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DZComposer

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    (Theory) Why do these chords suck, and how can I fix them?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    technically speaking there are a number of "errors" here that may be causing the issues you're hearing. some general thoughts, without (hopefully) being too pedantic:

    • an overabundance of 4ths and 7ths - not necessarily a problem, as the source is very 4ths heavy (though it seems to me this arrangement is lacking a solid foundation in the bass), though you want to be careful about leaping to dissonances, especially when leaping from dissonances.
    • tenor part at m.1-2, for example, is a little mean (almost entirely made up of leaps). choral writing differs from orchestral writing in this sense. (also the alto figures in m. 2 and m. 4)
    • m. 1 harmony is unclear. very broadly, it seems to suggest something like ii7 - V , though this is confused by the bass motion and the 4ths-and-7ths-ness of the soprano, alto, and tenor.
    • m. 2 harmony is very unclear as well. as far as i can tell, you have viiø7 - vi7 - V - I (with the B suspended in the bass?) | (VII . . .) the modulation to VII is at the very least unprepared. at beats 2-3 you have both the bass and tenor leaping against a rising soprano line (to a tripled B, no less), and given the uncertainty of the underlying harmony it can be difficult to grasp.
    • voice crossing alto and tenor in m. 3 may be unintentionally obscuring the alto. perhaps the tenor could rest and have the B on beat 2?
    • rhythmically speaking this is quite rigid and square (beats 3-4 of m. 1 in particular, where every voice is on 8th notes). a more sustained bass, and a tenor and alto with fewer leaps (and perhaps some rests) might add some rhythmic tension, textural clarity, and prevent you from articulating harmonies you do not intend.

    to generalize, i think most of the issues come from the fact that you're dealing with a lot of parallel 4th movement, which is difficult to deal with in SATB writing. the difficulty is going to be to treat them in a way where 1) the harmony is clear as possible, 2) there arent any unnecessary dissonances created by awkward leaps, and 3) ensuring a solid foundation in your bass/tenor(+baritone??), which is tricky given the limited number of voices available to you.

    Without getting into a detailed discussion of part-writing conventions, one thing that jumps out at me is how much this sounds like a transitional section of music rather than an opening melodic statement (I'm assuming that you intend it to be the latter). As Radiowar mentioned, the harmonic function of the bass is generally unclear. This isn't in itself necessarily a problem depending on the effect you're aiming for, but I think that it's the single most significant factor that gives the music this transitional feel.

    As an example of how you might go about revising the bass, here's my own quick and dirty rewrite of the bass -- everything else is the same. (Caveat: The low D is lower than I would actually want to write for choral bass in this context, and there are a few other new problems, so a general rewrite of everything would be needed to make my bass line work really well.)

    new_bass.jpg

    Notice how the bass seems to have a lot more direction. The bass in mm. 1 and 3 provides reasonably clear chord roots with mm. 2 and 4 filling in the space between the roots. I'm also taking advantage of contrary motion between the soprano and the bass. As the soprano moves up, the bass moves down, and this helps the whole thing sound a bit more balanced than your original, which had the bass constantly moving in the same direction as the soprano. And the motion of the bass has established itself clearly enough over the course of these four measures for us to guess that the bass note at the start of measure 5 will probably be E, or possibly C#. Which isn't to say that it has to be, but anything else is likely to come as a surprise to the listener, which could be a good thing -- the point is, an expectation for the bass's behavior has been set up and can be fulfilled or thwarted depending on the effect you want.

    Thanks, guys. This is exactly the kind of help I was looking for. Looks like I've got some work to do.

    (Theory) Why do these chords suck, and how can I fix them?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted · Edited by DZComposer

    My experience has been that even very good choral music sounds terrible when played with a General MIDI patch, and I think what you have here would sound quite good if you could hear a real choir sing it.

    Wow, I was a bit skeptical about that. I actually wrote it in Cubase, using the Kontakt 5 library's choir as a mockup instrument. It didn't sound better in Cubase with the K5 really, but I just ran this section through EWQL Symphonic Choirs instead of the K5 and did some quick-and-dirty phrase shaping on it and it almost sounds like a different piece! The shaping really put a damper on the muddiness.

    http://www.dzcomposer.com/helpfiles/chordhelp.mp3

    Now if only I had access to a real choir...

    I think there are still a few issues I need to iron out, but you are right, it is actually not as bad as I had originally thought! I'm no longer bummed about this piece. Thanks a bunch!

    (Theory) Why do these chords suck, and how can I fix them?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted · Edited by DZComposer

    Can you explain that further? I don't necessarily think that minor chords with 7ths or 11th chords sound bad. Also, I'm, not a guitarist so tablature really doesn't help me see things better than standard notation.

    To clarify, I don't think there is something inherently wrong with those chords on their own. Obviously I made an error in their use, and I'm trying to understand what that error is.

