Splunkle

Sounds like you have found the master pitch slider. Leave that one alone, unless you know what the hell you are doing. You want the channel pitch knob. Its up at the top of the channel properties window. Thats the window you get when you left-click on a channel.

Compy, you mentioned Bob Katz and his K-system. I looked over at his site the other day, and read some of the stuff on the K system - and was wondering how I could master my stuff so to one of the K standards - I like the idea of never having to touch the volume controls on my speaker. The thing is, Katz keeps talking about a VU meter, and how it wasn't the same as a peak meter, because the VU meter's needle is delayed a few hundred ms so it gives an average loudness reading rather than a peak loudness reading. This makes sense. But I don't have a VU meter - only the loudness meters in FL. Now I can render my track and get the RMS for any part of it - but is that the same as the VU meter reading? Is there a VST you know of that give me a VU meter, or an equivalent? And to make my track fit the K-20 standard, do I just need to make sure it stays around -20 dB RMS, getting a little louder (4dB I think he said) for the loud parts? I know, I know, lots of questions. But important ones, I think. @ Sephfire: What other music are you listening to? As Compy said, mainstream music is getting louder and louder. To illustrate this, get an old, but still availible CD (Say, Led Zepplin - Remasters) and a brand spanking new CD, (say, The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth) preferably pop or pop-rock for both. Compare percieved loudness. So if you want to check if you track is really quiet, compare it to some older stuff - preferably either straight off the CD, or ripped yourself by a program you know won't screw with the loudness. Or you could compare it with some classical stuff - that's always very quiet, becuase classical fans demand that the dynamics aren't screwed with.

Methinks the lack of bass and mids could be due to the microphone used - it would seem, from the voices, to be the microphone on the camera. I don't know jack about amp settings, though, so I could be completely wrong.

Linky to a computer music article on atmosphere. I've tried a few of the things in there out - most of them are neat, if nothing unique. As for tricks of my own, well, that depends on what sort of ambiance one is going for. Generally, people mean that huge verb + filter sound, but its much bigger than that. Or at least, thats what wikipedia tells me. Anyways, I would say the most important think I have learned is too keep varying up the sound. Since ambient music often has an extremely slow moving melody (or whatever you want to call the progression of notes), I think it is important to keep the sounds changing so that it doesn't become repeditive and boring. Also, try to mix up different ways of doing this - LFO's, automation are the main two ways, but you can also do peak contol, bizzare keyboard mapping, whacky pan-o-matic stuff and all sorts of bizzare stuff. Experiment. Curiousity For The Win.

That would be +10, but one would have to be careful with hosting what VSTs. Just because its free doesn't mean one is allowed to distribute it.

Thats because its all 32 bit:

I would reccomend the SM 57 if its just one mic. You can easily use the 57 for vocal work, far easier than using a 58 for instrument stuff. Get a 57. Its not OMG WOW at anything, but it will give you fine results for everything. Especially on your budget. And really, unless you have a studio with sound dampening and all that jazz, you wont get much of an increase in quality in going above a 57. As for all the other stuff: You will NEED a preamp - the mic won't function without one. Whether the preamp is just a preamp, or part of a mixer, or whatever, doesn't matter so much, as long as you have a preamp. Unless your onboard solution is awesome, you are going to need a good soundcard if you want quality results. If money is a problem, get the mic and preamp first, then save up for the soundcard later. You will be able to record using your onboard, it just won't sound too good. But at least you will get used to whatever program you are using to record, and whatnot. Then, when you get your new, shiny soundcard, you are all ready to go. Oh, and when you get a new soundcard, foget about any sort of consumer product. You need the pro stuff now. Thankfully, the pro stuff is quite cheap these days. You can grab the aforementioned EMU 0404 or an audiophile 2496 for just under US$100.

Firstly: Zircon's remixing tips part 1 gives a bunch of hints about drums, and even though it is largely focussed on electronica, it mostly applies to rock too. Anyways, what I often do is start with the "basic" 4/4 beat. The one with a kick on every 1/4 and a snare on every 1/2 of a bar. So we start with this: snare:----X-------X--- kick: X-------X------- Boring. But then I just add and subtract as seems fit. For example, a really simple change would be to add a kick on an 1/8, like so: snare:----X-------X--- kick: X-------X-X----- If you need something with a bit of bounce try adding one of those off beat snare thingos, and take away the middle kick: snare:----X----X--X--- kick: X---------X----- Once I needed something with some real energy, so I made this little thing: snare:----X-X---X-X--- kick: X-------X-----X- I don't think any of these are particularly wonderful or great, but they get the job done, and thats what matters, right? Oh, and if you wanted advice on cymbals... well I dunno. I usually make a bunch of cymabal patterns, a bunch of beat patterns and then mix it up so it isn't all boring. Also, as stated above, many of the tricks from Dance and stuff are heaps useful, like ghost hits and the like. Oh! Don't neglect processing. Rock drums have to sound like rock drums to sit in the mix right. Make sure you got your compressor, EQ, Reverb and maybe even distortion plugins out, because you are going to need them. EDIT: Fixed up the code bits, because hypohons are clearer than little X's. Also, read what Suzumebachi said and realised that he is right, rarely is the kick drum hit at the same time as the snare. Also realised that if you want extra spice, try some cowbell. Because I need more cowbell [/reference]

