Leaderboard

Let me start from the top. Reverb isn't realism. A perfectly dry performance with a half-decent piano sound will sound more real than a robot playing on a real piano. The most important thing is performance, and it's more important to the music than the sound of the piano itself. So let's not worry about the sound as much as the performance. A real pianist will not hit every note exactly the same velocity. But it's not random either. The suggestion to imagine playing the part is good, you can even pretend your desk is a piano, and figure out the velocity levels from there. Be mindful of how hard, how quickly, and for how long you "press" a "key". Also, listen for any changes in velocity layers in the piano sound. If you can hear a different sample between two close velocities, it's not a good piano. But you can use it to your advantage. Decide to use velocity layers to emphasize or de-emphasize particular notes in a phrase. I know I did this with a Majora's Mask remix (got NO'd, but for other reasons). The piano becomes very emotive that way, it feels like a performance with just this one change. I don't know about this particular VST, though, it might be better than that. A real pianist won't use perfect timing, even if they wanted to. Some notes will trail behind the beat, others slightly ahead. There might be a slight swing to it all. Again, pretending to play a piano on your desk might work here. There might also be a keyboard->midi tool in your DAW, that lets you use the computer keyboard to record notes. It'll get you the timing needed, though the computer keyboard doesn't read velocity so you'd have to do that manually. But you were gonna do that anyway. Those are the two important ones. But velocity has to actually do something to the sound itself. Some pianos have a setting for how strongly note velocity affects the sound. There should be a small but noticeable difference between notes that are 20 velocity levels apart, and a very noticeable one with notes 40 velocity levels apart. If there isn't, you'll probably want to use a different piano. Obviously, there'd be huge differences between extreme values. Provided the piano is responsive to velocity, this should be enough. But if not... A real pianist will use the piano's pedals, depending on what they're playing. Among the midi CC, there should be sustain. A real piano can have three pedals: sustain, sostenuto and soft. I doubt (but I don't know for sure) this particular VST has support for the other two, but sustain is a given. If you think the writing would benefit from sustain, use it. I would recommend starting the "on" level a few ticks into the first note, and switching to off just before the end of the measure/beat, on whatever beat you want to change it. This is optional, however, and given your piano piece is an element in an electronic mix, so the sustain might just make the piano too dominant. Then there's reverb. If you want the piano close and clear, make sure to keep the dry/wet mix strong on the dry side, and make the reflections rather late. Experiment with the settings. Large or small room? Near or far from the listener? Reverb-y or dead room? These would all be available in a decent reverb plugin, but the piano VST might just have a single reverb knob. I recommend using a separate reverb, so you have more control. In general, for an electronic mix, I would try a large room (size), close to the listener (long pre-delay, more dry than wet), and a fairly reverb-y room (high reverberation/length, medium-low damping)... but it depends on what the rest of the track is and how the piano should fit in there. Finally, there's also track level (volume), which will help fit the piano into the soundscape too. Reverb isn't always the best solution. In some cases I might try a rather small, soft, or quick reverb, and use a delay instead for making it big and atmospheric. Maybe a compressor with long attack (~200ms attack) after the reverb and everything else. Sometimes I'd want a really dry (no reverb, few other effects) sound, but filter out the low frequencies for a bright but brittle sound, or filter out some of the low mids to take out the body of the sound. You can use EQ to do that. It all depends on how exactly you want to use the piano. It's okay if it sounds like a real musician on a fake instrument. A fake musician on a real instrument is usually not what you want. But you gotta make that real musician part at least plausible. Good luck.

The People's Remix Competition 336 PRCv13-24 Hello everyone and Welcome to the People's Remix Competition! Last round PlanarianHugger was the only one who submitted something in time. Since he was the winner of PRC334, that was a bonus mix. To keep the contest moving, Bundeslang promised to do a short remix of that source to end the round and continue to the next round. Source: Super Mario Land 1 - Ruins Theme (GB) MIDI Source Information ThaSauce link: Click here to submit To submit a song at the compo page a ThaSauce account is required. To register and submit, do the following. Click the ThaSauce Link. Click the 'You are not logged in' button in the upper right. Click on 'register' (at the bottom). Read the terms and click 'I agree to these terms'. If you don't agree with them, upload the song somewhere else and post a download link as mentioned above (by doing that, you allow me to upload the song at ThaSauce. Continue the process by filling in your information. You will get a question to confirm that you're not a robot. Here are some possible answers: Name a compo: PRC Who organizes One Hour Compo: Starla Name a ThaSauce subdomain: compo.thasauce.net Who created Mega Mans: Capcom A confirmation mail will be send. There might be some issues with it (meaning that you don't get it), if that is the case, upload the song somewhere else as described above. Once registered, login with your username and password, go to the mentioned page and submit the song. If you want submit two or more songs you can create multiple ThaSauce accounts or upload the song somewhere else and post the download link. After uploadeding your song, please check if your song plays and can be downloaded and played without problems. Only upload MP3 files. If anyone has problems with registering or uploading the song to ThaSauce, please upload the song somewhere else and post a download link in the thread. I recommend Soundcloud, don't forget to allow downloads to enable me to upload the song at ThaSauce. PRC instructions Limitations at ThaSauce require your entry to be 20 MB or less in size. Length for length's sake and MIDI rips are not allowed (only as Bonus Mixes). Entries must be posted at the ThaSauce Link by Wednesday November 30th 2016 at 8:59 am ThaSauce time, check the ThaSauce page for the exact time left. You may enter as many mixes as you like and work with as many people as you like on each mix. You are free to create a second ThaSauce account for that, it's needed to be able to upload a second remix. You can also upload it somewhere else and put a download link in this thread Do not make qualitative comments on an entry until the results of the vote have been posted in this thread. Mixers cannot vote for themselves but if they vote they recieve a free first place vote added onto their score. The winner of this round may select the source for PRC337. PlanarianHugger may enter as well. You can find the full rules list at this page as well. GOOD LUCK! PRC ThaSauce Home Page!

