Nick Walrus
Offline
Québec

So I finally made a complete song.
Well I just kinda ended one because I didn't know where I was going with it, but it's 2 minutes long so I guess that's fine.

https://nickwalrus.bandcamp.com/track/strtrpr

I know I have a very audible buzz, my pro-sound just doesn't work properly and I didn't take the time to mess around with it on Audacity to fix it.

I was unsure what to do with the volume of my instruments so everything is leveled, does it work like that or should I change it?

If someone would be open to checking around my .sav I would appreciate some feedback on my workplace, since it's my first song I really don't know if I'm efficient.

And just tell me if you generally like it I guess. I'm not really a musician but I like lsdj because it feels more like programming to me.

(first cc thread so I'm probably rambling like a dumbass, sorry about that)

EDIT: Changed thread title, felt like an asshole to just demand cc like that.

Last edited by Nick Walrus (Dec 10, 2014 11:58 pm)

Delta Centauri
Offline
Toronto, Canada

So I gave your track a listen and I have to say that there's a lot of potential here waiting to be uncovered. I know you aren't a musician, but it's nice to see you delve into something new. The overall song is quite repetitive, which is okay if that's what you were aiming for but in the event that it wasn't here is some of my advice for you:

Try to use one of the channels as a sort of lead melody. Something that just sits on top of the heavy bass and percussion. This will give your song some flavor. It can be quite difficult to do this, especially as a beginner, but to me it looks like you fiddled around with some melody-esque aspects in the bassline. (I might be reading into this too much, you tell me).

LSDJ is all about layering and doing more with less. As a beginner, try to see what more you can add into your music. It doesn't have to be a complex melody or harmony. You have a good solid foundation to move forward -- judging by its sound, I can hear that you've started to utilize the SFX side of LSDJ which is great! See what more you can do with that, and go from there.

As for the buzz and volume of the instruments, that's something I'm going to leave up to you. As a musician, especially as a chiptune artist, you can use otherwise "unnatural" parts of your hardware to your advantage. Some artists may enjoy the buzz, perhaps it adds character; while other artists may not. That's up to you.

I hope my rudimentary constructive criticism will help you move on in your music. Being a beginner in music is tough, but practice makes perfect and I think if you continue moving forward, you will really improve.

Dire Hit
Offline
Seattle, WA

First thing I'm noticing is the typical new lsdj user issue: volume control.

One of lsdj's quirks is that the pulse and noise channels are much louder than the wave channel. To compensate you're going to want to try to keep pulse instruments quieter. Generally you don't want to have any pulse instruments louder than 8 or 9 (I don't think I've cranked an instrument up to higher than C for several years now.) This is going to allow your wave channel to show up more in the mix, making your sample drums seem louder than they do right now.

Another thing to try would be using tables on your instruments to give them more of a texture. W and V commands alone can create some massive variation.

JodyBigfoot
Offline

i love the drums and the kind of head jump sound fx, the octave bassline is far too repetitive to be the main part of the song it needs to be quieter and have a lead over the top.

second the notion on volume and tables

JodyBigfoot
Offline

oh yeah and on the less is more, try adding some breaks

drop something for a bar, half a bar, two bars, a quarter of a bar, drop everything, add a different thing, variation, drops and silence are your friend