Better at what, man? give us more specifics. What woudl it be used for, etc...

Well, I've never had such a problem, but it does sound like that battery plugin is doing random stuff. Firstly, turn on Smart disable, that should ease up the load on your CPU. Secondly, try exporting the drums tracks alone using the mixer's export channel function. Then do the rest of the song, and paste the drums back on using your wave editor of choice. Not elegant, particularly if you are doing your copression and whatnot in Fruity, but it will work. Or, you could export the drums, as above, then put them back in as an audio clip. Hells yeah. I was under the impression that note bending was expressed in cents away from the root note, not as two distinct notes... if it was two distinct notes, wouldn't it be a slide? Anyways, I know FL can only do slides with plugins that support the FL standard, unless you do the monophonic thing. Perhaps this is the problem? I'm afraid I have no experience with the guitar thing your using, so perhaps someone else could be of more help to you.

I would go listen to the BBC's theme. Thats the British Broadcasting Commision, to all you Americans. Their theme is all synthy and stuff. They use it all the time, from 10 seconds between programs to several minute long background music.

Not that I am particularly knowledgable about crazy time signatures, I have been told that Dave Brubeck's Time Out album, and its successor, time further out, explores all manner of whack times.

Each meter tells you a different thing. thats why you have lots of them. The meters on the mixer tell you the output of the channel in question. The meter up the top tells you the output of fruityloops in total. Normally, these are the same... but they aren't. For some bizzare reason, probably as a holdover from v1 or something, FL has total volume slider that isn't the master slider on the mixer. Its up the top left somewhere. Make sure that is set to 100%, and the top thing will be the same as master channel dB meter. Oh, for your info, the top thing flashes red when it clips. Solve this by limiting. Also, I find the dB plugin useful as it tells me what the levels are in the middle of a chain of effects. Nifty.

Heh. There are plenty of places to learn the basics of theory, it just isn't here. I'll reccomend http://www.teoria.com/, and also wikipedia for learning some basic theory. Then go grab some sheet music, or Midi's, of a song you really like, and see how they do stuff. Then, once you got some theory under your belt, pop back over here, and we shall tell you how to use you sequencer all awesome like.

http://www.teoria.com/ One of my bookmarks. Very good, in my opinion.

I do believe, that having asked such an unbeleiveable question, nobody will answer until you read the help file. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, READ THE HELP FILE. PLEASE.

Easy. You can only do them with generators that suuport them, but most of the naives synths and samplers do, except the TS404. Anyways, to make a slide, go into the piano roll. First, draw the note you wat to start at. Then click the slide button, which is the funny thing near the top left corner with a triangle in a corner. Then draw the slide at the note you want to slide to, starting from when you want to start sliding, and ending when you want to the slide to end. Easy, da? If you can't find the slide button go look at the Help file. Slides are under piano roll, if I remember right. They also show you how to do more funky stuff, like sliding multiple notes, sliding some notes but not others, and so forth. Not entirely sure what you mean here. Dynamics is a whole range of things, like velocity, peak volume, RMS volume, Compression, etc. Also, you dont automate channels. You automate Knobs and Sliders. Could you re-phrase your question so its clearer?

I believe somebody was talking about using the playlist to chop and slice up their samples over in another thread not too long ago. Hopefully they shall read this and illuminate the matter for us. However, I do remember that the demo song for FL4 called "my body" or somesuch, had a lot of stuttered vocals. Check that one out, if it still ships with FL6. Regardless, you need to read the help file on Audio clips. FL's helpfile is really quite useful, particularly on funky stuff like audio clips. So go read that.

I don't see how compression emphasizes dominant frequencies any more than simply turning up a volume knob would emphasize dominant frequencies, as it's just affecting dynamics. Maybe I'm missing something. This just seems a bit misleading. The loudest frequencies will hit the threshold first, this is why you always add EQ after the compressor in your chain when you compress bass. Ummmm... I might be missing something, but unless you have a multiband compressor, then won't the whole signal will be compressed at once? That being said however, I have heard a subtle difference in the way things sound after compression, but I thought that was just a combination of dynamics and my poor ear. If it does do wome funky stuff to various frequencies, it would be nice to know what. Anyone care to elaborate?

