timaeus222

Yeaaaaah, that can happen too; keeping backups: great idea!

Motifs. Yes. Easy example: Beethoven's 5th Symphony (more of a leitmotif, but a similar concept of using motifs for a sense of familiarity).

Certainly. It took me forever to finally develop the mindset to just "go with the flow". If you don't know what to do next, write SOMETHING after the current section in your song. One musical line, whatever it may be, could inspire many more (or a few more, YMMV---literally). @Gecko: The funny thing about synthesis is that there is definitely more than one way to do many many things in synthesis. You can "fake" a synthesis method with creative manipulations. For example, you can draw a wavetable ranging from a pulse wave to a square wave, tween them, route an LFO to modulate the wavetable position, and call that Pulse-Width Modulation. There might already be a PWM knob on your synth---you're just manually doing the same thing.

Yeah, I'll likely be trying more of FM and focus on lead sounds for a few weeks.

Kind of, except a piano will mainly remain as a piano used in many roles (ambient texture, jazz lead, solo piano, etc.), while FM literally can take up quite a lot of REALLY different timbres.

Totally not dumb. If you wait for inspiration to hit, you could bust out this awesome thing that you never knew you could do. Now, of course, it doesn't come *just like that*, but when it does... Inspiration isn't the only thing that gives you good reason to write music. You could be motivated by some sort of incredible event that just transpired (like OverClocked Records opening, for instance!). I hear just occasionally varying your day-to-day activities could help instill some creativity in your brain. Quoooooting myself. Clear acknowledgement before the fact. Juuuust saying.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying in my encounters with FM synthesis, I've never explicitly made a lead with FM. That's all. Go look at that post again, I edited it a good 1.5 hours ago. I never intentionally meant to say anything like that.

Who's this Keiji TaeKwongDo again?

I've tried before, it turned out tinny. I've probably accidentally created a lead sound that could otherwise be made with FM, but I just never heard of FM doing leads before.

Hehe, I just went for the "find one do-it-all synth" approach. Got close, but close is good enough for me. Zebra, 'nuff said about it. =) I think I have like 6 (not including the VSTs, which are of course separate from VSTi's) and use about 2 of them regularly. xD

Haha, yeah, I was recalling something from last year. Looked it up, and if I remembered the specific term I would have tacked on the word "circumstantial". Probably wasn't as drastic as that extent, but similar. Although, I'm not trying to insult you, ecto, just making sure you remember to consider perspectives. It's very important. I can certainly see why the opposite is true with "limiting" yourself to FM or other singular types of sounds, sure. It adds to how creative you have to be with a particular set of finite sounds. The point is just that when you have just FM, you don't have resources to do absolutely everything out there, and you really have to rely on your arrangement abilities and pool from this set of sounds. But yeah, just my opinion, from my own perspective. In particular though, I used the word "silly" to keep that opinion playful ("silly" sounds to me like it has that sort of connotation). =)

Yeah, it does take a lot to sift through what's "supposed to be right" and find what's "right" for you. Being able to put what you learn to the test is what really helps you to evaluate the arbitrary "rightness" or "wrongness" of any concept from your perspective. For example, sometimes when people speak in music theory, it doesn't really completely register until I actually try it out. When they're right, then they are, but without trying it out, I don't fully get the context. I wish you good luck.

Those are the only sounds I've created with FM. I've never needed to do anything more with it. I just use other methods of synthesis to accomplish those gaps. I've also certainly delved into FM synthesis to recreate DX7 material like the DX7 bass from Castlevania x68000. Not foreign to me, just slipped my mind. I'm not suddenly saying "ecto, you must never have seen a string quartet perform, because I've never seen you use strings in your music!", am I, because for all I know, that could be completely wrong (imagine a balding enthusiastic philosopher saying that). I don't remember clearly whether or not you have a strings library you like to use, so I don't say that. Perspective is everything, so please consider that next time. (Believe me, I'm not trying to mock you) And uh... try not to do an ad hominem circumstantial, as a friendly personal request from me. Doesn't make you look good when you attack someone else. Besides, it's not like I had the money to buy a Genesis (which is completely irrelevant to me hearing of Genesis-style synths), or really, anything other than a DS or N64 (and this is not an appeal to pity, but a clarification of this circumstantial assumption). I could have heard a game soundtrack using those sounds, or other Genesis sounds, without playing any Genesis games at all (which is actually true; my first encounter with the Genesis was Gunstar Heroes which I played AFTER I heard the music), and felt the desire to recreate them. (Yes, people can draw that much implication from five 'and a half' words.)

