The Vagrance

Ok, here's one method of doing it that I found in FL: Here (Save as) As you can tell its all being done in the peak controller with the kick controlling the peak controller and the compressor gain tied to the Peak+LFO invertedly

Whoa! That's awesome! I've always liked that effect in techno, but never knew it had a name or how to do it! I'll have to monkey around with that. Can a sound like that be created with FL 5? Yeah, that was made in Reason where its extremely simple to perform but I know its possible in FL, give me a minute and I'll crank out a .flp for you with sidechaining.

If there was a button on FLStudio that said "Final Fantasy Remix" and when it was pressed it would pop out a generic remix of an FF tune this would probably be the result. Its really generic. I will give you props though for starting out in the full swing of things, I liked it a lot better than the minute or two of just kicks, although its a bit too sudden. The gated saws are extremely generic, either add something to them or lose them. The piano adds a bit to the feel but it feels just a bit too much like a gimmick. The drumwork is decent at best, its a bit too generic sounding though. I really love the pad in the background though, you nailed that one spot on. Anyways, I have a few suggestions: 1. Get rid of all the presets, either mold them to fit in together more or lose them completely and start from scratch. I almost never use presets anymore, and when I do I always mangle them enough and use them more as a building block than anything. 2. Replace the piano with something else, a synth maybe but the piano ain't working 3. Replace the drums, get some new samples, layer them on each other, then compress and EQ to how you see fit, at the moment they're just really generic dance drums. 4. I can't stress this one enough but with the atmosphere from the pads, it work work damn near perfect if you started doing sidechaining. Its a technique I recently (as in within the past month) have started doing but it causes an amazing effect as far as atmosphere goes. The best way I know how to describe it is its kind of like what a modulator is to a vocoder, a sidechain is to a compressor. Whenever the sidechain activates it compresses. This effect is used to insane extents in Filter House (like Daft Punk - One More Time) in order to get that "wooshing" feeling. Here's what I mean: Without Sidechaining With Sidechaining Point is, doing this could add a lot of atmosphere. I may come back later and tell you how but a couple of searches around should teach you how to do it. 5. Get a good bassline in there. I can hear a quick Triangle/Sine-based wave going in great doing a bit of variation on the rhythm, or maybe one of those huge Saw "whomp" basslines where the filter envelope has a bit of attack on it so as the filter increases and kind of "slaps" down if you will. This type of bassline would go outstandingly with sidechaining as you can get the bass to cut in and out with the kick. Anyways, hopefully this helped, good luck with remixing!

On DOA Future Sickness Recordings decided to have a remix contest and so I've entered. Its really not too late to join in but you will be under a lot of pressure if you join in because its a short deadline and fierce competition. I've heard a few others' remixes and I really like that I interpreted it quite a bit differently. The original thread, sample pack, and song can be found here. My remix can be found here. Enjoy.

2Radical: I think its filled up enough, I'm pushing 0db avaris: The pads were from BT's Twisted Textures ReFill, this was all done in Reason and I started this before I had Absynth. I doubt there'll be a misinterpretation for trance as this is pretty far off, the only real similarity is the snare roll. As far as melodic content, it seems like enough with the piano, strings, and "tha kicka bass" (I forgot I had named it that). Actually the majority of this remix was made in the summer, I've just made a few minor changes (mostly mastering as I'm seeing all the mistakes I made whenever I first did this, especially with EQing), but thanks for the compliment anyways. Radiowar: I altered the first note by cutting the velocity quite a bit, I see what you mean, it does add a little bit. I also turned down the pads just enough to not overpower anything. As for that note at 2:11, it seems just personal preference because I can't really hear what you're talking about. Any other comments? If not at the very least I'll ship it over to zircon or Liontamer or bgc or something to have a listen.

So I've had this done for a while, and after doing a bit of mastering I feel content with it, so do you think its ready to submit? link: www.thevagrance.com/music/vgremixes/ctremixfinal.mp3

Give this man a Pulitzer Prize for deepness or something.

I cannot recommend Sonar enough in this topic, I absolutely love that sequencer. Some people may complain because it has a higher learning curve but once I got past that I'm slapping down ideas faster than I was with FLStudio. Its VST support is also much better than FL, especially with NI stuff (at least from my experience). Also, it comes with all the same stuff as Project5 + more plugins such as the absolutely astonishing V-Vocal plugin (there's a Youtube video of Cakewalk using it, its essential for vocals), the excellent Perfect Space reverb (instead of digitally creating a reverb it uses actual reverb samples, in the end it sounds very very nice), ACT (which basically will auto-map the parameters on your MIDI keyboard for you), and a new Vintage compressor (think PSP's Vintage Warmer). Its definately worth a check-out.

Get the Kavlava pack also, go to other, more production focused forums like Dogs on Acid and you'll be able to find plenty of samples.

bump

Haha, an 8-minute long super mix of a 8-bar looped song, I love it, maybe I will...

I see we're off to a good start already! /sarcasm EDIT: I'm tempted to do multiple remixes of Invasion, my latest idea: Boards of Canada-styled Invasion. In fact, I think I'm going to start off the "Invasion" site project where all of the mixes are of Invasion, a grand departure no less. EDIT 2: Happy 2-and-a-half month anniversary!!

