timaeus222

Certainly an eclectic mix of instruments, and lots of gear changes. I think the last chord was lacking a bit of bass, somehow. I think something didn't render right, right there. Otherwise... well, I was kinda confused by this for the most part. I think it's passable, though I'm not familiar with the sources.

I tend to use L with A in MegaMan Zero games, so I want to be able to push both at nearly the same time rather easily, and still be able to hold R for the Z-Knuckle and push B for any rapid buster stuff. S was more comfortable than D for that purpose since my ring finger would be pressing S, and it wouldn't be blocked as much by my middle finger.

Yeah. And you don't have to do an entire project. You might be able to just save a state file for Kontakt, rather than an entire project file, like in FL, making it faster to call it up.

It actually looks like your headphones are missing quite a bit in the treble ranges above ~12000Hz. Of course, it's hard to notice without trying headphones with higher treble, but I felt Grado SR-60i's were definitely keepers. I could immediately hear a clearer and crisper bass on "Deliverance of the Heart" by zircon & Jillian, and way better (not just more, but better) treble on songs with female lead singers. In fact, on "Deliverance of the Heart", these headphones literally made me more aware of at least 3 more sound patches I didn't quite notice before. I dunno, I just like how much better they sound than previous headphones I've had, and I've actually already written two songs on them now. I compared how they sounded on my previous two headphones, and they actually sound around as bad as they should (lol). However, no matter how bad they apparently sounded, they had an acceptable sound that the majority of people listening with consumer-grade headphones wouldn't really notice anything bad. That's why I think they're good; they made my two recent mixes sound good on not just themselves, but other headphones. Even my skullcandy earphones (which IMHO have too much low mids and too little treble) could play both songs back fairly well with decent accuracy..

I started using Grado SR-60i's like 2 weeks ago, and I'm not really getting ear fatigue. Maybe a little itchy, but that's not fatigue. They also sound flippin' fantastic. As soon as I tried them, I could hear more bass clarity and treble presence. I think if I were to upgrade, one of my only choices would turn out to be the Beyerdynamic DT880's. The two are really close in frequency distribution, somehow... IIRC, $80. Why am I not getting much fatigue? They're well-known for being one of the only headphones to give very little ear fatigue. ;D

Thanks for making me smile with this. Sounds great, no complaints. I think it'd pass.

What about HS80M Yamaha speakers? $250 on Amazon, worth about $450. Not entirely sure if it comes as a pair or not, though.

lol, based on my tastes, I have to look really hard on the internet to find some really amazing stuff. Lots of mainstream that plays in my university's commons is trance, dance, and other repetitive genres.

It's sounding really good! Just a few things I noticed: The lead at 2:24 is a bit plain. It's not like it doesn't fit, but spice it up! The buildup at 3:03 sounds kind of the same as before, about the same as 0:57. Try adding something to make it sound different, and then have some fun with some glitchy stuff at 3:11. If you want, I can contribute some glitchy effects there on the bass and send it back as a WAV. I've got now, and I've had it for long enough to know how to make good use of it.. The snare can also be more powerful there, since it's kinda buried right now. Maybe might help?

Beating MegaMan Zero 4 in Hard Mode in a , using a laptop computer keyboard on an emulator. Yeah, I'll probably never do that again, lol. Rush jumping and attacking all at once on a keyboard is very possible for my config, though. A for A, B for B, S for L, R for R, Right-Ctrl for Start, and Right-Shift for Select.

I think that initial sine wave sequencing needs to be fixed up. The portamento is a bit excessive, and it'd be great if you could give it more phrasing. It sounds like there's portamento between every note, or almost every note, and that's kinda awkward, rather than ethereal. Maybe in some spots, instead of portamento from one note to another, you could try stopping a note slightly short, then adding a quick note before the next note. i.e. a grace note. Yeah, the sax could be louder, and the wet mix could be slightly lower. Right now it sounds almost as distant as the sine wave, and if I were you, I'd push it forward a bit further than it is now. That's what I got at the moment.

