MichaelTheCrow

I've noticed every month or so I get notified people have listened to this old track, I suppose some of you might want to hear a finished product. It's not OCR material but here is a finished version I entered for Dwelling of Duels last October: http://www.dwellingofduels.net/dodarchive/11-10-Free_Month/10-MichaelTheCrow-Grandia-Onwards-DoD.mp3 I don't feel I've done the track justice and if I attempt it later on I'll re-do it from scratch.

Certainly do, I plan on making it around 4-5 minutes long, I'm not so much worrying about any more production until the rough version is finished. Speaking of which I have done a lot more, not sure if the symphonic power metal vibe is really what this needs but it just came to me, still have to change the rhythm of the drums during the main melody but this gives a rough idea, all feedback has been greatly appreciated and will help further me as a musician. Added a string ensemble too. V3: http://michaelthecrow.com/files/music/CTFrogV3.mp3

Changed to my new 7-string Ibanez Prestige, re-recorded all guitars, changed the amp/cab combo and humanized the drum velocity and timing. The tone seems a bit 'dry' but I'm working on that. V2: http://michaelthecrow.com/files/music/CTFrogV2.mp3

It was fun the whole way through making it, glad you guys enjoyed it! Brandon is nowhere near like a Viking, which adds to the hilarity of the song.

It's not actually the drums but the guitars that are a bit off, I was learning the source as I was going and recording the riffs as I became familiar with the unusual drums(not perfect but still). I have a new guitar now, which is why I was waiting on continuing on this. I'll do something a bit more 'smooth' with the rhythm, but I still want to have some sort of polyrhythmic stuff going on at some point. I've got a different tone now, I think it sits in the mix a lot better, hopefully I'll work more on this as I get used to my new 7-string Ibanez Prestige. Thanks for the constructive feedback guys!

Been awhile since I've done any activity on these forums, so here goes. I've been working on a rearrangement of the Frog's theme from Chrono Trigger. It is in very early stages, so there's not much more added than the source material. More importantly I want to know if I'm going on the right track mixing/mastering-wise and what needs to be altered. Wanted to do something different with the rhythm in the main section and give it a somewhat polyrhythmic(though not a true polyrhythm) feel. This will most likely be the 'end' section, but that could change. So what do you guys think so far? Original source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMzkUriqXvs&fmt=18 Current version: http://michaelthecrow.com/files/music/CTFrogV3.mp3 Previous versions: V2: http://michaelthecrow.com/files/music/CTFrogV2.mp3 V1: http://michaelthecrow.com/files/music/CTFrog.mp3

Wow, it's been forever since I've posted anything here. Basically I got bored last night and let the first person to comment on my status update to have a song written about them, of course Brandon Strader won, and somehow turned into a theme song. It was a bit of fun, we were joking around and within 45 minutes it was complete. Not that Brandon is a Viking, but he complained about not having lyrics, and it went from there. Demonstray on vocals, and I did everything else. Enjoy this Metal piece, it's not quite Viking Metal, but the lyrics say otherwise . Download: http://michaelthecrow.com/files/music/BrandonTheVikingGuy.mp3

Unfortunately that seems to be the case, lack of interest and exposure created lack of motivation for the very few of us, don't think it's going anywhere. Unless someone else picks the project up, it'd be better off done from scratch under a new project director.

Glad to see this finally on OCR, hopefully it'll kick up a bit more now! Very excited for the project, long overdue as us fans say.

I've been waiting for the next version, can say you've impressed me even more with this one. Glad to hear the lead guitar is at the right volume now, it doesn't drain out the other instruments also which is good. Love the transition half way through how they key goes up by two whole steps, it works, though not entirely sure about whether or not the piano fits in 100% through the transition process, could just be me however. The guitar solos are excellent overall, the melody is great and so are the piano solos, strings are also great. Bass grooves and riffs are very suiting/catchy, drums are perfect. Are you at all familiar with Noriyuki Iwadare? This stuff is seriously making me want to play Grandia II again, don't know how but that's what this reminds me of. I have no conflicting issues with how it sounds through my speakers, you've obviously done a great job with mixing down the track, definitely near completion. Keep it up and I look forward to hearing the final mix.

This sounds awesome, checked out both versions and the recent one is definitely a major improvement upon the first one. I'm loving the drums you got going, it's a pretty cruising track for boss music, it reminds me of both Grandia II music and various Japanese scrolling shooter games. What type of boss battle is it? RPG? Action? I can feel the vibe for both. The guitar synth is a little bit too quiet, might want to turn it up just a notch. As for the overall track it's not overly complicated and I found myself enjoying the track the entire way through, would love to hear this in a game.

