ectogemia
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Posts posted by ectogemia
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Agreed with young nebbles. Pattern-based sequencers are meant to produce patterned music. Either way, patterning is just a more efficient, if not slightly more rigid, way of repeating things in music, and repetition is a key attribute of the esthetics of music. You can always chop patterns or truncate them or use the "Make Unique" option to create a variation. Doing this, you can create seamless music that know one would suspect was constructed of patterns because of all the variety you can (and usually should) introduce.
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It's not that I don't know how to do it, it's just an inane amount of scrolling.
Scrolling? You sure you're doing it right? The only way I can think there'd be a lot of scrolling is if you did it by using "Edit Events" rather than "Create Automation Clip" and you only had one pattern per song.
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Automation becomes second nature once you learn how to streamline it into both your compositional ideas and into your FL workflow. It's such an important part of making modern electronic music that you'll really struggle to thrive without it. You'd just be limiting yourself creatively by putting off learning how to implement it well.
Hm, you don't have automation, you say? My opinion: get it, even though you may have to shell out a decent amount of cash for a better version of FL (or pirate it... your prerogative). It's worth its weight in gold. I'm not even sure a mix without automation (unless its purely acoustic audio clips or sampled acoustic, like orchestral, but even then, there is often volume fader automation for real-time dynamics changes) would ever pass the judge's forum. Hell, even ancient trackers used to make chiptunes have sort of a built in automation in the effects column. Even the lowest of fi-s seems to rely to some degree on automation.
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Processing just means taking a "dry" MIDI signal, converting to digital audio data which is done automatically in the mixer (because MIDI data itself can't be processed, it's just a timestamped note-on, note-off matrix with velocities... but I digress!) and altering the waveform in some way before it is output to your speakers. The simpler version: processing is adding effects to vary the instrument in limitless ways. This is, to me, the most difficult part of mixing. Coming up with ideas isn't that hard, at least in my opinion, but getting the right sound is just about impossible and requires knowing the theory behind each effect AND a lot of experimentation with every knob to figure out what each does (the FL studio manual is excellent for this, as is a book I bought called "Dance Music Manual").
When you listen to electronic music, try to identify how the instruments have been processed. You'll notice delays, reverb, and chorusing in EVERY professional piece. Things like that are essential to the modern electronic music sound, along with additional proper mixing and mastering... both of which are still a little foreign to me.
And a filter enveloped bass... well, how to explain... Every sound is composed of a bunch of overlapping sine waves of different amplitudes and frequencies. All these waves interfere to create a unique waveform for every unique sound, but each waveform has a "fundamental" frequency that is the pitch at which we perceive it. So an A at 440Hz on a piano and a guitar have the same fundamental frequency of 440Hz, but different "harmonics" or "overtones" that the unique constructions of the instruments produce. The different harmonics distinguish the timbres of the two instruments while the same fundamental allows their pitches to be perceived as the same.
All that is going to be necessary to understand what a filter does. Basically, it allows some frequencies above (high pass) or below (low pass) a cut-off frequency you select through to the audio output. As you move the frequency cutoff, your removing harmonics while keeping the fundamental the same, so the timbre of the instrument changes but the pitch remains. The resonance (aka, Q) knob will emphasize (add "gain" to, or just make louder) the frequencies near the cutoff. Turn it up too high, and the high pitched overtones will be amped up so high, you can't hear the lower harmonics and you just get an annoying chirp... that can actually be used for interesting musical ideas. It's what I did in Press Start to GROOVE right before the second solo.
Filters are VERY VERY VERY commonly used in electronic music, especially low-pass filters, and should be your introduction to automation which also would serve your piece well:-D. A filter envelope is basically a timed "filter sweep" (which is a real-time movement of a filter cutoff -- that is, a real-time change of the instrument's timbre) that triggers every time you hit a note. If you don't know much about envelopes in general, that's another absolutely fundamental thing you have to learn about.
Isn't mixing fun
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The vanilla triads throughout are.. vanilla. Maybe it was intentional, and it can certainly be good, but perhaps it would sound more interesting with some inversions or some more dissonant intervals thrown in the mix.
I like the breathy synth fairly close to the beginning, but the high end is a little piercing
The bit starting around 0:40 has a nice ethnic vibe whether you like it or not!! Good contrast between this and the intro.
The harmony around 0:55 is interesting and another good bit of contrast and surprise.
The filter enveloped bass is tiring and repetitive, but this is probably a function of its lack of effects processing to make it more interesting.
DnB typically has a much faster drum part, lots of 16th note hats with a powerful, syncopated snare that dominates the feel of the rhythm. I think that would work much better than the sort of plodding rock drum part you have here.
Around ~2:00 the rhythm of the kick works fine, but the frequency doesn't jive with me. It's a little heavy and I kind of found myself paying attention to that more than I probably should have. In fact, the only part of the ending I can remember well is the kick. Is that what you were going for?
