Splunkle
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Posts posted by Splunkle
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Mmmmmmmm... distorted guitar... umm, right the drums.
Well, I would say there are two problems here. The first one is that you aren't thinking like a drummer. Thinking like a drummer will really help, especially when you are going for a realistic drum sound. Heres some examples:
- Those opening hi-hats wouldn't be hit in exactly the same fashion every time, with exact timing. You have done some velocity editing (I think) but make it just a wee bit more random. Timing editing is tricky, because you don't want your drummer to sound like he is drunk, but you do want him to be human. Just keep it small.
- This drummer is either one of the most calm dudes ever, or hes insane. He has a guitar blasting full volume next to him, and he has got his same old hi-hat pattern going on behind the snares and kicks. Surely he would be more excited, and be bashing the hell out of hi-hats? Give him some new patterns, and load up some more aggressive hi-hat samples to use here. Also, vary up the cymbal fills. Keep your drummer interested.
Now the second problem is the production. The drum samples are fine by themselves, but what needs to happen is for them to fit together with themselves and the guitar. Now there is a lot of boom in those toms and the kick drum. This makes integration with the guitar tricky, because the fading boom makes everything all muddy. So if you are adding the boom with reverb, I would make sure you aren't reverbing the lower frequencies to avoid the mud. The other big production thing is compression. You have the drums quite loud. A better idea would be to have them less loud, but to compress some of them a little - particullarly the kick and the snare. Not enough to kill the dynamics, but just enough to give certian elements a bit more punch. If you really want to make sure a drum cuts through the mix, add just the tiniest amount of ditortion.
I think thats just about all I can help you with now. Zircon did make a very cool tips 'n tricks about drums earlier on, which can be found here, along with all the other tips and tircks. Give that a read.
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I'm trying to remember how black rose immortal went... bugger. I'll have to dig out the album sometime. Anyways, I think the guitar work here is very nice - its a very nice recording. Can't hear any hiss or clipping, so good job there. If you are doing the effects for the guitars in fruity, they are quite well done indeed.
I'm guessing the drums are fruity - if so trust me when I say you can do a lot better and a lot more - it'll come with practice. This is very good for a first effort. Also, look at your hi-hat samples, as one of them seems to be cuting off prematurely. The only other synth seems to be the phased thing in the background, which I don't have any problems with.
All in all, a damn fine piece of music, at least from a production viewpoint. kinda repeditive in terms of arrangement, but thats okay, given what you started out trying to do. Nice work.
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Hmmmmmm... lets see what has changed since last time...
Pads sound much better. More Sci-fi niceness. Hi-hats are a definate plus. The transition feels more natural. Its still "hey guys, we are moving to the next section now", but much more charming about it. Nice use of LFO on that synthy backing thing, btw. And the cross-fade to the closing piano is very nice indeed. The extra minute of ambient noise after the piano stops is kinda pointless though - it needs some more presence if you want it to use it as a fade out. I'm thinking it could work, in a sort of Dreams in Red fashion. Also, that intro piano is rather liberal in terms of its treatment of the melody. I think you should be okay, because theres plenty of other times the melody gets love, but some disagree. eh.
So, to conclude, quite a bit better than the last time I heard it... version 3 or something? Anyways, I think this is really sounding cool - but do fix up those breathy outro sounds before submitting
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Holy shit. That chorus is on fire its so hot. Very nice indeed. Though, its kinda hard to see how this is trip hop, but that could easily be me not being able to tell without vocals - but hell, that doesn't stop it being awesome.
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Bubble Wrap? On a dog?
This world gets stranger every day.
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That intro bit, where nothing but the bass is playing, is very boring. I would make it more interesting - filter automation, methinks.
Once the whole song gets going though, its damn awesome. I particularly the edge of distortion on almost everything.
