I'm pretty new to music making.  I'm making a song in Sunvox, which is pretty easy to use but has limitations.

I'm trying to make a sort of somber dungeon tune for my Zelda-like game and am trying to go for a SNES type of feel but I'm not really sure how.

https://soundcloud.com/ghostbomb/dungeon-wip-1

Track is pretty muddy, especially when you get into the middle.  Tons of reverb... tsk tsk

The heaviness of the bass in the track was kind of painful, most likely a result of the sample you were using.  I'd run some EQ on the track and try to knock back the bass a bit, probably lessen the low mids as well to keep the track from being muddy... but if you ease up on the reverb/delay some you might not have to.  Reverb is a mix killer if you use it in excessive amounts without really fine tuning it. 

This last one is too difficult to fix... I could try but Im not sure how to fix it.

Anyways I think now its better and already uploaded. I put it again so you tell me if I adjusted properly to what you said.

https://soundcloud.com/estudioevergreen/shrink-game-ost

Thanks for the critics!

Now that your panning is worked out I can hear better what I don't like in the notes/chords.  The piano and bass are playing relatively close in the pitch range, and it sounds as though the bass MIGHT be playing the root, but then you have the piano playing pitches lower than the bass(the piano panned to the left).  Try raising the piano part up an octave so the bass and the piano aren't fighting right there.  The bass needs to keep it's spotlight as the BASS, and the piano playing lower or around the same range, kind of hinders it's ability to do so. 

Nice thread.
I'll start with a simple one, a very recent song I just recorded.
It's meant to be, obviously, some sort of simple, happy village song where there's a bunch of festivities happening (don't know if context count for this topic?).
I kinda did that as an homage to a bunch of video game music composers who inspired me through the years.

It's meant to be a very simple build up for a scene (think something among the lines of FF9 Alexandria or something).
https://soundcloud.com/supermassive-quazar/village-downtown
SUPERMASSIVE QUAzAR - Village Downtown

So, by a minute into this song, when the "melody" first comes in... I was already done with this track.  The mood of the song fits a village, but you don't really expand out from the guitar part much aside from layering more instrumentation on top of that one part that just keeps repeating and repeating... ultimately making this a very redundant track.  Imagine playing a game in a town with a lot of walking here and there, just spending... 10-15 minutes in that town.  You'll hear that guitar part going on over and over and over and over again.  It's not bad by any means, the guitar part, very clean, serene, sounds nice, whatever.  It's the fact you take that simple hook and continue using it without really evolving into more.  The melody that comes in is REALLY basic and honestly I have a hard time even labeling it as a "melody" because it didn't jump out from the rest of the track and really pull me in. 

I'd say... bring in a melody MUCH earlier(if you intend on having one that's memorable), and then develop the ideas you have into more.  Get away from the same chord progression repeating again and again.  Around 12 seconds in... I could hear a melody in my head playing right there. But there is nothing, just keeps going and layering on other parts that don't really do anything to make the music any better or worse.  If you can get a melody going, something that really draws you in, hooks the listener, and then try to branch out away from that redundant guitar part by incorporating new chords and exploring variations on the motifs in the melody, I think the track would be quite a bit more effective in regards to what you are after. 

Last thing, I think you should play around with the bass part more.  Right now it's glued to the electric guitar and doesn't really have much of a voice of it's own. It does move a bit at the end of each phrase, but playing whole notes for 3 bars and then changing is kind of a drag, especially since ... like the rest of the track, it's repeating that over and over again... it kind of lacks the life you'd expect from your description. 

Guess i'll post something, since I should be willing to take it if i'm willing to dish it *gulp*. Just a track idea I doodled out the other day while messing around with some new synth sounds.
https://soundcloud.com/illyb/h3lpm3plz-work-in-progress

Sorry to all this took so long, I honestly needed a break from the crit thread... honestly does not feel good giving hard crit that much... once here and there fine, but I was bombarded in a week... stressin' me out.

Okay... ILLYB.

