Vectograph

Here's a piece of electronic music, sequenced in Reason. Stylistically, I was thinking a little of groups like Plaid and Boards of Canada while I worked on this. It follows a loose arch form, structured around a repeating 16-bar chord progression and a melody following the same chords. It's a little under 80bpm, with a double-time feel in the drum groove. Besides comments on the music itself, I would appreciate comments on the quality of the mix. Thanks!

http://li8-214.members.linode.com/up...vectograph.mp3

i think the mix was good. well, the music...i never thought of boards or plaid being of any (significant) interest. it certainly lacked the ambience of ambient and the energy of beats electronica. to me it's like a style with no style. other than that, it was alright done.

it certainly lacked the ambience of ambient and the energy of beats electronica. to me it's like a style with no style. other than that, it was alright done.

Thanks for commenting! This bit made me laugh out loud. Not what I was expecting anyone to say. Sorry you didn't like it, though. Personally, I think that there's a place for music with a level of energy in between ambient and dance music; for when you're in a moderate mood, maybe. Of course, I won't criticize your opinion, either.

Originally Posted by nhomas

I think that there's a place for music with a level of energy in between ambient and dance music; for when you're in a moderate mood, maybe.

there is, and many people find it very welcome.
so, yeah, it's "my" bit of issue.
and, yes, i think it could've been shorter, more tight. and there were nice parts where you come out of nowhere with them. i think fx'ed percussion ones.

Yes, you're right. I could certainly have made this piece more concise. I think about this a lot, actually: how much repetition is the right amount? It just depends on how closely you want to listen. If you were just playing this in the background, I could probably get away with more repetition, and some people I've talked to say that they would actually like that. On the other hand, if you want to listen closely, giving the music your full attention, you probably want less repetition. I read somewhere where Stockhausen went so far as to suggest that composers should use no repetition. So repetition is, I think, like spices: some people like more, some like less. But in any case, I think that my subsequent pieces are going to use less.

As for the FX'd percussion parts, I think I know what you're talking about, and I think that I agree, actually. Actually, I feel like that whole middle section (the part with the rhythmic, babbling synth) isn't as strong as the rest of the piece.

Also, an interesting aside: the synth in the middle section (starting around 2:30) is actually two synths being fed into a vocoder: one is a pad, and one is generating rhythmic bursts of white noise with a bandpass filter with an automated cutoff frequency. The thing you thought was FX'd percussion was not actually percussion, or in fact any new part at all, but just me modifying the wet/dry control on the vocoder so that you could hear the unmodified noise generator synth.

there would be no music without repetition, stockhausen was harsh on that, but hey, critics just open up a space, not crowd it.
as for your piece, if you want it to repeat, you still can make it shorter and repeat it. repeat more informative movements. or just simply push the repeat button.
generally, i think repetition is very important to music, a second parameter of music. besides change/difference. so it's always a hard time to decide how much and how often and where to change. but i think you just feel it. for me it's like you can go - 1 1 2 1 1 2 and then 1 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 1 2 and it would work.

I agree with pliorius: some nice ideas, but I found the lack of development a bit much through all ~7 minutes. The material is also quite traditional in places and therefore becomes slightly predictable. In particular, there's a perfect cadence which pops up every now and again (I think the first instance is at 0:47) - not only does this have the effect of making the piece sound as though it wants to either move on or finish altogether, it struck me as slightly vanilla given the elegant choice of timbres and other assorted harmonic quirks.

I liked the more rhythmically adventurous part in the middle, and I would suggest maybe shortening the entire work and building upon these if you're going to stay on the path of sustained repetition.