dannthr

That is a question to the retailer. You will more than likely need to provide some evidence of either being a student or a faculty member at a school. The requirements will depend on the retailer.

I like the looks of Strawberry, but there are several competitors worth considering as well: http://www.pettinhouse.com/html/products.html http://www.prominy.com/ http://www.ilyaefimov.com/

Greg at Orangetree is a really solid Kontakt Scripter--his samples are always very clean, which you can take as you will. I have his Pear Core Upright Bass library, very nice. If I was in the market for a new guitar library, I would think seriously about Strawberry.

Hey, A couple of things pop out listening to the isolated tracks: 1) Possibly due to your microphone, all of your tracks occupy a very similar bandwidth along the sound spectrum, making everything a little bit too mid-rangy to mix easily. This is most apparent with your "bass" tracks which have very little bass in them. 2) One thing to try, though, might be plucking your bass string with your finger pad instead of a pick. Picks tend to bring out the higher harmonics in the guitar, giving it a "brighter" sound and your bass notes need more fundamental. The Zoom H2n is a handy little recorder, but its onboard microphone is going to have limitations. Look forward to accumulating a small collection of microphones. Approach mixing from this perspective: 1) Find Levels 2) Pan 3) EQ (Which is fixing levels across the spectrum) 4) Compression (Fixing dynamic range) 5) Reverb/Delay/Time-based-fx I messed around with your tracks a little, but I couldn't easily get the timing just right, and stuff was missing, so I couldn't give you a good example mix. If you were sending these tracks to a pro-mixer, they would request that you send them all of the tracks rendered from bar one with space if they don't start right away, so that the mixer just has to load them into their DAW and the timing and arrangement is already correct. They would also request all the tracks be without any FX or panning.

I like it, but there are times when I feel like you just threw influences in because you were bored. I hear a strong Mario Land influence throughout, and then castlevania pops in there every once in a while. So, I like the sound, it was fun, but I feel like there isn't enough compositional coherency outside of "look what I can do now."

Can you provide a zip with the multi-tracks on one of them? It would be easier to guide you knowing what you have to work with and at the same time advise you on what to look for when recording in the future.

You're comparing a Creative Labs sound device to a Focusrite? I have the 18i6, I can sport 22ms or less, depending on my buffer.

What is your budget?

Why did your budget drop from the $4000 reported in your kickstarter monetary flow-chart?

A low cut in your EQ between 20hz and 50hz can do a lot to your headroom.

It's called a Limiter.

When in need of reference, refer. I guarantee you're not doing anything new--someone has done it before--so listen and refer to a mix or several mixes that excel in this area. If you're trying to mimic a real life staging, then you need to refer to real life.

Are you talking about depth? There is a lot that happens to sound waves as they travel over a distance. Certain frequencies lose their energy and disperse, waves reflect off of other surfaces, walls, back walls, ceilings, etc. Our brains are incredibly ept at deciphering this sort of spacial information--a ms difference in a reflection and it changes our perception of distance and orientation.

The demands of sound and music have grown incredibly in the past 20 years while audio staff still fight tooth and nail to get an appropriate budget of system resources and money to make it happen. We are not the same video game players we were 20 years ago. We have greater expectations and demand higher production value. At this stage, game composers are fighting a losing battle to keep users from turning the soundtrack off and listening to their own iTunes. I guarantee that if you replaced the 200 something minute soundtrack for World of Warcraft with a 40 second looping 8-bit theme song, it would be replaced within minutes with an iTunes playlist playing Lord of the Rings or Nightwish or something similar. There just isn't enough music to satisfy the demands of players these days--people play MMOs like it's a 40+ hour a week job. One of the biggest soundtracks ever for any game: Star Wars: The Old Republic, shipped with 10+ hours of music (including 3+ hours of originally composed music just for the game). The original soundtrack is brilliantly executed in the highest honor of John Williams tributage, recorded at Skywalker Sound with members of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Yet, people still complain and bitch and moan. I would bet money that all of the audio content in Star Wars The Old Republic didn't cost EA more than 2% of their budget. Forget trying to make it memorable, make it important to the game experience, make it so that no one wants to turn it off because it's vital to hear while playing. That's good game music. It has to be a part of the game, not just something you listen to while you play it, but an integral component of the game design. You guys forget that because you listen to game music out of context. Who cares if it's great listening music, if you can put it on your ipod while you jog or do homework. That goal needs to be ancillary to serving the game. Making something memorable in the context of the game means making a motivic connection between moments or experiences. Music can connect two completely disparate dots in the game play timeline by utilizing a memorable theme. The restatement of that theme will literally evoke a synaptic response in the players brain recalling the last time they heard that theme. Good game music is effective with goals that serve the experience. Everything else is ego.

