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Chips & Dip :3

Hey!

So I'm 2 years into the chipscene and it's been a blast. I've learned a lot about various trackers such as Famitracker, Nanoloop, LSDj, and DSN12 (just to name a few). I really REALLY like doing it. But I run into a constant problem, I still haven't developed a definite style.

I want to get to the point where people can listen to my music blindfolded and they can say "Hey that Metatronaut guy did this thing" (even though that will never happen because let's face it, it's chiptune tongue )

CC that I've gotten in the past has essentially told me that my music was a bit lacking in style, and thereby felt more forgettable and like anything anyone else in the chipscene could've made.

I really want to add something different, something that can separate my music from everyone else.

Do you guys have any advice about this, and or do you have any methods about trying to develop a personalized style?

Thanks!
-Sam

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Tacoma, WA

Hmmm... That is a very difficult thing to ask. I guess my best answer would be to just make music that comes naturally. I generally don't think too much about trying to create a very specific style. I don't think I am giving you a very good explanation, so I will use an analogy: music and people is like DNA and people. Every person will listen to music and interpret it in their own unique way and similarly each person will create their own unique music.

Even if you feel like you are only creating music that sounds like artist X or if people say your music sounds like artist Y, that can be a complement to both you and artist X or Y.

As for the CC you have gotten in the past, it is likely that people are commenting on how they don't feel your same emotion in the piece (usually the case). <- I don't really see it though.

I think you are on the right track, just don't try to force anything and all the pieces will fall into place.

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Madriz, Supain

¿Do yoy play in any nonchip act?

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Chips & Dip :3
SuperBustySamuraiMonkey wrote:

¿Do yoy play in any nonchip act?

I'm delving a bit into traditional EDM.

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Toronto, Canada

This is an interesting question, to which I think there is no right answer. Firstly, like what was said, developing your personal style is something that comes naturally. But I am going to argue that your music is already intrinsically laden with your own personal style.

To start off, it is important to define what style means for you. I'm going to assume here that one's musical "style" would be a set of characteristics that is present throughout the majority of one's works. These characteristics could range from melodic phrasing to instrument design or to harmonic use -- but the point here is that these characteristics could be anything and are present often. With such a broad definition of what these characteristics could be (and thus in turn, a broad definition of what musical style could be), I think it is rather hard for one's music to lack style. What I mean by this is that you are probably already injecting your music with little quirks.

Think about how you make your instruments, for example. I'm going to assume that you don't *always* create every instrument in your songs from scratch, but instead have a library of pre-made sounds or 'templates'. From there you would tweak these templates (or maybe you wouldn't) and start using them in your song. Though the sounds would be different, they would still have a sort of distinct "you-ness" to them, because they stem from a common base. Maybe you have a lead that you really like, and use it quite often in your music but with minimal differences. All of this would be an example of your music sharing characteristics, and thus you developing a "Style". I could keep listing other things musicians do, but that would be redundant. I hope you see my point.

It is natural for composers to create shortcuts for themselves. Little go-to things that they put into each of their songs to speed up the composing process. It is these little go-to things that essentially define your style, I believe, and thus since this process is natural, so to is the development of style. Plus, it would seem odd for someone to claim that a musical work lacks style -- I am willing to bet that if anyone were to listen to the entirety of a composer's work in depth, they would start to pick up on the little nuances in their style. So much so that when a new song of theirs were to play, a listener could say: "Hey, that's 'x'!".

Style is all about patterns. Common patterns. You naturally fall into patterns as you compose, and listeners naturally pick up on your unique patterns as they listen to your work. I do not think this is an issue that you should worry about, as I am almost certain that your music already has a definitive Metatronaut style. Unless you're just plagiarizing every single little nuance of some other composer; if you're composing your own music, you have a style. It's there, and it will keep developing.

