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Obstructed Dreamscape

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Author Comments

Let us not be disillusioned by dreams. When we awake please allow us to be of sober mind.

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I hope I will not sound like a pretentious snob, but I kind of have a tip for you...

When you try to emulate a dream-like atmosphere, write down your notes for a certain instrument in a tab editor ( such as guitar pro, or anything you can find free online), then take those notes and put them together from last to first. So for example, if in your head it's ( random sound lol): bim bap prr pok, then input them into your VST as pok prr bap bim at for example 130% the normal tempo ( so if your track is at 100 bmp, input those at 130 bmp) and 6 semitones higher. Then run them through a sound editor such as Audacity and do two things:
1) edit:change the "velocity"/speed by minus 30% ( that way you'll have the sounds back at 100bmp and at the original key)
2) edit:reverse the whole things, such that it's bim bap prr pok again.
Then add it back into the final mix.

That is practically a reversed instrument, and if done well it will significantly increase the eeriness and dream-like atmosphere of the given track, or that is at least how I found it to be.

As for an actual review of this track, I am in agreement with most of what's already been said, only that I don't actually find it all that repetitive, and I must add I'm really fond of its atmosphere.
It's really nice for a day's work!

SoulSecure responds:

Once again, it wasn't created with dreams in mind. The title came afterwards.

Thanks for the review!

I like the use of noise sound for the percussion and thought the melodies were sweet and beautiful, however I felt it lacked experimentation seeing as it's an experimental piece. I liked when the progression changed towards the end of the piece. It turned the dream like sounds into more of a nightmare and the transition was nice. It would've been nice if you progressed more on the track, adding more instrumentation as the track develops seeing as it seems pretty minimalistic overall good work though

SoulSecure responds:

I want it to be minimalistic in nature. Whenever I try to add more it just doesn't work for me, ya dig?

Also, experimental is more so the genre rather than the method. I used to put all my stuff under miscellaneous, but I think that's for random crap now. :\

Thank you for your review!

Whenever I picture the soundtrack for a dream, I would imagine something quiet and simple like this, but maybe not as accented. Like JoshuaHughes said, since you're writing an experimental piece that is supposed to reflect a dream, I wish it were longer, and even more experimental. Also, while the experimental genre would definitely include a minimalist piece, eventually I think this piece gets too monotonous. If you are actually trying to write something that's minimalist, I'd suggest including a lot more variance and development in your thematic material.

Overall, definitely an odd track in a genre I don't write or listen to a lot, but catchy in its own way.

David (R4R)

SoulSecure responds:

Yeah, it's not supposed to have a lot of instruments and it was going to have variations, but I wanted to keep this wandering feeling. I might make additions to it or something.

I play a lot of older video games, so I'm heavily influenced by old systems I've played since I was a kid, like the NES or DOS. There's a lot of repetitive music in old games. Hell, Burger Time and games like that only play a crappy little loop.

Another thing I'm going to say is that I enjoy playing with repetitive sounds that interact with a bass line or melody to create a new feeling instead of completely changing the part. That's what I was doing here.

It sounds completely different with the beat over it, or with the big synth than it did by itself.

One more thing, I didn't create the song with dreams in mind. The title came after it was complete. It's more about wandering and feeling stuck.

I've always imagined that if a dream were to have a soundtrack behind it, it would be eerily quiet and simple like this. I also imagine slow 2step drum solos, too. I don't know. It's not easy to review something like this. I could say you should make it longer than a minute and a half and throw in some more experimental shit in, like old-time samples, distorted rumbling, or exotic percussion (stuff I would have done if this were mine), but this is just a filler track, right? For a day's work, it's solid.

SoulSecure responds:

Funny enough, I was going to make this longer than it is, but I thought it would loop nicely if I ended it there, which it does, but when I export the song from my DAW it doesn't loop as well as it did. That's why I made it short, so it could be looped.

Coincidently, I was also going to add some Chinese cymbals and tabla in there, lol.

Credits & Info

Artist

Listens
935
Faves:
1
Downloads
17
Votes
7
Score
3.99 / 5.00

Uploaded
Feb 13, 2014
5:45 PM EST
Genre
Experimental
File Info
Song
2.5 MB
2 min 10 sec
Tags

Licensing Terms

Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.