[devomeister]

I have recently started trying to author some tunes. While I’ve had most of my needs met by the copious resources and tutorials available on this website and forum, I have a questions I haven’t been able to track down.

1. Tips for playtesting your songs? I’m a pretty good player, but I’m no prodigy. In addition, I don’t have much of a singing voice, nor do I have a pro drum kit. So I can do my best, but how do you go about making sure everything feels right if there’s a fast guitar solo I struggle to play or a vocal line I struggle to sing? Is there a place to have others playtest your songs? What would that process look like?
2. On time signatures and tempo changes…Is using a non- 4/4 time signature as simple as defining the alternate time signature in Reaper? If using the “q” method of tempo mapping, do I define this time signature before tempo mapping? What if I use the ¼ tempo mapping method highlighted by rubydanger’s tutorial? Do I just type in the song’s time signature after I’m done tempo mapping? What about a change of time signature? While I’m going easy on myself for my first several songs, I do have an eye on some songs with multiple time signatures.

What about a bpm change? Does tempo mapping just take care of that? Or would I need to alter the bpm in whatever section has a change to it. This seems more unusual (or, at least, I don’t have my eye on any songs with drastic bpm changes yet), but I am still curious how it’s done.
3. How do you handle parts that are kind of hard to make out? There’s a section of one of the songs I’m working on with some quiet classical guitar under the much louder bass and vocals. I’m doing my best to make out, but are there some tricks to pull up the audio on a part like that to make it a little more clear? I did use Spleeter to make stems, and while the results certainly help overall, this section is one where the audio just ended up garbled in the stem.
4. Is there a vetting process for publishing a song to the database? Or do I just throw it up when I feel that it’s ready?
5. Lastly, other than this forum, is there a discord or something where authors share wips and ask questions/dole out advice? I only noted the Clone Hero Discord and the TBRB discord.

That’s all I got for now. Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Author]

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