And at the same time, I haven't played a physical NES before, and I'm older than you.

I used to pick out sounds before I wrote. Not a good idea necessarily, because it sometimes limits your sound palette and thus, to a smaller extent, your arrangement. For example, if you limit yourself to FM sounds, you've got E. Pianos, dubstep basses, atonal bells, glassy pads, and noise generator percussion at your disposal, and you would then only be able to use those five things plus drums and other things I haven't heard of (it'd be silly to limit yourself to FM without exception). You've got to be missing something in your palette. You see my point. Now, I pick one sound, internalize it, and see if it inspires me to write out something that inspires the picking out of more sounds to go with it. In essence, I pick sounds as I go. Now what about mixing? I used to write and then go back and mix, but the problem is, mixing depends on more than just what you write. It depends a whole lot on how you write it. i.e. The velocities matter, the sound choices matter, etc. Now, I mix as I go, so I can hear things as they are in context, and that way I can decide whether or not particular instruments truly work or if they just add extra content that people wouldn't really hear anyway (for example, trebly percussive ear candy). In improving my efficiency, particularly because I use FL Studio, I took advantage of the visual EQ and connected the visual with the auditory aspect. Once I could visualize frequency distributions, I could EQ more quickly and thus quicken my mixing workflow. I also learned as many shortcut commands as I could, but not by reading a manual; rather, by intuition, because intuition is more memorable than reading, IMO. To internalize is to make familiar by actually doing the activity, so that's what I did. Something else I did to improve how I work was create a bunch of sounds to put into my disposal. If you're filled with a collection of sounds you like, you're bound to find yourself using them a lot, and then once you get used to them, you may start noticing their tonal qualities more, and that's when you start distinguishing which sounds fit better to you in certain situations than others. Then, of course, the most important thing to improve your efficiency, IMO, is to get feedback. The most effective way to improve your objectivity is to get feedback from other people, so you can grasp their perspective and use that to evaluate yourself objectively. When you can judge your own music, you can nitpick it thoroughly and fix it up yourself, and by the time you're done, people from whom you request feedback will have less crits to give---which can be good or bad, depending on how much you liked their crits before!

It has some great harmonies, modal shifts, and interesting rhythm. Every time it returns to a previously approached section, it brings something significantly new to the plate. =)

The intro sounds great in terms of the arrangement, and even though it's my own personal taste, I think it would really bring it alive if the bass frequencies were more present, the percussive elements were less subtle (especially the clap at 1:17, and not disregarding the percussive bass), and the piano was louder (such as 1:12). 1:37 - 2:45 was a good development. I like how the arp had a filter LFO to add some sense of dynamics to the synthetic element. The kick and snare are definitely stronger. At 3:20, the percussive arp is less mechanical than before because of the LFO you have. At 3:29 though, the guitar strums on the right did feel stiff compared to the other parts. At 3:50, while personal taste, the synth playing the lead has a timbre (TB-303) that typically gives it the role of an arp rather than a lead. Maybe a different choice could work more effectively. Something more majestic or soaring, perhaps. Overall, much better than before. Great improvement. =)

Not ambient, per se, but yes to the "more background than attention-grabbing". Ambient is quite literally a bunch of pads, arps, bells, and other ethereal textures strewn together to make a big expansive soundscape to lose yourself in, and it's one of those genres where the sound design makes the difference. These days, music for games is written to fit the mood, rather than to stretch the hardware limitations to accommodate for the limited sound design. i.e. chiptunes --> creative arrangements to sound cooler. In that sense, the older games were more "forced" to write melodically interesting music, and modern producers are less "forced" to do so, and they do so only if they can and they want to. I suppose in a sense you could argue why old video game music is so prejudiced against. A lot of people dismiss video game music because they think of beepy music from before the 90's when they hear the phrase "video game music". Then, those people would be thinking the exact opposite of the topic of this thread. We'd be flipping this thread upside down and lefty-loosy (waitwut. btw I don't drink).

