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Thanks, dannthr. I really appreciate the help. Sorry, I didn't think to post the fixed up audio tracks. I just made a significant realization that should help though. I've been using the H2n's mid-side microphones to record. When I first bought the H2n, I did a few (non-instrumental) recordings using X-Y mode, and became accustomed to the notion of directing sound toward's the screen-side of the device (front). Well... I've been positioning the H2n so that I'm playing the instruments into the screen-side of the device, but the mid-microphone is actually on the reverse side of the H2n! I've literally been placing the microphone backwards! I haven't had a chance to record any instruments yet, but I get the feeling that actually positioning the microphone correctly will help with the apparent frequency response problem! I was also suspicious of the high gain I needed even when I wasn't playing particularly loudly. I'll post here after I get a chance to try it out. Doh!

Here are a few samples from Ayla's Theme. I usually record a minute or so of playing and then cut out a few decent takes. I can definitely work on my performance; I'm a beginner to all of these instruments, and I've found timing and rhythm to be one of the more difficult aspects of recording, especially when playing in isolation with nothing more than a metronome (I have a hard time following a metronome for some reason). I didn't get a chance to take photos, but I'll try to describe my setup and hopefully post some photos later. I'm using a Zoom H2N microphone. I don't have a proper stand, so I use the included tripod, which props it about four inches above whatever surface it's sitting on. I usually sit the microphone atop a thick rubber mouse pad on my desk. I find that this significantly reduces noise picked up from the surface (without the pad, a very noticeable humming can be heard). I usually position the instrument 8 to 12 inches from the microphone (pretty close). For most recordings, I set the gain between 6 and 8 out of 10. For shakers, I drop this to about 4 or 5, because they pick up very well and its easy to get clipping. For bass guitar, I usually ramp the gain to 8, because it's quiet and doesn't pick up as well. Currently, I'm just recording this stuff in my apartment living room. Occasionally I have to deal with unwanted sounds, like my refrigerator and neighbors, but I haven't had too much trouble so far. It's pretty quiet. I'm using Ableton Live to mix and arrange. Like I said, better performance is probably something I should be striving for first, but Live is pretty good at hiding my mistakes (for better or worse). I practice whenever I can, so hopefully this will become less of an issue the more I record. Thanks!

I never thought of that! I've generally kept the panning very conservative here. I'll have to play around with that. Thanks! There is an acoustic bass guitar in there. How can I emphasize it? Maybe notch the other tracks? I've actually found it particularly difficult to get good recordings from the bass, since it tends to be quiet! There's still plenty of headroom on the track, so I may be able to just increase the levels and see if that helps. Ah, great idea. I'm not at home now, but I'll try describing my setup with some pictures once I get a chance. Thanks for the feedback!

So I recently picked up a decent microphone (Zoom H2N) and decided to experiment with performing and recording tracks (as opposed to sequencing with virtual instruments). I'm completely new to this and the dark art of mixing and mastering in general. In fact, I'm quite new to music. I was hoping I could get some basic tips and advice as a starting point. I'm mostly recording acoustic guitar, acoustic bass guitar, vocals, and a few percussion instruments (shaker, hand drums, etc.). My pipe dream project is to make a very small album of acoustic arrangements of songs from Chrono Trigger (maybe four or five songs). To get there, I've started with a survey of songs to get a feel for them and the whole recording and arranging process. I've experimented with ten or so songs so far. Here are a few short samples: Undersea Palace Ayla's Theme Secret of the Forest Delightful Spekkio Schala's Theme Guardia Millennial Fair I realize some of these are a bit sparse. I tried different techniques for each of these tracks. Schala's Theme and Guardia Millennial Fair were my very first attempts, and Guardia Millennial Fair is particularly poorly mixed in my opinion! (I also think the bass in Schala's Theme is dissonant.) How can I improve these (as far as recording and mixing are concerned)? Are there any beginner pitfalls I should watch out for? Does it sounds like there's something consistently wrong with these? I appreciate any feedback or tips you can give me! I think specific feedback on a track would be helpful so I can hear the problem and try to fix it. Thanks!

