May 2011
93 posts
Maybe it's your voice? Not enough bass to it? Or maybe it's just your recording equipment? Or more mixing and mastering needs to be done? Not sure exactly how to explain it. To me flow is a combination of rhyme structure and voice projection/emphasis. It's what separates songs you'll give a one-time listen to from songs you'll play on repeat. When you have a sick flow, your lyrics could be garbage and generic and you'll still sound appealing to the ears. Right now your flow doesn't come off as natural, it sounds a little awkward. I'm pretty sure I'd be able to describe it more articulately if I took a music theory course. But then again what is perceived as a "good" flow is probably going to differ from person to person since everybody has different musical taste. What I consider as dope might not be the same as what someone else considers as dope and vice versa.
Lol you know yeah I re-record my songs over and over and over because of those things. Pretty much anything I posted up is outdated. Even my soundcloud which I made recently doesn’t have the current version of anything.
I realized I no bass in my voice has been hurting a lot of it, so I started going through my old files and fixing levels. I used an overload of treble because it would make my voice sound more clear before, but ever since I got a new computer, the recording is 10x more crisp than on my laptop. That lead to a lot of re-recording.
When I feel like I’ve 100% perfected a song, you’ll hear about it haha
"some people probably don’t want my crap on their blogs"
I want your crap all over my blog!
lmao feel free to let all of my crap invade your blog, I just wish I had all the followers I used to have before I deleted tumblr the first time lol
I'll be honest with you because I know you care a lot about the music and because I think it'll only make you better as an artist, but yeah, for me personally, I'll reblog your work if it's honestly something I'd bump and I feel like it needs extra exposure. Right now I think your production's pretty on-point but the flow needs work. I dig the punchlines but they just don't hit home right now because the flow needs a little work. Idk, it might just be me since everybody has different taste in music and if you want to stick with your current style that's cool too but right now it's not for me. Anyways, keep doing your thing and keep improving and I wish you the best with everything you do. Again, I'm only telling you this because I think you deserve to hear it.
Hmm is there anything specific that comes to mind? The song I just posted was supposed to sound the way it did because I basically took the concept of Boyder’s verse from Asher Roth’s “Toni Braxton,” with the whole hardly-even-a-rap flow. Hmm. I’m sure in some songs, I may have become numb to awkwardly fitting lines, and things like that. But for a song like Doper Than Syringes, I always thought I nailed that flow perfect. What do you exactly consider to be flow?
I also realize I’ve only posted like 1/3 of the song I have, and some people probably don’t want my crap on their blogs lol It was just a point I wanted to make a while ago, not necessarily because of anything to do with the last song I posted.
you should do an acoustic version of one of bruno mars songs!
I can’t sing anymore/can’t sing like him, I don’t know how well that would go lol!
Unless
my music sucks and no one is telling me! I can do Bruno Mars acoustic covers and Electro-Pop dance hits to get fans
The thing about reblogging
Liking my music is cool and all but it doesn’t help too much. A reblog would mean the world to me because I only have about 73 followers. One reblog opens up whatever song I post to a whole new set of people, who don’t follow me or know me. I have like 700 friends on FB, but my music easily gets lost in the shuffle amongst everyone’s useless bullcrap they post on facebook. Tumblr is one of the places where I feel like people would actually listen. I feel that out of my 73 followers, maybe 20 would possibly listen to my music, and about 10 of them actually care, with like 2 reblogs, MAYBE. lol
so reblog REBLOG REBLOG
Seven Ate Nine
So I was at work earlier, and GZA’s Liquid Swords came on my friends iPod, and I remembered that I really wanted to rap on the beat. So I did it. This song is basically about some out of this world experiences, using little kid’s references to board games, Pokémon and other things. I bolded everything that was a specific reference just for fun.
Nik Bates // Seven Ate Nine
I’m a half black, half jap, track rat who likes rap
Feeding on these beats… oh no there goes the Mouse Trap!
Crap, I need an Operation.
They couldn’t Guess Who was arriving at the station
Hit in Candyland, vehicular dissection
To put me in the slot, we need to do it with Perfection
Mind Boggling, I got Ants In My Pants
Do a dance for the fans, then I Bop It with my hands
Here’s a Clue: Connect Four of the pieces
Down a Chute, up a Ladder, then I saw Life’s meaning
I Didn’t Break The Ice, I Didn’t Wake Daddy
I Didn’t Spill The Beans, and I didn’t eat Rally’s
Instead, we had In-N-Out
A Twister came through, I had to sit down
They called time out, nose on the wall
Be nice to the kiddies when you’re playing with a ball
Oh, I had to stop talking
All other kids got to sit and yell Yahtzee!
While I had to read a dictionary
I didn’t get to draw when they played Pictionary
I always liked the word “dabble”
Triple word score, 33 points in Scrabble
I swear, I want to give the whole world my offerings
Own property, build a house in my Monopoly
Buy a pet Hippo, he won’t ever go Hungry
Hungry. It shouldn’t cost a lot of money
Playing with my Elephants, we’re having Elefun.
