IAMERROR.
Offline
brighton

hi guys, basically for my final uni project i've been given control over anything i want and I've chosen to write a chiptune EP mainly using LSDJ and possibly mssiah, if i can find a cheap and well working c64....

what I'm asking for, very kindly, is some genuine constructive criticism and feedback on each track i post.

the feedback will go towards the written aspect of my project to show, firstly, the quality of my work and, secondly, that there is a large and ever growing community dedicated to the genre.

i only ask of this as there is certain criteria needed to pass this assignment and I've strongly explained this genre to the class and would love for more people to appreciate the wonders of chiptune, as i know its not everyones cup of tea...

i will thank everyone who is kind enough to participate in advance and whenever i can and i look forward to all feedback given.

also, i haven't finished any tracks yet but here is a link to my soundcloud where there are a few work in progresses...(any track labeled 'chiptune' will be going towards the project...you can ignore the other tracks unless you want to have a listen?)
http://soundcloud.com/i-am-error-1

once again, thanks for reading and thanks for any feedback. its really appreciated!

x

Sycamore Drive
Offline
East Kilbride, Scotland

1. Chiptune is NOT a genre, it's a medium for creating music in a range of styles. Stop calling it a genre.
2. What kind of university course is this? Composition? Production? What exactly do you need feedback on?

I've had a listen to your style, and it is repetitive to the point of actually becoming quite irritating. You've got some good ideas, but you need to squeeze in many more of them per song. You don't really seem to give a lot of consideration to writing a good, memorable melodic line. I listened to all of the songs on your soundcloud and I can't recall or hum a single melody from them. The most promising in that respect is In Her Arms, although that suffers from the same problem of being quite repetitive and having a really played out octave bassline. It sounds like you really need to work harder, and to expose yourself to more progressive chiptune styles in order to get inspired. If you're a composition major, think of how these songs would sound played with any other instruments (in my opinion, not very interesting). Right now, it just sounds gimmicky.

This might not be what you wanted to hear, but I think it will help.

ChipsChallengeBand
Offline
Rochester, NY
Sycamore Drive wrote:

1. Chiptune is NOT a genre, it's a medium for creating music in a range of styles. Stop calling it a genre.

As much as I agree with this, I also think that in the case of chiptunes, the medium is the message...  fucking bullshit if you ask me but you can't deny the fact that those sounds can change people's perceptions of the actual composition.  Not really the thread for this though.

SO!  I'm not hearing any hooks.  Why do I care about these songs?  You've gotta hook them right away.  White people love lyrics they can relate to, so for any instrumental music, they have to work extra hard to be memorable.  And if you're making music with gameboys or whatever, fucking forget it.  You should clearly define some rhythm section (which you do, to a certain extent, but it's not very interesting) and then have your lead play with it.  Then, switch it up; maybe you can use some call and response, or change the rhythm "strum" pattern, idfk

I agree with Sycamore Bro in that you should listen to more progressive shit, but I would go a step further and listen deeply to music that doesn't use gameboys, and then go a step furtherer and listen to musicians or bands you've never listened to before.  There are so many different musical genres to steal from!

also I have no idea what I'm talking about, I listened to 3 of your labeled chiptune tracks and you need to get to work if this is your final project for a class or something

EDIT: And you'll probably get better criticism if you actually finish some tracks.

Last edited by ChipsChallengeBand (Mar 29, 2012 3:18 am)

VCMG
Offline
California

Your tracks have some real potential to be awesome, but like the people above me have said, you squander that potential by not changing it up enough to keep the listener's attention. Try adding a new section every so often, like maybe after 32 bars of the original idea you go to a chorus or something that's different but not too much to feel disjointed. Not saying that you need to pack a 3-minute song with like, 6 different sections or something, though. Kraftwerk has some songs that are pretty repetitive in comparison to other artists's songs and have only like, 2 or 3 parts to them, but they know to change it up right before it becomes repetitive and boring.

Edit: Show No Mercy is probably the best of the songs you have on your Soundcloud. All that I'd say for that particular song is extend that section with the growly bassline right before the chorus-y part and turn it into a full section so you have a different chord progression besides the C# E B C# that runs through most of the song.

