Castle of Creatures

I am proud to present what I believe to be my best work yet! I've made songs in the past that I'd say I'm proud of, but this one is something that I would not only willingly recommend to pretty much anyone, but this is also the first one I've made where I think it is of high enough quality that I would refer to it as an actual song, as opposed to a demo. First things first: The only thing I don't like about this is the clipping at the very start. I really wanted to get rid of it, but unfortunately I could not figure out a way to do so without lowering the guitar volume down to the point that it's not really present in the mix. Apologies if it's annoying, it's a bit distracting for me as well. The inspiration for this song first came to me when browsing the YouTube channel of pannenkoek2012. One of his more recent uploads is titled "The Creatures Inside These Castle Walls (Music Video)". I immediately imagined what such a song would sound like... and, let's just say it wasn't even remotely close to what the song ended up actually sounding like. After that, the phrase "the creatures inside these castle walls" and how that would sound in a song kept looping in my head for quite a while. It got to the point where I started imagining how other pieces of this song would fit together, with that recurring phrase serving as the chorus. Finally I thought to myself, I should actually try making a full song in FL Studio out of these loose pieces. I ended up writing lyrics to give myself an idea of how the structure of the song would go, even though I knew it would be an instrumental track. I think this worked out great... although the lyrics are intentionally cheesy by nature, so I won't be sharing them here. Working on the song in FL Studio was an equally fun and frustrating process. For the less enjoyable part, it mostly came down to finding the right choice for the lead instrument. I'm not 100% satisfied with the electric guitar sound I ended up with, but it's good enough, and I'd probably have wasted a lot more time if I kept fooling around with other instruments to try to find the "perfect" fit. Another troublesome part was arranging a couple sections, but in both cases they turned into an interesting puzzle of sorts. The second pre-chorus had no breathing room for the lead instrument, and I solved this by changing it from 4/4 to 9/8 (I was surprised at how natural it sounded!). The other tricky spot was the breakdown. It felt like 4/4 should've worked out just fine (and as far as I'm concerned, that's exactly what this section sounds like), but in order to piece the composition together smoothly, I had to make the first half 3/4 and the second half 6/4. As for the fun parts? Well, pretty much everything else about it. There were a couple times I felt stuck as to what to write next, but when I figured something out, it sounded amazing and I instinctively knew where to go with the next few patterns or so. In the end, I think every part of this song turned out great, but I'm especially pleased with the "instrumental" section and the breakdown that follows it (3:01 - 4:55). I want to keep making more music for as long as I have even an iota of interest in it, but this is the first time where I'm truly unsure how I can top what I think is the best song I've made thus far. If you've read this far, you'll probably be interested to know that I have a some other songs in the works... I'm hoping to release my first proper album before the end of the year.