By the way, people, listen to the full song. The beginning is not the same as the end! Progressive metal is one of those genres where the song is in constant motion, unlike dubstep and techno and electronica and other shitty music. That's why I like it.

Dubstep is noise. Techno is a slight step up from noise. I don't have any beef with electronica though. And Post-Rock could sometimes be defined as stagnant, but its stagnancy is what makes it appealing, because you WANT to hear the progressions repeated over and over. They're not annoying, they're hypnotizing.
Listening now, just had to get this out there.

I've lived with a good number of people who have listened to all of those and tried to shove all of them on me saying "You just haven't heard the right song yet!" and they all sound the same to me. They all sound like the exact same things with the same 5-10 seconds on repeat for hours on end. lol

"other shitty music..."

...that's real nice. Just because you dislike a genre, doesn't make every song that falls under it "shitty."

I would leave some awful comment on your song just to spite you, but unfortunately it's pretty good.

If you don't like a specific genre and all of your "friends" try to force it on you for two years until you move away, you'd call it shitty too.

So yeah... this was brilliant the first time I heard it, and now that it doesn't sound like obnoxious midi it's even better. You're pretty damn good at a lot of instruments, aren't you?

lol Thanks! Yeah, I draw most of my inspiration from bands like Dream Theater and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and they use about 20 times the instruments I use. lol I just try to emulate them a bit and throw my own spins into it. ;P

Much thanks for the fave! I'm glad you like it! :D

Sounds great.
Also, I just got a new soundkit, I'm working on putting it on my nice sound card.
Oh, btw, ohmygawdthatsoundsepichowdontyourfingersfalloff?!
WHOAH! I LOVE that heavy distortion guitar!
Very well done.

lol Thanks dude! I don't actually use all that much distortion, believe it or not. I use four guitar tracks for rhythms and two for leads, and once those are all recorded, I pan them appropriately and render them, un-EQ'd to a new track, then crank up the bass on that one while turning the treble all the way down. Then I mix the original 4-6 tracks and layer them all together with the super-bass'd-out track, so it gives the feel of 8-12 guitars. I don't use too much distortion, because when I finish mixing all of those tracks, there's a lot of excess fuzz, while keep all the notes as clear as possible. lol

Glad you like it dude! :D

My main issue in the song is the tone of the guitar and some of the drum hit choices you make during the intro to the song (though that's hardly an issue)

On the whole though, I like the song alot, especially the solo section and how I see you are enjoying harmonizing with the synthesizer, the riff work is also purty good :D

What wrong with the tone? I just saw the facebook thingy about bite, so nevermind. lol How do you think I could get more bite in it?

Much thanks for the fave, homie!

well, much like you've been suggesting I scale back on treble and scale up on mids, I think that you should do the opposite, you have the bass down pat, for sure, but I feel the rhythm guitar gets lots in the mix somewhat. It's like the guitar has body, but it needs a head to really bring it to life

Doesn't have to be all that much, but a little can go a long way!

and no prob! dis is good prog metal dood, dunno why those guys found it boring, as I said, it's really prolly just cause prog metal isn't their thing, saw that they were poking fun at dream theatre for making 'excruciatingly long and boring songs' so yah

lol There's no such thing as an excruciatingly long song. ;P

Awesome, dude, I'll definitely keep that in mind! Now, would you suggest more 2, 4, 8, or 16k? I don't like working with treble much, because my pedal generally has too much of it and I need to find a way to get rid of a lot of it. lol Seriously, you can barely distinguish anything through the amount of highs and fuzz before I mix it. ;P

haha don't think I can accurately answer that question, I'm more along the lines of 'play with it till you find a setting you like'

here's my pedal anyway, I changed it from what I previously had, but I need new strings for my ironbird, so this is sort of okay for my older Warlock, probably wouldn't be quite the same for the Ironbird though

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b.....5-45-53500.jpg

I hate you for having a Metal Zone pedal. ;P This is the pedal I use: http://www.musicgearreview.com/reviews/zoom505.htm I usually have 2-3 different settings I use for each guitar. The one I WAS using in Oz was this one: http://s3.amazonaws.com/samsontech/.....s/G1XN_top.jpg It had MUCH better options than the 505, but because it's from Australia, I can't use it in an American power outlet without a power converter, which is delegated to my computer for that exact same reason. lol