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Detroit

this is hella subjective and only comes with time and developing new material.  mine didn't start to sparkle until the last 2 years after like... 8 years of doing this

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Detroit

yeah

Last edited by The One Electronic (Jun 22, 2015 4:47 am)

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Atlanta, GA
Delta Centauri wrote:

Think about how you make your instruments, for example. I'm going to assume that you don't *always* create every instrument in your songs from scratch, but instead have a library of pre-made sounds or 'templates'. From there you would tweak these templates (or maybe you wouldn't) and start using them in your song. Though the sounds would be different, they would still have a sort of distinct "you-ness" to them, because they stem from a common base. Maybe you have a lead that you really like, and use it quite often in your music but with minimal differences. All of this would be an example of your music sharing characteristics, and thus you developing a "Style". I could keep listing other things musicians do, but that would be redundant. I hope you see my point.

This. Because this is chiptune everybody sounds the same. It's way harder to break out of the ocean of video game sounding bleep bloop four on the floor and craft your own sound. I would suggest really thinking hard about programming instruments and how you write your music. From working with you and listening to your music I can assure you that you do have your own style, but it can most definitely be refined and improved. Start thinking about how you can seperate youself from the rest of the chiptune artists out there. This may take a long time, but it'll help if you start taking style into account when writing your music.

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Atlanta, GA

I sat in my room with 3 bottles of water and a blunt, 8 hours later I had a style.

... just kidding, it was like 4 straight months of plugging away at my own shortcuts that lead me to make my style a bit more distinct in both sound and flow. I am still in my 2nd year of music -at all- so it has nothing to do with how -long- you've been doing it, just how -specifically- you are going about your self-education.

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Madriz, Supain

I dont wanna open the eternal debate of real instruments vs electronic music debate, but thats probably a starting point. If you just made some edm beats and chiptune, its easy to not develop " a style" because those genres (if chiptune was a genre) are kinda "soulless" by default. Im not saying edm sucks or anything , but if you put some of it into chiptune its just gonna sound "dance chip" like everything does. The most stylistic chiptuners out there come from different backgrounds and blend them into chip, they use their roots as inspiration for the small details, some write their leads like a gliding metal guitar, some write their drums like rock and roll, some made their basses like rap, some use jazz structure, etcetera. If you really wanna develop a style, it just comes by itself with time, you cant force it, but you can help it come sooner. Just open your eras, try different genres, learn a different instrument ( and translate chip into said instrument and viceversa), learn some musical theory ( and if you already know, learn some more) and at some point youll realize youre already there.

But obviously, if you just lay down 4x4 beats and stuff , its just gonna sound like that. Actually, every "good" musician on any genre is always A) a genius in its genre or B) a good mixer of influences


TLDR: make your sound richer by hearing and trying things different from what you already do/know

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Alive and well in fucksville

I dont have the same experience taking my gameboy out in the canoe as i do with a classical guitar. when there are no guitar tabs, then is when ones own style comes out. what do you automatically play that you made up?

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Utah

In Chipmusic, the best way to have your own style is to not use just gameboy smile  Perhaps a more useful suggestion would be to listen to a wide variety of music. Oftentimes, the most interesting artists are the ones who stretch beyond their "genre" to incorporate intriguing elements and instrumentation. Also, the genre is dead.

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Unsubscribe

I do what I want.

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IL, US

anyone who thinks that using chip hardware means that all the music will sound the same really isn't paying attention to the artists i like more... i listen to my entire music library on shuffle usually these days and when a stagediver song comes on, i know it's him... same with minusbaby, unicorn dream attack, ccdm, peter swimm, etc.
if you really want to develop your own style while using chip hardware, its not any harder or easier than it is with other music gear... i personally think it helps to listen to as little chip music as possible, especially on days that you're actively working on writing...

Last edited by e.s.c. (Jun 22, 2015 2:44 pm)

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Milwaukee, WI

@esc: Thanks for the kind words.

@metatronaut: Don't listen to music. Period. Turn off the radio, don't buy vinyl and erase the music off your phone.

Spend a year away from music which isn't yours, ignore the politics of what it is you're using to create and do nothing but write with anything you have. Want to listen to house? Make it. Want to listen to thrash metal? Make it. Want to listen to a 1920's cover of an early 90's era Kenny G anthem as interpreted by a satanist drinking chocolate milk? Make it. The advice might sound a little draconian but trust me when I say it works.

By doing this you get a better understanding of what it is you actually want to make, opposed to what you feel you need to make because of the equipment you're using. You also develop a unique workflow and avoid the trap of outside influence.

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Montreal, Canada