dannthr

You can write section work with the Sample Modeling Brass--it really is an incredible library--but there will be some challenges involved with getting good placement/spatialization (at least to my satisfaction) and there's plenty of risk of phase issues with unison. However, there's always risk of phase issues with unison brass--virtual or real. There are, however, NO GOOD SAXOPHONE libraries out there, no matter what anyone tells you. A saxophone is about as difficult to virtualize as a solo violin--Henry Mancini considered the saxophone to be the most versatile instrument in the entire wind section, and that wasn't just a lot of hot air. My recommendation is Sample-Modeling MIXED with a good jazzy ensemble brass section library. Remember that eras in big-band and swing were defined by their voicing, so make sure you have control over that. And since you're spending all that cold hard cash, I would reserve some of that for a couple of live musicians, they're cheaper than you think--no that didn't sound right... they're more valuable than you can imagine... yeah, that's better.

Awesome, thanks

Hey SegaMon, I remember Noteworthy Composer! Really cool composition/suite/medley! I'm surprised no one has given you feedback! You have a lot of strong qualities in this production, the most being your tenacity to complete such a large scale project. It really is worth appreciating for the scale alone. With that said, I definitely have a couple of notes for you: - Your production isn't quite there yet, some of this is within your control, and some of this (most of this) is not. The hard part (and simultaneously, the easy part) is that investing some serious dough in your production setup would put this production on the map, so to speak. It's hard because having and spending money on virtual instruments and the equipment to run them is rarely within our reach. - You became a better writer as you wrote this. This is common, especially common in the earlier stages of our advancement through writing, and so the result is that the later sections of the work are actually more engaging and interesting than the early sections. I think it can be a really great exercise to work on something we started so long ago and to enhance the production, but if I were your teacher, I would be highly concerned of your revisiting a piece over a decade old. It's important to remember that our work is not precious and to hold it precious is to stagnate our growth--every piece you write is a stepping stone to a greater you, but you cannot grow without the willingness to step on that work and walk away from it. - The early sections suffer from boring rhythms. There's no easy way to say this, but generally speaking your motives early on in the work (and somewhat throughout) are really eighth-notey/quarter-notey--very, very straight and always happening. One of the problems that I've noticed when we are first adapting to writing on the computer (which is not as much a problem when writing on paper) is that we tend to copy and paste and we tend to create in default tempi and default quantization. Humans are notorious for resisting change and it's really, really easy for us to keep writing in quarter notes or eighth notes once we've set the quantize (especially if you're step-sequencing, which the early stuff feels super step-sequency), but on paper, we don't have this issue because a quick jab of the pencil and we've changed the rhythmic structure. High repetition on paper feels wrong, we naturally vary ourselves on paper, but on the computer, it's very unnatural to write variations--especially rhythmic ones. - Study more idiomatic writing techniques. Unfortunately, you have the tendency in this work to treat the instruments all the same--this egalitarian approach is a nice idea but really tends to sound weird when coming out of our virtual speakers. Idiomatic writing will do many things for you: first, it will force you to more closely examine the performance styles and techniques of each individual instrument resulting in your own ability to distinguish a convincing MIDI production (phrasing, note enveloping, etc.); second, it will also force you to acknowledge the compositional tendencies of individual instruments and how we actually want to write for the different instruments differently (owing to their individual constructions and methods of performance). - Study lullabies and popular music. Outside of the squareness of your piece (the block rhythms), I can't remember any of it. The motives were too long and wander too much for me to remember them. We obviously can use this to an affect when necessary, but to have listened to your 9-10 minute work and not remember anything but the final oboe tone? That's probably not the desired affect and it didn't create a pleasing (or even engaging) experience for me, your listener. I understand you were trying to tell a story through the music, but where are the characters? If you want to get intellectual about it, fine, you can go study programme music--but like Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev or some composer who writes solid melodies. If you were my student, I'd make you study Alan Menken, the guy writes amazingly memorable themes but also brilliant orchestral coloring and beautifully idiomatic arrangements--there's a reason the guy has more Oscar wins than any living person. - Look forward, not backward. Stop saying "I want to eventually do..." and start saying "I'm working on..." Good luck, - Dan

Is there a link to your SoundCloud somewhere? Somewhere nearby? Maybe in this thread?

I agree with slimy, you have some pads that are muddying up your mid-highs, right where your main melody sits, cut out a space for your melody. Remember, when you work a long time on a track (especially when mixing), it's really easy for you to hear something you already know about than it is for someone who doesn't know what's coming to hear it. It's a mental trick your brain plays on you as you become increasingly familiar with a pattern, it becomes easier to spot the pattern. This can create an artificial sense of clarity where it doesn't exist.

Really nice, surprisingly expressive linework! Also a nice job with half-shadows using interlacing instead of a new palette color!

Nice! I like that you're exploring values in the last post! And hey, I recognized the Doctor in the second one without you telling me--keep working on likenesses!

Are you a student, Irnon?

