Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - jaxter184

Pages: 1 [2]
16
You Might Like... / Re: Snarky Puppy
« on: January 06, 2016, 09:42:29 pm »
I love snarky puppy. Cory Henry's solo in Lingus is easily the greatest improv keyboard solo I have ever heard. I wish I was there for the recordings, they look so fun.

17
You Might Like... / Re: DAW - FL Studio vs Ableton vs Bitwig
« on: January 06, 2016, 09:40:35 pm »
I feel like I'm not understanding something when people say it doesn't matter. Maybe I'm just closed minded, but Bitwig is definitely the best. Ableton crashes regularly, making it really hard to finish big files. Also, the interface is weird to navigate and annoying for my workflow (which I think is pretty similar to the majority of workflows). FL's interface is nice, and super convenient, but it doesn't lend itself well to controllers and feels like it's meant to be easy for beginners while still retaining a full set of features, which I consider a negative trait. Also, I never understono the whole 'give automation it's own track' thing.

Bitwig has better plugin effeciency, as well as sandboxing in the rare case that it does crash, so it takes literally one click and 5 seconds to restart a project that crashes. Also, the plugins can be reloaded 1 at a time if they crash. Bitwig's native instruments and effects are enough to make a whole track (then again, so are FL's and Ableton's), and run really smoothly in Bitwig's engine. Speaking of the engine, it compensates for plugin latency, which is kinda unnoticable in most situations, but in the cases it isn't, it's really obvious (I think Ableton might've gotten it recently, but the point is that Bitwig was first). I think the biggest benefit to Bitwig is that it's the most recent. People left Ableton to make Bitwig because they wanted to rebuild it from the ground up, using their previous experience to make a whole new project. Because of this, it''s really easy to fix issues, as well as add new features. Updates come around every month or so, and when there are big bugs, they get fixed in about a day. Bitwig may be the newest big DAW to the scene, but even in the 1.xx versions, it can still compete more or less evenly with the 9.xx and 12.xx versions of other DAWs.

If I got anything wrong, please let me know, I would hate to guide someone to the wrong DAW.

18
If you can hear it in your head, then it sounds like it's just a matter of production skill. This is a much easier problem to fix than if youre just drawing a blank. If I were you, I would just get better at remaking sounds. You could get Syntorial, or (to save $130,) you could just remake songs from beginning to end.

19
Composition/Arrangement/Theory / Re: Remixes
« on: January 06, 2016, 09:22:02 pm »
It depends on the song. Generally, all I think is necessary is the vocals, but sometimes chopping up a lead or changing some chords can lead to cool ideas. Really all you should think about when doing a remix is taking a song and imagining how you would've made it.

20
Looking at the definition, it looks like 'generic' generally refers to things that can easily be put into a category. Really, all that means is that your work is too derivative of another common work. For example, when electro house/complextro became a big thing, everyone kept hearing it and it became common. Then, whenever you heard complextro, whether it was good or bad, or whether you had heard it before or not, it would be ranked among the other songs you have heard, and be percieved as kinda lame and repetitive.

Now, the obvious solution is to make your music unique. But how exactly does someone do that? I think the best way to expand your musical style is to listen to other music. Haywyre and Koan Sound both have great jazz influences. Dubstep originally had a lot of reggae influences. When trap started out, it had some rap going on, AFAIK. I believe mainroom house has the bad reputation it does because its basically the result of genre inbreeding. There isn't enough variation to make it interesting. It's basically house music blown up and simplified. All 4x4 beats with saw waves and basic basic melodies and chord structures. But that's just my opinion.

21
Composition/Arrangement/Theory / Re: Modes
« on: January 06, 2016, 09:08:08 pm »
To add to this, I would experiment with changing modes, whether for chord substitutions or for melodies. This song is one of many examples of dynamic chord progressions. For some reason, Japan has a bunch of this kind of music, where the chords kinda go everywhere. If you look up other songs by this artist, you'll see a lot of this. Good luck with your experimentation.

