Strawzzboy64
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Hey guys, new member here. I am creating one song per week and releasing each on soundcloud every Friday, with a pixel art image along side each. I'm doing this for practice, to get myself used to creating songs on a regular basis. (I started doing this not too long ago)

Anyway, these songs are very "gamey" meaning most of them are meant to loop. I'm trying to make the songs catchy (but not annoyingly so) by having a melodic focus, or some kind of rhythmic "hook". To avoid being annoying, I decided to give each song at least an A and B section, if not more, although there are exceptions.

I recommend listening from the Poisoned Heart set upwards, as these are my most recent songs that I have been creating once per week. The ones before that were made pretty long ago anyway.

Lastly, these songs are made through the program GXSCC, which converts midis into chiptune, although I would like to pick up Famitracker sometime.

https://soundcloud.com/strawzzboy64

my.Explosion
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Finland

Sounds pretty catchy to me smile It's totally possible to whistle them, which is usually a good indication that it's a catchy tune. Now they're not ear worms. (which is good.)

They're varied (both during a song and from song to song), nice grooves, mixing sounds good. I like! big_smile Keep it up!

Strawzzboy64
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Thanks, I meant to mention too that I was also going for having the songs vary from each other, as part of the challenge of song writing, so I'm glad to hear that came across.

garvalf
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France

it's nice. And a good challenge you're working on!

I didn't know GXSCC, it sounds great. Famitracker is a very good tool too, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. It's interesting also to learn to use different tools / trackers, it helps creativity.

Last edited by garvalf (May 29, 2015 8:56 pm)

Asquire
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East Coast, USA

I enjoyed them.

SketchMan3
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NC in the US of America

As long as you're composing the MIDI files yourself, GXSCC is okay...

error
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Really digging most of this stuff! I wouldn't sell short some of the earlier tunes, there is some good stuff back there. It certainly is "gamey", but i tend to to prefer it that way. I guess this is more encouragement than constructive criticism, but I signed up for soundcloud for the first time just so I could have easier access to some of those songs you posted. Some of the more boss battle/peril sections do get a bit repetitive in the slow build, like rise of the ravebots, but I get what you're going for.

Strawzzboy64
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Thanks for the kind words guys! Got a new song today.

https://soundcloud.com/strawzzboy64/misty-forest

This song has a "repeating build" form to it, where each time the initial line is repeated, a new instrument is added, until the loop.

@Sketchman3 yeah I'm composing the midis myself. I specifically make them to be converted too, meaning the actual midis end up sounding weird by themselves. I've even got a whole set up file with the instruments already set in place.

@error didn't really mean to undersell them, I was more just trying to say they're seperate from my current project. Yeah Rise of the Ravebots was definitely an experiment with phrases. I imagined the song "as if it was made by robots" I wanted it to sound "technically made" and "somewhat off." I repeated the phrases so instead of 8 measures, they're 12 measures long. It's basically padding, for better or worse, hahah.

By the way, do you guys think it's fine to post new songs like this? Posting from the soundcloud every friday, I mean. I think at this stage I would really just be sharing the songs here. I'm still looking for any feedback, but I guess I'm not sure what to really ask for regarding criticism (besides whether the songs/instruments sound repetitive/annoying or not).

Strawzzboy64
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https://soundcloud.com/strawzzboy64/gentle-spirit

Got a new song today. It's meant to have a "mystical" sound to it, and is inspired by a song in the Oracle of Ages/Seasons games. I'm still posting a song every Friday, although I missed a couple of dates.

I think I'll start uploading songs to this site as well. Do I need to link to this thread when I post a song here? I would like to keep this thread for general feedback.

ecce homo
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I'm super into your style. Gentle Spirit is an excellent track! It has lots of little changes that make it great! I think the bass pooling may be a bit when some of the chords are sustaining but It is catchy and interesting!

Hall of Mirrors has a great vibe, and though I love the delay sound I think the melody gets a bit lost or over-ambitious. The transition out of it is superb though.

Canonball Tower is a super catchy tune. I love the chord changes in the B part, but I'd experiment with maybe doing it once the first time around, then do it twice with the high melody part.

