The Vagrance

No, we are actually talking about techno here. I hope you're kidding because the differences between Breaks, Techno, and Hip-Hop are huge, as I've already pointed out.

I'm not a huge fan of vocal remixes, almost all of the time they come off cheesy as the remixers try too damn hard to write lyrics to corrospond to the song too much instead of letting it flow naturally. But, I'll give this a shot. I like the intro, the bells are nice but you ought to maybe try putting them a bit more into the background, aside from that, I love the sounds. It gets a bit repetitive before the vocals. You need them to come in sooner or change things up faster. The drums/percussion aren't bad, they fit the mood but you need to make more than one loop for them, they get repetitive. The vocals, unfortunately, aren't improving my stance on them in remixes one bit. They sound poorly EQed, the recording is crap, you're alright at singing but you don't have the kind of voice to carry a song without any effects, at the very least have some kind of chorus-like effect on your voice to make it seem like there's more than one person. The voice in general isn't anything special though, good for just simple acoustic type stuff with little production, simple things, but for pop-songs you have to have near-perfect pitch (a lot of times auto-tune helps a lot), but not much you can do about that aside from add effects. The lyrics for this are pretty cheap as well, the main rule of pop songs is to try to sound complicated and deep, while in actuality the lyrics are (usually) quite shallow, unfortunately you just kinda went for shallow lyrics in the first place. This isn't bad, but if you're going for a more poppy sound, there's quite a bit of subtleties that needs to be worked on.

DJ Shadow is a hack. I have no idea how he managed to develop such a cult following despite the fact that his music (if you can call it that) is complete and utter shite. By the way, how come there is no Kool Keith on your list? P.S. Timbaland admitted that his music is influenced by d'n'b and breaks. Argh! Forgot about some dudes (Kool Keith, Jazzy Jeff, Prince Paul, RZA). I personally love DJ Shadow, but I can see why other people don't, at the end of the day though, he has got to be one of the best people at sampling. I also don't like Venetian Snares but I can see how some people would.

Meh, sorry to ask so many questions but I am in the middle of upgrading my studio environment. First off, I need a new sound card (all I have is a Sound Blaster Audigy), preferably around $100. I plan on doing recording so that probably means something. Also, will I need to get an audio interface in addition to my sound card or are they one and the same? Secondly, I'm getting a mic, I haven't decided which one yet but thats not the question. My question is, what all will I need if I get a mic? Do I need to get a mixer to control the mic and any other devices (like hardware synths)? And if I do, how do I route that into my PC? Third, does anybody know of a good site for used audio equipment aside from ebay and craigslist? And finally, I'm planning on upgrading from FLStudio to Sonar because I plan on working with audio more and the workflow with Sonar is so much easier for me than it is with FLStudio (basically the whole pattern based sequencing fucks up my ideas and often times I end up just looping stuff alot), is there any particular reason that one of you guys think this is a bad idea (aside from "lol FLStudio can do everything that every other sequencer can and they're just jealous because we 'saved' $300!")?

So Trackers are the way to go? I'm not looking to make chiptunes but rather normal songs and just have the game boy sounds available to me like a synth or something. I'm actually cmopletely clueless aboutt trackers and such but I'm not sure they're what I'm looking for.

Now how exactly would I go about taking it apart to use as a synth (kinda, to produce those cheap old chiptune sounds)? Is there any website with a tutorial on this or anything? Any general help at all? Thanks in advance.

STOP CALLING IT TECHNO!!!! The original Hip-Hop/Rap stuff (I'm talking Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambataa) took after Electro (like Kraftwerk, Herbie Hancock's Rockit and the like. Turntablism also got started somehwere around there too. Since then, Hip-Hop has become more and more similar to breakbeat, while still mantaining an electro base. Hip-Hop is damn far away from Techno in terms of sound, the only place where they come close in the early Techno stuff (Cybotron - Clear) sounded a helluvalot like Electro in its early stages, but since then they've both gone in two seperate directions. Hip-Hop remains influenced by jazz, funk, and partially electro, while techno is influenced somewhat by electro, and house, but in the end is a hard, mechanical style of music. I haven't heard a single Rap song that I can think of that even sounds close to modern day Techno. While most modern mainstream Rap stuff is extremely underproduced, it still provides a somewhat shout-back to the original days of Hip-Hop where a lot of tracks would just be a drum machine, a turntable, and an MC. That said, I personally can't stand most mainstream Rap songs simply because the lyrics are extremely unimaginitive and take little skill to produce. There are some Hip-Hop producers that could walk all over some Electronic producers though, like RJD2, Blockhead, DJ Shadow (although he's kinda in between Hip-Hop and Electronic), MF Doom, DJ Premier, Timbaland, Cut Chemist, Beastie Boys, Mario C, Dan the Automator, Danger Mouse, and The Roots (Yes, I know they're a band, but when they produce shit its hot too, although I like it whenever they just jam out instead). Now that the rant is over, iirc I think you might want to contact Zircon about it too because I think he does similar stuff too.

Oooh! I know how! (Assuming it works the same as my Oxygen 49-key) First you click on the Fruity Wrapper menu (should be in the very top-left corner of your VSTi) and select "browse parameters". Then, you find the parameter you want (like a filter for example) then select "link to controller", then you move whichever knob/slider you want it to link to and voila.

