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[Problem Machine]

And felt like making a thread to share that with the world, or at least the chunk of it that stumbles across this thread. Unfortunately in recent months I've really slowed down in the music production area; I simply find it very difficult to come up with something that feels interesting enough to be worth expanding into a full piece. Despite that, I feel that I am generally trending upwards in compositional skill, even if my taste for the work isn't keeping pace. Over the next few months, I'm going to be exploring the idea of expanding my studio with some more professional equipment and software and seeing what that does to inspire me to expand my work. If this thread proves to be popular at all I may just throw the results of any such experimentation here as it happens.

Anyway I don't want to do a lot of dancing about architecture here, but I figured with each thing I posted I'd throw on a brief description of where it came from and maybe some aspects which I notably like or dislike. I'll probably start with just a few tracks and then if they get a good response maybe put up a few more and so forth.

Oh one last note; I'm influenced by game music soundtracks sufficiently that I tend to structure these pieces the same way, in that they have a defined loop point and each track loops once. However, I do usually try to create an actual ending after that loop rather than just a fadeout, and to make up for the loop I try to keep the repetition in composition as minimal as possible.

Depths of the Sea
Let's start off with something accessible- a remix of the Undersea Palace theme from Chrono Trigger. I'm sure many of you must be familiar with this piece. I believe that at the time I created this I was frustrated by remixers' tendency to completely ignore everything about a piece except for the notes and just go off in their own direction. My intention with this piece was to capture the same feel as the original, but stated in a different way and, perhaps, amplified somewhat. I will leave it to the listeners to decide how well I succeeded.

The Day With No Sun
Okay, this one's an original. This composition is melodically rather dull, but the intense percussion and striking dynamic shifts I think keep it interesting. I'm particularly proud of how the orchestral percussion turned out.

Red Glass Dance
A piano-solo waltzy piece, this was somewhat inspired by the track Dance of Pales from Symphony of the Night, though it's only really noticeable during the intro. I tried to randomize the velocities and start/stop times a little bit to make it sound more human, but it curiously had kind of the opposite effect; some might call it more mechanical, but I simply to prefer to think of it as though the virtual pianist were slightly drunk.

Vision Stone
This is probably one of my most accessible pieces; it tends to get pretty strong initial positive reactions. It's probably one of my most accessible original compositions, though far from my personal favorite, as I don't think it holds up to repeat listening nearly as well as the others.

Oracle
And, for contrast, here's a piece that's one of my personal favorites that many other people have strongly negative reactions to. I think the reason for that is that it uses some complex polyrhythms which to most people just sound like garbage. I'd be curious to hear whether people here like it or not.

[michael]

great music! i liked all of them, and i'd love to hear more

you pulled off some very interesting notes in red glass dance, i was very surprised and really impressed. its got a really nice, whimsical Amelie feeling to it. i can hear sotn in it, but theres something really fresh and fascinating about it. id really like hear about how you created it.

i liked a youre chrono trigger remix, but i dont know the original so i cant compare.

i actually liked vision stone the least. mostly i dont like the bass you used

i think my main critique would be that your drums are flimsy and sometimes awkward (like in oracle, which was otherwise very good). in the oracle, they felt like they were constantly speeding up and slowing down, syncopation is really really when its done right, and very awkward when its not.

but overall:   

[Problem Machine]

There's nothing really interesting about the process of creating Red Glass Dance as far as I can recall. I basically just laid down the bass lines in Finale, put a melody on top of that for 4 sections or so, then rearranged it until it felt like it had a good narrative flow. I used Finale's beat-velocity adjuster to emphasize the downbeats, chose the sections that felt like 'strong' or 'weak' sections and adjusted the velocity accordingly, and then imported the whole thing into Reason. There I mapped one of the included piano instruments to it and randomized the velocities and note start times in each section based, again, on whether it felt 'strong' or 'weak'. Sorry I couldn't tell you more about the actual composing process per se, but I made that one a year and a half ago or thereabouts.

As I mentioned in the first post, the percussion line in Oracle is one of my favorite things about it but most people just can't hear it. I've come to a conclusion that it's really a matter of taste, because anything I could do to make it more accessible would, I believe, make me like it less. Like, I have to make a division between the things that people don't like because I fucked up and the things they don't like because our aesthetics don't match; not only do I not really want to compromise that aesthetic, I'm not sure I'm even able to. When you say the drums are flimsy, though, do you mean the samples themselves or that the percussion tracks don't feel 'full' enough? Do you think there should be more instruments, better instruments, or just more 'hits' in a percussion phrase?

I'm hoping to expand my repertoire of sounds, so hopefully that will help me address situations where it's simply that the sounds aren't strong enough to carry the piece. I like a lot of Reason's premade instruments, but it's just not enough even when it's backed up by a uniquely programmed synth.

