ulrichburke

Dear Rozovian. Thank you very much for what you've done for me - I really am touched. As far as the panning goes - I'm using a Soundblaster Audigy LE soundcard. It's only got one hole for speakers. So I had to buy an adapter to be able to plug both speakers in (WHY have only one hole when there's two speakers, Creative Labs!?!) And other people have told me my stuff sounds too far over to the right - when I'm listening to it on my Numark flat sound speakers via the adapter it sounds more central and left. Which is puzzling, but there you go. I tried to compensate but obviously didn't do it enough. I've got Miroslav Orchestra, but it keeps crashing my software. I've got an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card but when I had that, its drivers kept giving me non-stop blue screens of death so it had to go and the Audigy was all I could afford. I know it was the M-Audio software that was the problem because as soon as I uninstalled it, no more BSODS. So no more M-Audio, which is a shame because it had TWO speaker holes in it which is more logical. If I use Miroslav strings, any of them, they stick and stick and stick. I can un-stick them, but the sticking will always get progressively worse until everything crashes on me. It's only the strings that do that but I got so tired of re-setting up eveerything because of Miroslav killing everything that I downloaded the St. John Soundfont Orchestra and used that instead (the other instruments are from Proteus VX). Also, you can E.Q. as you go when you're using individual soundfonts, of course you can't if you're using multiple sounds from the same package, the software only lets you put effects on the package itself, not on the individual sounds coming out of it. (Quick Score Elite Level 2.) Which means you've no real idea what the final piece will sound like as you can't do any ongoing effects. As each soundfont is in its own plaer, it makes life MILES easier. And I've heard sounds as bad/good as mine (depending on how you look at it) on many New Age/Panpipes albums (says he defensively!) You're right, Miroslav would be better if the strings weren't crash-makers. Did you put the mix you did up anywhere so I can listen to it and hear the difference? I'll try out everything else you say, I'd never thought of any of the things you'd told me. Yours respectfully ulrichburke

Dear Rosovian Thing is, I'm SOOO noob to mixing I don't really know what I'm talking about either. For starters, I've put the whole thing up here - the MP3 (Easter Time) and all the individual instrument tracks in a zipfile:- http://hotfile.com/dl/115852347/1eea20f/Easter_Time_MP3_and_Trax.7z.html I'm not asking you to do anything with the tracks, just tell me what I SHOULD be doing to them. The idea was to have a backing of nice mixed-together sounds - like a swirl of colours - with a guitar on the left-hand side and a clarinet on the right-hand side taking turns in butchering the melody. It's all VSTs - the guitar and Clarinet are from Proteus VX and the strings and things are all soundfonts. So soundfonts in the middle, Proteus instruments left'n'right. The guitar's fine - might not be the greatest virtual guitar but you can hear it fine. If you look at its oscilloscope reading, it's not that high because it doesn't have to be. The clarinet's oscilloscope reading is WAY out there. And yet, even if you solo it, it doesn't SOUND that loud. The guitar, with a lower oscilloscope reading, sounds louder than the clarinet! Which begs the question - if you've got a quiet-ish sound (clarinet, flute, ocarina, things like that) playing the lead melody - how do you keep it audible over the backing? I know that's going to sound stupid to you, because it does to me. It's just - if I get the backing track nice and audible (like a karaoke track, for argument's sake) I can't make the flute/clarinet/similar softer instrument audible over the top no matter what I do to it. And if I use enough EQ to make the lead soft instrument DEFINITELY audible, all the other sounds sound like they're being played through a telephone! I know it's possible because I've got a TON of flute'n'bad VSTs tracks done by other people. And you can hear the swirly backing with the flute on top perfectly. Nothing sounds like it's coming through telephones on those tracks. I just don't get how they do it! Yours frustratedly - I WILL get the hang of mixing before I die! The problem with the 'tutorials' is they assume you're doing dance tracks and I don't, I do New Agey tracks so nothing they say seems to apply. Or rather, I don't know which bits of their info to use and which not to.Aagh. My head's a mess with all of this. Just need a bit of help getting started. Yours respectfully ulrichburke, wannabe New Age composer!