Thats... mine? Wow, right to my face, and you didn't even realize. I give up. I think I'll go crawl into a hole, no one even wants me... I think I feel worse than Arek. Arek, pretend to feel bad, thats the only way it'll work. Seriously, you don't need star power (although it helps). As long as you have good mixers, and an original theme... Snap! I've got you beat! HA Ha haa.... suckers. No, no, really. Thats what makes a difference. Since yours is "just another project" (no offense), you've got to get it hyped. Make it as good as you can. Obviously. But contact everyone. Listen to 200 mixes... seriously. Then pick the top 15 favorites in the style you want. Then contact those people. Haha, no offense to you man, I am in that project after all, it was more of a general statement but whatever... >_> Also, mostly new guys for a project isn't bad at all, after all, look at, well, this topic.

We've tried a huge amount of people but right now the main theme is there's too many projects going on right now so everyone's busy. There's the FFVII project zircon's doing, that Radical Dreamers one that just started, Links Awakening and Pokemon have projects going, there's the boss battle one thats starting, there's the Mega Man IV one thats trying to get off the ground, with all of these projects going on there simply aren't enough remixers around, especially "big name" ones, so thats probably the main reason why recent projects are mostly new guys. I have no intentions of leaving this project whatsoever and I plan on seeing this through to the end, despite having many other goals.

Really, really, cool, thats all that needs to be said.

Very very nice, but right now the music seems like much less of a leap in style. Your production's been notched up a tiny bit but overall it doesn't seem to seperate itself too much from your other work. I feel almost as if I've already heard this before, only not quite as glitched up. Its not bad at all, like I said before, very very nice, especially the percussion, but this doesn't seem to have enough direction and isn't as much as an album seller that Coactive (the main reason I bought your album) and Haven were. Anyways, nice work, just make sure you keep pushing yourself, its amazing how much your style improved from your first album (Synthetic I think) to Chroma, just keep it up.

So I have a pretty nice computer IMO, definately capable of producing. Its an AMD Athlon 64 Dual-core 4200+, 2 GB of RAM, and an Audiophile 24/96 sound card, yet I always seem to have trouble with my CPU levels in Sonar. Anyone know why this might be happening? When running one instance of Kontakt in Sonar with the Steinway D piano preset that came with it the CPU meter will leap up to 100% whenever I hit even 3 notes at once. Do I have to do something to run both cores at once? Are there some tips on how to free up some SPU and RAM?

VSTi's are virtual instruments, usually synths but they can also be samplers, drum machines, etc.. BAsically, they're physical pieces of hardware, only they're digital. You can edit the sounds with VSTis, but it takes a while to get to grips with exactly what does what.

Not necesarrily true, and if I had dual monitors there'd be countless ways that I could use them. In the end, it depends on what you're using and if you find yourself struggling to have enough space. Whenever I use FLStudio, an extra monitor would be very useful as that way I can view the pattern arranger as well as edit individual patterns, all while still having VST windows and whatnot. In Reason it would be less useful as it was made to work on just monitor and have everything in an all-in-one view, but whenever I use Sonar it would be infinitely helpful. From editing the MIDI patterns while tweaking a synth, to using both the console and the track view at the same time, to many other things. In the end it depends on if you feel as if you don't have enough space in your DAW and you need more room.

What I am wondering about (even if it is off-topic), is what makes you such an expert on dnb? You be a rudeboy junglist who smokes da herb at raves every weekend, or do you get it all from torrented albums? I don't consider myself an expert but I do consider myself very well-versed on the subject. Every day I hit up DOA, about half of what I listen to is DnB, and I even produce DnB. I've personally never been to a DnB set in person (too young to do that) and almost none of my friends actually dig it but I still consider myself knowledgable on the subject seeing of how thats the main form of music that I know about. Anyways, sorry for the off-topic posting zirc, you may now continue with your regularly scheduled song thread already in progress.

Actually its worth mentioning that pretty much all the tunes Pendulum uses that kick and snare (with the exception of Hold Your Colour) are not really respected at all by the DnB community. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who dug Slam on DOA.

I'm really suprised this is getting all the anttention it is, before this topic there was another (for the original version and the first versions of the collab) that got up to about 45 posts. Anyways, I'm about to message JustChris and see where he is on this, I have a long weekend coming up so I may end up finishing this piece...

Lol, thanks for the compliments, I still haven't heard back from JustChris but trust me, nothing this good will die before being accepted, patience is a virtue my friends.

KVR Developer's Challenge has finally begun as the free synths have been released, and there are some amazing ones out there. Anna is a complete beast, although a huge CPU hog so you'll most likely be bouncing quite a bit of audio with it. The VS-1000R is also quite amazing, and the Grizzly looks really cool and I would jump on it if I didn't already have a great drum sequencer (I have Battery II so I'm set anyways). Point is, check 'em out, you'll find at the very least one thing you'll like.

Necesarry? No, but is Absynth necessary? Is Reaktor necessary? Is a $1000 guitar necessary? Is a samplepack necessary? Its not necessary but it sure helps