Draconiator

http://www.box.net/shared/rkio6rp6pv The idea got stuck in my head all night last night and kept me up for two hours, so I decided to open up FL Studio and hammer it out before it drives me batty. Here's the intro.

I'm not new to the program, yet I still don't know how to do some things, heh. I'm asking because unless I'm missing something pretty obvious, Fruity Reverb doesn't work with the Trance setting for some odd reason.

I spent like 2 months learning FL Studio before even STARTING this project. My first song with it...eh, I think I posted it here, but realized it sucked and got rid of it. ANYWAY... I spent another two months ON the project, and now it's complete. I call it "Planet of Life", and YouTube absolutely murdered the audio, but... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCbE6CGzE9g Not that good with it yet, but eh. Can't afford to buy it right now. I also don't know if I want Producer or XXL (or whatever the hell they call that edition now).

I haven't posted here in a LOOOOONG time. Heh. I finally got up off of my behind and ditched the MIDI sequencer in favor of FruityLoops Studio yesterday, and spent time learning about it, and today I felt I'd learned the basics, and so I made a demo of sorts. http://www.box.net/shared/pukygqdktp It's not THAT good, but I just wanted feedback on this one. I couldn't find the controllers, would be better if I knew where they were at. I USED to know, but that was a while ago... Took a couple hours to finish.

I'm in on this, and I was so inspired, I made one already. I'm not in this for anything other than experience, so in the very unlikely chance I win, you can give the prizes to the second place person. I don't need them.

Well what I thought about doing is finishing the whole thing and then work on tweaking it so that is sounds the best it can. i didn't want to look at it today since I've been at it for like half a week already and I just want to rest for a bit before I start working on it some more. But I'm too involved in this already. If I stop now, I'll have let you down, and that's not me at all. I WON'T let anyone down, and I will finish this eventually, and if I feel like it's worthy, even submit it.

http://www.zerowaitingtime.com/30747-download-ZeldaWWOceanWIP.mp3 I finished the entire first half of the song, well almost; I still need to expand a few chords near the end It's in stereo now, has wider chords, (since I was asking questions in the IRC channels and got the wide chord tip in #OCWIP) and more of my harmonizing. Now that I'm more or less finished, where do I go from here? I don't like to continue the song following the melody, I like to mix it up a bit and let my composing instincts kick in. But would that sound good in the second half? (You can hear "me" in the piccolo line, and the harmonizing)

http://www.zerowaitingtime.com/30619-download-ZeldaWWOceanWIP.mp3 It's almost 2 minutes long now. I got rid of the break at the beginning, and found an oboe sample that I really like. Funny though, I can't find any other samples that are better than the SF I have right now... I also added some harmony in the second part starting when the percussion picks up a bit.

http://www.zerowaitingtime.com/30547-download-ZeldaWWOceanWIP.mp3 This originally started out as an original I was working on, but I accidentally saved over it with this when I was experimenting, whoops, heh. Anyway, it turned out that I really was digging where I was going with this, so I kept going, so I'm posting it here for review so I can see if you guys can help me make it better in the long run. Remember, I'm in the very early stages in putting this together. I may release this as a "duet with GeoffTaucer too, dunno...

I mean musically? I mean as soon as I think it's gone, and finish a couple tracks, it comes back again, and I have no idea how to rid myself of this, especially since I'm NOT gonna reach my goals if I constantly suffer from this...:/ What do other OCers do to combat writers block? I've got it BAD!

First off, I LOVE the Eastern flavor in this one, and it also sounds somewhat like "Cleopactra" on the N64 version of "Ms. Pac Man: Maze Madness", it's great as is, but I think SOMETHING's missing....I don't know what...Maybe if you added the other part of the original song, and fill it out a little bit more, (I totally can hear square waves arpeggiator-style would help a bit, fading in and out) it'll be even better than it is now. But DO NOT CHANGE WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE! I dig this, I really do, but right now, it's...eh. It's good, but it's not great. 6/10

but just wanted to let y'all know that I'm not just a random guy that just decided to critique music. Well, I DO, to try and see if I can get out of my HORRIBLE writers block. Anyway, here's some samples of what I can do. I work entirely in MIDI, like Kaijin does, only I don't have the same soundfont. It's STILL high-quality, though, and I've recorded the songs with SynthFont, and with some reverb, well except for the second clip; I forgot to put the reverb on, D'OH! http://www.zerowaitingtime.com/21876-download-Samples.mp3

....so I can't really review it, so I'll base this on what you have so far. First off, AWESOME opening. This sounds like what you'd hear in nightclubs. Pump up the volume, pump up the volume, pump up the volume on the main melody so that it stands out from the surrounding instruments; I could barely hear it in the busy parts. This song is absolutely SCREAMING for a traditional Trance-style buildup somewhere in here. As for an ending, well that's up to you. Biggest issue that I see with this is that the main melody is too soft. Other than that, AWESOME work so far!

Nice piano opening, but I suggest working on that a little more, as a few seconds in, it sounds like you were too excited at the keys there. Marks off for that. After that, some string goodness comes in accompanied with bassoon, then a part with pizzicatos, which doesn't need to be worked on IMO. Nice SMW ref. The part after that with the stacatto base feels...a little strange. Get rid of that "excited" piano, either that or quantize the notes, so it doesn't sound mushy. That piano will hurt your chances of getting in. After that part comes the 1-2 remix. Nothing really stands out for me in this section (there is a REALLY strange-sounding 3+ note accident on the 2:16 freeway) until 2:41. I REALLY like that part. The tempo change at the end could have stayed out of the song. AT least two times in the song, I felt that there was inappropriate tempo changes, however, the one at 1:31 could possibly stay in if you worked on it a little more. One thing's for sure, this thing STILL needs a lot of work. I do see what you were trying to do here, but I don't think this would make it past the panel as it is now. Pretty good attempt, though. It doesn't move me, but maybe it will in the future? Who knows?

I'm gonna be honest and say at first when I heard the two-beat at the beginning of the song, I didn't think mixing this style and Bloody Tears would work out that great, but I was pleasantly suprised. It DOES work, and I hear something great coming out of this. If I would do ANYTHING though, I'd vary the chords at the beginning, not as to destroy the song, but it kind of sounds boring after you've heard the same 3 chords over and over again. The Termina reference is a refreshing change, and works GREAT for a Celtic-inspired tune, as you hear that sort of thing a LOT in Celtic music.

I've been coming here for a while now, but didn't want to join the forums because I didn't know what to expect. But just recently I came here and I thought "Hmmm...Maybe I should just to get the ol' creative juices flowing again." So, I'm here. Concerning music, I've got writers block BAD, and I mean BAD. I'm hoping that being here and posting, I can get rid of it. I'm trying everything I can think of...