If this ... feature, function?...  is added to the site, I really hope to see something positive and not separating. BT started giving out homework assignments on twitter at one point. He doesn't anymore, and I'm not sure when he stopped.

About the challenges themselves, perhaps some of them can be educational rather than zany? Even rudimentary. I was a fan of tribesports and their (very social) challenge system. The challenges were easily quantifiable... nothing was left to interpretation... so that may be a hurdle. Still, it was a very effective way to build camaraderie within the community.

Kaivaan kind of mentioned this, and I've used it with some success. Making up lyrics... not to be incorporated in the music... just for the lead instrument to follow. If you have a solid progression composed, this'll be pretty easy. Like humming, with the structure and phrasing that language has naturally. Sure... sing in English, French, or whatever other language you know.

At first it might feel pretty awkward. But then I realized I can make up the silliest, most vapid, terrible lyrics ever and not mind, because they'll never be uttered to another human soul.

Will the melody be logical?... it sure will. It'll even inherit some flavor of whatever raw, basic attitude was present in the unspoken lyrics.

Pink Noise are basically the opposite of White Noise.

In the pink noise (a real pink noise), there's a decrease of 3dB per octave. In the white noise, there's an increase of 3dB per octave. If there's not, this is definitely not a pink/white noise. It's not supposed to be flat.

White noise is flat. No increase or decrease of any kind.

Quote from: JamesSweeneyy on January 10, 2016, 06:22:04 pm

pink noise follows a fletch munson curve so it takes into account where our ears are more/less sensitive...

No, it doesn't.  Pink noise is 1/f, which means that the power drops as frequency increases.  Gray noise follows the equal loudness contour (the modern, more accurate version of the Fletcher-Munson curve), and I prefer it to pink noise quick mixing myself.

However, gray noise is specific to a decibel level, because the equal loudness contour is not static, it depends on the volume the sound is being heard at, so that means you have to mix for your intended volume level if you're going to do that.  I usually go for a compromise between home and club and mix for about 85dB.

That said, I don't do this as much as I used to, but it's a good trick.  The hard part is making the gray noise, because all of the gray noise I could find on the net was lying, it's not gray noise, and it doesn't follow the equal loudness contour.  Break out your 32 channel EQ and make your own.

I agree with this correction. Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_noise wiki-verified. Ensure your spectrogram / FFT analyzer is in the same scale (linear vs. log) when making visual comparisons.

Apropos of this topic... a 'lil how to guide... http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec14/articles/pink-noise.htm. This is the same information in the video above, just written down with a few extra tidbits.

Grey noise seems arbitrary & personal to me. I don't see how it can be useful if the goal is exact and consistent reproducibility... for an individual's efforts, or for solidarity as an industry of content creators. I feel things like this dilute what would be an accepted technique into an artsy, intangible "feeling" that ultimately confuses newcomers to the discipline and places industry leaders in an "ivory tower." Also, this sort of "do what sounds good" approach feeds into other topics that negatively impact listeners... case in point, the loudness war.

I have trouble with the same thing. Whenever I try transitioning between two song sections something about it just seems unnatural. How do you blend two song sections together that contain different instrumentations? Is it a matter of mixing or is it a matter of composition? It would be awesome if there was anybody else out there who had any more advice to give on the subject. I don't mean to hijack this thread but I thought that this was highly relevant to OP's main question. If it's a problem then I apologize and I'll create a second one.

I'm just gonna use this song as an example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxuB-aKFEzo

Notice how at around 0:34 theres this change in instrumentation that occurs in comparison to the intro and verse? I feel like when he makes the transition it sounds completely natural.

Same thing with this song and 1:20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7w4sUNw6tI

The instrumentations within the intros, & verses are completely different from the chorus. Instead of there strings they're completely replaced by synths and yet it all sounds completely natural.

Those of you who have more developed ears it would really help us all out if you could share your thoughts on what makes these things click.

In these examples, the key (chord) progression first exists only as suggestions in arpeggiators, pads, strings... atmospheric support for the thin melody. At the points you mentioned, the progression is fully "revealed" by the instrumentation change (after a drum-fill). Also, the rhythmic motif (the syncopation in the synth lead) has moved from pulses in the peripheral into the foreground.

I listened to some tracks on your SoundCloud with an X-Y Plot & Phase Analysis onscreen... have you considered running a parallel-reverb channel and doing a separate MB-EQ / MB-Comp / MB-Limit treatment on it? I'd even go as far as to audition a third reverb channel, with a mid/side split EQ ... and/or a widener plugin, w/ a channel delayed a few ms (for a little psycho-acoustic separation, not flange). In short, if the suggestion to EQ & Compress (from JamesSweeneyy) is new, separate the reverb and go crazy.