Well, since it's a doodle the fact it doesn't seem to have any real direction isn't really something I can gripe about.  But I will anyway!  The drums, particularly the kick... is like.... hmm... bleeding is the way I like to put it.  It sounds like you ran compression over the whole mix, so your low end is "bleeding" through and overpowering the treb and mid ranges everytime that kick hits.  It's not BAD, especially in comparison to a lot of tracks I've heard with too much compression, but it's enough to bother me.  When you mix things all the frequencies should be balanced so that none of them really overpowers the rest.  When you run too much compression, or even if it's just a limiter, stuff starts to become overpowered.

That's really all I've got ... direction = where are you going with this? what is this for?  etc... and the compression = why?  Did you really need it?   Could you not manually balance the dynamics on each part and just do a good mixing job instead of trying to maximize the volume with compression? 

Ok, I will prepare myself. I will like this to be critisized. Dont let out anything you thinks its important.

I made this song for a game of a pixeled jumpy guy who has to get simple triangles. The guy looks like the ghost of pacman a little bit. its very simple game. and I think I risked much more in this one than in other songs. More risk= better result but also you fall from higher when you fall.

Let's fall! :D

https://soundcloud.com/estudioevergreen/shrink-game-ost

Hmm...  HMM...

The melody is definitely an improvement over the last track I heard from you, but it's panned all the way to the right.  With how sparse the instrumentation is in this track you really should keep it much closer to the center(if not dead center).  It also kind of works against you toward the end when the piano comes in, because now you have two moving parts that are just dancing right on top of each other with no stereo separation between them.  If the square was dead center, the piano part would've stood out and had a much stronger impact.  I hear a piano I think in the left side, and some weird synth... not far from the same pitch range.  Pan those puppies to opposite sides(but don't go 100%).  It sounds like you have two shakers playing slightly different rhythms or accents,  but laying practically on top of one another.  If you can, push those apart further so each part is more distinguishable.  Some of the  chords in the track seem pretty "undefined" in a sense.  Like, you weren't really sure what the chord should be, or was in respect to the melody, and just stacked up notes.  When listening with more focus on the bass it makes certain chords just... bleh.  Like, the bass and/or the chord don't like each other in some spots, and if they don't like each other, one of them needs to change. 

Yup, that's all I've got for now.

[MY TURN: Here's my boss theme for super ubi land which I've just finished. I'd love some really harsh crit to get this 100% perfect! (and despite telling off the previous track for cutting off right at the end.... mine also does this at the loop point cos i'm lazy!)https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11811680/Ubi%20Boss%20Loop%20Final.wavHit me with all you've got!]

MY TURN: Here's my boss theme for super ubi land which I've just finished. I'd love some really harsh crit to get this 100% perfect! (and despite telling off the previous track for cutting off right at the end.... mine also does this at the loop point cos i'm lazy!)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11811680/Ubi%20Boss%20Loop%20Final.wav

Hit me with all you've got!

Come on with the wav files!  Jesus. :p

Now for the crit... once it's done downloading...

The melody and chords have a scary resemblance to Cid's theme.  Just saying.

You are punishing my right ear.  There is so much more in the right side than the left for most of the track...  Bring some balance into the stereo spectrum.  I'm actually kind of surprised how weak the bass is in this track compared to how much you LIKE bass. :p The reverse cymbal kind of makes my ears want to bleed out.  It's pretty piercing especially at the end. 

Definitely need a more involved bass part since on a 4th listen I still don't "hear" a bass part... at all.  Just keep hearing the tutti hits and the drums, with random synth parts dancing around the place. 

The timbre of the dub wobble thing in the middle... no.  Definitely not.  Change the tone or change the part.  :p  I kind of cocked my head sideways on that one.  Everything sounds pretty intentional in the track, but that part... even though I'm sure it was intentional... was a big WTF moment for me.  It did absolutely nothing to "enhance" the track.  It merely breaks apart the general vibe/pace of the track with this awkwardly toned wobble sound, that doesn't really match the timbre of anything else in the track.  I wanted sugar and you gave me salt.  That's how I'd describe it.  That one part.