That implication came from your thoughts. If I wanted to, I could say you implied with this quote... ...that music recorded before it could be recorded sucked, which doesn't make sense because it isn't possible to record in a time when you don't have the tools to record anything at all. Totally not what you meant though. You meant a time when music couldn't be recorded from a home studio that you could buy materials for and assemble and build yourself. I can see where you're coming from, though, with what I said. It seemed like I linked the word "skill" with the unwritten word "musical". I actually didn't link the word "skill" with anything. I meant to write "production skill" (otherwise it's literally plain old "skill" with absolutely any modifier you want to give it with the uber power of your mind), and you were thinking of "musical skill", which aren't the same, as Rozo mentioned. What I meant is that typical people who don't write music don't hear what we hear. Once you start delving deep into music production, you start joining the group of "elite few" who have ears that can hear distinctive details that the majority of the population either doesn't often notice or dismisses because the details aren't subjectively enjoyable. I didn't imply that the only way to show musical skill is through production. I didn't imply anything, actually. If at all, I would have implied that good or convincingly good musical performance combined with memorable passages and sufficiently good production equals an enjoyable song to both audiophiles and the general audience. I wouldn't say songs before the high quality technology arrived sucked. I would say songs before the high quality technology arrived could be good or bad, depending on the balance between music production skill and interesting musical writing. Basically, songs before the 2000's had the challenge of less technology, and therefore, oldie artists had to develop real musical as well as production skills. Back then, without the somewhat exclusive tools (which were sub-par when compared to more recent years. Like tape delays for reverb, versus traditional digital reverbs, versus convolution reverbs), not many people were capable of writing/starting a song at all. These days, we can just throw things together and call it (or try to call it) a song, and because of that, it's much easier to write a bad song than before the 2000's. Okay, I think that's clear enough, lol. ------------- @Rozo: Yeah, that's what it said in the link I posted and that's therefore what I was thinking about the two words when I typed out that post. It's a long article though, so I'd understand if you didn't read much of it. I'm taking a logic class very soon though, so I'm probably going to go back and read that eventually. It's a pretty cool article I found on a random google search.

Well, since I happen to play piano... I really like the chords you have going on there. Lots of suspensions split between the left and right hand, and cool mode shifts (like at 1:04). The arpeggio at 1:09 might be a bit weird. Try listening to it a few times to see if you can write new notes for just that part, to make it less sad and disjointed, because it feels like it should be uplifting there, but the writing didn't reflect that right there. 2:55 sounds dissonant in the wrong way. The notes are dissonant, but it doesn't fall under a conventional dissonance that I know of. 3:08 as well, but I can kinda hear what you're going for. There's a dissonance that could work there, but right now the intervals are making chords that are slightly off from the "just right" chords. Or maybe the wrong notes are being emphasized. I was told once that playing something bad with the right emphases can make it sound less bad. That's pretty good so far, lots of great change-ups, and I wasn't bored.

I notice that too. After working with music for so long, sometimes I forget how little non-music producers care about how well something is produced. They like what they like, and they're very subjective (that better be the right word, lol). i.e. They comment based on their preference, not the skill your song shows or doesn't show. In the end, the general audience is your final judge on whether or not your music is enjoyable (although there are some people that can be both subjective and objective about a song. ;D). People on the WIP forums are for objective comments or both.

AFAIK, you can only use MIDI CC on one instrument at time, unless a specific sample library is designed to react to certain MIDI CCs without initial setup (like Evolution Electric Guitar, Shreddage, etc.). I can't check right now, but have you tried MIDI channels above 1, by itself only? If that works, my first paragraph is why it works. If not, have you checked if you know how to use MIDI Outs with multiple libraries loaded into one Kontakt instance? Once you can do that, then you should have a better handle on using MIDI CC with them. I don't think I've tried that, but only because I don't think I ever wanted to or had to.

Sounds like an issue with the soundfont's size or something. I get that "really long rendering" effect and the CPU spikes on certain soundfonts from Darkesword's website. The mixed soundfont (the one with the koto, shamisen, hammered dulcimer, shakuhachi, etc.), Orchestral Rhythm, and Squidfont Orchestral soundfonts do that to me. I don't get the muted notes problem though. I think it could just be a polyphony problem. Maybe something right before the part that gets dropped has a waveform tail that maintains the voice for long enough to add to the polyphony, and that makes the instrument using the most voices drop out altogether.

