LMMS • Forums

it concerns the second half of this

>>>> https://audiomack.com/newtoon-1/song/80 ... chain-v3-1

Lol... that .gif!

Overall I like the concept of the song, but I would offer a few minor things to take into consideration. I listened to the track first on my desktop, which has decent speakers. Then, just to make sure it wasn't just that speaker setup, I listened in high quality and mid quality headphones. The little bit of criticism I have applies to all 3 setups:

I immediately noticed the volume of some of the percussion instruments was a little too loud. I'm not totally sure what instruments they are, but maybe a hi hat, triangle, and wooden blocks? (Sorry, I'm really terrible at identifying perc instruments!) Anyway, the rhythm and mix of the percussion sounds a lot like one of the preset rhythms on an 80's/90's keyboard, which is totally fine if you're going for that kind of nostalgic feeling... it's just a bit too loud in the volume department. Maybe let it stay strong in the beginning and when you have big transitions, but then let it fade to the background a little bit so the rest of the song can stand out. The sudden key change at ~27 seconds felt pretty abrupt and without any repetition it just feels kind of out of place. And the new theme you bring in at about 1:10 feels like it is out of sync with the foundational beat of the song. It sounds like it is lagging behind the beat, like hearing two songs superimposed over each other that aren't a perfect match. It would sound a lot better if it felt more cohesive.

In general, your song has a good vibe and interesting changes. I thought the transition at ~36 seconds was really graceful. Somewhere around 40-45 seconds, I can start to pick up an interesting hint of a different melody hiding in the background, which added a pleasant complexity to the song. But I didn't pick up on that at all during the first 2 times I listened, so maybe it's worth trying to bring it out a bit stronger so it won't stay hidden.

OK, so FIRST of all, a



because this is exactly the type of comment I'm craving when I post a song

Right now, the attempt of this tune was to make the beat stands out. Indeed, since I'm a newbie (around one year experience only), I'm facing some standard difficulties when making songs.
One I noticed quite early and that is quite hard to take care of, is the fact that when you had tracks of different sounds, the volume of it squishes the beat. But, when there's a beat, I want it quite loud, this is my taste and the fact that I'm quite bad at beats creation. One of my future work will be beats mostly. So, I use hundreds of tricks, plugins and arrangements in that regards.

In the "draft" you heard, I was working on making the beat stand out as much as possible (no saturation yet) for the sake of the exercise.

Further to your comment, I lowered the beat so it does not reach its maximum, but I see that it depends with what you hear it. On my laptop, the sound of the beat is far bigger than in my destop PC sound card for instance (and I work on my desktop mostly for CPU load).

Regarding all your other comments, it's very interesting and confirm some of my "doubts" about my style, but sometimes, it's just that I like to be quite "unexpected" (my taste again and I'm the main listener of my tunes ) and not hear what I heard a 1000 times already. Just to give you an example of song, I like this classic "unexpected" https://youtu.be/we0mk_J0zyc?t=164

Besides, I make tunes also to train myself and explore, so I'm aware that the "unexpected" is just translating the fact that I'm exploring sounds and beats and try to patch them together ; I'm a bit like



Again, thank you, I already read your comment 10 times to correct things when it's not too late.

It seems that you and I are possibly around a similar point in our LMMS journey. I've been playing with LMMS for like 6-7 years, but until last winter it was totally sporadic and I went several months between sessions. So for the first, I don't know, 6 years, every minute I spent on LMMS was just arranging notes and adding layers because that was all I really understood. Now I actually have more free time and my passion for making music has exploded, so I'm trying to learn all I can, spending anywhere between 20-80 hours each month in LMMS. But, I'm not great at learning this kind of stuff by reading, so it's taking more time than I wish it did.

Creating music that doesn't fit neatly in a box is an amazing thing. It takes a lot of creative energy, but if it's fuelled by passion, it sometimes seems to flow so naturally. And it takes courage to put it out there, hoping and waiting for useful feedback. I come here and post my songs because IRL friends can't offer the kind of feedback I need in order to grow. If I want useful critique, I must also be able to give in return. It's easier to give useful feedback to those who aren't too far outside your own preferred genres (both those that you create and those that you enjoy listening to!) You took the time to offer feedback on my music first.

Learning to sidechain is on my to-do list. I haven't even tried it yet. I am also not so good in the beats department. My musical "training" was wind instruments. So using a DAW was a foreign language to me when I began my journey... and I still have a LONG way to go before I understand enough to be able to replicate sounds I hear in some of the EDM I enjoy listening to.

I just followed that link you put in your comment! Gotta love Lionel Ritchie.