Ok, here's a short little diddy I finished recently that I'd be curious to hear people's thoughts on:
https://soundcloud.com/broken-sounds/find-my-heart

I think the cello could've come in a bit sooner... that or some other form of bass part because the guitar parts started to get redundant.  The guitars are also really present in the mix and make it difficult to hear clearly what the cello is doing melodically.  I think you could either kick the volume back on the guitars when the cello comes in, or just have them a consistently lower volume throughout the track.  I think also on a couple of spots during the cello's part where it's playing leading tones or whatever else, that it wouldn't sound so jarring if the cello was punching through more in respect to the levels of the guitars.  Typically if the note the melody is playing doesn't necessarily SOUND like it belongs, if you put more emphasis in the expression of that particularly "bad" note then it gives it more purpose because you are emphasizing it's contrast as oppose to keeping it dead in the mix(which is what a few of those awkward notes are doing right now....)

I know it's a personal preference really, but I think you could easily toss in some calm drum part later in the song, probably before the cello comes in as the song starts getting redundant and my ears are begging for something else.

The glock or whatever it is dinging seems kind of... out of place?  It's not really doing anything for me, it's panned slightly to the right, it's louder than the cello for the most part, and it's not really doing anything interesting to add to the track other than going DING DING DING.  Have nicely written guitar parts, potentially nice cello part, and then this random bell sound in my right ear.  If you could incorporate some other high pitched bright instrumentation to counterbalance the glock, like a call and answer type deal, glock plays something, then other random chime thing in the left ear answers it... I think it would fit better(assuming the volume was taking back a notch on both sides.  

Yeah, that's about it.  

What WAS the context for that song anyway Zack?

Oh, uh... *looks for track list descriptions*

2- Classroom theme; Calming, bright music. It's going to be used for the more light hearted scenes and softer scenes

The guy is pretty vague with all of his descriptions and said he trusts my instinct and to just do whatever I feel will work.  Sent him the track, he approved/paid for it... so it's a still a win! _{despite being utter crap compared to what I normally do}

Hahaha... Mr. Parrish That makes me feel old. o_o 

And... Ableton can bounce to soundcloud? o_O

It's a gentlemany thing I do, not really for any reason. As for Ableton, I believe it's a new feature as of 9, but I heard about it back in 8 (which I didn't have). And I confirmed that it does indeed just give you a link to your home Soundcloud page. It is handy though.

That's cool.  Sonar has a publish to web feature but I have no idea exactly what it does because my PC isn't connected to the net so it doesn't serve much purpose to me.

There was some ridiculous website someone made once called "MIDI Wars", where composers would "compete" against each other, but there was no actual theme or criteria involved.  Was a pretty poorly organized site. :p

Mr. Parrish noticed it was the wrong link, and I updated my post. Apparently when you copy the link out of Ableton it's your home page? I dunno. (you can delete your post if you'd like, Zach)

Hahaha... Mr. Parrish That makes me feel old. o_o 

And... Ableton can bounce to soundcloud? o_O

Totally agree with you.  It's actually some scrap track from 10 years ago I "re-sampled" and ... that's basically it.  Easy money in a sense, though I suppose I could've put a little more effort into expanding on the core idea of the track. :p

Oh wow I can't believe I Didn't see this thread sooner! I really needed some good feedback. I tried starting a thread here to get some a while ago but there were only a few good pieces of advice. So I ask you to be as harsh and truthful as possible!

Here's a song I posted to my soundcloud a couple of months ago: https://soundcloud.com/justsometoast/in-which-events-transpire

Go ahead and tear into it!

