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I totally like the sound of your stuff and dig your creativity in each track. But to me there is one thing missing in almost each of them: identifiable structure. What’s verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge or at least something like that? Where is the climax of the track? Hard to tell. Give your tracks some more and common organization and structure and you’ll make it straight into my Synthwave favs. :slight_smile:

Hey, thanks for your criticism. Will try to match the more classical structure rules in future. Thanks for reminding me about this old wisdom. This was my very first synthwave composition, just freshed it up, because lot of people seems to look like it, I guess because of the euphoric mood in there. Didn’t change anything in song structure. Let’s see in next song :slight_smile:

EDIT:
Although I am not quite sure if you actually mean synthwave? Since usually synthwave songs barely have any climax, chorus or whatever… Can you give me some examples of synthwave songs which follow this classical structure in a way you like?

EDIT:
Although I am not quite sure if you actually mean synthwave? Since usually synthwave songs barely have any climax, chorus or whatever… Can you give me some examples of synthwave songs which follow this classical structure in a way you like?

Of course you are right about synthwave tracks (not) following the classical structure of for example chart tracks. While that’s also only half of the truth, because synthwave vocal tracks usually follow these traditional structures. Instrumental tracks leave more room for structural creativity and freedom. They can be handled more extended. Still they have their structure too. That’s why I wrote “…or at least something like that.”. I’ll try to pick some examples and analyze them this evening, to point out their structure. :slight_smile:

Unfortunately I’m a bit short on time atm, so I have to do the analyzing in bewteen. I apologize. Let’s start with one of my fav tracks of the last year: OGRE - The Bench

To me a very powerful, driving track, creating a lot of suspense. And I really mean A LOT of it. But what makes it kinda special? The track is anything but based or built on traditional structures. It consists of a most simple intro, a chorus that actually even isn’t a chorus and very simple drops. Nothing else. That’s it. What? That’s it? Wtf?

Well, the intro sounds pretty normal and so does the first appearance of the main part, right after the intro. To that point it sounds normal, because the track’s main part actually is no chorus. It’d rather work as a verse or more likely a pre-chorus, introducing a real main part. Well, happy waiting then, because it’s not gonna happen. Instead you will be teased during the track, dropped and teased again, keeping up and even raising the tension by re-entering the intro and each time adding more layers to the main part, that you still don’t expect to be the main part. And that is the entire - structural - secret. Beside powerful sound and cool chord progressions ofc. :slight_smile:

Track structure:

  1. Intro 1 - 8 bars - kick & bass only, adding snare
  2. Main part 1 - 16 bars - introducing chords/melodies
  3. Main part 2 - 16 bars - adding hihats/pads to [02]
  4. Drop 1 - 2 bars - kick only
  5. Intro 2 - 8 bars - like [01], just keeping the snare up
  6. Main part 3 - 16 bars - adding guitar [03]
  7. Drop 2 - 16 bars - keep chords & pads up
  8. Main part 4 - 16 bars - just like [06]
  9. Intro 3 - 8 bars - like [01], but acting as outro
  10. Intro 4 - 4 bars - like [01], fade-out to end

When I find the time, I’ll upload this in an XRNS, so you only have to play the track from within the XRNS to follow the timeline and structure.

Nice track regarding the sound :slight_smile: It has nicely many variations of the same progression. My track above lacks of those, every unit will repeat in a very similar way. But honestly I find that ogre track lot of more boring than mine, because of the total lack of any topic / harmonic change. Really exactly this is making the genre often turning into kind of instant / disposablefood.

My song at leasthas a chorus :), you can listen to it many times without getting annoyed. I cannot listen to a track without any variation in melody / chords for more than one time. Maybe lot later again. I would even say that my track follows a more classical way of structure. It’s chorus - part a - part a with climax / b (guitar) - chorus with climax - part a in variation - chorus - end.

The funny thing is, I would even say what I don’t like about the ogre track is EXACTLY its structure, following kind of techno/dance music structure instead a pop music structure. Also too many drops - IMHO there can be maximum one of it in a song.

Maybe I have a different feeling about the required structure than you, and it is more a question of personal taste.

It has nicely many variations of the same progression. My track above lacks of those, every unit will repeat in a very similar way.

I disagree here and state the exact opposite. Adding stuff is not a real variation. It’s just “adding stuff”. :slight_smile: But that’s not bad at all, because it keeps the parts identifiable and helps to keep the structure up. Your tracks to me don’t lack variation. They imo have too much of it, with too fluent transitions. That’s exactly what makes it hard to identify their structure.

But honestly I find that ogre track lot of more boring than mine, because of the total lack of any topic / harmonic change. Really exactly this is making the genre often turning into kind of instant / disposablefood.

The funny thing is, I would even say what I don’t like about the ogre track is EXACTLY its structure, following kind of techno structure instead a pop music structure. Also too many drops - IMHO there can be maximum one of it in a song.

Well, musically it is repetitive for sure. But it creates a lot of suspense, most probably exactly because of that. While I doubt, he did that with awareness of what he was doing / not doing. But who knows…

To avoid misunderstandings: I didn’t choose this example to show you “This is how it’s done”. I simply chose this, because it was one of the first tracks coming to my mind. I had no idea what an analysis would turn out.

My song at leasthas a chorus :), you can listen to it many times without getting annoyed. I cannot listen to a track without any variation in melody / chords for more than one time. Maybe lot later again. I would even say that my track follows a more classical way of structure. It’s chorus - part a - part a with climax / b (guitar) - chorus with climax - part a in variation - chorus - end.

See!? That’s exactly what I was talking about. I honestly couldn’ tell, what you consider to be the chorus. Climax a, climax b… when you have a number of climaxes in a row, they aren’t climaxes anymore. They become just a higher average. And that’s pretty much the problem I see. :slight_smile:

Maybe I have a different feeling about the required structure than you, and it is more a question of personal taste.

Yeah, maybe that is the case. I don’t think it is. :wink: I’d think, we have the quite same feeling about required structre. We just listen different to your tracks. You ofc listen to them with your ideas, intentions and thoughts about it in mind (the way everyone listens to own tracks.). And I listen to them with - literally - nothing in mind. :clownstep: :lol:

Yeah, maybe that is the case. I don’t think it is. :wink: I’d think, we have the quite same feeling about required structre. We just listen different to your tracks. You ofc listen to them with your ideas, intentions and thoughts about it in mind (the way everyone listens to own tracks.). And I listen to them with - literally - nothing in mind. :clownstep: :lol:

Hm, I still really start to think it’s two different kind of expectations then. I know what you mean by saying to listen to the own track like a stranger that never heard it. Often it’s quite difficult to do, but exactly not with this track, original is over 2 years old, I just relistened to it time after time, IMO always kinda works (though still lacks of kind of climax). I would consider the ogre track’s structure like this: part a, part a, break, part a, break, part a, part a… etc. :slight_smile:

Will try to remind your words on next song though to get a more obvious and defined structure.