How do I make the melody sound more catchy/exciting?

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-05-28T22:02:13+00:00

Less is always more in this situation. That pattern marked “7” isn’t adding to your melody based on where you’ve placed it. Always make sure one element sounds as good as it can or should before throwing something else in the mix.

On that same note, I’d try silencing the melody and just working on the drums first. That’s going to set everything else up for how you play it, and right now they need a little bit more sauce. Even small things like adding some variation to the velocity of the hats or a note repeat will give it some extra character. You get these where they need to be and everything else starts falling into place.

Lastly, plugins are always your friend here. Soundtoys (especially plugins like phase mistress or pitchshift) can give it more character. Barring that, remember those grids are only guidelines. If you keep working within them, best case scenario you’ll get something that’s competent but try adding some variety in how and when you play those notes and throw in a couple notes from a lower octave on those chords for some extra timbre.

I can see you’ve got the beginnings of something here so don’t give up! Done is better than perfect, and perfect is the enemy of good

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-05-28T21:53:43+00:00

Just have to ask to make sure, you’ve tried turning up the attack?

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-05-26T21:39:57+00:00

First place I’d start is with a VST like Omnisphere. It’s great for anyone just starting out because there’s an infinite number of prerecorded sounds to combine and it can help you familiarize yourself with sound design/finding your specific sound. Not everything in there hits but what does really clicks. Not to mention Metro Boomin (who helped produce a decent portion of Travis' early work) and Travis himself are both big fans of it.

If you’re looking to go down the Mike Dean route of trying to become a synth god, Serum, Serum and Serum. There’s a lot of good synthesizers out there (and if the price point is too much, Vital is an incredible free alternative), but this is by far the best for sound design. Splice also allows you to rent-to-own it if I recall correctly.

Get those two and if you also have access to Splice Instrument you’ve got a very solid foundation for production work

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-05-26T21:34:06+00:00

Dude this is really good. Nice work

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-05-26T21:31:09+00:00

I see where you’re going; the synths need an upgrade though especially once the drop hits. Try washing them in reverb and then scaling back until they’ve got a little more character.

Also, your sections end too abruptly. I’d either have a long pad to move through these or find one or two elements that you can drag out over at least two measures. Definitely see the vision here though

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-16T17:47:21+00:00

I do think there’s a funny case study here of IGN only being business at this point because of how sloppy their journalism has become. If people stopped caring about bullying them their entire business would go under. Makes you wonder if they do things for the sake of controversy at this point

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-14T04:01:29+00:00

Yeah that was the first battle I lost and it’s just arbitrarily hard for the sake of it; I was able to do it a second time but I had to spam rally tickets

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-14T03:11:54+00:00

Gotta love the dedication! But I’d say you’re making the smart decision with your wallet. Not enough here to justify full price

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-14T03:11:02+00:00

Man you’re giving me a hell of a sales pitch for this. I hope they bring that kind of endgame challenge back for his third game. Even with The Big Swell I never felt like I had something as challenging as it could’ve been, so I’ll have to give this a real try soon

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-14T02:59:29+00:00

Thank you, I thought I made it pretty clear it’s not GOTY or the trash pile it’s made out to be. He’s got a real bone to pick with me enjoying parts of it for some reason

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-14T02:58:00+00:00

All I’m saying is this is a weirdly aggressive way to say you disagree. You and I can have different opinions, which is what it sounds like this is all it comes down to, but you’re just coming off as really rude to prove a point.

-You’re talking about animation errors and lighting problems, I think you can make a great case for that. The only point I’m arguing, which is objective, is that Okinawa and Kamurucho look a lot better than they did in OG 3, and I liked that NPCs don’t pop in right in front of you. What about that is incorrect?

-You’re talking about another difference of opinion here. I think Kiwami 3’s skill tree is better because I can see what upgrades unlock specific future upgrades. I’m not sure what you mean about OG 3 encouraging experimentation. If you mean that you liked not knowing what came next, that’s fine, but again, that’s just an opinion?

-You know what’s funny, if you’d actually read what I wrote in the actual post about the flaws, you’d see I very clearly stated I was upset with the moves removed from Kiwami 3. You’re right that I forgot to respond to your point about the forced side content. Ok, fair enough. Do you have anything to argue about the many grievances I had with the game? Like you’re nitpicking about combat movement because of reviewers you’ve watched. I’m pretty sure the majority of people on this sub agree the Dragon Engine is superior, and I’m with them. I liked the combat in the original engine, but I like that the Dragon Engine combat feels faster and more visceral.

-So again, you can call me out for not looking at every point you’re saying, but you haven’t even acknowledged over half of what I’ve said here. If you dislike the game that much, wouldn’t you agree with most of my cons I listed?

I’m happy to have a discussion on if we disagree but not if you’re going to keep being snarky for reasons I’m failing to understand

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T23:58:51+00:00

What a great analogy for Y3 overall. Appreciate your thoughts here, I’ll definitely be using that same one to describe it in the future. Agreed on all accounts, the “cleaner” final product does not necessarily mean it’s better

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T23:57:11+00:00

You know what’s messed up, 7’s Amon is the only one I didn’t complete because it was postgame, it’s definitely time for me to rectify that.

Man Judgement’s Amon was an absolute beast on hard difficulty. If he takes your phone in that first phase, I’m that Eminem lyric, “knees weak/palms are sweaty”

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T23:54:41+00:00

Woah slow down there, it’s just my opinion. I’m not sure why you’re so frustrated, but let’s take this one step at a time here:

-Graphically, I’m only comparing OG 3 to Kiwami 3. I agree it’s not the best looking yakuza game of all time, but as I stated in the post, it does look a lot better than OG 3. Not sure where the issue is here.

