Meteo Xavier

I admit some interest in potentially taking over the project, though I'd be more interested in getting the administration part of it finished up quick and getting it released than anything else. I probably wouldn't take a title for it and maybe remix one track at most, depending on what state this project is in.

You clearly did not give up seeing as you found this topic and posted in it.

Damn, Timmy. Right, I'll give you some answers there. 2. I use ADSR as every sane musician should when the option is available, but frankly, once I've gotten better and used to automating volume controls, it's been less of a pain in the ass than ADSR. 4. I dunno, it just seems to work. 5. Oddly enough, what I find it seems to do is contain frequencies better. The way I describe it is like coloring outside the lines before I put it on, then when I put it on, it sucks the color back up inside the lines. That may be a confusing concept for others, but that's how it works for me. 6. I dunno, it just seems to work. 8. It's the reverb/wetness that seems to work the best for general application in all the things I've tried. That's all there is to it. 10. I could try that. The compressor on the bass came from a mixing textbook I looked at once at Books-a-million. I tried it and found merit to its advice, but I could definitely stand a less fussy operation. 11. Another case of trying a lot of different things for a lot of different songs over more than a few years and finding those options to be the ones that work the most overall. 12. It's not a perfect solution, but unless I could not remember what it sounded like when it's on, that has not been a big problem. 13. Done that, stopped doing it. This way is better. 14. The most honest listening experience for me is not waking up after 6 hours of sleep to go to work on a track and mix 5 days since I last had time to do it. The volume is immediately overpowering, I do not hear certain frequencies correctly, it's not efficient. I need to listen to a professionally mixed and mastered song that hits all the frequencies in order to wake up and warm up my ears. 7 minutes of that is much better than the 25+ minutes of headache just going right into the song does.

Ok, new set here. This time much more focused on production in FL Studio (version 11, in my case). 1. Supposedly, the key to getting a good mix is turning it the volume down to very low levels and listening to see if you still hear everything that needs to be heard. I read this somewhere and not sure if it's objectively true, but it seems to work for me. 2. Learn volume automation in your DAW and establish habits for optimum efficiency. Learning to automate volumes with instruments will fix a huge percentage of mixing problems and is the key to instruments coming in and fading out at the correct places. 3. Volume automation is 100% essential for orchestral passages and songs. Strings, horns, pads and choirs all need them to be executed correctly. 4. Might just be a placebo effect, but putting the FL Studio limiter plugin on every mix channel, and NOT messing with it, seems to provide a slight bit of invisible improvement. 5. In 80% of songs and mixes, the Fruity Waveshaper should be on the main mixing channel and set to Class B Distortion. Then set it to Unipolar mode (near the bottom left corner right next to where it says Waveshaper) and set point 2/4 (the second dot from the left to the right) where necessary. 6. Fruity Stereo Shaper is at the top of main channel and should be set to "Invert". This also seems to create some sort of objective improvement in the mix while being kind of invisible. Might also be a placebo effect but continues to work. 7. With a difficult instrument to mix, there is no shame in having multiple EQ plugins on it even for very small changes. This is to help prevent making the EQ worse and forgetting what settings it was on before that. 8. For most mixes, the "Ambience" reverb plugin (which is free), is on and set to Vic - Concert Hall Bright (most often) or Griels - Standard or J-Ring - Warm. Turn Dry to 0.0db and start wetness down at -16.0db or so and adjust to taste. 9. Making an instrument seem smaller requires turning the channel's stereo separation mix channel button to the right to narrow it, as well as lowering the volume and some of the high end of the EQ. 10. To keep bass instruments' frequencies in check, use the Fruity Multiband Compressor and set it to Mastering 2.4db, turn the stereo separation almost entirely narrow, and adjust volume to taste. Lots of EQ with very narrow bands may be needed. 11. Speaking of compression, on the main channel, the Fruity Multiband Compressor should be on the main channel and set to Mastering 2.4db and adjust the volume to taste, usually not more than 5.0db. If this compression doesn't work well for the song, use DensityMKII compressor (free plugin) and try Final, M/S Solid, M/S Steady Center or M/S Even Mix. 12. If an instrument passage needs something more interesting in it, a little bit of dBlue_Glitch (free plugin), set to random and turn it down to like 10% on the mixing channel. Don't keep on throughout the song because this plugin really loves to suck up CPU power and create audio artifacts all throughout. 13. When in need of some sub-bass to add heaviness to the song, FL Studio's 3xOSC with everything set to Sine and turned way down is a very quick and effective way to do this. Adding some light distortion to it can work as well. 14. To warm up ear frequencies at the start of an audio session, listen to a professionally published song file that is loud and bombastic (Hiroyuki Sawano's stuff, for example) for a little bit is a good way to get your ears "cleared" for the right frequency balance. Begin at low volumes and work your way up to your regular volume. Then start your audio file and also begin with a low volume and work your way up. 15. Your ears WILL play tricks with you if you go too long a mixing session without stopping. Instruments will literally sound too loud and too soft randomly AFTER you're already satisfied with it. That means it's time to stop for a while.

