So I've been fiddling around with Audacity for a few days now...

[Candlejack Djinn]

At the moment, I've just been copying source material note-for-note (which, I'm aware, isn't all that impressive, and wouldn't be worth judging because of that. >__>'), but I have to wonder, what is it, exactly, that I should be doing for a song to sound 'good'? I've downloaded a few soundfonts (virtually of which were free and made available by different posters here), and I've been using only those at the moment to reconstruct the source material.

My question is, I guess, is there anything more I could, or should be doing at this point to improve upon it? Should I wait until I've 're-made' the source material to do such? Should I even be re-making the source-material in the first place?

Any help here would be appreciated.

[Rozovian]

What you should do to make a song sound good? Um... Consonance?

You should be using tools that you can write and mix music in. Dunno how well Audacity does that, so I wanna point you towards REAPER, altho there are other options depending on your platform.

Then you should be aware that the notes themselves are a small part of what makes real instruments sound good - the performer does a lot. This is true for orchestras as well as for rock bands. What we do is more often than not an illusion of performance - screwing with the notes and other things to make it sound like it's performed even when it's not (tho there are a lot of performers here too, like vocalists, guitarists, keyboardists...).

Then you should mix it well. There's tons of tidbits about how to mix, but nothing beats just doing it. It's not about adding the right effect to the right track, it's about finding the right place for each track (by using effects to eg push things back or forward, up or down, etc).

When you have something you want ppl to listen to and tell you how you're doing, put it in our feedback forums. We've got one for vgm mixes and one for all other kinds of music stuff. Once it's there, ppl can listen and comment, let you know hwat they think.

Then just take the feedback you get, try to understand what they said, and see what makes your track sound better.

And read whatever resources you can find, but don't take anything as the one true way to make music™. Just understand as much as possible, apply as much as possible to your music, and learn as much as possible.

Then just keep making music.

[Candlejack Djinn]

What you should do to make a song sound good? Um... Consonance?

I suppose that almost goes without saying, lol.

You should be using tools that you can write and mix music in. Dunno how well Audacity does that, so I wanna point you towards REAPER, altho there are other options depending on your platform.

I do have the demo version of Reaper, but I'm having some problems with the audio not working properly. >__>

Then you should be aware that the notes themselves are a small part of what makes real instruments sound good - the performer does a lot. This is true for orchestras as well as for rock bands. What we do is more often than not an illusion of performance - screwing with the notes and other things to make it sound like it's performed even when it's not (tho there are a lot of performers here too, like vocalists, guitarists, keyboardists...).

Then you should mix it well. There's tons of tidbits about how to mix, but nothing beats just doing it. It's not about adding the right effect to the right track, it's about finding the right place for each track (by using effects to eg push things back or forward, up or down, etc).

When you have something you want ppl to listen to and tell you how you're doing, put it in our feedback forums. We've got one for vgm mixes and one for all other kinds of music stuff. Once it's there, ppl can listen and comment, let you know hwat they think.

Then just take the feedback you get, try to understand what they said, and see what makes your track sound better.

And read whatever resources you can find, but don't take anything as the one true way to make music™. Just understand as much as possible, apply as much as possible to your music, and learn as much as possible.

Then just keep making music.

So it's more or less just a matter of dropping into the deep end, then. Yikes. D:

I'm kind of nervous about experimenting in generally anything I do, and experimenting with music seems a lot scarier than anything else. It's not so much that I can't deal with criticism, but it becomes a lot more daunting when you're not sure what to expect to hear, I guess.

[Rozovian]

There's the deep end, and there's the sea.

Everything is an experiment the first time. Putting a horrible, over-the-top, excessive flanger on the whole track is an experiment. That's how you learn that it's probably not gonna make the track sound better, but then you know both how to apply an effect to the whole track, and what the flanger sounds like. Likewise the first time you wrote chords to a melody, or melody to chords. Or when you wrote your first drum pattern. Or did your first velocity edit. Or your first midi cc edit. Or your first automation. Or your first whatever. You do without knowing what you're doing, and you learn.

And whenever you wanna show us what you've done, we've got the boards for you. If you're not sure your experiments are sounding good or bad, another pair of hears can help. And we've got plenty of ears on this site.

I have a remixing guide in my sig, feel free to read it. There's other resources on the site, and there's teh googles.

Just remember that it takes most ppl a few years to consistently not sound terrible. Don't worry about it, just make music.

[Candlejack Djinn]

There's the deep end, and there's the sea.

Everything is an experiment the first time. Putting a horrible, over-the-top, excessive flanger on the whole track is an experiment. That's how you learn that it's probably not gonna make the track sound better, but then you know both how to apply an effect to the whole track, and what the flanger sounds like. Likewise the first time you wrote chords to a melody, or melody to chords. Or when you wrote your first drum pattern. Or did your first velocity edit. Or your first midi cc edit. Or your first automation. Or your first whatever. You do without knowing what you're doing, and you learn.

Well, to be honest, this is one of my first true attempts at creating through music. But yeah, I do understand what you mean here.

And whenever you wanna show us what you've done, we've got the boards for you. If you're not sure your experiments are sounding good or bad, another pair of hears can help. And we've got plenty of ears on this site.

I have a remixing guide in my sig, feel free to read it. There's other resources on the site, and there's teh googles.

Just remember that it takes most ppl a few years to consistently not sound terrible. Don't worry about it, just make music.

It's not that I don't believe you, it's just a difficult truth to accept, I guess.

But in any case, thanks, Rozovian, I do appreciate it.

BTW, hope that Seiken Densetsu project comes to fruition soon. Looking forward to listening to it.