I'm terrible at this.

[GraVeu]

I've had LMMS for around 2 weeks now and I am not improving in the slightest, all the "songs" I make sound the exact same, just a bunch of notes smushed together. Nothing I do changes how the songs sound. I've tried to develop some knowledge in music theory and apply it here, but to no avail. Everything sounds horrible. Does anybody have any resources for developing better sounding music in LMMS? When I try using the Triple Oscillator to make songs, I change the overall sound of it using the mixers and knobs, which makes the triple oscillator sound nicer, but my music still sounds terrible. I don't know how some people come up with the notes that they do and how they know where to place them.

[ac220]

I'm not so good at this thing myself yet, but I experimented with various kinds of music on and off for a while now, and so here are my two pennies...

If all you have is 2 weeks with no any prior experience, you're expecting results too early.

Seriously, the biggest secret in learning anything music-related is just hanging in there and believing in yourself. It takes time to develop the basics, a few months at the very least. You just keep doing it, for however long it takes, and one day... Well, you're not so horrible. Then, after a while longer you 're actually quite solid, and it no longer takes you months to actually learn new things, and you don't really understand what all that fuss was all about... Then you run into a wall again, and just keep doing it anyway...

It's a bit easier with electronic music, since you don't need any physical skills right away, but you still need to develop your perception and intuitive understanding of what works and what doesn't.

The theory is very useful, even essential, but it's a guide, not a prescription. You can do something that's theoretically sound, like trying to use a popular progression, bu you really need an instinct for those things (developed through practice and listening) for the theory to truly make sense.

[musikbear]

I've had LMMS for around 2 weeks now

Welcome to the forum GraVeu! Here are all our important links:
http://lmms.io/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4740
-And a few rules for Avatars, signatures, posting and using the right sub-forum :)

all the "songs" I make sound the exact same
notes smushed together

Ok, open an account on soundcloud and let us listen

I've tried to develop some knowledge in music theory

That is first step! Knowing about scales and keeping to the scale. is crucial!

Everything sounds horrible.

Ok, but lets hear something anyway, then we can better give you some advise

Does anybody have any resources for developing better sounding music in LMMS?

I would say that you are looking at it right now :)

I don't know how some people come up with the notes that they do and how they know where to place them

But have you studied the demo-songs?
There are a lot of songs shipped with lmms, if you can find one that is similar to the type of songs you like, then start there.

In respect to learning lmms
Perhaps my LMMS rookie-guide can interest you? Link in signature.
The whole channel with almost 100 videos, are dedicated to teaching lmms, trick tips and normal usage. You are also most welcome to ask for a tutorial in something specific

[Etorna_Z]

Yes, welcome to the LMMS community, GraVeu!

Ac220 is right. You are expecting results WAY too early. I started fiddling around with LMMS a year-ish ago, and in the past three months I've actually started sounding legit. You know what that means? It took me over eight months before I was able to create good music.
You're progressing fine, my friend, just remember to keep at it and learn as much as possible in order to progress faster. Watch tutorials, read articles, all that jazz.

[ac220]

Musikbear mentioned sample songs... It's a good idea, as is just watching other people making melodies in YouTube tutorials, etc. Even if they're not in LMMS.

Another interesting thing to do is to look up some iconic licks everyone knows (especially those not from exactly "your kind" of music) and try to make some bare-bones re-creation in LMMS and figure out just how it works theoretically.

Say, "Sunrise" (aka "that ultra-bombastic piece from 2001:The Space Odissey everyone parodies") At its bare bones level, its first few bars are something like this:

(It was thrown together in about 10 minutes, 5 of which were spent Googling, so it's not a very faithful re-creation, there's no drums in it, and the length of notes is wrong, but it's enough to see what's going on there)

we go up first by a fifth, then by a fourth (ending on the C an octave higher) then it briefly turns into a chord and then there's unusual chord change that creates the final "ta-da" (when the same thing with the chords reversed) Now, the fourth and the fifth are the most "powerful" (for lack of a better word) intervals in a scale, and we go up, so we get that "epic" effect. (also, if you ever need to remember how notes a fifth apart sound like, either this or Star Wars opening theme are good references.) Don't over-use this though, this song became a parody-fodder for a reason. (ADD2: then again, don't neglect it either. Most popular chord progressions are things like I-IV-V-I or I-V-IV-I... And as just the numerals of the chords suggest, there are plenty of fourths and fifths there.)

