Ghetto Lee Lewis

If I'm going to use a sound card strictly for recording midi from a keyboard, is basically anything with midi ins/outs and ASIO support for Windows 7 64 acceptable? Or will I get better latency buying a higher end sound card? I don't care about live audio. The sample libraries I have are very large and high quality (i.e. Tonehammer Emotional Piano), and I want to play live with as very little latency as possible (under 10 ms would be nice). Compatibility with FL Studio would be a plus, but if I have to switch to a better DAW with support for Kontakt 4 and better driver support I will. I'm currently using a cheap laptop, but plan on eventually building something really nice, probably an Intel I7, 24 gigs of Ram, SSD hard drives, the works. I need a good sound card to pair up with it that can handle all the audio processing I need for hundreds of gigs worth of sample libraries and massive orchestral/fusion arrangements. I assume that a cheap sound card can potentially create a bottleneck on an otherwise good system. I probably won't get the low latency midi I need until I get a new computer, even with a godly USB soundcard. I already maxed out the RAM on my laptop to 4 gigs, but have a lousy CPU.

Baldwin 2066A: I also got an acoustic guitar (I forget the brand name ) a bamboo native american flute a kazoo a harmonica a drumset (some cheap beginner's set) a plastic recorder

Guitar uses a high impedance signal, which is going to cause problems trying to plug it into anything it's not supposed to plug into (like a sound card). The signal needs to be converted to low impedance before it can be useful. Your options are getting a direct box, mic'ing an amplifier, or using other hardware like Native-Instruments Guitar Rig (which also includes amazing soft-amps). As far as soft-amps and effects, I'm sure google can help. Guitar Rig of course is excellent, and there are some other good ones, like Amplitube, but there are some decent free ones too. Certain DAW's like FL Studio come with some soft amps, too.

I don't want to be a complete a$$hole writing a negative review, but I kind of felt compelled to. I liked how the intro was going, but then that dulcimer thing came in and kind of ruined it for me. Some of the notes sound really off-key and really irritate me also. I thought the percussion seemed pretty well done and the bass was groovy, but not much else besides. The string samples used sounded like cheap midi. I've used free soundfonts that sounded 100x better even without reverb added. The vibraphone/flute section was actually pretty nice, but some of panned percussion was really annoying me. Is it just me or is the kick drum wide panned? The breakdown at 2:22 wasn't that bad at first, but then the song started getting really annoying again after a few seconds. The little section at 3:19 was a nice mellow change of pace also and wasn't bad to listen to. Quite frankly, I was under the impression that OCR standards have become much more strict over the years, and I'm surprised this passed. I'd much rather hear a simple arrangement that has consistently good elements than hear a song with good elements get crushed by annoying choices of instruments and an arrangement that at times has too much going on and parts that sound bad. I don't know you personally or anything, so don't take it the wrong way; but I feel like this song has a lot of glaring issues that could be fixed easily and isn't up to par with most of the music on this site. Furthermore, I've heard the source tune you've had to work with, and thought it sounded terrible. You've at least made the song a lot more listenable than that awful source tune. Sonic Adventure should have just hired Michael Jackson's producers and released a decent soundtrack.

It's more than one percussion instrument layered together. It sounds like a shaker with a clap.

Put me down for Orc Victory. When do you want a WIP done by?

Thanks! I'll be sure to tell people where I got it. no worries.

If you're doing a lot of hard drive streaming from a laptop, you probably need more RAM. I just maxed mine out to 4 gigs, and it only cost me 40 bucks. I'm also looking for an external drive solution, since I'm running out of space and looking to get some larger libraries. I'll need something fast as hell with hard drive streaming if I'm going to use Hollywood Strings; 4 gigs of ram just won't cut it for something like that. Keep in mind also, if you're using USB 2.0, RPM's aren't going to matter as much. Although with USB 3.0 you will notice a difference up to 7200 RPM drives. Some external drives also use two USB drives. I don't know if this boosts performance or not, or if one of the ports is just used as a power source. Of course, some enclosures/drives require a separate power source.

Aren't there simple usb midi interfaces you could hook a keyboard up to? I've even seen a few keyboards that have USB built in, although most people prefer a pro sound card/audio interface. Of course PCI/Firewire setups are going to offer lower latency and bandwidth than USB. As far as a good DAW, I think FL Studio is the most popular right now. Most importantly, the interface is extremely friendly and easy to use, and it's available for as little as $99. The built in sounds it comes with are kind of bleh, but it's extremely expandable with soundfonts and VST's. I've used Cubase, Reason, Ableton and a few others, but I always end up going back to FL Studio.

I could use them. I've got a DnB project in the works right now. Could you render both the processed and unprocessed ones?

