Kanthos

How to load a lot of stuff without killing the computer. I know that making things sound clear instead of muddy comes down to good panning, eq, levels, and a good sense about what to have playing and what to keep silent at any given time. I was meaning more like are there any tricks to load samples partway through a piece, whether you or others tend to stick to soundfonts as much as possible to keep memory down, whether it's better to get some parts the way you want them and render to audio tracks, that kind of thing.

Apologies if this is a redundant post. For some reason, my computer at work hates cookies, despite my best efforts to fix that, so whenever I do a search on the forums, I can never view more than the first page of results. I use FL Studio, but this isn't strictly an FL Studio question, which is why it's not in the FL Studio thread. I was listening today to the Zircon and Pixietricks interview on The Next Level and something that struck me about the Final Fantasy VII remix was the number of different instruments that were used, in addition to the vocals. So far, I've tried to make two remixes. The one that was intended to be orchestral fell through mainly because I didn't have enough ideas and it was turning out too similar to the original track, but I also had trouble with EWQL SO Silver. I didn't have a ton of stuff loaded, wasn't using keyswitches, and was using at most two patches per instrument, but usually one, and I was still running out of memory. I have 2 GB of memory (and 2.4 GHz CPU, if that's relevant) and didn't have much running in the background (I terminated/exited every task I could before launching FL Studio). I could easily do a small group, like a string quartet, but trying to load all four orchestral string instruments, a decent brass section, a few reeds, piano, and some percussion was too much. I didn't even have any effects applied either; when creating the mix, I was just going with EWQL and planning to do effects later. I can't remember if I was using DFD or loading everything into memory at the time. However, I expected that with EWQL, you'd be able to recreate a symphony if you wanted to and had enough skill and attention to detail, and I managed to push the resources of a decent computer enough to know that I could never pull that off the way I was doing things. What I'd like to know is what the secret is to making a mix sound interesting because there are enough instruments. What I did notice with the FF VII mix is that there were never a ton of instruments playing all at once, but overall there was a large number. Is my problem just using too good of a sample set, and should I consider using some instruments from EWQL SO and some from soundfonts or other sources? Are there any other tricks I can do, either within EWQL's Kontakt player, Kontakt 2, FL Studio, or other VSTs that help conserve memory but still allow for a large number of samples/sounds? I welcome any tips/advice. Kanthos, aka "He who will actually finish a remix once his masters is done"

Thanks for the tips, everyone. FL Studio was definitely using the ASIO drivers. Either using Offline (bounce) mode within kontakt or Rendering Mode Notify in the wrapper fixed the problem.

I'm having trouble getting samples in Kontakt 2 to play back cleanly in FL Studio. I'm not entirely sure which program is at fault here, since Kontakt plays cleanly in standalone mode. What I'm doing is playing an acoustic bass from Sonic Capsules Basses on my keyboard (a M-Audio Axiom 61), doing a jazz walking bassline, and recording the MIDI data in FL Studio. In FL Studio, it clips a lot of the notes both as I play back the data and as I record it, although the MIDI data itself is unaffected. If I play back the already recorded MIDI data with something else, like the B4-II, it plays back fine. It also plays back fine when I export the data. It doesn't seem to make any difference what my DFD settings are for Kontakt, or whether or not I'm using samples or DFD for playback (samples would make more sense since this song will only have about 5 instruments in it and I have 2 GB of RAM); either way, it randomly cuts off notes shortly after I begin playing them. Does anyone have any idea about what this might be?

http://www.countrycallingcodes.com/ should help you out.

Bump

It's a snare drum without the snare turned on. The snare itself on a snare drum is a band of thin curled metal wires that are locked into place against the bottom head of the drum and vibrate when it's hit. You can loosen them, which gives the snare the kind of sound that they use in the video.

Can anyone recommend a soundfont or other sample of a trumpet with a harmon mute?

Kanthos: Level 53 gnome mage on Steamwheedle Cartel, officer of Order of the Bloodmoon. Aquatic: Level 10 night elf druid, also on Steamwheedle Cartel and in Order of the Bloodmoon

Definitely don't assume your audience has good bass. People listening on a flat EQ (on their MP3 player or computer software, not on your mix) on an average pair of headphones won't have any bass boost. Mix the bass to where you want it to be, so the bass is balanced with the rest of the track. If someone has speakers or headphones or software with bass boost and wants to use it (or thinks that with bass boost on, there's too much bass), they can turn it on or off as they wish.

I found the podcast two weeks ago, and iTunes would only let me download from episode 40 on, so that's all I have. I'm definitely not going all the way back to episode 1, at least not until I'm caught up with the current ones.

I'm still trying to catch up on the back issues of the podcast before I get to the current ones, but I would definitely be interested in hearing more about remixing. I probably know most of the basics, but I don't have much experience and would welcome any more tips from seasoned remixers.

Not just any Miles Davis either; it screams "Bitches Brew/In A Silent Way". The sax player's tone sounded a lot like Bob Mintzer from the Yellowjackets.

