I cannot understand what is wrong with my music

[kbd]

Hello everyone ! A friend of mine, who also happens to be a producer, keeps telling me that some of my tracks are out of key, badly mixed and arranged. But it sounds perfectly good to me and I cannot comprehend what he is referring to. Below are two tracks which he pointed out specifically:

soundcloud.com/user-505689056/metist/s-KkKZE

In this one he said the vocals at 0:29 are out of tune:

soundcloud.com/user-505689056/clairvoyance/s-HjGQx

Are the claims he is making correct ? If yes, what could be the reason behind my incapability to judge good from bad?

I may add that I have never been musically trained, and have been producing occasionally for over 2 years.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Gugustinette]

Hey ! I had a listen on these two tracks and yeah, it's out of tune ^^
At the moment, forget about mixing, mastering, all these things, and keep focusing on composing. You don't need 20 years of music theory to be a nice producer, but you need some basics. Like scales, chords, chord progression, root notes, these are the basics. You can easily find lessons about this on the internet.
It need a bit of times to learn and understand that, but once you did it, it's easy and very usefull.

When music theory is done, you need to learn mixing and mastering, you can also find lessons on the internet, but It is probably better do learn alone. Trying to use basic things, and learning. Learning is the key.

And of course you need a nice monitoring headset, something like that, it is very important for mixing and mastering ^^

Best of luck and keep working !

 

[DJMSherman]

Well, here is my assessment. The first one, without the vocal, needs serious work. The arrangement is not to anyone's liking. The sounds used are not good and the melody, rhythm all kind of clash...just need more time on composing on each section before putting all together on that one.

The one with the vocal. Thought was way better. The melody, drums and space and arrangement were 100 times better. I thought the vocal actually sounded kinda cool...I thought it was in key with bass and drum elements. However, what was not in key was the melody....melody was off. Maybe try that same melody an octave lower, and maybe a few of the high notes were off....but 2nd was much better...

Suggestion...listen to one of your favorite tunes and try to copy the arrangement maybe not the entire track but just how they arranged the track....intro, when hats come in...when bass comes in, bass comes out....kick comes in and out...break, peak and so forth.....