Turtle

Time for my bi-annual post to these forums, I guess! First off, yeah, I know it's not "real" 8-bit music. Second, even though it's video game-related, the game in question is my own project rather than a title whose soundtrack I'm remixing. https://truttle.bandcamp.com/album/8-bit-spellbook Some tracks were a bit rushed, but it came together all right considering I wrote the album for FAWM a few months back. Lemme know what you think.

Hey again, just thought I oughta bump this topic rather than make an entirely new thread for very closely related subject matter. As it turns out, my first assignment of the term for my aforementioned study is to find 5-10 recommendations that my school's library should make available in the way of actual books on digital sound. Mixing, mastering, etc. Basically, what I was asking about for tutorials I'm now asking about for books: what's the shortlist (or long, if the "shortlist" is short relative to 5-10 items) of recommended books on digital audio?

Yeah, it's definitely more work for me at the moment, since I don't enjoy mixing and mastering the way I do composition and arranging. I'm less than great at both, mind, but at least I enjoy one. But I am willing to put in the work if I feel it's actually teaching me something, hence my putting together this independent study. Definitely going to be using this, if only because my professor also has recommended it before.

Well, rather than learning any specific DAW, per se, I'm also looking at the principles involved in a good mix. Like, how to EQ most effectively, good uses of stereo field, etc. But concepts that aren't limited to just one piece of software.

Hello, OCR, making a semi-annual post on these forums before slinking back to obscurity. That post being about my upcoming independent study at school, self-explanatory in its title: "Audio Mixing and Mastering." Making a mix sound professional has long been my biggest failing as a primarily digital musician, and I haven't made any new music in quite a while (mostly due to an insane workload this past semester), so I'm hoping this course can get me on my feet again. Which brings me to this community. Logging in on a whim as I research some good studio headphones, I almost immediately came across Zircon's FL Studio 101 topic. I thought "hey, this might be good 'curriculum' to use in my study next term, I wonder if there's anything else OCR can point me to?" So that's my question. What would you folks say are good, preferably "curricular" digital music tutorials out there, especially related to production values? I'd say I could probably swallow something intermediate, but am also open to beginner stuff since I undoubtedly have holes in my experience.

Hm, that might just be a doubled octave where the bottom pitch is too low, rather than the reverb. Or I'm just not hearing the difference when I raise the low cut.

Got the Fluid R3 soundfont after seeing Zircon use it to good effect in his stream. I can't mix/EQ/stereo nearly that well, but it's definitely fun to compose with. I wrote this with primarily Fluid R3. I'm at that point in the process where I've been working on it for so long that I can no longer effectively discern what parts of the production need work. Doubtless I'll take another look after I've had a break but I also wanted to post it here. Thoughts welcome.

Some reverb. I've always been wary of too much reverb in my mixes because I'm well aware of the mud it can track in and drag all over the aural carpet. So this might be too little.

I have the demo version of Fruity Soundfont Player, which actually led me to find sfz in the first place. Unless I'm really missing something, it's gonna go the way of all demo software in this DAW as soon as I close the project.

When you say that the bass is the main offender, do you mean that you can't hear it, or it's too overpowering? From context and from my own struggles with it, I'd guess the former. I don't actually have ASDR envelope controls on my soundfont player (sfz)... or did you not necessarily mean the controls on the player itself? And oh my I can hear that low/mid muddiness now, looking back. Amazing what stepping away for just a few hours can sometimes do if you've been "in the midst" for too long.

At this point I think I might just be too afraid to spring for better quality samples that may be easier to mix. I mean, here I am using SNES soundfonts for pity's sake. That said, I want to train myself more. It's tricky, is all. More panning stuff re:suggestions, volume levels changed. Little less widened, maybe too much so the other way again...

Out of curiosity, for what length of time have you been producing music? I've been at it in one form or another (albeit only the most basic of General MIDI early on) for at least four years and should probably know more than I do. >_> What is actually meant to be the lead is the piano/pan flute you hear coming in during the next iteration... which may be too late, looking at the tracking bar, but then I do have a habit of introducing leads later rather than sooner. The thing about the brass does make sense, but I'm wondering if unpanning it alongside changing up the first pad might be overdoing it in the other direction.

Gah, where do you learn this stuff? This is mostly the first I've heard regarding theory on where to pan stuff, other than a few tips on percussion... In any case, either I don't have "strings" in the conventional sense or I don't have "pads" because whichever they are, both are labeled as "Synth Strings." How should those be panned, then? The brass actually isn't even as high as 40% left, let alone hard-panned.

This is what it sounds like having panned a couple more things to center, moved the bass up an octave to make it audible, tweaked a couple percussion things, and took off just a little of the high range.

The timpani is actually panned center already. The bass is where it is mostly so it's more audible. Which I suppose speaks to the mixing suffering in other areas if I should be able to hear it in the center... but then, mixing is by far where I need to improve. On a related note, did you think the high frequencies were a bit too emphasized? I didn't even realize they were until I toned down the higher range on a whim...