[Sound Projects] Creative630's Music thread (Criticism needed)

creative630

Hi all,

This is just going to be the thread that I dump the stuff I'm working on.
Criticism is requested so please give me tips/advice on anything I make.

So to get the ball rolling, here is some music I made at the global game jam in CT.
I'm not a professional/versatile musician, I just made some music for fun, so any advice would be awesome.

This is another song I made for fun recently.
[Edit:] I made everything with Ableton Live and the Chipsounds plugin

Thats all for now :D

EvanGreenwood

Really enjoyed your music at the Global Game Jam event.

It's a bit weird criticizing work I know that was all done in under 48 hours (multiple tracks in 48 hours). So I'm going to ignore the time constraint and try criticize based only on the music and on how it benefited the game it was used in.

Of the Global Game Jam tracks I feel the last one is the strongest, and the first one the weekest, with a steady increase in quality from first to last.

(If this is in actually chronological order then that also shows me a steady improvement in your skills... or maybe post-rock is your thing?)

The third track is kind of like a Crystal Castles noise attack with that constant high-pitched drone. It is actually quite listenable despite it's over-the-top noisiness. It has a definite sense of momentum as well. However as a track in a game over the main gameplay loop it is probably too intense and exhausting. I could imagine it working as a boss fight in a game that is intentionally a bit disorientating. Like the way the Drum and Bass at the end of Randy Balmer Municipal Abortionist functions (only more intense I guess).



Given the style of music for the third track (and given more time) I'd like to see the drum's worked into more. I'd like to see this become a bit more break-core Venetian Snares-like...

The second last track, which was used in the Hexagon Cell Eating Multiiplayer Battle Game (by Raxter) gives the game a very pleasant feel. Perhaps weirdly pleasant given the all-consuming virus theme. The bubbling sounds are a really nice touch. The sort of steel-drumming melody might get repetitive, given more time I'd think more variations there would really help. But ultimately I think the music does suit the game excellently.

I think the Osmos soundtrack works to achieve similar results and maybe there's some things to learn from that.



In particular the production on Creative360's second last track is very full and loud. Whereas the Osmos soundtrack is very muted, with lots of muted rhythmic tones, and a lot of echo. The Osmos soundtrack is also a little scarier, kind of more Massive Attack-like, which sets a very different tone for the gameplay (obviously this wasn't the tone Creative360 was going for, but it might have been another option).

Given more time I'd think some more attention to the production, and some subtle elements fading into and out of the mix might really improve the second last track.

Also, the Osmos sound increases it's pitch based on how large the player has become... a similar thing could have been done in Raxter's game to show increased tension as one player starts to win (although the soundtrack may need to be more ambient for that to work).

I really like the last track from the Global Game Jam. I may be partial to this because I'm a fan of this style of music, but the track does seem a bit more worked than the others. The break-down near the start when the drums are introduced is a nice piece of composition. There's clearly quite a lot of attention paid to the drums. The track has a few phases and they move by quickly enough that the listener doesn't feel it gets repetitive. The melody itself is simple, though quite lovely.

I'm not actually too sure how to criticize the last track. I think if you have more time you could add some more subtle elements and make the main melody slightly softer in the mix... I mean add some other elements to distract the listener from the melody now and then... I imagine that if the song is played on repeat for a long time the very recognizable melody might get old. But this is not the problem that a 48 hour game suffers from.

The thing that I love about the last track is that it distinctly adds to the game. Merrik's game is very abstract and elegant. It doesn't have too many elements, it's just arrows moving on lines. This track, with it's xylophone lead, adds a feeling of children's play and wonder to the game that would not be there without the music, a feeling which suits the gameplay and makes a competitive game more playful. The game ends up being much more enjoyable because of this track.

creative630

@BlackShipsFilltheSky Thanks for your input, i think you nailed down quite a lot of concerns I have with the music.

In response:

• The tracks from the GGJ are indeed chronologically numbered, and I think I became more comfortable with the software.
  I was trying to do something different in each song to learn how to use the software properly.
  
• I think the post-rock song in @Merrik's game (the third last I made) is probably my favorite as I had put the most time and effort into it. I could really see where I wanted to take the song, where the rest of the songs felt a little more forced.
  
• I think the watery song in @Raxters's game could have been better, but it was the last song I made and it was made in the shortest time (I only had an hour to make it).
  
• The fast song in @Dezmodos and @notSimon's game I kind of gave up on after a while. I think I just didn't see how to take the song further at the time and left it as a fast slightly atonal mess. Granted it was a slightly endearing mess, but it was still a bit of a mess where nothing really connected well.
  
