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FamiTracker
This has great potential, I really love the percussion and general feel of the song, But like your other FTM you posted, seems to have a lot of clashing notes making it a bit hard on the ears. This is too bad, cuz I still had my head bobbin' to the beat.
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That's because I don't know how I'm supposed to work it out. I just need to understand how harmonies work nothing else, but any kind of musical tutorial is bombarding me with stuff I have no idea about.
[quote=za909]I don't know how I'm supposed to work it out.[/quote]
I have this problem occasionally when I have an idea that involves some unusual scale I've never worked with and don't know the name of (which is most of them). I usually try to figure out the chord first, use three channels to play it, and use another channel to work out the other 4 notes. Failing that, I start bullshitting until it stops annoying my ears and sounds how I want it.
Once you've got the scale, though, harmonies are usually one or two steps behind the lead. I don't really know jack about theory. Hopefully a music guru will be along to help you eventually. :\
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The only things certain in life are death and uncertainty.
Well I'm exactly like Necrophageon, I don't know theory at all. But here's my trick to get a simple harmony or chord.
I'll take any note or row of notes, Copy+Paste it into the other channel, then I just highlight the notes I want harmonized or chorded, Then I leave my finger on Ctrl and tap F2, 5 times, or 7 times. (Both will give you a different sounding chord or harmony) If I want a heavier sounding chord, I right away after doing that, Tap Ctrl+F3 to bring it down 1 octave. Vice Versa, Ctrl+F4 to get a lighter sounding or higher sounding chord. That's my basic Chord for most of my songs.
I'm sorry if it's confusing. I suck at explaining.
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[url=http://soundcloud.com/fezuke/sets]My 8-Bit Soundcloud
[url=http://soundcloud.com/fezuke-2/sets]My Other Project Soundcloud
If you open a new module, set the speed to 1 and stick a D00 in the first row, you can throw down some notes, play them, and then change them on the fly by clicking them, holding CTRL and moving your mouse-wheel up or down (same thing as CTRL+F1 and F2).
That way you can hear the changes real-time.
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The only things certain in life are death and uncertainty.
[quote=Fezuke]Well I'm exactly like Necrophageon, I don't know theory at all. But here's my trick to get a simple harmony or chord.
I'll take any note or row of notes, Copy+Paste it into the other channel, then I just highlight the notes I want harmonized or chorded, Then I leave my finger on Ctrl and tap F2, 5 times, or 7 times. (Both will give you a different sounding chord or harmony) If I want a heavier sounding chord, I right away after doing that, Tap Ctrl+F3 to bring it down 1 octave. Vice Versa, Ctrl+F4 to get a lighter sounding or higher sounding chord. That's my basic Chord for most of my songs.
I'm sorry if it's confusing. I suck at explaining.[/quote]
It's not confusing at all.
Actually that's EXACTLY what I've been doing, then we started learning about chords at school during Music classes and I thought maybe that would help. Well, I think I'll stick with the same old formula that DID actually work without much effort because I don't really intend to work with sheet music, actually even if I did learn to play the piano, I'd be looking at a tracker screen or something.
I'm very surprized that some of the top notch composers here don't know music theory any better than me. I wanted to learn how to use Famitracker to help me understand NES music better and because I was very passionate about finding some way of putting custom music into my Mega Man romhacks in which I eventually succeeded. But it somehow grew on me.
Also it's great news that this "technique" doesn't produce dissonant sounds because I used this in a lot of my YM2612 songs which are going to be used in a homebrew game. I'm glad I don't have to revise all my twenty 2-minute tracks to fix dissonance in them. I became very paranoid after you commented about dissonance on my last 2A03 original and I thought that literally everything I did was totally wrong. But maybe for some of my stupidity, my techniques I use in my YM2612 work will make up. With some experimenting I could create very 8-bit sounding (and "looking" ) instruments. (Triangle, Sawtooth, Square, Noise-like drums) I watch the oscilloscope a lot but it DOES actually help me to reproduce sounds simply by knowing what their waveforms look like.
Also, how do you usually start working on a new song?
Personally, creating a melody is the most difficult part for me. Once I have a melody I can very easily build a bassline upon it and then add percussion. It seems if I start with the bassline I tend to stick with it for a very long time.
It's very hard to explain. I don't have a magical formula to write songs. They just happen. it very much depends on how i'm feeling that day. This is why I try to write my songs as fast as possible. I'll spend MANY hours per sitting to get the most I can out of that feeling, because it doesn't mean i'll feel the same way the next day or so. This is why my songs usually don't go on weird tangents or completely change. I stay in the same mind set through out the writing process. As for what I start with, I usually just start with an arpeggio in the Pulse channel. I do this for one frame. Right away I build a drum, bass, sawtooth, and everything. Once that one frame is complete, I right away have the 'sound' or 'tone' of the song. I build around that one frame. This frame doesn't automatically become the intro of the song, sometimes it is, sometimes it's the ending. You never know what will come out. What helps is that I've been writing music for a long long time. I wrote a lot of music for heavy metal bands, and also wrote a lot of FL studio songs. So that of course helps a lot.
The only tip I can tell you as well is to listen to a lot of different music. I listen to so much different things. Metal, classical, Liquid DnB, Traditional Japanese music, Ambient, video game music, trip-hop, punk, Everything really.
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[url=http://soundcloud.com/fezuke/sets]My 8-Bit Soundcloud
[url=http://soundcloud.com/fezuke-2/sets]My Other Project Soundcloud
I usually start with something simple like a bass line. Then I play with the drums, and sprinkle cymbals where I feel they'll best accent the beat.
After that I'll usually decide what chords to build out on top of my bass notes, listen to it a few times, and if something hits me, I'll start writing a melody over the top.
If I have a melody in my head I work backwards, laying down the lead, then deciding how the bass should sound. The chords just fall into place, and I'll build the drums around the phrasing of the melody.
Part of the problem I think we're going to have explaining this is that the process is completely internal. If you can't hear your idea clearly in your mind, you probably won't have much luck translating them.
The other factor is your ears - if you're not noticing dischord that others are, this is probably the weak link in your chain, and that's where I'd recommend you put your focus.
Can you do things like listen to a chord and pick out the individual notes to reproduce it? Can you tune out a lead and hear the underlying harmony? If not, I'd strongly suggest practicing these kinds of things, but again... I'm no music buff; these are just the observations of a guy who learns best through... well... observation.
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The only things certain in life are death and uncertainty.
Fantastic sounds! The notes are very...atonal...though. Nothing wrong with that, if that's what you're after!
After skimming through this thread, it would seem that maybe that's not what you're going for.
The main idea here seems to be a B locrian mode, which is great - it keeps the tension up the whole time. In this particular case, I'd say avoid too many sharp or flat notes, as they create too much dissonance.
Look at this:
It's the only natural (all white keys) mode that creates a diminished chord. In theory, since the bass is just repeating the same motif over and over, as long as you just use natural notes, they will sound "correct".
Hope that wasn't too confusing!
MooT
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