I don't really touch the EQ while mixing, my tone in the computer is more or less my tone from the amp

Also, I do intend on using better sounds for the intro, I just didn't want to fuss with another EZDrummer track for the extra stuff at the moment. lol

it's just the vibraslap and the metronome bell, they feel so computerized, not to mention out of place is all

I was actually going for an out of place sound for the intro. lol I want this to be one of the songs for the next album, and a good portion of the concept is being out of place. I will get it done with better samples, though. ;P

nothing wrong with a concept for sounds being out of place, but annoying ezdrummer weird sounds probably aren't the best way to illustrate it

Nah, those are all general MIDI. ;P If it doesn't sound good with EZDrummer, I have a good thirty or so other VSTi's I can use. ;P

Gotta change that intro piano tone. It sounds very midi. I'm sure you could use fruity loops to make it sound nicer.

The drums are a bit loud in some spots, and the rhythm guitar sounds too muddy and waaay overcompressed. I can't discern what it's doing.

The leads sound pretty nice though.

Also, don't hate on other genres of music :P Most progressive and technical metal is pretty bad. Just because a song changes a lot doesn't mean it's good. In fact that can be the reason why it's bad. lol

The progressions are very smooth and everything flows together really nicely.

Nuuununununuu...I don't use FrootyLoops. I've used it before and I can't stand it. Unless I can grab the sounds and use them in a different program, AcidPro for instance, I refuse to use it. The GUI is terrible, in my opinion. As I said in other comments elsewhere, I have well over a hundred VSTi's for each and every instrument I need.

Compression and volume errors are all to do with the file size. The original file size is almost a hundred megs, and I had to render it to such a low size just to upload it. The original is at well over 1000kbps - this one is 160kbps.

And I'm sorry, but I will hate any and all music I want. Everyone is free to like and dislike any kind of music they want and for the last two years, I've had nothing but dubstep and techno thrown at me so much that if I never hear them again it will be too soon. My experience with dubstep is as such: in a single 100 minute clip from a dubstep "artist", only ten minutes will be original material, while the other HOUR AND A HALF is clips and amalgamations of other songs. I don't think that's music, I think that's being a ripoff.

BUT HEY - I can ask someone why they don't like metal and they could say that they just don't like all of that aggression and don't want to hear it. I'm fine with that, even though I know that metal is NOT all aggression. BUT if I tried to explain that to that person, no matter how much I do so, they'll never believe me unless they go looking on their own. I don't ever EVER see myself looking up dubstep or techno music, because it doesn't click with me. There's no substance. Only once did I ever find someone who played dubstep that did click with me. Why? Because he was a classically trained musician on more instruments than I've ever played in my life. Not only that, but everything he played was original material, not clips of other songs melded together into one ear-fuck of a creation, except for one piece he did, which was about half an hour long and all of it was bits of classical and baroque music, mostly Bach and Vivaldi.

If you ask dubstep "artists" about the clips they use, they'll tell you it's a homage to the original creators. Well, keep in mind that Frankenstein's monster wasn't an amalgamation of his separate parts in the eyes of the villagers, he was just a monster.

If I seem a bit snappy, it's because I've had a very bad few days and EVERYONE seems to test me, intentionally or unintentionally.

I've had really good experience with FL studio O:

Ah, well, that explains it. lol

My reason for saying that is that you seemed to view prog metal as being musically superior to those other two genres.

I've never bothered listening to dubstep, and I've probably heard very little techno, but that doesn't mean I should just randomly diss another genre. It's not relevant to your submission.

I say it's relevant, because people have a tendency to listen to the first thirty seconds of something before writing it off. I said that it's not like those genres of "music", because it actually changes once in a while.

Of course I see it as superior. It's the closest modern equivalent to classical and baroque music, and you actually have to think to really understand it. When I figure out the time signatures of a specific section of a really technical song, I celebrate! I do so, because when you're faced with an onslaught of 13/8 and 19/16 time signatures, mixed with a few 17/8's and maybe a 13/16 or two, it's hard as hell to figure that out! I like the challenge of it and nothing else gives me that challenge. I don't think it's superior to other metal genres, folk music, flamenco music, or any others that take real talent and skill, but I easily see it as superior to pop and boy band copy paste music, because those people have never written a stitch of music in their lives. People write the music for them. It's the same beef I have with Reba McEntire. In the entirety of her musical career, she has actually written only FIVE songs. Her fame is at the hands of the people who write her music. If she had written every single one of her songs, she wouldn't have made it as far as she has. I say that, because the five songs she wrote are her least popular songs. I don't think that's fair and I think her fame and popularity is a cheat to people who write their own music.

