Kanthos

Why is this posted under the Reason section? Your question is about hardware (and possibly a VST-based guitar effects plugin). Analog vs. digital doesn't mean a whole lot. Some guitarists will swear by a particular distortion pedal, while others use software packages like NI Guitar Rig 3 exclusively. The distortion effects on the Motif XS definitely aren't crap, so if you're not getting results you like, odds are you either don't know how to tweak distortion effects as well as you might think (or you haven't tried doing that at all! Don't expect, with *any* instrument, that factory presets will be all you'll ever need), or you're looking for a particular distortion sound and not finding it on the Motif (which doesn't mean that the Motif sucks, just that it doesn't cover every distortion pedal ever I used to own a Line6 PodXT, the same model that my boss, a guitarist, uses. I'm a keyboard player and was using the effects in different ways from him. I wasn't happy with my results, even when using a guitar sound, but I loved the results he got. It's because he knew what he was doing really well and I didn't Now, there is something to be said for tube distortion on a keyboard - the Korg Triton Extreme is the only keyboard I know of that uses this. Analog circuitry has a certain warmth to it that most digital devices do not have. So, assuming you're still set on getting pedals, I've already answered your question, I think. Yes, there's no reason why you can't use effects on your keyboard. All kinds of classic keyboard players did that in the past with keyboards like the Rhodes and Wurlitzer. I have a fairly big collection of tracks from classic rock and jazz that feature those instruments, and can't think of any songs off the top of my head that had clean keyboard parts (other than EQ of course). So yes, choose your effects wisely and have fun

Set your sound input in what to stereo mix and microphone? Sound Forge? Why not record just the stereo mix in Fraps and your microphone in Sound Forge? Or if you need to record all the audio in Sound Forge (don't know if Fraps records audio or not), record the stereo mix and microphone onto two different channels?

Pixietricks. To some extent on her OCR material, but moreso on her own albums (see http://www.jilliangoldin.com). Also, Destiny/Helen Trevillion (again, she has her own music too).

If you're recording acoustic instruments, the SM-57 is the mic of choice if you're on a reasonable budget.

Yep, all good

I need a correction, please. Under FOR SALE, ::PC::, I'm listed as selling the Diablo battlechest. That should be the Starcraft battlechest.

There are none. MIDI files aren't audio: they're closer to taking sheet music and encoding it. Figuring out what notes are playing from an audio file is a very hard thing to do for a computer.

Please remove the following under FOR SALE. :::pc::: Diablo Battlechest (full box & manuals): $15 plus s+h [kanthos] :::psp::: final fantasy 1 - $12 [kanthos] :::gamecube::: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (I bought it used in original case; disc is in great condition but can't remember offhand if it has a manual): $10 + s+h [kanthos] Please add the following under FOR SALE. ::gb/gba::: Blackthorne (cartridge only, perfect condition) - $15 US + s+h [kanthos] Final Fantasy VI Advance (cartridge only, perfect condition) - $15 US + s+h [kanthos] Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (cartridge only, perfect condition) - $15 US + s+h [kanthos] Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past/4 Swords (cartridge only, perfect condition) - $15 US + s+h [kanthos] Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (cartridge only, perfect condition) - $15 US + s+h [kanthos]

The OP-1 is an actual synth with, from what I've read, both subtractive and FM synthesis. It's way more than the Nano series.

Chrono Cross is PS1, not PS2. The Disgaea series was good.

I'm fine with that.

Programmer, in the industry full-time for 2.5 years plus 3 full years of co-op placements during undergrad, plus I've got a master's degree. Hit me up.

I don't have any background whatsoever reading comics, so I'm curious: what was so horrible about volumes 2 and 3? I'll admit that I liked volume 1 best, sure, but didn't find 2 and 3 to be that bad. I haven't watched any of Volume 4 yet (going to wait until it's finished and watch it over the course of a couple nights).

Wouldn't it be more like he gave up? Congrats Karl!