Catching butterflies, as they flutter by my Cranium
Having Giraffalaffs, playing Limbo
I dual wield my nets, I’m running with Akimbo
Bimbo, my favorite kind of bread
He won’t talk, so I think my Pet Rock is dead
Well, I’m glad I will never (B) be monkey
Instead I go to Pet’s Mart, and get a (C) Sea Monkey
What?
¿Que?
I hope to grow up and be a super villain
I knew a screw was missin, but I drew a new vision
My Legion of Doom had to make a new revision,
Call up the Super Dentist, because my tooth was missing
I use my Super Rod to go blue fish fishing
Catch a Magikarp (Put that thing back in the water!)
I wanted Gyrados to be the new addition
Spillin fire from his mouth, Cool It Now, New Edition
Feelin’ pitiful, killin’ Caterpies and Beedrills
Spittin written flows, since I cut my own umbilical
Biblical, a match made in heaven.
Scaring 6’s, eating 9’s… Yeah, my name should be 7.
‘Cause 7, 8, 9.
Mike G - Ali (2010)
This short 30-minute album is the chopped and screwed dimension of the group Odd Future that brings a slow criminal persona into the twisted collective. An 8 out of 10.
Freelance Whales - Weathervanes
Pop induced vocals, synthesizers and guitars meeting Folk ridden banjos, mandolins, glockenspiels and acoustic instruments to create a bright and uplifting harmonized sound that is sure to warm even the coldest of hearts. A strong 7 out of 10.
40 Days Of Coachella
40 Days Of Coachella is a series from Nik Bates’ personal blog. What happens is in the 40 days leading up to Coachella, a different artist performing there is spotlighted every day. The artist is described for people who may be unfamiliar or not fans of the artist, with links to songs to listen to on Youtube.
favorite momford and sons song?
Winter Winds! it’s like modern folk audio sex
Who
put humans in charge of life? Why do we have to try and stop the natural phenomena known as “extinction” in order to save animals? It sounds a bit egotistical and superficial. Are we going to save the other 200 species that go extinct a day? Or just the ones we like to look at? Also what gives us the power to decide when a dog should die? We put so much importance in being able to live and be alive, yet we can put down poor little Frou-Frou because he broke his leg? It’s very unnatural. But I mean, humans are so genetically superior to the rest of our animal (we are an animal) counterparts right? So I guess it had to be us.
Who knows? I don’t, but I like to guess and question things.
If you touch a bird's eggs/the babies in it's nest the mother doesn't return due to human scent
FALSE.
Play
I came to realize I'm deathly afraid of relationships
find mucked!
Have you ever been to heaven at nite?
PLEASE FOLLOW
http://www.AKAlright.com ! It’s me and Andres’ site for our music (And by site, I mean a tumblr with a custom domain name)
Play
hope you enjoyed the movie or atleast had fun seeing your first midnight movie :D
Yes it was a lot of fun! I want to meet a mermaid now, but a nice one.
Reptilia
Alright so I was bored today, and I did my own cover of The Strokes’ Reptilia. I did the drums and bass in Reason, then I played the guitar parts and sang. I think it’s pretty cool. There’s a video coming soon, it’s still exporting. For now, you guys can hear the audio.
It took like 20 tries to play the solo perfectly. And even then none of it is perfect
F'real, man. Das some goodstuff. >.<
Yeah my friend makes them, they are really cool!
Tag, you're it!
Here are the rules:
Each tagged person must post ten things about themselves. You have to choose and tag ten people . Go to their blogs and tell them you tagged them. No tag backs. :)
- Twitter is my favorite thing right now
- I haven’t experienced anything more severe than a cold in like 7 years. That’s why I had perfect attendance all of high school. But, I ditched during senior year so I wouldn’t get the award.
- I hardly get to watch movies or TV. Name 10 movies, I’ve probably seen 3 of them.
- I am afraid of heights. Not rollercoasters, airplanes or ferris wheels because those are safe. But balconies, and 2nd story railing of the malls. The worst is the escalator at Nordstrom’s in Horton… If you look down the middle, and you are 4 floors up… Oh man.
- I’m hoping once the older generations die out, society will become more open minded and things will change. But that’s like 40 years from now.
- I would rather live a short life filled with fame than a long normal life.
- I used to be one of those people who was always on their phone, texting a lot of people. Now if you text me, I’ll probably reply back some time later or just forget about it unless it’s something immediately important, or you are a cute girl heh heh heh.
- I won’t touch my food unless I’ve washed my hands.
- I usually eat until I’m full
- I cannot fall asleep in my bed unless I’ve brushed my teeth, flossed and used mouthwash.
The strength that my eyelids must manifest to hold back these flooding feelings is only comparable to that of the Hoover Dam
Pow! One-liners! Use that in your next spoken word.
