Heres a little something I did just now. I'm not much of the electronic musician, so those of you experienced in the area can give me a little criticism. I'd mainly say i need to get rid of some of the clutter towards the psuedo-end (it is unfinished, ya know). Anyway.....

Thar she is:
http://www.morphedmedia.com/tdn/archive/100605PM.mp3

Any good so far? Should I lower the tempo?

dude that was really cool... how the hell did you make it?

and.... at the end... it would have been nice if it kicked back into the main part of it with all the instruments going again briefly... or something, but it's not complete like you said...

FruityLoops, CoolEdit, my beetar and geetar. Nothing glamourous. No synthesizers. No turntables. No cool light displays. Just me and my computer nerd self, doin my thang (as they say in da ghetto, or across the street to be more specific).

Heres an update. This time slower, with a more consonant ending. Still unfinished though.
http://www.morphedmedia.com/tdn/archive/101745AM.mp3

...well thats definatley fruityloops...i usualy dont like the sound of fruityloops...even though i use it...but, theres sort of a skill involved...youll get it eventualy... it just takes time. the part where the default kick and snare dropped out and the guitar patch and string var came in was good... but than cam back in... i cant say much for that beat, i just dont like it, but your instrumentation is pretty good.

I'm listening through both versions of your song.
I listened to your first one already, but didn't find it terribly fetching (I had it on repeat). Second time through, I find I like the mellowed section at around the 1:00 minute mark, thats cool, but I find the ending a little bare.
Listening to your remake version now..
It sounds like you've added some reverb in this one - nice touch, it generally tends to add atmosphere and depth. I could be wrong though, thats just the impression I get. I much prefer the ending, its got a lot more tension resolve than in the first one. I was almost like there was tension build up, and it just went no where. With the second one its satisfying, and the instruments work well together.

I'll agree with Paladin, since I'm not a huge fan of the techno bass beat (whatever its call) which runs through most of the song. but as I've said before I'm not a huge fan of techno, so this shouldn't really be taken too seriously. thats just a personal taste nark.
Good work.

With that said, the beat is scrapped, and hopefully it'll be replaced something better. I'll also try and add more atmosphere, but being a newbie at this, my songwriting skills are confined to what I can actually do with the software.

So keep 'em coming. I need lots of criticism and very little praise, or else I'll never learn.

ill add some advice too... get some more samples of stuff...makes it sound less default, less fruityloops,. i sometimes make my samples...i download them too... i have at least 20 packs of samples. it makes your stuff sound your own.

The "sound" of Fruity Loops is whatever you make it to be. I never even listened to the default instrument sound wavs, I just upload my own in folders in the Fruity Loops folder. Use Sound Forge or Cool Edit to just record you playing your sounds once, from a keyboard or guitar or whatever, chop them and rename them, and bam you got a whole library of much better sounds. Or just download libraries of wavs. I prefer recording it, but only because I have a strong sense of integrity. It makes me feel better working in the hip-hop industry that all my sounds were mine from the beginning.

so wait how does this work? you record your guitar, and then you can have that program make it's own guitar riffs with that sound? how many noes do you need to record? all of them?

Weeeellllllllll... where there's a will, there's a way, I guess.

What I meant was if you have a guitar part you want looped, record it to a click in a wave editor. Chop it so that when it repeats, it sounds fluid (even this doesnt have to be 100% accurate, since Fruity Loops works the way it does with triggers). Then put that wav file on a fruity loops track, where it asks for sample. Then place one trigger at the beginning of the 16 bar loop or however long your loops are. Just once, and it will trigger every time the loop comes back around.

To actually create riffs, record a chord or note for the length desired, even this can be changed with time stretching later. Then trigger it as often as you want, adjusting the pitch with the individual triggers' pitch controls. You can also adjust volume for each trigger and other aspects of each triggered sample.

p.s. It's probably just easier to think of a riff and record it than trying to assemble one this way.

ok... so the only real reason to use this is to make techno sounding stuff?

No it's a good program for just about any genre. It's uses are limited, I wouldnt mix anything in Fruity Loops, and anything played live that isnt looped I would record in Vegas. It's a good music bed program, meaning you get the idea of the song down. It's great for techno, industrial, hip-hop, or trance jazz or stuff like that. "Eutectoric" was recorded on a PC with Fruity Loops and Vegas (see my trip-hoppish thread).

I dont really use a PC anymore. 2 of the 3 studios I work at have Macs now, one with Pro Tools and the other with the second in line, Digital Performer. Obviously I'll take either of those over Fruity Loops, even though they arent trackers, its nice to keep the audio all together and not spread out around several programs which may or may not require new audio files, which take up space and make file management a headache.

I've just been sticking to Cool Edit.... it can be a bit hard to space things out over multiple tracks, like my king of the hill quotes overlapping my song.... but.... it's nice....

I actually have my own samples, but theyre not in tune with the string var (which i cant record) so I couldnt use them. But like I've said, I'm still a newbie, and there are probably ways around this. I like the idea of recording entire riffs suggested by paraflux too.

Also, bends, slides, any of that crap, I'm clueless with, and it seems like something that would really make a song more interesting. Are there any good resources on that kinda thing, or do I have to figure it out for myself? Ehh... I'll get it eventually.

umm... i dunno, check the fruityloops site, it depends on which fruity loops version you have....

What's a string var? Is it a sample? If so, you can adjust the pitch to match what's really in tune by either the individual pitch controls for each trigger or in the main wav window (where you can set your wav) you can adjust the pitch for the whole track there. Warning, adjusting the pitch this way does not allow for time stretching and will make your samples longer if you tune down and shorter if you tune up.
Or you can adjust your pitch on the keyboard's global settings to match the samples. This is what I would do. This is a pet peeve concerning the use of samples. They are not always recorded in tune with the tuning system we use.