So, in a sense, proving either side is difficult. You can't just sift through >50% of ALL the games in the world, evaluate their OSTs, and list them ALL here, even though that would be the most fair and indisputable sampling method, because there are just so many. I mean, why else would "obscure games" be a thing? Because the games people deem as "more memorable" just overshadow the ones people deem "obscure". But I don't want this discussion to just end, so... carry on.

Yeah, those particular colors add a lot to the character.

Yeah, this is a great topic.

That's true, and one of several exceptions to the "bass+chordal harmony+lead+percussion" definition, but with songs that contain more than one or two types of instrument, it's most often true that filling those roles helps add to the fullness. Of course, by full, it can also mean "making the most out of what you have and what you know", so yes, solo harpsichord music or multi-part acapella can be full too. True. The more layers, the more you have to focus on it to really hear what's going on, and memorability comes partially from how easily something is fully perceived. However, it doesn't actually mean that you can't have a lot of things going on. It's all about what you put in the forefront. If you have, say, harp arps or flute arps in the background but not playing a role that lets it be perceived as obviously there the first few times through, it doesn't make us focus on it and thus doesn't make it sound like too much is going on. ;D

Great video. I may watch it again, if just for the analysis factor, and I'm all for analysis [/non-sarcasm]. Simple meaning to objectivity --- the neutral quality that can be observed when evaluating something's truth without personal interfering bias. Or, I could refer anyone to Wikipedia (yes, I did just do that! It is definitely reliable for a list of good sources to pore through; the content itself just may be humanly off ). So in essence (so much philosophical inside joke possibility), objectivity isn't that unknown of a concept to define (grasping it is another thing). The truth will never change, only our perception of where it is or what it is, like this "moving target" analogy of yours. The more you learn, the closer you get to the truth. But of course, Greek philosophers were having such a hard time with that in the Allegory of the Cave, The Republic, Plato on Love, etc. It certainly means it'll be just as hard, or harder, for people like us (who aren't Greek geniuses) to fully comprehend that truth. We can get close, but few people have gotten far enough to be able to be objective towards themselves. That is no easy feat, but objectifying, say, Love, is much harder, it seems, and if someone has done THAT before, then surely we can do that for music! After all, in Symposium from Plato on Love, one of the philosophers, Eryximachus, uses music and harmony as an "easily graspable", analogizable concept compared to love's pleasure. I do see though, how the perception of objectivity differs between people, but the objective truths will always be present no matter what, and it will be accessible to those who have reached that target. It just takes consideration of context to determine whether or not your statements are accessible to your audience, and when you make them so, your audience will have a greater means to agree with you. Good talk. =)

Yes. Classical music is music from the Classical Period, NOT calm music. Classic is different. Ambient music is not classical, it's ambient, and most importantly, it's more properly known as Modern music. Gotta make that distinction. That said, orchestral can convey just the same nostalgic factor as chiptunes. . It establishes more than one mood (what a plus), it's harmonically pleasing, it's texturally full, and it feels like it could be nostalgic. Not to mention chiptunes are often donned "not texturally full" simply because of the sound design. If you have a bass, a chordal/harmonic instrument, a lead instrument, and percussion, it's full. Orchestral is simply more full because of the tonal complexity. The music targeted by this article depend too much on this textural complexity, and that's a point several people made here. This textural complexity, if not accompanied by arrangement interest, turns people off. Automatic summary.