Yeah, well, if I round up all the time I've spent waiting on other people for things I've needed, even some of the most basic things, just with the stuff I can think up on top of my head, it would amount to 3 years of time being wasted waiting for other peoples' schedules, motivations, budgets and memories to get around to what they agreed to do for me. After a while, you're like, "Man, I am too old for this shit." and quit bothering. Granted I'm rather on the south side of the bell curve when it comes to social skills and charisma that might suggest "fuck other people entirely" is not an objective wisdom tip when it comes to this stuff, but it's backed with a lot of experience that is definitely regretted.

That and the aforementioned post on "semantics" and acknowledging the range that "composition" can refer to as a music creation. I'll probably have some more items posted here later as they come to me.

This may be more of a semantics thing, but I guess I mean it as more of a full arrangement with bass, drums, accompaniment, changes, etc. As there's several different ways to refer to that which is music as composition I thought that was enough, but obviously it's different if we're referring to a composition as just the melody and chords (like something you come up with and save as a leitmotif to be arranged many different times) and not something invented only by starting out a musical entity with full arrangement. I'd still argue that, in a full arrangement at least, the melody should be among the last to put in. Reason for this is it's easier to move some notes around there than it is to move around all the chords and accompaniment to fit the melody (although it's inevitable that you'd likely have to end up doing that in a track at some point anyway).

4 and a quarter minutes is brief?

Would anyone believe I've actually become a composer who's managed to grab a series of worthwhile gigs and absorbed enough commissions to kinda be sick of working on music? I know I don't. A decade and a half of putting in tens of thousands of hours behind a DAW has been yielding some returns and I've reached heights no one should take for granted. From my vantage point, I thought I would like to share some of the less-talked-about things I see from this elevation that could be useful advice to newer composers or even some older ones. In no particular order, here we go: 1. There is no recipe or gimmick for success. If there was, we'd all know it and use it by now. It's all pretty much random. All you can do is get creative with your ideas and execute them with the best audio quality you can. 2. Only upgrade your sound and studio if you can't produce quality work with what you've got anymore. You don't need 18 orchestral symphony libraries to make a quality orchestral track or soundtrack, you don't need the latest version of this or that for everything, you don't need loads of hardware just to pretend you're staying current. Master what you have before you start thinking you need to spend $$$ on more shit. 3. Synth nerds are the worst people to get hardware advice from. Sorry, but it's true. Nothing is ever as good as the best there was from the 1970s or 1980s, and therefore nothing is ever worthwhile enough. If you have your eye on a keyboard or hardware item, listen to it, think on it for a while, think on it, think on it for a long time and decide if it's really for you or not. No one else can decide that for you, you have to decide that for yourself. 4. Doing a bunch of songs at the same time and in stages is better than trying to knock out one song at a time. This is because you need a break from audio both to give your ears a rest and also to let your judgment become less biased. While doing a song, there are the stages of beginning it, working on it and finalizing it. You get into these stages naturally, and it is surprisingly easier to do these stages with multiple songs than just one. 5. To expand on #4, after a few years of experience in finishing and finalizing tracks, you start learning a skill for a music ear that can hear where your songs are supposed to go, rather than where they go now. It's almost a 6th sense in a way - you start hearing and expecting it to go this way when where you actually have it going is wrong. You can also hear what ISN'T there and what needs to be there. It's kinda freaky, really. 6. Some people try to write and arrange a track starting with the melody and designing everything around it. This is dumb. Building a song is like building a house - you start from the ground up (drums and bass), then the walls and body of the house (chords and arps and accompaniment), and then the roof (usually the melody). Doing it with the melody first is like putting the furniture in a field in a certain way and designing the house around all that. 7. Rely on as few people for your songs and projects at any given time as possible. Other people have lives and crises, too, and you would be better off doing or learning to do things you need yourself than hope their timeframes work out for you. 8. All business success requires risk to fuel it, however not all risk is the same. Being smart and meticulously deciding where your money is best to go and getting clever and resourceful with your situation could still create the concoction that provides success without putting you in danger. 9. "Value" or "reward" for your audio work is not always money. This is a VERY controversial and unpopular opinion, and there are good reasons for that, but the fact remains those who only consider value and reward to be coin or cash will find it much harder to navigate throguh business success here. 10. Even if you hate loops products, many are worth getting anyway for a variety of reasons. One of the best is that they often come with MIDI files that can be an excellent teacher for how to humanize notes in a DAW. 11. No one doing indie games has $300.00 per audio minute. Success from the indie game sector comes more by showcasing artistic achievement through its humble roots, not trying to do what AAA game studios are already doing. Know this, accept this, and use it to your advantage while builsing up a career in game audio. 12. The more artistic a person is, the less skill they have for conventional thinking ideas in audio like how business really works, humility, common sense and even at times common decency to others. This is not a guaranteed exclusion, but the "artist's brain" phenomenon really does seem to be true. 13. You can work on next to no music for years and years and suddenly be chosen for a big project seeming for no reason. Don't question it too much, just give thanks to the god or powers you believe in and do it. 14. Don't count on tempo-sync'd loops and samples to work correctly. Many do, but many also do not for whatever reasons. It's better to just get a BPM that works innately for the samples' speed you want to use. 15. Every composer, sooner or later, does work for free, undercuts a friend/competitor for a job. If they say they don't, they are most likely lying. Also, every composer eventually pirates stuff as well. 16. It doesn't matter what tricks you need to do to get a track done (just don't use illegal samples!), just get it done somehow. Arranging and recording music is supposed to be that difficult. 17. Have a Plan B and Plan C for all music you're working on, as it's incredibly easy for that music to not go used or be cout out somewhere else. 18. Don't worry if you use a loop or phrase or sound that's been used ad nauseum or something. It turns out the niche for LIKING recognizable sounds is bigger than we though. 19. Uploading MIDIs from Valkyrie Profile, Secret of Mana, Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy VI, Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy Tactics and some of Tim Follin's work to your DAW and studying them will teach you pretty much everything you need to know about doing game audio. 20. When approaching someone for possible music work, be bright and cheery, but don't be desperate. Act like a seasoned professional, even if you aren't, and use a tone that says "I can do this work, but I don't need this work." Talk in length about the fine details of how you do things and how this works whether they might understand it or not, as it creates for you an air that the client thinks "Hmm, this guy knows his business." and helps keep it so the client respects you enough not to take advantage of you. If they leave soon after you establish this light bit of dominance in the conversation, then it wasn't meant to be. These things are obviously not objective, and they are subject to much scrutiny and debate themselves, but potentially useful stuff I'd like to impart all the same.

