I tried pushing the sound louder and using more soft clip and such to get that really strong distorted sound. I think it worked out pretty nicely, but how do I avoid the conversion from lossless to lossy formats introducing artifacts? I think YouTube especially really did something to the loudest parts. :<

Other than that, I’m happy with the end result, yay! :3

I continued using SoundCloud’s artist subscriptions distribution thingy and it seems to work fine!

Original track description from the YouTube video:

Like the previous upload, this is two tracks that are part of one complete FL Studio project! Part 1 is mostly at 105bpm but is increased to 210bpm for more intense segments. Part 2 is my favorite segments from working on part 1 expanded and mostly in that 210bpm tempo.

I put more effort into layering the kick through multiple mixer tracks and adjusted their gains throughout the song. Sakura is turning out to be one of my favorite plugins. I really enjoy trying to tweak it to sound like a distorted guitar. Speaking of distortion, Youtube’s compression really hits hard after working with the track in lossless formats, if you like the track, please consider checking it out for example on SoundCloud or Bandcamp and downloading the lossless versions. :3

I’ve been continuing working on these during my free time and, idk, for this I spammed the “new version” button in FL Studio only 39 times (versus 150 on the previous). Either I’m improving at knowing what I want to make, or I’m just forgetting to save more often.

Art on the actual release is a fairly old selfie at this point that I just happened to have on my computer… pushed the color values to oblivion and idk, the text is pretty fun, I added a dropshadow, gradient hue on it, then I think it is the slur filter on GIMP, gives it that distorted rainbow look

Blender scene used for the art:

Original track description from the YouTube video:

Honestly, the unfinished FL Studio project sat on my SSD for like a month. The first part (Neurogenesis) was pretty much done at that point and I had to do only the last tweaks and mixing. I’ve been doing more quick WIPs and throwing away ideas that I feel like don’t go anywhere. That has increased my enjoyment of the whole process a lot. Everything really just starts sounding bad when you’ve had FL Studio open for multiple weeks straight. xD

Anyway, when I took a second look at the project I though it is not too bad and added the second part (Time Limit!) as well. That second track has less overall time put into it (mostly same plugins and effects), but idk, I feel like I overthink these things sometimes, so it was really fun to just create an another track with what I had already.

The first track started with trying some more breakbeaty drum patterns and the combining it with the stuff I’ve been doing up to this point (so back to overusing waveshaper and heavy distortion, heh).

I tried putting this to the streaming placeys through SoundCloud this time and the process seemed surprisingly nice. Like yeah, the subscription cost is pretty high, the UI has some bugs and stuff, but after Distrokid trying to upsell addons after every click… it felt pretty okay. Also, this time I actually put the release date to be after the recommend two+ weeks instead of the next day I’ve been doing up to this point. I’m usually very impatient so I’m proud of this.

Again, the visuals are a short Blender animation through the FL Studio video plugin. I just wanted some colorful movement in the background so I drew that face on a sphere and added a pretty fluid simulation. Takes an eternity to render on my 10 year old PC (but I guess the GPU is fairly new). In the background there is the art I made for one of the previous tracks.

You know, I’m content with this track! This really ended up being an exercise in throwing away parts that I don’t like. The mastering isn’t optimal again, I think, because it is really pushing the compression on Youtube/Spotify. But this time there isn’t anything in this moment I’m unhappy with. :>

I would’ve really wanted to fix some issues with previous tracks and upload them as an album. But it should be more useful to get more experience so I know how I should improve them!

Original track description from the YouTube video:

Yeah, so, I’ve been doing multiple tracks simultaneously in the last few months when I’ve had time after work. During December, this one started feeling pretty good and I decided to finish it! I got sick and completed this in a decent fever. End result is not too bad from working with way less than 100% effiency! :D

I bet I find things that I’d like to change about the track, but at the moment the only thing I’m slightly annoyed by is how YT compresses it. I changed the output settings in FL Studio and those hopefully fix it a bit!

The art is again Blender stuff. I just messed around with shaders and threw in some box model I made for some little game project like a year ago. I did the mistake that the resolution was 1080x1080 instead of 3000x3000 recommended by Distrokid… idk if it causes any issues. xD

Additional thanks to my wife and a friend for giving feedback!

