Visplane Overflow: A metal tribute to Doom

I actually posted a Doom tribute song on here months ago, but after bettering my skills as a musician, I became dissatisfied with the lack of diversity in the chords, as well as the glassy guitar tone. This song is a re-working of that original tune, with added harmonies, improved solos and guitar tone and better chord progressions. Like the original, it's titled "Visplane Overflow."

http://media.putfile.com/pug-fuglies---visplane-overflow

After only 37 seconds of listening to that, I hit the "back" button to post a reply. Just thought I'd let you know.

It have a great potential heh !
I think with some improvements it could be better, maybe after bettering again your musician skill ? :)

The mains problems are the quality of the sound and a lack of harmony in the structure of the music (but it's just imo).
I like the e1m1 part.

If the harmonies sound a bit strange, it's because I use a lot of dissonant chords. Generally, rock/metal with heavy distortion primarily uses power chords because of their relative consonance. I purposely explored a number of different chords in this song to achieve unusual, often harsh harmonies. Those with an ear for music will (hopefully) hear all the layers.

As to the quality of the sound, the guitars, bass and drums are all synthesized, so you can expect it to sound a bit low-fi compared to analogue instrumentation.

I wasn't meaning about the harmonies but about the progression of the music, sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

Needs more melody.

I won't complain about the dissonance. There's always enough of a tonal basis for the chords and chromatic melodies to work. But, this song has no large-scale structure at all, which makes it sound incoherent. Without a structure, it starts to sound just like a bunch of notes. If you want your music to be appreciated, here's what you need to do:

1. Divide the song into clear phrase and theme sections with lengths of 8 bars, or 16, 32, etc. Right now, you have one theme phasing into another at senseless unpredictable moments, and your thematic areas are all randomly different lengths. This is why it sounds like just a bunch of notes - without strong thematic exits and entrances at key moments, the listener is disoriented. Predictable structure is actually a plus for this genre of music, so don't fight it.

2. This song has no thematic unity. You use a handful of different themes, but then you throw each of them away and never revisit them. Take this attitude for your composition: if a theme is worth using, it's worth reusing (with development, of course). Use some existing thematic material to actually tie the song up when it closes, instead of just letting it end when it runs out of fuel. You can throw some sections out - having two or three contrasting riffs is appropriate.

If you need an idea for wrapping it up, you can phase back to the gunfire opening style. Whether you do that or not, you should cut that Doom intro shorter - 15 seconds is more than enough already.

It sure is interesting. And I agree, that the main problem is sound quality.

Is it a multi track recording? If yes, I could try to make a better mix, if you like. (This complete song for free. Just mention that I did the mixing and mastering)

If you want some demos of my mixing and mastering skills:
Indecision - "Soliloguy": some rock song.
timboZ: some death metal song.
Some more demos from different music styles are available here: http://abmischung.de/

I duly recommend advices from Creaphis.

Creaphis said:

But, this song has no large-scale structure at all, which makes it sound incoherent. Without a structure, it starts to sound just like a bunch of notes.

I'm not sure where you got that idea; the majority of the song is in a Hungarian Minor key (I forget which one), while the E1M1 part is in a less eccentric minor key. The original song was too consonant for my taste; so what appears random are actually carefully reworked melodies and harmonies designed to be ingested after several listens.

1. Divide the song into clear phrase and theme sections with lengths of 8 bars, or 16, 32, etc. Right now, you have one theme phasing into another at senseless unpredictable moments, and your thematic areas are all randomly different lengths.

My metal influences are a bit atypical; bands like Portal, Autopsy, Cannibal Corpse, Death Breath, Human Remains, Gorguts, etc. These groups often have a progressive nature, where there may be a number of passages in a single song, with numerous changes in tempo, key and rhythmic pacing. The loose structure of extreme and avant garde metal is the basis for a lot of my metal-based music, so the lack of cohesion is intentional.

2. This song has no thematic unity. You use a handful of different themes, but then you throw each of them away and never revisit them. Take this attitude for your composition: if a theme is worth using, it's worth reusing (with development, of course).