Thanks for the insight! Do you mean it will be an issue because trackers are generally not suited for this (orchestral music)? Yes, I know there's already a lot going on with the EWQLSO samples. When I first tried EWQLSO, I immediately noticed the reverb and panning, for example. I tried playing with different reverb DSPs, and I agree that it's probably best to just work with what's already baked into the samples. My MIDI controller broke down a while back and I entered notes for these tracks using mostly a computer keyboard and a KORG nanoKEY controller with velocity sensitivity disabled. I plan to go back and re-enter/perform with modulation/pitch wheels and a better Control Change scheme. As such, I've used no dynamic articulations (yet). Other than some velocity changes, the MIDI execution here is utterly flat. Can you point out some examples? I feel like this is more true of the Cave Story track than of the Chrono Trigger track, but I'm curious what you think about this. I'd like to know more about how to avoid this problem. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out. That's part of why I'm here. Thanks again for the help! I really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot for the great insight! It's really helpful. Since it seems relevant, I'll mention that I'm (mostly) using EWQLSO, but I've avoided actually customizing the instruments using the VSTi itself and have made most adjustments in the tracker (Renoise). I'm willing to bet that's a problem! When I said filter I really meant filter (like LP and HP, not EQ). I read some general advise elsewhere on the forums that filters tend to be underused while EQ tends to be overused, so I've tried to make more use of filters than EQs. The filters are pretty light (the cutoffs are quite low for HP and quite high for LP). I have noticed that simply throwing an EQ on master that cuts back some of the mid frequencies seems to sound a bit better. I actually don't even know what convolution reverb is! I'll look into the units you recommended. Would I want to dial back the reverb applied by EWQLSO in favor of the convolution reverb? Yes, with a few exceptions, I don't change up the velocities much at all. Do you have any guidance on how to approach this? I tried to add a bit of variation to the dynamics at one point, but I wasn't pleased with the results. Maybe I should just pay more attention to this when I'm listening to orchestral music to get the idea. It looks like I mistakenly cut back on the low frequencies. I pull them back just a bit with an EQ, but I also cut them off with filters on the double basses. Yikes. I'll see if I can warm them up a bit. I'm curious how people approach applying filters and EQs to tracks. I find it difficult to tell if I've improved or worsened the sound when listening to a single track/instrument/section and adjusting the DSPs. Maybe this is something that will just take time to develop? I'm sure having decent speakers would also make this easier. This could just be my awful speakers, but I also find that it's terribly easy to exaggerate high frequencies, and cymbals and high frequency percussion sometimes sounds overblown (clipped and compressed) even though I haven't compressed those particular tracks. What kind of EQs or filters should I typically apply to percussion? Yep, I'd like to avoid spending too much. These look like a great choice. Thanks again for the help!

Hi, everyone. So I'll start by saying that I do know about the pinned production thread and I've taken a look at it more than once. I'm hoping for some specific advice, I guess. I've been doing some reading and experimentation, and I just have no clue how to approach mastering and production. I find that I really just don't know where to start, even after I've identified that a track sounds okay in one environment but terrible in another. Here are two examples. They're both raw, and I'm sure even the initial mixing could use some serious work too. The first is soft and the second is loud, but I find that both are muddy. Where would you start with these? What obvious problems should I attack first? Can anyone offer any advice in the context of these examples? I find that both can sound pretty horrible on the right (wrong) speakers. I've been trying a lot of orchestral tracks, and the muddy results are typically the same. I've tried basic equalization and applying filters to instruments (in hopes of making things sound less muddy), but the results are usually a very "airy" mix and I always seem to end up with some over-represented frequencies that kill the ear (I suppose that's just trial and error). I'm guessing I should take more time to learn about parametric EQ to help remedy that. Just a note, but I've actually reduced the headroom on those tracks since I knew I was not going to process them further, so I bumped up the gain a bit. Without any additional boost or compression, I aim for between -4 to -2 peak dB. Also (and I hope I didn't miss this from the pinned thread), I don't own decent speakers/monitors. I was thinking of picking up some good headphones. Any recommendations? Thanks a lot! I appreciate the help.

