Mod Archive Forums

Community => Look what I made! => Topic started by: Manical on April 19, 2021, 03:19:35

Title: My first full song, made with ProTracker 2.
Post by: Manical on April 19, 2021, 03:19:35

This is the song, since it is currently pending to upload to TMA, I decided I would upload it to Drive and show everyone my first song :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MI4vA7MxyYKXA7Pug39RZcfXW8wGNyNs/view?usp=sharing

Title: Re: My first full song, made with ProTracker 2.
Post by: Saga Musix on April 20, 2021, 20:05:34

As the track is currently in the "2nd opinion" queue, I will give you some feedback why that is the case and why it might get rejected in the end.
The track itself shows typical signs of being a firstie (which you just confirmed), and you should be aware that uploads to ModArchive are permanent. It's rarely a good idea to upload your first module, only very few artists are skilled enough that their first composition is actually listenable and that they themselves would enjoy listening to a month later.

In this particular case, the song has at least the following issues:

• The drums are out of sync. The drum loop is slightly shorter than 16 rows, so the loop is not in sync with the tempo at the end of the loop there is always a jarring bit of silence. Look into tempo command F to fix this.
• The song is essentially repeating three notes for almost two minutes before introducing a new concept. Yes, that doesn't necessarily need to be a bad thing, good musicians can get away with this (see example below). But especially when you are new to making music, it's very difficult to figure out why a minimalist techno track made by an experienced composer that uses just three notes can be worthwhile listening to but your own composition isn't. Typically that is because there is more to the song than just those three notes. This "extra fluff" can be subtleties like slowly changing filters over time (you do this over the course of less than a second, which gets very repetitive very quickly), or other changes in the sound (e.g. adding effects).
• After four minutes, a new instrument is finally introduced, but it doesn't really make the song any more worthwhile listening to. Voice samples can be used to create interesting effects that go well with the music (take e.g. this classic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWaZhnwdTio) which is roughly in the same genre as your track - and, to add to the previous bullet point, only uses a single (!) note throughout the whole track, yet it made people rave like mad in the 90s), but in your case it's just four random notes that are in dissonance with the acid line playing at the same time. The result is very jarring.
  

I hope that these comments help you seeing the issues with this track, and maybe with reworking the track, or coming up with a completely new, better track. Please don't be disappointed if the track eventually gets rejected, but take it as motivation to work on and improve your skills.