The final "ta-da"s actually use a note not in the scale, this works because it's actually relatively short, and surrounded by notes in the scale. It also makes sense (it changes the chord from C to Cm. ADD: And, come to think of it, that little half-step is a variant of the principle that makes chord progressions to actually "progress," though it's done by different means.)

Another fun one and analysable with even beginners theory is intro to "Smoke on the Water," aka "guitar shop salesguy's nightmare" Everybody plays it. Everybody. Usually badly.
I tried to re-do it in LMMS, but honestly, even those guitar-shop performances sound better.

What it is is basically an arpeggio of a G major chord, with a brief ornament, (G-B-D, G,B,E-D,G,B,D,B,G) played at the same time as the same arpeggio of the lower D chord, so all notes played at the same time are the fourth apart. Which also makes it a kind of a progression of inverted power chords... And all notes played are in the G major scale.

So, it's again very basic things: the scale, the major chord and the fourth that make this riff tick. And the sense of timing, which as I just discovered, just doesn't quite translate from the guitar to the piano roll...

[musikbear]

Say, "Sunrise" (aka "that ultra-bombastic piece from 2001:The Space Odissey everyone parodies")

Mmmmmm... That is actually "Richard Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFPwm0e_K98

The most pretentious usage of this, was by Elvis Presley, who had this piece as his own entrance for his LasVegas show.. :o

we go up first by a fifth, then by a fourth (ending on the C an octave higher) then it briefly turns into a chord and then there's unusual chord

ac220 you are strong in music-theory, great insights there, but you could explain those terms:)

[ac220]

Say, "Sunrise" (aka "that ultra-bombastic piece from 2001:The Space Odissey everyone parodies")

Mmmmmm... That is actually "Richard Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFPwm0e_K98

Well, I didn't want people to be REALLY scared. And the first part/overture (used in the film) is called "Sunrise."

ADD: And a bit of a warning about the whole thing. Seriously digging into that piece and late nineteenth century classics in general, with all its symbolism and leitmotifs and "what in the world is it even" chords (that symbolise something) can be either great fun or the most painful experience ever, depending on your temperament.

As for term explanations, I guess I assumed whatever theory the OP already learned would cover things like note s, scales intervals and basic chords and didn't want to write a novel... Although some things I mention later, like inversions are probably worth some explanation...

Basically, an inversion is a chord played with some or all non-base notes in a lower octave. (So, if you play, say, a C chord as C4+G4+E4 in its standard, "canonical form" an inverted C would be C4+G3+E3, or C4+G4+E3 and so on. It's still a C chord for theoretical purposes, but it may be easier to play or sound better in your piece.

An arpeggio is the chord broken up into its notes and played one after another instead of all at once. It's actually a nice way to get melodic ideas, music is full of arpeggio-like melodies once you start looking. You can change the length, the order, or even play the same note twice to vary it up.

Power chord is basically a standard chord with just the base and the "top," the 5th. No middle note. It's an interesting thing, if you ever tried to play rock/metal etc it's full of them, but they aren't very much discussed in classic theory. [hour-long excursion into historical reasons why] The short of it is that they sound better on highly-distorted guitars than standard chords, but kind of unsophisticated and boring with the instruments orchestras use. With electronic music, doubling up your melody a fourth below or a fifth above, like in that SotW riff can add more well... "power" to it or it may sound actually horrible, or anything in between, but it's always something to try.

[GraVeu]

Hi everyone, thanks for all the replies! I'm just going to make a general statement addressing what everyone has said so far.

Now I get that I shouldn't expect massive results in two weeks, but I'm not progressing, at all. I'm still in the same place I was before I decided to read some theory and other articles. I don't know how/where to begin progressing. I've looked at the sample songs, but again, how they were created and why they work the way they do boggles my mind, as great as they are to look at, its basically like trying to learn a new language by staring at the letters.

The music theory I do know is all very basic: Scales and what chords are. I do not know what progressions are, nor do I know how to use them properly. LMMS has a few chord presets but every time I just play them without anything else it sounds terrible. I don't know anything else about music or music theory.

Thanks for all the replies (I hope you're notified of this one).

