Moseph

A VST is software. What he meant by "lightweight" was that the Synth 1 VST doesn't use a lot of system resources to run, so his friend can run it on a laptop while gigging. Yes, the sequencer is built into the DAW. Pro Tools' sequencer isn't the most convenient to use, but it will get the job done. There are two types of VSTs: effects plugins and instruments. It looks like you've maybe been looking at the effects, which are generally accessible from the channel strips in the mixing console view (I don't remember specifically how things are accessed in Pro Tools). The instruments, if you have them, might be accessed by something like an insert instrument command in one of the file menus.(Just a technical note: A plugin is an effect or instrument that the DAW can access. A VST is a specific plugin format that many DAWs are able to access. Technically speaking, Pro Tools doesn't use VSTs; it uses a format called RTAS for its plugins, but I think you can get bridges that let you use the VST format in Pro Tools, and it doesn't really matter much anyway, since most plugins are available in multiple formats.)

Also, both FL Studio and Sonar are Windows only, if that makes any difference.

fraheedayee fraheedayee gotta get down on fraheedayee I count four syllables ...

To elaborate on my above post, the reason the multiband compressor worked in my particular case was that I wanted the frequencies in question to be present fairly consistently, but sometimes they weren't present enough and sometimes they were too present. Regular EQ couldn't fix this because the problem was the level of the frequencies relative to themselves over time and not the level of the frequencies relative to the other frequencies. Regular compression also wouldn't work because it would mess with frequencies that weren't problematic.

I just slapped a multiband compressor on my clarinet and fixed its overpowering muddiness in the sub-400hz range. True story.

The reason being ... ?

It isn't in a thread specifically for general mix help, but I did take one of GarretGraves's tracks and mix it with commentary, which is I think the sort of thing you're interested in seeing. Read the entire thread if you're interested in the context. There's also this thread, which never really saw much action.

My family has never shared save files. I think you can get diseases doing that. Usually what would happen would be my brother and I would both start playing different files at the same time, and the one of us who was most interested in the particular game would go on to finish it while the other got bored, stopped playing his own file, and just watched.

Melodyne Editor can do polyphonic stuff, assuming the original sounds are pitched. It's a few hundred bucks, though.

The rhythm is swung, if that's any help. If you aren't familiar with transcribing swung eighth and sixteenth notes, it may be easier if you write in 12/8 instead of 4/4.

I struggled back in the day with just getting 120 cards on normal. Some of those bomb-bouncing puzzles can be tedious. There's no way I could do it all in three hours.

Nope. I don't want to play this game. ... I must not be drunk enough. Does it come with beer coupons?

How much does your friend want to spend, exactly, and what sort of things will he be doing with the system? I ask, because you could shave at least $500 dollars off of that system and still have a good machine for most music purposes. EDIT: Didn't see that you had $300 in monitors on there, so maybe not $500. The possibilities I was talking about specifically were that you could go with an i7 8xx chip which would let you buy a cheaper motherboard, you could cut the RAM from 12 to 8 GB, you could replace the SSD with a regular disk drive (actually, I'd do this regardless because 80 GB is really too small to be your only sample drive), and you could replace the video card with a bargain-basement model. Dual monitors is a good idea, though. Don't forget the power supply, the case, the DVD drive, and (if needed) the operating system and soundcard/audio interface.

I've been using the drive you ordered (Hitachi Deskstar, I assume) since August and haven't had any problems with it. I just bought another of the same to use as a sample drive so I can use my external drive for backup.

Did you submit it before or after Jan. 1st? It takes a while for them to get to stuff. (For an example wait time, I subbed something early December and it was moved out of the inbox and into the to-be-judged queue maybe a week or so ago.)

If they were ported to the Pico, I'd do a ReMix

So what we're saying is that Guitar Hero was found in its hotel room dead from an overdose.

Don't sink more time into it than you have to. At this point, you've done what's been asked of you, and the completion of the game is entirely out of your hands. Hold off on doing anything more until you know it needs to be done.

Shouldn't the FruityLoops sub-forum be renamed FL Studio since that's now the official name of the software?

/thread

!

I used to run VSL SE on a laptop from a Firewire drive, and it worked okay. I tended to hit bottlenecks on RAM (I had 2 GB) about the same time I ran into drive bandwidth problems. I can't think of any reason a drive enclosure would be better than a standard external drive.

