A couple people hated the track preview I posted. I literally went through every sound and tried modulating it better and changing the notes and literally it sounds worse if I do that. The only thing I can think of is how the arrangement is laid out. I'm starting to really rethink this whole music thing if people have a strong dislike towards certain aspects of my tracks and I somehow cannot understand where they're coming from on their statements.

Unfortunately the end of my 4 day weekend marks its blood. I've done more than what I've had time to do though. I've also have been cleaning out my room looking for stuff to sell because I want this in my life. But above all, I have a new track preview out for you all: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/729727

This was honestly some random idea I had on Friday. I had no idea that I was going to turn this into a full track. What you've seen is only the build-up and drop. Not the intro. That is because this is the first time I'm doing the drop first in a track. People keep telling me to do it so I am.

Also, if you decide to review this, note that I haven't mixed the tracks yet. So try and leave mixing out of your review. I explain more in the description of this song.

I would make this post longer but I don't even know what to say. Unless you really want to know the in-depth specifications of the making of this track, there's nothing else to comment on.

Maybe later this week I'll make a post proposing a new idea to you. I don't know if it's a dumb idea or not, and I don't know if people would be interested in it. If I'm going to do the idea, I would definitely need interest so I know I'm not wasting my time.

Now it's time to go do homework and let school anxiety come back to me :D.

Also, can someone please tell me how to disable downloads on tracks? Because, I feel like it's abuse that I uncheck the "Allow downloads" box and Newgrounds still allows them anyways...

~Alpha

Hello Newgrounds, it is finally time I have come with a new update. I started writing this post on Friday but by the time I post this it will be Saturday. Trippy, right? I do this for traffic reasons, because I feel more people will see a post posted at 12:30 PM EST than at 12:30 AM EST.

So, Friday was the start of my 4 day weekend. I got some stuff to do outside Newgrounds but today I messed around with a random drop and

oh my god

I seriously think I broke my music block. I got a drop that this time I hope to amaze you guys with. It's gonna be damn hard to find an intro and transition that goes well with it, but I'm gonna really try on this track. If I seriously dedicate myself I might have a preview by President's Day, but there's no promises.

I also am making a resource post. But I'm not going to disclose too much info on that.

Other than that, there's nothing else to talk about. How's your weekend been so far?

And I also check this site every day. I started to worry that because I haven't been active in the AP cleanup thread or because I haven't made any news posts in 10 days people were going to start thinking that I was dead, but I'm always active on here and checking this site a few times a day. Musically, there's just nothing to update you on. I haven't made any progress on any tracks since the last time I updated. There just comes a time for me where I feel like I can't do it ://

Ok, so time for a new post.

By this weekend, I was SUPPOSED to have a WIP of a new drumstep track I've been working on. I was going to release a preview of the intro and drop, get some feedback, and continue. However, school has been stressing me out and holding me back.

It's the start of the 2nd semester, and my grades have reset. I have no idea why the school system decided to do that. I was perfectly happy with my A's, B, and B-. I can understand at the beginning of the year, because assignments are easy. But in the middle of the year, it's more difficult. And if the reason is because of semester long classes, just change those instead of my common core classes. The only thing good about this reset is I have an A in Science again... for now.

So far, I have an essay that's worth 15% of my grade, my Science Fair is coming up, I have an essay that's worth 200 points and is worth 85% of my grade, 2 quizzes, a math test that's worth 85% of my grade, and other stuff. Yeah, my mid-quarter grades is probably going to be trail mix.

There's not much I can really explain about this track. Other than I'm attempting drumstep again. It's going to be a weird track though, but hopefully people are okay with that because I like songs that are unique instead of listening to dubstep songs any 12 year old could make. I found this weird vocal bass, and some other basses that could go with it. This is definitely an experiment.

Maybe if I have time, I'll release a preview in the middle of the week, but that's going to say if I'm doing well academically.

~Alpha

I'm sick of all this "screw Newgrounds you put GD out of business :(((((((((((((((((((((((" and it's only been going on for a DAY. Just stop, please. YOU'RE the ones who did this to yourselves, not us. It was YOUR choice to upload songs you knew good and well you didn't have the rights to upload, not ours. We didn't force you to upload the songs, you forced yourself. This site has given you guys so many warnings  and reminders it's unbelievable. A good portion of you theifs speak and read English. The guidelines are in English. Unless you can't read English or you have a reading disorder, there is no way you didn't see the guidelines. And what's really bad? These guys have the audacity to be upset with NG for stuff they did, and some of you don't even know what you did wrong. I'm not going to bother naming stuff and examples, but a good portion of the GD users did this to themselves. You have to understand that Newgrounds is a huge site and a lot of us rely on it. Suppose you make a website, invest all your time and money in it and then it's taken away from a lawsuit because a bunch of idiotic 12 year olds clearly weren't taught that "NO means NO". Suppose you were a creator, an animator, artist, game developer, musician, voice actor, writer, and you use this site as a great resource for posting your stuff. Because on sites like deviantart, youtube, soundcloud, etc. you're not going to get near as much recognition as you do here. Imagine you're one of those artists and this resource was taken away from you, now you don't got anywhere to post your stuff and get recognized for it. Grow up and think of others instead of thinking "but i need to upload this skrillex song for a mathy type game :(((((((((((". You want Skrillex on here so bad? He has social media. Ask him. If not, there are tons of really good songs on here. And yes, there's plently of good dubstep for your stupid and overused "circles levels".

