ectogemia

Welcome to being a newb you're not alone. What's helped me the most is learning piano and improving as much as possible. I've gotten very good at translating what's in my head into sound, but piano improv won't help you create the right timbre for that sound. That and combining those timbres to get the sound I want is my major hangup at this point. And arranging... fuck arranging. That really just doesn't come naturally for me one bit. Also, try playing by ear what you hear in some of your favorite video game themes. Figure out the melody, then figure out the chords, or at least the root note of each chord. Then, you can use the chords or roots to improvise your own melody or make variations of the original. Get good at this, and writing leads will become second nature. And about the theory, you don't need to know everything, but knowing basics like rhythm, key signatures, time signatures, chords, harmony, and intervals is essential. Just bite the bullet and learn em

I have to admit, I HATE general MIDI kind of synths, but I LOVE just about all other retro sounds. Something about the GM voices is just so damn corny... but I digress. Drums need to be put through the processing ringer something fierce. The snare volume changes without warning or musical purpose. Your fills in part A are pretty weak, but are much better in part B. The main synth does a weird detuning thing that I can't really explain or enjoy . Your harmonies in the beginning on the bass synth are pretty ambiguous, all fourths and fifths. Try changing those a bit to some intervals that are a little more evocative. The part B about halfway through is actually very, very cool, but the transition into it is weak. Why are you so committed to using these synth sounds? It's your choice, obviously, but you've got so many other options that are much more dynamic and would command more of your creativity to use well. Why not take advantage of those?

Yep, I see what you mean. Maybe I wasn't clear about it because by the end of the song when I wrote my feedback, I didn't remember quite accurately what my issue was with the snare

Badass, man. This is the kind of stuff I love to improv with... so fun to play. Very relaxed and enjoyable listen. The drums get a bit loud around 2:00, snare seems a little TOO poppy. It's not bad by any means, but it's not as chill as the rest of the mix. It just seems a bit out of place. It seems like you were just trying to add some more presence to the drums. Maybe EQ boost them or layer on top another poppier snare rather than increase the volume. Otherwise, I wouldn't change a thing.

It's not such a bad way to automate. I kinda found it hard... no, impossible... to keep track of event edits at first, but I found that there's a list of event edits sorted by pattern in the "Current Project" tab in the browser, so that made them usable in my book. Plus, I find it easier to pencil in automation in the edit events piano roll than in the automation clip. Since you can export edit events automation to an automation clip, that's kinda become my mode of choice for automation. Basically, you get the flexibility of the event editor (LFOs, many drawing tools, etc.) with the visibility of an automation clip.

Ah. Well, I learned my requisite thing for the day. Time to go play video games and make sure I don't learn anything else.

Could you maybe render a .wav in the File menu rather than bouncing from the mixer or playlist? I feel like that's too simple and that I'm missing something obvious here...

For what it's worth, I had the same issue, but with FL9. I have an onboard, laptop soundcard from ASUS. I had to tweak the buffer size to its lowest (highest? can't remember, but whatever leads to the lowest latency) setting. Even moving it a tick in the direction that decreases latency will bluescreen me. I have no idea what the underlying techincal issue it, but eh, I was able to get 6ms latency without bluescreening, so I'm satisfied with that.

Neblix is actually right... I think. I'm kinda sure (for what that's worth) that FL has a built-in limiter irrespective of the new project master track limiter that has a pretty serious and hard compression ratio at a threshold of -0.2 dB or something like that. If your mix is just entirely too loud, it'll beat the compression ratio and still clip. erin's problem seems like it's just an EQ thing. You must understand, whether you like it or not, that a quality mix -- that is, a combination of several voices sounding at once -- need not be composed of quality-sounding individual voices. When you properly EQ a mix, often you end up with weirdo sounding individual instruments because of the frequency cutting or shelving you had to do to to each one to improve the sum mix, especially if you used a lot of synths. Combine said "crappy" instruments, and you have a complete soundscape with distinct parts that sound awesome together. ... or you could just skip that step, have awesome-sounding individual instruments and live with a crappy mix once combined. tl;dr: boost your crash's high, cut the lows, turn it down entirely. Cut your fantastia's lows, boost its high-mid. Boost your bass's lows, cut its high and high-mid. Weeee, you now have a quality early 90s MIDI mix that sounds like it could have come with Windows 95. Canyon, anyone?

Sure thing I would imagine we're not alone. No offense, neblix, just my opinion. Take it as you will, even not taking it at all is fine.

Uh huh. Using deductive absolutes like that kinda requires some substantive data to become anything worthy of anyone's consideration. And your conclusion doesn't follow in the least from your premise, were it even true. Not knowing how to use something well suddenly evaporates one's need to use it? I'm no good with cars, but I sure as shit need mine. I won't be returning it to the dealer anytime soon because I don't know what the hell's going on under the hood. Likewise, I could imagine pirates or purchasers alike who want to learn a DAW they know nothing about wouldn't cease working with it simply because they don't understand how every nuance functions, nor does their incomprehension necessarily portend their means of obtaining the DAW or their commitment to it. I've read so many of your posts, and every time I do, the same aphorism beats in my mind: think before you speak.

Give this man a Grammy or whatever. Also, google is an awesome company, and I can't wait til they control the planet. They seem like they'd be "fun" overlords.

You don't have to look any further than my battle-scarred N64 to see that this is true. That shit's built out of gundanium.

The only thing that would make that better is if it were cs 1.6...

Overall, an enjoyable remix and definitely beyond what I can produce at the moment, but I don't know how it got past the judges with that same shrill reverse cymbal again and again and again... vary it up a bit and keep it just a little more muted next time. Gotta go with strader: a lot of the synths are pretty vanilla, and I wasn't a huge fan of the bass guitar in such a dancy mix, would have preferred to hear something more synthetic. You're what, 15? At 15, I still hadn't even beaten FFVI, and at 22 now, I haven't been posted on OCR. Killin' me...

Oh my god, I had never heard of that... I'm so glad I ran into that link that's easily some of the best music I've ever heard. ... aaand since I posted in the thread, I'll give my thoughts on the mix, but it'll have to be tomorrow. I don't have proper listening gear set up since I'm halfway through a big move and everything is packed. Sorry!

Interesting organization you've got there :/ Check out some of the included FL project files. They utilize the playlist and patterns very efficiently and effectively. Adopting their styles myself has DRAMATICALLY sped up my workflow and allowed me to customize my music FAR better than when I relied solely on the pattern block editor. A decent number of people work well with pattern blocks, but it seems like most ignore it or use it for drum loops only and instead use the clip editor for all their automation and arrangement.

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???

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

song is here 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