That's strange. How or why would the Soundcloud mobile version have a drop of quality that far down? Just something wrong in the coding that distresses the audio or something?

Clearly!

There's no point in a debate unless it gets out of hand. That's like going to a NASCAR race that won't have any potential for crashes - it's the whole reason for its existence!

I was actually talking more about how those things come together for the gamer after the game is already released, not before during the planning and development stages. My question would remain whether the Sonic games we're debating here used pop-punk, post-punk, pre-punk, hardcore punk, hardcore funk, punk-funk, crunk, EDM, IDM, EBM, EGM, Death Metal, Meth Metal, Shoegaze, Purple Haze, prog rock, Prague rock, ambient, psybient, psy-punk, psy-crunk, hip-hop, trip-hop, rap, crap, trap or Janet Jackson.

Self-promotion ok? Any sort of genre you're generally into for something like that? What is appropriate for eSports creativity writing for you might be different than it is for me (who has not and doesn't play Overwatch or eSports anything because I'm stuck too far in the past to get into it), so some specifics there would be helpful.

I've been glancing at this topic in and around for days and besides making me wonder how a few games on a Sega Genesis console could've provided almost 25 years of debate, I've found myself wondering why similar topics of this sort aren't also done for Sonic's most famous competitor: Mah-ree-ohh. It was only soon after that it dawned on me the reason the Mario series isn't nearly this hotly and ridiculously debated is because the series itself does a much better job of being consistent in its quality - both in gameplay and music. This is an important thing to think about (for such an academic-only subject, anyway) as many would incorrect to assume gameplay and music are very distinct things that could have nothing to do with each other, but in fact they are very subtly intertwined and required for the "experience" that gamers continue to dive in for. Should anyone be surprised that the music of the Sonic games are being as debated here as it would the games themselves? I was for a bit until the dawning crowned. Still doesn't answer for me why this game series is so disproportionately significant when it seems like there's only 4 games plus Sonic Mania that the fandumb can even remotely agree on they actually liked. Normally after a game series starts puttering out with increasingly divisive quality titles for a few years with little hope in satisfying them, it dies out or at least goes on life support where new stuff from it trickles out very, very slowly for old times' sake. How so much of this got squeezed from a frustrating game mechanic is impossible to comprehend - no, seriously, those "classic" Sonic games are just "run right as fast as you can until you hit something that makes you lose all the 120 rings you spent so much time gathering and then a loop here and there". I blame the latent furry fetishism our society is still only yet shedding light on.