Overall, the piece is very well arranged with instruments being introduced and dropped out and reintroduced quite well, and I like the chord progression (not so much the triad chords themselves), and it has its moments with very interesting harmonies.
Foremost, though, among all my critiques, is that you must process this with effects and EQing because it sounds like 80s techno, and this is 2011
In the 80s, really would have sounded like it belonged as far as the mixing aspect goes, but you have the technology to make it better, stronger, and faster, so pop open that mixer, route your MIDI channels, and get processing with some reverb, delay, filters, chorus, phasers, and flangers.And yes, erineclipse is right. This is a typical techno song. DnB is much darker and more driving. Techno is sort of quirky sounding with sorta dry, lightly processed instruments because it was so big in the late 70s and 80s when the technology to process heavily just wasn't around.
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See, now that's the thing. I only kind of know what I'm doing, and definitely more so in some areas than others. My biggest weakness is just that -- developing interesting, dynamic chord progressions. I can usually come up with something catchy and workable pretty easily, but then, I struggle to transition it into a different progression or to color it as it goes. I added the whiny pad to complement the driving bell EP-type chords because that track was very tiresome without anything distracting attention from it. The resonance-LFO string sort of pad that comes in after the first drum break was meant to distract from those chords to so that maybe the listener wouldn't notice how narrow the structure of the piece was. Looks like I couldn't fool you
I guess I need to work on that aspect of my music some more
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Thank you! It's supposed to be repetitive to some degree, but you're probably right that it may be a little too repetitive. One bassline pattern chopped a few different ways, one drum pattern with a couple of fills, one chord progression, one pad... eh, but it does its job well enough I think. Hopefully the automation and solos vary it up enough.
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I burned myself out on guitar
I played metal about 6 hours a day for several months. My chops went through the roof, but man... I get joint pain just smelling a guitar these days.I can't even tell you how much I regret that I didn't do a music program. My biology coursework was cool for all of three semesters, then the rest of college was just this weak internal "debate" if such a one-sided self-dialog could be called that where I'd stand at my apartment door and stare at my NES trying to decide if physiology or Jimmy and Bimmy were more important. Seconds later, I'd be kicking ass, and it wasn't in a lecture hall. Most of what I got out of my degree was loose bits of Latin so I could construct pretentious names for things... hence "Ectogemia". Yay!
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And again, thanks for the feedback!
That's the grand-daddy of all triplets, the triplet 16th note. I listened to entirely too much speed metal back when I used to play guitar, thus I think in triplet 16ths. There's no going back.
Glad to hear it sounds like a menu song to other people. Seems like things are coming along for me
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There's your problem! You're wanting to play Halo and not Super Mario 3! Start rocking the NES, and you won't mind ignoring your "obligations" (also known as "optional arrangements") to see how fast you can speedrun World 8. These are the things that destroyed my college GPA during my senior year, but I gained more useful skills beating the World 8 gunships over and over than I did going to class. My thumbs are golden.
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Zeusaphone? THORAMIN??! Names can't get any more badass than that.
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Awesome, glad to hear you think the ambience aspect worked. I was a little worried that the whiny pad that plays throughout might not achieve that goal, but it seems it did.
Anyway, I'm finished with it at the moment, I think. I have a couple of more things to add that I played while improving over it, but I really don't feel like sequencing it :/ I'm awful with quantizers, and it has a lot of weird rhythms and pitch bends. It'll probably just remain in improv-land. And since I don't yet know how to mix or master well, I'll have to defer that til later.
I think it serves its purpose pretty well as a file select loop. Any other thoughts?
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AND YOU'RE SAYING 22 IS OLD?!?! Hah, man, I never realized a 5-year age difference really meant that much in terms of what consoles you grew up with. I pity the fool
I'm more of a NES guy than anything, anyway... man, that does make me feel old.
And to think of a 64 as a "weekend console" cuts me deep. Me and my friend logged something like 45 DAYS on Super Smash Brothers when we were kids. I'll give you several moments to fathom that.
You seem like you're in a feedbacky kind of mood! Feeling smooth?
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Hah, it's probably done
This was a mix just for fun to work on some skills. It's supposed to sound as though it could be from a SNES cart, so it should sound fairly dry and "uninteresting" unless of course you're in the mindset for listening to some SNES music... and I know I always am.Thanks for the feedback!
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It's a pretty heavily processed and EQ'd Angelic Pad (I think?) from Sytrus plus a LP filter LFO on a 3x osc of saw/square/saw if I remember correctly. There's a bass pad under it that's something I made in PoiZone and added some distortion and boosted the mids a bit to make it growl.
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I have no words to describe this. Now they need to play Dancing Mad from FFVI.
I believe this would sunder the planet and end us all.
