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User Comment
Submitted by booker on 4 March 2010
Melodic as always :)
Again, some work to bring those sounds from 90s onto XXI century wouldn't hurt (perchaps!) :)
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User Comment
Submitted by NecroPolo on 3 March 2010
Instantly recognisable DRAX. Somewhat similar to AC DC phenomenon: if you like the style, most probably you'll like all tunes. This one won't beat my personal top10 DRAX trax but it's doubtless a nice tune, surely I will return to it.
@Frantic: the long analysis is a rather interesting bunch of ideas about SID, good points about the inspiration of breaking barriers. Interesting read. |
User Comment
Submitted by Dane on 3 March 2010
| Thomas, I can definitely relate to those thoughts about personal style. Great to see you trudge through the piles of unreleased material! |
User Comment
Submitted by DRAX on 3 March 2010
| Yeah, I know Virt's music and love it... I would still say that melodically we are quite far from each other though... Your say it seems unfinished somehow - maybe you're right - I am actually never release sure when a tune is finished... Sometimes I on purpose make music that is not too polished as I think it can bring some roughness - and give it more aliveness... My experience is that when I spend too much time on polishing details the music tend to get stiff and too "ocgnitive" - if you know what I mean... Frantic, you got some really good points... and we shouldn't just try to copy real instruments as the sid gives us the possibility to go beyond but then I again it is also about what focus you have on music and what you preferences are. My focus is often on harmonic, melodic and personal style (I love when I can hear some composer's personality shining through his music)... and you will of course find repeatings and patterns in the way I make leads - if you couldn't something would be very wrong with me - then I would have to look into the mirror to check if I am still me :D ... I see style as a result of a continous search for some more or less unconscious preference - I also see personal style as some kind of habitual way of thinking that is reproduced in the way music is composed... That doesn't mean that you can't try to break habits but it is damn difficult - believe me I have tried several times :D ... But in the end I always end up doing what I like ;) |
User Comment
Submitted by Radiant on 3 March 2010
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Submitted by Frantic on 3 March 2010
| @Hermit: Good for you! :) |
User Comment
Submitted by Hermit on 2 March 2010
First of all, I like the refreshing rhythm of the kick & bass very much.
Upon this well defined rhythm I couldn't imagine complex verse melodies, so this music is a kind of its own unique kind for me.. sometimes I have a feeling that I had with some JT melodies in the past. However I would be interested in listening the left-out solo part which probably has larger pitch-range...
I seem to be one of the guys who likes this DRAX-ish solo instrument very-very much. And hey, the echo/delay-fx on that solo is very realistic in some parts!..
Good news that you will compose some new music soon, DRAX.. I'm very curious :) - some new stuffs to learn composing from. \o/
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User Comment
Submitted by Frantic on 2 March 2010
@DRAX: Some further analysis... I think the (almost) constant use of a pulse wave lead with vibrato (at certain rather schematized places in the melody flow) with some pw-sweeping on top of it is an important factor in making this sort of tunes sound very much alike. (For some reason very often in voice 3a sign of a repeated composing pattern? :) "First 'the drums and the bass' in voice 1, and then 'the arpeggios' in voice 2, and then 'the melody' ".) Of course, there aren't many waveforms to chose from in the SID, but one can obviously make a lot of sounds out of the SID anyway (not necessarily odd sounds, if one dislikes that), so I think the point is still valid. Of course, if one really wants (almost) every tune to be like this, then this is yet another success. :) ...and I agree completely with the statements elsewhere on CSDb that the most important thing is that one likes the music one is creating oneself.
On a deeper level, and not in specific relation to DRAX, I never understood why so many computer musicians are so stuck in the real-world metaphors of "instruments", "effects", and "composition/notes" (which are of course also deeply rooted all the way back into the implementation of the players that are used), as if the C64 was to emulate a band playing with the bass-player, the drummer, the singer (lead sound) and so on. After all, the SID is just a bunch of parameters that affect the sound over time. It is not obvious that one should make waterproof split between these three levels. Note that I am not saying that one should necessarily create an experimental chaos of sound, but even in the case of pop-music production I think most tunes would benefit from some more free flowing setting of the SID parameters. I think it creates a human touch and a more interesting sound. I think even some "mainstream" c64 composers like Galway have a nice tendency to create sounds that are not necessarily emulating "drums" or "bass" specifically, and so on, but blend the functions of these "real world instruments" into one and the same sound in ways that capture something unique to computer music, and something unique about the C64 in the case of SID music. (When did we hear an up-tempo tune without drums in it last time, for example?)