This sounds great! Good luck with production! Also, just for reference, here's a link to the title fanfare.

So I haven't found much time to update this until recently. I have a bunch of ideas now and hopefully I'll be able to try them out. Anyway, I have a small update: Time of Wonder (Corridors of Time) [WIP5] - SoundCloud I want to continue the track with some more original melodies. I still need to go back and introduce variation, but I probably won't do that until I've added more length (I'm hoping to get around four minutes out of this one). Thanks!

Glad to see others are using Renoise! The general perception I see is that trackers can be difficult to use (except maybe for certain kinds of compositions). Is this actually true though? I honestly can't speak to the point since I've never done anything more than a five second blip in loop-based programs before. I certainly like the notion of entering notes (and note-offs!) rather than dragging and dropping loops into a composition. Renoise is also pretty flexible about this, with all kinds of DSP support, send tracks, and even auto-sync sampled-based instruments. The addition of Lua scripting is pretty exciting too! Also, very nice work ziwtra. I hadn't listened to that track before. It's quite good. The percussion is fun and immersive.

Hey, everyone. I just posted my first work-in-progress and noticed while creating my forum account that Renoise is not available in the list of audio software when selecting sequencer and DAW skills. I'm curious if anyone has submitted remixes made with Renoise. It's pretty much the only sequencer with which I'm familiar. I plan to attempt loop-based software, but in the past I've found the learning curve to be a tad steep, and each program takes a very different approach (at least as far as UI is concerned). So, are there any other Renoise fans out there? What do you like about it? What do you dislike about it? Why do you use it? I'll start by saying it's modern (despite being a tracker), very affordable, and cross platform (I often work in Linux).

Thanks for the insightful and encouraging feedback! I'm glad to hear that you think this track has some potential. I agree that I've started with a very conservative mix, and the first minute or so is pretty faithful to the original. I plan to keep the first minute or so like this, perhaps with a little more variation, and then transition into some more original takes on the source. I've been playing around with some violins and violas that I think may add to the piece. I also agree that the piano arpeggio gets old. I actually tried to pass it to another instrument before posting this version, but it didn't work out too well. I plan to try it again and hopefully I'll be able to change it up a bit. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to get better choir samples for this (these are really the best I have). I'll need to try dropping some more DSPs on them. Right now, they're actually pretty raw. I think they're the most "synthy" sounding part of the mix right now. I have virtually no experience processing voices, so I'll need to do a lot of experimentation. I do plan to add some more percussion, including cymbals (crash!). I also need to change up the bongos and congas, since I did a lot of copying and pasting with them. I don't get too much time to work on mixes, but I hope to have an update sooner than later! Thanks again for taking the time to listen and write up the great feedback. I really appreciate it.

Hi, everyone! This is actually my first post in the OCR forums, though I've been visiting the site for a very long time. I relatively recently decided to try my hand at music and arrangements. I have very little experience, but I've been trying to learn and have picked up a KORG nanoKEY and Axiom 49 MIDI controllers. It's a lot of fun, which I guess is the whole point, right? Here's a short sample of an arrangement of Corridors of Time from Chrono Trigger. The source has always been one of my favorite video game tracks and I've really enjoyed the mixes posted here at OCR. This is one of my first arrangements and the first track I've done using mostly classical instruments (as opposed to a lot of synths, kicks, and snares). It's also the first to use SoundFonts, which I only just discovered. Downloads (Newest to Oldest): Time of Wonder (Corridors of Time) [WIP5] - SoundCloud Time of Wonder (Corridors of Time) [WIP3] - SoundCloud Time of Wonder (Corridors of Time) [WIP2] - Tindeck It's short, and needs a lot of work. At the moment, I feel I really need to introduce some variation. To keep moving forward, I've copied and pasted a whole lot of bongos and congas! Boring. I plan to conclude the track by transitioning into Day of Lavos. In fact, I already have some of that done, but obviously there's a lot more to put in place before I make that jarring transition. Well, I'm curious to see what you think. Please go easy on me! I'm a complete n00b. Thanks, everyone! Oh, and... first post! OCR rocks!