Some stuff that would be really handy to know: 1) What mixer are you using? Bonus points for finding images online. That way we know what sort of inputs and outputs you have. 2) What sort of monitors do you have? What inputs do they take? 3) What inputs does your soundcard have? Having said all that, A few things leap out at me: a) Why is your guitar preampy thing connected to the mixer and computer? If the mixer outputs to the computer, thats redundant, no? The thing labeled "some kind of additional output?" usually exists on most big mixers, even if it is only a pez headphone port. This is why it would be handy to know what type of mixer you have. Also, Props for the Paint rendition of the guitar. Awesome.

Heh. I should have thought of that. As Zirc said, killing volume spikes is a good thing. But still, the amount of compression or limiting in a classical song will be almost nothing in comparisson to the latest pop hit. Also, I would like to add a qualifier to my previous post: Over-compression is sounds like canned badness. Don't overcompress. So really, the conclusion should read like this: Compression, in appropriate amounts, is cool.

I find that uncompressed stuff often sounds awesome - if you can crank your speakers up. When I listen to classical, I always crank the knob all the way up, because otherwise I can't hear the quiet bits, and it makes sure the loud bits are loud. But not everyone has that option. Scenario: You live in an apartment. Walls are thin, and the people in surrounding appartments really don't like noise. Solution: Turn down your speakers. Scenario 2: You have pez speakers, but awesome headphones. As such, you prefer to use your headphones. The problem is, headphones at loud levels tend to damage your hearing, especially if they are used all the time. Soultion: Turn the headphones down. The problem now is, if you are listening to an uncompressed song, you can't hear the quiet bits. But if the song is compressed well, that isn't a problem. Sure, you lose some dynamic range, but hey, huge dynamic range isn't very important in a lot of genres. Conclusion: Compression is cool.

Yeah, its like Zircon said. If you think about it, they can't use a normal average, because the wave goes both above and below zero decibels. So to make the whole thing positive, we have Root Mean Square, which solves the problem by squaring the number (I hope you recall that a negative number squared is a positive number). Of course, then the square root has to be taken else the values would be all weird, hence Root Mean Squared. The thing is, it could refer to the overall volume of the track, or just one bit of the track. It is an average of volume over time, but the time period is whatever you se it to be. For example, I have had songs where the chorus was -11dB RMS, but som eof the quieter verses were -13dB RMS. Overall, RMS was about -11.5dB or somesuch. Also, I think something to to keep in mind when mastering is to keep who the track is intended for in mind. If it is designed for a club, dynamic range isn't that important. If its for home listening, then remember - as Zirc (I think) mentioned earlier - to ensure it isn't all OMG LOUD. Disclaimer: I am not, by any means, a mastering engineer. If someone more pro than I says otherwise, go with them. Especially if its Compyfox.

A lot of things inspire me in the sense of "Wow, that's beautiful" - but nothing leads me to actual notes in the sequencer. I don't look at art and suddenly hear the melody "A - B - C - B - F - E" (from good morning, by tefnek btw). I wish that were the case. Interesting. I must say, with me its not like the notes pop into my head, but they get me thinking. Its when I am reflecting on something that the music comes. Even then, often it is only vauge ideas, like wanting a certain bit of the song to sound dark, while another needs to suggest water dripping. Its then up to knowing what sounds dark, and what sounds like water dripping, and put that in the song. So I suppose its not like the art inspires we to write music directly - its more like it gives me some sort of emotional framework to work with, which in turn gives my muse something to work with. I don't know. Muses are fickle things, and sometimes when they go away they take a while to come back. It is a damn shame that someone as excellent as you had your muse go all tempremental on you. A damn shame.

Thanks for the quick answer guys, I think I get it now. I was using the Fruity compressor, which might have a limiter built in as well, as no matter how hard I push the gain, it never clips. Curious. Also, I was wondering just what analog style clipping was. I know that guitar amps (well, most guitar amps) work by pushing the signal too hard through a tube amplifier, which gives that lovely distortion we all know and love, because overdriven tubes to cool things. But then I was also told that in the old days of recording, when everyone was using tapes, many engineeers delibrately cranked the volume up so that the tape would clip, because this produced some sort of spiffy effect, but a different effect from the tube amp. So I was wondering, when people say analog style clipping, are they refering to one of those forms of clipping, or something else alltogether?