Why I Haven't Had A New Track Out

This is sort of a rant post, I tend to get [extremely] cynical around Christmas.

So, if anyone knows Massive, I apparently have no idea how to make my own synths. Like, if I want to play 2 oscillators at once, it won't. No matter if I switch the tables, it still only plays whatever oscillator I set the first one to. Regardless of the fact all 3 oscillators are on.

I kind of need to make some leads, because I've actually realized something.

I HAVE BARELY ANY LEADS

Most of the stuff in my preset library, made by me or not, is all bass instruments. Growls, wobbles, basses that using them as synths make no sense whatsoever. I've pretty much used up all the synths that I have, previously. God knows I don't want to start recycling them. My tracks are cringe enough..

I've barely been working on anything as far as music wise. I've not really lost any motivation, I just know I can't do it. I guess it comes from being an extreme perfectionist. For example, yesterday we had a group project in math and we had to do a poster project. Since we get graded on them I try and make them look nice. One of the group members wanted to delve right in with the markers, while I suggested sketching it out with pencil then tracing it. The people in my group traced horribly. Mostly because one person wanted to do all the tracing and someone else in the group reached over and tried tracing it. Somehow during that the poster also got punctured. Well, knowing myself I now thought the poster was deemed ruined. This is how I work with music. I get a good start, but then if it starts sounding bad then I just quit the project entirely. I start worrying the finish product will end up sounding like this. I'm also a perfectionist when it comes to listeners. I'm extremely picky when it comes to what music I want on my playlist. Rarely will I add small scale artists (by small scale I mean artists who don't have thousands of followers and are promoted on record labels) on my playlist. I know I'm not the only one who has a carefully selected playlist. So if something I make doesn't even sound close to what I would listen to, I start over with something new. I want to strive towards satisfying the people who have specific tastes like I. I tell myself "well I'm pretty sure all the big time artists probably have years of practice behind them" then I see submissions on here that are "yo this is my first dubstep attempt" and are way better than anything I've made so far. So, my pessimistic thoughts overpower my optimistic thoughts. I can lie to myself and say my stuff is good, but when a game developer rejects two of your song attempts and an audio moderator prunes you from the portal, "my stuff is good" isn't really a valid lie anymore.

Now, I know none of that probably made sense. It's why I don't vent out my thoughts, it's a jumbled mess lol.

I've already spent more time than I should have. Literally I started writing this thing like 45 minutes ago.

~Alpha

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AzeXiR 2016-12-18 06:17:19

I know that feeling.

BlueAlpha14 2016-12-18 06:17:19

Eh, I don't really have that feeling now. A lot was going on last night, part of why I need to stay off the internet when I'm stressed.

ADR3-N 2016-12-23 02:10:38

Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. I hear Nexus presets on the radio and have used the same ones in my music. It's all what you do with the tools and knowledge you have -- your creativity within the limitations of your DAW and your VSTs. I mean, look at what the Beatles did with the technology of their time. We're simply doing the same, although many people don't think about it that way. Most people use loops and sample their drops in dubstep lately. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but technology is making it so that virtually anyone can be good if they study a certain formula. You'll get there.

Personally, I think my own stuff is all shit though, so I know the feel.

BlueAlpha14 2016-12-23 02:10:38

I meant to delete this a while ago. I can rant quite a lot, usually something I avoid :/

I never plan on using Nexus. For one it's too expensive, and if it's that recognizable I'd be better off sticking to the stuff I have.

I have never utilized a dubstep loop sample, though I have some drum loops. I do have many samples for such music, but I prefer to stick to presets or I'll actually wow myself and use something I made.

I think the pessimism is a curse on a lot of artists.

ADR3-N 2016-12-23 02:32:26

Ranting isn't a bad thing. It validates the thoughts that bother you at that particular moment and lets them out. You never know who might agree with you and who might not but hey, haha.

Nexus isn't that bad. I was lucky enough to get it free. It's useful if you have a weaker PC and need those certain sounds. Just certain presets are more common than others, and whoever these mainstream producers are seem to think they can get away with going cheap and not editing them. It's a lot easier to use than massive, and most of my sounds are Nexus, but I make sure to spend a lot of time tweaking them to my liking.

Massive is great, but it's massively disorganized. I use it a lot less than other VSTs.

I use a lot of samples, generally, but I program my stuff, in general, unless there's a simple perc loop that just sounds really good. Other loops, I may chop them up, sample them, as long as the end result is something that sounds authentic, you know?

BlueAlpha14 2016-12-23 02:32:26

True.

Well, not many have Nexus so I'm sure it's easy for mainstream artists to just pick a sound and stick it in a track. It's probably even less noticeable if they purchased one of their extensions.

I only bought Massive because it was half off and I needed something better to make sounds with. Massive is great for bass instruments, like growls. But it's not so much for leads. This is part of why I wanted Serum instead. Serum is a lot better imo, but it's also more expensive. I've thought about trading Massive for Serum, but it's more trouble than it's worth. I have to obtain the rights, hand over the rights, and I'm pretty sure I'll have to "balance the deal" somehow. That and there's the potentiality of a scammer who could give you a fake version of Serum. I'd rather try and work with Massive.

I use a lot of drum samples. The stock samples FL Studio gives you just has sucky quality. Most of the drums I use are from this Virtual Riot sample pack someone gave to me. I do have some bass-heavy kicks and trap drums, but they're not for the kind of music I make. Speaking of which, do you have any snare roll samples? I want to use one in this VIP I'm making. Google is only giving me links to buy samples.

Of course. It should always sound authentic.

ADR3-N 2016-12-23 03:09:26

The only roll samples I have are from Mixcraft, and they suck, sadly. Although I have sampled off of some solo instrument YT videos. I'm not sure that's the type of snare you're looking for.

Kicks and Trap drums, you say? :o

BlueAlpha14 2016-12-23 03:09:26

Ah, so I'm not the only one who samples from Youtube videos. If there's a video of pure samples I just download it, convert it to mp3, and splice it up in Edison. If they're all mashed together in a demo song, I'm not the expert that can extract noises.

I got the kicks from Black Octopus Sounds. It's the Monster Kicks Vol 1 pack which you can download for free if you get an account. I also got some Glitch Hop samples there, which are mostly drums but still good.

The trap drum samples are the TriSamples Trapstep sample pack. I'm sure JK-FlipFlop has told you about them before, or maybe you've come across them since you are a trap producer.

ADR3-N 2016-12-23 04:40:30

Yeah, I can't extract them from demos either. I don't know anyone who can really. On something like a SNES game I think you can record sounds and cut off different channels to get solo instruments.

I'll check that out. Thank you!

Re: Trapstep, you know, actually, I'm not even sure which one of us discovered that first. @JK-FlipFlop and I have been friends long enough that I can't remember!

ADR3-N 2016-12-23 07:45:44

@JK-FlipFlop I actually got curious about Nexus when I read that Soulja Boy used it exclusively in FL Studio, and saw that it had a pretty intuitive design and that I liked the sounds -- just personal preference. It's flexible, but not a big dubstep synth. More like trap, dance, techno, etc. I have been able to squeeze some good 8 and 16 bit sounding stuff out of it, so it's definitely all bad. My thought before getting Nexus was, if a kid who knew next to nothing about music or theory could go viral with that VST, it must be pretty intuitively designed. What could I do with it?

I'll check out those other synths. They sound interesting.