Flexstyle

Soldier, in order to answer your question, I'll just go straight out and recommend FL Studio's demo. It's got a lot of functionality, and the community here at OCR has a TON of FL users, myself included. As has been mentioned, DAWs are quite subjective in terms of features and usability, but here is as good a place as any to start: http://www.image-line.com/downloads/flstudiodownload.html. I think you'll find that FL's workflow is pretty conducive to the styles of music you mentioned. If it doesn't work out for you, hey, it was just a free demo. For what it's worth, I'm also manufacturer certified in both Logic and Pro Tools (and have spent time working in Nashville recording studios), so it's not like I don't know what I'm recommending against.

Your belief is false, I'm sorry. Pro Tools is nice for some things, but Windows also has a lot of other stellar options. Reaper, FL Studio, Cubase, Sonar, Ableton Live, Reason, ACID...all of these and more will do the job just as well. Yes, Logic is a stellar DAW. It's also got a very steep learning curve for anything besides basic functions. A lot of other programs are much more newbie-friendly. Same goes for Pro Tools; honestly, in my experience, Pro Tools is not so good as a content creation DAW (i.e. what you'd be looking for as an OC ReMixer), but rather as a content recording and editing DAW. Soldier, my advice is this: go and download some demo software and start playing around. Find out what works best for YOU, because DAWs and their usefulness are VERY subjective. No matter which one you end up choosing, you're probably going to be able to get help with it on this forum, since (obviously) everyone uses such a wide variety of stuff here.

Just got your message, and I have a couple of thoughts. That side-stick sound is definitely a bit annoying the way it is; you may want to either lower its volume, or simply adjust the panning. The closed hat sound could stand to be velocity-edited a bit, just to give it a bit more humanization. Love the keyboard work. The piano and the electric keys alike are really nice. Bassline is also stellar. Finally, my recommendation is that you put a pad in underneath everything to fill out the sonic landscape. The strings come in really late in the song (and they're panned a bit oddly to the left), and I think the song would benefit from having another pad in there. This isn't super in-depth, but hopefully it's enough to give you a few ideas. Really enjoyable song as it stands, and I know you can put that final layer of polish on it!

I've got 5" E-Mu monitors, and they cut off right around 60 Hz or so. 58 Hz might be more accurate, even. My subwoofer saves me a LOT of "check-on-another-system-nope-that's-too-bass-heavy-check-again-nope-too-light-omg-this-sucks."

Yeah, honestly, this is the kind of thing where you're going to want to go and test a bunch of different keyboards out for yourself. The latency is a function of your audio drivers, and have nothing to do with the keyboard. I absolutely love my Akai MPK49, but it's got a LOT of bells and whistles and may not be the best for what you're looking to do. Check out some models at the store, find out which ones you like, and then do a bit of research online and make sure that there aren't any glaring flaws with your favorite one.

Believe me, with the kind of orchestral stuff listed as planned, hard drive space will be a huge issue. I speak from experience, here. Also, whatever drive you get will need to be halfway fast. Most modern hard drives should be alright, but personally I'd recommend at least a 7200 RPM spindle speed.

Yeah, actually, that may well be all you need for now. You'll want to upgrade to a better interface when it comes time to do any sort of serious recording (because that way you can choose your microphone, etc.), but all the actual processing of the orchestral samples 'n such will happen with the processor. That's why having a good processor is so important. And hey, you can always try out your Roland device, and if it ends up not working very well, just upgrade. From what I can tell, though, it should do the job just fine.

Yeah, just make sure Windows is set to use your built-in soundcard as its default. You can set your DAW to specifically use the other soundcard instead, and it works just fine that way. I suppose quad-core isn't REQUIRED, but honestly, there are some really good options out there, and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble that way. If you want, I can probably put together a list of parts on Newegg or something and give you the specs for a custom build. Building your own computer is a really rewarding experience, both because you'll save money and because it's more fun!

