ChaosSupremeSonic

Wow...not really what I was expecting. Was I better off with the original one? Then again, I'm still working on it, so it's not like it would've been perfect. I still need to humanize it and work on the notes along with other things. How exactly would I fix the horns? Is it just a matter of it not sounding human?

You know, over time I've been testing out the insturments of this song, and I've really been changing it a lot since I first started this. At first, it was meant to be a jazz song, and over time it became a bit more of a orchestra with a saxophone playing to keep a bit of the jazz I wanted. Now, I changed it into a full blown orchestra, and it took a lot of time to transform it into such. It didn't take me long to re-arrange the insturment, but it did take me a while to understand how an orchestra works. It was worth it, and wasn't as frustrating as I thought it would be. After obtaining a new VSTi, I went ahead and re-organized things to a more orchestra feel, similar to that of the orignal song. So here is the work so far: I took out the Sax and replaced it with an Oboe, completely took out the Piano with no substitute, added French Horns, Viola, Tuba, Clarinet, Trumbone, and a Second Violin. Obviously unfinished; I need to set the volumes for the insturments so they don't over power the melody, like they're doing with the Oboe, and I need to finish the ending. But even with all that...how am I doing so far?

Three months and no feedback? Well consider me the first. I've actually been listening to your stuff for quite a while, especially your Street Fighter arrangements. I gotta say this really has quite an ethnical feel to it, with a more techno-ish feel to it. I honestly haven't listened to Shinobi's music (although I have played Nightshade, just to let you know I'm aware of it's existence ), but this does sound like something I would expect to from a game with a ninja in it. Boy am I lame at feedback.

Speaking of the strings, I recently figured out a better way to separate them. And I got a good grasp of how panning helps better organize the sound. In VST I'm using, DKS Strings, I had the strings put all together, with a violin being the insturment that stood out. I originally had it set like this: Violin Section (P) + String Section (P) [the VST has two insturments settings put together] Here's the sample: But after observing how orchestras are set up, I split the string sounds into this: Violin (P) + String Section (P) Cello (P) + " D.Bass (P) + " In a real orchestra, Violins are set to the left (second violins are to the right of the first violins), and the Cellos and Double Basses are set to the right. So to mimic that, I had to pan the Violins, Cellos, and D.Basses according to that. Here's how that sounds: I think it sounds a lot better, and I can better hear the insturments without them sounding like they're fighting each other to be heard. Tho the D.Basses sound a bit overpowering in some parts of the actual song, so I'm on to changing that. Yeah, I know about that. It's one of the things that's been helping me while I've been working on this.

Oh. I thought there was more to it than that. Sorry. Based off what you said earlier, I'm guessing the piano should be quieter than the strings, so by order of sound: -Sax being the main melody is the loudest (but not so loud that you can't hear the other insturments) -Strings are second loudest -Piano is the quietest -Flute is the loudest only when it has the melody. Would that work? EDIT: ALso I seem to have encountered a problem with FL Studio. The Strings and Piano in the beginning somehow go mute for a split second and then go back to normal, and then sometimes they sound scattered as if something was wrong with the program. It seems to only happen whenever I try to make a crescendo for the introduction of the strings yet if I keep it at a constant volume, the problem doesn't happen as much. You ever had that problem?

Think you can elaborate the flaws a little more? Like what would I need to do to keep the insturments from swiming around each other.

Kinda curious as to how I'm progressing with the song. I set the Flute up another octave, increased the volume of the strings, and lowered the reverb of the piano. Now I know the Sax needs more humanizing, and while Swann deals with his finals, I'm still consideriing listening to his trumpet version to see if I could use it, but for right now I'm sticking with the sax until further notice. Any flaws you hear, point them out. I personally think the sax needs to be a bit louder, especially when the Flute plays its melody (GAWD that was silent X-(), and then the piano is sounds like it needs a volume increase near the end after the flute's melody. but you guys have better ears than me at hearing any flaws in the song.

http://freemusicsoftware.org/392 DVS Saxophone is a good VSTi you could use for FL Studio. I use it for practically all my songs that I want a sax sound in. I wouldn't say it's the best, but it can take you a long way and is one of the best Sax VSTis that you could find for free. It's interface is simple, you work mainly with the size and depth of the sound, along with an Auto Vibrato and Express feature to alter the feel. I think the attacks depend on the velocities you set it on. The higher the velocity, the greater the attack. That's how it seems whenever I want to lessen the attack.

Man, school is really coming down hard on my ass. Anyway, this update is to test how the sax sequencing is faring out. One thing that I observed (or remembered in this case) from people playing actual insturments is that they don't play as if they hold their breath through a whole song. People take breaths after they run out of it at certain points while reading music, and they can take a breath at any moment, which is why there were tickmarks at the top of music pieces if you were playing a wind insturment such as a brass or woodwind that indicated where you could take a quick breath. That's part of what I remembered during my days in high school band class. Now I had displaced some space on the sax part to simulate this quick breath, and I had changed the velocity to make the insturment sound softer in the music. Here's a sample so far: http://www.mediafire.com/?j2ykt3n1ztq Any suggestions?

