Hey guys, I just recently started making music outside of the rock realm, and was wondering what you thought of it. Some of these are WIP, but I think the main idea gets across well enough. http://soundcloud.com/shea-boman
As for the specifics, I didn't really write these for any specific game. I was hoping I could get some constructive criticism for improving it. I realize that this seems extremely vague, and I apologize for that. But any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Hey Shea,

Great work so far, your ideas are good and I can totally envisage them accompanying a big range of genres. I think maybe you should look in to doing a little bit of post-EQing, there are a few muddy frequencies in there. Also have a look round for some better instrument plug-ins, I know you're going for that 8-bit vibe with those tunes, but it's always good to try your hand at the big orchestral stuff as well to go with the more modern games. Keep up the good work man, I look forward to hearing some new stuff!

Julzshred

Thanks for the reply, Julz! Yeah, I tend to always forget about EQ-ing when working with VSTs, not really sure why. Do you have any suggestions for better plug-ins? Also, glad you like my stuff.

I like the music overall, I picture myself in a zombie FPS, and I creep through a ruined office building and there is a radio laying on the ground as I move by, Forlorn Possibilities is playing, or something...

The instrumentation is a little "vanilla" feeling for me. I don't know if that is the overall quality of the strings and piano, or what. It feels like music from a game you loaded up on your Windows 95 machine and booted off a CD-ROM.

I agree about the mastering. Even something like Sound Forge or Wavelab (or whatever your wave editor is) can serve as a mastering tool to eq, compress, and normalize.

-Jason
http://www.emblemmusic.com

Hey Shea,

Your music is a bit repetitive for me sorry. So I reckon you could work on changing chord progressions around or combining 2 pieces together to create one a bit more interesting

Caleb

No need to be sorry. It's not like I made this thread to be praised. Criticism is what makes people better. Yeah, I've been working with adding variety in chords and modulations and the like lately. And Emblem, when you say "vanilla", what exactly do you mean?

Hi Shea,

Nice ideas, good harmonies. But I found orchestral instruments kind of synthetic. It is not actually about the sound, it is about how you play them. Probably, you should learn more about orchestrations.

Denis,
http://soundcloud.com/cardinalgray

Do you have any suggestions for better plug-ins?

For EQing and Mastering I use Izotope's Ozone 5. It's a great bit of software and comes with a massive amount of presets which you can always use as a good starting point if you're not so experienced finalising a mix (like me!). Check out the web site and download their demo, it's definitely worth a look.

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/

Julzshred

Most of these criticism can be attributed to being new. It's a lil' harsh but...:
1. Overall, very weak composition. Not a lot of knowledge of music theory.
- Compositions lack a clear percussive layer.
- Melodies aren't very interesting
- No harmonies, no counter melodies.
- No layer of melodies. No supporting basslines
2. Very weak sounds. Can be attributed to library, being new. The sounds don't mix well together.
3. Not very good mixing.
-EQing and Mastering should be the least of your worries right now. Work on getting the right sounds to mix well and good volume/panning separation.

I think for a good starting point, you should work on a very simple model: clear melody, drums, bassline, and background chords. Use a quartet model to improve your compositional abilities. Start out with a violin, viola, cell, and double bass and add on percussion. Work with just the basic instruments to get a good feel for music theory.

Work on things that will affect the feel of the music first, from biggest significance to smallest:

Composition -> Layering -> Percussion -> Instruments -> SFX -> Panning/Leveling -> FX/Rev. -> Eqing -> Mastering

You can get away with having very little EQ/Mastering knowledge, but weak composition easily shows.

Oh, I don't know music theory? Okay, so that's why I use functional harmony, contrapuntal movement, and various other techniques because I don't know what they are. Mhm. No percussion in most of them, true, I didn't feel that some of them needed percussion at this stage. You're welcome to the opinion that the melodies aren't interesting, I can see how you might think that. I didn't use many leaps or such. No harmonies? Really? No counter melodies, this is true. No layer of melodies? So, I have one melody at all times and nothing else is going on ever, correct? You really like that word, don't you? "No". To quote Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means". Again, no basslines? Did you even listen? Points 2 and 3 I will concede, I have a terribly weak library at the moment. See, your "criticism" is basically just saying you hate it. Which is fine, but I would appreciate some reasons as to why you dislike it. Instead of offering advice, you just say a bunch of things that you think I did wrong. I did appreciate the one bit of advice you gave, even though you did it in a condescending way. Perhaps if you could offer more of such advice, I'd be more likely to value your input.