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Argh, gorram bots. Anyways, moving on:
String intro! Nice intro of the second layer. Guitar is kinda weak, but the strings are thick, so its not too bad. The piano is nice. The drums are dull. damn, man, is the only variation here the toms fills (which sound artificial, anyway)? I know from your synth rock stuff you know that drummers get bored doing the same thing, so fix that up.
Also, where the hell is the low end? You have some strings down there occasionally, but the kick drum has no, well, kick to it. Give it some love, man!
Okay, so moving onto all this orchestral stuff you have going on... AHAHA! love the drop at 3:30! Awesome. No problems with the samples here - you use EWQLSO silver, don't you? The judges might get a bit angry about the level of re-arrangement, but for zelda's popularity, I'm actually not that famillar with it, so I'll leave all those thoughts to the judges
Nice work - but really, fix those drums.
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My primary aim of this project was to break out of my bad rythmic habits (ie. 4 to the floor beats) and work on my mixing/production skills. I think I generally succeded with that, but I totally agree that some tracks are kinda FL-sounding. I did try to avoid that though, hence the heavy use of sytrus in some tracks, and use of my small but ever growing number of samples. I think it stands out most in the title track because the sounds are preety fruity (well, except for that Electric Piano soundfont which I got off soundfonts.darkesword.com
) and there aren't very many of them. So I definitely need to work on getting more samples and synths, and learing how to use them well. Sytrus is proving to be really powerful the more I learn about it, but there is so much to tweak!
Thankyou muchly for the feedback!
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Okay newbies, listen up: There is no such thing as a good distorted/overdriven guitar sample. If anyone tells you they have a good one, they are lying.
You can use generators, such as FL Slayer. But for our poor ears' sake, don't use Slayer. Unless, you are, like, Skaven, or someone else who can just make anything sound good somehow. Sometimes you can get away with using Slayer as a kind of backing rythym guitar thing. It is also very good at sounding like a fake guitar - check out BGC's (that Big Giant Circle's) Unreal Tournament ReMix for an example of that.
Errrrr... back on topic. Right. Yeah! Don't use Slayer. Apparantly, other guitar generators exist that don't suck as much, but you have to pay monies for them.
Another option is to get a clean (undistorted) guitar sample, and then distort it. This can work suprisingly well, depending on the sample, the distortion unit, and piece of music. Try to use a proper Tube amp simulator - I have found Voxengo Boogex works well sometimes.
Your final option is to either learn the guitar or get someone to play it for you. I know, kind of a waste of the guitarist's time if its just going to buryed in the back of a track somewhere, but if you need a lead guitar part, this is strongly reccomended.
Here endeth the lesson.
EDIT: Totally Ninja'ed by Yoozer.
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Sou: I am really glad you liked it! I also wish you much luck in learning about music - if you ever have any specific questions, ask over at the Remixing forum, and I'll be sure to help - assuming I know the answer.
Avaris: I am also rather glad you liked it, as it is a quite different flavor from my Ur-Quan ReMix. Much more beat focused, and a whole lot less organy. But actually, I have started work again on my Ur-Quan mix. I'm trying to fix some more problems the judges had in the original, so its going to feature some preety huge changes. Like, 4/4, for starters. =P
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The cover was by Decaf Coffee, a most excellent dude from over at the Wotch Forums. The style of music is happy electronica, a kind of synth-pop, I suppose. I'm no good at this whole classification thing. Anyways, it clocks in at just over 21 megs, so go download it, and tell me all about it!
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Whether you need a new sound card or a POD XT depends on the quality of your current sound card. If its so crap you have noise everywhere, then yeah, get somehting new. But if it has an acceptable amount of noise... well, save up for something you really need.
Idealy, on has a quality amp (I have no idea if your amp qualifies for this), which one then records from using a microphone. This requires at least US$200, I think, doing a quick mental tally. Preamp + Mic + soundcard... errr, maybe $300. You could do some research into various options - google gives a whole lot of info about miccing up amps. But you know, only if you are willing to lay down a lot of money. A pod XT is much cheaper, no?
