Stuck at one tune

[Oliwerko]

Hula-ho.

I have this tune lying on my HDD for quite a time now and I am pretty much stuck. I don't know if it's great, or if it does suck. I need your help my guys and gals, tell me if it's wrong or not, tell me if it's worth to try or if I'll let it rot.

Seriously, tell me if there are any disturbing aspects of the tune, or if it's a nice melody worth expanding. I guess your opinion can help me decide what to do next.

Here's the link: Zap.mp3

Thanks a lot, I trust you to enlighten my way,
and make my day a better way, so to say. 

[Nikolas]

To begin with, the sounds you used are quite annoying and ugly. I wouldn't mind the same synth sounds in an industrial setting, or with a beat or something, but right now it simply doesn't sound too good.

The melodic material is minimal, which actually is a good thing. You've expanded a little bit but not very much, or as much as someone else would be able to do.

and you're stuck with 2-3 notes polyphony, which is far worst in that respect to what, even midi, could do, or mods.

It does need expanding to sound better, as right now it simply feels like an intro to something else... (not present). I would make the harmony, further on, much richer to give away the wealth which does seem a bit apparent early on.

The melody itself is, certainly, not what one would call catchy, but very much something which is appealing to my ears. Then again I'm a composer, so I might have different taste to more less involved ears.

It did feel like earlier adventure games music, which I guess is another plus in my mind.

In conclusion: Don't give up, no matter what anyone tells you. you don't really need us, or anyone really to tell you what to do with this. Finish it and move on to the next. Finish it and stop. Don't finish it and start another. You are the only one who knows why it's taken so long to work. Maybe deep inside you feel that it's not the best you can do. Maybe you are too frighten to extend it in fear of loosing the best qualities this track has. Maybe... So, it's totally up to you what to do with this track.

I have to admit that, at the moment, it feels rather... "not having put much work on it". It is something that could've been made in less than 10 minutes. With more work it could also work better.

Sorry for the lengthy post.

[Oliwerko]

I absolutely don't mind lenghty posts, more info is better than less.

To begin with, the sounds you used are quite annoying and ugly. I wouldn't mind the same synth sounds in an industrial setting, or with a beat or something, but right now it simply doesn't sound too good.

That's my nightmare every time. I have a hard time choosing a well-suited samples, even when my sample library reads 30 thousand files. It just seems that I have piles of samples, but none of which I could use. This is the major thing that keeps me down from trying new things, I always recall having troubles and just randomly poking around the library to find something useful.

Maybe the fact that I begun learning by poking around and when a good sound came to my ear, I became more creative. Maybe I have developed a bad approach to it, going through samples to melodies and not in reverse.

The melodic material is minimal, which actually is a good thing. You've expanded a little bit but not very much, or as much as someone else would be able to do.

and you're stuck with 2-3 notes polyphony, which is far worst in that respect to what, even midi, could do, or mods.

Well, this is quite the very beginning of the song which is surely going to get more complicated. I just feel that there's "something" that it lacks. And I don't know what it is. I usually like nice buildup from simple 2-note poly to everything incl. drum channels etc. Maybe after I try and change the samples for the song I will find out. What do you suggest? Making it more complicated later on and keeping this as an intro, or expanding it to full potential already from the beginning?

The melody itself is, certainly, not what one would call catchy, but very much something which is appealing to my ears.

Good to hear that, 'cause even I don't know if it's appealing or not to me.

It did feel like earlier adventure games music, which I guess is another plus in my mind.

That's funny, it does not sound like that to me. The second part, maybe.

In conclusion: Don't give up, no matter what anyone tells you. you don't really need us, or anyone really to tell you what to do with this. Finish it and move on to the next. Finish it and stop. Don't finish it and start another. You are the only one who knows why it's taken so long to work. Maybe deep inside you feel that it's not the best you can do. Maybe you are too frighten to extend it in fear of loosing the best qualities this track has. Maybe... So, it's totally up to you what to do with this track.

I have to admit that, at the moment, it feels rather... "not having put much work on it". It is something that could've been made in less than 10 minutes. With more work it could also work better.

Well, you're probably right. It's true it's not been much work, I pretty much struggled all the way. But I like the harmony and I don't want to simply dump it. Nevertheless I can't find that "something" that is missing there.
And I'm not so frightened about losing the nice things. I know exactly of which feeling you speak, the worst situation comes when you have 3 minutes of great track, and you need to add one more interesting thing there, and you fear that this thing will ruin it all. That's the place where I feel it, not in this particular song. Here, it's different.