Looking for feedback on my first musical release

[hrak]

Hey there playground,

I dont know if this is the right area to do it, but I recently set up a studio in my room and have begun recording and composing. I have always found the GitP community to have interesting and intelligent insights as well as being respectful and supportive. So I am turning to you guys for some feed back on my music. I am not looking for exposure, views or popularity, I just want to know what people think of my style and how I might improve. So thank you in advance for the constructive criticism.

I wrote everything on the piano and then recorded it with virtual instruments in protools and reaper software. Everything you hear are live takes and not the result of programming loops and samples. If you have any questions about my music please fire away.

Without further ado here is my first release. Rhapsody in Grey. It is a sixteen minute piano and synth epic. The title is a nod to Rhapsody in Blue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aEqWzQiRcs

[Bulldog Psion]

Well, I don't have much detailed feedback, but I do like it quite a bit, actually. :smallcool:

[hrak]

Well, I don't have much detailed feedback, but I do like it quite a bit, actually. :smallcool:

I am glad you like it!

Its ever so difficult to judge how ones own music will be heard and perceived by someone elses ears.

[Mrc.]

Can I shamelessly take this opportunity to share this (https://soundsofstrangers.bandcamp.com/track/kilimanjaro), a piece a friend and I did for the telecoms company BT for their 2015 charity album in aid of the World Cancer Research Fund? I'm playing violin.

It would be rude of me not to also comment on your piece: it has more synth in than I'm used to but I enjoyed it. As someone who is relatively unfamiliar with the sort of software used here I'd certainly be interested in reading a more detailed explanation about that if you so choose to write one.

[hrak]

Can I shamelessly take this opportunity to share this (https://soundsofstrangers.bandcamp.com/track/kilimanjaro), a piece a friend and I did for the telecoms company BT for their 2015 charity album in aid of the World Cancer Research Fund? I'm playing violin.

It would be rude of me not to also comment on your piece: it has more synth in than I'm used to but I enjoyed it. As someone who is relatively unfamiliar with the sort of software used here I'd certainly be interested in reading a more detailed explanation about that if you so choose to write one.

There are lots of Music "Studio" Software. Fruity Loops Studio, Protools, Ableton, Reaper, and so on. They allow you to create tracks, those tracks can be audio files, midi files, samples, instrument tracks. On said tracks you can use plugins, these plugins are often cross platform and do a great variety of things. Filters, Distortion effects, Envelopes, Equalizes, Reverbs. The main plugins I use, are called virtual instruments, or a VST plugin. They allow me to record using a midi controller, my synth (Casio XW-P1), and then I can quantize the meter to a metric frame work and edit the notes to smooth out the velocity (volume) of the pitches.

For Rhapsody in Grey I first played a rough take of each part on the tracks with a preset (a sound that came with the VST plugin), then go back and replay them until I got the best take possible while listen to the other takes almost as backing tracks. Through a process of playing each take better and better and more in sync I can get a decent framework for the song. Next I play around with the sounds in the VST control panel which has a plethora of options to create your own instrument sound that you can adjust and tweak while listening to it play back live. Then once I got all the sounds to a place I like, I added an equalizer plugin to each of the tracks and start the "mastering" process of getting each track to fit in the texture of the piece. I may also go in the midi editor and adjust some velocities of individual notes by hand, and quantize sections that still arent in perfect sync and add some reverb effects. Once thats complete I can save the finished product as an MP3 file to be enjoyed.