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Ummmmmmmm...no.
I will however, tell you to get your browser and redirect its ass over to http://video.google.com/. There were some nice explanations of the basics up there a while back - and I can't imagine anyone woudl take them down. I'll leave you to figure out the searching. =P
Good luck!
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I should really get back and practice with my harmonica more. I'm really rusty. Anyways, to play harmonica, you need to learn how to purse your lips so you are only playing through one hole at a time. Or you could try that buisness where you use your tounge to block holes, but I have no idea how to do that. Anyways, once you have figured that out, then the rest is just a matter of practice. Unless you want to do all those pitch bends and stuff, so you can play blues style.
What else do you need to know... oh! There are lots of different types of harmonicas. To start with, most people get a 10-hole diatonic harmonica, which is the "standard" as such. Diatonic Harmonicas are tuned to a major key, usually written on the harmonica itself. The point is, you have to get the right key for the song. This usually depends on who you are playing with, and what style you are playing. If you just want to practice by yourself, a Harmonica tuned to C makes it easier to learn to read sheet music. You can always grab another harmonica later in a different key.
Thats all I got for now. I'm no harmonica genius, but I can bang out a few tunes (or used to be able to... Damn you, lack of time!) Anyways, if you have any specific questions, I'll try to answer them.
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Firstly, this should live over in ReQuests, methinks. Just so you know for next time
Secondly, I haven't played the games, but I must object to your sentiment that the playstation is "hardly ever" mixed. Lets get some numbers here:
SNES: 410
NES: 332
PS1: 161
Genesis: 121
PC: 71
Arcade: 43
N64: 42
Gameboy: 32
PS2: 27
C64: 26
Master System: 21
Amiga: 18
Dreamcast: 16
Sega CD: 14
NeoGeo: 9
Xbox: 9
GBA: 8
Saturn: 7
Gamecube: 6
Turbografx: 4
GameGear: 3
32x: 2
CPC: 1
Jaguar: 1
Macintosh: 1
Virtual Boy: 1
X68000: 1
Thats all the systems mixed so far, near enough. As you can see, the PS1 is the 3rd most remixed console on the site. Of course, this doesn't address the lack of Digimon mixes.
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I'd do what Taucer says, given your budget. But, if, in the future, you have more monies, and that amp is a amp+cabinet, not just the amp head, then grab yourself a microphone - an SM57 should do fine, and mic that baby up. Of course, you will need a mixer or a nice audio interface to use the microphone as well...
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Ocremixfan, thats just the thing, the music did sound old school! Older than the 70's, anyways. It had this whole string quartet + piano thing going on. Very much awesome. When I hear that intro, I get all these mental images of gentlemen with monocles and ladies with those awesome 19th century dresses, all of them watching the musicians on stage weave their magic. But I have a hyperactive imagination. The point is, I think the old school style suits the sound of the LP - they complement each other nicely.
Though its all a matter of a opinion.
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You guys sure know how to confuse a n00b....
Maybe you could condense all this info into a tidy little solution for me:
1. Drums will need to be programmed.
2. I would like to use my Fantom as a MIDI controller to record what I'm playing verbatim as MIDI data to be played back by a sequencer. I would also use it as an easy way to enter notes in to a sequencer.
3. I would also like to record what I'm playing on the Fantom as audio data and be able to take, for example, a 4 bar bassline and turn it in to a loop that I can drag out/copy to any length that I want.
4. I also want to be able to, for example, record me playing piano for something like an outro and be able to simply place it in the song.
Don't worry about price with these programs, I have a friend that works at a music store that can get me a great discount.
1. Any sequencer can do that.
2. Any sequencer can do that.
3. Reason drops out here, although I think FL can do it
4. Now FL and Reason are out, best bets are Sonar, Cubase, Logic, etc.
There are work-arounds for each of them to be able to do all of them in Reason and FL and such but full-fledged DAWs such as Sonar, Cubase, Logic, and even Ableton Live are your best bets. I reccomend you try them all out (well, I don't think Cubase has a demo) before you buy.