I created my own (unreleased, but used by Goto80) music editor, called "defmon", specifically with the aim of breaking up the rigid separation of "instruments", "effects" and "notes" somewhat (while still alowing the user to structure tunes in that specific way if they want to).
Just an opinion of course, and this is not to be interpreted as "you should do like this", but rather "this is what I think about what I do". :) I guess there is something with my brain and too much use of square waves. For example I dislike the sound of the Gameboy, the NES, and the YM-chips too, and they are all much more pulse-wave (and even square-wave) based. :) Personally I also often do bass drums, for example, using the triangle wave instead of the square wave, which I think sounds very nice, even though they become a bit more silent because of that. |
User Comment
Submitted by Archmage on 2 March 2010
| I quite like it. It has a nice walking feel to it. |
User Comment
Submitted by DRAX on 1 March 2010
| being "mindless" whatever that means is on purpose in the sense that I tend to make it sound a little improvised and not overdone... Do only play with 6581... |
User Comment
Submitted by Skope on 1 March 2010
Nice. The title is perfect for this little tune, it sounds like a walking theme and the lead feels like something you would whistle while you're out walking. I do agree with Frantic to some extent, but I think that the melody being a little "mindless" actually fits the tune. I also appreciate the small details and diddley-boops in the lead. And it sounds tight!
Edit: On second thought I would actually rather use the word carefree than mindless. |
User Comment
Submitted by DRAX on 1 March 2010
| Hey Frantic... Thanks for your answer and I belive you're right - it might be a matter of taste which is very subjective ;) |
User Comment
Submitted by Frantic on 1 March 2010
| @Drax: Well.. Somehow it just felt a little too easily chewed to be interesting which gave it some sort of anynonymity. The only thing I remember about it is that "it sounded a lot like many other tunes" than "ahh, that specific melody was nice". Anyway, in the end I think what I said was also due to matters of taste (it always is, obviously) and I guess that is also part of my impression. If I would actually have liked this style of sid-muzak more, I might have been more sensitive to its unique properties (you know, like when you listen to some musical genre or band you don't usually listen a lot too, you tend to think "all tunes sound the same"). It wasn't badly executed per se. |
User Comment
Submitted by Richard on 1 March 2010
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Submitted by Stone on 1 March 2010
| Great as a demo/intro tune I think, just banging from the get-go. Some of the riffs stay in my head and that has to be a good thing ;-) |
User Comment
Submitted by DRAX on 1 March 2010
| Thanks for the comments. You're right, Linus, it is missing a more melodic part and I even started on doing it but wasn't satisfied with the result. I actually kinda like this tune better than my previous tunes - especially I am fond of the bassline-work in this one and the general groove of it... I might release some more tunes in the future - cause I have some pieces lying around. Frantic I'm not sure what you mean specificly with the melody being mindless but I am curious, so if you would be more specific or even better if you have some ideas to how the melody could be less mindless I am more than interested ;) ... |
User Comment
Submitted by Linus on 1 March 2010
| I agree with what Stainless said, but miss some more catchy phrases this time. Not quite on par with your previous efforts, I am afraid, but still a good tune from an excellent composer! |
User Comment
Submitted by Stainless Steel on 1 March 2010
Agreed, it's mostly the same-old same-old drax patterns and sounds we're hearing here.
Still, that doesnt by default make it a bad tune :-D
I do enjoy Thomas's musical style and craftsmanship. And i do agree, he could be a bit more bold at times and try something radically different.
But still, i'll always enjoy some of the familliar drax patterns every now and then :-D
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User Comment
Submitted by Frantic on 1 March 2010
| I hear a mindless melody and a standard c64 comp band playing behind it. Feels like I heard this 999999 times already. |
User Comment
Submitted by Stainless Steel on 1 March 2010
| You should get stuck in the middle of nowhere with a netbook more often, thomas. :-D |
User Comment
Submitted by DRAX on 1 March 2010
| thanks for the comments... This is a quicky and a shorty... Hope others will like it... For me it seems to get better the more I listen to it... Composed while sitting isolated in the middle of nowhere ought to be writting and article ... Composed on my small netbook with some cheap headphones... So please don't be too harsh on the sound part :D |
User Comment
Submitted by SIDWAVE on 1 March 2010
| Sweet 'n funky, but i miss some a/b/c parting or progression. |
User Comment
Submitted by PAL on 1 March 2010
| Cool demo tuneee... reminds me of some stuff you did in the past or others of you did in the past... I love it! |
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