You asked for it... mwahaha... ahem... <_<

First thoughts, it's a pretty muddy mix for most of the track, and there isn't much panning done on the individual parts so it kind of makes it even muddier.  So first thing... spread the parts out a bit, not too much, but enough to keep from having 3-5 parts stacked in the center.  You also need to pass over it with some EQ, brighten it a bit mainly, because it is almost at times like listening to it with a pillow between my head and the "speaker". The part at :27 and onward seems kind of unbalanced, because your drums are going nuts in a sense, and everything else is still at a pretty mellow pace up until around 1:06, when the synth is playing a steady rhythm along side.  At that point the song feels like it should be moving, contrary to the part before it where it felt like it wanted to be but it wasn't?  Well, now that I'm listening a 5th time I can hear something moving with the drums pace but it's hard to distinguish that part from the rest because it's being drowned out by the rest of the instrumentation. 

when you did the reverb, did you just layer one reverb over all the instruments?  That could possibly be another "muddy mix" issue, especially as heavy as the reverb sounds. If you apply varying amounts of reverb to groups or individual tracks you can control the tail of the reverb better so that parts thick with mid range or low end don't start bleeding through too much. 

Yeah... you definitely have a lot of reverb on this, can tell at the end of the track... :\

So, to recap... more panning, EQ, ease up on the reverb.  It's like the song is playing in an airplane hangar. 

I think you could also use an actual "bass" part in this track, whether it's a sub bass or an electric bass, etc... I think it would help balance out the drum part when it starts going ape shit, in addition to bringing out the parts that are moving steadily with the drums. 

... I love you.  :D

You're welcome.

And... in the spirit of thrashing other people's music...

http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/pyrite-heart-classroom/s-iSEyS

This has to be the most generic piece of music I have EVER written.   But the setting it's for calls for generic music so... sue me.

What DAW do you use?

Errr... Right now im using pxtone for chiptune stuff and reason 4 for orchestral stuff. I want to start using cubase so i could use kontact instruments but i find it a little too complicated to use.

What DAWs do you people use/recommend?

I personally use Sonar 8.5, but it's really a matter of preference when it comes down to it.  People argue endlessly over which DAW is the "best".

Reason I was asking, is if you had Sonar I was going have you send me the project file so I could "analyze" your track/melody and potentially offer some more "advice" by way of actually modifying a small section of it.  

CFG

...is a Csus4!

Kind regards,
- a Music Theory Nazi

Merely an enharmonic equivalent my good sir!
In said context it is an inverted Fsus2.

Let's lose the specifications and just call it a triad.

Fair enough.  I'll post one up soon, I had one posted earlier but took it down because nobody seemed to notice it(was like... page 2/3 or something.

I think part of why I haven't posted anything YET aside from that, is I'm already aware of a lot of the problems in my tracks that I am working on, and I don't want to post something that to me is obviously nowhere near completion. :p  Once I get a track semi "finished" I'll probably post that. o_O

Thanks again, man.  I'll really try to nail down transitions better in the future.  Thanks for all your hard work on this topic, too.  Great idea and I'm sure everyone loves it.

I sure don't... makes me feel like an asshole. :\

I don't mean to post twice, but I wasn't entirely sure which of my songs I wanted to post, so I figured I might as well and try to post both.  Here's another: https://soundcloud.com/tipsheda/blimps-fly-high . Just let me know what you think.  You guys can skip this if you feel like it.  I don't entirely care, just thought I'd try.

Like your other track, I'm having hard time following this track.  It's like you had several ideas that just kind of fell into the mix one after the next with no real development to lead you from one part to the next(transitions), and they vary so much it's like I'm moving from one room to the next, for about 6+ rooms, but there is no hallway to link them.  I just kind of ... teleported into another location.  The progression of some parts gets redundant at times because the changes you make do little to keep me interested. It's mostly changes in the tone or harmonic variances of the same instrument that is already playing. By the time a new part/instrument comes in at some parts in the track, I'm already over that whole section and just want it to move on. There are some weird chord changes in there that kind of... threw me off but I'll leave that to your artistic preference because I do stuff like that once in a blue moon too.  The part around 8:25 or whatever, at the end, it was a nice change transitioning out of the part just before it, and then the track ends.  That was one of the few times where the transition felt natural and I was curious where things were going to go next.  Then it stops.  If you can work on getting the drums more involved and not so sparse in the rhythm, as well as try to develop sections more so that they each FLOW into one another more naturally, then you could make some great electronic.  You've got nice ideas, just poor execution overall.