... that said, it beats the hell out of a rapture. I second this motion.
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Oops, sorry about that. I fixed it and went ahead and listened to them a second time because there was a little shred of my mind that hadn't 'sploded yet. Glad that's taken care of now.
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My brother DARED to interrupt my mixing to show me something that completely ravaged my mind. So much.
And without further ado (and without embedding because I suck), I present to you the themes from Mario and Zelda as performed by two friggin tesla coils.
Sample THAT...
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I have to get two things out of the way first: (1) Light Crusader is badass, and I think we're the only two who know it; (2) the background for your youtube link made me laugh really, really hard.
The arrangment is very nice. I like the chord progression and the harmonies from start to finish, but especially the finish (sucker for square-y arps). The instrumentation gets a little tiresome, although I like that smooth synth that enters around 1:35 and the square synth before that. The whole mix feels pretty unprocessed except for the two synths I mentioned. The circular panning of the organ also gets a bit annoying. The instrumentation and panning issues could probably be remedied with a more fleshed out soundscape. Add some type of percussion and low-end to make things more interesting and to shift the listener's attention away from the persistent organ.
Definitely has potential to be a very cool track, and the field is wide open to you to get it there.
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Thanks, man, and after another listen-through of the piece, I think I agree with you about the volume. And that "cool synth" is nothing more than a sine on top of a triangle with a little reverb thickening and delay stereo-fying (but I think I did that wrong?). The simplest waveforms often sound the best
long live chiptunes. -
Spider Tower sounds much, much better in the sequencer than it did before. Good instrumentation on it, but it's very dry. You need to process the sounds a bit more to make them more interesting and less vanilla. I can't help too much more with that since that's what I'm focusing on myself, the mixing side of things, but explore delay, reverb, and chorus effects especially, but don't forget about other mainstays like phasers and flangers. Each effect has limitless uses beyond just "delay" or "reverb". Often, they're used to add or remove stereo depth, thicken timbres, emphasize or attenuate frequencies, etc. Read up on this and see how you can apply it to improve the sonic quality of your tracks.
I understand you're inexperienced with drums, but a song like Laser Motorway, bearing closely in mind the connotations of the title, should be absolutely fucking spastic. The down-beat hat sample throughout the song didn't evoke any images of blasting down some crazy, looping future-highway at 23874 mph. The melody would sound great over a sweet, speed-metal kind of drumline commonly found in games like F-Zero... or anything with Japanese metal in it. Listen to the F-Zero soundtracks and feel free to blithely transcribe note-by-note whatever you hear and throw it right into Laser Motorway. Listening to drum tracks and painstakingly (at first) transcribing them may not be terribly fun, but you'll quickly realize how "motif-y" drums are. There are some VERY common ways drum loops are sequenced, and you'll quickly learn these through transcribing and be able to apply and adapt what you've learned. Another source that helped me a lot with this was just loading the drum loops packaged with FL studio into the Fruity Slicer and paying attention to how each was constructed. Same can be done in FPC.
Very general advice, I know, but I'm right there with you at the bottom of the learning curve, so hopefully this gives you some direction.
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So my friend came over last night and demanded that we make a mix that sounds like "press start" menu music a la FF11 or Mario Kart or Armored Core. Couldn't say no, but he had to head out just after giving me my assignment for the night, so I put this together.
This is kind of "part A" of the song. "Part B" is in the works and will be very subdued, double-time DnB-type stuff in all likelihood.
Does it sound like menu music? What improvements could be made to the arranging, instrumentation, mixing, processing, etc,? I'm still very new, so even fundamental suggestions would probably be very constructive!
Thanks!
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Thanks, I just found that slider, and I headed back here to delete the thread, but lo and behold, there you were with the answer. And a sweet diagram!
I'll keep the thread around in case anyone else has the same issue.
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So there I was writing a facemelting sine-wave solo at 104 bpm when... BAM! Everything sucked. The whole mix went up an octave, and I have no idea what I could have pressed or clicked. I manually shifted everything on all the piano rolls down an octave, but the output is kind of nasty -- distorted in some way. Also, some sliced drum grooves were shifted in pitch. This indicates to me that it isn't a piano roll issue because the sliced drums, if up an octave, would have been silent. Also, the volume increased substantially (now peaks, didn't before), but this might just be an issue of things being up an octave rather than some random leap in gain.
I googled the problem, but I couldn't come up with any search terms that returned anything directly relevant to my issue.
Any ideas?
A plague of sequenced-ness
in Music Composition & Production
Posted
Yes, it clones a pattern and all MIDI data within, assigns it a number n+1, then you can alter that pattern to create a variation on the parent and stick it in the playlist so that you don't have, for example, the same drum loop playing again and again.
I guess if you read what I wrote a certain way it seems like I was suggesting it'll create music for you???