My music doesn't sound great but I feel like I'm moving in the right direction and asking the right questions
My music doesn't sound great but I feel like I'm moving in the right direction and asking the right questions
I have no other beatmaker to work and collaborate with so it's very hard for me to take a fair look at what I'm doing. The last week was especially hard mentally: I felt very bad because my music didn't sound like I expected it to sound like. Don't get me wrong: I'm vibing when I'm working on it, I'm feeling good and I like it but it's not quite something you'd want to listen yet.
The problem is that there's no blueprint that can be learned; you have to fail, again and again, until things finally start clicking together. You gotta select better sounds, be more deliberate with how you mix (fader first, effect chains after). You always have to be self-concious if no one is working with you, looking at yourself holistically to know what works and doesn't.
Here's a few things I've learned:
- start to break out of the 8-bar loop as fast as possible to not get stuck on the arranging
- select good quality sounds because no matter how hard you try, you will never sound good with dogshit sounds
- less is more, try to do as much as possible with simple sounds; it will help you switch things up to make the music more interesting
I love it but it's very tiring. I know I made a lot of progress but the road to mastery is very long. I hope I can be more constant in the future.
Ehehe I have to admit it's kinda hard to love your creations when the more you learn the more you hear what's wrong in them
would you be willing to share a bit of your work?
Of course! Here's some of my stuff.
https://iamhector.bandcamp.com/track/into-the-void
+ great chords + good mixing (I like how shoegazy the guitar sounds) - the track, like all my stuff, is too short because I don't know yet how to finish a musical project (I'm currently trying to adress that)https://on.soundcloud.com/zlIiICEVe5pljPN3ve
+ great souding simple which is also simple so I managed to layer another sample on top! + great sounding drums - too repetitive; I didn't know how to extend it more or I didn't have the sounds to do the ear candyhttps://on.soundcloud.com/8Unk7bT1Vjlj5ynTL4
+ great sound design for the synths + there's some effort for the arrangement - shitty drums (repetitive, stale, badly mixed) - the 808 doesn't hit at all, this is dark magic I swearhttps://on.soundcloud.com/gyGaT1T3Y9Vcr0pahr
+ amazing sound design, pretty proud of this one + the rythm is so beautiful - repetitive (the drums are so bad for this) - didn't know how to expend it - sounds way to busy and wide (bad mix, I didn't know what a clipper was at the time lol)https://bsky.app/profile/khector.bsky.social
You can go on the video part to see all of my unfinished loops (well a tiny part but still)
Overall, everything doesn't sound quite right and finished, perpetually demo-ish. I gotta find better source material, learn more mixing concept, use simpler sound and layer them, etc..., etc... But this process is pretty hard because I'm quite tired at the moment with my job and everything
Listen to Genghis Tron and Yip-Yip. You’re welcome.