zircon

Soundclick is one viable hosting option. Filefront and Rapidshare can also be used, as well as sites like Purevolume and Myspace. Some remixers have their own webspace, and others lend out their webspace to other remixers for temporary hosting. From our (the judges') perspective, we like something that is very easy to download. Honestly, don't worry about the copyright thing. Legally, this whole site stands on shaky ground to begin with, but it's harmless and no different from fanart or fanfiction.

That is an interesting point, but I don't think it's the case. I've probably said this several times in the thread, that while I work in a lot of different genres, electronic music gives me the most enjoyment. I have a lot of electronic music on my playlist that I still am fond of, and I usually pick up new songs every week. Sure, doing ethnic/orchestral songs is challenging, and I get some sense of satisfaction for making a soundtrack that really fits in a game, but what I really want to do is making totally original works in my favorite genre; electronica. I think that's all MOST musicians want to do, when it boils down to it Anyway, I spent about an hour today working out a plan for a song with pen and paper. I basically did the introduction of the song, outlined some rhythms, what kind of tones I wanted, and then a possible structure for the chorus. When I get home I'll work on putting it into action.

I know for a fact that both sephfire and sgx use Reason in a lot of their songs. There's a good chance that the synths were created with Reason, though I could be wrong.

If this is your idea of a slump, I really need to go buy your CD. This is a fine concept WIP. The melody carries some great emotional tones. Heh, thanks There's not a lot I can do with it without a vocalist but maybe I'll keep messing around and see what happens. It's just sort of a weird phenomenon. As I've said before, pretty much EVERY electronic song I've ever written was written on the spot. What you just described - that you said was 100% counterproductive - is how I wrote all of Impulse Prime and many other random standalone songs. I would sit down at my computer, say to myself "I want to make a good song", and just sort of go to work. My process now isn't any different, it's just not working! But some great advice has been given so far. I'm strongly considering picking up guitar as a few people have recommended, and as I may have already mentioned, I'm looking into getting a full-range keyboard so I can jam better in my dorm. What I am actually going to try over the next few days is to PLAN my songs out. Not necessarily with manuscript paper and pencil, but with some kind of a diagram or flow chart. I've never actually done this before, but I read a thread on futureproducers where a bunch of people doing the same type of music as me said it works really well for them.

ROFL!!!

No, it's always bad. As in, if you have clipping, it won't even play back properly on some devices. There's a difference between that and distortion effects which simulate the effect, or recording the effect of the clipping and then compressing it to use in your song. But there is never any case where your actual waveform on the CD should exceed 0.0db.

Right. Peak volume represents.. the peak volume, eg. the loudest the track goes. RMS = Root Mean Squared, which is a representation of the average loudness. It is always lower than the peak.

Well.. I spent pretty much my whole night so far on this track, and I came up with the following; http://www.zirconstudios.com/Mixdown.mp3 Pretty generic chord progression, mixing's not too great, but more importantly I don't know what to do with it. I feel like this would be the ideal time to get vocals - unfortunately, I don't have any.

There's definitely nothing wrong with associating mainly with people online, provided you at least make an effort in "real life". Sometimes, you just end up in situations where there aren't people you're really compatible with in your immediate geographical, like where I am now. My parents didn't really have many friends in high school, but after that they did fine and met lets of people that they still communicate with today. Anyway, what I'm trying to do at the moment is write something more melodic and with an actual chord progression as opposed to strictly electronica like I've been trying to do. Something more in the vein of BT for example (I'm a big fan of his Emotional Technology CD). I haven't had any luck so far, but I'm really giving it my best shot.

I appreciate the personal life advice, but you guys are off the mark here. As anyone who met me at the NYC meetup will tell you I'm a sociable, friendly guy and I enjoy hanging out with people. I had a total blast at that meetup. The issue is that here at Drexel, there are very few people who I have things in common with. The main thing is that I don't drink - Drexel is basically a party school, in that all anyone does for fun is get drunk. This includes my roommates. Even my fellow musicians in the music industry program are really just not people I like for the most part (yes I've talked to them, eaten lunch/dinner, hung out etc). I'm already a member of several clubs here too but it's the same story at them as well. Even at the religious club I'm part of, where the people DON'T party for fun, they're extreme right-wing conservatives and we don't share anything in common. The issue is not "getting out more". I've already made a lot of contacts here, I've gotten to know people, I've been to social events, I've done all of that already. I'm still a member of several clubs which I go to regularly. After doing all that I found out that the people here are not the type I really want to spend a lot of time with. There's nothing wrong with that, I know a lot of people who are in similar situations. I still maintain contact with my buddies from high school, and of course there are the people here at OCR and other communities that I communicate with on a regular basis. As for going places.. well, go where? Parties? I don't go to parties. Concerts? I don't go to concerts. Shopping? I don't have any money to blow - I save my money as best I can. I am perfectly fine with all of this, too. I don't mind being in my dorm in most of my free time. I'm a very happy person.. provided I'm able to write good music. I would also like to add for emphasis that I appreciate all the advice that has been given to me so far, regardless of whether or not it has worked for me or not.