No Looking Back has a great creepy feel and conveys paranoia or creeping dread very well. It's not particularly catchy but it really will work for videogame background music.

I like that Cragnor Cave has a bass driven melody, and it conveys a locale well. Not my favorite track though.

Beach Laze is killin' it.

So is Misty Forest.

Elder Guardian is kind of generic boss music and doesn't feel particularly inspired, though it's executed well.

Rise of the Ravebots has a great rhythm track and intro. That ascending part gets a bit grating though... it is satisfying when the bass comes in.

Red Red Desert may be the gem here. Maybe experiment with slowing it down a tiny bit though.

Wind meadows stage has a really fun groove but the melody is a little lacking.

I'm into Technic Fortress but it feels a little cluttered at times with overlapping lines.

The Jason Valor Theme is just about perfect! Love this short loop.

Anyway that's all I have time for right now. What is your composition background? Keep writing and keep focusing on melody because you have a real ability and could develop that into something great!

sandneil
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these rule

Strawzzboy64
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Thanks for the feedback, glad you guys are liking the tunes. I don't have any formal composition training, I basically fell in love with music from a young age, (mostly thanks to video game tunes from the NES era and on).

However, I did develop my musical ear thanks to NES/SNES emulators. It turned out I could disable channels, so I would sit there listening to each voice individually and tried to play each on a small, cheap keyboard, or transcribe the songs onto a program. Eventually, I just started making my own. I have also taken both music performance and music theory classes in community college, just not an "actual" composition class, yet.

marcb0t
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Strawzzboy64 wrote:

Thanks for the feedback, glad you guys are liking the tunes. I don't have any formal composition training, I basically fell in love with music from a young age, (mostly thanks to video game tunes from the NES era and on).

However, I did develop my musical ear thanks to NES/SNES emulators. It turned out I could disable channels, so I would sit there listening to each voice individually and tried to play each on a small, cheap keyboard, or transcribe the songs onto a program. Eventually, I just started making my own. I have also taken both music performance and music theory classes in community college, just not an "actual" composition class, yet.

Hey,

I like how thematic and how much variety is in your music. Even though not all of it sticks within NES limits, the composition is very solid and creative. And I appreciate how in your later tracks you are taking special effort to simulate the chip limits.

As I mentioned in one of my SoundCloud comments, you would probably have a blast using Famitracker. Not to mention being able to convert your song easily into an NES compatible format so you can play your track on a real NES. Then you get into rapid arpegio chords and some crazy magic tricks with the 1-bit sample channel, and, well, you get the idea smile

There is a way you can change the volume of the triangle channel up to 50%. But it will also bring down the average volume of the noise channel, and is not very smooth for some volume effects. I used this technique in one of my NES tunes, but designers were not intended to change the volume of the Triangle channel. Fun trick, though, using a special setting of the sample channel.

I'm a Genesis composer mainly, but I might want to dive back into NES production at some point.

herr_prof
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Rip off Marvin Gaye

Strawzzboy64
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@marcb0t thanks for the comments! Yeah I love melodies and motif themes. A lot of these songs I imagine as being from "seperate games" but if I had other songs from one of those games, I would probably make arrangements of the melodies. I did do that actually for the "Jason Valor theme", remixing it in "Poisoned Heart." I imagined it as a version where you fight Jason Valor himself, but probably towards the end of the game or something.

Anyway, I still plan on getting into famitracker. I have the program downloaded, I just haven't really gotten around to it yet. At least right now it looks a little complicated, but I think I know how it generally works, I once used a similar program that ran on a gameboy emulator, anyway. Mostly I just have a pretty comfortable set up for making songs, so I would have to transition to famitracker slowly. It does seem a little bit daunting, but I'm also excited because I'm pretty sure I can get more variety of sounds from it, and do tricks like portamentos and whatnot. It looks like there's a good amount of control over them.

Strawzzboy64
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https://soundcloud.com/strawzzboy64/bonus-theme

Got a new song today. This time it's an arrangement.