If you're going to be doing music (especially any recording of instruments), get a card made for music, rather than gaming. I've had really good luck so far with my M-Audio Delta 1010LT, but it's a bit old and uses ol' PCI. If you've got a spare PCI slot (rare on some computers these days, depending on the motherboard), it's still a fantastic card. I'd recommend something like one of these: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FireStuMobile/ (FireWire) http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Delta1010LT/ (PCI) http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/KompAudio6/ (USB 2.0) The way I have my computer set up is to where it uses the integrated audio on the motherboard for everything but my DAW, and my DAW then has full use of the add-on soundcard. Everything's routed through a small mixer, where I have headphones and speakers plugged in for monitoring options. As far as other components go, I'll second the recommendation for 8 gigabytes of RAM (what I have), and at least a quad-core processor of some sort. An i5 or a higher-end AMD quad or 8-core chip should do the job pretty well, too. Hard drive space? I'm almost at the end of my five terabytes. You'll need as much space as you can possibly afford. Video card doesn't matter too much, but having a decent one helps if you're going to be doing any gaming on the side.

I'll second the recommendation for EWQL. I have the Platinum Plus version, but the Silver or Gold version should be all you need. Really high quality samples, and pretty easy to make a very realistic sound.

I deliberately ignore genres, and just go with what I like. It's worked pretty well for me so far!

I'm always a fan of songs that go off the beaten path, and a down-home pluckin' song with heartfelt vocals like this is always going to catch my ear. I love it, low MP3 bitrate and all. Gives it some more lo-fi authenticity.

Selling my current laptop, cos I'll be upgrading to an ultrabook here shortly. Anyone want it? Yours for $850. SPECS: - 6GB RAM - Intel Mobile Core i5 (Sandy Bridge) processor - 750 GB hybrid SSD drive: acts like an SSD on bootup and when certain, oft-used programs are launched, but still has the storage of a standard hard drive. - Windows 7 Pro - 15" Full HD (1080p) screen - Blu-Ray reader/DVD+CD burner - Dedicated 1GB nVidia GT540M video card with Optimus (switches to integrated low-power graphics when not gaming) - Decent sound for a laptop - Battery is as good as when I first bought it--gets about 2 hours on high power, fully-everything-blasting, and a good 5-6 hours when in power-saving mode (with wi-fi on). It retailed new for about $950 when I got it last year, and I've added the $180 upgrade of the hybrid drive since then as well. Let me know!

Hey all, thought I'd go ahead and plug my latest release on my Soundcloud. It's called "Stand With Me," and it's rather near and dear to my heart. I hope you enjoy it!

Probably a toothed wave of some sort with a LOT of filtering. Sounds to me like the bandpass filter cutoff is following the keyboard (e.g. A2 has one cutoff, while E4 has a much higher cutoff). You could probably get the same effect by sampling a single note that sounds like that synth, and then pitching it up and down with some vibrato. Pretty simple to do in FL Studio, at least.

I do want to mention that there is nothing in the OCR guidelines that says someone must use a certain percentage of a source track. As long as the submitted track uses some sort of discernible source material for at least 50% of the remix, it's kosher. Plus, the song we picked was really more like 12 songs in one. Props to UDW for the arrangement, btw--all I did was write a new drum line, and replace some samples with my higher-quality stuff. Had a blast doing it!

Actually, as I'm re-reading the original post, I do see the phrase "all deadlines are at 12 PDT." So it was specified. However, it would be much more convenient to say "voting ends at 12 PDT on Tuesday, August 14," just because, personally, I don't want to have to read the entire post to get one small bit of information. So yeah, small details.

+1 for Gunnerkrigg Court. That's probably my single favorite webcomic right now.

Yikes--I'm glad it ended up not being an issue for my team, but when I read that "voting is until Tuesday, August 14," I assumed that it would be in the evening, not at the very beginning of the day. That absolutely needs to be clarified, since today is still, if I'm not mistaken, August 14. In my (and, I suspect, many other people's) experience, whenever "until XX day" is mentioned, it's assumed that the period ends when the day does. That said, congrats to all involved, and thanks to MW for moderating this pilot episode.

I haven't forgotten, and I plan to vote when I get home from work.

Just read through the entire archives. As someone who has frequented a TON of webcomics in the past, this is easily right up there with some of the best I've read. Good find!

FYI, there are some fan-freakin'-tastic entries this time around.

Just so there's no confusion. I should also mention that generally speaking, as long as a ReMix stays interesting and incorporates some kind of source for more than 50% of the song, it has a strong chance of passing the panel, from what I've observed (obvious factors like production and instrumentation notwithstanding).

What do you mean by "not too much?" As far as I'm aware, there's no such thing as "too much source." Now, being too similar (cover-ish) will get a mix frowned upon, but never will anyone decry a mix for incorporating too much of the good stuff.

I may have to join this one, assuming I can get home from work in time.