22
Samples/Plugins/Software/Gear / Re: Bitwig
« on: January 06, 2016, 08:48:37 pm »
I'm a huge fan of Bitwig. After demoing out FL, Ableton, and Reaper, Bitwig has been my favorite so far, and it's the only one that I've bought.

I suppose in terms of Composition/Arrangement/Theory some cool features are looking at multiple MIDI tracks in the MIDI editor, which is incredibly helpful when writing chords and melodies. Also, the controller API is customizable if you know Java, so using controllers is a lot easier with workflow and stuff. Like Ableton, there are a lot of MIDI effects, like arps and diatonic note transposers. In terms of arrangement, it's a little lacking because it doesn't have time signature sectioning flags like Ableton does (I don't recall if FL does), but everything else is pretty cool. I would take a look at their demo and see if it's easier for you to compose. For me, it definitely was.

23
Composition/Arrangement/Theory / Re: Scale Basics
« on: January 06, 2016, 03:11:07 pm »
To add to this, there are a ton of different modes, which no one really uses except like classical musicians and stuff. I think they're useful, though, because you can shift between modes in a song to add character. Here's a resource on other modes: http://www.classicfm.com/discover/music/guide-to-musical-modes

24
Mixing/Mastering / Re: a rather unusual question about panning and stereo
« on: January 06, 2016, 03:02:42 pm »
holy moly, people like you who can continue perservering despite massive obstacles are amazing. I don't think there are any surfire ways for you to be able to hear in stereo, but to figure out this problem, a good place to staart is why stereo is important. Humans have two ears in order to figure out where sounds are coming from. If they're louder in the left, they're to your left, etc. With one ear out of the equation, there is still one other way to figure out where sounds are. The ear is shaped in such a way that sounds from behind are filtered/distorted in some way that I don't totally understand. What's important is that you can tell. Now, I just tried this myself, and it's a little harder to tell left/right than front/back, but try putting one headphone ear cup on your face and one on the back of your head. You should be able to kinda tell whether a sound is stereo or mono, but it might get better over a long period of time. Alternatives are maybe getting a cochlear implant, depending on your personal condition. I'm not a doctor so I have no idea how that works.

Some of the greatest music comes from people who are inhibited in some way. Toni Iommi, the lead guitarist of Black Sabbath had to string his guitar in a different way because he's missing two fingertips. Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deaf_musicians. I haven't read any of those, so I have no idea how they do what they do, but if you haven't already, I would read it. Good luck!

25
Composition/Arrangement/Theory / Re: Method to finding key a song is in
« on: January 06, 2016, 02:47:53 pm »
It's usually a simple two step process.

1. Identify whether the song is in a major (typically happy) or minor (typically sad) key.
2. Determine the tonal centre. This is the note that every other note depends on and revolves around.

These steps aren't ordered, so feel free to work the opposite way.

That's what I suggested, are you able to find the tonic center by ear though without using an instrument while the song is playing to find it?

I do both, instrument + using relative pitch and ear training to guide me. Unless you have perfect pitch, you need to learn relative pitch. That way you can identify intervals much quicker and determine the key of a song more effectively.

Do you have any tools or recommendations to learn relative pitch?

There's no easy way about it - you're going to have to train your ear. Go to the Play Store or App Store and use the keywords "Ear Training" or "Pitch Training". There's a lot of good apps that can teach you. You'll eventually start to make out the tonal difference between a semitone, a whole tone, etc.

Alternatively, if you want to do it on a computer, this is the website I use: https://www.musictheory.net/exercises/ear-note

26
Finished Tracks / Re: NGHTMRE - Street (Shew Remix) | House
« on: January 06, 2016, 08:46:27 am »
Oh woah, I remember you from Skype a couple years back, its cool to see that you're still doing music. This is a really cool track, too. The vibes are solid, the percussion keeps my attention, and in my opinion, it's a much more interesting song than the remix. This would go really well with a lot of songs in a mix, but I guess that's pretty common for house. Keep it up!

Pages: 1 [2]