timaeus222

I would not use EQ presets at all. It's highly unlikely that there are supposedly "universal" presets that actually work for everything, because every sound is distinct. Instead I would use my ears and see what changing EQ at particular frequencies does to the sound and ask for feedback, learning in the process. Using presets does not help your learning if you just use them and do not edit them.

Oh, that's what that was. I thought it was bitcrushing.

I think part of the fakeness of the guitar can be lessened by double-tracking it; have one instance panned hard left, and another instance of a distinctly different "recording take" (though in your case it's not a recording) panned hard right. Something you could try instead (since it's not a recording) is to just clone the VST and give it a slightly different guitar amp tone. Then, slightly offset the position of the notes backwards to add a "delay" to the playing and lessen the rigidity that is not present in actual double-tracking. That aside, to me the biggest indicator of fakeness is the lack of sympathetic resonance. Playing more than one note at once with this particular VST you're using sounds a little bit like an unending unison bend on an actual guitar; that's what I'm hearing. Remember that WAV just takes what you had in your project file and combines it all together. Whatever you had in the project file is what comes out, and in this case, based on the partwriting and EQ, whether it's WAV or a 192 kbps MP3, it'll sound very similar, so you might as well render MP3's to save hard drive space. I almost always render WAV when I'm completely done with everything and ready to finalize. The overcompression is gone. A few examples of sampled electric guitar just for reference: https://soundcloud.com/isworks/shreddage-2-subterrenea-by-ian (has lots of mutes and staccato) https://soundcloud.com/isworks/shreddage-2-wing-it-by-magnic (has a little bit of everything) https://soundcloud.com/isworks/shreddage-2-corridors-of-time (has exposed lead guitar with plenty of articulations) https://soundcloud.com/isworks/shreddage-2-nuclear-dubstep-by (has lots of mutes, staccato, and tapping) Try listening closely to those and noting what makes the guitar realistic (though these are not actually live recordings). Things you could look for: - Mutes --- Palm Mutes, Fast Mutes, Full Chokes, etc. - Expression --- Vibrato, Pitch Bend (LFO-like), Portamento (up or down but not oscillating) - Articulations --- Tapping, Pinch Harmonics, Hammer-Ons/Pull-Offs (slur/grace notes upwards vs. downwards), Sustains, Staccato EDIT: No, you don't need a mix shorter than 7 minutes, but it's recommended. Unless you are really good at writing a remix that develops very well over the course of a long time without getting stagnant and maintains substantial source usage, below 7 minutes is recommended.

Nah, the reason I wanted to do a collab was because I wouldn't have the time to do a solo mix (I have like 5 other WIPs to finish).

In this case, though, at least to me, it seems like he's going for rock/metal. Unless he wants to change genres, traditional rock/metal does call for actual guitars.

Pretty much. So far the only guitar sample library I would recommend is Shreddage II, which would require Kontakt 5. You could also post in the Recruit & Collaborate forums for a live guitarist if you want, and it would be cheaper.

The portamento in many DAWs is just glided pitch shifting, but an actual pitch bend on a guitar is distinctly different from a manual pitch bend in that the tone of the guitar changes a little as the pitch rises since there are other strings surrounding it, but in a DAW portamento, it just glides the pitch without changing the tone. It's more obvious what I mean if you try it and bend the note really low. It's almost the same idea with the vibrato; the tone changes a little, and the guitar's other strings react in what's called sympathetic resonance and contribute to altering the resultant tone of the currently played string, occasionally making it sound significantly different than just a DAW LFO vibrato, especially after adding an amp sim with distortion. Also, the DAW LFO would then have to be recorded manually to simulate the human timing, because no human bends a guitar string at a perfectly constant rate of oscillation or even a constant max amplitude of the pitch shift.

Hm... sometimes the bass notes kinda bleed into each other since it's in a polyphonic mode, and the age shows a little in the high end, but otherwise, this is perfect. =) Fantastic development on a seemingly short source. How do you come up with these writeups, Dave? o_O

Just to be clear, I'm not saying it's clipping right now; I'm saying it would be if there was no limiter. At times, the drums make the whole track pump (EX: 2:52), so if the limiter wasn't there, stuff would be over 0 dB. Now, it's not like SoundCloud's waveform viewer is quite accurate, but looking at that, it seems louder than other songs. I don't really know what guitar VST you're using, but it's missing the sampled feel. With the bass being louder than the guitar, it covers up the frequencies that could have been occupied by the guitar chugs, and that also hinders the realism of the guitars. Lastly, the lead guitar seems like it has little diversity in articulations, as I can only hear the sustains (see 3:29); where's the vibrato, hammer-ons, pull-offs, staccato, tremolo, etc.? Now I use this as my electric guitar standard (bass starts at 0:48, drums start at 1:18, guitars start at 2:16). Hope this helps.

This is very loud and overcompressed. The guitar sounds quite fake. Not much I can say other than try taking the limiter off, lowering the volumes of everything until it doesn't clip, raising the volumes until just before it clips, and put the limiter back on.

Happy birthday, Jarel!

This sounds great! You should do more of this.

Strange, I just saved it in Windows Notepad and could reopen it with no issues. o.o;

Melee, but either one is totally fine!

Yes, it's the same file, but one has been filled with silence.

I was going to do that but I didn't think I would have the time. Maybe if we teamed up on it?

I added the uncertainty bit because for a test file, the size was not the same, but the size on disk was the same (though that's what matters IIRC).

Another way to say it is to think of a graph made by tracking a single particle that oscillates up and down, always at the exact same height as the current position of the wave's tracing. i.e. the particle's oscillation correlates with the generation of the wave. The photoshop example is also a good one of WAV file generation. If this doesn't quite click, then try rendering one WAV with normal audio, and one WAV of just silence of the same exact length. It'll be the same exact file size, plus or minus a few bytes.

I actually understood that since I took Computer Science. #nerd In short, the DAW reads everything that you want to render, even if it's muted, and rejects what is muted, making it take longer to render but still give the same final result, as long as the muted stuff doesn't end up lengthening the song/piece.

First you see me rollin', now !

Ironically, "Free" isn't free? xD Sounds great! My only concern is that the treble is just a little bright with the hi hats.

Not to mention that this was from 2007 with no updates *coughcough*

Yes, it's sparse in the textures. There's not much of a midrange that I can hear, so the remix sounds empty.

Heard the album yesterday, and I have to say, there's not one bad track! Every single one has the polish, even the really old ones!

Does anyone know of a soundpack of just diverse Flexitone samples? I'm writing a song inspired by Dragon Ball, which extensively uses it.