For those musicians out there; ever had that moment when you had something in your head, but couldn't write it down? It happens to all creative types, artists, inventors, ect. Left work at six in the evening and just now finished looking at my tablet trying to finish this one transition in a song. I have complained about my past before on this forum, but I wrote this music with the purpose to be looped for a game idea I had that was going to be made in RPGMaker XV. Point being: I am faced with making songs that are :30-1:00 in length fill a 'close to' three minute gap. I read this article online about audio loops earlier today (wish I could remember the website) and how to avoid making the music become an annoyance. Some examples given were to rearrange the structure before repeating, muting the melody for a section of the loop, or expanding the ending. What are some practices you follow to avoid constant repetition? Like the title states; I added eight bars and my song just pushes itself over the two-and-a-half minute mark (however by doing so I may have changed the dynamic from a soft innocence melody to that of a harden adventure) (best way to describe what I did hahahahaha).
For those musicians out there; ever had that moment when you had something in your head, but couldn't write it down?
Yeah, that's every time I pick up LSDJ. For your main question though, I can't give you any technical advice. LSDJ is my first dive into composing music and music theory in general. However, if you want some examples of good, short, looping songs, listen to the Cave Story ost. Hopefully it'll give you some helpful ideas/inspiration. Sorry I can't give you anything more specific, but good luck!
N00bstar did some loops for ironfinger (an indie IOS developer) a while back, you could chat with him.
The trick to making slightly repetitive music stay interesting is the details. Try adding noise channel risers and crashes to build to parts that you want to have more energy. Put an extra drum fill at the end of the last bar of your loop. Cut the sound in the first beat of your loop to throw people off guard.
https://soundcloud.com/troyboi/troyboi-medusa-dayz
Try listening to this to get some inspiration. Troyboi is a master of doing cool one-off changes to every layer of his songs to keep things interesting. Listen to when everything gets tape stopped or suddenly everything is triplets for a beat.
The trick to making slightly repetitive music stay interesting is the details.
Really, I think details are important for high quality chip. Some of the best tunes have simple melodies and structures, but these amazing little details. Sudden stutters. A quick instrument change on the repeated melody. Dropping the drums for a bar, etc.
Sudden stutters. A quick instrument change on the repeated melody. Dropping the drums for a bar, etc.
I am writing all this down of staff paper right now and playing it back with midi using finale. I haven't ordered in LSDJ yet, so I don't know the programs full potential.
Dire Hit wrote:The trick to making slightly repetitive music stay interesting is the details.
Really, I think details are important for high quality chip. Some of the best tunes have simple melodies and structures, but these amazing little details. Sudden stutters. A quick instrument change on the repeated melody. Dropping the drums for a bar, etc.
You're the major key music I would have used as an example of this. Details details details.
N00bstar did some loops for ironfinger (an indie IOS developer) a while back, you could chat with him.
Reporting for duty sir. SIR YES SIR. *does some military-looking things*
A few tips for short ingame loops:
1) Poetry. More specifically, limericks and haikus. Weird tip? Yep. Go listen to a few limericks on the tubeternets, and notice the musical quality of it. How ending on a high note suggest there's more coming, and ending on a lower note suggests the limerick is done. Kind of the same for melodies. If your melody is going to repeat a whole damn lot, it helps the listener know "where" he is in the loop if there are definite start, middle and end point.
2) A-B structure. Find something that resolves in four bars, then add four more bars of something else. The relative minor works very well in such cases.
3) Tempo. The faster the song, the more music you can fit in the same time....obviously. Some ideas are good, but hard to resolve in just a few bars. A faster tempo might be what you need to make your idea loop properly.
4) Keep it simple and sparse. With loops, you usually don't have time/space for an intro. Generally you jump right into the meat of the song. As such, you don't want your song to have 83 layers of epic harmonies because that's way too much for the listener to grasp right away. Songs with tons of layers tend to build up into complexity, but you don't have that luxury. So, keep it to the minimum the song needs....drums, bass, chord, lead. Only add to that formula if there really is something missing.
5) Similarily, don't try to be too innovative in your chord progressions. People have to "get" what your music is about in a very short time. Classic been-there-done-that progressions work best for this. Don't give me none of that artistic fucking bullshit about expressing your fucking feelings. You're on a fucking gameboy making fucking loops for a fucking game. If you want feeling, go paint a vase or something.
6) Learn about tension. You want a strong tension to build by the end of your loop. One that screams the need to resolve back to your home chord. Dom7th chords work wonders for this. Learn to use the leading tone in your melodies too (google it). If you build up enough tension in your chords and melody, then it doesn't feel like a loop because every bit of you wants the damn song to resolve back to the root chord. Powerful weapon in your arsenal.
edit: Oh yes and... you're shooting for at least three complete loops per day. Anything under that, you're overthinking it. A lot of these songs will be of dubious quality and that is NOT a problem. Build yourself a library of looping songs so that when you're ready to include music in your stuff, you can pick the best ones out. For Ironfist, I composed 55 loops and 11 were selected for the final product. Other contracts I had in the past had a similar ratio of composed-to-selected. It's normal. You didn't waste 44 loops, you made sure the 11 selected one were the best you could do.
Last edited by n00bstar (Mar 11, 2015 8:23 pm)
I once spent 8 hours IN 4 bars.
At the same time?
Seriously, though, there are plenty of ways to avoid playing the same exact thing twice, just avoid simply playing the same exact thing twice. You could repeat on another instrument, with another instrument, in a different key, a slightly new rhythm...
Last edited by chunter (Mar 11, 2015 10:19 pm)
Reharmonizing and changing the form of your melodies can help you stretch material a bunch without sounding too repetitive, and like others mentioned, passing lines between different voices works well too.
Try seeing if you can fit your melody over a different set of chords, or maybe start the melody on the dominant rather than the tonic!