Splunkle

Tweak mainly talks about the big three DAWs - Sonar, Logic and Cubase. Logic is Mac only (unless you get one of the oooold versions), so that leaves Sonar and Cubase. Of course, there are a great many other programs that can what those do, so don't feel that you have to use those. That being said, Reason isn't enough, purely because it can't record audio. I was also driven up the wall by its rather basic sequencer. But if you can control Reason from Albeton live happily, and Live can record audio, then you don't need anything else. Okay, so moving onto hardware, the big question is, do you have an Amp for your guitar, and is it sexy awesome? Because if it is, then you shouldn't need a DI box. Just set up you guitar and amp and whatnot as you normally would, but put a mic in front of the amp - you will need stand, most probably - and then plug the mic into the mixer, and get your mixer all set up with your computer, then just hit record on you computer, and play! If you don't have a amp you want to record off, then you can plug your guitar into a DI box and then plug that into your mixer (in fact, some DI boxes use phantom power, which is pretty neat as you don't have to futz around with batteries). The advantage of this is that you don't have a huge amp disturbing your nieghbors - hell, you play just with some headphones if you wanted to. The disadvantage is that you have to emulate an amp in software - you can talk about that with the actual guitarists that hang aroud here. As for the two mics thing, well, condensors and dynamics are used for different things. You would probably be best micing up your guitar amp (if you have one) with the SM57, though some people use condensors for great effect. I'd just buy the SM57, and then see if I want another mic for different stuff later. 1204 Xenyx isn't half bad - I have one myself. Of course, it won't give you Mackie quality mic preamps, but unless you have a really good room to record in that will hardly make a noticeable difference. Something to note is that you can save yourself a fairwhack of money by avoiding the 1204FX - Behringer effects aren't as good as free software effects you can find on the internet. The Audiophile 2496 is also a fine sound card, so no issues there. I haven't used the monitors, so I shan't comment on them. As for how to rig this all up. Well, I assume your keyabord has line outs, right? They will go to one of you stereo channels on the 1204. The mics will go to the mono channels. So that gives you a stereo channel free, and two mono channels for other mics and whatnot. You could go mixerless, but you would have to get one of those hugely expensive multiple in/out soundcards. I know next to nothing about this, but I thought I should mention it as an option. You wouldn't have to pay for the mixer in this case, though depending on the soundcard you might still need a preamp for you mics.

Vauge Memories of someone telling me I should... errr, let me see if I can find it... Ahaha! Because Tweak says so!

Errrr... I'm no expert on the matter, but I think you should probably have your system rigged up so that the computer receives the sub output, and the main output goes to the speakers. NFI if that has anything to do with mystery silence, though.

Well, I've listened to the piece for the gazillionith time and I think you are right Avaris - this needs some big huge structure changes. On the other hand, with the old intro gone, it means the last part of the old submission to the judges is gone too! It also means I don't have to futz around with that organ - the thing about church organs is that they aren't velocity sensitive, so making them sound like they are being played by a human is quite tricky. Mastering is going to have to wait until I get some new headphones, as my old ones broke. =( Still, I'll see what arrangement changes I can swing with my speakers. Thanks again muchly for the advice, Avaris - as always it a huge help.

