New! Just Released Creative Commons Chiptunes Album
- Thread starter Nerdboy
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Well, being someone who listens to classic NES, SNES, Gameboy and all manner of chiptune music on a daily basis, I think I am probably the most qualified to comment on your album. Now, I'll be frank, it's not good. For a couple of reasons:
1. Normalization is not there. Everything is distorted, like you over-amplified the audio and that makes it sound really bad and can actually blow out speakers if played like that for a long time.
2. The music has no structure. It sounds very random and that makes is messy and incoherent.
Now, I will comment on how to make it better and not just shoot it down. In fact, I encourage you to continue because I personally love chiptunes and think there is a lack of it here.
1. Normalize your audio to 100% and don't blindly amplify. If you are using either Audition or Audacity, there are Normalization options which will auto amplify the music to its peak maximum. Meaning, if your peak is near the middle and much higher than the other parts of the audio, it will only max out there, but you can amplify that further in smaller increments. Use your best judgment.
2. Structure your music better. Listen to some classic C64, NES, Gameboy, Game Gear, Genesis, SNES music and listen to how they do it. Gain some inspiration. The interesting thing is that those same composers took inspiration from classic, rock, jazz and other forms of music to make what they made and most of it came out very well. It's a lot more work, but well worth the effort.
Do this for your music and it'll be much better. I hope you continue to work on it and mold this music, or future music, into something grand and exciting while still being chiptune. Good luck!
1. Normalization is not there. Everything is distorted, like you over-amplified the audio and that makes it sound really bad and can actually blow out speakers if played like that for a long time.
2. The music has no structure. It sounds very random and that makes is messy and incoherent.
Now, I will comment on how to make it better and not just shoot it down. In fact, I encourage you to continue because I personally love chiptunes and think there is a lack of it here.
1. Normalize your audio to 100% and don't blindly amplify. If you are using either Audition or Audacity, there are Normalization options which will auto amplify the music to its peak maximum. Meaning, if your peak is near the middle and much higher than the other parts of the audio, it will only max out there, but you can amplify that further in smaller increments. Use your best judgment.
2. Structure your music better. Listen to some classic C64, NES, Gameboy, Game Gear, Genesis, SNES music and listen to how they do it. Gain some inspiration. The interesting thing is that those same composers took inspiration from classic, rock, jazz and other forms of music to make what they made and most of it came out very well. It's a lot more work, but well worth the effort.
Do this for your music and it'll be much better. I hope you continue to work on it and mold this music, or future music, into something grand and exciting while still being chiptune. Good luck!
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1. Normalizing isnt good for harmonics. I use limiters instead so it doesnt clip. Which is bad bad bad.
2. I didn't amplify, the mastering tools I use all leveled it off to sound like that. Some of that are soundfonts and the sample from the sndfnt if i inspect it isnt very good. But I liked the sound so i used it.
3. No structure? Theres a begining, middle, end, even chorus to some. Bridge. but some of the tracks have different structure, you might not be familiar with it. hence you saying no structure. But yes, some of the tracks sound odd at points I admit.
4. I'm mostly a sound person, my musical skills aren't the best but i like playing with sound. I like harmonics, and the sounds I use generate buzzy sounds like old vintage analogs. Noise isnt bad, if it adds to the mood, like Intense as example.
5. There's room for improvement, but what's there isnt bad. Covers a wide range of uses. I'm working on my next double-sized album next week.
one more thing one thing I can do next time is drop the decibels by -3-7 and do it dynamically on certain channels. since the tools i use all push levels +1+3 ish and -1-3 without clipping. for this album i only dropped it -1 below zero.
I'm listening to it in my car and it sounds fine to my ears. as i wanted to see how they work outside my laptop speakers which isnt set up for audio speakers. which isnt good for hearing levels, i can only work with meters. if more people comment on the loudness, i may re-do it dropping decibels, but in the car i dont notice anything atleast its not clipping.
NOTE - I'm redoing it afterall, after checking what was wrong i noticed i didnt change peak levels on on all tracks, its much more subtle now, lots of work take me about 6 hours to re-record and master again but worth it. but now im gonna loose all my links =-(
2. I didn't amplify, the mastering tools I use all leveled it off to sound like that. Some of that are soundfonts and the sample from the sndfnt if i inspect it isnt very good. But I liked the sound so i used it.
3. No structure? Theres a begining, middle, end, even chorus to some. Bridge. but some of the tracks have different structure, you might not be familiar with it. hence you saying no structure. But yes, some of the tracks sound odd at points I admit.
4. I'm mostly a sound person, my musical skills aren't the best but i like playing with sound. I like harmonics, and the sounds I use generate buzzy sounds like old vintage analogs. Noise isnt bad, if it adds to the mood, like Intense as example.
5. There's room for improvement, but what's there isnt bad. Covers a wide range of uses. I'm working on my next double-sized album next week.
one more thing one thing I can do next time is drop the decibels by -3-7 and do it dynamically on certain channels. since the tools i use all push levels +1+3 ish and -1-3 without clipping. for this album i only dropped it -1 below zero.
I'm listening to it in my car and it sounds fine to my ears. as i wanted to see how they work outside my laptop speakers which isnt set up for audio speakers. which isnt good for hearing levels, i can only work with meters. if more people comment on the loudness, i may re-do it dropping decibels, but in the car i dont notice anything atleast its not clipping.
NOTE - I'm redoing it afterall, after checking what was wrong i noticed i didnt change peak levels on on all tracks, its much more subtle now, lots of work take me about 6 hours to re-record and master again but worth it. but now im gonna loose all my links =-(
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