Why not a little feedback?

[HenryDeath]

Hi,

I produce “music” as a hobby, with LMMS mostly. Very few people had listen to it because I didn’t think that anybody would like what I make. But now I think that having some feedback could be useful to me, even if it’s unpleasant critics.

I would qualify my “music” as naive and experimental techno. Those three tracks, may be some good examples of the different styles I make:

Cet amour: a kind of hip-hop instrumental with spoken words.
Trafiquant de drogue: a quite catastrophic attempt to make hardcore techno.
Tartine de rat: a… I can’t even tell!

My Soundcloud where I put most of my productions.
My Youtube channel where I’ll put the next ones because I used all my free upload quota and Soundcloud Pro is too damned expensive! Only one track is there at this time.

You don’t need to be indulgent or even constructive, just be franc! The two things I hate the most is lies and hypocrisy.

2023.11.20: New great hit available! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSMC-iX4LgQ

\o_

[Foggy]

First of all, LOVE the centipede. That's a great photo. Did you take it yourself?

Cet Amour: I like the aesthetic this has going on. Spoken word over chill music almost always makes me happy, and this is really well done. It'd be nice if the words (lyrics?) were clearer in the few places where it gets really quiet and hard to hear, but I also feel like that's part of the aesthetic so I dunno. My French is pretty terrible so I can't really comment further than that, but I like this.

Trafiquant de Drogue: I like the weird electrical noises in the background. The dark vibe is nice. I feel like this doesn't really develop much beyond its initial idea, though. The introduction is good, but it stays the same throughout without doing anything new or really going anywhere, and that's kind of a disappointment.

Tartine de Rat: Okay, this is more like it. Same kind of dark atmosphere, but it's taking the familiar pattern it introduced and keeps bringing in new elements. Really pops off at 5:50, that was a great moment. It's like avant-garde techno, and I really dig it. You're doing some really interesting things with this one.

Hope that's what you were looking for. Overall, I personally like what you're doing. Maybe that's not the compliment I think it is- I listen to a lot of really out-there stuff. But Cet Amour and Tartine de Rat are really good. Trafiquant de Drogue is okay, but kinda samey after a bit and doesn't keep me interested. Good work, though. Keep going!

Yeah, soundcloud's limitations are a real bummer/are stupid. The only way it'd be worth it to get the pro plan is if you're making a decent amount of money with your music, but anybody who's making enough money with their music to make it worth the cost would already have better avenues than soundcloud! Whatever.

[HenryDeath]

Hi,

Thank you for your comments.

On Cet Amour, I really went to far on weird effects on the voice. While it sometime does interesting things, more often it just makes it inaudible and it sucks.
In case you wonder, this is a poem of Jacques Prévert, one of his best imo, English translation here : https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/fr/Pr ... -This_Love
I probably should be ashamed to mutilate it like this, but well, I’m not, I’m lucky

same throughout without doing anything new or really going anywhere,

This is a problem I have on many tracks. I should start by doing 4-5 minutes long track and not 9-10 minutes ones ^^ Having a structure for the whole song definitively is hard to achieve, but absolutely needed.

Have a nice day, and thx again.

PS: And no, I didn’t take the centipede picture. but I have one at home. Seen him three time. Those marvelous insect can live 3 or 4 years so he probably roaming somewhere. I like to think he protects me from flies, acarid, dust mite and such! ^^

[Foggy]

This is a problem I have on many tracks. I should start by doing 4-5 minutes long track and not 9-10 minutes ones ^^ Having a structure for the whole song definitively is hard to achieve, but absolutely needed.

That was something I struggled with a lot when I was starting out in LMMS (I still struggle with it sometimes). One way I got around it was if I felt like a track was getting too monotonous or boring, I'd find a way to shoehorn in some spoken word samples to break it up a little. It feels like a cheap way to do it sometimes, but I've found that it's a good way to introduce structure into a tune that might not have it on its own ( Here's an example https://soundcloud.com/robotsarepeoplet ... al_sharing ). I put the voice samples in, find it doesn't fit perfectly and end up making changes to the music to make it work.

I love house centipedes... the last place I lived had a couple in the basement, and they were like ghosts.

[HenryDeath]

Very nice song. I find the main synth a bit harsh compared to the other part of the song, but not so much anyway, I think I have to find something to criticize, this is why… ^^

That’s a good method indeed I’d never considered it like this but you’re right, the voice leads you to modify the music so it fit better.
I’m not fond of using a voice sample all along the track but I like to put some, in addition to the sound diversity it brings, that’s also a way to express some ideas in an electronic music track which has no lyrics.
I have the following sentence in my head since I stumble upon it searching for an interesting piece of speech for https://soundcloud.com/m4r0t/peace-for-menkind , at the very end of the track : “Breakthroughs are available for those who can remove one of the truth protective layers, there are places to go, beyond belief.”

I keep the origin for myself for now (should not be very hard to find I guess) but it’s very related to the other voice sample in the middle of the track which says : “We came in peace for all mankind, I think this is precisely what we need.”

Another good thing is that it permited me to have a regular, not totally cryptic if isn’t totally random, title for the track, for once… ^^

I used a voice sample all along "Libertat y pescado" but there it’s must as a kind of noise, than an intelligible speech.

[Foggy]

Yeah, I feel like using vocal samples all throughout is kind of cheap sometimes. "A Waking Dream" was really the first time I tried it and I probably overdid it. I've got another song "Escalator" where I actually came up with the title first, and then it reminded me of a Mitch Hedberg joke about escalators so I put a bunch of samples of him in there and mixed it up to try and create new sentences. Honestly the tune was probably fine without them but I thought the matchup was funny enough that I couldn't help myself. I'm still kind of developing my skills with samples... I got really into Severed Heads a few years ago, and they did a lot of crazy stuff with sampling. I've been taking a lot of inspiration from them and trying to develop some of my own techniques with the Audio File Processor in LMMS. It's surprisingly versatile.

I really liked Peace for All Menkind, your use of spoken samples was really good. Minimal, but gets the point across. Kinda reminds me of a trance song, except deeper. Libertat y pescado kinda makes me think of Aphex Twin. Very cool track!

I thought of this track while writing my response. Thought you might enjoy it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orr2ZqtijCQ