    (Theory) Why do these chords suck, and how can I fix them?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted · Edited by DZComposer

    I'm working on a choral work. It's a standard 4-part SATB, which is something I haven't really done a lot of. I have a vision for what I want it to sound like, but I'm having trouble getting there.

    I like the chords I have chosen when I play them individually, but together they sound like ass and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. I want these smooth chords, a touch of dissonance here and there, but instead of something nice and flowing I get a freaking muddy sounding mess.

    Obviously something is wrong with the leading and voicing (or perhaps even my choice of chords to begin with).

    Chord theory has always been one of my weaknesses, and in this case it is preventing me from achieving desired results.

    Here are four bars of the piece both in score and in MIDI format:

    GIF:

    chordhelp.gif

    MP3 Mockup:

    http://www.dzcomposer.com/helpfiles/chordhelp.mp3

    MIDI (Don't just listen to this, the MP3 sounds a lot better despite being the same chords):

    http://www.dzcomposer.com/helpfiles/chordhelp.mid

    I have a melody in the Soprano, countermelody in the Alto, and the Tenor and Bass harmonize with the soprano.

    In case you don't recognize it, the source is the Aquas BGM from Star Fox 64. (

    ) I'm trying to do a proper choral arrangement of it instead of the terrible parallel 5th-based harmony in the original.

    Anyone have any suggestions and pointers for working with complex chords?

    Star Fox Slot Machine Boss BGM

    in Post Your Game ReMixes!

    Posted

    So, I have decided to come back to OCR after a few years of hiatus. Not sure if I will end up submitting this, but I do know that my jazz writing could use some improvement, so the feedback will be valuable regardless. Also, there could be some rules issues given that the original BGM is comprised of a few well-known non-game tunes.

    The idea is start start off like the original and then change-it-up a little as the song progresses. That said, I'm not really going for a total-conversion here, thus I'm being a little bit conservative (perhaps another reason not to submit this).

    I'm also hoping the feedback can help me with some writer's block on this as I am currently unsure where I want to go with it from here, though I think I like the idea referencing songs that have a humorous connotation. I have already started down that path with the sax solo...

    I based the instrumentation off of the Stan Kenton Orchestra:

    Trumpets

    Trombones

    Saxes/Woodwinds

    Mellophones

    Guitar

    Bass

    Drums

    Piano

    Vibraphone

    Link to original game version:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cDDCXPuaUc

    Link to my WIP:

    http://dzcomposer.com/betamusic/slotswip002.mp3

    One thing for the checklist I know already: [X] Too Quiet

    I haven't used any compression on this WIP yet(still focusing on the composition), so to keep it from clipping I had to nudge the gain down.

    Solid state drives - good or bad for audio production?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    If what you are doing will be write-intensive, then stay away from them. Flash memory can't handle nearly as many writes as a magnetic disk can. Though if you just keep samples on it and only really read off of it, lifespan shouldn't be too much of an issue.

    I hear the high-end SSDs are great, but the ones I've had experience with (the lower-end ones used in HP laptops) actually underperform the regular-old HDDs.

    I'd say at this point you're better off spending that kind of money on SAS (serial attached SCSI) drives with RAID (the current enterprise standard for high-performance storage) as you'll get greater capacity and higher-quality for your buck. But adding a decent SAS RAID card to your comp will run you a few hundred bucks on top of HDD costs. Probably enough to make the cost pretty much the same (albeit you get more space and reliability for it).

    Software to compose Genesis-style chiptune music?! HELP!

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    Plogue has a new product called "Chipsounds" that can do one of the Genesis's chips, the TI SN76489 (which was also used in the ColecoVision). Sadly, the Yamaha YM2151 is absent.

    It has a lot of 8 bit stuff, including NES.

    http://www.plogue.com/?page_id=43

    Not familiar with chiptunes enough to vouch for the accuracy.

    It's ARIA-based, which is the sample engine co-created by Plogue and Garritan.

    Garritan Solo Violin and Gofriller Cello

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    I thought it was strange myself when they discontinued those products. They weren't available for very long either. Maybe a year?

    I thought I had caught wind of a falling out with NI back when I cruised Garritan's forums (maybe you can go there for answers, the company's owner was an active poster when I was and may still be, as were/are several employees). But, they still offer two Kontakt-based produts, JABB and the Marching Band.

    One thing with Garritan, though, expect a wait for new things. This is the only thing I do not like about Garritan. Their development cycles are long, and is some cases the products do not end up being worth the wait. Otherywise, they are a great customer-oriented company (notice how they responded to your inquiry on Christmas?).

    Need a choir in my machine

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    The new PLAY versions of EWQL products require separate purchase of a dongle. Just so you know.

    I'm of the frame of mind that companies shouldn't force customers to buy things just to use their products that add no additional value to the product. It's a shame, as EWQL has some nice stuff, but I don't buy from companies that do that shit. Put a dongle int he damn box if you're going to require one. Sheesh...

