Looking for feedback on first chiprock track. (Page 1) - Constructive Criticism - Forums

1 Aug 27, 2013 12:47 am

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This is the first time I've ever put anything together in LSDJ that sounds something like a song. As I imagine what happens to many people starting out with LSDJ, I played around with the wav channel until I stumbled onto a sound that got my gears going. The bass is grinding, kind of harsh. It borders on noisy to me, but in a way that I find appealing. It has a kind of push-pull thing going on that I quite like.

There's an abrupt change at about 50 seconds that I'm not sure really fits. In fact, that may be the main thing that's wrong with the whole song, there's not much of a unified style. From the intro, to around the 50 second where it enters kind of what I think of as the chorus, and then to where the actual rock part comes in at around 2:00, it doesn't fell very cohesive.

At any rate, if anyone wants to give it a listen and let me know their thoughts, I greatly appreciate the feedback.

https://soundcloud.com/professor-malevo … devlopment

2 Aug 27, 2013 2:36 am

Nursey

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Detroit, MI

I think the only thing that doesn't sound cohesive is where the "crunch" drops out in the kick near the middle. I love the lead, and the variation in sounds, also the end with the guitar is great, kinda like Anamanaguchi. I'd say its solid work if it means anything from me.

3 Aug 27, 2013 3:04 am

Boy Without Batteries

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Florida

I really like the leads and the ending is really nice too. I wish the kick drums had more punch to them though, actually the noise channel in general could be better, but it wasn't bad

4 Aug 27, 2013 3:37 am

Feryl

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Solid work, especially for a first song. I agree that the drums need more punch, and I might also suggest a little more guitar work in there to even things out, but this is a nice start.

5 Aug 27, 2013 4:07 am

SketchMan3

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NC in the US of America

Congrats on not making unce. This is groovy and makes me want to island it up! I was expecting some back-beat reggae/ska arp chops to come in at some point.

The noise channel sound design is pretty horrible . But I like how you mix up the "instruments" and pass the melody along between them. Bit Shifter does that :3

I kind of didn't really like the guitar part that much. I liked the groovy island jam more and was expecting the guitar to do some backbeat reggae breakdown thing before the "power chord" part came in.

I guess this type of mixing is pretty common, since I hear it often with chip+guitar stuff, but I think the guitar sound was a bit too lo-fi and warm :\

But still, I enjoyed it. It has a lot of untapped potential for variation and stuff.

6 Aug 27, 2013 10:03 pm

shmach

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Thank you everyone for the responses. Rather than quote and respond to each post individually, I figured it'd be simpler to put in one post since many of you identified the same issues.

I agree that the drums need some work, the kick in particular. I'm thinking I screwed up the position of the kick drum mic when I was recording as I just couldn't get the "click" sound of the beater that I wanted. I tried fixing it with some eq, but I think the only real solution would be to record it a second time.

I was torn between adding more guitar parts and keeping it simple. I really do not know much about mixing (or recording, or songwriting...) at this point, and so I'm attracted to keeping things simple. Less voices clashing, less worry about trying to make sure that everything can be heard. However, there's no arguing that simplicity leads to less variation, which in turn makes it less interesting. I hope that as I continue this I'll naturally grow in more complicated arrangements.

Again, thank you to everyone for donating your time and thoughts.