SJM

You better listen to this via headphones - otherwise you probably won't imagine that noise is actually supposed to be wind --> Shelter@Soundcloud It's a very ambient track with a very soft piano and some synths (and at the very end a simple acoustic guitar) - So it's quite obvious this track is all about atmosphere. Can you sense any atmosphere? Or are there parts there that totally destroy atmosphere or seem extraordinarily weird? Please feel free to write your very own feelings about this

Ah okay - that's sad, but .... one day I wil finally buy Komplete! And then I can finally use all these great libraries

I have just one more question about Emotional Piano: on the product page it says "only with full Kontakt" but in the FAQ ( http://www.tonehammer.com/?p=6393#kontaktfreeplayer ) it seems like it should work with Kontakt Player, too. Has anybody tried that yet or can enlighten me there?

Yeah, I'd appreciate your opinion - I love a zithers sound, but I wonder whether the library is easyly usable (especially because I only have the Kontakt Player and thus can't really tweak the patches). Another thing: SoundIron will publish Emotional Piano Version 2 (http://www.soundiron.com/instruments/pianos/emotional-piano/) where they "improved overall playability, added a new ui with a full set of automatable performance and effects controls, fixed a few minor bugs and refined the overall experience." Sadly there is no price yet, but hopefully we get to know more about this before 31st

"The passing away of Tonehammer. The birth of two separate companies and a final sale at 50% off some of our most popular libraries, which will last until August 1st where Tonehammer will cease to exist. 8Dio (by Troels Folmann) (www.8dio.com) Soundiron (by Mike Peaslee) (www.soundiron.com)" (facebook announcement) 50% discount - I'll surely buy Emotional Piano and maybe Zitherette; I know the piano is great, but does anybody of you know Zitherette and can recommend it or anything like that?

Reason 6 kills Record (but introduces Reason Essentials.... still a better division). Was about time IMO, especially, if you will eventually buy both anyway. The new FX, Pulveriser, The Echo and Alligator are interesting and Alligator looks most useful to me. Reason and ReWire is also available in 64 bit, now. http://www.propellerheads.se/reason6/ But if you already have Reason+Record 5, will these things motivate you to upgrade? I mean 4 introduced a new sequencer and Thor -> big change & awesome new synth, 5 introduced Kong and Blocks -> awesome drum solution & another interesting workflow idea, but 6?

Yeah, I bought z3ta for 20€, too and still only looked through most presets and made simple sounds with it, so the better UI would of course be welcome, but 50$... I don't know, I'll probably wait for z3ta 2 to become cheaper if I'm buying it at all. An old UI is a bad excuse for still not learning how to master the old version

I just got the newsletter with the z3ta 2 announcement and, well, it looks nice, but - it's not that exciting or what do you think? And sorry if I'm the last one knowing of this, but I just read and thought I'd like to know your opinions here. EDIT: good idea, SymBiotiX Here is the link: http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/Z3TA/Legends-Never-Die.aspx

This thread is grwoing with an insane speed and I'm going to be a part of the growth The good old FF soundtracks, especially FF7 are just godlike. And only ~5k fans for Uematsu? But then again, how many did he have before?

Thanks for your feedback. As I understand it, I will have to take care to seperate instruments more - in the stereo range and in the frequency range. Is that right? I just fear it might let everything sound too dry and too far apart - but I guess I'll have to experiment with that

Yeah, thanks for the advice, I just seem to keep forgetting about panning

Using Sonatina Symphony Orchestra (free), that 3gb soundfonts collection from the Newgrounds forums (free) and Garritan Pocket Orchestra (5€) I created this piece some weeks ago but didn't really like it - now after some more work on it, I wanted to share it to recieve some criticism. SJM\Soundcloud - A Trailer Minute

My first thought was: If your DAW doesn't support anything like that, look for a real one I don't think you can accomplish that with a VST plugin, because afaik VSTs can't change MIDI data on your host tracks, it only could take the incoming MIDI and delay notes you played too early - but this wouldn't really work with notes that come too late and it would of course be non-destructive. Host plugins however could do that, but I don't know if these exist for your DAW.