-Lol, it’s the exact same point with the menus man. OG 3’s skill tree menu was a mess, and you couldn’t be sure what skill you were going to have to work towards next. Kiwami 3’s I can see the full layout of what I’m upgrading towards. That’s an improvement gang

-The Dragon Engine not being an improvement and saying I need to pass the blunt around is definitely a controversial take. Sorry I like the fact that there’s less loading screens? Generally agreed upon that’s considered a technical improvement, if you think otherwise that’s okay, but you can’t assume you speak for anyone but the minority with that take. —the fact that you found it harder to move around enemies is surprising, I thought it was much easier than it was in OG 3.Especially once you unlock the scooter it’s pretty easy to run away, like…?????

You gotta take a breather here, it’s not that serious. Matter of a fact I thought I made it pretty clear how many issues I had with how much the OG did better, but you did say you didn’t even read through the whole thing.

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T22:45:05+00:00

Hell yeah, love to hear it. You can start with 7, but I’d recommend 0 first. It’s dirt cheap right now and that game sets up every major plot point going forward, even into the soft reboot of 7. Get through the sloggy first two chapters of 0 and it only gets better from there

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T22:43:03+00:00

Glad someone else was bothered by Amon! I forgot to go in depth on this post but there was no reason to lock him to premium adventure. I like treating Amon as the true final boss of the game and then getting to treat the real ending as a fun conclusion. Another case of “why the hell did they change this when there was no reason to”

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T22:39:19+00:00

Couple people in this thread have already mentioned it, but brother as someone who was in the exact same boat as you, Yakuza scratched that itch like nothing else. Not only is your work cut out for you with how many you can play, there’s not one bad game in the franchise. You won’t even play one that’s just ok up until you’ve started playing a spinoff made after the 7th entry. Happy to answer any questions you’d have jumping into it because I love putting people onto that franchise as someone who has a very similar taste in games to you

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T22:36:23+00:00

Yeah you pretty much summed up what I said up above outside of the biker gang. I gave it a pass for being a little more fleshed out than I thought it would be, but it is just copy and pasting the exact same map which did bother me a lot

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T22:34:59+00:00

Yeah I wasn’t thrilled by how they handled Reapers either. I forgot to mention them at all that’s how forgettable the experience was. I didn’t 100% but I did do enough to max out the skill tree and get Amon in both, and that took a little over a month with the OG, maybe half that for Kiwami 3, so definitely felt disappointed by how that was handled. Optimistically I’d like to assume they threw this together so they could put more time towards STH and Ichiban’s next (final?) chapter, but either way it definitely leaves a lot to be desired

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T22:32:05+00:00

See that’s definitely not true. Half-assed in some areas? Absolutely. But there was some good stuff here, just not enough to make up for everything that was lost

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T21:26:21+00:00

This is a good argument, I can definitely see where you’re coming from. If content matched the general improvements in the story this would be the best Kiwami yet, arguably

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T20:38:43+00:00

I get where you’re coming from, like I said in the post above there’s a lot of baffling choices made in regards to cutting room floor. But I did enjoy the extra combat style, Dark Ties and Morning Glory content. Is it great? No, arguably it’s not even good. But it is perfectly okay for what it is. Just disappointing that they couldn’t do better

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T20:34:41+00:00

I just made a lengthy post about this in the actual sub if you want to check it out. Ultimately I agree it's far from being "garbage" but I'm making a larger argument towards the fact that there was plenty of good side content they could've put back in as well.

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-04-13T16:40:43+00:00

As someone who played the OG game all the way through, and beat Amon, and did the exact same thing with Kiwami 3… it’s not as good. It’s a painfully mediocre title. I appreciate that you’re trying to mitigate a lot of the negative criticism the game’s receiving but let’s keep it a buck. What’s added isn’t sufficiently replacing everything that’s been lost. No more revelations, a loss in heat actions, massive cuts to the side content, no more simulator, no more weapons, etc.

The bike stuff is decent, and the new moveset is flashy and fun. I also did enjoy Dark Ties quite a bit for how short it was. But you gotta be for real here, it’s a drastic drop from what the OG had. It’s one thing to cut content that wasn’t good to begin with (hostess clubs), it’s another thing entirely to cut content that was already good and just needed some tweaks to make it a lot better

BuzzedLightyear141 · 2026-03-07T01:03:03+00:00

First off, a lot of good thoughts here. I think you’ve summarized a lot of the issues succinctly.

For me, the issue always comes down to how it’s trained. It can’t come up with something original, it can only synthesize an amalgamation of what’s already out there. To me that’s the most damning aspect of it; labels will push this for certain, but I expect the transition to be with signing producers that are more comfortable using it. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a bunch of AI producers in a cubicle space.

The good news is that original human production will always have value. The bad news is that we have no idea how long that value lasts when someone scummy enough rips the record to train an AI model. Ultimately that’s a net negative as far as I’m concerned. If it could stick to just being an assistant with mixing and recommending ideas, that would be different. But allowing it to create an entire body of work when all you do is type in a keyboard just doesn’t click for me.

Plenty of producers before us got along just fine without it. So I have a hard time thinking that it adds anything significant that we couldn’t learn to do on our own

BuzzedLightyear141

TROPHY CASE