Hey, everyone!

I'm somewhat new to the video game music scene. It's more or less a hobby/creative outlet of mine, but I did recently release an album and have got some tracks up on Youtube if you'd like to check them out. To start, here is "Space Pilot's Finesse":

Currently, I'm not making a good salary, so I've been solely using Rytmik Ultimate and Rytmik Studio for my tracks. I've been doing this for roughly a year and a half now, so I still consider myself fairly new. Most of my stuff is more chip tune-esque stuff, but I do have other tracks I'm working on as well. 

I'm new to this community (just signed up tonight), but am hoping to learn from everyone and share my love of music with the rest of you.

I'll probably be keeping most of my tracks here in this thread to make it easy to find. Any feedback is welcome!

Thank you and have a good evening!

Good morning, folks! Just wanted to share another track with you. I'll be trying to make myself more accustomed to the community when I'm not working so much. 

Here is March of the Frightful, another track that I made a few months ago:

Have a good day!

I like your tunes :)
What about teaming up with someone doing a game jam like Ludum Dare 42 (ldjam.com) in a few weeks and seeing your music in a game?

Space Pilot's Finesse - The intro is a bit long but that's personal preference. Sometimes it's nice to build up a groove/mood before bringing in more melodic content. At 1:25, since we're hearing the melody a second time, a nice snare back beat would really help add a bit more to this section. A very neat track that would work great in a space shooter. 

March of the Frightful - Really nice opening. I feel like your lower synth is too buried in the mix. It's being overpowered by the other elements so I'd bump that up some or do side chaining to bring it out more.

If you are limited on cash, you could spend $8 a month and get 100 downloads from Splice. There are lots of drum loops and other kinds of source sounds on there. Adding some hard, real drums to this track could be amazing and really take it to the next level - if you're open to a hybrid approach. 

Some really great ideas and vibe! You have talent for sure! Keep it up! 

Nate

@pcmaster -  Thanks! I'll have to look into that when I get some more time! 

@nsmadsen - I greatly appreciate your input and feedback! Space Pilot's Finesse is one of the few tracks I made without using any beats, but I've been heavily considering it. I'm definitely okay with adding some hybrid/mixed genres into the tracks! I'll definitely look into Splice, as Rytmik now has a section where I can upload/add user samples, which would be ideal.  Rytmik's fairly robust (it has a lot of samples that are Rock/Drum and Bass, etc. 

I've still got much to learn, and thank you for your response! I'll be putting other tracks up here as I upload them to Youtube. 

-James

I've still got some time on my lunch break (thank goodness for hour-long breaks!). So, here's another track, "What's Done in the Dark." It's more heavily inspired by the old school beat='em-ups from back in the day. The feedback that I've gotten thus far is that the ending might be too long.

Thanks in advance again for your feedback!

Cool track! I like your style a lot. About how much time would you say it takes for you to complete a tune, from start to finish? 

4 hours ago, nsmadsen said:

Cool track! I like your style a lot. About how much time would you say it takes for you to complete a tune, from start to finish? 

Thank you! And great question! It really depends on the track. In some cases, I can make one in roughly 2-5 days. In other cases, I can have a track in progress that might take me a month or two (for those tracks that have unique synths and riffs that I struggle to put into something tangible at first). 

I'll be uploading Pushing Through the Formidable very soon. This is one that took me nearly a month because I tried something outside of the "chip tune" sound, and gave it a more, pre-final/1st phase boss RPG battle feel.

Okay, as promised, here is "Pushing Through the Formidable." This is part of an RPG project I set for myself. I'm working on an RPG soundtrack for a game that doesn't exist. This particular track took me a while because of the struggle bringing in the "orchestra" sound into the rest of the track.

As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated. Thank you!

You'll be finding more tracks up as the weeks go by. I used to be on Soundcloud, but was getting spammed hard, so I decided to migrate my stuff to Youtube and use Facebook to share my work.

Hey! This most recent track has several points I think could still use some tweaking. Overall, it doesn't feel as solid as your other tracks you've shared.

Your opening synth (almost like a pipe organ) is eating up a lot of frequencies. It's not so bad by itself but when the bass patch comes in, it really lacks the impact and depth you'd expect from a bass in a song. 

The breakdown at 1:24 doesn't do that much for the song IMO. Having a measure or two of only drums could work better. But four measures feels off. Keep in mind that breakdowns like that work better after a song gets freakin' HUGE and then comes down to nothing. The evolution of this song, up to this point, hasn't been that huge. So the impact of the breakdown is lessened. 

I love the melody at 1:38! The long note at 1:46 just sits there. I'd either make it grow louder and then fade out or have it hold and then gradually fade out over time. By having it just sit there, it really loses momentum. This could also be a great moment for a secondary melodic instrument to come in and fill in some of those gaps while the main instrument holds that one note. 

I'd change the drum pattern at 2:10 as the new section starts. This will help freshen things up and give the overall arrangement more evolution than it has right now. 

The ending reminds me of a 1980's horror film - in a good way. 

Some really great stuff here. I think you could work more on the mix as some of your mid frequency/harmony/pad-like elements tend to be way too loud IMO. The other thing to consider is that you've shared three tracks now with us - all of which are a very good - but they're all basically the same style. There's nothing wrong with this but can you write in other styles? What if I wanted a solo piano piece? What if I wanted a jazz ensemble? What if I wanted rock? Start thinking now about how much range and flexibility you currently have as a composer - and how much you eventually want to have over your career. If you only do one thing really well, that can limit your projects/client base. But if you're the master, go-to composer of that style - that can work in your favor! 

Hope that helps!

Nate

Hey there! Again, I can't thank you enough for the honest (and extremely constructive!) feedback. It really does help me a lot as I continue this venture!

I've still got a long ways to go in understanding music composition, but your pointers are really helping me take a deeper look at what I can do to improve my tracks, including my most recent share. I've got plenty to work on this weekend, for sure!

As for the similar-sounding tracks, that's another thing I'm working on. To a fault, I've grown comfortable with what I know. The plus side is that I do have other tracks that have other elements (some without any chip tunes at all) that I play around with. I'll be sharing those at some point, too, although I admit I don't feel they're my best works (of course, they can always be improved upon!). 

One of my inspirations is Stuart Chatwood, composer of the Darkest Dungeon soundtrack. Lots of orchestra/heavy drum mechanics that give the entire game the emotions it is trying to convey. At some point, I am hoping to make something as outstanding at that (listen to the Darkest Dungeon - The Cove track and you'll see what I mean). 

Again, I greatly appreciate everything you're doing to help me! This has been the best feedback I've received since I started, but that may be also because I don't have many people around me who are familiar with what goes into creating tracks. 

I probably could've included this in my last post, but here is another track I finished last night. It's another track for the RPG project I'm working on. It's more of the "traditional boss" theme, for those fights near the end of a dungeon. As the title implies, it is chaotic. I believe I may need to adjust some of the volume on it, as it seems a little loud in some areas. 

I also tried adding some heavier drums towards the end to invoke the intense emotion of a tough, frantic fight. Thanks again for your insight and help!