Marcus Makes Music [New Music Video Jan. 25]

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · October 2009

Being in college, it's been hard to practice with my band very frequently, so I've started writing a lot of music on my own again. I've got free software and a microphone from American Idol on the Wii to work with, so cut me some slack on the production end of things, but I think it turned out okay considering.

It's always been hard to ask for crits on music when you're in a band, because usually the only time people here it is when it's done, and has a lot of money invested into it. This took me a couple hours and absolutely no money, so critiques would be awesome!

For this song I was going for a very relaxing, low key kind of sound. I wanted it to be short, have a mild crescendo, but not have a prominent hook to it. Relaxing, and not particularly involving. What do you think?

Gentle Drifter Rocket

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYFtipH11f0

Thanks! I hope to have more to put up shortly, if you're interested.

Tam · October 2009

I think you should bring the whistling out to the foreground in the first part. I also think it would benefit the piece to then fade it back a little, but keep it as a light pulsing melodic voice interspersed or throughout the music.

I really liked this, by the way. Please keep posting.

edit: also, if you want to put the title of the piece in the youtube embed window, you do it like this:

<insert title of song>

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · October 2009

Tam wrote: »

I think you should bring the whistling out to the first foreground in the first part. I also think it would benefit the piece to then fade it back a little, but keep it as a melodic voice throughout.

I really liked this, by the way. Please keep posting.

edit: also, if you want to put the title of the piece in the youtube embed window, you do it like this:

<insert title of song>

I actually tried having the whistling go on throughout, but it sounded cluttered. And I honestly think I'm pretty bad at it ha. Maybe I could get someone else to whistle? I'll see if my room mates are any better!

And thanks a lot!

Tam · October 2009

Marcus I swear, if you don't put up more music soon

srsizzy · October 2009

hmm, I think it'd work as film music, but for me it's too repetitive to just listen to. I think the crescendo at the end should be sooner and longer/stronger. but I guess that's an opinion, because I like it when things are as smooth as the beginning and then they fly into faster rhythms with more sound (and I know, this was against what you described it to be, but as it is I think it could have more catch).

if lyrics are planned, that'd make it interesting. sounds nice though, has a lot of potential.

Rik · October 2009

How long did it take you to produce this? Sounds interesting to me.

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · October 2009

Tam, I'm at my parents for the weekend so I can't do any more recording, but I have another one mostly written! And I have a much more standard acoustic song now. It's on my myspace, which is lame, but I can't really youtube it when I'm here. I'll do that as soon as I get back.

But for now www.myspace.com/josephelliottmusic

Union Of V · October 2009

I like it, however a few problems. Firstly the noise on that mic is incredible! Try slapping a noise gate on the track, it'll clean it up a lot.

It's kind of sparse. I like it for what it is, some good ideas and a nice flow, but it needs a lot more background sounds. Try off beat echoey percussion, synth pads, distant found sounds, etc.

But you've got an idea, you're thinking straight, and that's good

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · October 2009

srsizzy: I actually started writing this for a film project I'm doing, but then I found out I'm only allowed to use stock songs that they're providing. So, instead of using awesome studios, I used an American Idol Wii mic in my room, and decided to flesh it out a bit more. I generally write things with a big crescendo in mind, but wanted to stray from that this time around, but I think I agree about the ending. It comes on a little too quick, which doesn't match the rest of the song. Plus, it doesn't really add much I don't think. I'll mess with it when I go home in a couple days! Thanks.

Rik: I'll take interesting as a compliment ha. It took me all night since I wrote a lot of the layers while recording. I used an electric guitar with a delay pedal for a lot of it, and my acoustic for a couple layers. The ending was done with MixCraft. Oh, and I whistled a bit, which I'm not very good at.

Union of V: I'm aware of the horrible mic. It reeaaally bothers me too. My brother has some decent gear I can hopefully get for cheap, so I might redo it later. Is that noise gate thing something I can do in program? I really don't know what I'm doing on that end of things ha. Thanks for the advice on the back round stuff though. I thought the delayed guitar that goes through the whole thing might keep the beat enough, but I might need some percussion. I don't want it to get too cluttered with back round noises though. In my mind, it's about being in a vagrant ship drifting around in space with nowhere to go, so I wanted it to sound kind of sparse. I might be able to add a bit though! I'll try messing around with it some more when I go home. Thanks a lot!

Mustang · October 2009

Dude this is really fucking good. Post more.