I don't really share WIPs too often unless I want feedback from a close friend, or something like that. In those times, my WIPs tend to be incomplete in arrangement and partially incomplete in production quality. I work on production at the same time as I work on the arrangement. That way, when the arrangement is being written, I don't have to worry too much about the production. Instead of fixing everything later, I only have to fix one instrument at a time, as I'm adding it in. Much easier than making 30+ mixer tracked instruments balance exactly perfectly. In the case I post a WIP on OCR, I almost never post a WIP with an incomplete arrangement. Usually when I post WIPs for feedback, they already have finished arrangements, and I search for minor adjustments to the arrangement and/or fixes to some production stuff. That way people don't have to get distracted and say stuff like "oh yeah, and you should probably put an ending. It'd be a good idea, mate! :D". That's mainly because often, only I can truly write an arrangement that satisfies me, but I tend to be able to put myself in other people's shoes to help with their arrangement if they need it. Rarely do I ask for advice on arrangement; that only happens if I truly get stuck right in the middle of a track and I can't think of anything at all within a whole bunch of retries. As for copyright... come on, really? What musician would be good enough to copy your instrument timbres exactly and then continue your arrangement coherently? Well, the answer to that is simple. One that has the skill to do so... and one who has that skill would also have the proper mentality to not actually try that. What well-rounded composer, in his/her right mind, would need to steal, when they could write their own song, right? Besides, even if they just take the musical ideas by themselves, they probably wouldn't have the same ideas as you for the arrangement, so it would be kind of unique, yet somewhat of a ripoff anyway (in a nice way).

The snare sounds a little weak, so try compressing it with a low threshold, a high gain, a fast attack, and a kind of fast release. That way, the snare is punchy, but not overcompressed; it'll be compressed for a short enough time that it is just more powerful. That lead works for me, but change the lead a tad throughout, and you can make it even more interesting! Maybe give it a slightly resonant filter and some vibrato, or some portamento sequencing? WillRock might give you some inspiration on making that lead more expressive. Great track so far, the drum writing is pretty active and exciting. Just remember to add an ending.

The initial acoustic guitar tone sounds pretty good. The electric tone after that needs some more tone-crafting. It sounds a little nasal and narrow. Give it some more low-end power and double-track it. Right now it's a bit mid-heavy. Your drums are nice, but they sound a bit dry. Try adding some room reverb on the drums. Not too much, just enough to make it sound like it's in an actual room, simply because it's pretty acoustic. The kick and snare could also be brought out some more. When the EP first comes in, it kinda drowns out the kick and snare, and also the guitar a bit. The guitar sounded pushed back and kind of far away. It's fine if you meant to do that, but it's a bit excessive at the moment. Pretty nice so far, keep it up!

I think it's private.

1. I have that problem too, but frankly it's not a big deal, so just switch windows, change the volume, switch back. 2. View > Page Style > Basic Style. That might be it. 3. Tools > Options > Security, and you should find what you need there.

I don't copy and paste placeholder patterns. I just write them in as the time comes. i.e. I write them 4 patterns at a time, and when I feel like there should be a change, I clone patterns 2 and 4 and change them. Sometimes I even change pattern 3 to keep it different the entire time. Great advice: Don't let laziness control how you write your drum patterns. I also don't play it in live. I tried once, and it's hard to get used to it. Just listen to how you want your song to sound at that moment, and make your writing match that. I've done a simple kick-snare rhythm before, and I've done a drum rhythm with 4 layers of patterns before. It just depends on the feel of the spot you're currently composing in your track.

Everything's overcompressed somehow. It might be the drums overall doing that. Try mixing without a limiter, and put it back on when you think things won't hit the limiter so hard. Right now things sound distant, like it's a mix of next door music and an auditorium.

It sounds like a distortion ampsim with some compression where the gain is higher than the threshold so that it clips.

Hope this isn't too ridiculous, but I just finished my track. 0.0 Just in time for university classes to start up again. I called the track "K.Rool and K.Lumsy Punishment". xD