Looking for feedback? I know I am

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4 comments, last by Andrew Quizon 8 years, 9 months ago

Hi guys,

When you spend the majority of your time developing yourself as a composer and musician, it starts to become difficult to determine whether you're actually improving or going around in circles, especially in a subjective field like music (or anything creative for that matter).

So that being the case I'm going to post a link to my portfolio on soundcloud (http://soundcloud.com/quizon/sets/soundtracks) and I'd really love it if you were to have a listen to some tracks and hit me up with any feedback that you can muster, either as posts here or as comments on soundcloud, and I suggest if you're another budding composer looking for feedback to do the same with your own portfolio in a post below.

I get a semi looking at other peoples compositions and works but I don't have the soundcloud prowess to filter through all of the chart remixes and major motion picture soundtracks that come up as search results.

I'm kind of hoping to get a sweet response here, hopefully we can all help each other out a bit

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Quoozie! Awesome songs, great job!

One thing I did notice was that a lot of the tunes are a bit soft on the high end in regards to EQ, making them sound a touch woofy. That can easily be changed in the mastering phase though.

And also there's quite a contrast between the vibe and approach to each of the songs, which may make it more difficult for the budding gamedev to see if you're right for his project, but at the same time demonstrates versatility, so I'm not sure if you'd want to be more targeted and specific in that case. Maybe we'll leave that for other people to comment on?

But other than that, way to write! You keep at it, tiger

Wow! Such advice! Thanks Quoozie, you're the greatest.

Here's a composer I just found via the interwebs:

https://soundcloud.com/adamspeck

Refreshing, interesting, feels, winning.

Don't spam the board, please.

If people are interested in your topic, they'll respond. Otherwise, please just let it be.

Nathan Madsen
Nate (AT) MadsenStudios (DOT) Com
Composer-Sound Designer
Madsen Studios
Austin, TX

All your music cues are written like progressive dance music, Michaels Cane is probably the first one that doesn't feel too repetitive. You have appealing ideas from time to time, but the repetition is working against you.

If you're really stuck on the idea of repeating yourself, take a listen to the minimalist masters, listen to how they use accent modulation or shift the perceived beats when they add elements. For example, take a listen to Philip Glass's Morning Passages from The Hours--repetitive but shifting/modulating tonally and rhythmically. Check out Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians for true, ever evolving repetition.

The other thing I noticed was the lack of modulation or movement in most of your synth sounds--aside from a filter applied to a drum groove in one track, this leaves most of your synth work kind of flat.

Generally, your electronic sounds are treated like samples, they all seem to have varying and disparate audio qualities--none of them quite fit in together--and minimal effort seems to have gone into mixing them. If you're really adamant in utilizing that kind of sound, check out early Amon Tobin (maybe not too early, like Out From Out Where) and if you want to start getting serious about learning how to actually use a synth, then you'll want to start learning synthesis properly--then you can check out later Amon Tobin, like Isam or just about anything from Dave Tipper (I think Dave Tipper is far more appealing than Isam, but there's some really cool sound design in Isam).

Good luck.

- [email=dan@musicianeer.com]Dan Reynolds[/email] (Composer|Music Implementer)
www.musicianeer.com

Thanks Dan, I appreciate the feedback!

It'll be good to hear some mixing inspirado.

Edit: Just downloaded some albums. You're a good man, Dan

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