Nice!
Reviews for "Empty"
TheSMMusic responds:
Thank you! :D
Yeahhhhhhhh! How did this get rated only 3.5 stars? This is really neat!
TheSMMusic responds:
Thank you :)
I don't say this often, but I think your snare might be too loud when it's first introduced
Also, not really liking your hi-hat sample that much. I would use a soft 808 for a subtle composition like this.
Probably the biggest thing here is levels. You're getting some distortion and clipping when those strings come in at about 2:10, which are much too loud.
This track is super long, also. I feel there are sections which could be cut, such as that first one with the strings. But I'm at 3:33 atm, so I'm not sure what else you're going to do with it so far.
The piece overall is quite relaxed, with a lot of sections like 4:50 and the surrounding 30 seconds that are just almost dead air. 5:17 I would have completely faded out. By 6:46 you have a nice cool little section that would have gone well. I would have gone into that, skipping over our big empty sections since there are not a lot of moving elements here. By 8:50 we've gradually been getting more and more naked. I probably would have completely faded out again maybe even a minute earlier. 8 minutes is still a real whopper of demanding attention from a listener.
Cool that you can do stuff like this on mobile though! :)
For improvements, I think the best thing you can do is find a song structure you like or composition you like, and create a template with markers, then work with that for a while until you feel where pieces will naturally want to move and breathe. Maybe some lead writing. I like the elements as you brought them together here, but building up to them felt like a long slog of fade in and fade out, and I ultimately just lost attention. I had to refocus more than once. At one point I wondered had you accidentally rendered a kick line from that naked section I mentioned to close. Thankfully no, haha.
But anyway, thanks for coming out to NGUAC!
TheSMMusic responds:
Wow, I can see you know a lot about music production. I don't know very much about producing. Actually, I just put instruments together until I like the result. I also don't pay much attention to the details. But I'll try to follow your suggestions in my next songs :D