lhb2444 Posted January 19, 2012 My first foray into manipulating the sonic realms..... Keen on any feedback you have! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ballzac Posted January 20, 2012 Pretty amazing for a first attempt. The use of reverb, delay, and phaser to create a sense of space is very professional. The main thing I think you need to work on is using more interesting melodic motifs, but that really depends on what sort of effect you're after. I find the tension in this track too unresolved. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lhb2444 Posted January 20, 2012 Thanks for the feedback Ballzac it's much appreciated, Yeah I agree it doesn't really have any direction or resolution to the track as I decided to stop before I fiddled it into something sounding much worse haha (which I had done numerous times), I could have been there for days! Melodically I struggle (I don't play any instruments) so it's really a trial and error game getting riffs to work with another, keeping them in key etc. I think the 'professionalism' may also come down to the use of some good quality VST's too. Everything bar the drums and bass uses either the Native Instruments bundles (Massive and Reactor) which just sound epic straight out of the box. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ballzac Posted January 20, 2012 Yeah, I've said it before, but massive is my 'desert island' synth. I have built entire tracks out of it, using it for everything including kicks and other percussion. For melody, you can start out with a common chord progression, like G Em C D, or something like that. The baseline to begin with can just use the root note of the current chord. So your bassline would be a bar of G, followed by a bar of E, etc. You can have a pad sound doing the entire chords. Then you can use a minor pentatonic scale (G Bb C D F) for your synth. The beauty of the minor pentatonic scale is that it will pretty much work for any chord in a simple progression such as the example above, so you don't need to change key as the chords change, and you get different moods happening as the motifs in your melody are superimposed against different chords. A lot of experimentation is required, but that sort of thing at least offers a framework to start from. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ballzac Posted January 20, 2012 Having said that, a lot of electronica sticks to a single chord. There's a lot of freedom to create whatever melody you want, but I still think a minor pentatonic scale it a great starting point. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lhb2444 Posted January 20, 2012 Yeah I think I would say the same regarding my desert island synth haha although I would be a real close call between Massive and Reactor. Both my my brother and housemate are musicians and have been telling/showing me the same ideas for cord progressions and thing but alot of that just goes way over my head, there's just so much to take in. The main riff in there (not the acidy 303 sounding one) is a reactor synth thats got some scale plugin style thing that transposes your note/midis pattern into a predefined scale which immediately sharpened up that riff quite nicely so I've been playing with that trying to kind of 'reverse learn' off that by applying it to patterns and then seeing where the changes are made and how they affect the riff. It's certainly been a fun and pretty steep learning curve. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lhb2444 Posted January 20, 2012 Lots of minor penatonic scales (and various other interesting and obscure scales you don't find in alot of western music) in the good old school psy/goa that I'm a huge fan of! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