First off I'd like to say thank you, many newbies here will make a post asking where to host their mix, not thank anyone for help, post their mix, get 2 or 3 comments, not comment on anyone elses mix, then complain about not getting enough comments. Many thanks for commenting on other people's mixes instead of just hoping people would comment on yours. Now, onto the remix: I've never heard the original source music (well, I don't think, I recognize the Metroid theme here and there) so I'm not sure how much is original and how much isn't. This stuff kinda reminds me of that sound collage style music, many people claim its brilliant, however I am not one of those people. You need to give some sense of rhythm, a light kick would fit in perfect for an ambiant feel. I like that really wet bell sounding instrument that comes in at about 0:21. The piano sound is really dry and crappy though, get a good piano soundfont then reverb that mofo, and if it doesn't sound good then layer it multiple times. The miramba thing sounds pretty good, I actually like the reverb. As for the song structure, I can't really tell if this song has any. It needs some amount of structure. It reminds me a lot of old Jazz stuff (Thelonious Monk - 'Round Midnight is one of my favorite songs right now) but your arrangement comes off as just lazy rather than bad ass, add some tension and release to your song. Overall, there's something oddly redeeming about this mix to me, probably because I'm into this sorta stuff right now. There's just so much about it that should be there and should be replaced instead though. A good dark start, but needs something more.

We'd have about 50,000 less shitty artists. Don't get me wrong, FLStudio is a good rpogram, but so many noobs pick it up nowadays and expect to be gods among men begin they can make the phat beatz by using presets. In order for people to use CuBase properly, they will have to learn how everything works, and as soon as they start getting sound out of it they'll have a far greater knowledge of how things work than most noobs who use FL will. Also, that synth was wicked, I'd love to have one of those things.

Doing Chrono Trigger - Guardia Forest Remix [Drum and Bass] (Collab with JustChris) To Do Chrono Trigger - Zeal Palace Remix [Electro] Mega Man X - Armored Armadillo Stage Remix [Punk, but it'd be hard to pull off] Mega Man X - Any other Stage Theme [House maybe? Possibly Hip-Hop, maybe some cut-and-paste DJ Shadow style stuff, or just plain ol' breaks]. Stuff I need to Re-Do Chrono Trigger - Zeal Palace Remix [Drum and Bass] Final Fantasy X - Mt. Gagazett Remix [breaks] Final Fantasy X - Hymn of the Fayth [Ambient Breaks]

you...DO know that Reason can't load outside VSTs, right? You can always Re-Wire Reason into FL though.

You can get a crapload of good stuff outta FL, although VSTis help a ton (even the free ones, Synth1 is a Godsend)

My overall impression of this song is that its very unpolished. The second I heard the bass I knew that was the Boobass, and I can hear a little FX thing in the background included with FL. The drums are weak and have no punch, the scratching is really annoying and unnecessary, if you want scratching no one just does that sound, get a real DJ to do stuff, I think there are a couple on this forum. The synths are extremely lo-fi, the strings are terribly bland, and the piano is extremely weak. Getting up to a professional level of doing stuff can be tough, and it usually happens in little spurts at a time. You need to either get quality samples, get a nice VSTi or two, and just browse production boards like this one and others to get ideas as to what goes into a good track.

I know how to play piano a little bit but the more and more I play the more and more I'd love to find out about different styles of playing. I'm not sure how to describe what I mean aside from what I just said, but hopefully you guys know what I'm talking about. The style of playing I like the most is with an organ, I'm not sure how to describe it but I love it whenever someone just barely mashes different notes for rhythm before nailing a chord. In the video of Gnarls Barkley playing on Conan, the person playing the organ (he's on the right and you will see him multiple times in the video) is what I mean (the video link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5JhTIN1vYE&search=gnarls%20conan). I was wondering if anyone also knew of any VSTi's that can emulate this type of organ sound. Sorry for being kinda vague in the beginning but thanks in advance anyways.

ROFLCOPTERZ

http://www.illformed.org/glitch/ You know all of those cool glitchy effects people do? You know how much work it takes to try to automate all of that crap? Well, this dude made this free plugin called glitch, and you can get absolutely INSANE effects right out of it. I've been playing with it for the past 10 minutes and instantly all of these great ideas are popping into my head of uses for this bad boy. Get it, love it.

I actually can't stand the Yamaha brand one bit. A great workstation out there is the Korg Triton Extreme, the 61-key will run you about $1900, its worth trying out and its a popular workstation so testing one out won't be too hard to do. I don't know much about digital pianos and whatnot so I'll skip that. What I can reccomend, however, are synths. One of the most popular and arguably the most powerful hardware synth out there right now, the access virus, has keyboard variants, but will probably run you over $2000 unless you snag a local deal. Minimoog Voyagers are priced under $2000 but personally, I'd go with Novation's Supernova synth. I don't think Supernovas are produced anymore but finding a second-hand one won't be too hard and it won't run you too much either. Another solution is to get a huge MIDI controller keyboard and then get VSTi's. You won't get the warm and unique sound of a real synth but you'll save a lot of money. You probably won't drop more than $500 for the controller (88-key too!) itself and then you'll plop down about $150-300 per synth itself, but in the end you'll end up with a keyboard and 5 synths whereas beforehand you'd just end up with a keyboard.

Thanks for telling me that AFTER I just bought it V_V

What about Roland Samples? Is there something special about them or will I be able to use 'em in FLStudio?

[Mod Edit]

Basically, whenever something important happens I can do a few lines to myself, occasionally I'll remember a line or two and I get it down. Mostly what I do though is rap, too bad I don't have the voice for it (yet, but I'm working on it).

Seconded

He does have a point, but FL is cheaper than most of the rest so naturally it'll have a large group of followers. While its a lot more powerful than people give it credit, whenever I get the money I'm going to upgraqde to Ableton because it does seem to be the Sequencer to beat as everything you do in it is on the fly and its very easy to get ideas down. I tried playing with the demo version and I LOVED it.

Sure, http://media.putfile.com/Meh-71