NoSoup4you

^Sounds good. I only tried FL for a day, but does the step sequencer convert to MIDI clips/blocks at some point? So you can take one measure and add a fill or something without making a whole new pattern. I'm coming from basically a traditional composing workflow (in Guitar Pro though...) so I'd rather manually copy-paste things and be able to edit them individually than draw patterns. I guess just putting audio samples on the timeline is a possibility, haven't done that since I used Acidpro 5... I sorta got in the mindset that it was wrong, after using Superior Drummer. I guess with a track folder it wouldn't be too bad.

I've dealt plenty with real drums and real drum emulation, e.g. Superior Drummer, but how do video game composers and electronic producers do their drums typically? I don't know what to do for stuff that's not supposed to sound real. I've messed with Spark VDM a bit, but the pattern based workflow bothered me. If you don't start the project from the beginning it won't align correctly, it's a pain to do small variations in specific measures, etc etc. Ideally I want a VSTI where I can just map audio samples to specific MIDI notes (36 for bass, 40 for snare etc) and program them on the piano roll. But then I don't know where to start with samples. Are they usually just processed hits from classic drum machines?

Kickass, and congrats on getting a high profile gig. What library did you use for the strings? I haven't found one yet with good fast attacks like that. And if you don't mind me asking, is there a "center" to the game music community where one can reliably get feedback etc? I'm solid theoretically, just trying to make the transition into game music, and I find myself with a lot of questions about little things.

So I'm primarily a metal musician who's looking to get into game music. Is there a clear "center" to that community? E.g. where's the best place to go for advice or feedback on original game music? Both compositionally and in a business sense. I'm pretty much just hacking it with no particular direction at the moment. Concerns with this track: Do you think it's ok if a game track doesn't loop on the end, but just starts over after a pause? Otherwise I need to shoehorn in a keychange back to E. It's a minor third up, not too hard, but I like the ending how it is. Is the first half too empty? E.g. after the drums but before the bloops come in. What are people using for electronic drum VSTs? This is Cakewalk TTS-1, not that great for drums at all. My experience is mostly with real drum emulation ala Superior Drummer, but this should sound synthetic.

It's just that FL has kind of a reputation as a noob-rap-beats-making program... Mayhaps I'll try Cubase.

I've been using Sonar for a long time, but more for editing/mixing live instruments... I found it really cumbersome when I tried video game composition. Lots of tracks for little things that just pop in once, automation envelopes all over the place, the piano roll is kind of a pain to access... I don't know if this is normal or what. Never used Cubase, but I was thinking of trying FL Studio for its smoother sequencing.

The piano performance sounds totally fine to me. It's a little murky in the bass frequencies though. Agreed about the violin... Maybe not even the volume making it stick out, a little reverb might be all it needs.

Two things: The volume of the bass is too low, and I'd personally be bothered by the lack of dynamics in its programming, since you do have it playing alt-picked sort of rhythms. If you want your bass more audible but still sitting well in the mix, compress the hell out of it and EQ out the frequencies that other things are using... Try starting with a scoop at 400hz or something. This is mostly just based off the first couple tracks... Meanwhile, I just got to #4 while typing this, and the bass sounds fine on that one. It's all context sensitive...

All of your stuff is pretty much awesome... Care to say anything about your workflow? What DAW/plugins are you using?

Ah, that's good advice, thanks. I wasn't sure if anyone was going to reply. Hmm... Sounds fine on ATH-M50s. I am kind of working blind on the bassier stuff without proper monitors. As long as the composition's good, I'll reference this on other speakers later. The drums are just Sonar's default TTS-1 synth... I was using it as a placeholder, but I'm actually happy with it aside from the ride cymbal. Might borrow one from Superior Drummer. I'll try to comment on some other threads here. I've had a really hard time finding an active community for this.

https://soundcloud.com/nosoup4you/first-descent Hey all, here's my first attempt at video game music. I've been writing songs for years, but never tried something like this before. I'm going for a dark RPG vibe like Baroque, with some Squaresoft influence of course. There's some things I'm not satisfied with yet, but I dunno. I've lost some enthusiasm for it at the moment. Writing over this rhythm and set of chords was hard... In particular, I wanted distinctive melodies, but they came out more as solos. I'm not sure if it's too dense or busy for a looping track... Maybe it would get annoying after 20 listens. I dunno. The production might also be messy later on. Just playing with some new choir samples. And if anyone could direct me to a better trumpet library than Komplete, that'd be swell... ha.