Dear Everyone. I hope you had a great Easter - and I hope this question actually makes sense to you - I'm going to over-explain what I'm asking so you can catch my train of thought and tell me if I've got off at the wrong stop. OK. In a new piece I've got a clarinet - main tune carrier, sounds like a cat with an oboe up its a**e. Anyway. That aside. When I look at its soundwave, the little lines are jumping pretty high. Much higher than those of the backing. Yet it still sounds too quiet. I've tried compression of all types, including blue whale compression (mine own invention, makes elephant's knee look like a blonde in a miniskirt) and you can see how high the soundwaves are jumping, kangaroo on hot coals. Yet it STILL sounds too quiet - and the signals of the combined backing track aren't any louder. So according to all the science, that clarinet should be audible two blocks away. It should be HUGE compared to the backing (not that I want it huge compared to the backing, I'm just trying to make it sound audible over the backing without EQing the backing to shreds to achieve this.) Despite compression, despite trying turning it up so it's clipping (I know that's wrong, I ran out of ideas) despite listening to it soloed whilst using incredibly scientific methods like twiddling every knob in site, it's not sounding any louder. Its soundwave is jumping like a dancer at a punk rock concert but you'd swear the volume hadn't changed. Now change the word 'louder' for 'clearer' if you want to. I know EQ is what gives instruments holes to sit in but I didn't want to kill the sound of the backing TOO much. And even when I WAS EQing heck out of the backing to see what would happen - that clarinet wasn't sounding any louder. Except for one annoying bit of it. The transients. They were hitting you like Mike Tyson's lovetaps but immediately after the transient had struck home - too quiet again. Yet the soundwave for the soloed clarinet was still solar hot. EQint the other instruments WAS making it sound comparatively louder - but only by making the other instruments sound like they were being played through a telephone. Judging by the clarinet's signal, you'd've thought it would've been easily audible without needing to do anything to the other sounds. Now I hit this problem with monotonous regularity in almost everything I write. There's always a couple of sounds, at least, where the soundwaves LOOK a lot louder than the virtual instruments sound. And I've never worked out why. I've even got a couple of magnificent failures somewheres where you can hardly hear anything - yet the soundwaves for the whole file are bright red stratospheric. No, I can't explain that one at all. But I'm hoping you can. What is it that controls AUDIBLE sound differences as opposed to TECHNICAL sound differences? In other words, how come you can have something with a red-hot soundwave that still sounds far too quiet - and something else with a much smaller soundwave that's perfectly audible, clear and right in connection with the piece as a whole? Yours head-scratchingly Chris.

Dear Everyone! I've got ONE instrument going for the first time in my life!! Haven't tried for more than one simultaneously yet but rest assured - if I come across any probs., you lot will be the first to know (site moderators worldwide start sobbing desperately into their beer!) Thanks - you lot rock. Wish my music did....!! Yours respectfully ulrichburke.

