In the past 7 months, I've learned a lot. I'm still not where I want to be in terms of the music I make, but I still enjoy it all the same. I've gone from somewhat crappy songs with all the sounds being presets to songs I actually have fun making with some sounds being my own. For the next year or so, I want to find my sound and develop it. After that I want to start performing my songs live and meet more local producers.

I can't pretend I'm not getting better. Knowing what makes a piece of music 'good' though is so difficult to define it's hard to see these improvements.

You probably won't see the improvements because they tend to happen subtly. I'm sure you'll back on your stuff in a few months and see the difference.

I don't answer this as an "expert", but when I post a track, the most helpful response is telling me how it made you feel. Did it get you pumped? Did it do nothing for you? Did you start thinking of your ex and a tear came to your eye? Did you suddenly want to get high? Did it make you want to punch your computer screen?

Imo, those kind of responses are more helpful than anything mix related. For me at least.

I'll definitely give this a shot. Thank you for the response!

BTW, are there any famous pop musicians who've risen to fame in the last 20 years who are blind? I can't name a single one, and once Stevie Wonder dies I won't be able to name any who are alive.

I actually have no idea The only blind artist that I can name aside from Stevie Wonder is Ray Charles.

Had no idea you could export WAV and MP3 at the same time in FL! Good to know!

As someone that writes without lyrics, there are three things that I can think of right away: title of the song, instrumentation, and key characteristics. Just by looking at the title first glance, you can kind of get a feel for what you're getting into. If the title of a song is "Going Under" I'm going to assume it's a sad song. "Unleash the Fury" sounds aggressive, so I'm expecting to get pumped. With the first song, I assume its in a minor key or uses predominately minor chords. If the song sounds major, I'll have lost the point of the song and I won't understand the meaning of the title. The opposite can be said for the second song.

Now that I'm thinking of it, visuals help as well. These days, everyone has a visual that accompanies the music. Just look at SoundCloud. If you don't have an image, no one seems to care about your music. But somehow having a 200x200 picture and a cover background helps get your message across.

Its all half arsed feedback (and it will continue to be so) because most of the people do not know what they are supposed to be listening for. Most people here have consumer taste in music and no deep understanding of music production...

I haven't given feedback/shared my music on this forum yet, but when I did so on Reddit, I found it hard to give good con crit. That wasn't because I was trying to half ass it so that more people would look at my stuff in return; it was genuinely because I didn't know what I should have been looking for. I can critique vocals and chord voicings, but I've only been at this for the past 7 months. I've improved a bit since I started but there are still things that I can't hear. I'm sure there are tons of people here that are in the same boat as me.

So now I ask this: How should we go about critiquing other people's work while we are inexperienced? I would love to give meaningful feedback to others. Obviously continuing to learn production will help, but what things do the experienced look out for that we need to know?