ArtificialDisco

This is just delightful to listen to!

Another thing I've been working on recently. I guess it's a bit long, but I hope that's OK. https://soundcloud.com/artificial-disco/the-whole-solar-cycle

A hard driving funky acid tune, I like it a lot! That dense organ-sounding synth is doing a lot for me. Do you mind if I ask how you did that (appears at 0:56)?

Yeah, this is definitely getting exciting. I think with a couple of careful decisions you could bring it home. I'd like to hear more of the main melody that starts at 0:47... Actually I can hear it played with a different sound after 2:00, so possibly you just need to turn that up in the mix. Also, maybe that second section at 1:55 could build up slower. I.e. it would be cool after all the madness of the first section if it stayed chill for a bit. I think you could mull around for an extra half minute before bringing in the lasers, at least.

That's great advice. This is actually stuff I lose sleep over so having some feedback on it is golden. Maybe I thought the high "plings" of the keyboard were hurting my ears so I compressed it but in the process it might have lost something. Also, the whole track is drenched is the Valhalla Shimmer reverb, which could definitely be dialed back a bit. I'm going to take another look at it. Thanks!

Sounds great! And yeah, that's me playing the trumpet.

This is a keeper. It's got something slightly weird going on harmonically that's very exciting. If you're wondering what to put your time into, this is it.

Quite a few nice tunes in there. Are you releasing any of this as albums?

I enjoyed this a lot. The subs are great. On my main headphones (AudioTechnica) they were absolutely murderous! The bass line is fine to my ears I have the same comment as last time, I'd like this to be longer. Also, you're posting so much that it hard to even keep track. Aren't you ever worried that you're spreading yourself to thin? I think spending more time on finishing things would be a really big benefit to you.

This is kind of all over the place and not all of it's quality. But it provides a snapshot of my musical activity over the last few years: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6sDFk2PqTUUNy_HGVy6QVQ

Thank you very much! It's comforting to hear that it's organic sounding, it really was what I was going for! I'm glad you liked it.

Thanks a lot! I think that's a good idea moving forward actually, to get more into the synthesis of it all. A lot of people seem to like Lost in the Void. The Amen Break strikes again, I guess!

My earlier comment about "all the scales" was a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but I wanted to point out what kind of a madman the guy who made the video is. His channel has indeed named every scale there is and he's made a video about each one of them. Granted, those videos were generated by a program, but still. He also used the binary bits method and has assigned each one a number based on it. One point I would like to make, though, is after a certain point, learning scales is just going to be useless. When they have too many chromatic notes in them, they'll just turn into the chromatic scale with jumps, or diatonic scales with chromatic passing notes. Chromatic passing notes are something jazz musicians use a lot and learning all the scales that result from this would drive you mad, whereas adding a few chromatic notes here and there is easy.

I'm pretty sure there is not a person on the planet who knows all of those scales. The guy probably invented or generated the names for most of them too. After a certain point you're not gaining anything musically by learning more scales so this is more a mathematical curiosity than anything. Although who knows? Maybe there is music to be written in the... phraptimic... scale?

"Straightforward exotica cheese" is a great sounding phrase although I have no idea what it means. But I'm guessing this is referring to track 5 mostly, which is kind of a Propellerheads tribute. Also, glad you liked the trumpet! I am a trumpet player of course, so it only made sense to use it. It can be a tricky though... I don't want this to turn into "me playing over a backing track". I try to use it only when there is place for it in the music. The third track also has trumpet playing throughout.

Hello everyone! This is a set of tunes I've been working on for most of the last year. I was thinking it works together as an album. I'm still kind of on the fence of releasing it though, so I figured I'd post it here before getting it up on Spotify or Bandcamp. The name is up for review. Actually everything is up for review. https://soundcloud.com/artificial-disco/sets/digital-desperation I guess I'll use this thread for any future stuff I might make.

It's really fun to listen to. Also, it's got great development - something that many people struggle with and is pretty hard to get right. The way you're reusing themes and changing them to keep the whole thing cohesive but interesting is pretty well done. I would make it longer though. With the buildup you've go so far you can afford it. Like, make the singing voices last for two more rounds, and just keep repeating the final phrases for a while. At this point it's kind of what we've all been waiting for. You could even do a fadeout. Although I'm kind of a sucker for fadeouts so maybe don't listen to me. It needs a more definitive ending at least.

My goodness! This is all of the scales. All of them!

Hehe, fair enough. Although the way he's talking about it, I can't dislike that, it's just the way he feels. Also, there might be some raw feelings there, being from a similar time as Bill Evans and seeing him get bigger than everyone else. Maybe a hint of jealousy, even...

Yeah, he's kind of a legend. The sixth diminished scale is a nifty thing and is also the basis of close-harmony big band arrangements (passing diminished chords). But wait a minute, he doesn't like Bill Evans? Who doesn't like Bill Evans? Also he played the piano in this:

The FM sound is indeed lovey, this is the kind of thing I'd like to get out of FM, whereas I always seem to get stuck in cheesy 80's mode. If you're wondering how to take this forward, I'd suggest writing more melodies with the popcorn synth (the high pitched sort stabs) and at some point, muting the pads. Like, at 1:19, the pads could drop out and the little synth line could take the center stage, and then the pads come back in a little later, with the melody still repeating. But if you want to keep it short and sweet, that's a perfectly valid route, and in that case I wouldn't change anything. The delays and reverbs are well done and the fact that the claps get so much reverb is a nice touch.

I produced mine on an MPC1000. Just took an amen break and chopped it into 16 pieces and then tried to bang away on the pads to make something nice. The whole track is just one 168 bar sequence on the MPC. The drills in the middle were copy-pasted events, forming 32th notes. It took a long time to do and there really must be a faster way to make those. I got the amen break from here: https://rhythm-lab.com/amen_breaks/ There are quite a few good drum loops there if you want to go chopping.

That Shanty was fantastic. Nice how you let that Shanty-sounding theme get transformed though the all the chaos. Maybe there is a bit of Clark in there as well? I do have one note for the chord progression though - that next-to-last chord sounds a little odd. You could try changing the F into a G, so that the chord becomes a Gmajor instead of Bdim.

I found myself wishing the first track had more reverb, even some creative delay effect. It has kind of a dub feel to it, similar to something The Orb would have done (which I love). The second track has some creative reverbs, which was nice to hear. The third track is killer! That one really got me. Actually I think Refraction and Bass Man are the highlights, but the calm tracks in between are also very nice and do indeed work to make this a cohesive whole.