Last edited by VCMG (Mar 29, 2012 3:44 am)

bryface
Offline
vancouver, canada

Legitimate question: what are you required to do for your assignment?

Is this a music course where you have to submit music that you've written?  if so, i think you should consider more heavily the compositional aspects of your pieces.  Is the song interesting simply because you've categorized it as chipmusic?  or because you were able to convey complex musical concepts that are more universal, like attention to melody, harmony, rhythm and counterpoint?

Is your assignment one in which your goal is to educate your professors and class about chipmusic?  Then by submitting your own music, you might be missing the point (unless you are supremely confident that your songs represent some of the best that chip as an artform has to offer). maybe it's a better idea to curate some songs by other artists that together demonstrate the sophistication and stylistic variety of chipmusic as a medium.

I just want you to do well in your assignment smile  and also that you do your best not to misrepresent the artform and the community...  it would be a shame if your class was left with the impression that chipmusic is not mindblowing.

IAMERROR.
Offline
brighton

right well i should have said but im studying music production so, to be completely honest, composition is not actually the main focus. dont get me wrong it still plays a part in the marking. i understand my music is very repetitive and dont get me wrong im as eclectic at the next person (not trying to sound pretentious) so i really need to work on that.

i believe this style of music can be defined as a genre and am trying to explain this in the writing part of my assignment. by simply saying its a means of writing music completely belittles every other style of music. its like saying 'im not writing rock music, im simply using a guitar as a means of writing music.' chiptune is just a word, but it explains the style of music i and we all produce. take dubstep for example, its broken down into a fusion between the genres dub and electro but we call it dubstep because of its defining sound. chiptune is similar as we can know its a fusion between electro and, most of the time or in my case, dance music but we can explain it in one word because of its defining sound.

Jellica
Offline
England

Oh.

Last edited by Jellica (Mar 29, 2012 11:41 am)

pk
Offline
rochester
IAMERROR. wrote:

chiptune is similar as we can know its a fusion between electro and, most of the time or in my case, dance music but we can explain it in one word because of its defining sound.

hardly. i've heard dubstep and rock made with gameboys (two magnificently differing genres), post-rock and dance music made with nintendos, heavy industrial made with an amiga... shall i go on? i agree chiptune is a good catch-all phrase for music made with old sound chips. however:

chiptune: a set of tools, not a genre. a sound chip is a synthesizer. end of story. synthesizers get used for all sorts of different genres. if you took the time to listen to the vast amounts of well-made chip music out there, you'd realize this.

also, i just wanna leave this karl wisdom here again.

ChipsChallengeBand wrote:

White people love lyrics they can relate to

Last edited by pk (Mar 29, 2012 12:55 pm)

goto80
Offline
CHIPTUNE

so you make music with chiptune?

pk
Offline
rochester

yes

ChipsChallengeBand
Offline
Rochester, NY
IAMERROR. wrote:

by simply saying its a means of writing music completely belittles every other style of music. its like saying 'im not writing rock music, im simply using a guitar as a means of writing music.'

but uhhhhhh

that's exactly why guitars and keyboards are so common, because it's easy to write any kind of music with them

I use my guitar to write dubstep all the time, no lie

and then I track it with LSDJ so expect my chipstep album this summer

BR1GHT PR1MATE
Offline
BOSTON

well, if it's for a production class... will you be focusing on the sound engineering aspects? like, how to mix, compress, EQ, limit, etc, a chip track? because that might be cool

nickmaynard
Offline
rochester, ny

is this final for the university of phoenix?

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire
nickmaynard wrote:

is this final for the university of phoenix?

wink
Nice.

kineticturtle
Offline
Matthew Joseph Payne

IAMERROR, there is so much wrong with your basic premise that I don't even know where to start. You seem to have very little understanding of chiptune and this community. It's scary to think how many people present what we do as "school projects" without even saying anything here.

Your descriptions of what chiptune is and is not do not encompass a single note of any music that I, for one, have made that I call chiptune. Please, for everyone's sake, take our advice and do more research, listen to more music and then reconsider your project.

bigchip
Offline
UK

Someone (Dot.AY i think) wrote a good paper on chip tunes and the community around it several years ago that several of us took part in in the way of interviews.

I wouldn't say chip tune was a genre but more of a description of method/ sound. I mean allot of what i made is reggae so...