That's what computer music is, or at least what academics mean by the term "computer music." You'll find the same thing in any school with a computer music program. These programs follow in the tradition of the people who were experimenting with tape loops and early synthesizers in the mid-20th century, and the compositional emphasis tends to be on sound design, interaction between performer and computer, digital manipulation of acoustic sounds, and that sort of thing. These things appeal to a lot of people as a way to get away from the relative rigidness of traditionally notated acoustic composition and explore things that are impossible to do within the acoustic tradition. Which is to say, it's an acquired taste. Are you looking a program that focuses more on things like traditional film scoring, sample library use, and commercial recording studio tech? These may go under the names music technology, or music for media, or music production and engineering, or something like that. My undergrad program (Western Carolina University) was sort of like this -- it was basically a hybrid of traditional music study and recording studio stuff. I think Berklee has a lot of programs like that, although I'm not sure if they're graduate level. In general, for these sorts of programs, look for professors with music industry experience rather than academic credentials. Another possibility would be to do a traditional composition degree but try to find a school that emphasizes the particular aspects of computers and music technology that you're interested in. I was probably too hasty in trying to compare composition time as a grad student to your current available time. My estimate was more as compared with undergraduate study or a 9-5 job. In your situation, you're probably right -- you probably will be more motivated and productive in a school environment, but it still may not be as much of an improvement as you'd like. For me, the things that were most beneficial about the school environment were the deadlines and knowing that I had to come up with something every week so we'd have something to look at during my composition lesson. More than available time, that was what tended to motivate me. For you, what is the computer side of things? You've already established that the things places like Peabody are doing aren't interesting to you, so what exactly is it that you want to do? As I mentioned above, there are different programs that focus on slightly different things, so you should do some looking around to figure out exactly what part of combining computers with music appeals to you and then try to choose a program based on what you're specifically interested in. Just keep in mind that when your two years are up, you're still going to be more marketable as a software engineer than as a musician. Networking might happen in school, but an industry job is in no way guaranteed to graduates. Especially if you're specifically looking for composing gigs -- composition is basically a freelance thing, unless you're in academia. The industry doesn't even care whether you have a degree, so the degree in itself won't get you anywhere -- it's about any contacts you manage to make, having the skills to produce things quickly, being in the right place at the right time, and marketing yourself well. If that's the dream, then by all means go for it. Post-grad school, I'm working foodservice as a day job, trying to get started freelancing, and scouting church musician jobs. I wouldn't have it any other way. And I'm sorry if I come across as being really cynical. Grad school's really not as horrible as I'm probably making it sound. But most new grad students have, I think, somewhat unrealistic expectations and rarely have people in their lives who will discuss their prospects with them frankly, aside from other grad students who are in the same situation that they are.

I considered a computer music master's (and was accepted to Peabody's program) but ultimately ended up getting a traditional composition master's (not at Peabody). My undergrad degree was commercial/electronic music with a computer science minor -- pretty similar to yours. So seriously, why do you want to spend two more years in school? They're going to ask you this when you apply, and "I want to focus on music and work on my portfolio" isn't going to cut it. What happens after you get the master's degree? You'll have a degree and a portfolio, which is exactly the situation you're in right now. Are there particular aspects of music making that you feel you need to work on that you think grad school will address? Do you want to teach? Are you just avoiding the real world? Grad school, especially at a place like Peabody or Indiana, isn't like undergrad. It kicks your ass. Ask any grad student. You're not going to have any more time to work on your portfolio than you have now. You'll likely have less time for composition. You will be busy with coursework, and reading, and possibly TA duties, and more reading. Specifically, the musical benefits of being in this environment (which is what it sound like you're really interested in) are 1) you have a support network of friends who are doing the same thing you are, 2) you're gaining knowledge about music and encountering new ideas that change the way you think about things, and 3) you have the school's performance resources at your disposal. Numbers 1 and 3 go away after you graduate. Number 2 stays with you and is the most important. If it helps, the reasons I decided to get a master's degree were firstly that I thought my composition skills for acoustic instruments weren't as good as I wanted them to be and secondly that I was interested in going on to get a doctorate and teaching at the university level. (The reason I didn't go into a computer music program was that the curriculum seemed too close to what I had already studied as an undergrad.) The result of my studies were that I gained confidence as a composer, I picked up a lot of knowledge about music theory that hadn't even been on my radar before I started, and I discovered that I didn't want to teach. It was worthwhile, but only because I received a tuition waiver and stipend that allowed me to stay out of debt. If I had gone deeply into debt to get the degree, I would currently be second-guessing my life choices. Out of curiosity, how was Peabody's recital a turn off? My recollection of the program and the music that people were making there is that it was all pretty much what you would expect from any computer music program.