mickomoo

A friend of mine wants to get into midi production and plays brass (and has limited experience with woodwinds). While there are plenty of midi keyboards out there I'm not at all familiar with any wind controllers. Do y'all have any recommendations? Also, just for my own edification, what're the advantages of a wind controller to a keyboard controller, or is one not better than the other?

I like writing orchestral and big band stuff with libraries like EWQL and Broadwayy and while I've gotten decent sound out of them, I feel like I'm not touching their true potential. I've heard really good VST based stuff from mixers on this site (like Beckett or ) and I'm getting nowhere near that level of sound it feels like. What are my options when it comes to emulating acoustic realism? I have various libraries (though I mostly use EWQL platinum and other EW libraries) and aside from EW Spaces I don't really have any other reverb plugins. What I've been doing is adding an instance of reverb to each individual instrument, but that doesn't seem to be the best option. Not only is it memory intensive, but to mirror the spacing and spread of instruments in an environment it seems like it'd be better to send everything to one instance of reverb and try and pan from within there? Or maybe I should just try to work with the mic positions of my instruments and avoid reverb?

Back when I was composing I talked to a friend about Hans, apparently he mostly works with VSTs and then talks to the orchestra about what he wants. I don't think he's classically trained (and supposedly he can't read music), which is why among some composers who've tried to break into the industry he's hated. Still, I love his work. I don't think the class will be useful though for those of us who already work extensively with VSTs though... but I suppose it could be useful to know his workflow I've always been trying to improve mine.

This actually has nothing to do with music making, but since you all use audio gear and I'm at my wits in I figured I'd give posting here a shot. I'm using a mic into a laptop to record voice audio (podcasts, lets plays, other commentary). I started last September with a clip-on mic (Zaleman Zim,cheap but adequate omnidirectional mic). There was always a hum, and I used audacity and Adobe audition post recording to edit it out as best as I could. My original assumption was that the mic was picking up fan noise so I got a USB mic for Christmas (a Cad u1 USB mic). The Cad being a slight better mic picked up this background noise even better than the last mic. With a bit of research I narrow down the suspect to a ground loop and over the last two weeks have thrown everything I could at the problem. I bought a surge protector that has a rfi/emi filter. Nothing changed. I bought plug in filters (from 2 brands) that are plug adapters which supposedly are supposed to filter out the noise signal. I also bought isolators... basically nothings working. I was going to rule out ground loop as the issue but last night while testing my usb mic I realized that when I place my hands on top of my laptop the buzzing goes away almost completely. That has to be a ground loop right? And my assumption is that the wiring in my apartment is poorly/not grounded. It's not my power adapter because it's 3 pronged and my outlets are 3 pronged as well. Have any of you dealt with ground loops in your recordings. Especially with mics? I know it's highly unlikely that any of you record audio with usb mics, but I'm sure some of you have used laptops which are prone to having this issue.

I actually improved when I stopped using keyswitches. It forced me to think about articulations I wanted to use beforehand. Also you can save memory by avoiding keyswitch patches. I don't know if you had this problem but I did: I didn't explore the full set of articulations per instrument and stuck exclusively to key switches. Key switches are good for quick mockups but realism requires becoming familiar with everything EWQL has. For example, your cross-fading patches allow you to blend samples of various velocities. These are good for swells and sustains especially long sustains). Mike Verta has several tutorials on this: http://mikeverta.com/wordpress/podcastsandtutorials/tutorials/videocast-v-i-techniques/ http://mikeverta.com/wordpress/podcastsandtutorials/tutorials/videocast-composing-live/ You can probably find some more that also include tips specific to your DAW and VSTs. If you find anything cool don't hesitate to send it my way. Also, one of the best things to do is to first consider the size of your ensemble and selecting the ensemble patches closest to the ratio you want for each section. Next is to consider your options for panning, which should generally be informed by orchestral seating charts. A lot of midi composers have panning + reverb charts that illustrate how to emulate this. This isn't an exact science, and honestly depending on the vibe I'm going for I deviate from this sometimes or synthesize multiple charts positions. Your stuff sounds pretty decent actually, and in terms of the sample you posted it's fine. The major thing we can really do to enhance realism is improve our arrangements and usage of articulations and maybe use some nice reverb/panning. Out of the box EWQL sounds okay and shouldn't require supermassive amounts of tweeking unless there's a very very particular style or something that you're going for. I'm using EWQL and still learning too, so let me know how things go for you!

lol yeah I'm in cali too. Really wish I did say hi to the guy.

I don't know if it's just me, but brass sounds significantly better. Strings are negligible, but plucked basses sound a bit fuller.

Random question. I saw someone wearing an OCR shirt on my way to work on the train last week, couldn't say hi, I was running late. But I am curious, how rare (or common) has it been for any of you to see someone repping ocr, outside of a convention, concert, or organized meetup.

On a limb I upgraded to EWQL Platnium Plus last year, but I've held off on producing anything with 24 bit samples because when I do everything is supremely wet and heavy. No amount of mixing down (with my current ability) has gotten that to change.When I work with 16 bit samples it's just been a matter of me panning, playing with volume and delay, but I guess 24 bit samples require better handling? Do any of you work with 24 bit samples?

for me panning and reverb help. Mastery of CCs (which I don't have) as well as mastering your particular samples articulations can help.

Pardon me for being so ill informed. But does OC have a Steam group? Who all plays steam games?

For me arranging existing music (video game and pop) into genres that differed from the source helped immensely. Though I still only have a passing/intuitive understanding of composition. I can't really articulate what I know, it's still just inklings and instincts. Since you have musicianship experience, maybe you should focus on developing your ear by arranging and do some basic theory work on the side. I rushed to get the best equipment out there, but truly only time made me better.

I had an amazing year last year, I did new music roughly every two months which I know isn't a big deal, but music isn't my main hobby so for me it was huge. Also for every song I made (both originals and covers), the quality improved exponentially because I learned a lot from song to song. Even between the breaks when I wasn't practicing or actively trying to improve my workflow I found that I was constantly improving. This year is terrible. I think I've done 4 songs; all covers, most not finished because I don't have the motivation to work on them (I'm not as drawn to the song as I originally thought). In terms of originals, none of the ideas in my head strike me, when I do get ideas that is. I don't really feel anything musically anymore. I have no idea what happened... I'm wondering if any of you have had slumps like this? How long did they last? Did you push yourself out of them? Did you find you skills diminished greatly when you returned to music?

There are really only two selling points to a MOOC: the institution providing the class and the community enrolled in the classes, some of my courses have been made by the quality of forum discussions, and I've even made friends with people off Coursera. That experience wouldn't exist by simply posting youtube vids. Though to be fair, not every class has that level of discussion, and this course seems to mostly be people complaining about how hard music theory is to understand (I totally understand their pain, it's just that contributes nothing to the class discussion). And yeah, certificates are a joke, but there are people who are easily impressed by that. I will say though, I imagine that for classes that teach really technical skills maybe it's a decent start to showing potential employers any skill sets you may have (or are trying to acquire)

Timpanis are usually back center, no? I've only seen a live orchestra 6 times in my life, half of them being when I was too young to appreciate the experience lol, but I've tried to corroborate this chart with various other images The positions on the chart are physical but they're also represented specially by the delay. So while the timpanis are centered here, they have a delay of 2.5 seconds, the largest delay on the chart. Giving them that delay should make them sound further out.