Maybe one day I'll take a picture of my laptop and headphones.

When I originally made the post about mixing in mono and mastering in stereo, I didn't intend any controversy. However, it seems like various people are not interpreting what I said the way it was intended. What I meant was that the mix should be listened to in mono in order to resolve a lot of issues that are difficult to detect with a stereo recording. Certain professionals in the industry are so experienced that they may spend more time mixing in surround/stereo than in mono. That doesn't mean they never use mono at all to find certain issues. When I refer to mixing/mastering, there's really not much difference between the two, except that mixing comes first. That's all. If you consider panning and stereo mixing to be part of the mixing process that's fine, just as long as you're aware some issues are more easily detected while listening in mono. There's nothing wrong with hard panning guitars for particular situations. What I meant in another post was that instruments hard panned to ONLY one side are annoying. Guitars are normally panned in order to sound wider and bigger. However, if they are panned to resolve frequency conflict, this is a bad thing. Rammstein does in fact use wide panning, but only to make things sound bigger, not to make room for the vocals. If you convert Sonne to mono you're not going to hear conflict. That was my point. I didn't say that their music doesn't have a lot of panning in it. If I knew that people on OCR were so confident in their own abilities that they were completely opposed to any type of criticism (even when that criticm isn't even directed at them specifically) I wouldn't have even mentioned the whole thing about stereo/mono mixing/mastering. The title of this thread itself is controversial because there's bound to be some artist or other on OCR who has developed at least one bad habit when it comes to music production. I know I must have at least a few bad habits of my own. I know that stereo mixing/mastering deserves a topic of this own, and I have grossly oversimplified the matter. Please don't take this the wrong way, but I was merely responding to the original subject of the thread. My apologies to anyone I offended, but I was simply trying to make a point.

That's because do it yourself bands have gotten into the mainstream industry without even understanding the basics, due to the availability of cheap software. Why don't you post examples instead of using over-generalizations about the entire industry. You don't understand that if it sounds bad in mono, it's probably going to sound bad in stereo also. Clipping and distortion aren't the only things that can kill a song. It doesn't matter if people listen to the song in stereo, because it will never sound good if it's arranged or mixed poorly. I've already explained why. There's really nothing to argue over. But it doesn't matter how many times I explain it. If you can't even grasp the basics, you're never going to learn how to make good music. I only care that someone reading this thread will learn the correct way to mix rather than develop bad habits. Better yet, don't take my word for it, but go read an actual book about mixing engineering.

I don't know what indie bands you're listening to, but try playing Rammstein in mono. I can guarantee you that everything has its own place in the mix. Maybe the reason guitars are hard panned is because the band can't afford professional engineers. I know I get irritated when I listen to songs that have hard panned instruments. I haven't listened to your mixes personally, but we all tend to be biased towards our own music. I know I am.

That's exactly the point. That is a classic case of a bad arrangement. If you have leads playing in the same frequency range, then they're competing for attention, which is distracting to the listener. Stereo doesn't fix a bad arrangement. Sorry. If you want a pianist in the same jazz band as a guitarist, then don't have them both playing in the same frequency spectrum at the same time, and give them each their own space on the eq. I've never seen or heard a jazz band where the guitarist and pianist are running into each other constantly.

Put FL stereo enhancer on the master channel. Turn the knob all the way to the right (to the minus side). This will convert the entire mix to mono. You can turn off stereo enhancer when you're done mixing. Let me just clarify "mastering" as a final process and not as something you do to the "master channel". Specifically, you don't use panning until after you've eq'd things properly to solve conflict and listened for phasing issues, etc. It's really very simple. It's standard practice, and there's really nothing to argue over.

You don't understand the difference between mixing and post-mixing/mastering. When you have things playing in stereo, you don't hear issues that can be caused by phasing (which happens when you record from two different microphones), and you don't hear conflict between frequencies of different instruments as well. Most people don't realize this, but they have a dominant ear, and prefer the sounds they hear from one speaker or the other. Mixing in mono resolves this issue. When you are FINISHED getting rid of all conflict and other issues, you can add panning and stereo effects at the very end. Since you've gotten used to listening to everything in mono, when you convert it into stereo you'll find that you're able to hear the changes adding stereo and panning effects cause, being that you haven't just listened to the mix in stereo a bajillion times already. I'm not saying anything controversial. This is standard practice in professional studios.

Common mistakes people make: Substituting reverb for poor samples/synths/instruments. Sidechaining to move things out of the way (when you should use eq). Autotune instead of singing on key (autotune just sounds bad when it's on everything and turned all the way up). Over-eq'ing (don't turn up frequencies you don't need). Under-eq'ing (kill the frequencies that don't help you). Fix mistakes first in the arrangement/composition, before you use eq (lot of things playing close to the same notes is usually bad). Remember, less is usually more. Use stereo for final mastering, not for mixing. Mixing/arranging should be in MONO.

