Hey Bellows!
Here’s the thing about chip tunes, it’s all about the composition, and there is far less stress on sound design, usually. This is why I love making chip tunes. Especially “experimental” ones.
I really enjoyed your vision in Density:High. I need to listen to more of your stuff, because I’d love it if I heard you push the limit even further. More experimental. Less repetition. That’s the only negative feedback I have. I think I heard a lot of what you were trying to do, and you largely succeeded, but what my ears heard was less dancy, more experimental, and maybe more heavy. But then again, that’s me.
Here’s a track from me:
Stream Where The People Outnumber The Flies by Doomczar | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
More on Soundcloud, if you like the above.
Don’t let anyone tell you that sounding 90’s is of itself a bad thing. The 90’s had balls (or guts), a soul, and a middle finger pointed at the system.
And as far as Soundcloud listens/downloads/likes, there’s some randomness to it for sure, and some ground work that needs to be done. The more active you are on Soundcloud, the more listens you will get. The more you promote your music on forums like this one (also check out WATMM forums, they have had a decent community for experimental electronic music, lots of peer reviews - if you make an account, the right thing to do is to offer comments/constructive criticism on 10 tracks before you post one of yours), the more listens you get. The more you post on other people’s songs on Soundcloud, the more listens you get. The more Soundcloud Groups you submit your tracks to, the better. Social networking is a fools game in my experience. Your Farcebook posts go to a percentage of your friends unless you pay money to Farcebook. Getting people to give a shit on Twitter is tedious. Do the work yourself, there’s no golden formula. Just keep promoting your stuff all over the interwebs and be active on Soundcloud.
Furthermore, if you enjoy the music you make, and you enjoy making it, that has to be enough. To expect more is to place expectation on something based at least partially on chance, which can lead to disappointment. Be happy that you create awesome music.
Also, semi-related: in the next few months I’d like to have a compilation album put together. Experimental chip tunes, from artists around the world. Album available by donation. Proceeds from the album to go to a charity, maybe this one: http://www.musicforafrica.org.uk/welcome_01.php maybe a different one. The contributors get a bit of exposure (probably not much!), and children somewhere get to learn music, or programming, or something else awesome. I’ll be posting here and elsewhere in the coming weeks to get this done and get all deets hammered out.
Keep on keeping on man, from one metal composer to another.
