Moseph

No real problems in the bass that jump out to me, although I'm listening on headphones and not speakers. I'm not hearing much kick drum, though. Bringing out the kick will also help the bass to sit better in the mix. Maybe bring the lead instrument down by 3 or 4 dB from 0:07 to 0:28 or EQ the lead so it includes more frequencies in the 500-800hz range -- it feels really treble-y when it's on its own, although it's okay after the other instruments come in at 0:28.

Leaving in or slightly boosting the 1000hz-2000hz range in the bass may give you a more defined attack and could potentially help with melodic definition.

Really? I almost like Third more than Dummy. Yes, the whole album is guitar/synth- based rather than tape sample- based, but I don't think that's a bad thing. In the new instrumental context, as in the old one, they still do things that conventional wisdom says you aren't "supposed" to do, like sustaining at length a single obnoxious synth timbre (We Carry On), deliberately abusing the machine-gun repeating sample effect (Machine Gun), and using a guitar track that sounds like a bad take on a cheap instrument (The Rip). The non-conventional production values are still there. To me, though, the thing that really makes Portishead so much better than other trip-hop groups is the strong song-writing, which is just as present on Third as on Dummy.

http://www.nihavent.net/index_en.html Still in beta and doesn't import/export MIDI, but has all the notation basics. Are you looking for software to actually create sheet music, or do you just want sheet music that you can read on the computer? If the latter ... http://www.imslp.org/

I am unreasonably excited about this.

I'm signed up, I'm just not in the first post yet. I need to think of a source to submit, too.

I'll never buy another EA title. I'll stick with Steam, which doesn't allow me to buy or sell used games at all. o wait

Like Arcana said, if you do want to do the live stuff first and don't want to play it to a click track, there should be some kind of tap-to-tempo feature that will let you define a tempo after recording by inputting a beat with a MIDI controller that follows what you recorded. I just used this in Sonar (not very intuitive, but it works) to sync a MIDI file with a video of me conducting the music. I recorded a tempo map that followed the conducting.

A lot of times when editing two audio clips together, there will be something about my edit point that just doesn't seem right. I often discover that the thing that doesn't seem right is actually a natural part of one of the clips and not an artifact from my edits.

You should be able to set up a tempo map in your DAW so that the click track will follow the tempo changes. After that, you should be able to record as usual.

If you want sheet music to make arranging it easier, IMSLP has a piano score.

SimTunes was awesome. It's been years and years since I've thought about that program.

The Monty Python intro music (The Liberty Bell March) is by Sousa and is out of copyright. Wikipedia has an old out-of-copyright recording of the piece that sounds like Monty Python. Use that instead of an actual Monty Python sample, or find another public domain recording, or just arrange the tune yourself. (In fact, according to Wikipedia, the piece's public domain -- and thus royalty-free -- status was one of the reasons Monty Python chose it.) EDIT: As a tangentially related point, this means that Earthbound's sampling is only illegal if they used an actual clip from Monty Python, and if the Python recording of it is copyrighted. Hard to confirm, given how unintelligible the sample is.

Turn off the fill durations and trim durations options. The shortcuts for those, at least in Sonar 6, are F and M in the staff view. You can also tell it to beam rests in the layout settings (L) which may make complicated rhythms less obnoxious to read.

Sonar can be recolored (e.g. this site). Doesn't fix the layout, though.

They price it prohibitively high so voice-chat won't be spammed by Thomas the Tank Engine fans.

I imagine a lot of them are illegal, but like Vagrance mentioned, circumstances do vary somewhat from case to case. I have a folder of Imogen Heap vocals that I got from a remix contest sitting on my hard drive. I think in downloading them I agreed not to use them in anything besides remixes for the contest, or not commercially, or something like that. It was a while ago and and my memory's a little hazy.

For legit remixes that actually have the original artist's permission, the tracks are provided to the remixer by the original artist. And then most likely leaked on the internet where they're used by anyone who happens to find them.

Also, for what it's worth, I like the VSL (post-Kontakt) sampler more than PLAY.

Using VSL SE Plus: I layer different articulations for a given instrument when I need to simulate both the first and second player playing unison. VSL actually has sample packs that give you the true second player, but I can't afford 'em. An analog amp sim can make things sound a little warmer.

I don't know about the SP, but the original GBA had a screen adjustment screw hidden under the back label. Do some googling and see what you come up with. EDIT: Most relevant thing I found with a quick search: http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080403121540AAQQUPa

The review thread for each ReMix is tagged by genre. You can search tags from the forum search page. How is this not common knowledge by now? If you want to add/change tags, (I assume) PM'ing Larry would be the way to go.

Exporting a MIDI from Sibelius won't give you the actual instrument sounds from Sibelius, just the note data. If you have an orchestra sound library that works in a DAW, you can use this note data as a base for constructing a performance in the DAW. I don't know how Sibelius's sound libraries are set up. There's a chance that you might be able to load the Sibelius orchestra sounds as a VST in a DAW. The other possibility is that the sounds are tied to Sibelius and you can't use them in other programs. I don't know which is the case. If it's the latter, then obviously you'd need to stay in Sibelius if you want the Sibelius sounds.

If they're a new startup, they may be selectively spamming musicians who have publicly listed names/email addresses in order to get more members.