I'm Kanthos, a programmer and soon-to-be remixer/arranger. I'm from Canada, and am just finishing off my masters in artificial intelligence. I play piano and sax, as well as dabbling in a few other instruments like various percussion (including drum kit and mallet percussion), bass, and clarinet. I've never done any remixing before, but have a lot of good ideas for a few songs, so I'll hopefully be submitting remixes here soon. I listen to about 45% jazz, 20% classical, 25% game music, 5% musicals (Rent and Wicked especially) and 5% rock/other (mainly U2 and Great Big Sea). I play World of Warcraft (Kanthos is a level 45 mage at the moment on Steamwheedle Cartel), Oblivion, most Final Fantasy games, and various other RPGs.

Currently working on a remix of a medley of a few tracks from Morrowind and Oblivion. The only other partial idea I have at the moment is a remix of the Gnomeregan theme from World of Warcraft.

Finale's free product is pretty good; I found it to be at least as good as Noteworthy Composer. For around $60 CDN though, you can get Finale PrintMusic. I used it for transposition and writing/arranging more reed parts in a university production of Footloose this past year, and it was a huge timesaver. I recommend it highly over Noteworthy Composer, despite having used NWC for about 8 years previously.

Well, I've finally got the software I ordered (*mumbles about academic pricing being good, but the special orders taking *forever*). I did go with FL Studio XXL for two reasons: one was the price, and the other was that I'm wary about buying a piece of software (Cubase, in this case) that I can't demo first, or at least watch someone else use. They won't do any demos now unless you buy the copy protection key first, and I don't like the idea of paying $30 for something I may only use for a couple days. Anyway, I put the extra cash saved on a sequencer towards EWQL Symphonic Orchestra, so now it's time to actually write something.

If you want a great example of a piece in a compound time that works, check out The First Circle by the Pat Metheny Group. It's in 22/8, split into a group of 12 (3, 2, 3, 2, 2) and a group of 10 (3, 3, 2, 2), and most of the piece is in that time signature, with a bit of 4/4 and 6/8 thrown in to make it work. The neat part is right at the beginning, when the percussionist and others in the band are clapping a counter-rhythm to the opening theme. As a whole, the piece is really listenable too, and it's the group's most popular tune.

From what I've read of the Remixing forum before I posted this thread, I'm not surprised at the direction this is headed. Anyway, ignoring the obvious influences of people pushing their favourite product without really being able to compare to others... 1) I'm not the kind of person who would avoid Cubase in favour of FLStudio simply because Cubase has a higher learning curve. I'm new to digital music but not to music as a whole, and I'm a 24-year-old grad student in computer science. If I can handle reading technical papers about artifical intelligence, I can pick up what I need to learn these tools, given enough time. 2) My thought with respect to a notation editor was to make use of Finale PrintMusic which I already have and am extremely quick at using, do a midi import into a sequencer, and retouch/apply soundfonts. I should've worded my question to suggest that, not that I'd intend to use Cubase's built-in notation editor. The general concensus seems to be that piano roll or other forms of entry are faster than notation and produce better results. 3) Compy, you mentioned that FLStudio's wave editing capabilities were limited. In what way(s)? 4) You also mentioned SX4. Would it be worth holding out for that? Actually, I'd probably not end up waiting anyway since I should finish my degree (and hence not qualify any longer for the academic pricing) by the end of August. 5) Compy or others, any reason for preferring Cubase over Sonar, other than that you've been using Cubase for so long? 6) I also tried to find a demo for Cubase, but Steinberg has pulled all demos off their site now. You have to spend $20 on their USB protection key to even access the demos. A local music retailer confirmed this. I also couldn't find a way to contact their support without being a registered user. I think I'd need some more convincing on why Cubase would be better than the best of whatever products I'm able to demo before I'd be willing to spend a lot on it.

My background is someone with a little composing experience, a lot of experience arranging using Finale and Noteworthy Composer, a strong theory background, and a lot of years experience as a pianist, percussionist, and wind player. I don't have the budget now for a midi controller or keyboard as well as a sequencer, and am wanting to get the sequencer. I'll likely do some remixes while learning the sequencer, but I'm mainly looking for tools to create high-quality orchestral music mainly in a classical style for an RPG I'm involved with. Many of you have a lot of experience working with sequencers, so I'd appreciate any help you can give in light of who I am and what I'm trying to do. Some of the questions here are in lieu of being able to find a Cubase demo to get. 1) Is there anywhere to get a Cubase demo? I've downloaded demos already for the other sequencers mentioned in various threads here, but can't find one on the Cubase site or elsewhere. 2) How do FLStudio and Cubase compare? Is it worth the extra money to get Cubase, or save the cash for a decent set of orchestral samples? 3) Is it worthwhile to get Cubase SX over SL? 4) As someone used to reading music notation, does that affect the choice of FLStudio vs. Cubase? Thanks for your help!