Here is my best piece so far that I've made. I hope you guys are alright with my posting of music without it being related to anime or games in any way... I kind of write my own stuff.

This song was composed in the June of last year. This is called The First Shot. It was composed for the expressed use of a few gamers that were creating a game. It was kind of still in it's "garage" stages, and it didn't get anything passed that. So, it's a free song that is probably one of my best works. I hope you guys like it. It was made in a real studio with real instruments and a handful of effects. No synth, however.

If you'd like to use this song in any way, please, just give me some credit in your work... and it'd be nice if you'd let me know, because I'd like to see the work you put it in.

www.menace-media.com/media/The%20First%20Shot.mp3.

Enjoy!

--Arojekt.

Where's the attachment though?

Now, for comments:

It's fairly repetitive, and some rhythm is fairly... Awkward. You need to think of rhythm as a pulse of the piece, if the pulse of the piece does not flow with everything else, the piece's structure (in this case, structure as in the combined sounds, not form) will collapse. You should learn more about crafting melodies and harmony as it was fairly weak in those two areas. However, I can let it pass as 'minimalism'. It also has a techno-esque feel to it with all those rather synthetic sounding (however, since you said it wasn't synthetic, then I'll count on that) percussions. Opinion wise, this is completely not my type of piece hence the fact that I can't relate much personal opinions or visions to it. However, technical wise, I will say that it's generally weak in musicality.

The song was made for a game, as I previously stated. It, was to be for an FPS style game where you were the military commander of a group of men, that were later ambushed. At least, that's how it was to go with in the first trailer.

The triplets, or offbeats, were purposely put into the song because in all of my other compositions, I've never worked with off beats. I wanted to branch out and experiment some. The offbeats were meant to fade in and out, if you will, images and steps of the planning and preparing process of the troops you (the main character) was to guide. When eventually you hit the climax of the song, the enemy has ambushed you and your team fights and dies. You are left for dead, many wounds. And that's when the song dies... however, it returns (yes repetitive... I know... I gotta work on that) because your character stumbles back to camp, alive, and at the end he says "I'll avenge my comrades." cheezy, but I didn't come up with it.

For the drums, that you find synthed, or believe so, this is where my natural oddness comes in. I'm sure you're thinking of the sound from the drums that you hear at about 12 seconds. That, right there, is my drum set with two effects. One, I strike the drum and pull the I. mic away from it slowly and steadily. Two, the pedal I used on it was a guitar's phazer. The gain is really turned down, nearly off, to prevent a distorted sound, like the overdrive of a guitar.

The progressive sound of the drums starting at 24.3 seconds is my drumming on cookie sheets and folded aluminum foil with makeshift psuedo-hot rod drum sticks with metal at the end that bounce and sway with each hit. I know I've seen professionally crafted sticks like these, however I just thought I'd make my own.

There are several other things I did, however, this is just two major ones. The other ones are more minute, and I don't feel like talking about how I did them, because some contained a rather invigorating process to get the sound I wanted. If you have questions about the methods, however, I'll be more than happy to explain it at a later time.

I appreciate your critique, Sir_Dotdotdot.

--Arojekt.

I get the idea of the piece, and I really appreciate the sound-engineering that is behind it, but there are many elements which could be improved. One of them were the background synth sound (The one to the very right of the stereo field that clinged on for quite a while). I don't really understand why you used it :P

Are you speaking of the high pitched, almost-synth sound that moves quite quickly and it sounds more or less like "dust"? That's the only way I can describe it really... it's like a sprinkle or something on the top of the cake. I don't know why I put it in, I just thought it sounded cool. That was made with the harmonics of my electric guitar put through the Whammy II pedal, then put through the Metal Pedal... then sound engineered through a seperate program.

--Arojekt.

here are some random thoughts:

I liked it quite a bit especially the drumsounds even though it sounds a little off at times. and that high pitched synth makes it better and a bit industrial.

you have a good base (even though somewhat cliché) to build on
It gets a bit repetitive after a while though, so you could have moved from those chords at some point in the song. The build of the song have been used many times before (even by me) so what makes the song yours have to be the drums.

A really nice "First shot" at it.

keep it up!

Contrary to the name, it's far from the First Shot as far as music goes... But I'm glad you liked it.

--Arojekt.