1) Errrr... Generally, when we are making music, we don't want to enhance the audio at all, instead, we want it as "true" as possible. The end result, the music will sound different for different set ups, so we want a set-up which is as neutral as possible, so we can hear as many possible flaws in the music and correct them. Thats something that distinguishes consumer sound gear from pro gear - the consumer ones will try to make it sound good, but the pro ones will try to render it as accurately as possible. IIRC, the X-fi series are all consumer cards - don't worry just yet, most people start on consumer stuff (hell, I started mixing with my onboard soundcard) but upgrade to shinier stuff as they get better and better. As for Headphones and the like, I think we have a sticky all about that buisness... 2) Never used Cool Edit Pro, so can't help you there. A lot of people have used the free Audacity to great effect, though. As for the unbalenced music - well, maybe your X-fi is more like a pro card than I thought =P. You'll get better at mastering with practice - don't worry about it too much. Though, I thought reason had some awesome mastering stuff built in, so why are you using Cool Edit to do that? 3) Logic and Cubase are both DAWs (Digital Audio Workstation or somesuch). Both are very powerful, though logic is Mac only. There is also Sonar, and thats the big 3 DAWs. There are a bunch of similar products, like FL studio and whatnot. Most have demos, so see if you can grab some of them to try out, and see what you like. 4) Monitors refers both to the screens that display video output of your computer, and speakers specifically designed to render audio accurately. This does get somewhat confusing, having the one word refer to video display device and speaker, but to be fair, they both allow you to monitor the output, so it does make sense. 5) I honestly don't know what you are saying here. As a final note, don't worry if your first pieces suck. Everyone starts off crap. Then, they eventually write something good, with gets them all excited to write something better, and so on and so on. So just keep at it, and you'll get better and better!

Okay, so apparantly there are some permission issues with that copy. So, on my backup server, I have a new version. Minor changes, the most noticable of which is a volume boost. So tell me all about it! Linky.

Sadly, if a sample is 22KHz, there isn't anything you can do to up it to 44. =( What you can do, though, is grab another sample! Try the Papelmedia "Ahhh" Choir demo. Its not super-awesome, but with a bit of love can be made to work.

OMFG those vibes are spooky. Thats probably because of their crazy ass rythym thing they have going. err, anyways, I notice this is only encoded at 22Khz! up it 44, and you should be able to hear an improvement in the vocal sample. Unless the sample is 22Khz. In which case, get a better sample. I think there was a really nice free choir soundfont by Papelmedia or something that was nice. Anyways! This song is really empty, which I am totally down with - except what the hell was with those strings at the end? At 2:08 they suddenly kick in, and then the song ends at 2:16! WTF. It fine to take an ambient track, and then go places where it isn't all empty and stuff - but you actually have to go there. Currently its like story, where with have all this intro stuff, and then there is somekind of dramatic action and the hero falls dead of a heart attack within 10 seconds. Not a good story, not a good track. If you are planning to extend the track, and the strings will go somewhere, thats cool. Just make sure you do go somewhere. Speaking of structure, some of your chords and stuff didn't seem to have a purpose - they just seemed to be filler, they didn't seem to go anywhere. You should, when a song is streching out to this length, kinda have an idea of where it is going, and then you need to make sure every part of the songs heads towards that goal. Figure out where everything is going, and point it in that direction! Once you do that, it shouldn't be half bad.

As a general rule of thumb, if a DAW (For the fruity user, thats what we call programs like FruityLoops) has an export to .mp3 function, it probably won't be as good, quality wise, as if you use something like LAME (which is a free, open source .mp3 encoder). There are quite a few graphical frontends for LAME - I use RazorLame, but it doesn't really matter which frontend you use - as long as they still use the LAME codec it shouldn't effect the sound quality at all. So what you should do, is render (or export) your song to .wav. Then, encode it to .mp3. Using LAME with some smart settings, you should quite easily be able to get your song down to 6MB, unless its over 6 minutes long. Then things start getting tricky. For the settings, use joint stereo and VBR to help keep it small, and if it still isn't small enough lower the minimum bitrate. If any of this didn't make sense, I apologise for my rambilings, but you can look it up on wiki and google. You should also find some neat advice for LAME settings all over the place.

Thank you muchly for your thoughts, Avaris and Richter! I return with an update, though it kinda took forever. Shouldn't have spent so long futzing around with the ending. Anyways, here's some of whats changed: - Added some delay to the intro organ, which is the same as the end organ by the way. Not that it is at teh end anymore, as I - Removed the organ from the end. I played with the ending a lot, to try and make it more excited, but didn't really get anything I liked, so I've kinda left it out for now. - Added (lots of) Cymbals for the second chorus. yaye! - Added a huge 6/4 build. I may have been listening to way too much explosions in the sky when I added this - yell at me if it works/doesn't work. - Few mastering touchups. Still not super-compressed though. Might work on that next release. Hope you guys like it! Linky.

