Reviews for The Door - Luke's Island

[johnfn]

It's not bad...

I think my biggest problems were the melodies and the transitions. Melodies first. Like, the first 15 seconds is a melody that seems like it doesn't really go anywhere for me. It's hard to explain exactly how to write a good melody - it's one of those things you sort of learn subconsciously. But the initial one has all these jumps all over the place, and that usually doesn't work (unless you're doing arpeggios I guess...), you usually have stepwise movement (like C-D-E) with a few occasional jumps.

The other thing that you can think about is transitions between the different sections. Like, right now it's pretty hard to tell that all the different sections (that you mentioned in your reply to BlueOceans) exist, and that could be because there isn't much that differentiate the sections. It's as easy as changing the instruments, or adding in a crash when the new stuff comes in, but it is very important because otherwise your song feels directionless.

Other than that I liked it. I thought it had a nice chill aesthetic to it, and it was pretty enjoyable to play in the background while I did stuff. Keep it up!

TaintedLogic responds:

Thank you very much, Johnfn! :D I never think about these kinds of things when I make my tracks! Usually how I marked the main transitions in this track is with bass slides (e.x. 2:02) or with a fade-in with the instrument I used for the chords (e.x. 2:44). As for the melodies, I usually just base them entirely off of the chords, which is pathetically lazy, I know. In fact, for months I only had the first 26 seconds of this song in its final state, and so the melodies for pretty much the rest of the song are largely based on those melodies, especially the one at 1:23. I definitely understand your criticisms, and I agree that the directionless nature of the song is its main weakness. Thank you for all the advice you've given me over the past few months! I really appreciate it! :D