• The extra song was just an experiment in making piano chords without the use of a midi-keyboard. I was not really sure where to take it, and i guess a little context is in order. What I had envision is that it is a melancholic piece of music set in a forest. The sharp melody above was meant to portray an animal singing in the forest (or a person singing in a retro midi fashion, like in final fantasy 6 where a main characters voice is portrayed by a vocoder sound). Overall this is still a work in progress.
  

I think I need to learn how to produce the songs I make a lot more, and I think at the next game jam I should probably take an instrument with me so I can play around with melodies a little easier. :/

creative630

As an update this is the new song I have been developing for @Merrik's game Escape Velocity, which is going to AMAZE.

EvanGreenwood

Ooooh! Nice work!

I like how droned out it is. Everything is kind of soft and distant, which I think really suits the game's aesthetic.

The first part is a lot less melodic, just kind of spacy fuzz. I'm not sure how this track is intended to be used in the game. The last half feels more fun, which I think I'd prefer if it is to be played during gameplay.

Particularly: the melodies in the last segment, with the guitar like drone, are really nice. Kinda makes me think that you're going for a faster, slightly more spacey/mathematical version of the dream electro (like the Drive soundtrack ) that is just plain fricken cool right now.

Though that's my taste of course.

creative630

Thanks :) Overall the first intro part part will be a separate section played once, then the other two halves loop into each other. Rich wanted the drone/spacefuzz/atmospheric kinda sound, which I think the first part captured. The second part was my attempt at making the sound track a little longer, and it ended up being a little more fun and melodic.

Not sure how they will work in the game with the new sound effects etc. but I cant really change too much now :P

creative630

So... I just listened to it on soundcloud and I thought it was too soft (sorry Blackships, its still soft in the game). So here is the remastered (read louder) version.

Tim_Harbour

Nice, listening to some of the global game jam stuff....I like the feel of the first track, bass is quite an intense sound but it works :D ... I'm gonna slowly get through the rest of it today after recovering a little from the weekend :P Like the most recent one a lot, the feel (escape velocity) like almost ambient chiptunes, dig that stuff! It is rather soft though...the remaster is definitely louder but I feel like some of the instruments could be balanced out to bring out the melody a bit, the drums also feel a little distant. But I dig the overall sound though! Very nice work! Gonna get through the rest of it later! :D :D

creative630

Thanks for your input! I'm still struggling to get the best sound with escape velocity. Usually it sounds pretty good in my headphones and then a little flat when I play it through other speakers etc. So I change it and then it sounds too loud in my headphones etc. I guess I should invest in some proper monitors to get a good mix.
Other than my poor mastering skills, I think that maybe the middle melody needs more layers to kinda connect the high and the bass? The drums I kept soft because it felt a little distracting when the song is on loop, but maybe there was a better solution to that.

I'm still pretty new to writing music though so any advice is most welcome :)

Tim_Harbour

Awesome man, it's great to just share and learn from each other ! I think layering the middle melody might work nicely, I've seen some videos by a guy called tom cosm, who gets cool layering by using multiple different synths and plays the same melody through it but then cuts out notes from each synth and pastes them together to get cool textures. That could be an interesting idea? Also messing with eqs and duplicating the part and getting two sort of frequency ranges going on. I get also how the drums can be overpowering, i've been struggling with getting a cool sound recently as well. I find varying velocity helps a lot, and also using multiple different hits from each drum sound, so like a couple of diff hats and snares to move between....but ya these are all just ideas that I've been using recently, so many other ways to approach it :D. But ya the tracks are sounding cool man, keep it up! I'll always give a listen if you put something new up!

creative630

Oooh yeah those are good tips, thanks. In the remastered version of escape velocity I fiddled around with duplicating the guitar and bass a little. Each guitar is set to a different ear and the bass was changed to a different synth but I think the new bass synth overpowers the other and doesn't sustain as well. I definitely want to try layering different synths, eq's and cutting notes :D

I haven't really changed the velocity too much as it got quite laborious to change for each instrument (I was being lazy). I was thinking of writing a script to automatically load in a midi file and procedurally/randomly add some variation to the velocities of drums, but I still need to look at how to handle midi files in code properly (the ultimate lazyness, spending hours on code to save five minutes of pain :P).

I've started listening to your tracks, I will try to give you some feedback too but I might not be that useful yet.

Tim_Harbour

haha no ways man, any advice is awesome, everyone has a different way of looking at music,the more opinions the better :D... anyway ya the velocity thing is a bit of a mission but if you use a midi controller you can play in velocity so that's cool. Anyway please do give any points you think, I appreciate any input. !!