Power metal is pretty neat, combined with symphonic instruments turns it into Symphonic Metal. I am going for a bit of Power Metal, Symphonic Metal, JRock and Prog Metal. The acoustic guitar isn't live, just one of the quality instruments that came with Dimension Pro, all that was programmed via midi, the only things played live are the choir and violin melody on the midi keyboard. When I get a decent steel string acoustic it will replace the virtual instrument, but for now it's still very decent and very realistic. Humanising the velocities and timings of the instruments will add even more realism. Glad to see this has turned out so well, I will be sure to keep you guys posted.

Glad you enjoy it, I have indeed updated it since then and now have the full length intro before it really gets into the rest of the track. It is going to be lengthy, it now spans just over 2 minutes: http://www.box.net/shared/dp8pgb8il0 The choir bit is just temporary, so it might sound cheesy for the moment. You can write something on it if you really want to, I don't mind. Enjoy .

Well finally an update on this, I've re-written the entire thing. Added to the main melody at the start and now begins with only a Piano and Violin, as for the rest of the track, it has been scrapped. I'm going for a more dramatic approach with a hint of JRock inspiration. http://www.box.net/shared/n9p5i8vve4 Let me know what you think, not everyone will agree with this change but it will work, trust me . Also this is now going to be a track for my upcoming solo album project, I do intend to go commercial but I will supply several tracks as a free download, this will be one of them. Enjoy .

Sorry in taking so long with this. So far it as all just midi programmed except for the oboe at the beginning and the guitars. I haven't had much time or motive to work on this track, but I am going to continue working on this, I've had major guitar tone issues...it's been halting my progress on most of my tracks. I'm going to try and focus on the song instead of worrying about all that technical mumbo-jumbo getting the right sound to flow evenly within the mix. I'll be keeping you guys posted on any further progress.

Greetings all, I have been working on a Symphonic JRock/Metal track called Far Away. Heavily inspired by Stream Of Passion, Symphony X, X Japan, Versailles, Nightwish etc. This is going to be part of my solo album project which I intend to release commercially some time next year, however this is going to be a free download after release. I have not completed much as of yet but I am willing to share with you guys what I have done so far. Current version, intro basically complete, just need to touch up on adding more orchestration and acoustic guitar: http://www.box.net/shared/dp8pgb8il0 Previous version(scrapped): http://www.box.net/shared/7v5eur33i5 Software used: Sonar 8.5 Producer, Garritan Personal Orchestra, Dimension Pro. Feedback/criticism welcome .

http://www.cakewalk.com/sonarupgrade/ If you haven't yet, you've got one more week to take advantage on the upgrade deal: "Purchases or upgrades to SONAR 8 must be made on or after July 1st, 2009 through March 1st, 2010. SONAR V-Studio 700 purchases are eligible for the 8.5 upgrade, no matter when the V-Studio 700 was purchased." Yes I think you are being ripped off for SONAR 8.5 at that price, though I personally prefer to purchase from the official Cakewalk store. Depending on what cakewalk product you already have, the upgrade prices will vary. It'll cost me $349 to upgrade to producer or $449 if I was a just a registered cakewalk member. As for studio it'll cost me $199 to upgrade, I've been using Sonar Home Studio 7 XL and have gotten frustrated with the interface compared to Cakewalk Music Creator 4. I'm getting Producer soon. Though if you've already made your purchase, hope you scored the best deal possible .

My example isn't very great as I quickly threw something together. Everything I've heard with Amplitube all the guitar tracks sound way too 'tinny', it's probably more the cab impulse than the pre-amp. Personally guitar Rig 3 sounds a lot better than Amplitube although some of the effects sound like a guitar is being played through some cheap crappy fx pedal. But still both could improve on simulating cabinets. I'm sure all these amp sim products have potentual to sound great, but I'm not overly impressed with the sound, could just be me but the majority of examples I hear sound far too 'muddy'. I must admit though the free SD plugin sounded pretty horrible. I find it easiest to find the right tone in the simplicity of SDA, with the wrong pre-amp and cab impulse it can sound pretty shocking. With GR3 I found it was too complicated to get my own tone. The only downside is that the effects built in to SDA aren't much more than what you'd see on a regular amp, few and limited, but the plugins that came with my DAW do the justice. Considering that Studio Devil Amp Modeler Pro only came out like 2 days ago, you sure it was that you tried or one of their older products?