Damn, this is hot stuff! Finish this!

ooooo... The bass at the very begining didn't get along with me for some reason, but it buggers off quickly enough, its no big issue. Then we get huge distorted soundscape, which is quite nice indeed. Though that synth on the right, I would detune it some more, to add to the atonal awesomeness. Also, huge massive grats for using the synth guitar as it is supposed to be used - a backing thing, not a lead. Errr, anyways, onto the more mellow orchestral thing. Actually, orchestral isn't exactly my thing, so I'm not going to say much here, except that the bit with the oboe sounds a lot like the bit with oboe from Darrengan's mix. =P The ending is rather crappy right now, what with it just ending and all. I'm not sure where you want to take the piece from here - you could go back to the distorted soundscapey bit, or you could just fiddle around more with this orchestral stuff until you get a conclusionm, or mix the two or something. What is needed, though, is some sort of climax. Do that, then I'll see how it all fits together.

Definetly submit this. I'm not hearing any problems at all, and while the judges might hear some, they will tell you what to do to fix 'em. So either it gets posted, or you get some neat feedback. Win-Win!

The soundfont Suzu linked too is preety hot as far as sampled guitars go, actually. But yeah, if you actually want to continue to do this massive recording thing, then you should probably use Dreamwave if you can, as its designed for that. Failing that, if you only need a few notes, FPC could be the way to go. Plus you would get mad props for using a drum machine as a goddamn guitar sampler. If you need lots and lots of notes though, then FPC won't give you enough patches. In which case, enter the HUGE ASS layer. Good luck!

Wait wait wait. Didn't Perfect Dark use MP3 music or something? Wouldn't that mean it could sample all the way up to 16/44.1? Hmmmm... Aha! From Wikipedia: So the 64 could do all sort of random shizz wih sound, if you weren't doing anything else. =/

Glad to be of service, DAB.

Okay, last time I tried this, the judges didn't like it. Listening to it now, it rather understandable. Anyways, so once I had a bit of distance to understand what I gaffed up, I decided to give it another go, this time bringing more of what I learnt about percussion from other projects. So lots and lots of changes. Its hardly the same remix, actually. Linky here. I'm still not entirely happy with it, but I'm happy enough to throw this out here so you guys can yell at me to fix my mistakes. So... Yell away!

Use a Layer! I think you are either asking how to layer instruments, so you press one key on the keyboard, and both play, or how to split your keyboard, so, ohhh... lets say C5-C8 is Piano, and C3-B4 is strings. Layers are used for both in Fruity. Method for layering: 1) create a layer channel. 2) click on the channel so you get its properties box thing. 3) Select the channels you want to have playing both at once, and then click "set children" in the layer properties box thing. 4) select your layer channel so Midi data is sent there, then play away! The method for spliting is the exact same, but after doing all that, you set the ranges in each instruemnts properties box. Its the keyboard down the bottom - left click to set the range. To use the above example, open the piano and left click on C5, then left click on C8. Do the same for strings, but C3-B4 instead. Then play!

With a modern computer, it is generally best to get the biggest Power Supply unit you can afford, what with everything sucking down juice like crazy. But I would say that it is more important to get a brand name PSU than the rating. I would much prefer a 500W thermaltake than a 600W no-name. Coolermaster is good too, and there are several others that slip my mind right now. With that setup, I would go for a 500W PSU at least.

