I actually think that was part of what was getting to me. I’m trying to come up for a theme for a character in a game I’m working. A battle theme. And I was trying to come up with a scale/chords/etc and just feeling overwhelmed.
I’ve also been listening to a ton of chaabi/north african/middle Eastern music and trying to think of fitting that in a sense and was just getting depressed about things not sounding right or not being about to figure out where to go exactly
Have you tried to analyze what makes this kind of music sound like it does? What kinds of progressions are common, tuning systems, etc?
I didn’t get the hardware aspect in the original post so that definitely makes more sense. I never got on with Max cos I’m so impatient but it’s a lot more exportable to standalone applications, Reaktor is basically its own plugin so not like you can just chuck someone a plugin you made to run in their DAW.
I once made a granular multi-beat sampler that was great for loading tons of jungle breaks in and switching between samples and beat-points in realtime using an xy pad interface.
Always wanted to get a Raspberry Pi hooked up to a little touchscreen and just have it auto boot up the OS > Reaktor > Beat-module at the flick of a rocker switch, and just have the machine literally spit out mangled beats while you manipulate the xy via the screen, but that’s one of the millions of projects that I’ll probably never make lol.
I’ve mostly just been doing rhythmic analysis, but I’ve always watched a fair few tutorials on YouTube of various melodies and songs, and used to watch maqam singing lessons. I also just spent some time recreating some parts from one of my favorite songs, and also have been making some chaabi inspired beats lately, so I wouldn’t really say that’s where I’m stuck.
So you’re stuck at just judging yourself. That’s the thing you need to realize. Just play whatever, and think that everything sounds good. There’s no one there to judge but yourself. It’s hard to learn how to play any instrument if you don’t think like this. Replicating genres, styles, or songs will always be influenced by YOU, and your knowledge about what it is you’re trying to replicate. That’s how music evolves. But yeah, just play whatever, and find out what you think sounds good. Start at the interval level and build from there. Build up a bit of relative pitch with ear training if you haven’t already, it will help a lot. I can decipher most progressions I hear in real time, almost to Roman numerals/general chord progression levels, just by listening to the intervals. It’s easy to jam upon whatever, on whatever instrument (within technical knowledge ofc), if you can hear where the stuff is “probably” going to go next, based on harmony/basic intervals.
I’m drunk and just rambling at this point, but yeah. The Circle of Fifths has all the basics in Western harmony, you can twist it as you want, or just intuitively choose things that sounds good. Both approaches are equally valid. Remember that most music theory is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Some shit like this you know, just play whatever. Then when you find something, develop it, practice for a bit and record.
Or like this guitar jam I recorded recently, just jammed on a song I know pretty well. But it’s all improv, one take.
Yeah that’s a huge part of it, honestly. A lot of the time I’m working on something and I just can’t help but think it sounds like shit or sounds cheesy. And sometimes it does of course, but sometimes it’s fine and just needs some tweaks or something.
I figured out some chords that I’m quite happy with that feels fitting for the character. They came out of the first day of messing around and feeling shit about it all, just needed to push a little bit further.
This is a great point. I think a lot of people are so focused on trying to “come up with their own style” or whatever, when really whatever they make is going to be “their style” because it’s something they made
Bait title and dude in general, but he’s got great tips on how to think of harmony less in terms of chord progressions, and more about classical voice leading. The chords emerge by what intervals you choose to add to your main melody.
Exactly. You made it, so that’s your style unless you feel it or not. You just gotta define what you like, and go for that, basically.
Ever watch 12tone or 8 bit music theory? Those are great channels for music analysis and theory stuff.
Those are some of the channels I follow, yeah.
Nobuo Uematsu is a genius when it comes to these voice leading techniques. Working on hardware with very limited amounts of channels makes it even more important. You really have to bring forth the harmonic movement in a way that makes sense, with very few voices.
Nice. I learned a ton from those channels lol.
Learning about voice leading was definitely huge for me. I didn’t really understand “the point” of chords until that.
Cohesive, very complex harmonic progression. This is 3 fucking channels, where one is only bass, + 1 noise channel. Insane.
The way he’s implying so much harmony without having the ability to make a fucking 3 note chord at all lol.
Yeah dude old game music is actually insane. They made some absolute bops. The limitations on those old games were crazy. Not just sound either, but memory and processing power.
For sure.
That’s why I like making chiptunes sometimes. Limit myself af, hehe.
Reppin’ more of my shit.
This shit, you can learn from it.
I just realized that they use the arp function in the column, where you have to input the semitones for the notes you want in actual numbers, can be combined with 2 arps in succession, where the first one plays these notes, then the next does these… Simple stuff, but mind-blowing shit for me. Pretty damn smart programming.
You can technically build a whole song with just the arp function, and it’d be 8 rows long lol. Or whatever you feel like ofc. Just as an example.
I really struggle with this.
For eg. I was working on a couple bits the other day, and then someone posted the new Vivek/System release and I had a listen and got so disheartened by the quality of my shit that I just fucked it off.
Completely. I stopped listening to other tunes while I’m working on a song because I’ll just get depressed that mine doesn’t have that depth to it instead of trying to actually add that depth lol.
(Joking a bit but also true)
Worse though is when I think I’m making an absolute banger, take a little break from it, come back and realize it’s actually clown music
100%
Whoever the fuck says to A/B test your music with other tunes on labels is a cruel person
Not at all imo. Get a plugin where you can load in a track and level match it, pretty useful to just have one button to A/B within the DAW. Then you can really listen to how the mix is laid out. Stereo field, levels of different instruments, etc.