So, synth sounds? Find yourself a tutorial on subtractive synthesis, and then look up stuff on zircon's list of free music tools. Synth1 is good and free. Just don't expect to understand them at all if you don't know how subtractive synthesis works in general.

I use the Comments field to do that kind of thing. Fill it with a list of tags (I comma-separate them for easy reading), and then make a smart playlist using "Comment Contains Saxophone" as the criteria, for example.

It wouldn't be a simulated mono signal; it would be an actual mono signal. I don't use guitar rig anymore, but I think I remember them saying that some of the effects turn a stereo signal into mono if a stereo signal is input. In a normal guitar pedalboard, it's basically a given that things are done in mono, since that's the signal you'll get from your guitar; Guitar Rig is no different. Depending on the effects you've used, Guitar Rig may give you real stereo out, but more probably will give you stereo by having the mono output on both stereo channels. Panning this stereo track in your stereo mix will give you what you want. As for panning the output from Guitar Rig, that'd depend on how you've set it up and also on what DAW you're using. If you have Guitar Rig as an insert effect, hopefully your DAW will pan after all the effects are processed, and the normal panning on your DAW's mixer will give you what you need. If I remember correctly, physical mixers pan after the insert effects have been processed (if the mixer even allows for insert effects; more often, those are applied to a signal pre-mixer). On the other hand, if you're using a send bus for Guitar Rig (if you're sending two or more audio tracks through the same instance, you probably are), you're basically making a mixer track that is processed in addition to the others that are clean, and both will play back unless you somehow mute the clean track after sending to the Guitar Rig track. Your DAW will let you pan the send track directly.

Which version of Guitar Rig, and what effects are you using? Many guitar effects are mono so there wouldn't be any panning on them anyway. I'd do the panning in your host after the audio has been processed by Guitar Rig. If you're running multiple instruments through one instance of guitar rig and trying to pan them individually, that probably can't be done.

Incredible work. Do you have any training on drums or are the beats just things you picked up from what you heard? Also, I'm curious to know how you have the kit arranged. You've obviously got a lot more of each instrument than what you'd find in a standard GM drumkit setup. What software is hosting the samples you're using, and do you have any tricks you could share about how the samples are arranged? It seems like you've got a setup that's arranged the different samples to make it easy to remember where different sounds are. Also, how did you do the machine-gun snare? Was that something you triggered specially, or did you somehow play that?

I second the recommendation for Kelly's; I've bought a few products from them. They've always shipped quickly and their prices have been good. One caution though: the site seems to default to the American version, at least for me, so you'll see prices in US dollars. You can change your country to Canada in the top-right corner of the site. Just make sure to always check that (searching seems to throw it off, at least for me) so you know that you're getting the price in Canadian dollars.

Fair enough; I'd heard a bit about it a few months ago and didn't realize they were porting to Windows. Kind of confusing when a particular OS is in the product name

Songsmith isn't really Garage Band if that's what you're suggesting. It lets you record a single melody line and doesn't really let you shape a piece. It's more of a toy. Also: don't bother with LMMS; you're not exclusively a Linux user, which would be the only reason to create music in Linux. And don't bother with Audacity right now unless you have a need for it. Knowing a tiny bit about waves can be helpful, but as a complete beginner, the first thing you'll want to do is figure out how to arrange a complete song and get the sounds you want. It's unlikely that you'll need to touch a wave editor for a significant amount of time. When you do, however, Audacity is definitely the way to go.

Finale isn't a DAW. Reaper is. DAWs work with real audio, whether you record it from an instrument or record MIDI and have the MIDI trigger a software instrument. Notation programs are used for writing notation so that real people can read the music; they happen to have some playback capabilities so you can hear what you're doing as you write it, but the quality won't be good. For your purposes, you want a DAW, not a notation program.

What's wrong with first gen, prophet? Or are you saying that just because second gen is a better machine than first gen (although equally hackable)? Also, could you please remove Diablo under For Sale::PC? Sold it on craigslist this weekend.