You did it for LESS than nothing. You did it for ME!

I approve highly of this year's Easter Fools' Day joke.

Wait, what? He's not working as a lawyer anymore? I can't help but feel a small sense of satisfaction out of that, as well as maybe a lack of surprise (one of his advertising photos was him wearing 3-D glasses for god's sakes). I did like and look up to him in my mousier personality days up to my mid-20s when I had my last clinical depression/depersonalization episode. I've since learned that my personality permanently changes with each one of those episodes I have and I suddenly did not feel like tolerating his bullshit for one iota further. I have not yet seen any reason to change this stance.

I have had an incredibly fucked up day that left my jaw hanging open at several occasions and emotionally worn out. Due to my autism and medication regiment, I have to "trick" myself with a distraction in order to dissuade its negative effects, so I'm going to use up some of that energy recommending anime I've been binge watching on Crunchyroll during marathon 10+ hour work days: AHO-GIRL: This is a very short, screwball comedy series that crams like 3-6 short episodes of content into one. Lots of slapstick violence, particularly notable with a female lead, and some other dark implications of backstory, but is still pretty hilarious and never becomes really dark itself. I identify with the AHO-GIRL main character a lot more than is healthy. Akagi: I didn't really enjoy this anime too much and unlikely to revisit it, but it's noteworthy for being, without question, THE most epic two games of Mahjong ever committed to fiction. Seriously. Beyblade (All of it): I didn't catch this show when it was new, but holy ***damn mother****er in hell, this show is a real trip when you really think about it. This is a world where people literally solve each and every conflict with battle tops. I'm not kidding. There are no guns, no real martial arts to speak of, every person, security guard, soldier and dojo all have battle tops as the only weapon that exists in this world. They go to impossible lengths to achieve parts and win battle top tournaments. They walk the dessert and brave the jungles like some Kenshiro/Rocky Balboa mother****er to harden themselves for battle top battling. Also, only one ****ing character has any parents at all. These children literally wander the world with no family, no home or house to go to for battle tops and that is never explained. All that said, on its own merits, it's actually pretty ballsy, creative and riveting. Black Butler: Book of Circus: If you don't know Black Butler, you're in the wrong topic. This was an incredible season arc that really left me guessing and awestruck to the end, but be warned, it's easily also the darkest Black Butler committed to video. Also, apparently Yasunori Mitsuda scored the BGM here? You'd never know just by listening to it. The man's got range. Bungo Stray Dogs: Yet another high-concept convoluted story with ridiculous supernatural powers that have very specific strengths and weaknesses and themed after authors or something. I couldn't tell you much about what's going on here, but it had some riveting action and great music to go with it. I want to watch more of it. Champion Joe: A much older anime and one that is (slightly) more realistic in its drama about some punk kid who accidentally killed his friend in a boxing match and goes to near-fatal lengths to continue his rise in the world boxing circuit. It feels a little bit like what a much less offensive and really seriously done anime version of PUNCH-OUT might be like. Chi's Sweet Home: Pure ***damn saccharine and so lighthearted it's blinding, but it's also a collection of super-short episodes that nonetheless grow on you and get better after time. I thought this family was a little too ridiculous in their devotion to this kitten at first, having been converted into a cat guy has made me realize it's much closer to reality than it initially seems. ClassicaLoid: A bunch of anime versions of classical music composers all share a house and have nutty adventures in another high-concept fantasy anime that meets a screwball comedy anime. Bonus points for genuinely being hilarious. having INCREDIBLE music and having said music done by FFX composer Masashi Hamauzu. Cromartie High School: WTF is this show. The most surreal high school anime I've ever seen. That really says something. Danganrompa: Never knew much about this series until I saw it. It's extremely high concept and mystery-solving but also extremely dark, tragic and hard to watch. Do not watch this depressed. Noteworthy for the antagonist being one of the more interested and genuinely different I've seen in a while. DD Fist of the North Star: A ridiculous screwball parody of the original Fist of the North Star. Season 1 takes place with a convenience store. Season 2 takes place with a private acaedmy. Hilarity ensues. Definitely worth viewing. Durararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararararara: 60+ episodes of an anime that has like 17 storylines all going on and randomly switching between each other. Storylines include a sexy Dullahan, a cursed sword that can access the internet, a man who uses street signs for chopsticks, toilet paper and baseball, the only Black Russian man that has ever existed, gang wars, the mafia and a bunch of other crap. I almost couldn't handle this one, it was too much all at once. Dusk Maiden of Amnesia: Not sure what it was about this anime, but the ghostly atmosphere and isolated, low-level conflict but still interesting story made me a fan pretty quick. A good watch for something when you've had too much action anime lately. Elegant Yokai Apartments: Another arc-driven anime with a high concept fantasy atmosphere injected into modern society, starting to see a pattern here? This is nonetheless an easy watch. It has some serious storyline moments and drama, but moreover pretty lighthearted compared to others like this. Eromanga Sensei: EVERY CHILD IN JAPAN IS SECRETLY A SAVANT LIGHT NOVEL AUTHOR OR ARTIST WHO GETS MILLIONS OF SALES LOLWUT Evil or Live: Not a lot of people seem to like this one and is actually based on a Chinese manhua, but despite having some really hard to watch moments (it's a reform school/prison anime), it captured my attention and surprised me quite a bit. Kinda like Prison School except fewer boobs and DEFINITELY not comedy material. LILY C.A.T.: An old anime movie and a very blatant cross between ALIEN and THE THING. Worth a watch because it's still pretty decent, but definitely not for the faint of heart. Shiki: Another anime that is blatantly a ripoff of a better known horror story. This time it's basically "Salem's Lot" the anime, at least at first. It grows out of that after a while and gets more and more interesting as well as darker too. Wife and I enjoyed it. Soundtrack is worth having too.

