Miss Bun this is for you.

Would anyone be interested in giving me serious critique on my ambient and/or dubstep projects?

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~Sapper

The mixing I could see, but how would you describe it as 'cliche'? My dubstep is very atmospheric and layered compared to most dubstep.

For those who haven't heard:

http://www.soundcloud.com/dr-broctopus-official << MY DUBSTEP
http://www.soundcloud.com/despondent-visions << MY AMBIENT

Also thank you, Sapper.

Being cliche and repetitive aren't mutually exclusive to being atmospheric and layered. I'm sure its quite possible to create a cliche atmosphere using repetitive layers.

I'm not disagreeing. I'm asking for clarification. There IS a difference.

I try to follow scales somewhat, but I can sorta see what you mean, on the leads.

I somebody coming from a classic background in music, I would agree that having a good foundation in music theory will greatly improve your composition skills.

Holy ****, you sound just like me for the past 6 years

Lol. All of you casual musicians talking theory.

Plebs.

tony, didn't you go to school for music. help the kid out.

Well what would you all say about my ambient music?

Also music theory, I was trying to comprehend it for a bit, but eventually I just decided **** it.

Please tell us all about your football.

music theory is sooooo booooring you gotta go through all the dumb circle of fifths and reading a staff and blah blah before you even get to learn how to make a sound

i know i need to but i'm laaaazy

When I first saw the video all I could pay attention to was how her lips looked chapped and she had really thick saliva.

my first thought was "why does she lick everything"

Sooooo 80s...

Straight from the intro to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

@ Butt:

I have a few ideas/thoughts.

The number one thing I notice in both your ambient and dubsteb is a certain roughness that interrupts the mood. A lot of people have talked about issues with structure on a granular level and given tips on compositional theory, and that advice is good as far as it goes, and you should definitely always be studying if you're serious about being a composer. The elements of a composition are so much more important than the notes themselves, in my opinion. This is why some bands suck live. They've playing the same notes, but there are all of these "minor" technical issues that just completely change what you're hearing into this "meh" sound.

Blissful Murder of Reality near the beginning at 0:30 and then again at 0:59 there is a very jarring quality to the string synth that does not at all fit with the ethereal, choral quality of the rest of the piece. I feel like I've entered an Atlantean temple and I'm about to witness some reverent, voiceless ceremony, and then half a minute in, a melancholy, alcoholic violinist playing mournfully on the streets of late nineteenth century Paris shows up and very suddenly cuts in. Even alone, the abrupt cut in does not gel with the string melody at all.

Your ambient in general has a problem of being too busy. The problem is not layering, in my opinion, but complexity. The building and interacting of the layers is so important. If you a bunch of layers all turned up to the max for the entire length of the song, you really only have one layer. A NSFW example of what good layering sounds like:



A bunch of the songs on The Fragile are also great examples of ambient music, but the above example is one of the best examples of layering I have ever heard, even though it isn't on that album or ambient at all. Just like you wouldn't play one note for an entire song over and over, don't use every layer like a steamroller. It creates a wall of sound that has no depth, and you lose interest.

The dubstep has a similar problem, although expressed a little differently. While the layering issues pervades, now you have these plateaus of sound that divide the song into parts and feel very choppy, and not in a way that feels intentional. You basically have the same repetitive structure, even when the notes are different, for about a minute, then the bass drops, then you have a new repetitive wub wubby section, then another change. I feel like I've just been given a neopolitan ice cream sandwich instead of a song, and none of the flavors are very exciting.

Every song needs to be a scene. We walk in, we see the room, we see who is in the room, there is a voice from over there greet us, we turn, see the speaker, a ray of light from a part in a curtain bisects our field of vision, we adjust, the speaker asks if we want any coffee, we say yes, they get up to make it, and as the water percolates, they begin to speak. All of this happens in maybe ten seconds. Sometimes maybe it is one second, sometimes maybe it goes on for five minutes, but this scene setting happens in almost ever scene in every tv show and movie you've ever seen. A good scene never ignores setting itself, unless it does so deliberately for some direct purpose.

Every song you've written that I've listened to so far does not set a scene. It goes right into the dialogue, and it feels awkward and sudden in a way that has nothing to do with your choice of notes or instruments or tone or pace or anything else in and of itself. It is all about the deployment. No matter how simple or complex, there must be subtle and pleasing and deliberate variation in everything. Of the songs I listened to all the way through, not one gave me anything in the last half that I didn't already get in the first. After listening to 30 seconds of almost every track, I was able to write the rest in my head, and I was not once surprised.

tl;dr - Every song sounds like a vintage video game track, in that all of the instruments sound disparate, it is sonically very simple and, and does not grow. Nero is probably the best example I can think of for you to really sit down and study as far as dubstep goes, and for ambient I would seriously recommend David Bowie's Heroes or The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails, as both are good examples of ambient music with heavy electronic influences. La Mer on The Fragile is also another perfect example of beautiful layering.

Another easy way to really deconstruct a song is too pick something you think is interesting, and play it on the piano, or if you aren't able to sightread or play by ear easily, just look for a youtube video of someone playing it on the piano. Skrillex sounds good on the piano. Not everything translates, must most things do, if they are good. And while your instrument choice and the specific quality of sound of a particular instrument or synth are important, the structure of your song should at least be recognizable and interesting on other instruments.