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rob aylestone
Moderator
I’ve looked at your YouTube channel and there are quite a few variations which seem to be all versions of the same thing. A single track of the intro and then similar variations of a left hand chord and a sort of right hand melody. They appear to be variations of the same thing? I’m left a bit confused. Is there a direction you are going? I can offer a few musical comments, but i don’t know what the post is for? Problems, or questions, or issues you want help with.
Comments we make could be helpful or not, as we don’t have context, as in are you a total beginner with cubase and your playing, or skilled with cubase and not playing? We don’t know. In all the years I have been cubase music making I don’t think I have ever recorded three tracks at once like this? Do I assume each one is a different sound?
Playing wise, it is not that common to play block chords with the left hand in a fixed inversion with each note close to it’s neighbour lower down because the individual notes sort of blur together in a destructive way. Lower down, fourths and fifths sound better. Up higher its also common for movement between chords to be minimal. Not every note changes. Those that are in the first and second chord that remain the same, carry on. So if you play C Major and move to F Major, leave the C alone, and just change E to F and G to A. That pretty well sums up movement within chords. In your piece, your improvised (again, I assume) melody occasionally hits, or travels through notes not in your chord. Sometimes, this works, they become sort of ‘passing’ notes, but you hit a few hard, like making a point, but they clash a bit.
Music can be two types in general. A good tune, or something to generate mood. The incidental music in tv and movies and even games now. It is not music to listen to, or even remember. Think of a great movie, like maybe James Bond. Everyone knows the title song, but can anyone remember the music that went with certain scenes? No. That’s not what it is for.
My feeling is this is what your music perhaps is meant for? But then the little weirdnesses in it, that are easy to fix of course in the editing, draw attention, making it a feature, not just support.
Melody wise, much is predictable, some bits are not, and they stand out. The snag I suppose is it’s random. Normally, music follows distinct patterns. Pop and rock etc follow intro, verse, verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, outro etc. little sections of constant length bolted together. Yours is more like classical music, but even classical music generally follows a structure. A,B or A, B, A, or A, B,C etc. repeated bits in certain orders. Free flow music of any kind, much more rare.
Sounds wise. The screen shows some notes in the intro, the bass was quite weak? Was that deliberate? What the rest is is just layers? The melody has the same sounds as the chords, so the texture is always the same. Levels wise, all the same? Does your keyboard not have velocity capability. It sounds like every note is the same volume, so no light or shade, so a bit boring. Maybe that will be done manually later? That said, a real pianist never has every note the same, and real pianists use a sustain pedal, which makes those shabby chords sound nicer normally. Each chord sort of grows, then the pedal comes up and goes down again at the chord changes? Little stuff?
Does any of this help? I feel we got a snapshot of something in progress, not a finished product, but you left no clues?
Comments we make could be helpful or not, as we don’t have context, as in are you a total beginner with cubase and your playing, or skilled with cubase and not playing? We don’t know. In all the years I have been cubase music making I don’t think I have ever recorded three tracks at once like this? Do I assume each one is a different sound?
Playing wise, it is not that common to play block chords with the left hand in a fixed inversion with each note close to it’s neighbour lower down because the individual notes sort of blur together in a destructive way. Lower down, fourths and fifths sound better. Up higher its also common for movement between chords to be minimal. Not every note changes. Those that are in the first and second chord that remain the same, carry on. So if you play C Major and move to F Major, leave the C alone, and just change E to F and G to A. That pretty well sums up movement within chords. In your piece, your improvised (again, I assume) melody occasionally hits, or travels through notes not in your chord. Sometimes, this works, they become sort of ‘passing’ notes, but you hit a few hard, like making a point, but they clash a bit.
Music can be two types in general. A good tune, or something to generate mood. The incidental music in tv and movies and even games now. It is not music to listen to, or even remember. Think of a great movie, like maybe James Bond. Everyone knows the title song, but can anyone remember the music that went with certain scenes? No. That’s not what it is for.
My feeling is this is what your music perhaps is meant for? But then the little weirdnesses in it, that are easy to fix of course in the editing, draw attention, making it a feature, not just support.
Melody wise, much is predictable, some bits are not, and they stand out. The snag I suppose is it’s random. Normally, music follows distinct patterns. Pop and rock etc follow intro, verse, verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, outro etc. little sections of constant length bolted together. Yours is more like classical music, but even classical music generally follows a structure. A,B or A, B, A, or A, B,C etc. repeated bits in certain orders. Free flow music of any kind, much more rare.
Sounds wise. The screen shows some notes in the intro, the bass was quite weak? Was that deliberate? What the rest is is just layers? The melody has the same sounds as the chords, so the texture is always the same. Levels wise, all the same? Does your keyboard not have velocity capability. It sounds like every note is the same volume, so no light or shade, so a bit boring. Maybe that will be done manually later? That said, a real pianist never has every note the same, and real pianists use a sustain pedal, which makes those shabby chords sound nicer normally. Each chord sort of grows, then the pedal comes up and goes down again at the chord changes? Little stuff?
Does any of this help? I feel we got a snapshot of something in progress, not a finished product, but you left no clues?
Papanate
Well-known member
So you’ve recorded a piano with a strings (or something) - what’s the point of this recording? And I second @rob aylestone question - why do you have 3 channels of the same thing? - Again I come back to whats the purpose/point of the recording?
rob aylestone
Moderator
I sort of getb the three channels - if you do it like this you can have three different sounds, but it's just a bit of a strange way of writing a song? Let's say it's brilliant, but needs some editing, you probably won't want the chords to be the same sound as the melody?
Papanate
Well-known member
I didn’t know you could get more than one sound in a range on any keyboard- I know you can split the keyboard up and have some secondary sound like strings well up - but three os the same keyboard playing the same set of notes?
rob aylestone
Moderator
He’s got halion set up with three instances. I guess they’re different sounds, based on what we hear, and he has enabled recording on all three tracks so whatever keyboard he is playing is just a master keyboard. He could have set each one to only respond to a range, but I think he just has the piano style sound with a couple of synthy sounds.
Papanate
Well-known member
OK - seems like he’s ran outta Dodge!
TalismanRich
Well-known member
MusiMake has posted a couple of similar tracks before. If you look at his Youtube page, there are a bunch of tracks going back almost a year. All seem to be mostly experimenting with different sounds and all in this atmospheric/cinematic style..
