DZComposer

Woah.... I can't pass this up, yet I do not see how this could possibly work. O_o

Most piano rolls should have controller lanes at the bottom where MIDICC data can be drawn-in. Not sure about FL, but every other sequencer I've used has done it that way.

One thing really bothers me about this change: the ability to jump to a letter of the alphabet when sorting alphabetically appears to be missing. I looked up New Super Mario Bros earlier, and had a heck of a time finding it in the 60-page alphabetized list. If each page were a letter, it wouldn't be that bad, but Mega Man 2 takes up a whole page (at least) by itself... I like the way this theme looks better, but I feel that there was a loss of functionality.

This won't sound like you think it will unless you have the right kind of bass drum. A concert bass drum will sound too deep and rings a bit much, even when muted. It sounds pretty bad in this style. Ask your percussionists to use a kick drum if they have access to one. Else, a marching bass drum is a decent alternative. I made a quick mock-up to demonstrate this for you. I took a part of your drumbeat in that section and put 8 bars in. First time using concert instruments and second time using a drumkit. http://www.corneriasound.com/files/concertvkit.mp3 Notice that it sounds a lot better on the drumkit. It's more crisp. The other one wouldn't have sounded quite as bad if a different bass drum were used. I do not know exactly what you have back there, but this sound distinction is an important one to remember. Most band/orchestra composers that want that kind of beat write it for a drumkit because of this. If you do not have access to kick or marching bass drums, an alternate writing that would help is to imitate a drumkit using only the bass drum and snare. Basically have the snare play eighths, but accent the second beat and the tweo eights of the fourth. IE: 88>888>>. I'd put bass drum hits on beats one and four(Quarter rest rest Quarter) to bring out the change in primary note in the melody. This will create a similar feel without exposing your audience to the kit-part-on-concert-drums sound.

Another major thing I noticed is you non-melody parts consist of a lot of sustained chords. Sorry, but that's boring. Get some more harmony and countermelody in there. Also consider adding some woodwind runs if you feel your players can handle it. I can give also you some percussion pointers: Since you intend this to be played by real players, I would double-check your Timpani part and make sure it is playable. I would suggest avoiding pedaling unless your timpanist can do it and keep the drums in tune. One of the best Timpani tutorials I have come across: http://members.cox.net/datimp/mus1.html Are you going to have a drumkit back there? If not, the second song needs to change the percussion writing a lot. In this type of music, avoid 4-on-the-floor with the bass drum. That only really works in a march style. Otherwise, it sounds really cheesy. The only time I would put 4-on-the-floor in a non-march piece is if I really wanted to emphasize quarter notes, like in a battle BGM, but there would still be points where that would be broken away from so the bass drum can emphasize specific rhythms or impact points. Basically, in orchestra/band music, the bass drum's job is to bring out slower rhythms from the bottom, or to create impact. It is not so much a keeper of the beat like it is in other genres. Snare Drum is your pulse drum in many cases, but it also is used to emphasize rhythms that are faster due to it's crisp sound. It can also add impact to something. Some great snare and bass writing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT6IzLnTwE Notice how the bass drum only plays in the impact points or when certain passages need emphasis. Notice how the snare drum is used to emphasize the rhythm of the melody and the impact points, and to keep the beat in others with eighth-sixteenth-sixteenth rhythms, but taking a break to add impact. Also notice how much both drums are absent. They don't need to be there at all times. Cymbals are mainly for impact. They are usefull as they can create a milder impact without the weight of the bass drum and can ring unlike the sanre. A notable exception to impact is the suspended cymbal roll, which is a great tool to emphasize crescendos. With accessories, most are used to emphasize something. Which one to choose depends on how you want to emphasize the part. Accessory percussion is so open-ended that I really can't go beyond this: Make sure the sound musically fits. IE, don't try to emphasize a fast rhythm with a ringy-sound like a triangle. Mallets: You mentioned a glockenspiel. A lot of people make the mistake of associating the glock with soft music. That is not the case. It is a very percussive sound. If you have a very lyrical, floating segment, you may want to steer away from the glock. The vibraphone is a good alternative because it still has a metalic sound, but can be played with much softer mallets than a glock can. Play a glock with soft mallets, and the audience won't hear it. Another glock pitfall is the ring. Some composers, John Williams comes to mind, will actually stunt glock parts so that the ring does not interfere with the chord structure of the piece. Others simply choose to avoid glock in parts like that and use something else, like the xylophone, which has almost no ring. Here is an example of a John Williams work with Glock. Notice at :35 that the glock follows the woodwind part somewhat, but breaks it up to compensate for the ring.It doesn't have to play the melody, can can emphasize other parts as well, as you saw in the Williams piece where it did not play the melody much.

I don't have time to do a full crit post, but I'll mention a few things real quick: No horns or euphoniums? 1. Dynamics: More! Some dynamic contrast will help a lot with this medley. 2. The Caesura at 2:59 was way too long. I would advise trying to eliminate it with a couple of transitional phrases. If you want to keep it, shorten it considerably. A caesura should never be longer than, say, 5 seconds at the absolute longest. 3. Eliminate the Caesura at 4:00. It breaks the musical flow too much. Instead build on that chord at the end of Zelda's theme and crescendo into that ending.

