I've always loved creating electronic music ever since I received a free copy of Dance Ejay back in school in the early 2000's. Granted this was software where you basically arranged samples and created your own mixes from them, but the pure fun and escapism I had was pretty damn euphoric and something I hadn't experienced doing anything else. I pretty much continued to collect Ejay discs/samples from that point onwards, with each version bringing slightly more freedom to create than the last. I remember showing someone a song I made when I discovered I could export my songs and put them on to MP3. After listening and at first thinking I made it from scratch, they mentioned something called Fruity Loops (to which I tried a demo of some weeks later) and was both overwhelmed andintimated by the complexity compared to dragging some blocks in an arrangement with very slight editing. It wasn't until I joined the army and found myself trying it again and creating a quick track (XLS) followed by a full track https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/510044 -
...I had created that rough song, me - with my own imagination....*endorphins released*
From that point on I was hooked, I churned out tracks that Hummed in my head, followed more tutorials and totally ignored mastering for the first few as it was over my head. With each song I got more daring and patient, I took my time and spent longer tweaking. I didn't know what EQ, compression ect was, but I soon discovered what a difference mastering made as I got more advanced but frustrated that sounds were being drowned out, low ends, high ends ect were being drowned out.....(don't get me going on about balancing stereo and reverb) I had learned what I needed to outside of work in order to progress my imagination. I was in the Army and loved my job - but this was another hobby that just relaxed me (95% of the time), I made songs I loved to listen too and some people found it weird that I would listen to my own tracks, but with every listen I would go 'should have moved that, added this, got rid of that); I can be my own worse critique.
I'm not massively popular, my soundcloud has a small following and Newgrounds has helped me accept constructive criticism and build on it. This is fun, this is my love of music being churned right back out in the hopes I can make that one perfect track. I must admit though, I do have one goal: to make a song that is good enough to either be noticed by someone alot bigger, maybe even be put on a streaming service such as spotify (think the latter is more realistic though).
My advice is to just really have fun with your songs, don't be disheartened if you don't have a lot of followers/don't get noticed as much - make songs that you would love to listen to,and in doing so; maybe you will get bigger without feeling any pressure and naturally having fun.
