It's funny how things like this work. All semester long I've been too busy to write or record any music, much to my dismay, and now, at the end of it, when I have WAY too much other important stuff to do, inspiration strikes and I end up ditching 2 days of classes to get this out. Fun stuff. Now that I've gotten this out of my system, hopefully I can write my goddamn Shakespeare paper.

http://www.talentsoldseparately.com/...ightCharms.mp3

Well done on using what I assume are pan pipes and not making the piece sound like a new age shitfest!

The instrumentation is great and I loved the introduction of the guitar, it seemed to give the piece a bit more of an earthy feel after the spacey pan pipes. You could easily describe this piece as 'pretty'. It stays quite delicate and understated even when the distorted guitar comes in. It never gets too heavy like the cliched clean/distorted dynamic and stays nice and light and fresh sounding. The piece never goes over the top. Overall it builds very effectively and the lead guitar at around 4 mins took me quite by surprise. Very good mate!

Everything sounds really good as well, like it's well recorded. What do you use?

Thanks for listening and commenting. I was trying to avoid overdoing the distortion--at first I was really hesitant to even leave it in--but the clean solo that comes in over it sort of balances it out and stops it from ever getting too gritty. There are some piano chords that come in with the distorted guitar, too, to help with the same issue. I'm actually most proud of the bass, though: in terms of EQ and audibility while remaining subdued, it's probably the best use of bass I've made in any recording.

In terms of what I use, the majority of the instruments are sampled GarageBand instruments. The piano, the panflute, the regular flute (which is filtered to sound more glassy), the 8 bit synth, the percussion, etc. The guitars and bass are the only real instruments here, recorded via USB with a Line 6 Pod X3 Live. I think when they come in it really becomes like a second movement, even though it's built on top of the same foundation.

In any case, I'm quite pleased with it, and I'm glad you like the solo at the 4-minute mark--I still have slight doubts about it, but overall I like what it adds. Thanks again for taking the time to listen.

I thought they may have been samples, they sound excellent though. The contrast between the sampled instruments and the "real"(for want of a better word) instruments definitely adds a second movement of sorts, sounds more earthy.

You shouldn't have doubts about the solo, it simply adds another lift.

The creativity forum really is fucking dead isn't it? Few people seem to visit regularly. Shame.

Anyway good luck and keep it up!

I like this piece. it may just be me,but i think it could sound better with less-midi-elevator sounding instruments.you know? it's like i'm listening to a guitar pro transcribed version. but on the other hand, that's what might make this piece sound unique.

Yeah, it is kinda dead. i visit everyday, and i enjoy checking out people's music.
lately it seems there's been a decent amount of threads made.
perhaps you should put some up loveboat to keep this place a rollin'.

I really enjoyed this.
Would you mind if I played around with this in FLStudio? I won't change the overall composition, just add some things in. I just figured it'd be better to ask before doing so.

if you do,you better post it.
thats if you get permission from etc43.

http://filesmelt.com/downloader/Tweaked_Magnetic_Light_Charms.mp3

I hope it's okay with etc43. I didn't do much to the track in all actuality. I just dropped a few effects, and ran it through an EQ. I like the way it sounds, though I'm not so convinced others will.

Thanks for listening, everyone. Jambon, I was gonna say its fine for you to go ahead and tweak it or whatever, but you already did, which is fine. I'm quite a fan of the Creative Commons licensing method. My biggest issue with your tweak is that towards the end the different layers sort of lose their definition--everything becomes similarly peaky. But part of me saying that is also because I obsessed over getting it to sound the way it does in the original version, so I'm obviously biased. I dig the flangerish effect, though.

I could create a new thread for this, but I think I'll skip that and just post it here: this is another piece of music I worked on this summer. It still isn't done because it needs vocals but what is there is pretty final. A lot less sampled instruments on this one, and a lot more layers of guitars.

Clock Builder

And while I'm at it, here's a completely different version of the same song. The first one is missing vocals, and the second one is basically missing everything else. I'd definitely advise listening to the first one first, but I'm kind of curious what people think of both...ideally, there will eventually be some kind of synthesis between these two versions.

Clock Builder Live & Acoustic

I get what you mean, and found myself thinking the same thing after a few play throughs. I'll go back and see what I can do to make it sound more clear.

http://filesmelt.com/downloader/Twea...ht_Charms1.mp3
Let me know.

I'd love to but I'm in the laziest band I know! We practice like once a month if even that. I think we're gonna take a new years resolution to play more and definitely record more in 2010. So basically I'll post stuff as soon as I have some stuff to post!

Are you in a band yourself?

I really like the Clock Builder instrumental. I don't know if it's just me but it kinda sounds wintery and warm. I like the strings a lot and again it builds very well.

I only listened to the one with vocals once, haven't really got a chance again. On first listen I liked the sound of the guitar and the voice is the kind of voice I usually like in an acoustic guitar/vocal set up.

clockbuilder is a good song.
it's also a strange song.A strange happy kinda feeling i don't come across much in songs.
loveboat feels wintery and warm.I can see that.
I could picture the video for this song being that of a time-lapse movie of the prairies showing the season's changing,depicting animals gathering food and shit preparing for a cold winter....with a woodchuck on bass.