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...

This any better?

A little more like so, maybe? I hadn't actually attempted too much stereo-ification(?) at that point yet. Also added a bassline.

Lately I've really been intrigued by SNES sounds. Super Metroid being one of my favorite styles of this category, I find myself using its Soundfont for compositions. This one, though, is the first that makes exclusive use of Super Metroid instruments, and nothing else. Any thoughts? Still shaping up, but I'd say it's turning out fairly well so far. Still needs a bassline. I do feel that I have yet to grasp that "true SNES" feel - e.g., William Kage - but I'm not entirely sure what I need to do still to capture it.

Chiptune! http://truttle.bandcamp.com/track/mega-crisis Mega Man inspiration, not sure how much of it shows from an outside perspective.

This, and mostly because of the riffs beginning at about 25% through rather than because I knew anything at all about how chords worked back then. I think in a lot of ways General MIDI helps you care more about the composition and arranging because production values are a lost cause anyway.

Exactly what it says on the tin. I'm by no means very active in this particular community but I have stayed somewhat (still probably not to a sufficient degree) active in writing music. You'll find what I've created in the past couple of years on my Bandcamp artist page: http://truttle.bandcamp.com/ It's all free to listen to. For what it's worth, I hope at least some of it is entertaining. What I'm looking for here, especially, is insight into just what my problem is with production values. To this day I haven't come even close, in my own estimation, to making something of the sort of quality that might be accepted on this site as a remix submission. And I've been into digital music for several years now (the appropriate smiley to sum this up would be ). Where am I going wrong? I need to learn to EQ? Get better samples? Better mastering plugins? Just plain be more meticulous across the board? Is it all in my head and I'm not as bad at this as I think I am? That'd be wonderful to hear too!

Heh, as far as my strengths go, I often use chiptunes because it allows me to arrange to my heart's content with comparatively little focus on making the mastering sound "realistic." Synth is deeeefinitely my friend. That said, I do want to be a bit more versatile with "real" instruments and need to know what I'm missing in terms of those filters (even after a few years of this, I'm afraid it probably just comes down to inexperience) that make the base sounds perform better. This is because, down the line... It would be fantastic to make a job of writing music for games or film or TV; heck, even commercial jingles. Long shot though it may be. Are you saying there's no real balance to be had? Like, you can't get moderately good-sounding samples and then learn a moderate amount of production (honest question, coming from someone who has tried for as long as possible to go as cheap as possible)? I do want to learn more of how to make something sound good given the tools already available. But I'm skeptical that, for example, some guy working with the 128 general MIDI instruments would never need to just plain "get better software" to improve past a certain point. Hits spot-on, because in the future I would probably like to compose for some smaller game projects to really learn what it's like to build a soundtrack. It seems like it'd be a better, if more grueling, exercise in the long run to just push harder at making a better pot with lower-quality clay. Which in turn makes it a question of "how does one learn this?" Not really a helpful question, and one that gets asked here countless times a day, but nonetheless I find that even being no longer as self-taught as I was a year ago, something's not clicking... I may not want to hear it but maybe I'm just not applying myself enough?

This is good insight. Especially the last paragraph. I should probably give it a try and simplify, simplify. Then if it's the production that's the problem, I'll have to find some excuse for not getting any better at that for a year or so, despite having taken at least two college classes in that time about digital audio. >_> The reason I'm even bringing up that it might be my samples is that the only element of my package that I've paid for since getting FL Studio is FL Studio itself. I'd like to think I've done pretty well for myself on what I can find for free but the cheap stuff is cheap for a reason...

Yep, I had tried them on my mp3 player as well. Same result. I guess I should see about replacing the jack or cord. But general consensus seems to be "it's not the expensive part that sucks," so small mercies, I guess.

As in, as opposed to good production ability? Is there ever a point where you've learned what you can with sub-par instruments and hit a ceiling with how your work sounds? I ask, of course, because it's recently become relevant to my experience. I will be the first to admit that I am possibly the worst digital musician I know at the technical aspects of audio production, but now I'm also wondering if it's reached the time where I should shell (heh) out for Actual Instruments, the kind for which you have to pay Actual Money Dollars. More importantly, how do I tell? Accurate self-evaluation is even harder than the work I'm trying to evaluate. I could just say "I'm in a rut and don't know how to EQ," which is true, but I'd be joining in the collectively whiny "how do i shot web" without being conducive to improvement (and by "web," I mean "good production values for my music"). In the interest of trying to make this a legitimate thread for advice on the issue - instead of simply voicing my frustration at not seeming to improve in the last year - is this a familiar phenomenon? Does anyone else find that it was better in the end to stop working out with crunches and pushups and just get the darn Bowflex? And most importantly, have I just posted a sentiment that's come up half a dozen times already? Probably. Stay tuned to hear the answer.