Cool sound, I like it :)

Thanks! I'm glad. ^^

Neat - makes me want to get back into making music (been 15 years since I last did :/ ). I would make two suggestions to make this stand out more:

1) Avoid using the long, long build up to the song. EVERYONE does that nowadays and it's something a lot of folks skip through to the get to the meat of the song.

2) Create a primary chorus theme that's catchy - could even use that right off the start to get the listeners attention, then work up to it as the song builds.

One very good aspect of this mix is that you have a cool beat to it - something a bit different from the norm that makes it stand out. All the melodies and tones complement each other well too. :)

Thanks for the tips! They're good points, and I can see what you mean with them.

The build up is a style I've always really liked myself, but maybe haven't been involved with relevant modern music scenes enough to realize if it's become a tired cliche. ^^; I like it enough that I can't promise it won't crop up in my future works, but I'll see if I can strike a balance where it doesn't take as long. A lot of it is probably wrapped up in how I listen to music personally, too... to me, a song is almost never about a single melody/emotion/'meat' that's present by the middle of the song but 'incomplete' at its beginning during a build-up. Instead, my brain tends to go through it more like a journey or story, where the build-up is there to guide the emotion as the energy of the music comes together as a whole process. All the same, I'll keep your advice in mind and try to avoid overdoing it!

Urban Dusk here is certainly lacking in any sort of main theme or chorus or melody, I'll certainly agree there. ^^ It's the first piece I made with eJay so was pretty experimental, and more driven by the emotion and atmosphere that the sounds created for me. Seeing what I can come up with for more of a melody in the future though will definitely be something I'll want to work up to!

Thanks a lot for your thoughts and advice on it!

No problem. The build up thing is definitely down to personal preference. As a big trance, dance and other electronica type stuff fan, I've noticed that long build up becoming a mainstay of the songs since the late 90s. While it does help build the mood in some cases, it's the commonality of it that can be annoying. There are ways around that though while still keeping the build up - you just change it up frequently.

I used to do music via Tracker programs, so I tend to think of a complete bar of music as a pattern. Patterns are what the complete beat and melody fit into before repeating and are usually 4 to 8 seconds long. Repeating a pattern more than twice without change is what can make it start to sound repetitive, so sometimes a very minor change in drum, melody or such can help keep it sounding fresh as you build intensity. What I've noticed makes a lot of modern songs too repetitive in their builds and sometimes the main song is that they're repeating the patterns 4 or even 8 times without change.

I definitely get what you mean. My love of the build up has definitely come from my own enjoyment of trance and similar music forms. EJay is itself a tracker program like you describe, so I understand exactly what you mean. Using 2 bars as a limit for 'don't repeat the same thing more than this without changing it' sounds like a really good guideline that I'll keep firmly in mind!

Ooo... I might check it out then; I've never really been any good with the wave form assemblers, just the Trackers. Best of luck - look very forward to hearing more stuff from you. ^_^

I've got one more finished song I'll probably post sometime soon. :) Might still be guilty of some of the same issues but generally I'm more pleased with it than Urban Dusk I think, so I'll be curious to hear your thoughts on it. ^^ Otherwise so far I've just used eJay for making some drum tracks to practise my bass over and the like, but we'll see what the future holds. ^^

It's the first and only music-making program of any type that I've ever used, so I can't really say how it compares to anything else, but I've found it to be pretty fun and easy to use and I haven't yet explored all the features. So it seems worth a shot if you get a chance!

Cool. :) Sounds like a great way to practice bass. First one I used was called Scream Tracker, and that was back in 1992 on a 286. Could only do 4 channels on my 8 bit Soundblaster at the time. By the late 90s, I was using ProTracker which supported 16 channels and 16 bit sound - vast improvement. Lost all my work though 'cause of a hard drive crash. Only the old stuff survived backed up on 5.25" floppies... which was kinda hard to restore. >_<

I SO dated myself with everything I just said. XD

*giggle* It all sounds like really neat stuff! Really a shame about losing so much to a hard drive crash though. Could well be some of those programs are more complicated and powerful than eJay; as near as I can figure it, eJay is kind of like 'The idiot's guide to music tracking' or something. Compared to proper tracking programs it's more simplistic, but it has the advantage of being pretty easy to use and having a simple drag-and-drop interface that even muppets like me can figure out!

Muppet!? *raises a brow* Riiiiight... Dr. Dory. You're a brilliant (and fashionable) dragon; don't say that! The old one's were kind of complicated, but then so was any app back then. The loss of that drive and my music was devastating to me - hundreds of hours of work, gone. It was the reason I didn't return to making more. :/

That really does sound devastating. :( At least these days it isn't too hard to keep a backup on an external drive or something. And if you should feel the urge to prod music-making again, eJay might be worth investigating! And I'd certainly enjoy hearing anything you come up with.

Mmmf... I always backed up my stuff. I restored every bit of my data except for the music. I don't know if it was a slip of the finger or just a bad assumption that my most treasured directory "had" to be in the backup list, but it wasn't. So it was my fault really. I do need to give it a try again though - much better software and hardware today for mixes. :)

Rrf, that's extra horrible when you swear you -do- have a system in place to prevent that kind of loss, and yet somehow things align to make it get lost anyway despite your best efforts. I hate that. :/

But yeah, I sure would support you getting back into such things!

Daw, thanks - got your back too. ^_^

Rawr, thanks. ^,,^

C: you rock with eJay apparently. Yah, that build up is sorta long... the percussion? makes me think of working machinery. cx I do wanna hear you record bass into your music too.

Very glad ya like! Yeah, listening to it I can see how the build-up does go on a bit much. I don't think it's as long in the second track I've done with eJay, but you'll get to determine that for yourself when I post it. ^^ I'm just starting out with this after all! But it's good stuff to think about.

I did like the sound of those drum beats and such. :) And yeah I'm eager to get to a point, both in terms of playing ability and in terms of recording setup, where I can record my bass and share that a bit. Especially since I recently bought a crazy new effects pedal that lets me make really bizarre noises. ;D

Aaaaah the old ejay series, memories

*grins* It's an awfully fun program to play around with. XD