Feedback for “H N Y” by Myrtillus
First of all thank you very much for your awesome site, I have to confess this is somewhat gold, thank you very much for you availability and expertise sharing in the scene with such an open mind.
I have been pursuing passionately the psytrance production for some time, and it is clear you are very passionate about your work as an artist.
Recently I have managed to finally achieve a track with which I am comfortable to share and ask for feedback and I think you are the best person to whom I can ask for that advice. Please, tell me your point of view.
Myrtillus
Myrtillus, this track has some nice melodies but overall it doesn’t hold up as a whole. The structure is very weird too: it seems like throughout the track you turning on and off different layers with no particular reason.
Let’s take a listen and look closely on what happens at the first two minutes:
| Bars | Time | What happens |
| 33—41 | 0:56—1:10 | Kick, bass, and textures |
| 41—49 | 1:10—1:24 | Snare drums added |
| 49—50 | 1:24—1:26 | Short break |
| 50—57 | 1:26—1:38 | Snare drums removed, hi-hats added |
| 57—65 | 1:38—1:52 | Drum loop added |
| 65—66 | 1:52—1:54 | Short break |
| 66—68 | 1:54—1:58 | Just a kick, bass, and textures again |
| 68—73 | 1:58—2:06 | Hi-hats added |
| 57—65 | 2:06—2:20 | Drum loop added |
What’s wrong with this? Well, it’s bad for two reasons.
From the listener’s perspective, this track sounds like you just playing around with various loops turning them on and off randomly. There is no development, no storyline, it just goes nowhere.
From the technical point of view, all electronic dance music progresses by 16-bars sections. You can’t just add a new instrument layer at a 7th Bar or make a 23-Bars-long breakdown, it breaks the entire structure of the track. I’ve written the advice on how to make a proper arrangement, make sure to read it.
Criteria of professional production. Part 3: DJ-friendly arrangement
Also, maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like the track tempo isn’t a whole number. To make the track goes along with the metronome, I had to warp it at 136.50 BPM. Is that the case? If so, that’s a total nightmare for DJs, please don’t do that :-) Just remember: always use whole numbers in tempo, 135, 136, 137 BPM... whatever, but with no decimals.
There are more issues in the track, but at first, I’d suggest learning more about arrangement, structure, the “flow” of the track. And the best way to it is to listen to more music around, put some reference track and try to recreate its structure, the same way as painting artists learn by copying other artists’ masterpieces.
