A more than fair comment, I'd say. But I think this thread stopped being about that a long time ago. However, I may PM the OP, so there's no chance of that going off topic.

Sure, you're not wanting an argument, but you wanted to have a quick bash at a person rather than address any of what they said. Hit and run. What a guy.

KVR did.

Dear jancivil,
Let me tell you this: I started making music around mid-90s. In yearly 2000s I had enjoyed a limited success and was performing in clubs. That was before I had spent even single hour studying musical theory. The success was limited due to personal reasons.
During last ten years, I invested my time in studying music theory (and classical music among those). I took piano lessons, and I continue studying piano just for my own sake.
You made ignorant assumptions regarding what I know and what I don't know. Shame on you.

And statements like this only reveal that you can't make something like this infantile, pathetic rubbish. However you do bother yourself with commenting threads where people ask questions related to that rubbish. Ain't it stupid?
If enjoy making avantgarde keep yourself to it. And stop giving advice in the areas where you have no experience.

I listened to your tracks. In my opinion the main problem why they sound one-dimensional is because there's no breakdown at all. They just keep going and going. And that gets boring. You should develop texture and tone. For example it would be good taking beats and bass out somewhere in the middle of the track, then increase the intensity and drop everything back. That would add much more dynamics to your tracks. Right now the energy level is almost constant throughout the whole tracks.
In your first and third tracks the bass play very prominent role, therefore you need to make sure that sometimes it goes in and out. So it would be good to apply some low-pass filtering. Let the bass play throughout the first section open, then close the filter and start slowly opening it.
Throwing more melodies won't help that much, as you would need more time to develop it and without doing things I mentioned above, it will make your tracks much more boring, as for example keeping the bass going for two more minutes will introduce the highest state of boredom.
Speaking about production, I suggest you using more EQ, as for example your last track 'Trinumeral Trance' sounds like a soundtrack to 90s game. That was ok for 90s but right now, nobody will take it seriously. Using EQ to cut resonance would give much smoother sound, which wouldn't be so tiring for ears.

PS: As a reference try listening to Orbital - Technologicque Park:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmvZBtN7nnc

Notice how almost everything taken out around 1:57. Only one synth and some fx are playing. The same is around 4:30. In addition pay attention to how beats are being stripped down or completely removed for a couple of beats throughout the track.

Great advice (play with instrumentation), i'll keep it in mind next time I work with legos.

And I want YOU to write me a track that demonstrates your principles. We've established pages ago that this argument has hit a brick wall. Create me something, walk the walk.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to write a track specifically for this thread (at least not right now). Instead I'll post some of my old stuff:
http://soundcloud.com/re-vibe/end-of-world
http://soundcloud.com/re-vibe/no-funk
These tracks are close in style to what jancivil calls 'a lot of infantile, pathetic rubbish'.

Decent tracks, but please drop the bickering!
You've already conceded to most of our points, you've admitted to studying theory (including some examples of "classical" music) and learning to play piano. THERE IS NO NEED FOR ARGUMENT musicians should make music, leave the bickering to politicians.

We were in jazz improv class a few years ago, asking questions that were irrelevant to the professor's point, and he said:

"I'm sure you've heard the saying that music is about the silence between the notes..."

"of course, sir"

"well what that means is that a true musician knows when to shut up"

It can't reasonably 'reveal' my capabilities. you're just having an emo moment some more again. I have experience with music. There is nothing real novel about the elements of EDM. Really.

(after a few years of the kind of garbagio in this thread, I finally 'revealed' my actual opinion on this thing. I've hald back, it's bad politics, it's going to be offputting and obviate my message to enough people, so it's not a good idea. But I've had it with motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane.)
EDIT and disclaimer: A lot of this is general, ie., not directed at any given individual

There are skills that apply to ANY music one chooses to make. Skills some of the people here don't demonstrate anything but an allergy to.

I'll tell you why I'm being a cop here:

What we have here is technology that, if you want to take this path, allows us to avoid the use of muscles. It is a fact that when you do not use muscles, they atrophy. If one does not have the muscles, never develop them at all, one is weaker accordingly. Creating musical lines, or blocks of chords, rhythm, whatever flow in our decoration of time IS informed by the act of playing, or it isn't. There is music posted here, youtube usually, that is made by people that obviously never obtained the skill set you'd have if you were pro-active in fifth grade band class. and not even close.

When one can get away with presenting music that, seems like music, it has a beat, it has a tune, even a bass line... Here we have a situation, where one can present some object like they made it and get strokes for it, we have a tempation to go with it. People, nature, seeks a state of stability, really seeks a state of repose. Slack. So, we have a situation where people do what people have done always, get into music for reasons other than interest in music. Ego drives. You can now 'produce' music and pretty much not have great skill in any aspect of it. So we have people that are celebrated, and videos posted here of tutorials where the celebrity doesn't have the capacity to know how to deal with triplets vs duplets. But he's a pro! he's great, because he has that sound, he uses the right synth, the right 'kick' everyone can relate to. No, dude, he's not.

When I first had a band eons ago, there were or course people in music to get up there and get some strokes, people that won't ever become musicians... no problem, it's normal. But after a time, people can tell you can't play. That weeds out a lot of people that didn't have any business doing music, because the evidence is in... Now you can get around that. So you have enough people in music getting their egos stroked by the others with the same idea, fostered by the enabling aspect of the technology, that just aren't real interested in music. (That isn't directed at you, 'loki fuego', but we have seen it here enough.) But it's a great vehicle for the ego.

'it has a beat, it has a tune, even a bass line...' but the person hasn't ever beat on anything, they haven't sung any tune... they haven't learned any one's song, hasn't felt the interaction with another musician in real time. IT SHOWS.

And we see people that are seriously resistant to the idea 'learn from someone else's song', and allergic after a point to anything but the comfort zone of EDM. We see it a lot here, in fact.

Consciousness is a field. It isn't atomistic, you don't put out an idea and it evaporates into ether, someone noticed it, it can have a ripple effect.

We have people here actually contending they can do every bit as well without the fundamental experience of making music happen in the physical realm. that is not a good idea; that is not an HONEST idea. Others seize on it and it validates, verifies their desire to be noted and stroked, now we can be noted for 'some beatz' but just didn't get very dirty or develop the usual muscles to get it. And one has succeeded in spreading one's consciousness, it's disseminated into the field.

Ultimately it's bad for consciousness, it's bad for music, it just degrades the whole field.
Last edited by jancivil on Mon Apr 02, 2012 9:50 am; edited 7 times in total

based on your other track I heard almost a minute of, I doubt it. I'm referring to other music.

My assumptions are based only in the language you have presented. I'm arguing with your words, I can't know 'you'. You were trying to convince us that one can do every bit as well only ever sitting in front of the computer as someone that went for instrumental skill as a fundament. I don't know why you'd be that argumentative from a different position. It's... interesting.

It's combative, which I can empathize with, but it's also someone bullshitting me and I'm just too old for that shit.

yeah, you know skankfiddle has actually gone to the trouble of whole productions, in a great drive to teach people a lesson they ought to heed... part of the message there is 'look, these skills have me doing this is this amt. of time, so they are valid skills maybe, check it out'

you 'don't have the time'. you have the time to type this stuff in the thread, though don't you.

actually my honest opinion is, you have gone far with what you have to work with. OTOH, it seems pretty cookie cutter to me.

stop giving me advice, child.

Don't call me a child in front of others, mom!