Oh! A nice melodic source. And seemingly in slow 6/8, too.

Because I somehow missed that Kontakt was now at version 4.... Now that I know this, that will be my target version.

Well, I'm running a 32-bit OS (WinXP) right now, so I do not think 64-bit will help me at the moment. Though I've been thinking about picking up Windows 7 64-bit when it comes out in a couple of weeks, but I would like to know about compatibility issues first. I'm skipping Windows ME2ImeanVista Maybe I searched wrong, but I was unable to find the Cubase Upgrade versions at zzsounds... I love OCR, but not enough to buy full price version when I am upgrade price eligible.

I've been mulling over upgrading to Kontakt 4 and Cubase 5. I currently use Kontakt 2 and Cubase SL3. I am just wondering if any of you have upgraded an whether or not you feel it was worth it. These are my primary tools, so I want to get some opinions before dropping the cash.

This was a dud source for me. I got about 20 sec into it and it died. :/ It was one those sources that is great for beat-based mixes, but not for melody based ones. Oh-well. Maybe the next time I can actually finish it...

Well, I'm stuck. There isn't a lot melodically to work with in this source. We'll see, but I may end up not posting it...

Hmm... This will be difficult to orchestrate, but I am up to a challenge. I'm due for another SMRPG arrangement anway. The last one I did was years ago and crappy.

I love this source. Here-a-We Go! THE GOOD: :03 - Yay! Horns! Though I would consider adding a second horn part in harmony to that to fill the arrangement a little. I do hear something that may be harmony, but I can't tell if that is or if it is just part of the syncopated chords you have in the back. If it is harmony, bring it out more. :18 I really like the texture you created here. Great percussion! :33 I love the arrangement here 1:03 The transition between the orchestral and electronic sounds is nicely done and isn't a sudden thing. 2:02 I really like how the pizz strings and the 8-bit sound work together here. Nice touch. THE BAD: :18 Decrescendo into this and bring it down two dynamic levels. This will allow you to crescendo with the cymbal roll into :33. Make sure the percussion is further back, though. It's like butter on toast. It adds great flavor, but too much makes it nasty. :33 Back the drum kit off a little, especially the bass drum. :33 The Oboe/Violin part sticks out. Back it into the ensemble sound 1:03 The cymbal roll leading into this breaks too loud. Be careful with it and make sure that when it breaks it isn't overpowering what else is going on. 1:03-1:33 There isn't much happening melodically here. It isn't too bad, but just be aware that this piece has been very melodic thus far and then all of the sudden there is no melody for 30 seconds. I did think I heard some moving strings in there somewhere, you may consider bringing that part out more. 2:45 This effect does not work. AT ALL. This is the only major flaw that jumped out at me. I am loving the sense of direction this piece is having and then BAM! At 2:45 it runs into a brick wall. In fact I am not even sure if it is intentional. I do know it happens twice. Remove it. 3:19 This trill is too heavy. Try a more legato sound for it and back it off a little. OVERALL: I am not a huge fan of electronic stuff. To me the vast vast majority of it sounds way too repetitive and circular. But every once in a while I come across an electronic piece that I really like, and this is one of them. Overall the arrangement is well-developed, though towards the end it gets a tad bit repetitive, but not too bad. The main issues I have with it are the performance of the orchestral part and some balance issues. Performance stuff if you will. Only one major flaw, the rest is nit-picky stuff. Only one thing jumped out as a major flaw, and that was the sudden decrease in volume at 2:45. Music is like a road, it needs to go somewhere. You were going somewhere, and then this happened. This didn't fit the style you had set forth up to this point, and it ended up being a huge pothole in the road. This was a bad enough shake-up of my musical nerves that if I were a Judge, I would vote NO over it (though the rest of the piece is a clear YES). Make sure the melody is always audible, but not sticking out, and back off of things that are old news, IE repetitive basslines, long notes, and bring out new stuff a little. Maybe back your drums off a little. It would help the piece sound a little less muddy and add clarity the other parts. Awesome work. It takes a lot to impress me with an electroinc piece.

I do believe it is time for me to return to PRC. I shall start by voting this round!