I'm still quite new to music production, too, and so I thought why not share my experiences as well - if it helps. If you're working in a DAW, you'll mostly work on arranging your stuff on a timeline - track by track: so each instrument will get a row and measures the columns. On these tracks you have the parts in which either MIDI files are (->notes, that don't have any sound themselves) or audio files (->only sound). It really explains itself, if you expermient with it. I don't know what kind of music you want to produce, but especially if you want to produce electronical stuff and work on synthesizers, you'll spend quite some time choosing and tweaking your instruments (which will mostly come in VST format). If you take a look at for example the well-known free synth Synth1, you'll probably be rather scared Instead of learning how this all works from the "front side" I think it's a lot easier to explore synthesis from "behind the scenes", for example with SynthEdit (http://www.synthedit.com/) - you can download a free version and use it unlimited I think and SynthEdits help files contain a nice tutorial which will immediately show you what ADSRs, LFOs and whatnot mean You can export the synths you build into VST files, so you can use them as instruments in your DAW (or use them insinde SynthEdit, if you're not yert sure about your DAW). You want to add some modulation, you add it to your synth. It's quite direct and you don't need to see which of the hundreds of knobs in Synth1 does what Of course, after some time, you will know how it all works and then you'll want a faster workflow and a better looking and better sounding synth. And if you now open up Synth1, you'll know, what this all means. Well okay, not everything, but the basic principles. After experimenting with Synthedit and some obscure DAW called MULAB I tried Reason. In Reason you can wire your modules quite freely, too (which is great for understanding how all this music production routing works, because you have an "authentic" rack) but sadly it's quite expensive and doesn't support VSTs, so you'll rather skip this and make a cold dive into a professional DAW. I don't know anything about Mixcraft, but it looks quite good, so you'll probably want to start there using your SynthEdit VST and Synth1 plus some other nice free VSTs (there are a few nice threads in this forum ). But I wouldn't pay for it, because as soon as you're ready, I'd switch to REAPER (http://www.reaper.fm/). Powerful, resource friendly, extremely customizable (which is the biggest disadvantage here), but also great developer contact and a nice community (Sorry for being a fanboy here ). REAPER will cost only $40 for you (probably) and you have an entirely unlimited demo. I hope anything of this here helps

It hasn't got anything to do with decibels If you record audio, usually 'no signal' should be translated to the value '0' (in this picture the black x-axis), but if you have a dc offset, then its maybe '50' instead of '0' and so '130' instead of '80'. Imagine clipping starts at '100': '80' would work fine, but '130' won't. If you eliminate that effect, you simply subtract '50' from all the values.

In the beginning I felt this track had great potential - I was sucked into it and while your TMNT remix did that, too, I didn't like that one, because it was too repetitive and boring IMHO. But this is all different, becuase while IMO being quite similar concerning sound, this mix has the much more interesting arrangement. This great feeling and all the energy and tension is masterfully sustained to the end. Very very cool. That's music I want to hear

Ah, I loved that track - great to see it as a standalone remix here, too. Especially the breakdown was great IMO. More of this kind

Thank you all very much for your feedback so far And @Calum: you caught me Because most of the time I'm really just writing down some notes that fit more or less without really having a big melody in mind. And while this works IMO for just trying out sounds, when I want to make something bigger, I guess I'll really have to put a lot more thought into melodies, structures, motives and their variations etc. That singing is for sure a great idea, thanks for that tip (And of course: to anybody who hasn't commented yet: I'm highly interested in every opinion and criticism I can get )

Today I finally tried the free "Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra" and so I ended up writing some orchestral stuff - maybe spent 5h or something on that. Either way, I wonder what you think about it? Because I really don't know anything (theoretical) about orchestration (and my mixing skills are highly improvable, too ). Here is the link: SJM\Soundcloud - Departure of the Hero

Hello, the last few days I've been eagerly working on a new track, based on a beat I posted some time ago here, too. ->Greenhouse<- Click here and please tell me what you think about it. I know the structure is... really simple and the mixing is probably quite improvable, so I first and foremost wonder about the sounds and the atmosphere? Thanks for any feedback there

Can't wait to get my hands on my new z3ta+ My first big softsynth! (except for Synth1 )

During the last weeks I've been spending a few evenings trying to create certain sounds or just experiment with plugins or REAPER and I'm just curious, what other people think about these two results: 1. Guitars I guess it's obvious, these are sequenced guitars, but after a few evenings I think, they still sound nice. 2. Drums I started experimenting with drums and then just added that bass, a filtered choir and a simple flute to it, because I didn't spend more than a few hours on that thing - might however make something of it. (And sorry for my English, it must sound quite wierd )

Yes, I'm new to Reaper and only tried very basic things in 3, since I still like Reason so much , but 4 looks nice, I like that layout thing and the project bay (though I don't _need_ it for my noob projects ) edit: wait, isn't it forbidden to discuss about that alpha in "public"?

thanks now if that isn't motivating the toms are just one of the things i started with at the beginning and then never changed... well i just feel like really having to revise this... but i guess after some time you'll probably always have this feeling

After extending this further, I think its more or less presentable - or what do you think? http://soundcloud.com/sjmmusic/lamenting-harp