It's definitely on my to-do list, and has been for a long time. I'm surprised I haven't seen this request before. I was thinking of waiting until I could afford Hollywood Strings, Symponic Choirs, good sounding guitars, and a better PC. There is a pretty amazing piano version on youtube. I lost the link for it though. I know some guy did a guitar version on vgmix a few years ago too. I think it was goatslayer or somebody.

Platinum edition has additional mic positions with less reverb. Of course the best sample library right now probably is Hollywood Strings, which is recorded in a small studio, not in a big concert hall, so it doesn't have ridiculous amounts of reverb either, although it's expensive and requires a really good computer setup to use. Then again, like Zircon said you can just play with the release, although it probably won't sound as natural if you do.

The good about Reason: Great sounding synths All in one package Samples easy to use right out of the box Setup like a real production studio Rewire The bad: over-processed samples (make them harder/impossible to mix properly) Awful sequencing (the old sequencer/piano roll was so difficult to look at, and even some of the other sequencers it comes with don't compare to what else is on the market, i.e. FL Studio) Lack of sample libraries/soft synths/no VST support, so creating any genre is not possible (even with the refill libraries you're still limited and missing out on wonderful things like East West libraries and Native Instruments Komplete) Too much like a regular studio (software should be easy to use, actual studio mixing engineering is not easy) Of course, with rewire it's still a package worth getting when used with other DAW's, though it should really be a tool for advanced mixing engineers and not for noobs who want to make good music quickly. Also, it's expensive. $500 is breaking a lot of enthusiasts budgets just for something that sounds slightly better than FL Studio right out of the box (for those who aren't engineers).

Check out 1 hour compo on thasauce Thursday nights at 6 PM pacific time. I have a friend (I don't want to mention names) who can mix in FL Studio faster than the music will play back, but he has got amazing mixing and mastering presets that he made himself. The same friend has made an entire 4 minute epic orchestral production in less than an hour. The only thing that will make you faster is practice and experience. It's good to be meticulous, but you'll eventually discover a lot of shortcuts you could be taking and better techniques to make the whole process go much faster. I typically spend about 5 to 10 hours on a song I consider to be complete, but have done some great concept pieces in as little as a few minutes.

I like having double (or triple) layers of reverb on instruments that are lacking in sample quality. It works great on cheap sounding synths too (like FLStudio default synths). One trick is to put very short, warm reverb (turn the high cut and decay way down), and put longer reverb on top. Mind you, you can get away using heavier short reverb (like 20 to 50%), but use moderation on long reverb (no more than 10 to 20% usually). Most drums can even be improved with short reverb. Short reverb will also give a more warm, analog sound to your synths, and is good for everything, including basses. Saturation is another great way to beef up your instruments, especially when they're thin sounding or of low sample quality. Mind you, saturation will greatly increase chances of conflict with other instruments in the mix, so make sure to use EQ afterwards. Saturation is basically a clean/overdriven type of distortion (i.e. FL Blood Overdrive). Compression/limiting can make drums sound bigger, but when using it on anything else, try to use it in moderation and only AFTER you've done all your other mixing. As for side chaining, it's good as an effect and not much else. Side chaining everything into the kick sounds awful. Same thing with Autotune, good as an effect (in moderation), not a substitute for good singing. Over 90% of problems can be solved within the arrangement. If all of your instruments are playing in the same register/frequency range, then EQ is not going to solve all your problems. Also having good samples helps, but it is not an end-all, and being able to mix properly certainly helps.

Starla was going to get one (not sure if she has already), but from what I read it's a bright sounding mic, while the lows tend to get a bit muddy. If you have a very warm/deep sounding voice I'd consider your other options, and be sure to get a really good pop filter with it. If you don't mind dealing with USB, I'd go with a Blue Microphones Snowball USB Mic. They're going on Amazon for $66. Prophecy uses one, and it's nothing short of amazing for the price range. The noise filtration is outstanding, and you can even record from across the room (very narrow pickup pattern). It's worth checking out. Keep in mind you should get a pop filter if you're using this mic also.

I didn't realize how awful Slayer really was (even with extra soft amps) until I started using Shreddage last night (thanks Zircon). $50 of mega awesomeness if you use Kontakt. Almost every generator/sample can be crappy if you don't know how to use it. FL Studio has some wonderful tools like Wave Candy, numerous effects, and the easiest to use sequencer and automation tool I've ever seen. I quit using Cubase and Reason since I just couldn't get work done very quickly (not to mention Reason's drum samples are processed to death and hardly usable in a real mix; I also hate not being able to use VSTi's).