I find it interesting that you're asking a question that isn't really directed at good game music but rather memorable music in general. Good game music must support the game 110%. Good game music must SERVE the game. In service to the game, it may be necessary to create a memorable musical theme, but sometimes the exact opposite is necessary--you may need to create a musical moment that supports the action but is completely forgettable. Memorable game music doesn't equate to good game music by default. However, in respect to your question about memorable music, basically, you must employ elements of form such as unity and variation, contrast and balance. Create a melody utilizing scale information and scale degree relationships, then remember that the shorter your melodic motiv, the more likely someone is to recall that motiv. Repeat with variation, sequence, transposition, etc, etc. You can create variation and contrast by creating a new melody, but retain coherence by utilizing unity in rhythmic motif. Study simple examples of this like Yankee Doodle Dandy and America the Beautiful. Study cadential antecedence and consequence. Melody is structure informed by harmonic relationships. You can do it all intuitively, because it's part of your biology, but for the beginner, you may find yourself searching often for direction. Music theory informs your direction. Tip #1: Study music theory.

Oh and you'll love a Royer 121 when micing your guitar amps!

How about a great ribbon mic, like a Royer 121 or 122. Also, take a look at the A-Designs Pacifica--it has enough gain to power a ribbon, it has a impedance DI input on the front, which sounds killer! It's a spectacular pre. I love pairing the 414 with a ribbon, you get all the detail on the AKG and all the impact on the ribbon--killer for hand percussion! Ribbons also make killer vocal mikes when you want that present velvety sound.

Throw it out and use a line attached to your wrist to pull it back in! Wakka wakka, just a joke from your friendly neighborhood clarinetist!

Exactly as described in Rimsky-Korsikov's Treatise on Orchestration.

http://www.noisemeters.com/news/osha-noise-meter.asp

Planning on touring around with a bagpipe, mandolin, marimba band? Because if you are, then you've got some serious thinking to do. Otherwise you need to chill out, the second you even MENTION using electronic instruments, "western" or otherwise, you're evoking an amplification (minimum) and/or mixing (more likely) process. Yes, how do they mix? Pretty much like anything else, through a mixer with consideration for levels, pan, eq, compression, etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum. But I have a feeling you're not planning on putting together a bagpipe, mandonlin, double marimba quartet, are you? So yes, it does sound like you need to work on your studying habits a bit here. Orchestration is the ORIGINAL mix. Before gear controlled levels, levels were controlled by orchestration and doubling. Do you think there's 1 tuba in an orchestra because Tuba players are rare? and 26 violins because too many kids picked violin in elementry school? No, it's because that's how many violins it takes in a concert hall to equal the power of a single tuba. ::::: The More you Know :::: ********

Fabfilter. Period.

Omnisphere is multi-timbral and mixes down inside the software. I find Omnisphere's default always too loud and I'm always turning it down. Whether or not the distortion is coming from Omnisphere's mix down or some other place, you should be able to control the faders in Omnisphere without having them pop into an unwanted position. It sounds like you have automation running in FL Studio.

Nice, here are some good alternative "non-game" selections for the Processional:

Not for free, at least.