    Orchestral Templates and Tools

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    I primarily use EWQLSO Gold Pro XP for my main orchestral section sounds. I sometimes use GPO4 (Garritan Personal Orchestra, version 4) for solo instruments. Most of my percussion comes from Virtual Drumline 2. For Choirs, I use the old Voices of the Apocalypse library. Organ, I use the organ from Project SAM. Piano, Garritan Authorized Steinway Pro. I'll pull saxes from Garritan Jazz and Big Band or from Garritan Concert and Marching Band, depending on the sound style I want. I'll also grab some euphonium from COMB as well when needed.

    When I get the money, I want to add the SAM Brass and SAM TrueStrike (No PLAY or dongles like StormDrum) to my arsenal.

    Most of that will load into Kontakt, the only real exceptions being GPO4 and the Steinway, which uses the Aria sampler developed by Garritan and Plogue.

    I am particularly fond of a Kontakt script library called SIPS (it stands for Solo Instrument Performance Suite). It creates a very nice legato sound for my brass instruments. http://nilsliberg.se/ksp/scripts/sips/sips.htm

    How do you process YOUR orchestra?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    Im not using any controller. I justpoint and click the notes i want on the roll and i manually adjust the velocity for each note. unfortunately, this seems to be a flawed idea considering i dont have that much control of my instruments when i do that. im still not super-educated on FL so bare with me.:) I havent tweaked that demo much at all. it needs work. and listening to it now i dont much like the reverb. doestn sound very warm to me. reverb is another annoying weakness of mine.

    With GPO velocity is only attack. If you want a harder attack (is that what you mean by "crisp?"), you need more velocity.

    You need to draw-in mod-wheel values to control dynamics ("loudness"). Higher values = louder.

    I do not know exactly how this works in FL (I use Cubase), but you should be able to change/add controller lanes under your piano roll to allow you to add MIDICC data to your song. From screenshots, it looks like FL has one lane by default for velocity. I say above the roll the word velocity. Next to it was an arrow pointing down. Drop-menu perhaps? See if that menu will let you select different controllers.

    EDIT: http://www.suspenlute.com/gpo_in_fl_studio/

    It's for an ancient version of GPO, but the basics still apply. If you're using Kontakt Player 2 or ARIA (GPO4), it will look A LOT differnet. They both also support 16 channels, unlike Kontakt Player 1 (shown) which only supported 8. Just be sure to assign the same controllers. They haven't changed.

    Just make sure you do all of the controllers I mentioned. As I said earlier, you will need to use them to get the most out of GPO.

    How do you process YOUR orchestra?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    EDIT: I listened to you demo. How are you using velocity? It sounded to me like there wasn't a lot of attack on the notes. Are you using the sustain pedal for legato?

    Since this was asked earlier, but the thread grew...

    From the GPO manual (this is as of GPO4):

    Basic GPO Control:

    In GPO, velocity controls attack.

    Mod wheel is dynamics (it's a little more than just a volume control).

    Sustain is legato, though GPO4 has an auto legato feature, I found it not as useful as keeping it on manual. NOTE: keyswitch solo strings instead alternate bowstrokes

    Pitch Bend: Pitch Bend

    Exception: percussive sounds. They are like normal samples: velocity for dynamics, sustain for sustain, etc.

    GPO Advanced controls:

    Auto Variance: CC22 and CC23 (also Vibraphone tremolo level and speed respectively)

    Portamento/Bass Drum Fundamental/Vibraphone Attack: CC20

    Release length: CC21

    Vibrato (solo instruments): Channel Aftertouch - intensity; CC17 - frequency

    Kill pitch bend: CC19

    Solo String Trills: CC15

    Aggressive Saturation (ag instruments only): CC16

    EDIT AGAIN: I think I'll make a new thread for that...

    How do you process YOUR orchestra?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    You are trying to achieve a sound the GPO was not designed to produce.

    GPO was not designed for the film score market, so getting a "hollywood" sound out of it is not an easy task. You won't get the exact sound, but you can get close if you truly milk the library for all of it's features.

    I still use GPO every now and then, but when I want a more "hollywood" sound, I use EWQLSO Gold.

    GPO was designed primarily as a "playable" library, and thus the emphasis was on controlling the sound, not sound quality (I'm not saying it sounds bad). Because of this, many things are simulated rather than sampled.

    To get the best sound out of GPO, you MUST use these features. Are you using the advanced controllers, or are you just sticking with the Mod Wheel, Velocity, and Sustain Pedal? Using the advanced controllers will unlock the full power of the library.

    Use the overlays. They will make your brass sections fuller.

    If you don't have it, spend the $50 and upgrade to GPO4 ( http://www.garritan.com/products_gpo4.html ). You'll get a chior and you get some samples from Project SAM to fatten-up the brass.

    If you want specific tips on specific controllers, I suggest heading over to the official Garritan forums. Great people there. They are willing to help. http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=39

    I must say that I love Garritan as a company. Very customer-centered. Not to mention, no dongles. The current versions of EWQL require a seperate purchase of a dongle (which is exactly why I haven't upgraded and still use the older Kontakt versions of EWQLSO)

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