Well, what do you expect me to say? I'm not going to lie and tell people that I haven't tried a solution when I already have. There's no point in ramming my head into a brick wall. I am posting here because, as I said, I'm at my wit's end. I was aware that I had writer's block since 7-8 months ago and was already talking to many people outside of these forums about it. Thus, I've already gone through a number of attempted solutions, including many, many more that were not mentioned here. This is a final, desperate attempt on my part.

There we go. That's the answer! And, dont discount any of the methods because you've TRIED them. Just go back to a time when you've had fun with a music, and relive those moments. If something doesnt work the first time you try it, go do something different, but dont forget to try again. Just have fun with music. You dont have to be the best all the time. Sometimes its just fun to make crap songs, makes the great ones even greater. I don't think I've implied anywhere that I don't have fun with music. It's just that the amount of enjoyment I get out of tooling around on my keyboard (what I've been doing for the last hour) is significantly less than the veritable seratonin FLOOD that I get when I complete a great original work. Seriously - after I finished Impulse Prime, I was walking on air. I don't think any bad news could have possibly brought down my incredible level of happiness that I got from completing it and getting the first positive reviews. I guess what I'm saying is, I don't really get any lasting "fun" out of music unless I'm (1) writing great songs and (2) people are listening to and enjoying said songs. I pretty much make constant attempts to create music regardless of how frustrating it is. Like I said, this is pretty much my life, it's what I'm here at college to study, it's my only hobby and my only form of entertainment. When I create a bad song, it's just that - a bad song. I get no pride out of that, just like I get no pride or enjoyment out of creating those demos that I posted earlier.

Since Impulse Prime was released I've taken two breaks to go on vacation with my family. While I sometimes have musical ideas, by the time I return, they're all gone. I doubt that I could take a week long break here at Drexel from the computer as it's my only form of entertainment and more or less my only form of social contact.

I would say that I have a pretty good grasp of proper arrangement and structure - as you can hear by listening to my "good" originals and remixes. The problem, once again, is getting to the point where I have enough material to actually create a song. A 1 measure drumloop and lame synth riff is not enough. Working with someone else? Yeah, I've always wanted to do that. Working with tefnek is a blast, every time. However everyone is pretty much too busy and I can't expect someone to be able to sit down and work with me whenever I feel like writing a song (which is all day, every day). This is no longer the case. I am studying music at Drexel University and traditional music theory has been in my schedule every term so far. It's fascinating, but not helpful to what I'm trying to do here.

Another thing to consider - if you are making EQ changes in the mastering phase of more than about 5db then you should really go back and work on the individual parts more. The EQ changes in the mastering phase should be minimal - you're just doing subtle, transparent edits to polish the finished track. All of the major EQ work should be done in the production phase. This brings me to something that I learned from tefnek, though it's a technique that many major producers use as well. When working with sampled drums, it is a wise idea to put the individual drum parts on their own channels; eg. kick on one track, snare on another, hats/rides on another, toms on another. But after you do the necessary processing and mixing, what you can do is then route all of them into a 5th channel (in FL, you can do this with sends). You can then apply some saturation, perhaps a vinyl effect, a little EQ, and some compression. This can make the drums sound like they were recorded from the same kit, even if your drum track is composed of 30 samples from all over the 'net. Most notably, The Crystal Method uses this technique. Edit: Some more stuff that I do.. * Always make sure that when you're changing one particular part of a song, you listen to it by itself AND in context of the mix. For example, let's you're doing a basic rock song and you have drums, bass, guitar, and voice. If the bass sounds "off", what you should do is first solo the bass part and treat that by itself. Once you think it sounds good, then play it back with the rest of the mix and see if you were right. This is a sound method of working because you don't want things to be tweaked and sculpted to hell, making them sound lifeless or unrealistic (even though they might sound OK together in the mix), nor do you want them to all be mixed as if they were playing solo, meaning they'll muddy eachother up when played together. * If you're working with samples and you're spending an inordinant amount of time on one specific sample, trying to make it sound good, you might consider simply trying a different sample. Some people that I have talked to believe that EQ and processing can fix anything. I disagree. Sometimes, making a crappy kick drum sample sound good really is impossible, and you're better off finding a kick sample that sounds closer to what you want, and then tweaking that slightly. You'll save yourself a lot of time working this way. Of course, layering samples is another way to mask weaknesses and build on strengths.. not only for drum samples, but for other stuff too (for example, mixing different string sounds to get a more realistic and expressive blend). * Vary up the frequency range that the listener is subjected to over the course of the song. No matter what genre you're working in, prolonged exposure to a certain frequency or sound WILL wear down the listener's ears. Try this for yourself. Find a sample of a 10khz sine wave and play it back at a normal listening volume. Annoying? Yep. While you're not actually working with pure tones in a mix, the concept is still the same. Some common pitfalls include making hihats or other top-end percussion sound really bright and clear, and playing them throughout the entire song. Alternatively, having a low-end synth playing constantly at the same frequency range. Even something as simple as acoustic guitar strums can eventually become grating. Using "bridge" sections in your arrangement is one way to avoid this problem, but also, simply being more aware of what parts are playing for how long can help a lot too.