Still no regular songs (thanks for submitting the bonus PlanarianHugger), this means that next round starts in a couple of minutes. I'll select a source myself. I try to make a mix of this source later (and I will submit it). Hopefully next round will get more love. We're almost ending this season, next round is almost the last regular one since PRC338 is the additional anniversary round.

This mix is cray-zay. It's much like a Gwar concert - you DEFINITELY should hear it at least once, but it takes a person of particular taste to listen TWICE. It's well produced and absolutely fascinating, but definitely an acquired taste when it comes to the style. Great arrangement, but I would say it's not for everyone. Give it a shot, though - it might catch your ear in just the right way.

Aw, so fun and happy. What a Kirby world map should be.

I sent in my Star Wolf WIP, can I also claim Katina?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto Come on guys. Happy Nintendo64th birthday, Shiggy!

Sounds very clean and airy. The plucky synth is pleasing to my ears. And I love the filtered flangered drums, too. I'm not even sure how you make it work, but it's something I've heard in a few D&B tracks and I love that stuff. Great job!

So, I work at a library and we're going to create a video game collection that patrons can check out. Being primarily a pc gamer, I'm not as knowledgeable on console games as I used to be. Basically, any suggestions? Probably keep it PS4/XBox One but the previous generations aren't out completely. We'll probably wait until the Nintendo Switch to get Nintendo Games, but 3DS is good. Since they'll be checked out and returned, it can't be something that multiple people can't use. I'm not sure what the online console world is like anymore. Would Battlefront or Titanfall work for this? Also, keep in mind, that we'll be sticking with E-T ratings and kids and teens will be the ones that see the collection the most. Thanks!

Hmm, maybe I should try it out sometime. As I was telling you a couple of weeks ago, I grew up with an Amiga and a PC and only played video games at my friends' houses, until I bought a Wii when I was 16. It was actually at that point that my interest in music really spiked. Video game music, as well as film score, has been an incredible inspiration to me. Now to bring this back on track, this track is a great example of that inspiration. I can form a picture in my head of what the music is representing, and that's something I've really liked doing. In addition, the track sounded very familiar to me, and I know it couldn't have been from Bomberman because I never played the single player mode. However, while I was listening to it on YouTube, I was scrolling through the comments, and lo and behold, a few users mentioned it being used in the great mod Super Mario Star Road, and this is where I heard it from. I'm experimenting with the MIDI file right now, and there are two paths that I think I could take on it. I was initially going to do an orchestral cover, but I like the idea of a more jazzy arrangement. But that could be because I had that urge from the last round.

My library did this and I helped with procuring some of the games! From seeing it unfold over about 2 years, make sure people know that the library has games...I know right, but so many titles just sit on the shelf and never go out simply because people don't know they're there assuming a library just wouldn't have video games. XboxOne games don't really move that much, the 3DS titles are usually what I see out most, Ps4 tends to hang around, less than XboxOne, but still its amazing that people pay to rent games at a Redbox. Also check the policy of your library some make it so you have to get from a special catalog, which can limit your options. We also did a Retro-Duo rent out with vintage SNES and NES titles and it actually worked. My suggestion would be to get the 2-3 NES-HD ( if you can find one) and rent that out, people really like the idea of plug and play, lot of adults casually see the retro-games and say " Hey I remember that/those game! And I can check it out for 1-2 weeks?! Sure add it to the basket!" I would say if you wants circulation points ( how our library determines whether to continue buying new games) you could play it safe and so with multi-copies of popular games, boring and you can end up with 5 copies of COD BO2 in 2017 that nobody really checks out anymore, or get the more unique titles and try and pry open a few minds to a less traveled genre or game.

Having a sweet spot for ethnic instrumentation, Hydra's Swamp would be a nice fit. Will try to get you a wip this week-end Brad.

Posting this as personal motivation! Here is the conceptual bit for my rearrangement of Meteo - mixed meter, fusion. I came up with it over the course of several hot showers. If you like it and think you need some help with your track, let me know and I would be glad to take a listen to what you have done. https://www.dropbox.com/s/nbay03rhf5d74hh/Meteo - Arranging.mid?dl=0 Cheers, y'all. Here's to getting this album done.