[GraVeu]

I've had LMMS for around 2 weeks now

Welcome to the forum GraVeu! Here are all our important links:
http://lmms.io/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4740
-And a few rules for Avatars, signatures, posting and using the right sub-forum

all the "songs" I make sound the exact same
notes smushed together

Ok, open an account on soundcloud and let us listen

I've tried to develop some knowledge in music theory

That is first step! Knowing about scales and keeping to the scale. is crucial!

Everything sounds horrible.

Ok, but lets hear something anyway, then we can better give you some advise

Does anybody have any resources for developing better sounding music in LMMS?

I would say that you are looking at it right now

I don't know how some people come up with the notes that they do and how they know where to place them
But have you studied the demo-songs?
There are a lot of songs shipped with lmms, if you can find one that is similar to the type of songs you like, then start there.

In respect to learning lmms
Perhaps my LMMS rookie-guide can interest you? Link in signature.
The whole channel with almost 100 videos, are dedicated to teaching lmms, trick tips and normal usage. You are also most welcome to ask for a tutorial in something specific

Thanks for the welcome! I've been browsing the forums for a while and have seen your youtube channel, thanks for posting those videos!

[ac220]

Hi everyone, thanks for all the replies! I'm just going to make a general statement addressing what everyone has said so far.

Now I get that I shouldn't expect massive results in two weeks, but I'm not progressing, at all. I'm still in the same place I was before I decided to read some theory and other articles. I don't know how/where to begin progressing. I've looked at the sample songs, but again, how they were created and why they work the way they do boggles my mind, as great as they are to look at, its basically like trying to learn a new language by staring at the letters.

The music theory I do know is all very basic: Scales and what chords are. I do not know what progressions are, nor do I know how to use them properly. LMMS has a few chord presets but every time I just play them without anything else it sounds terrible. I don't know anything else about music or music theory.

Thanks for all the replies (I hope you're notified of this one).

Well, I can't say just what the right level of progress for a total newbie would be after 2 weeks... But whatever it is, you still are probably too hard on yourself.

As for chords and progressions, there are several ways to understand and use them, here's one way to look at them based on piano roll, which represents it in a very visual way...

Basically a progression is an arrangement of chords that just flow smoothly into each other, like this:



That's what called an I-IV-V-I progression because we build a chord on the first, fourth, fifth and the first note again.(also note that I didn't use the TripleOsc for this, I don't like how it sounds with chords.)
You heard things like that before.

Notice that while you'd think jumping up by fourth and then up to the fifth should have created those large, bombastic jumps from the Sunrise, it actually doesn't. The chords flow, but they flow very smoothly. Here's why:


By doing a few inversions we see that lots of notes are actually shared between all the chords, but there are those gentle half-step jumps up then down. (although it doesn't quite work for the V chord.)

So, you get the best of both worlds, the sense of motion, but not too much.

Here's another one: (you heard it a gajillion times...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ )

Canonical:
EDIT: Made a stupid error in the first set of pics, too late here... I think this is finally the correct way of doing this.

Inverted:
EDIT: Made a stupid error, too late here. I think this is finally the correct way of doing this.


Now, there is one thing different in this one, the sixth note can't build a major chord in a major scale, so we use a minor instead: that's why it's I V vi IV. Not capitalising the Roman numeral means a minor chord. But otherwise, you see the same "flow" to it with those same shared notes and half-steps.

By using more advanced chords and concepts (7 and 9 chords, sus chords, etc, you can further jazz things up (Jazz has very advanced harmonies and progressions, more advanced than most classics, in fact)

12tone has more old-school and formal explanation of all this: It's heavily based on classical theory, the kind you'd get in a college textbook (which often reads like "How to write a song that would top the King James' Courte's Top 40 Danse Hittes," but that's where lots of chord lore came from... So, if you want to do some of those more advanced things, it's worth looking into.)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTUtqc ... sadh6AOx5w

I put the chord notes as those whole (one-bar) notes strictly on top of each other for clarity, but in actual music all kinds of stuff might be done to them. Chord roots (base notes) double up as the basis of the bassline, and the singer (if there is a singer) sings a melody featuring lots of chord notes (some departures are OK) and sometimes (arpeggiated) chords are the melody, and so on.