But I need (oh, NO!! They groan.) a bit of help working out the final virtual circuit (god I'm thick!) Right. I now have my onboard sequencer attached to Reason via MIDI Yoke. The Advanced MIDI Device is saying 'In from MIDI YOKE 1'. When I bung a bunch of random notes into Music Maestro (the sequencer!) the little lights flash rhythmically in the Advanced MIDI device and on the Mixer panel. I have chosen a simple (hopefully!) instrument, an NN-19 Bright Piano. I get lots of pretty lights, no noise. I import a MIDI file directly into Reason, choose the same instrument, do not change any soundcard or any other settings, THEN I get noise. Which makes me think - correct me if I'm wrong, you're the experts - the incoming signals are hitting the Advanced MIDI device, but NOT the piano (the NN-19). Thing is, on the back of the NN-19 there aren't really any input channels. The Advanced MIDI Device doesn't have any wires you can pull out of it to join it to the NN-19. It seems to be joined to the mixer by some kind of magic, there aren't any wires going out from its back to the mixer because there aren't any virtual jackplug sockets there. (that's not very helpful. There's things on the back of the NN-19 labelled Gate, Cutoff, MOD wheel, Pitch wheel and you can pull virtual cables from them, but I've tried connecting everything to everything else and no joy.) So. The signals are hitting the mixer - that's a first for me - YAAAY!! How do I get them FROM the mixer TO the instrument, then the output FROM the instrument TO the sound-out so it hits my soundcard (and from there to the loudspeakers!) And - scary stuff, this! - if I had a whole BUNCH of instruments going on, how would I get the right MIDI signals to the right instruments (but if I can get ONE instrument going, it would be a HUGE, Rosetta Stone-sized advance!) Thanks again for getting me this far - it's a huge advance in itself. Yours hopefully ulrichburke

Dear Anyone. Bear with this, I'm being as concise as I can. I've got an IBM comp. 1GIG Ram, Asus Asrock mobo, M-Audio Audiophile 2496 soundcard. I've got a notation package, Voyetra Music Maestro, which creates MIDI files. At the moment, it outputs the MIDI instructions to the General MIDI sounds that come with Windows, because I don't know how to make Reason 4 find it! I know it's possible to import the MIDI files into Reason after creating them, but it would be a LOT quicker if I could stick notes in and hear the Reason sounds straight off. I also have MIDI Yoke, which is a virtual connection cable program. You send the output through MIDI Yoke, INTO the sound making device. The sounds are then triggered! Problem is, I can't make Reason find MIDI Yoke. Which might not be a problem - the help files hint heavily that it's possible to make Reason 'find' an onboard sequencer program without needing any other 'connection' software. Thing is, I can't find any explicit instructions as to how to make Reason 4 DO it. In Music Maestro, my external notator/sequencer, I have the following output options:- Microsoft GM Wavetable SW Synth (that's the built-in one I'm using at present) MIDI Yoke outputs 1 thru 8 MPU-401 MIDI Mapper Delta AP MIDI How (step-by-step if possible PLEASE - this thing's got a learning curve like an ant climbing Mount Everest as it is!) do I make Reason 4 recognise/find the output from the Music Maestro sequencer? It's not picking up on the MIDI Yoke outputs for some reason but, like I said, the help files hint heavily at it being possible without anything like MIDI Yoke. Yours hopefully ulrichburke

Dear Anyone. I'm so new to Reason that I don't even know what to look for in the tutorials to help me, so just pointing me in the right direction might help, if you're too busy to answer. 2 questions, might be interlinked, might not. 1. How do you get Soft Buzzy Strings/ backing sounds? I'm trying to write New Age, piano'n'strings, flute'n'strings, strings with everything!! If you listen to Richard Clayderman or anyone like that, gentle New Age in general, the strings are lovely, misty and buzzy background sounds. My strings sound like the shower scene from Psycho! What is it that makes 'em buzz and sound soft, without sounding so quiet they're inaudible? (I want loud softness, loudness without harshness). 2.) There IS a nice string sound called buzzstrings. But if you do a long string chord - anything over 2 beats - it has this crescendo effect that seems built-in. It just keeps on getting louder. How do I set it to the level I want and KEEP IT THERE without the crescendo effect cutting in? If anyone has any other tips on keeping things soft, like every piece of New Age anyone's ever heard, I'd love to know them. (Keeping pads sounding soft and warm, adding fuzziness to flutes, anything like that.) If there's a lesson on this in the tutorial section somewheres, rub my nose in it! I'm so new I don't even know what I'm looking for Yours with a gentle smile ulrichburke P.S. I know about Reverb, I also know, from the professional pieces I've heard, there's more going on in their softness than tons of reverb. I just don't know what it is or how to reproduce it.