[muku]

For the record, I totally dig the polyrhythms on Oracle. But then I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff and listen to lots of rhythmically challenging music, so I see how other people could go over that.

It's true that some of the sounds, especially the synth string pad in the background, seem quite "canned". But it's probably pretty expensive to get a good, believable string pad in software...

[brog]

Oracle.. for the most part I really really like the rhythms.  There's a bit near the start, just in the first few seconds, where it sounds a bit out though.  I could imagine someone quick to judge deciding already that they don't like it and stopping listening already there.

Depths of the Sea is nice, but I haven't played Chrono Trigger.  Sounds like it would make profoundly excellent background music for a game though.

Will enjoy the rest later.

[Core Xii]

The production value is alright, but I prefer something with more groove and melody.

[Problem Machine]

Okay I got a little free time here and I'm kind of torpid on pizza so now seems like a good time to post a few more tracks if people are interested.

Seeing Straight
This one's kind of short, but I like the feel of it. I might try to extend it except I lost the source file in an unfortunate accidental format, so I'm going to have to just settle for it as it is.

Dust Storm
I like to call this my undead cowboy song. It's generally gotten a more positive response than I'd expected, because I think a couple of sounds in it are quite jarring. I think that it has a very definite feel to it, though, and perhaps people just respond to that.

Cold Death Lullaby
Probably the oldest piece of mine that I still show off. I'm still quite proud of this one, I somehow managed to change time signatures in a very natural sounding way while creating something with a very strong emotional feel. Damned if I know if I could do it again.

[Biggerfish]

Red Glass Dance was pretty amazing. Though it didn't quite resolve itself at the end, and it made me everything else blew me away, even how everything seemed slightly too loud and clipped and the volume changes but regardless, I loved it.

I can see where the rhythm complaints in Oracle come from, that quieter syncopated kick a bit over in the left channel really started to bug me, as it was a repeated pattern, but it was not a steady beat (as best as I can describe it). There were a couple of times where it worked really well, but I found I could've done without it, seeing as it felt too quiet to belong there.

Cold Death Lullaby was pretty nice, those creepy bells really did set the atmosphere. The actual song didn't really leave a big impression on me (but then again, these aren't really what I normally listen to). Same with Depths of the Sea and Vision Stone; nice, but didn't leave that big an impression.

I might come back and listen to more later, but I really did enjoy what you have here.

[medieval]

I like Oracle. Very much.

Polyrythms are a good thing. But be sure to vary them.

[Powergloved Andy]

I really enjoy your music! They were all very well done, but I've got to say Red Glass Dance is my favorite!

Keep up the good work!

[Problem Machine]

Flashback special!!!

Okay so I was looking at YMM's thread, and his big archive of all his midis got me all nostalgic about my older and less experienced pieces. Unfortunately, about half of them were lost in an accidental HD format (I can't believe I was too goddamn stupid to back up a couple hundred hours of work), but I was able to recover the rest through various means. Of these, I'm going to pick out just a few that I think are neat despite their inherent midi-ness and post them here. My midi phase actually lasted a few years before I found a copy of Reason that fell off a truck, so I wouldn't exactly call most of these freshman work, but I do find many of them refreshing. Oh, also, I wasn't very good at getting things finished back then, so probably a few of these will be incomplete. If anyone really likes any of these and wants a version without wonky midi instrumentation, I might be convinced to drop it into Reason and crank out a nicer and more consistent sounding mp3.

Dark City
This, I remember, is one of my earlier pieces. I still really like the feel of it, though of course it's incomplete. I'm pretty sure I wrote and titled this before the movie came out too, so don't think about that Dark City, this is a completely different one (but also dark).

Sacred and Wild
Goddamn I love titling songs. Don't you think that's a cool title? I do. I like the song too, though it is once more incomplete. Oh well.

In the Ground
I wrote this around the time some bad shit was going down. The overall effect is some kind of jazzy funeral music, which is appropriate. This is complete insofar as it has an ending, but I wouldn't really call it finished.

Taken Away
A composition exercise I had to do for school. The entire class had to do rearrangements of Away in a Manger. I think I might have gotten a little carried away, but a discerning ear might be able to hear traces of Away in a Manger... maybe. Because it was for a class, THIS is complete  :D

Wily Step
I have no idea when I wrote this, but I like it. Takes a little while to get going and sounds a little thin once it does, but I still really like the ideas that went into it.


SPECIAL BONUS TRACK
Because I think it's ridiculous to pretend that anyone starts off being good at anything, I like to try to post my most nubbish crap once in a while to encourage anyone who may just be getting started. This is the FIRST track I wrote once I got my own copy of Finale (not my first ever, unfortunately, I don't know where those are). I actually don't think it sounds too bad, but it's quite simplistic anyway.
Beginnings