That'll help. Ooooh. Sounds like a challenge I'm willing to take. It was a challenge (I'd almost say a pain in the ass) to even come up with this arrangement, but that didn't stop me from making one as good as it currently is. I suppose asking him for some advice wouldn't hurt, or is he either very busy or not interested in giving advice? Eh, it's worth a shot... I'll see how Swann handles it when I get to sending him the midi files. In the meantime, I'm gonna take a shot at sequencing a saxophone.

Lower the piano and it's reverb, increase the volume of the strings, and set the flutes up an octave. Noted. However... This will take a good while (lord knows how long it took me to actually find a sax as good as this one for myself that I can use). I've gone ahead and accepted Swann's offering to play the sax parts on trumpet (I have to send him a media file since the midis I had were silent). But what exactly are the issues with the sax. I've been around the net for soundfonts of a better sax, and they all seem to end up ruining the piece. Then I tried listening to saxophone players on youtube to get a better knowledge of how the saxophone sounds. The one I'm using seems to match that of an alto sax, so I'm looking for something that blends as easily as the Sax VSTi I'm currently using. But for production's sake, I'd like to know of the problems with the current sax sound so that, if I'm unable to actually get someone to play it well or find a good soundfont, I can learn of a way to alter it and make it sound more realistic. Thanks.

Oh...well that was even more noobish of me than anything I've done. Nevermind that then. I only looked at it and thought it would be helpful for folks who would want to give me critique.

Okay, here's a bit of an update on the music: Made some more drastic changes to give it more variety and a bit more of a classical fee. So far: -Added strings to accompany the piano in the intro -Gave the strings more strength in tone to make the piece more vibrant -Added small flute parts in certain parts -Added Dream Bell to certain portions near the beginning -Made the sax the harmony along with the piano while flute does the melody at 1:39 -Changed a few notes At first when I added the flute, it didn't sound like it would mesh well with the music, but then I realized I was putting it in the wrong places that made it sound bad in general. Still quite a way to go. The flute addition is new, so it needs to be humanized, as do certain other parts in the piece, but so far it sounds a lot better than it did before. So any advice to make some other improvements? Insturments conflicting at certain parts? Sound is too loud? Or what?

I actually see a lot of fault in both the regular Sonic AND the werehog. Regular Sonic is really more akin to just running down a hall rather than how it was like in the Genesis games. Sure in those games you could speed right through the level as fast as you want, but you could also take the time to explore the stage and search for hidden rooms and such. Sonic Unleashed's daytime stage does away with the exploration value I see, and really doesn't care much about level design, especially when you get to Eggmanland. Everytime you get your boost meter filled to a goop point, you seem to have a sudden urge to press it every chance you get. Then when you get to Eggmanland, doing that at the wrong moment spells a likely death. Then the werehog is another thing. Now it actually gives a bit of exploration that the regular Sonic would've done well with, but it was more tedious in trying to explore it. Honestly, they could've done the best with both worlds and allowed you to explore and speed through with just regular Sonic. Don't get me wrong, I see where they were going with the werehog, but its execution was so poor that they should've really thought about that more. The only really bad games were Sonic 06, Shadow, and to a lesser extent Heroes. Sonic 06...I don't think I need to remind anyone. Shadow was unnecessary. I actually like the character, but that game just added on extra shit that was inappropriate to begin with. If they were going to bring him back in Heroes (meaning they're not going to have him stay dead, for anyone who wants to get smart), they could've sumed it up with him teleporting out of the sky and falling out of the atmosphere to somewhere on earth after SA2. That would've explained how he survived and would have dodge his game from coming out. But Iizuka said that he always wanted a game for Shadow so...meh, I'm not going to be bothered by that bit. Heroes' main flaw was having you play throught the same stages with four different teams which were virtually the same. They could've really just stuck with one team, instead of four teams that were identical. Other than that, the rest of the game was okay at best. I rather enjoyed the Adventures tho. They were actually a good step for Sonic in 3D. But had they had better execution with the three mentioned above...I'm not even sure what would happen. I know Sonic 06 would not have played any better even without the glaring flaws that it had, as it would've been exactly like SA1. I'm up for it being styled like the Classics while being a new game on it's own. The Classics seemed to advance the formula after each entry, making the games better than the previous one. How this will pan out, I'm not fully sure, but I do look foward for it to be a good game. Egg Dragoon...the best bost fight in the game. Yeah.... seriously,what the fuck?

I never said what day it was, but I did hint it, so I'll remember that next time. Thanks for the A1 Steak Sauce tho, who ever gave me that. Now where's my steak Seriously, that joke almost convinced me for a second. But it had a few obvious giveaways that I'm surprised people actually fell for it. I mean no submission and the judges are relieved of their duty? Did that not speak "APRIL FOOLS!" for anyone?