# Advice on a WIP



## Conker (Aug 25, 2013)

I've been slaving over FL Studio for the past month because holy shit  this program is hard to learn and holy shit music is hard to make.

 What I have I like, save one area near the end which sounds a bit too...i don't know. I'm drunk. I'll think of a word tomorrow.

 Anyways, the song isn't done, but I'm having problems adding more to  it. I spent all of this week trying to add piano, but that didn't work. I  saved evreything I made and will make a piano song, since what I made  wound up being pretty cool, but it just didn't work with this.

 A good musician could make it work, but I couldn't tell you shit  about fuck since I'm learning as I go and mostly looking at patterns and  pictures within the program.


 So. Here it is. Let me know what you think, and more importantly, what maybe could be added.

https://app.box.com/s/v41tagxj3gf684yuwtkj


 The song is for a fire level, and the only real stipulation is no  violin (don't know how to make that work right in FL Studio right now),  no piano (obviously!), and no electric guitar (this is not a rock song).


----------



## Vukasin (Aug 26, 2013)

Conker said:


> and no electric guitar (this is not a rock song).


Electric guitar doesn't automatically make something a rock song. There are tons of ways you could use guitar in this song without it being "rock".

The bass riffs that you have are actually pretty funky, I like them. The cymbals are very loud and distracting, so I would turn those down a bit. As for things to add, I would say a pad doing some chords in the background with a synth doing some kind of melody would work.


----------



## Kalmor (Aug 26, 2013)

Vukasin said:


> The cymbals are very loud and distracting, so I would turn those down a bit.


This.



> As for things to add, I would say a pad doing some chords in the background with a synth doing some kind of melody would work.


This again. Currently you have a very thin texture and filling that up would be a good idea.


----------



## Inpw (Aug 27, 2013)

Not bad IMO. Practically all of the above mentioned and some repeat riff work will make this quite good. Also try more drum instruments to create some dynamics across a section whether it be chorus, bridge, solo or break. Drums as mentioned the crash sound can get really monotonous pretty fast in any song.

Guitars also gets used in all types of music from electronic to metal. Never be afraid to experiment with something. pizza and ice cream together might just be the next big thing.


----------



## Conker (Aug 27, 2013)

Vukasin said:


> Electric guitar doesn't automatically make something a rock song. There are tons of ways you could use guitar in this song without it being "rock".
> 
> The bass riffs that you have are actually pretty funky, I like them. The cymbals are very loud and distracting, so I would turn those down a bit. As for things to add, I would say a pad doing some chords in the background with a synth doing some kind of melody would work.


Sorry about the guitar thing. My mind goes to rock and metal when I think of electric guitars because that's mostly what I listen to.

I shall turn down the cymbal volume. 

Could you maybe elaborate on "a pad doing some chords" since I don't fully understand what you mean by "pad."


----------



## Kalmor (Aug 27, 2013)

Conker said:


> Could you maybe elaborate on "a pad doing some chords" since I don't fully understand what you mean by "pad."


He means "synth pad" which come in many varieties with different sounds. I actually did a slow improvisation of one here http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11328348/

I'm sure Vuk can explain better than me though, since I don't really work with electronic sounds all that such (I'm more of an acoustic guy). XD


----------



## Vukasin (Aug 28, 2013)

Conker said:


> Could you maybe elaborate on "a pad doing some chords" since I don't fully understand what you mean by "pad."


Oh, yes, Sorry.

Pads are synths that are typically soft (though they don't have to be) and sustain chords rather than doing melodies. It plays the same role that a string section would in acoustic music. Trance uses them a lot to give an ambient feel to the song.

Here's an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3j2NYZ8FKs

Hear the synth in the background and how it's just holding chords underneath everything else? It works really well for filling out empty spaces in the song.


----------



## Conker (Aug 28, 2013)

Vukasin said:


> Oh, yes, Sorry.
> 
> Pads are synths that are typically soft (though they don't have to be) and sustain chords rather than doing melodies. It plays the same role that a string section would in acoustic music. Trance uses them a lot to give an ambient feel to the song.
> 
> ...


Oh. Okay. 

Yeah, that's not a bad idea. Looks like Sytrus is maybe made for creating those. Not sure if FL Studio has any preset applications for such a thing. 

I know I played around with it a bit last night but had problems finding something to use, but there's a ton of presets and I didn't really edit any with other effects. Just a matter of experimenting I guess.


----------



## Demensa (Sep 14, 2013)

Conker said:


> Oh. Okay.
> 
> Yeah, that's not a bad idea. Looks like Sytrus is maybe made for creating those. Not sure if FL Studio has any preset applications for such a thing.
> 
> I know I played around with it a bit last night but had problems finding something to use, but there's a ton of presets and I didn't really edit any with other effects. Just a matter of experimenting I guess.



Yeah, you can get some good pad synths out of sytrus (And of course there's many other plugins you could use), although you'll probably have to watch some tutorials on how to craft your own synth sounds and get familiar with all of the controls. 
I'd wait a little while before trying to make synths from scratch anyways. It's best to just get familiar with how the program works and working on a few compositions  before you start to delve into that. Presets should be fine for now at least!

As for the composition, it's pretty groovy, but you might find it hard to match up chords to it, since you tend to move from scale to scale very often. As such, it sometimes feels like it lacks direction, but you do tie it together with repetition of the sections.


----------



## Conker (Sep 22, 2013)

Demensa said:


> Yeah, you can get some good pad synths out of sytrus (And of course there's many other plugins you could use), although you'll probably have to watch some tutorials on how to craft your own synth sounds and get familiar with all of the controls.
> I'd wait a little while before trying to make synths from scratch anyways. It's best to just get familiar with how the program works and working on a few compositions  before you start to delve into that. Presets should be fine for now at least!
> 
> As for the composition, it's pretty groovy, but you might find it hard to match up chords to it, since you tend to move from scale to scale very often. As such, it sometimes feels like it lacks direction, but you do tie it together with repetition of the sections.


Oh man, forgot I posted this.

Thanks for the feedback man. I haven't gone and listened to this thing I made in quite some time, and when I do go back, I think you and others will be right. It kinda just moves around a lot. It meanders. 

I did take the link down from Boxnet because I uploaded some more private pieces of work there and I'm not sure if it functions like photobucket where people can just browse willynilly. I suppose I'll request this locked, but I really do appreciate the feedback I've gotten. 

you guys are quite nice.


----------



## Kalmor (Sep 22, 2013)

Locked at OP's request.


----------

