly and get skills if you actually never got a chance?!?

Thats my own experience when I began. I thought that --
What if I began and then I have bought synthesizer but am really bad player? what if what if... fears of failures etc..
in head. Then I realized "Well, and so? What if I have learned and then at the end of the way understood that there is nothing? -- EVEN THEN I am SATISFIED with myself BECOUSE I were brave to try and followed the way I wanted to go! Otherwize I think about it the rest of my life with the thought that why why I did not tried that when I really wanted to try and go that way..." So, it was clear -- I do music, even this or other case I am satisfied withmyself whatever if it is a positive result or negative.
But actually it went so that I really like that process and I am developing on and on. Smile

Some men in olympics have won the first place even if they experienced a major health hazards or lost body details.
So, always -- try and seek yourself! Dont let to crush your dreams!


3. "as a hobby? well, its ok, but dont even wait to become a professional / its too late to you / it requires a big talent / you dont know anyone in business!"
AGAIN! Thats the message "limit yourself, be a butcher instead!" setting other peoples interests to a question.
The worst things we do ourself against us! So, just make what you will. But just listening others "Stop!" is actually letting to limit yourself. The same thing if someone says "there is more than music in life" which is distraction from the path.


.....so.

the point is that these most people who say "stop doing what you are doing!" will set your own interests under a question and they want you to follow their own opinions, suggestions. (So using your power to get their own goals, which is their interest, not yours!)

have a nice journey in music. And encourage others to seek their own skills and to DEVELOP these. Wink That would be the best thank you. Smile
I guess now thats all. It was a long post and I think that you needed it in order to continue.

If you have motivation, the next thing is to keep it up and seeking these ways which helps to keep it.


Last edited by SX001 on Thu Feb 10 2011 10:38; edited 3 times in total
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SoulEye
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10 2011 10:28    
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OMFG. This is SO TRUE, I cannot emphasize it enough. I've HAD these experiences, and EACH and EVERY POINT you make hits home with me, and I actually get really mad when thinking about the persons trying to limit me. But I stuck with it, and my mind is blown at how far my music has taken me. My tip would be: SHIFT your FOCUS from people who are negative, to those tho are INSANELY positive, because both people are right. Why? Because life becomes WHAT YOU BELIEVE, and if you hear a message enough times, you'll believe it's true too. And then it happens. And it was you doing it, all along.

Thanks SX001 for your insightful posts.
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