Loomdun · October 2009

I'm really not good with music lingo but one thing that did stand out was the background sound (Metronome?) had no variation, which can usually sometimes cause a song with a nice melody to it to become repetitive and boring, I posted a mildly cheesey song earlier in the chat thread but because its just instrumental and has a distinct piano background I think it would be a very nice example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jgz0PEmS80

as soon as the song starts the background music (piano) uhh, I think its called the metronome or beat of the song I guess? Also varies from higher to lower tone throughout the song, if it repeated the same thing over and over like that at the very beginning, the overall song would lose more of its effect and feel duller.

yours doesn't need to change as soon as other things start playing but you can hear it change in this example as soon as the actual song begins playing. or in other words after 10 seconds it changes and throughout the song it keeps changing while keeping its beat

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · October 2009

The lack of variation was intentional, and as it's a very short song I didn't think it would drag it out. But, then again, I listen to a lot of long boring music haha. I'm not sure what I could do about it though, since that metronome sound is just the guitar track that everything else is layering over. I could just get rid of it, or replace it part way through. Maybe? I'll mess around with it! Thanks.

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · October 2009

This one is a pretty standard acoustic tune I did a while back. It was recorded poorly, and the singing is iffy for sure, so I'm going to have to redo it completely. But! The question is, is the song worth it? Is there anything I should change, other than just not sucking so much?

Fuck You, Alien Scum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XilH-HtdmmI

I've got two in the works that are a little more like the first one I posted. One is a little happier, and the other a little creepier. I should have at least one up by the end of the week!

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · April 2010

It's been forever, but I finally got a chance to record another song! I wrote it for a soundtrack to a short film I'm making, and had access to much better recording equipment. It's still quite amateur, but it's tons better.

Hope you like it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dtBWuJebV4

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · August 2010

My band is finishing up recording on it's first full length album. I should be hearing a rough mix tonight, actually. All that's left are some back up vocals and a bit of keys. I'm very excited!

But today I did this because I was bored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp61dxTZsuY

I'm working on this song with my band, and so far we have a nice bass track to go with it, but I think it works well acoustically as well. The video is just some old footage I hadn't used for anything else, so it's not too remarkable. Let me know what you think!

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · August 2010

First song off the new album is now available! I made a video out of some NASA footage to go along with it.

What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OznBjYSKME

F87 · August 2010

Very, very nice. The singer has a good voice, the music is chill (has a rough sound to it, but I like that personally) and the video is really cool! Great work.

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · August 2010

Thanks! I guess I should say that I play guitar and sing in the band. I write the core of the songs, then let everybody else just go nuts on it. It is then returned to me in a form that hardly resembles what I wrote, and is much better for it.

We're about to record some piano, and the mix needs to be adjusted on a few tunes, but I'm aiming to make another video (one with us in it) in September.

RubberAC · August 2010

I love your stuff so much oh man
Its wicked.

Tam · August 2010

goddamn I am missing all sorts of threads

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · October 2010

New song and a new video to go with it! I'm still waiting on approval from a couple band members, but this is likely how it's going to be. But for now, it's unlisted just incase.

The album is so close to being released, but until then, here's one more song. The video is from Thanksgiving weekend (of the Canadian variety). I wanted to capture the nicer parts of going home and seeing friends and family.

My Home In Autumn by Blaze N' Murder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1F-PW26PvA

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · October 2010

Since the album is about done, I'm moving on to new projects. I'm in the early stages of a lot of new Blaze N' Murder tunes, but I've decided to get back into soundtrack style tunes again.

This time I started messing around with Garage Band. Lame, I know, but I'm pretty happy with some of it.

Like this one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T94-a8_RgW8

I wanted it to sound romantic and hopeful, particularly after making a major change in life. What do you think?

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · October 2010

Another one! I wrote this after watching Deadwood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlsra_9oBR4

Davoid · October 2010

This is damn good Marcus

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · January 2011

So my band Blaze N' Murder is about to release our first full length album and I'm so pumped about it. The two music videos I posted earlier were early mixes off it, but now we have three new tunes and updated versions of those ones on our myspace.

Okay, myspace is awful I know, but it's the only place we have the tunes for now. I'd put them on youtube, but we have music videos planned for all of them so I'm holding off on that.

So check it out and let me know what you think!

www.myspace.com/blazenmurder

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · January 2011

Does anybody know of anywhere to host these tunes that are embeddable into these here forums? Other than youtube? Because I know heading over to myspace is not very fun.

Iruka · January 2011

If you have a way to host it, most browsers will open media in a new tab and play it if you link it directly.

2 Marcus 2 Ravens · January 2011

For the past three weeks I've been working non stop on a music video for my band. It was the most ambitious and god damn difficult video I've ever shot, but it was a ton of fun and it turned out exactly how we wanted.

Anyway, new song, new video, tell me what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE-1ArCS9yM

Penny Arcade

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