I <3 those detuned guitary things. <3

Oh shizz, not half bad. Like how the synths are constantly doing random stuff. Thats very nice. But your drums. You are using default FPC sounds, right? =( If you are going to do that, make sure you process them right. You beat is good, but I can barely hear it. Low-end is kinda critical in a chilled mix like this. I honestly think you would be best off getting some new samples in there, but failing that, bust out ye oldy compressor, and give the kick and the snare some punch. Don't go crazy or it will be all "chill-chill-UNTS-chill-chill-UNTS-UNTS" and thats bad. But you do want to be able to hear the kick drum. The snare also needs love - I would put just a wee bit of reverb on it, but that could be just me. check out zircon's guide to mixing drums for some other tips. The second bad point is that a lot of these synths are presets. Nice presets, to be sure, but I've heard a lot of them, and they kinda stick out. Now I'm not saying you should go forth and programm your own synths and stuff, but at least shake the presets up a little.

Fruity has an inbuilt voice synthersiser. Its called something logical, like... "Fruity voice synthersiser" or somesuch. Its all fairly straightforward. Type in the text, fiddle with the properties so it sounds how you want it, and then when you hit the big tick it will dump it into a slicer channel for you. Keep in mind that it wont sound like a real voice, of course... but its great for robot voices.

SF: Most trance synths are done using subtractive synthysis. Just about subtractive synth can make those trancey sounds, if used correctly with the right effects. Don't expect to just be able to make trance right away though - you need to learn a lot about production and whatnot first. At least, if you want to make good trance. As for guitars, I maintain that synth guitars are perfectly fine for certain jobs. Taucer is right though, you really need to spend ages and ages tweaking trying to make it sound acceptable. And even then, you probably aren't going to get a satisfactory lead guitar, unless you sequence like a god. BUt for background thrum-thrum type stuff, yeah, sure, synth guitars will do the trick. As for the VST not working correctly, check the hlep file - its all in there.

Well, a year, yeah, but thats doing other stuff as well, like making a living. =P I suppose if you were rather familar with synths, musical theory, composition and whatnot you could probably learn enough about FL to make some good stuff in about 2 weeks. But by the sounds of it, thats not you. I have to back the others here - it is great that you are eager, but don't rush it too much. Don't burnout, don't force yourself. The most important thing is that you have fun when making the music. You should want to open FL and get down to mixing, kay? If you have to force yourself, its not fun any more.

It always takes a while to get used to the workflow of any particular program. Don't feel musically stupid - we all started like this. As for how to get started on the right foot with remixing, well, I'm not so sure about that. You do need to learn how do both compose and produce, so as long as you are learning at least one of them when you are music making, I don't think you could go to far wrong. Look around the web for some tutorials - some are incredibly helpful, others less so. We have some preety cool links around, so make sure you use all those - should take you a while to get through them all. As for sounds, I'm preety sure just about all the samples that come with fruity are in the packs folder. I think they might have a soundfonts folder as well, with a string ensemble soundfont in it too, or something. Anyways, while you can do some preety awesome stuff with these default samples, I do rather reccomend you expand your collection - you can never have too many drum samples. I should probably explain what soundfonts are, right? Well, a soundfont is a collection of samples. What the collection is can vary - sometimes its just a single instrument, like a piano, other times its a whole bunch of different instruments, like the famous (infamous?) squidfont orchestral. Anyways, plenty of places have soundfonts - the problem is finding the good ones. To get more soundfonts, and other samples in general, check ou the sample thread - should be plenty of links in there. VST is a format that many plugins use to talk to the host program. A plugin that uses the VST format is often called a VST, plural VSTs. A plugin is simply a thing which "plugs in" to a host program. In FL, we can class them, much like everything else, into generators and effects. Generators make noise. Usually they are synths or samples or something. Effects, on the other hand, manipulate noise. For example, a reverb effect will take a sound, figure out what the reverb will be, and output both the original sound and the reverb. So a VST could be just about anything. Oh, and before I foget, don't foget to have a look through all the songs that came with fruity - a lot of them have notebooks that explain just how they were made and whatnot.