timaeus222

Is it weird that I thought Argle was saying you're not good-lookin'?

For some reason, at 0:25 - 0:42, the harp seems to be playing notes that feel disjointed and looplike, and at 0:42 - 1:22, the instruments' rhythms are hard to pin down (i.e. it's hard to tell when to expect their emphases on each measure; they feel awkward). The same goes for 1:32 - 1:48 as it was at 0:42 - 1:22, especially in the brass. It just feels like something in the rhythm is making it "too human" or "overly loose", and some notes just don't make sense IMO. Overall I'm just getting this feeling that this is too repetitive, and the awkward rhythms are distracting. The harp is also really, really busy compared to a normal harp part in an orchestral piece. You have a nice concept going in terms of using a thunderstorm sound effect with this, and the general arrangement idea has potential. I'd try working on fixing the rhythms of the non-harp orchestral elements and the flow of the harp notes. It would take a fair amount of work to up the realism of the other instruments.

Well... you could always try recreating the MIDI I suppose, though that would defeat the purpose of trying to import it. =P You have everything except the drums, right? Can you write the drums by ear? (It's better than writing all the tracks by ear )

I love the chill take on this, and dat Archtop geetar. The lead guitar tone was a tad sharp, and it seems a little loud in volume, but it's no big deal. The emulation of The Doors is pretty spot-on. Even the thunderstorm SFX sounded really similar in tone. Heck, I think you made me like this more than Riders on the Storm. You didn't have an extreme rapid tremolo effect on the backing guitars---it was just right. Seemed to be some dispute on the YouTubes about hearing the source, so I did a rough breakdown: 0:24 - 0:41 0:41 - 0:51 0:51 - 1:18 1:37 - 2:13 2:24 - 2:30 2:30 - 2:48 2:48 - 3:05 = 131/202 secs = at least 65% source, likely more, and I'm only looking for the most evident source usage, so... yeah, I think it's good. I mean, I even left out some timestamps that could've counted, so...

I was referring to this: https://www.image-line.com/support/FLHelp/html/pianoroll_menu.htm So yes, it was where I was thinking, it seems. Upper-left arrow in the piano roll, first option (File), or just Ctrl+M once the piano roll is opened (F7). And then it should give a window that asks you which tracks to import once you choose the MIDI file. Does that work? If not, then it seems like you may have managed to get the percussion to import into MidiSheetMusic. Is it possible for you to export just the percussion off of there, and import, in the same way as above within FL's piano roll, the percussion track separately from the other tracks? I don't see an Export function in the MidiSheetMusic program.

This is so good. :3 Have you ever thought about doing a ghost notes glissando script for this (playing a silent note, then setting the destination note, for a slide)?

Indeed. I would prefer to tune toms more so than I would prefer to tune snares because toms are often more pitched (though some synthesized snares may have a clearly pitched layer where, if you take off the noise-generation layer, it's more tom-like).

I listened to the demo, and I think yeah, it's actually pretty good compared to most free orch samples. I'd recommend you figure out what's up with how your SFZ player is handling your samples.

There sort of is. It's not so precise as you may want, but the knobs that normally correspond to volume and panning change for automation clips, and IIRC, they correspond to parameter range. Try looking at the 'tooltip' that shows up when you hover over the knobs.

I tune my drums to the same pitch as the layer that sounds best without any retuning (full; strong fundamental). So if the meatiest layer of my layered snares has a pitch that sounds like a D, then I might tune the other layers to D. Sometimes the tuning on the other layers are just so far off by default that tuning ruins the thickness of the original tone and it gets up sounding either thin (too high-pitched) or lofi/dated (too low-pitched). That's a clear indication to pick a different layer Sometimes I'm OK with the layers being a fifth apart instead of just in unison. With the kick in particular, I do the same thing, but instead of looking at the frequency balance on the fundamental near ~200Hz (when looking for the 'best' layer), I look at it near ~100Hz. Usually it's the one with the longest tail that interacts more with a bassline. EDIT: I would actually rather not tune it if the 'best' layer already sounds more or less unpitched, and I agree with zircon that a kick with an audible pitch can clash with a changing bassline. If I can't tell what the pitch is, then I try playing it in different octaves to get a clearer pitch to listen for. Usually a higher pitch on a drum sound is easier to distinguish. It's like how if you have a bass sound and you go down low (like, lower than C3), it starts to fail in the pitch and wobble around because all the harmonics are bunching together. In higher pitches, the harmonics are more spread out and the pitch is more distinguished. It may be hard to see this unless you have a visual EQ plugin (which is why I love FL).

A is easy. B is not possible. Orchestral music is really hard to compose well without saving up money and getting sample libraries to use with a sampler. If anything, I'd try Squidfont Orchestral and FluidR3 (obviously coming reverbless). But you really need to find a nice reverb to glue it all together too. Maybe Glaceverb? If you get the money, I think you should try to get ArtsAcoustic Reverb.

