Harmony

Yeah, I really see no downside to Black Friday. Retailers profit and informed consumers can profit; it's a win-win. I would think that any country, even those that do not have a significant Christian population, would embrace it if given the chance. This whole idea of fist-fights and long lines, although true, is exaggerated. I'm pretty sure more of that happens in the last hours before the Christmas shopping season ends as on Black Friday. In anycase, sales typically extend in some form over the entire Black Friday weekend and the hours after the initial rush are, in my experience, much more mundane.

What a tragedy for all five men. I hope Reuben's family knows that he will be remembered and missed not only by his friends, family and teammates, but also by a worldwide community filled with fans of his creativity and talent.

Wow, there’s a lot to enjoy here. The arrangement in particular is quite engaging, but I'm allocating a majority of the props that this piece deserves to its excellent choral work. "Nothing can beat the music of hundreds of voices screaming in unison"

Wow this is really nice, thanks! Makes me wish I had a fully weighted 88-key controller.

Apparently, no one paid attention to my other post specifically instructing everyone to "save an Axiom 49 for me," so by the time I got to Guitar Center--an hour after opening mind you--they were all sold out BUT... Seeing tears starting to well up in my eyes, a salesman offered to sell me the Axiom 61, the Axiom 49's big bro, for only $210 (I was going to pay $200 for the 49)!!! So my reward for being late to the sale was a 30% discount instead of 20% BOO-YAHHH!

Haven't really heard any of SampleTank's pianos except the free HQ, but imho the free Clavinova 2 soundfont (either the 120mb OR the 24mb version) sounds better and is more expressive than it. The larger version is reasonably bright and boasts 7 velocity layers while the smaller version is a little darker with 6 layers. Hey, it never hurts to give the free route a try before dropping the cash The 24mb Clavinova can be found at sf2midi and the 120mb version is one of the soundfonts in Compy's Piano and Harpsichord Collection torrent: http://www.studio-compyfox.de/torrent/index.php EDIT: Oops, I read "SampleTank" instead of "SampleTekk" in the original post. I haven't heard any SampleTekk pianos, but I'll still stand by my Clavinova suggestion. Good (free) stuffs is good (free) stuffs.

Mmmm, ever so rich and creamy. That combination makes for a disgusting carbonated beverage, but an awesome mix

Yeah, good luck with Best Buy all ye poor souls that enter this Black Friday. A part of me died while trying to make it into and out of that store last year. This year you'll find me miles away at Guitar Center where any single item will be 20% off! I'm not sure if the coupon that I got in the mail is required but if not, I hope everyone with enough dough puts it on their Black Friday list. Just make sure to save an Axiom 49 for me EDIT: Looks like no coupon is needed, according to the GC site. Sweet, that means I can bring my friends as accomplices to get 20% off of more than one thing.

Just about any sequencer (FL Studio, Ableton Live, Reason, etc) will take input from a midi controller. But that's not the final story, since if you open up your sequencer, hook up your controller and press a key, guess what? You probably won't get any sound. That's because the midi messages from your controller aren't controlling anything! That's where plugins come in. Komplete is just a collection of plugins...stuff that you can control with your controller. Some of the plugins produce sounds (soft synths, samples) and some of them modify sounds (effects). Although Komplete might include some stuff that can run as a stand alone application, for the most part the idea is to use your sequencer to host the plugins. You play a key on your controller, the sequencer (FL for example) gets the message and passes it to the plugin (for example PRO-53, which comes with Komplete) and then you get sound. So yes. The plugins in Komplete can be controlled by a midi controller, provided that the plugins in Komplete can be loaded into whatever sequencer you're using.

Clarification: I'm about 90% sure the MiniMoog cannot act as a midi controller (wasn't it released before the midi specification?). The much newer Mimimoog Voyager probably can though. Regardless, if you're going with Komplete, using the Korg and the X-station as midi controllers is sorta overkill imo, especially for a novice. Take your pick of less expensive dedicated midi controllers from M-audio, Edirol, etc and use them to control the awesome amount of sonic power that Komplete will give you.

A few photos from my Salt Lake City adventure so far. Haven't really gotten any free time to do any real exploring outside of driving around downtown, but I will eventually. The view from the roof of the parking garage of a ridiculously huge Wal*Mart. Yes, the store had its own parking garage. Didn't bother getting out of the car, since I'll do a real tour of Temple Square another day. Our conference is in the Convention Center which apparently does a fire show when big groups like ours show up. The fans created a vortex of air that spiraled skywards. There was a small "pilot light" flame on the ground in the center of the vortex, and the two guys used wands that sprayed some type of fuel that ignited once it hit the flame. They were able to create really intricate patterns, ranging from thin tight tornado-like flames, to full-on huge fireballs. The photos do it no justice. Very very very cool.

It probably has something to do with the producer...now who was that again?

Good god, thank you for scratching the surface with that list Mustin.