I had a really busy end of the year, so I originally forgot to write this update. :D

Original track description from the YouTube video:

The art is a picture I took of the moon while on a walk with our dog. I edited the colors and then added a more bold red moon on half of the image by modeling it in Blender. I think it ended up pretty neat, I just had two planes with the image as a texture (the one in front one was half transparent) and a very simple moon in the middle of the planes.

I’m not good with defining genres but, I think, this one has more trance-like elements again. I’ve been listening to a lot of psytrance recently :D

I like this one so I might correct some mixing things later and make a second mix or update this one. This track has many presets I used in the first tracks I did with FL Studio. It probably explains a lot where the unwanted frequencies come from. My wife enjoys the heavy bass, so this one is for her!

Really the two biggest issues with the sound here are

• Using presets straight from my previous tracks brought the same issues that existed there (too much low-end noise)
• I was really unfamiliar with some of the FL Studio plugins (I got the all-plugins license before starting this, it was on sale, hehe :D)

For more context about the album art, here is screenshot from Blender:

I decided to start updating the music stuff I do to here! This will at least be a history of the tracks I’ve made for myself but if somebody wonders here and gets something useful out of my learning process, I’m glad!

I tried to stay more focused when planning the track and it feels like the end result is better put together!

Original track description from the YouTube video:

This week we’re going faster!!

I’m starting to feel comfortable with using FL Studio so creating this was the first time I didn’t feel like I’m fighting against the software. It is a very pleasant feeling to just create music.

Anyway, this time I approached this by first creating a large portion of the track with just the kick and bass… idk but it might have worked!!

After finishing this, I felt like I’m really improving!! I wondered a bit if the vibe of the track would interest anyone, but I got some nice comments, so yay!!! <3

Original track description from the YouTube video:

It is done and with more bass!!! There has been so much to do after vacation ended, but I managed to find time this week to finish this one! This track started with just testing automation and effects. The first draft was really disjointed and had too large sudden shifts in vibe. I think, I managed to refactor it into a pretty good track.

Album art is two old nature pics I had taken overlayed and with a bunch of filters on top. I hope you enjoy this track!!

Original track description from the YouTube video:

The new track is finally done! I’ll submit the track to streaming places later today, hopefully they upload it soon. I’ve been posting the progress now more heavily on Shorts and Tiktok. It has been pretty fun to see what resonates with everyone!! My wife painted a quick creature that is in the background of the artwork, behind the filter layers. It is pretty chaotic but cute hehe
I’ve been wanting to try plugins like Vital so I think that is what I’ll be doing next. Up to this points, I’ve been using mostly stock plugins. Also, I should update FL Studio too to the 2025 version.

Right, so I updated FL Studio, but didn’t learn to use the new plugins…

When making this track, I really focused on learning to create sounds with more intent instead of the more random process it had been up to this point. I think I’m also re-learning a lot stuff from when I was younger… I used to use LMMS when I was a kid and I can’t say if it was harder to use or it was a skill issue. I learned recently that LMMS is still around? I need to check it out again.

Overall, I like how the track ended up. It could have better mixing, though!

Original track description from the YouTube video:

Second track!
I worked on this one before our wedding and now that everything is settling down,
I finally finished it!!!

I started messing with Sytrus and linking filters to automation tracks. The track started sounding pretty fun and decided to finish it. I think this one ended being a pretty cohesive track (I usually make way too many conflicting parts and join them). I’m also really happy with how the effects using Gross Beat ended up. The comment from “early previewers”, a.k.a. wife, was that I’ve been learning a lot. This was fun to work on! I tried to make something calmer at first and I think I got some trance-like qualities in there, but the usual style still comes through.

This was the first track I was brave enough to put on a YouTube short and I was really surprised that I got positive feedback from sharing stuff. Honestly, the track peaked when making that short and the finished thing is all over the place, I think.

Original track description from the YouTube video:

I finally decided on a name!!
This was the version that was approved by my two person (non-professional) jury.

This started after finding out that sidechaining is a thing. I didn’t utilize it that much, but I got positive feedback on it, so here we are! This was made in FL Studio. I also recorded some electronic guitar parts to test how recording works. I’ve been just messing around in FL Studio, but I really should look up some tutorials for specific styles of music, I think.

I also published it with the new artist name I’ve now been using for the last couple of months. It ended up being a fairly quick thing to choose. I had used “Arch-Jenna” previously online so I thought “Yeah, that’s good enough!”