Added dynamics, tempo changes, and phrase shaping. I also added more reverb, but I think I have have overdone it... http://www.corneriasound.com/betamusic/koro_pno2.mp3

OMG! Another Tetris mix?! lol I decided that the Brass one will be part of a project I'm working on, so I whipped-up a piano arrangement for OCR. This is my first serious piano piece, and also my first piece that I intend to submit in over 3 years! D: In it I pay some homage to Ernesto Lecuona's Malagueña. Of course, it's a WIP, so it needs work. For instance, I still need to add dynamics and phrase shaping, but the parts are pretty much hashed-out. It is a little robotic an repetitive at this point, but I'm hoping some phrase shaping can fix that. http://www.corneriasound.com/betamusic/koro_pno.mp3 Samples: Garritan Authorized Steinway Piano Pro

I firmly believe Apple should move back to the mouse that originally shipped with the Apple IIgs. ( http://apple2history.org/museum/peripherals_apple/a2gsmouse.html ) On a more serious note, the Logitech G5 is the best mouse I've used to date. Also, it isn't just Apple that has decided that the keyboard is more about looks than about how touch-typing feels. Some runs (but not others) of Dell's keyboards just feel squishy and nasty. With Dell, I think it's QC failure since some are fine, but others feel like I'm typing in jello. Also, what's with this trend of putting laptop keys on desktop keyboards? I can tolerate those disgusting keys on laptops, but when I'm sitting at a desktop, I want the real feel. What's next? The return of chiclet keyboards? *shudders* Seriously, though. Aple's Form > Function approach is like a disease. Other companies are starting to catch it, too.

Not necessarily. If they were smart, they'd get a bulk deal and get them for like half of what would be paid retail. Unless they decided they wanted to profit off of them, which I believe is not a nice thing to do to your customers.

While I understand why libraries can be expensive, it doesn't explain the need to force users to purchase additional hardware for the sole purpose of copy protection. If you must have dongles, include one in the damn box. If Steinberg can do it, why can't EastWest? Sticking it to your customers like that does nothing to deter piracy. Or better, use Software encryption like Garritan does. I know $50 is nothing compared to the $1000 library, but there are things I would rather do with $50 than buy dongles...

On this day (Jun. 6) in 1984, Alexey Pajitnov of the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow created a program just for the hell of it. He and his colleagues became addicted to it. This program would become world famous, be the subject of lawsuits-o-plenty, and an example of how government ownership of all creative work has a major downside. Pajntnov called his creation Tetris. And Tetris (or a clone/variant of it) has since been ported to everything imaginable. In honor of this historic day, I present a rough draft of an arrangement of the Russian Folk Song Korobeiniki ("The Peddler"). Or perhaps you know it as Music A from Tetris. The song is actually about a man who sells stuff and has nothing to do with blocks. It's just a quickie, about 2 mins long. Starts off slow and legato and builds, getting louder and faster until the end. http://www.corneriasound.com/betamusic/lbtetris01.mp3 This is a rough draft. I may or may not finish it.

Hmm... Maybe... Definately a challenging one. Even though it sounds nothing like it, this piece makes me think of Holst's Neptune for some reason... O_o

Garritan is doing a free online version of the Principles of Orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov. http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=77 I learned most of my orchestration through listening and trial-and-error, though.

Ah, a great piece to source. The good: :00 I like the use of cellos/basses here :44 Nice piano writing here. I like it. General great ideas throughout the piece. The Bad: ~:15 You need to mix the piano better into the orchestra. It sticks out way too much. ~1:35 The field drum sound here doesn't match the style. Consider a regular concert snare drum instead. The part is also too simplistic. It almost sounds like a bass drum part. Look up some snare drum rudiments. A lot of your hits make good accent points, but you need some filler in between. Some rolls would be nice, too. It's also too loud. 2:50 - There is no transition into this key change. The long note in the basses doesn't provide any preparation for the listener of the key change, and as such you get a feeling like you're driving along and you hit a pothole. 3:16 - This feels tacked-on. Either transition into it better, or replace it with a simple single-note bass stinger. Overall: Nicely done, arrangement wise. There are a couple of minor things that need attention with the arrangement, though. Firstly, make better use of your string section. It can really enhance your transitions to have some moving string lines instead of chords. Secondly, your percussion sounds like an afterthought. You cymbals were used properly, but your snare drum writing needs a lot of work. Consider using a brighter-sounding snare sound in this piece, as well. It sounds like a heavy field drum, which is a sound more suited for a march. Also, consider using some accessory instruments or even some lighter snare parts in the earlier parts of the piece and ending. Some timpani rolls on some of those transitions could add depth as well. There was one transition that needed much attention as mentioned in The Bad. Also, refine your ending to make it feel like part of the piece. Performance is where most of the trouble lies. Balance: The piano is the dominant instrument, but the rest of the orchestra matters. Make sure not to totally drown out the strings. Also, back your snare drum off. It needs to fit inside of the orchestra sound. Phrase Shaping: There is not a wide dynamic range here. More dynamics will turn an already good piece into a great one. Also, don't be afraid to lean on the tempo to bring out a phrase or emphasize a transition. Panning: It may be just me, but I swear I hear basses panned to the left channel. Right side, please. Most orchestras put them there. Overall, I think this is a very strong piece. With a little polish, I would expect it to sail through for a YES on the panel. Great ideas, I can't wait to hear more from you.

Remember, my intention was not to drag you through the mud. I wanna help! The seed is there. With development I sense that you will be able to do some amazing things down the road. My goal is to help you identify what works and what doesn't. Those are some good first steps. Just remember: the biggest weakness here is transitions. Focus your attention there.