In general, in using reverb... having the same type of reverb on a group of elements is going to place them an identical environment, so with multiple groups, have an organization in mind of what voices are placed where in which environment (and the track's overall environment). It sounds like you're doing that to some degree. Maybe go further with organizing and isolating the stereo position of the reverb for groups of instruments. On the opposite end of that idea, with a general reverb engine, the wet sound is going to inherit most of the stereo position of the dry sound... so working to isolate and place instruments in the stereo field may allow the reverb of each instrument (or group) to be more apparent.

Also, I noticed a lot of multi-tap delays on arpeggiators frolicking around in the stereo field, where the 16th note run is in one spot, then the delay taps are R-L or L-R... have you experimented with placing each note of the arpeggiator in the stereo field?

Music is applied mathematics. Is it a "factor" in composition? What does that really mean? Are notes, intervals, & rhythm a factor? They're intrinsic to the medium, so yes. Do composers balance their music like a formula in chemistry? Not that I've ever heard of, but maybe there's someone out there doing something that obscure .

Hypothetically, if one were to add psychoacoustic resonance to a kick drum, they'd need to know the math of music theory to do so appropriately. When creating your own scales (rare!), or placing accents in meaningful places to blend duple with compound triple meter, you'll be doing some elementary math.

Also, some pieces of music are explorations of math in composition... different parts playing rhythmic structures based on prime numbers to create dissonance or harmony at predictable times throughout the piece. I've heard similar things done with multiplicative factors to create interesting counterpoint.

Specifically about electronic music, some sound design applications require a solid familiarity with math to get your hands dirty. Csound & Reaktor come to mind, and I'm sure there is a healthy ecosystem of similar tools. Also, since computers can precisely generate sounds between the notes in traditional western music, harmonizing these sounds will require the math of music theory (back to the rarity of custom scales).

Then there's programming DSPs (which I'm separating from Csound for some reason), and other computer sciency things... but think that's out of scope for a statement regarding composition.

I used to see music theory as overly complicated jargon that recapitulates the same concepts in seemingly disparate forms. While that's not completely untrue, any thorough discipline will have overlapping vocabulary. Modes are definitely one of those things... somewhere in the intersection of scales, keys, octaves, intervals and harmonics, modes pop up. I tend to try to reduce processes to their most basic forms. Hopefully this dissection will add to your understanding of how modes can be used.

A mode is a pattern of intervals starting at any particular root note (the key). A section of a mode that repeats each octave is a scale. Scales overlap... a lot. Every scale can be expressed as a transposition of another scale in a different mode. A motif is a recognizable "unit" of "thematic identity"... typically a short rhythm or clever syncopation stretched over a few note intervals. Each note in a motif is in the same key & mode... and when the motif is repeated and transposed to a different key, the mode is preserved in that new key. Usually, some artistic transitions are used to soften the repetitiveness of the motif... also preserving mode. These repetitions, transpositions, and transitions form a melody.

The transpositions mentioned above do not necessarily need to be in the same key & mode... i.e. a melody can change key. That's a progression. A melody can certainly change modes too, though that can get intense quickly. I don't believe in deciding to write key progressions before melodies, or vice versa... an understanding like this enables many creative approaches to composition. It is common for musicians to be able to compose a "one-note" melody - as this is simply a natural vocalization of a basic mental process (humming or singing a song in your head). Composing this way often leads to simple sounding music because the resulting melody is either in one key, or transposes so frequently the composer cannot identify supporting harmonies without a thorough understanding of music theory and so supports only the key & mode of the root note (or safe things like 5ths & 3rds).

Also, a composition does not need to stay in the same mode. Often a mode change can be employed to separate parts of a song (e.g. verse from refrain).

As far as genre specifics go... no, there's nothing typical. With music "at large," some modes are more prevalent than others, especially in certain cultures... but I don't think this has anything to do with their appropriateness for a particular genre. From what I understand, modes add a type of musical organization the brain recognizes as cohesive... and that's as far as it goes. Because a motif in one key/mode may overlap completely with another key/mode, how is one to tell them apart? It's often the inclusion of one defining interval that gives a melody is identity as being "in" a mode. It's really only when all of a mode's intervals are traversed like a scale (or at least played in close proximity) that the "cultural sound" of a mode becomes apparent... which is to say, an adept composer can "sneak in" the use of modes (and benefit from more complicated, aurally aesthetic musical structures) without overtly coloring the sound of their composition. Mat Zo, Dyro, Naten, Feed Me... doin' this stuff all the time... every time.