Personally I find FL straightforward, so I think if you take the time to learn FL, it'll come easier than it may seem. I literally can write stuff in the piano roll that I wouldn't think of writing on sheet music, and that encourages me to write more complex music. Weird, but cool to be able to do. Instead of understanding note intervals as circles on a staff, you'd be understanding note separation in the piano roll as these note intervals. And the pattern-based stuff is just self-explanatory. Line up blocks that you can double click to zoom in and edit more, and it plays all layers indiscriminately, left to right, like in a movie editor or what would be called a 'timeline'. I'd check out what Skrypnyk is suggesting, but I just use a Korg Microkey 37key, and I get by just fine. But then again, I don't go off and do pieces with multi-octave piano scores, so... Bass guitar? Skrypnyk was on track with what I would have picked. Actually, Trilian is substantially better than its predecessor Trilogy, and I can vouch for its excellence. The basses are all EQed perfectly. No flaws. Easy to play. Automatable. All that good stuff. Only drawback is you need a fair amount of memory to load the samples. If you have that settled, then you really should get this.As for sax, I would just direct you to collaboration. I don't know of any good sax libraries yet. http://ocremix.org/workshop/skill/saxophone-soprano http://ocremix.org/workshop/skill/saxophone-alto

Did you try loading up the piano roll in a new, unused instrument channel and going to the upper-left arrow? It was Ctrl+M to import a MIDI, I believe. Should be under the first menu option from the arrow. Then you can select which track to import. Hopefully it's under there. If not, I dunno at the moment, I'm just typing this from memory

Sounds cool. It has kind of a techy, techno (oh noez), demon-battle-esque vibe, sorta. I don't think the intro fits though; it implies a film score take, but it shifts to this more EDM-oriented take. Otherwise there's some nice cohesion to this and a distinct style to the choices made in the arrangement and sounds.

Andy has been my inspiration since... 2012 or something, and I started remixing in April 2011. Lemme put it this way: I was a scrub back then, taking remixing critiques from other people and not being able to apply them, and now, I'm giving critiques to other people and helping them. That's a huge jump. I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten to where I am now without his remix walkthroughs, livestreams, and his music in general. Not to mention his and Will Roget's (and occasional outsiders') incredibly well-crafted-and-recorded sample libraries. Keep up the fantastic work!

Hm... yeah, the opening is a touch long, but it doesn't bother me. Actually, I like the creative processing on the phone calls, radio static and all. The rest felt shorter than it actually was, which is always a good thing, because it makes you want to listen again. My only gripe is that the drums are weaksauce compared to the thick and gritty basses.

Hm... yeah, it's definitely better in terms of the balance. It's also hard to teach or learn how to get the melody rhythms "just right" so that a primary lead is evident, and right now I think they're really close, but I think it'll help if I hand you some more references in case you have other untapped ideas. This time, my own. There's not much substance in the sound design to these, so it's easier to focus on the notes. (It's not enough for a rejection by any means, but I figure it's something you have the potential to polish up ) https://app.box.com/s/6f2a2pmqhf3fwa3c9yxd - Complementary melodic rhythms (0:36 - 0:51, and it's a 1:19 loop). This one basically has partwriting that allows the leads to harmonize without being the exact same rhythms. https://app.box.com/s/6z684g948x1br7bxzg79 - Balancing the stereo space between leads and arps (0:29 - 0:47, and it's a 1:03 loop). This can give ideas on how you want to fill your stereo field to make up for sounds that are thin on their own. The arp is not playing a melody, but is occasionally harmonizing with the melody. https://app.box.com/s/mhuto5dpvgbi07gktbbc - Same as above, just different example (0:26 - 0:55, and it's a 1:02 loop). This makes use of one main melody and one seemingly not-present melody. The subtle melody is just embedded into the arp notes and is more choppy so that it's more inconspicuous, since it seems like more sustained melodies are generally what people focus on.