Back onto the subject, I don't think it takes any talent or skill to mash up other peoples music into one three hour long set. I think it takes tremendous skill and talent to write your own three hour long set. Therefore, I honestly believe that progressive metal is superior to music that repeats the same thing for hours or is a mashup of other peoples music. I don't want to sound elitist, but from what I've seen, it's not hard. Out of every genre I've played (and I've played damned near everything), it's the hardest thing I've ever done. My eventual goal is to write a song about 6-8 minutes long without repeating one single bar throughout the entire thing. I've been trying for upwards of ten years, since I got the original idea, and I've failed every time.

I think that may have to do more with how they perceive the tone of a piece of music. The tone of this song is fairly consistent. Even still, I don't think having knowledge of the fact that it changes would persuade someone to listen to the whole thing.

I don't see how it being similar to classical music has anything to do with superiority. I'm not sure what you mean when you say you have to think to understand it. You can have a basic understanding of music theory and understand what's happening. Odd time signatures aren't really that challenging if you understand how to count them. I also wouldn't just write off pop music like that. The Beatles have plenty of songs that can be considered pop, and their material from their subsequent solo careers as well. Pop doesn't mean Britney Spears. Boy Bands, well you've got me there. lol You could have a five year old slamming on a piano and it would be more talented than boy bands.

If you're using other people's music, then yes, that's not talented, and that's practically theft. But not all electronic music does that. You could look at some artists on FA, for example, who actually write their own electronic stuff. Lack of repetition doesn't make something superior. Difficulty doesn't make something superior, either. I don't see why that would be so.

I think that sounds like a cool idea, writing that song without repetition. Good luck with that. :P

Every music program has its flaws and drawbacks. I use Reason, EWQLO, FL, Cakewalk, GarageBand. I personally hate the piano sound on FL, but adore it on Reason.

And songs without repetition have been written. I have one, infamous project of theory majors!

True :P I also remembered that the piano sound I was thinking of came from a particular patch, so it's not really FL's piano.

That's not surprising. If you really put patience into something like that it's certainly possible.

wow... I remember listen to this by the time u uploaded it... dunno why the fak I didnt fave XDD
*fixed now* Awesome work, it really has the prog metal feeling of it :P might just be a Liquid Tension Experiment song XD

lol Thanks! No, they're way too good to do something like this. lol They'd blow me out of the water any day. ;P

I really like the progression of it, but be careful in the beginning because the drums sounded like they were covering up the melody. The piano and violin in the background are a very good mix of classical strings with a hard-core guitar. throughout the song I felt that there should have been a break down or a progressive slow down with a stop and then picking back up with the tempo. The chord regression is good. Just watch some of your tone and sound because some of them seem to be covering each other.

I slow breakdown actually seems like a really cool idea. Where do you think it would fit best?

The song is still an in-progress-type-dealy, so any and all suggestions are VERY welcome. :D

After the intro probably would be best. After the intro continue a build up with a fast tempo then do a break down with a good progressive guitar part. A good bass background would add some good help to the break down with it being a duet type deal with the guitar. Tell me if you want some help with more on a break down placement if that doesn't help or sound too right.

After the intro meaning the heavy part with the guitar/keyboard duet? I'm not sure about doing a proggy section after the intro, but maybe before the solo would fit better? Reason being is that I don't want to lose the focus of the listener if the beginning deviates too much.

So yeah, before the solo, after the first major chorus-type-section?

True, try that, but experiment with putting it in different parts of the song.

This song slightly... ever so slightly... makes me think of Symphony X. I think the only reason is the strings VST mixed with the slightly technical-groove of some of your sections has that kind of feel, other than that, this sounds like nothing I've ever heard before.

This track alone gets you a watch. Fucking kudos, bro. =)

lol I'm glad it's just ever so slightly. Their songs start sounding the same after a while, even though they're all very talented.

I'm glad you like my music! Much thanks! :D