Yeah, I jam along all the time, but nothing usable comes out of them. Again the difficulty is not in creating little clips - it's that I'll complete as much as I did in those demos and hit a dead end. Any additional work I try to force makes them even worse. It's infuriating. A different sequencer is something I'm considering, but I do not have the money to purchase more software right now. Considering how many VSTs and sample CDs I already have.. I can assure you I've tried this method and it doesn't work at all. The "Enlightened" demo came out of Sytrus presets, for example, but that's all I was able to write. I ran out of ideas. This is something I've also tried. I'll load up some loops or hits in something like Battery 2 or Stylus RMX and just kind of jam or play along to songs in Winamp. However, this has never given me any song ideas. I've even tried using non-traditional sounds as you suggested. For example, over the weekend I started this new project. I heard a Stylus RMX chopped guitar loop that I thought sounded cool, then replicated that progression and tone with Lyrical Distortion samples. I tweaked that a bit and spent some time getting the guitar sound down that I wanted. Then I loaded up about 20-25 'weird' drum samples and layered some patterns, creating an interesting drum beat which I then combined with RMX material. Then I sat there for the rest of the day with no ideas of what to do with that. And the next day. This is a great idea. Unfortunately, I'm in college (so I don't have time to go anywhere), I don't have a car, I don't have much money, and I live in the middle of a city that I'm unfamiliar with so I wouldn't know where to go anyway. I actually did try working with keyboard input, and came up with a cool <1m jazz piece (which, of course, I got stumped on). However I can't rely on keyboard input for two reasons. One is that I only have a synth-action 32 key controller. I am looking to get a new one but I don't have the money right now (and I might not even have the space). Two is that my projects get very, VERY CPU intensive very fast. I usually use upwards of 100 effects and tons of VSTs to get the exact sounds I want, forcing me to use latencies of 50+ MS simply to get proper playback. Thank you for all the suggestions everyone, even if I've already tried most of them

The problem is not in creating small component parts. As you can hear with the above examples, I am quite capable of creating very basic synthlines and grooves. Anything past that I have been unable to do. If I were able to write even the simplest of hooks or melodies I would not have writer's block. Even 'remix' style music requires some sort of motif or building block to go off of. In other words, if I only have garbage available to me, the only thing that will come out is garbage. Song production 101

I did Subterranean Opus, Lover Reef, and four songs for an orchestral/ethnic video game soundtrack in between my last original electronic piece and now. While I got some enjoyment out of that, those things are not my main interest. You might as well have told Johnny Cash to do something different than country. Electronica is what I want to do. I have worked in (and continue to work in) many different genres but the only thing that makes me truly happy is electronic music - creating good examples of it, anyway.

I can't bring myself to finish a lot of the garbage that I've worked on. eg www.zirconstudios.com/Enlightened.mp3 Crap. www.zirconstudios.com/Huge%20Beat.mp3 Crap. www.zirconstudios.com/wanderer.mp3 Crap. www.zirconstudios.com/Surf.mp3 Crap. www.zirconstudios.com/gruv.mp3 Crap. www.zirconstudios.com/Synthscape.mp3 Total crap. I've tried listening to music, improvising, etc. That did not work.

A lot of things inspire me in the sense of "Wow, that's beautiful" - but nothing leads me to actual notes in the sequencer. I don't look at art and suddenly hear the melody "A - B - C - B - F - E" (from good morning, by tefnek btw). I wish that were the case. ps. No, I am not going to do drugs. Ever.

Well, analog clipping is simply when you push the volume above 0db on an analog device, like a tape machine. It can produce a variety of effects depending on the type of device, or even the exact model. Therefore, there's no one way to describe what happens.

soc; basically every keyboard on sale now is velocity sensitive. I assume you mean "weighted". Also if you're inputting stuff one hand at a time, yes, 3 octaves or so is all you NEED.. but trust me, the more keys the better.

I dunno, breaks of months at a time are long enough for me. I feel pretty useless when I'm not writing music anyway. sgx; no, I don't play guitar. I might try that.

Well... digital clipping is ALWAYS bad. Analog-type saturation however is usually a cool effect.

Oh, no. USB MIDI is exactly the same as standard MIDI cabling in terms of function and performance.