Hm, I still think 1:57 - 2:12 and 3:00 - 3:30 are too crowded. What I'm perceiving is that the lead is the one to the slight left at 1:57 and 3:00, but I'm getting distracted by the lead on the slight right and the C64 arp jumping in every now and then. So, I think you can automate the upper mids EQ of that arp down at those points, and maybe automate the volume down as well so that it's in the background, but still audible. A nice trick you can do is to automate down the dry mix on the reverb for the arp (assuming you have that knob on your reverb plugin; I mean, a lot of them do) to make it more distant when you need to shift the focus away for a while; that'll attenuate the treble a little as well. I think that maybe around 1 or 2 dB would be just enough with the dry mix. Also, the melody on the left and the right are each different rhythms at those time stamps, so if you try to listen to both at the same time, you may end up switching the listening focus between each lead. Because the timbres are so similar, it's hard to make that work with balance alone unless they either are more complementary rhythms (not necessarily matching exactly, just one lead allowing another to lead by taking the backseat and playing less busy notes, for example, could work great) to each other or somehow start out as countermelodies and converge at the end of the current section. It may help to hum the secondary melody out while the primary one is on playback. Here's an example from WillRock's stuff: (1:52 - 2:40)At this point the challenge is basically to balance (volume-wise and EQ-wise) the C64 arp and secondary lead parts even better than they are now so that someone would perceive the primary lead first, and the other sounds usually if they pay attention to them, and then write out particular rhythms in the secondary lead that allow it to complement the primary lead.

Hm... sounds like you sampled the original at the beginning, all the way until 0:39, except there's some slightly different stereo imaging. Either that or you just stuck to the original instrumentation for a while. Either way, it's really, really similar. I think the snare drum is still too inconspicuous. I can hear it above everything else, but it's too short-sounding; it's like there's some noise gating on it or something, or it's just a short sample. I'm thinking a sample with a longer sustain can sound more fitting. Ultimately it's fine as is, though. The only thing I'm kind of bothered by is the retriggered pad. It makes the pacing a little plodding because the phase continues to reset on each note. I guess I wasn't too amazed overall until 3:11, but probably just me. I liked all the other components between 0:39 and 3:11 regardless, and 3:11 and on sounded nice and full. Good atmospherics and pacing, despite the notes staying relatively static. Pacing is a hard thing to get ahold of, so that's a highlight that I think is subtle but a little underappreciated.

I'm just gonna condense this down and analogize for people. Basically, Grosso gives less flexibility as to how much creativity you can incorporate into your music. It consists of premade phrases, like NI Action Strings iirc, so like Nabeel said, it's just piecing together a puzzle from a box, rather than creating your own puzzle pieces from little puzzle particles and piecing those together. Some people don't want to go that in depth with orchestration, and others want to really understand how certain parts work together instead of mashing together premade ideas. If you want to write personalized orchestral-involved music, you're going to need better control than premade phrases. If you just want to throw together quick little addendums or fluorishes to accent orchestral music without being able to change the phrases played, then fine.

I think the strong point here is how the melody, though applied in a straightforward way, is enhanced by the strong execution. There's a great sense of fullness and immersiveness to the soundscape, and the reharmonizations work really well. My main complaint is that the low-pitched vocoding is unclear. I wouldn't know what it said if there were no listed lyrics. Might sound a little washy in some audio systems, but other than that, the mixing seems fine overall.

Yeah, there's a resonance on the low mids in the bells, and it gets hard to hear the other elements in the mix. Still some nice atmospherics and interesting contrast when the Indian percussion came in. A crazy amount of compression on the acoustic kit later on though. Yikes. May come off as overcompressed to some people, but it feels intentional.

I think I know what I would want to do, if I find time to do it. Something Chimpazilla showed me at one point. I forget what it was, but it's bookmarked.

If you listen closely to the wikipedia sound example, there's a metallic layer to the sound, which may sound like a "flicking", but I don't hear that in this remix at 2:50. Also, I've mixed one of XPRTNovice's remixes recently, and he has some live didgeridoo in it. Could be either one, but yeah, it could be a Vietnamese jaw harp (or a really high passed didgeridoo; these appear to be really similar).

Okay, I'm on my regular headphones now, and here's what I'm hearing: The brass in the beginning is a little too in-your-face, and the backing brass is a touch too far in front (but less so) The drums lack punch. I can hear the kick but it sounds like it's for a different genre, and the claps are thin. I'm confused by the reverb at each brief pause. There's quite a lot there, but I don't hear a lot of muddiness in other spots. Is that automated or not? Maybe it's mudding up the bass, because I can only feel the bass, but not hear that it's that acoustic bass from earlier. The lead sax at 0:52 feels narrow, and the backing brass feels a touch too quiet. They could be brought up a bit, while the lead sax can have some more spatiousness on its reverb. Also, perhaps it can sound a little nasal, and can be a cut a little bit in the upper mids. In general, the drums are still a little plodding and pretty basic. They're the weakest part of this set of instruments. The arrangement might seem a little bit copy-pasted, but I think there is some variation in the live performances that it makes up for it juuuuust enough. Anyone wanna chime in on this point? Overall, the mixing on the lead brass is too upfront and narrow (needs more spatiousness and less nasal quality), the backing brass is just barely too far in front (but less so than the lead brass; literally, probably by about 1~2 dB in dry mix), and the drumwork (mainly the kick and snare/clap) can be beefier and more up to par with the live performances.