The most important aspect of approaching music for a game where the player is "out in the world" is capturing the particular feel and character of the environment. In a typical Role Playing Game, the player is often times faced with obstacles (either physical features of the landscape or creatures who live or infest that landscape) that are inherent to the environment. Your job as a game composer is to engage the area/zone/whatever's design and enhance the qualities that epitomize the feel of the obstacles the player will face according to the design. Scoring is all about focusing and enhancing the player experience and so the emotional tones you want to explore are ones that convey the design premise of the area and create emotional connections for the player. A town theme is often easy-going or pleasant/quaint because it's a safe-place for the player and usually a happy or simple place. A menacing cave might receive a completely different emotional treatment from your town, you might want to express mystery or darkness. All of these choices come from a design stand-point. If the cave the player is entering is supposed to be wave after wave of action filled hack-n-slashing then the emotional tone of mystery and darkness isn't appropriate.

EQing as a process alters the phase of your program material--this may be important or not to your particular needs, but it is one significant feature that distinguishes EQ processors. Some processors will have useful visualizations or Mid/Side processing or other features that you find useful, try them out, see what works for you. I'm a big fan of the Fab Filter plug-ins and Pro-Q is incredibly useful for spectral surgery--I like the visualization, it's easy to place the q-point I want, there are lots of options for phase control, etc. Despite that, I definitely remember loading up a PSP AudioWare parametric EQ (I think it was their Classic Q or their Console Q) and while it didn't leave me with a lot of control, it was instantly musical and I appreciated the ease at which I arrived at a pleasing sound. Not that I probably couldn't have achieved the same sound with Pro-Q, but simply that I probably wouldn't have done it in just that way or approached the problem in the same way--simply because the interface was different. Ultimately, this is about workflow and I have a selection of EQs that I will employ based on the needs of the situation. For what it's worth, my two main EQs are FabFilter Pro-Q and Brainworx bx_Digital_v2.

I have the old Kontakt version of Symphonic Choirs. It seems like improvements have been made to the Wordbuilder System, for ease of use, but the samples themselves are a bit long in the tooth. I used to get work programming choirs for other composers--I worked on the Highlander game and Marvel Superhero Squad--but ever since libraries like Voxos, Requiem, Liberis, Mars, Venus, etc., there hasn't been as much a need such a specialist skill. Wordbuilding may seem like a pretty cool concept, and it is definitely the holy grail of sampled choirs, but there are a few things to keep in mind: 1) With large scale choirs, it's very difficult to understand the actual words they're saying--you actually need a really tight and articulate choir like the kind Eric Whitacre works for his albums. So most of the time, with sampled choirs, you generally just need to give the impression of language. 2) Humans may not be experts at recognizing the articulation of orchestral instruments, but they are almost all of them experts at recognizing the articulations of human speech. This means that it is incredibly difficult to properly concatenate language. Consider one of the best language concatenation examples out there: Siri, and yet we can still recognize the inhumanness of it. 3) I haven't opened Symphonic Choirs in years.

I can appreciate that a USB dongle is undesirable, but I've never had a problem with them. It's pretty standard for any music professional to have both an ELicenser and an iLok. I actually quite like the idea of a USB dongle since it makes your software quite portable, which is great, and I appreciate the need for them from a software side. It's not really a big deal--I have both--and so far, they've been solid for me. I wouldn't consider them worth preventing you from purchasing software.

Those are pounds sterling, Dissidia

Geist is pretty good at this sort of thing--you can bring in multiple samples and slice them up and map them on a drum machine style sampler in like less than a minute.

Awesome, man, can you link to a reference of the sound you're trying to achieve?

The resonance width or emphasis is a function of your filter. Iris can do really interesting filter shapes, but depending on your goals, the sound of the filtering won't be sloped.

The pitch wheel has more steps (like thousands) if you can override that and apply it to your cutoff freq.

That's your synth. I'm modulating cutoff with the modwheel, so I'm pulling like 128 steps--which is smoother. I'm using Zebra2, by the way. I have Omnisphere, but I stopped touching it when I got Zebra--it's really one of the most flexible soft synths I've ever laid my hands on.

Noise. Mine is just dirty noise with an 8 pole band-pass filter. I assigned After Touch to control the resonance so I can open up the Q just be applying some light pressure. It lets me dirty it up as needed. Subtractive synthesis, the ultimate subtractive synthesis is starting with noise--take away the parts you don't need--and with noise, you start with everything: random broadband frequencies. From there, you can do anything as long as you know how to carve your sound. EDIT: For those out there just learning, 8-pole is 8x6 db/octave slope.

Mine is not a sine wave. The result was sometimes a sine wave on output, but no oscillator was used.

Can you post an example of your dry tracks and your attempted results? For example, if you went DI and used sims, then post the DI dry unprocessed track and your processed examples side by side. If you mic'd an amp, then post your dry unprocessed mic'd track and your processed attempt. We can tell you to buy shit, but it won't address issues you may have with your production.

You mean this kind of sound? http://www.dannthr.com/temp/DR_RF_Transmission.mp3

The moment I committed to an unrelenting pursuit of better. Realizing that the stuff I create is the life I live and how can I let that life be anything less than the best it can possibly be?

Make sure to reinstall the Play software--there's like 4 modules for PP as compared to Gold.

As long as it took me to write it. He may not be heralded as one of the most athletic bassists, but he has an amazing sense of timing/tempo, rhythm, and groove.