NGL. If someone had told me that this OST was recently leaked for HL2's anniversary or by some insider, I would have totally believed them. GREAT JOB!!!
Just finished listening to the whole thing, and as someone who also makes HL inspired music, overall I'm very mixed on it. I'm going to try and be as constructive as possible so here are my thoughts, some positive some negative: You've nailed the ambient tracks, each one sounds straight out of Half-Life. Noticed "Altered States" samples in there, which since you used I'm assuming you know that Bailey used those packs extensively in the HL series. It also sounds like you've used sound effects from the games as well? That's some neat extra detail there and it definitely adds to the HL feel. Now onto the action tracks, which unfortunately I'm not going to be very positive about. They sound directionless, aimless, like you took random 4 bar loops and just threw them together randomly with no real care. I can hear most of the action tracks are using samples from "Methods of Mayhem." Which is not a problem itself, but you're not really changing them, or adding to them at all. It definitely doesn't help that sometimes you will throw in a sample that's in a completely different key to the rest of the track so it throws the whole thing off. "We May Have Been Spotted" is a good example of what I'm saying, it's just a drum loop (that I'm pretty sure is from HL2 or one of the episodes) and then a bunch of random noises/sounds all in different keys. None of the sounds you chose go together. "Symbiotic" Is the one action track where I can say this problem doesn't occur, and is more in line with the quality of your ambient tracks. It's akin to Hard Fought from HL2, simple but effective. It creates an interesting, darker atmosphere. It's not something I would listen to on my own time, but if it played in a tense part of a game, It'd definitely add to that "backed into a corner" type of feeling. "Intervention" Honestly, is almost unlistenable. It's like if the issue with most your action tracks was amplified by ten. It is straight up just random Method of Mayhem samples thrown at a wall. Nothing goes together, nothing sounds good, there's random reversed drum sounds that completely go against the rhythm. It's like a 7 year old pressed a bunch of sampler buttons and said "Yup, that's badass!" "Freedom" Is pretty obviously the only track on the album that doesn't use any samples, and listening to it makes the rest of the album make complete sense now. You're clearly new to making music, you don't really understand chord progressions or scales, or sense of rhythm. So you use the same sample packs and sounds that Kelly Bailey used to try and make up for your shortcomings. I've been where you are. I remember not knowing anything about how to mix, or master, or how to create melodies, or chord progressions. I would say to focus on trying to make tracks using ONLY things that you make, just boot up some default FL Studio VSTs and find sounds that inspire something, then create literally anything, practicing is your friend. Samples are fine, but they tend to hinder your learning progress as you're not learning how these samples were made, or why they sound the way they do, you're just drag & dropping them into your DAW. Right now you're essentially using them as a shortcut to try and make better tracks but ultimately at your skill level it's better to make stuff on your own with no sample assistance. Trial and error is how you get better. If you never even try to do things on your own you'll eventually just run out of samples. There's only so many samples Kelly Bailey used. Ditch them now and come back to them later when you know more about how to create proper tracks, and trust me you'll find new and more creative ways of using them. Anyways, I hope you don't take this as a personal attack, and I'll be following your stuff in hopes you get better! If you ever need assistance with FL Studio/making music in general I'll be more than happy to help you out. Hope you have a great day!
NGL. If someone had told me that this OST was recently leaked for HL2's anniversary or by some insider, I would have totally believed them. GREAT JOB!!!
LETS GOOOOOOO
Just finished listening to the whole thing, and as someone who also makes HL inspired music, overall I'm very mixed on it. I'm going to try and be as constructive as possible so here are my thoughts, some positive some negative:
You've nailed the ambient tracks, each one sounds straight out of Half-Life. Noticed "Altered States" samples in there, which since you used I'm assuming you know that Bailey used those packs extensively in the HL series. It also sounds like you've used sound effects from the games as well? That's some neat extra detail there and it definitely adds to the HL feel.
Now onto the action tracks, which unfortunately I'm not going to be very positive about. They sound directionless, aimless, like you took random 4 bar loops and just threw them together randomly with no real care. I can hear most of the action tracks are using samples from "Methods of Mayhem." Which is not a problem itself, but you're not really changing them, or adding to them at all. It definitely doesn't help that sometimes you will throw in a sample that's in a completely different key to the rest of the track so it throws the whole thing off.
"We May Have Been Spotted" is a good example of what I'm saying, it's just a drum loop (that I'm pretty sure is from HL2 or one of the episodes) and then a bunch of random noises/sounds all in different keys. None of the sounds you chose go together.
"Symbiotic" Is the one action track where I can say this problem doesn't occur, and is more in line with the quality of your ambient tracks. It's akin to Hard Fought from HL2, simple but effective. It creates an interesting, darker atmosphere. It's not something I would listen to on my own time, but if it played in a tense part of a game, It'd definitely add to that "backed into a corner" type of feeling.
"Intervention" Honestly, is almost unlistenable. It's like if the issue with most your action tracks was amplified by ten. It is straight up just random Method of Mayhem samples thrown at a wall. Nothing goes together, nothing sounds good, there's random reversed drum sounds that completely go against the rhythm. It's like a 7 year old pressed a bunch of sampler buttons and said "Yup, that's badass!"
"Freedom" Is pretty obviously the only track on the album that doesn't use any samples, and listening to it makes the rest of the album make complete sense now. You're clearly new to making music, you don't really understand chord progressions or scales, or sense of rhythm. So you use the same sample packs and sounds that Kelly Bailey used to try and make up for your shortcomings.
I've been where you are. I remember not knowing anything about how to mix, or master, or how to create melodies, or chord progressions. I would say to focus on trying to make tracks using ONLY things that you make, just boot up some default FL Studio VSTs and find sounds that inspire something, then create literally anything, practicing is your friend. Samples are fine, but they tend to hinder your learning progress as you're not learning how these samples were made, or why they sound the way they do, you're just drag & dropping them into your DAW. Right now you're essentially using them as a shortcut to try and make better tracks but ultimately at your skill level it's better to make stuff on your own with no sample assistance. Trial and error is how you get better. If you never even try to do things on your own you'll eventually just run out of samples. There's only so many samples Kelly Bailey used. Ditch them now and come back to them later when you know more about how to create proper tracks, and trust me you'll find new and more creative ways of using them.
Anyways, I hope you don't take this as a personal attack, and I'll be following your stuff in hopes you get better! If you ever need assistance with FL Studio/making music in general I'll be more than happy to help you out. Hope you have a great day!
it's Yummers...
yess!!!! it's here!
This captures Kelley Bailey's style almost perfectly. Wonderful work.