Again, this relates to my influences. The song is intended to be progressive in nature, so themes are intentionally left behind. I wanted to establish different moods using different compositional methods and tempos. There was no need to revisit themes because the structure is more about changes in mood than cohesion. I appreciate the criticism though; I only have marginal music theory knowledge, so there's always room to improve.

Doesn't work for me.

_bruce_ said:

Doesn't work for me.

I've sometimes had trouble using putfile pages on Firefox. If it isn't a browser issue, I can add a secondary link at an alternative upload site.

GoatLord said:

I've sometimes had trouble using putfile pages on Firefox.

Look at the source text. There is a complete url for the mp3 which you can just copy to your favorite download manager.

GoatLord said:

The song is intended to be progressive in nature, so themes are intentionally left behind. I wanted to establish different moods using different compositional methods and tempos. There was no need to revisit themes because the structure is more about changes in mood than cohesion.

If it's really progressive, you should'nt take so brutals changes between the themes imo.

I personally didn't feel the changes were so severe, but again, I must reference back to my influences. Outside of extreme metal, even a lot of thrash and speed metal bands were known for abrupt changes within a song. It might work better with vocal accompaniment. I think if you're listening to it with the intent of hearing a consistent flow, you won't absorb the song properly. It's amorphous in nature and I don't tip-toe around that. At the same time, I can understand people who aren't into my influences being a bit confused by the change-ups.

I thought it was cool. Nice job!

I'm surprised by the negative comments and thought the advice for "how to get people to appreciate your music" was hilarious. That was the worst advice a musician could ever get. I like songs with generic/standard structures too, but don't criticize the guy for making it more complex. You're not going to improve your composing skills and listening skills if you don't want to improve and try new things. I don't think it sounded incoherent at all and I thought the sound quality was good.

Yeah, I like it; it's an inspiring piece. The many changes made it good for listening to repeatedly (I left it playing with repeat mode a while), because they remove any sense of monotony.

Thanks for the mixed responses. I don't mind the criticism; I don't expect everyone to like it. I've thought about doing another doom tribute song, in a more Aubrey Hodges style.

Heh like I've said I liked it, but I think also it's more a potential showing : I feel it can be better (it's why I try some advices, all can be tried to see how it progress).
But yeah, it's maybe also my influences which make me think this : I'm a Pink Floyd lover so progressive tunes are more expressive in my head =)

TimeOfDeath said:

I thought it was cool. Nice job!

I'm surprised by the negative comments and thought the advice for "how to get people to appreciate your music" was hilarious. That was the worst advice a musician could ever get. I like songs with generic/standard structures too, but don't criticize the guy for making it more complex. You're not going to improve your composing skills and listening skills if you don't want to improve and try new things. I don't think it sounded incoherent at all and I thought the sound quality was good.

Well, obviously there's no right way to compose, and it's up to the composer to choose which audience his music is aimed at. But, it's safe to say that metal with structure and thematic unity is appreciated by MORE people than the metal style of Goatlord's influences. Composers often face this difficult decision between writing in an avant-garde style and writing in a way that more people can appreciate. In my long post above, I didn't mean to say that "this is the way you should write music." I meant to say "this is the way you should write music IF you want a wider audience than what this will get."

Lyrics and a consistent vocal line already help to unify a piece, so I can imagine that this would be improved with one.

Also, as this is a Doom tribute piece, it does make somewhat more sense to use Robert Prince as your chief musical influence - but that's just my opinion.

Interesting. Not awesome, but interesting. Maybe a bit heavy for me, I guess.

Creaphis said:
But, it's safe to say that metal with structure and thematic unity is appreciated by MORE people than the metal style of Goatlord's influences.

That would matter more to somebody composing with a strictly commercial or utilitarian purpose, as opposed to a more expressive or artistic one. Maybe to earn one's bread, or as background music for a specific DOOM level, according to a level designer's requests.

Creating for others may produce more or less popular material, but also leads to relatively non-vital or superficial creations, because we must assume being others instead of ourselves... we may as well just tell those others to do it themselves.

I definitely made the song with the intent to satisfy myself. I am hoping, however, that others can enjoy it. It combines music that I feel would appear in Doom, but in my signature experimental style.