Can you explain the problem in greater detail? I haven't used a Mac in 20 years, but depending on what kind of VST you're trying to run, it may just be a simple question of having the actual samples on the external hard drive and having your DAW or VST plugin recognize the filepath. That's what I do for my Kontakt and EWQL samples. And if it's not sample-based, it might just kinda be pointless in the first place. If it's just a synth or effects plugin, you should have plenty of space on your computer to run it. If it's a question of making it portable, a big name brand program will probably have copy protection to make it irrelevant, and one without copy-protection would likely just need to be installed to any other computer you hope to use it with. I'm just hypothesizing in lieu of greater detail - hopefully this answer is somewhat helpful to you since no one else bothered to write up for it.

Well there's not any of the ultra-violence or sexual assault or any of that, but the general attitude and countenance is about the same.

Nekofrog made some huge, pretentious exit post and he hasn't been seen here since to my knowledge. Bye Felicia! Many other excellent guitarists with good personalities have since filled the void. It was AtomicDog and he was a lawyer who also really liked taking people to task here. I was one of the last arguments/targets he had before he done got banned once and for all! MazeDude is still here from time to time and he's still one of the most awesome dudes around. I like telling this story, JtDL is who introduced me to Ocremix here as he was a classmate and occasional IRL friend for me here in East Tennessee. Today, however, I have no association with him as he is the closest thing to Alex DeLarge I've witnessed outside "A Clockwork Orange" and very much the same prick IRL as he was on here. He is also a lawyer. What is it with lawyers being assholes on OCR? If Elise is who I think it is, she seemed to have stopped coming around here some time ago and I don't know if she's been to any OCR meetups. Not sure why, I hope she's doing well.

He's in good health and spirits as we've gathered from social media, but I might actually suggest staying away from his social media stuff if you're a big fan like I am/was. When I was friends with him on Facebook, I kept seeing him pick apart Roland for their Cloud service pretty much every time they made a post for while (I counted like 6 times he did this), bordering on irate trolling, and he has a habit of making paranoid posts about technology spying on him that's kinda jarring to see. He once made a post questioning Facebook's algorithm for posts and ads targetting certain things about him, I tried to assure him it's not quite what he thinks it is (and gently, I swear), and he subsequently accused me on being on Facebook's payroll to dissuade his thoughts on it in a pretty rant-y way. Months after that, he posted some paranoia about Amazon's Alexa spying on him for marketing purposes and, again, I tried to assure him that that technology really isn't supposed to do that - and boy did he get angry. Needless to say, I'm not friends with him on Facebook anymore and lost quite a bit of respect for him to the point where I don't feel bad telling this story. Sorry to derail the thread from appreciation to this, but while I report he's in good physical health, I do suggest staying away from his social media if you want to retain appreciation for him. He seems to not be able to appreciate some of his own fans when they try to help make sure he's not having an episode of something. :S

Nope. All your friends are dead. They either succumbed to their injuries from the Unmod wars or the radioactive fallout from the Unmodium that was released. You're the only one still alive. ...or are you?