dugtunes

[wagtunes]

Is there some kind of standard volume? I was just trying to do something off those chords but I can definitely hear it?

I didn't say I couldn't hear it at all. I said I could just about hear it. How high up do you have your monitors cranked? I keep mind headphones at a volume where at 0 DB, I can hear every song just fine without it making me go deaf. It's loud but not deafening.

If you want, I can download your track, throw it into Cubase and see what it registers on the DB meter. I'm going to guess it won't be any louder than -15 db, if that.

[dug]

Sure but you no I'm just experimenting. Don't want you to go to ,to much trouble. So you can download from soundcloud?
I didn't even know that. Tried but couldn't find out how.

[dug]

When I let it play through on soundcloud and let it drop through to the next song, that song was loud.
Guess I was adjusting my volume to balance it out.

[dug]

You were right, had the output on my little mixer turned up to loud. Lesson learned.

[dug]

Deleted he old one and uploaded a new version to check the volume. Since it was the same name it picked it up off the old link.

[wagtunes]

Okay, the volume is fine now.

Now let me ask you a question. What kind of feedback are you looking for, for Swandive? Maybe if you ask a specific question or questions, I can be of more help. If you're not looking for any feedback (just fooling around) then that's fine too. But if you're not, then I'm not exactly sure why you're posting these here. The tracks you've posted so far, IMO anyway, are not songs. They're sounds and chords. I'm realizing now how similar all these tracks sound. It's really just the chords that have changed. But it's all the same style, rambling on without any real direction.

Having said that, this style can become structured and actually become a signature composition style, kind of like how George McCrae was back in the early 70s. All his songs sounded the same but he had a style that made him a success for a short time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arxhW1RgDDo

I hear some of that in your tracks. They just need some refinement (well, a lot actually) and polish. That's of course if you even care. And again, that's part of the problem. I have no idea what you're looking to get out of posting these "sketch" tracks here.

[dug]

I have learned from the feedback. I'm trying to keep the tracks short for now. I need more experience to know what to ask.
And I like that song, was some foxie chicks dancing to it back in the day.

[wagtunes]

I have learned from the feedback. I'm trying to keep the tracks short for now. I need more experience to know what to ask.
And I like that song, was some foxie chicks dancing to it back in the day.

Well then let me ask you a few questions, if that's okay.

1. Do you have any musical training at all?

2. Do you have any mixing training at all?

3. What synths do you own?

4. What DAW are you using?

5. What kinds of music do you like?

Oh, and about the George McCrae song, were you around back then? Just curious.

[dug]

Have a guild box guitar. Have been playing for years but just an amateur. Lmms and Reaper. No formal mixing training.
Behringer 1202 mixer. No Synths. All kinds of music. And yes I'm older than dirt. But I did use you're disclaimer.

[wagtunes]

Okay, I listened to your track but I'm not going to comment on it.

Additional questions:

You say you've been playing guitar a long time but a lot of people play guitar to the extent that they can read chord charts to their favorite songs and play them. Is that pretty much it in your case?

What I'm getting at is this. Have you had any training at all, even if just self taught, in musical composition? Do you know basic verse/course song structure? If not, that's where you need to begin. And the best way to learn that is just listen to popular music and try to pick out where the verse is, where the chorus is, and so on.

I've been writing pop music for over 40 years and some people say I still suck at it. Point is, you're not going to get great overnight. There is a huge learning curve. And then, there's wherever your natural talent can take you. Some people, it only goes so far and then some people are naturals.

As for not having any synths, then I gather the synth sounds you've made on these tracks came stock in Reaper. They sound kind of meh. There's just no life in any of it. But that could be because of the mix. I don't know. I don't use stock synths.

Download Synth1. It's free. It sounds better than everything I've heard so far coming out of Reaper.

So...

1. Learn how to write a song.

2. Learn how to arrange a song.

3. Learn how to mix a song.

A lot of people here are great mix engineers but can't write a real "song" for crap.

You've got a long road ahead of you. It won't be easy and at times it will be frustrating as hell.

But before you post one more track here, you have to ask yourself what kind of feedback you're looking for and, if any, let the members here know. That's the only way they're going to be able to help you.

Watch this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arxhW1RgDDo

It's stupid, it's ridiculous, and you'll learn a lot from it.

[dug]

Stock lmms plugins. Maybe there's enough here to work with. Gonna work on the variations and the mixing.
https://soundcloud.com/user-383703517/maybe

[wagtunes]

That actually doesn't sound horrible. I don't think you're ever going to get anything great sounding out of it (most reviews of LMMS stock plugins are pretty bad as far as sound) but I've heard worse. I think some EQ, compression, delay, reverb and other FX could possibly produce an acceptable sound.

Check out the One Synth Challenge thread in Instruments. There is a list somewhere of all the free plugins available for use. Of course I don't know how many of these will work on Linux. But the One Synth Challenge entrants have made some really great sounding tracks with all free plugins, so it is possible.

But so far what I'm hearing is about as bad sounding as the stuff that comes with Cubase outside of maybe something like Padshop or Retrologue.

[dug]

I downloaded synth1. It does sound really good, couldn't find presets for it though. I'm gonna use better stuff later. Using the stock plugins for now just to see what I can do with them. I can load better plugins into lmms. Will probably try synth1 in it. If I can make something half decent with stock I will have learned a lot. Also I will check out the One Synth thread.

[wagtunes]

All the presets you could want for Synth1

https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/presets-for-synth1

[wagtunes]

14,000 more presets for Synth1

http://veryrandomstreams.blogspot.com/2 ... -free.html