As Zirc said, Fruity is fine for number 4. Audio clips! But maybe the others do it better? Anyways, totally agreed on Reason's lack of audio recording. =[
Anyways, since price is no object, get demos of Sonar and Fruity. Except you already got the fruity demo. Get the Sonar demo as well then. Oh! and that is assuming you are on windows! If you are using a mac, Logic all the way, though GarageBand is apparantly neat for starting.
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There goes my wonderful metaphor. =[
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Okay! Firstly, before I delve into the mix itself, you may be interested to know that there is a Xenogears project looking for remixers (just a few mroe, IIRC), and this is one of the unclaimed tracks.
Secondly: Awesome shizz. Love, love love the old school crackle on the intro. Also nice how it smoothly runs out of the crackle. The transistion to electro is somewhat sudden, which if you going for suddeness is all cool, but some might find it jarring. The percussion is solid, and I particularly like the variation there (someone's had fun with filter settings). I can't really comment too much about the strings and whatnot, becuase there isn't much more than that in the brief snippet you have delivered. The mixing is good, though.
In short: want more.
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I tried both. I found the sequencer less irritating, because I could at least see all the samples I was playing around with. With Redrum I kept on having to switch back and go "arrrrgghhh, when did I have those hats playing" and so forth.
I suppose this illustrates that when I'm doing drums, I really need to have all the samples I'm using in front of me. Which is a great reason why fruity is awesome. Plus the inbuilt swing thing is really handy, though I think Sonar/Cubase/Logic do jazz too.
The one thing I wish fruity did was to change the colour of the note in the step sequencer depending on the velocity. ReDrum had three colours, one each for soft, medium and hard hits. Thats the only thing I wish fruity would do, actually. Just make it a little easier to tell what velocity a note is without having to bust out that mini-editor thing.
So in conclusion, since Nicole actually prefers drumming is reason, which I admit I am somewhat amazed with, this just shows that you should demo everything in your price range!
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It's known as Music 2000 in the UK, and it was released on PC. It's not so crap that it doesn't allow me to import my own samples. I use plenty that I've pilfered from the internet.
Besides, it's my lack of mastering skills, not my software that's the main problem. I know full well that with a bit of nifty mastering you can make any old junk sound like gold, regardless of what it was composed on.
NO. OH DEAR LORD NO. Mastering isn't some magic process for turing shit into gold - at best, it will turn shit into slightly less odorous shit. Given gold though, it will polish that gold until it glistens! You can't polish shit though. Actually, this polish analougy is preety damn neat - I might use it in future.
ANYWAYS. Its important that all your other steps in the production line are good! If its sounding muddy, just make everything less loud to start with! Then apply EQ to EVERY CHANNEL THAT IS MUDDY, NOT JUST THE MASTER CHANNEL. If this Music 2000 thing won't let you do that, then get yourself a half decent sequencer and go from there.
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I must disagree, Nicole. I really, really tried to get into reason's drum programming... but I couldn't. Fruity's is just much, much faster. Yeah, reason is very easy to pick up, particularly if you are familar with hardware drum stuff, but Fruity's step sequencer is just way, way, way faster and more versitile once you get the hang of it. Not that getting the hang of it takes very long.
I suppose this could be nothing but my personal opinion, so again, demo everything!
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On both the being stood up and the temporary break. But hey, burnout doubly sucks, so I'm sure I can live with it.
Music Theory Questions
in Music Composition & Production
Posted
Hey, CE, I can't help you much with the analysis, but just so you know, Fruity will only display other piano rolls in this patten as greyed out. So you want to display, say, two violins, and only two violins, just copy both of them to a new patten, and enable... ghost notes? I think thats what it is called. You clearly know it - the greyed out note thing. Hope that helps