statas

it's often more a case of not so much motivation, but re-inforcing positive behaviour patterns. it's also good for pointing out ways to cope/deal/mitigate/etc with issues that might not have occurred to your natural way of thinking. it's not everyone's cup of tea, but i have found some books to be helpful for me. you can't really fault anyone for wanting to better themselves, it's just some people have trouble figuring out how. I know that some of the books i have read have struck me as inane and asinine, but i can suppress my gag reflex and still manage to learn something from them.

use the headphone outputs.

yeah, get a rhythm section/loop going to get the basic groove. get the bass/sub tight with the rhythm. it's easier to make everything else fit around this, than it is to change all your arrangement to fit the groove afterwards. and i'll also second the idea of breaking your songs down into parts/sub mixes. helps you figure out what your song "needs"

but at the same time,once you learn it, you can make amazing sounds. it isn't the easiest thing to learn, but its sounds are pretty well into a class of its own. it's really worth it to put the time into learning how to use any synth well. the more you understand synth architechture, the more you can pick up any synth and make some amazing sounds.

nethack ftw!!! still awesome after 20 years. get an emulation now!

i agree and disagree. there are many awesome freeware things out there. and then there is the komplete synths package from NI. (massive, absynth, pro-53, fm8 ) since i got this last year, i rarely use anything else. (edited for weird emoticon/punctuation issue)

no one's first song is any good. there is also the wip section (work-in progress) to get feedback from other ocr'ers, as well as the #ocrwip chat on irc. i think the best thing i can suggest, is to listen to songs in the genre/style that you are emulating, and listen critically to parts/instruments, and then deconstruct the layout/arrangement. imitation and repetition will help teach you the basics pretty well.

the problem here: even if you had samples, it wouldn't sound the same. iirc, the metroid prime sounds, could be constructed by most synths w/ multiple oscs, there was really nothing that out-there in terms of sound design. it was actually more of notes, eq, and arrangement that gave metroid prime that sound. it's been a long while since i fired up m prime though.

computer music magazine (uk) issue 124 (april) had a long article on how to make "fake" live music, with a long tutorial on how to make realistic applause effects.

yeah, trade paperbacks are your friend. find the old sandman series...i never met anyone who didn't like them.

i got a collection of edgar allen poe as read by vincent price and basil rathbone. very good stuff. i highly recommend it if you're into horror.

no problem. if you ever want to chat about any of this, feel free to hit me up on pm or the #ocrwip irc chat (i'm usually on mon-weds). i'm one of the few that's into this sort of thing around here.

just to be clear, i did like this attempt. i'm just trying to prod the artist into making something more awesome. this could be great with some work.

well, one thing you can do to make your synths more interesting is automating the hell out of them. just tweak as many parameters as you can handle. really makes these things come alive and evolve.

pretzels- the main kick is a little "flabby".. tighten it up some.. needs to hit harder the synths are pretty cheesy. i'm not a big fan of the 8 bit sounds in this kind of music, but if you are going to go that route, you need to add a bit more edge to these sounds. pads are decent, but could be a little darker. is that a xylophone in there? what the hell? get rid of that. doesn't fit. takes the song to another place where it doesn't need to be.. the end goes on too long. the energy is good, decent amount of movement and variation. this could be good with some work. shitfuck(needs a new title) pretty much the exact thing i said about the previous song. the main "bass/synth lead" is a little more dynamic here. like the switch to 4/4 mid way through... good start though... curious to see what daw you're using for this.