In conclusion, stop harrasing the staff. You still have the game, and it still works. It's not like your copy of the game is unusable. If you haven't downloaded a copy of the game that's your own stupidity. Just stop harrasing us for a problem you created yourself. Suppose if you were to be pulled in court for theft in a store your defense would be "oh no it's not my fault it's the store's fault because they're unfair".

I would be embarrased if I were RobTop. Really embarrased.

Hey guys, so, it's been a while since I've updated. I've been having a serious music block. Like, I don't think I've had one this bad since before the making of .:This is the End:. School's been doing it for me as well.

But anyways, that's not why I'm making this post. I'm sure a good 50% of the people who make audio or are audiophiles here probably know how bad the GD users are. They've corrupted the audio portal to the point of we have strict rules, and people only see it as a database for their levels. There's been a lot of drama about it lately. There's even a petititon to have the game removed off the stores. They're just horrible.

One thing they don't understand is, having custom music in Geometry Dash is a privelege. RobTop certainly didn't have to add that feature in the game. And not every game with a level editor allows custom music. To have access to now over 700,000 songs is a pretty big privelege when the developer could've just limited you to the same 21 songs that are now on there. Well, the GD users have abused this privelege. They constantly upload stuff that they know is not allowed here. None of them, I'm sure no why we can't. Well, if you're a thief or you know someone who is one, allow me to educate you guys.

When you go to submit a song. You have 3 options of what type of song it is. You can either say it's an original composition and you have all rights to it, it's an original song and you have all rights to it but you used samples or you sampled from a song, or it's a remix or cover of the song and you still have rights to it because you made it.

Now, allow me to take Skrillex - First of the Year. Good song, right? Well, you can't say it's an original composition, because you'd be saying you made it and you didn't. You can't say you used samples which you did not own, because you still didn't make the track. And you can't say it's a remix or cover because you'd still be borderline saying you made the track. See where I'm going with this? You're putting a license on it admitting it's yours, and it's not yours. Not to mention, you're also putting a license on it allowing certain rights to people who download it. You don't have the rights.

And no, it also doesn't matter if the song is free of copyright. It doesn't matter if the artist explicitly tells you you're allowed to use this track for whatever you want. Go to sites like SoundCloud and upload a NoCopyrightSounds song on there, let me know how long it stays up there. It's a big lawsuit on the site. Say if Skrillex ever found this website and saw a big chunk of his songs were being uploaded here, he could put this site out of business and you could forget using the songs you have access to on here. And I'm sure you'd be pissed off if you lost a site that you worked your ass off to keep it up and running for 20 years all because there's users on here that are idiots and are ignorant to the rules. I guess you just don't think it's that serious, huh? It's not you who'd be penalized. Not in this case anyways. If you search hard enough I'm sure you'll find news articles about singers suing people for using their songs without permission.

This is all part of why I help out in the Audio Portal Cleanup. I've only been on this site for just barely over a year, but I've also learned how important this site is. It's basically a good starting point for creators. I get tons more attention and feedback on my songs here than YouTube and SoundCloud. If I didn't post my tracks here, I would still be thinking my stuff is good and I would've never have recieved the feedback I've been getting. Feedback is the reason why I think I've been doing better.

I will say GD has had some positive impacts on here. For example, without GD I would've never have gotten into EDM. And I also would've never considered making EDM music. Nor would I have ever considered being on this site. But, there's also been many negative aspects.

That's just my little rant, I know it was rather pointless but I just needed to vent on these morons. And if you're a responsible GD user who isn't an idiot like these theives, this post wasn't intended to offend you. If you're a responsible user, I'm sure the site thanks you. However, if you're someone who uploads songs you didn't make I seriously have no sympathy for you if you're banned off this site or if RobTop decides to remove the music privelege. You guys are not only hurting yourselves, but you've hurt this site, the staff, the actually good GD users, and the musicians who actually want to make it big. Speaking of that, that's another thing that bothers me. Anyone else get tired of these GD users downgrading musicians because they're not like Skrillex? Boy I am. It's okay to think a song is bad, but for the love of god I'll never forgive you if you base it off of whether you'd see it in a GD level or not or if you think YOU would ever use it in a GD level.

So, yeh, anyways..