Yeah, I don't know what's up with Cakewalk and rgc audio but I can't find an official sfz download site anymore. There's always the webarchive of the rcg:audio site which provides the download as well as the info that was on the original site: http://web.archive.org/web/20060616173559/www.rgcaudio.com/sfz.htm Too bad it doesn't look like they'll be updating sfz anytime soon

Nice, much cleaner. Of course, now we don't get the full hilariously ironic effect of Star Salzman posting about not having a big ego while his sig flips us off and reads "StarBLaSt > Joo!" Also, I'm starting to realize how much I liked the review tab showing both the most recent review as well as the total review count. It made it that much easier to keep track of what was being said about a mix. Even if the review counter never returns, it may be more useful if clicking the review tab linked to the last review of the thread, rather than the thread’s first page.

That sparkles with me.

Sweet, I've been waiting for something like this. Thanks Dave, works great.

I love that this is at its heart an upgrade of the original. Nothing strays too far in terms of style or composition, and while I’m all for complete re-envisioning of sources, something like this allows me to focus first on the original tune and the composers intent, rather than initially focusing on what the remixer has brought to the piece. Take it as you will, but I think even the ridiculously great guitar work takes a back seat to the revamped but true-to-the-source hypnotic melody, which imo is great compliment given the intentions of this site. So for me, the connection with the original is immediate, the connection is powerful and that connection is the bit that sealed the deal for me. Great work as usual sixto.

I tried a vibraphone at one time that seemed to be an ok match, but youre right, I'll try a nice soft rhodes with a good amount of reverb and low pass filtering. That'd fit within a typical 60's funk setup. The reason I though that the F3 A3 might be just some resonant frequencies is that they are the only things that have noticeable reverb on them. If they truly were an instrument, why wouldn't the original producers make them dry like everything else? One of these days I'm going to get vinyl. For now the only grit is applied by a couple of instances of dominion, and SONAR's nobody-ever-uses-it analog tape sim. There was an amp sim in there at one point but it was a little too gritty I think. Also, I tried to keep in mind that some of that lo-fi grittiness in the original comes from the compressed audio that I ripped the loop from, so I really don't want to try to emulate that. Thanks. Yeah I used to do this sort of thing a lot and it's been really helpful for forcing me to think differently and really apply my limited resources in creative ways. For the compliment and suggestions, I shall send you a Facebook friend request +1 Yeah, the B and A are in there, but I toned them down because I thought the bottom D and C sounded more dominant in the original. Maybe I went a little too far. The highs on the master EQ have given me tons of problems. If I knock the master highs down, the snare and hi-hats sound weak. If I then brighten them back up, they usually end up sounding too loud. etc etc. But I'll continue to tweek, thanks for the suggestions.EDIT: Oh thanks for the B3 tip po! I didn't know about the bell underneath the sounds from the standard drawbars. That really gives the organ a nice bite that mine is lacking. I've also gotta slow down my modulation to better simulate the rotary tonewheel effect. The drums are ns7-free which are recorded with a really thick snare sound; about as far from snappy as possible. I've got a dominion plugin and a gate on the snare specifically to sharpen the attack and shorten the release. Still not enough though I guess. I might just have to bite the bullet and swap out snare samples. Anyone have any thoughts on the hi-hats and kick?

We're probably hearing the same thing with the bongos/congas. There's obviously a slap towards the middle of the loop, but the other hand percussion sounds too low in pitch to be a bongo to me. Sounds like a single medium sized conga to me, but I could see it being a really loosly tuned bongo. Yeah, I worked pretty hard layering 4 cheap organ patches and applying some fast modulation to get what you hear. I agree that it could be better, but as many organ patches as there are out there, I primarily see tons of pipe organs and reed organs; nothing that sounds good for funk.

original imitation As and exercise for myself, I’ve been trying to recreate a simple loop from the song “Stone Cold” performed by Anthony Hamilton on the American Gangster soundtrack. I’ve been working on it for a little while now, and although I know the recreation isn’t perfect, I’m having trouble identifying exactly what the differences are. Yeah I’m using different instruments, but I think I can get closer than what I have now. Listening to it for too long has killed my objectivity, so I think a fresh pair of ears could really help out. Although I tried to get the notes and instruments right, I’m not as concerned with their exact imitation as I am with the exact imitation of their actual sound. At this point, it sounds to me like the EQ is wrong on my imitation, but where and by how much? What can I do to get my snare to sound a little more like the original? What is that sound that comes in at 0:00.800? It sounds like something is playing F3 then A3, but I can’t tell what instrument. Is it just the resonating congas? So many questions, looking for any answers. If you’d like to play along, it helps to loop them. Tempo is 116 BPM

What, is he keeping the Game Boy for himself? Selfish.

Haha, I hadn't heard that Nelly song before, but I must say, I think it deserves exactly as much sampling-hate as the Daft Punk examples I posted above. And this Daft Punk love I don't understand. I mean I like them, but based on what you've said in this thread, how could you !?

So sorry to disappoint, but robot aliens have already landed, cast judgment on our music and found that heavy sampling is by far than creating music from the ground up. Guess all those sampling producers had it right all along

Yeah, I can understand that; disillusionment is a helluva drug. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORsHlKSyvBo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_goBj3iZ7w