Greetings all, I was so excited I thought I may as well post a topic ^-^. The other day I purchased an excellent guitar amp sim called Studio Devil Amp Modeler Pro. It's been about 2 years in the making, and I feel it's time I let my fellow musicians know about this. Some of you may be familiar with Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3 or AmpliTube 2, well this is the latest amp sim product by Studio Devil. Great sound, great tone and very good for it's price. Not sure if $149 is too much to ask but I think it's worth every cent. Before looking into buying the more well known amp sims I suggest you give Studio Devil a shot and try the demo out. Besides from using the standard Cabinet Impulses that come with it you can also load up your own, a fair bit if flexibility to offer also. Personally I think Guitar Rig sounds too overprocessed, and the cab sims suffer a bit, I've never tried AmpliTube but from what I've heard the tones sound HORRIBLE. Anyway, I quickly put together a solo, I've already made my own tones, so I thought I'd give it a shot, so see what you guys think: http://www.box.net/shared/qjk3plfed3 Also their site has various samples to listen to. Obviously I'm no reviewer, but it's something worth talking about . Share your thoughts and opinions, I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks. EDIT: This is quite old now, I notice people are still downloading the sample once every so often. My sample was pretty awful and executed poorly. However I have since moved on from Studio Devil AMP as it just didn't have the right tone for me. Though I'm not stopping any of you from checking this out, I've moved on to better and greater things. The preamp could be much more, and the default cabinet impulses aren't that great and take a lot more time to get a great tone out of it, best to use the Recabinet demo impulses instead.

Minor update, finished off 'build up' and it's ready to flow to the next part: http://www.box.net/shared/mazv10zp1c Also added a bit more interesting bits into the rhythm guitars and fixed the tone up a tad bit more.

Added new section which is the build-up before the first 'verse', I think it flows nicely. Next version(0.2) up: http://www.box.net/shared/mogr8gmd9n Thanks for that little bit of feedback, the strings at the moment are temporary, I've changed to a different set of strings in the new version. I was well aware about the guitars, usually I record a single guitar to get the song going, then I go back and re-record it and record another guitar playing the same thing but pan both to the left and right. So I have panned the rhythm guitars to the left and right as you pretty much requested, changed the tone of the guitars, also altered the section that kicks in straight after the intro. Next task is to add bass guitar and start working on the basic structure of the whole song.

Greetings all, been awhile since I've posted anything so I thought I may as well share this work in progress with you. I've had this guitar riff for ages and have never put it to use so I decided to do something with it. A few ideas came into mind while working around the main riff and I started to build upon it, I think it flows rather well but the intro might come into place too suddenly. If you are familiar with Symphony X and Dream Theater this certainly falls into a similar category. So I present you with what I have done so far. The Mechanical Serpent Ver0.1: http://www.box.net/shared/lmc53vs5e1 The Mechanical Serpent Ver0.2: http://www.box.net/shared/mogr8gmd9n The Mechanical Serpent Ver0.3: http://www.box.net/shared/mazv10zp1c Please bear in mind this is absolutely incomplete and the guitars tone may not sound too great(EDIT: I got off my lazy bum and recorded and panned rhythm guitars and fixed the tone) and the fact there is no bass yet but I'm focusing more on the actual song itself before I worry about mastering the sound. I am well aware of this but feedback is more than welcome. Thanks and enjoy .

As quoted from the track Metal Mage (Palom and Porom): Pretty much my outlook on the entire album.

Thanks for posting the sfz kit Harmony, downloading it now, found it on youtube first and then had to come here after finding the link you put on the video just linked to mediafires homepage(file reference in the url was a few letters short, might want to fix that on the video description), search engines sure are handy. Also none of you guys have mentioned Dimension Pro, not sure if anyone here besides me have used it personally but I find it a nice and powerful sfz player/editor. Not sure how it goes with the text files and such but I find the graphical interface nice and flexible, perfect for tweaking any sfz file to my liking. Unfortunately coming at $249 might be out of the price range for some of you, but if you own a copy of Dimension LE then you can get it for $149. You get what you pay for and it's a very reliable VSTi, has not crashed on me once. SFZ is a great free player, but doesn't really offer any tweaking unlike the commercial sfz+(which by chance doesn't support sfz but only sf2 format). But able to do everything in a text file is good enough if you know how to do it. I know I'm a bit late in finding this but who knows, maybe this will help others who are looking into sfz.

That's great news, I purchased Battery 3 and it arrived yesterday(still nowhere near getting the hang of it yet), I might consider getting Groove Bias sometime soon, what I've heard so far is flawless.