Anybody want to give me some ideas on how to make my song cooler?

You start out with a 4-on-the-floor section and then move into sort of a trap rhythm, which is OK, but the trap rhythm has a slower, less energetic feel than the intro part, which kind of kills the vibe of the track. Also, after the intro you kind of end up repeating the same thing for 1:40; as a general rule its a bad idea to repeat the same idea more than twice without making a significant change to it. The outro is cool but it would be good to see it come in earlier in the track, because it sounds good and could provide a nice break from the middle part, which is a little repetitive.

Also on the subject of sound design and fitting sounds in; generally its best to think of shaping your sound design around the elements that will result in a good mix. Right now you have a lot of similar sounds in the same range, which causes some clashing. Usually when I make tracks I use a certain formula for the sounds, it might be something like:

Pad: Long sustained notes, able to sort of fill in the track without being too intrusive.

Bass: Self-explanatory.

Rhythm/Drums: Self-explanatory.

Lead: Melodic part with high/mid frequency content.

Rhythmic Instrument: Maybe an arpeggio, or a bell playing a rhythm or something.

Sound effects: whoosh sounds, little buildups, sometimes I have a sound that I'll play at the beginning of every bar, creates a feel of phrasing.

Its important to think about creating good phrases too. Taking rap as an example of rhythmic phrasing, most rappers will have a repeated rhythmic idea that they use a few times, then they switch up their flow and use a different rhythmic idea. By doing this they manage to create consistency in the music, and also switch it up and keep it interesting (helps avoid repeating things too many times), while using the same beat for long periods of time.

Hope that helped man! Keep it up.
 
Yes! thank you so much for this. as a design student I'm always looking for places to get long critiques on just about anything i create. should i make a beat critique thread?
 
No problem man! Always stoked to see other producers on NS.

Yeah why not make a thread, there have been attempts at cults and stuff but most of them die.

At least with a thread if you had a few people posting in there every so often it'd stay semi-active.

You could always just bump this one too:

https://www.newschoolers.com/ns/forums/readthread/thread_id/756885/

 
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