I'm going to try and do something musically productive this weekend. Although, I do have a science fair project to finish up. And I am entering this writing contest. So, I'm not sure if I'll start a track. I do have a little bit of a synth loop though that I might post and get your opinions on if I should elaborate on it or go back to the drawing board.

~Alpha

Well guys it's officially been a couple days since I released Dinosaurs, and oh my gosh this song has hit the charts. It recieved 1 like on SoundCloud, that's one more like than any of my other tracks! I have officially obtained some popularity, and popularity is good as long as it doesn't go to your head. I must, however, commemorate, this one like.

Ok, I'm sorry.

So, I've been trying to think of a new idea for a song. Something new, not just re-elaborating on an old track idea. I have a lot I could be doing. I've been making some chords that are really nice, I've been experimenting with certain things (like finding out some growl samples actually sound good reversed or pitch bent), I've been getting more familiar with Massive. Now I just need to establish some sort of bassline (no pun intended) for my next track. I actually may have something going for me though pretty soon. I'm sure anyone who has listened to Massive (I try too hard) amounts of dubstep probably is somewhat familiar with Barely Alive. Well, they're pretty common for using growls. One time they made this super complex growl patch in their remix of Getter and Datsik's Hollow Point. They released a tutorial and even a preset (later this was removed) and apparently people think it ruined dubstep. I have no clue why people think that, not many people use growls. Anyways, I tried following off their tutorial (although, it wasn't much of a tutorial they basically just did a run-through of what they did, I prefer more "step-by-step" kind of action) and not because I was planning on going full noob and using it, but because I wanted to see if it would guide me into knowing how to make my own growls instead of using samples/presets.  Somehow I screwed up somewhere, because it sounds nothing like that patch. Although, it sounds pretty cool. So, I did make a short 16 bar loop with it, and it sounds really swishy and cool. Maybe, for the first time ever, I could actually use one of these experiments and make a song out of it. The little drop I made actually sounds promising, and maybe people will like it more than Dinosaurs. I'm still trying to try stuff out and develop a style, so if you hate my music that's not a permanent style (although some user did influence me to try Neurofunk so I'm going to venture into dark stuff one more time). Mayeb in the meantime I'll find a new idea, or maybe I'll get motivation to work on my abandoned stuff.

Oh yeah, and SoundCloud really needs to pull themselves together and do something about this-

~Alpha

Dinosaurs is now released. I decided to just go ahead and release it. Keeping it in my folder for a few days staring at it isn't going to change anything. People either like it or they don't. It's up to them. I know I'm improving and that's what counts.

Now it's time to go work on some other stuff :P

~Alpha

Rawr.

I only got maybe 6 hours of sleep last night. My mom was sick all weekend so I stayed up and had to take care of her. Then at around 12:30 in the middle of the night she passed out twice in the bathroom, the second time she ripped the shower bar off. Now we don't have a shower bar. I also slept in a horribly wrong position, so now the nerves on my neck are hurting. My mom's been sick because there's this massive flu epidemic (not really the vomitting kind of flu, you just suffer from a lot of throat pain, chest pain, coughing, drowsiness; all around you're miserable) in the state of Washington. Apparently there's not a single person who's not going to get this flu, the first symptom is a sore throat and I have that so I probably now have the flu. Yay.

So, while I was up till 1:00 in the morning (I stayed up a little after that falling incident to see if my mom was still okay). I actually made some more progress on my track. I tried adding a little melody and I made most of the second drop. After I finish the rough draft of this I'm going to be doing layering, adding bass, seeing if there's any last minute mixing and then yay I'll have my first of the 12 tracks done in the first two weeks of January. On the side, I'm also trying to learn how to make my own sounds so I can move off of presets (if anyone thinks I made the sounds in any of my recent tracks, yeah sorry. I may throw in a sound of mine here and there, but I haven't fully made a non-preset track).

Anyways, screenshot:

As you can see, I really don't use much space..

You may notice some empty parts after bar 65. The missing drums are supposed to be intentional, but from 65 to 80 is what I got done. Maybe I'll work on mixing unfinished remix after this as well as making some improvements after this, since that's my next closest to finished track. That's also on my resolution list so yay, let's strive for getting 2 tracks done this month.

And super quick opinion. I want to try and start uploading to YouTube again, even though I get rarely any views. However, I've noticed just having that poorly edited picture is a little bland... So, I actually found some visualizers off YouTube that I can just download. One user who I talk to said they like visualizers, and some visualizers are pretty cool. I wanted to know, what you guys be mad if I used them? I mean, they aren't mine. But, if I credit who made them, what do you think? I mean, I know Virtual Riot uses them, but mine won't have a fancy logo.

A. Yeah, sure, go for it.

B. No because they aren't yours.

C. I wouldn't really advise it.

D. I don't go on your YT and neither does anyone else.

E. (enter your own answer)

Now to do homework and heal for the rest of the night.

~Alpha