Chimpazilla

Here is another free one that a good friend of mine uses often: Triforce My friend also uses Magical8bit. I have not used these myself but I'm really not a "chipper."

I think your mod review is going to tell you it is repetitive, sparse and vanilla, with autopilot drumming. Sorry. I like that lead, Timaeus. PP you could try replacing one sound at a time until you get something that makes you scream "yes yes!" then do that with the next, and the next. Timaeus is right about that organ, it is particularly not-good, and the gating is off it's timing. The part at 1:31 is very very sparse, and dry... in fact the whole tune is painfully dry. Don't forget, your mixing should include placing the instruments strategically in the soundscape. Atm you have everything placed dead center, and that isn't too interesting. It is possible to do an awesome chiptune... but you've gotta use good sounds and mixing. You've got some nice writing and flourishes in there... try some variations, and definitely work on your sound design and mixing.

Oh dude. Sorry. Ya know, I see posts like this one waaaay too often. I've become super diligent about backing up my stuff... I now back up my current file EVERY DAY. When I sign off my computer, I turn on my external drive and spend the 4.2 seconds to copy just the one file I'm working on over to there. Everyone should get into this habit!!!! Still I'm hoping somehow you can recover your stuff. *sympathies*

I tried very hard to listen to it... can't get Flash player to work. I've had problems with Flash player before, despite updating it multiple times my computer can't find it. Blah. Any chance you could upload it to Soundcloud or Tindeck or something?

Thanks Snap, this is what I thought from the start (although Zircon begs to differ). My problem is that somehow (???) I have done something (???) to cause Omnisphere's 8 patches (16 actually, 2 instances) to be set to 0.71db and they will not change from those positions. If I slide the faders down, as soon as I hit play on my song, they pop back to 0.71db. I am now going to resort to making an automation, using "multilink to controllers," to lower the faders all by 6db. The automation seems to work (meaning, I can get the faders to behave). Now I will work with this and make sure the clipping goes away. Hopefully my next post will be a "yippee, success!" report. But darn it... how did this happen????? edit: I made a short auto clip, one bar long, at the start of the song. It works, lowers the fader. But if I stop playback, back we go to 0.71db. When I hit play again, it stays at 0.71db. It will only go back to the auto clip value by restarting the song. So now I've made a full-length auto clip. Hitting stop/start on the song pops the fader back and forth from 0.71db to my auto clip value. SO... this does work... but it's f*&^%#@ WEIRD. edit #2: I believe we have success. I can not hear any more clipping. *whew* edit #3: It seems that adding the big automation clip has created a click at 0:03 in my song in the RENDER. Dammit. Trying again without it. Good lord!!!

Zircon, did you mean "if it's not happening on render?" I believe it is only in the playback. I've never had this problem before Omni but Omni is a different beast in many ways. (and I love it!) (yeah, I've glitched out in other songs, but only in the 95-99% range) I'm already using triple buffer, 30ms buffer length, and smart disable. I'll try increasing the buffer size. Thanks again.

Hey Rozo, yeah I looked at those settings... and decided not to mess with them. (either it says "only change this setting in very rare cases" or "after you change this setting you need to reload Omni" which I don't want to do since I've fine-tuned the timbres to my liking) Spectrasonics guy was baffled too. He suggested simply turning down the master fader and I think I'll be trying this next. Still not sure what I could have done to get the 0.71db levels across the board. When I load up a new project and an instance of Omni, the levels are at 0.00. What have I done? Maybe I'll ask the question on the Image Line forum next. Harumph. Thanks to all who chimed in to help!

So far from what I can tell, the distortion is not there in a render. Yes I realize this is a good thing. I need to listen more closely to make totally sure of this... but I'm pretty sure the problem is just in playback. It is definitely not a cpu max-out problem, I'm only getting to about 79% on this song. As for soloing Omni... this song is nearly 100% Omni instruments (except for drums and TruePianos). This is why I thought maybe the large quantity of Omni instruments playing at once, with that 0.71db level, could be the issue. The problem only occurs when all instruments are playing.

Thanks... emailed them... I'll post their reply when I get it.

Hey Jordan, I'd love to take a crack at drumming on this track. If you're interested, contact me in a pm about the particulars. (these drums in this version do NOT work... sorry... but I STILL love this song)

The only automation I have in this song is some mild volume automation, and only to turn things down here and there, never up. Or... what kind of automation were you referring to? What kind of FL automation could cause 16 faders (2 instances of Omni) to be set to precisely 0.71db??? Also Omni's master volume fader is set to -0.24db and cannot be changed. I found a post on this where even the programmer could not explain this! I'm baffled. edit: my automations are using Fruity Balance in the last fx chain slot on the individual instruments... never a fader, in FL or especially not in Omni!

Oh jeez... thanks Zircon... any suggestions on what else to look at? The distortion is very mild, but I hear it... I have no idea where to look. This has never happened before Omnisphere. edit: I've soloed every single thing and it only happens when everything is playing.

Hi all, I just got Omnisphere and wow I love it! I've written a remix using it almost exclusively and it sounds amazing... but I noticed at the climax of the song (when everything is playing) there is some mild distortion/clipping. None of my metering indicates any visible problem (looked at every instrument and the master, nothing is clipping) so I looked into Omnisphere itself, and discovered that all the mixer faders (under multi) are set to 0.71db! I have right-clicked and "restored to default value" and that pops it back to 0.00... but as soon as I hit play in Fruity they pop back again to 0.71db. Does this happen to you (or is it just me)? Could this be causing my distortion problem (it sure seems like this is the problem)? How can I fix this? Sure I could lower the volumes of each channel pre-mixer in FL, but should I have to do that? Thanks for any advice on this. Or should I contact Spectrasonics?

You can always ask a question like that on the FL Studio forum. I had asked that exact question a couple of months ago and received the answer in five minutes from a "power user." They are very nice and helpful over there.

To move patterns around in FL: 1. in step sequencer, select the pattern you wish to move 2. put cursor in the black bar, just to the right of the down arrow next to pattern name (step sequencer must be "active," so make sure it is the last thing you clicked on before doing the next steps or it won't work) 3. hold "shift" 4. use mouse scroll wheel up or down to move pattern (again, your cursor must remain in the black bar area for it to work) Another nifty trick you can do, you can create pattern group names that don't hold any information, by simply naming a pattern something with "---" in it. I have my patterns organized as follows: ---drums--- drums 1 drums 2 ---bass--- bass 1 bass 2 And etc. Makes your patterns easy to find and work with.

Timaeus, do you know someone who plays guitar that you can collab with, ask them to play a part for you? There is probably someone on here you can ask, if you don't know anyone.

Listened to the first two: they sound sweet! Real... can't say... maybe moreso with some humanization... but they sound great. Third sample requires login to box. Do you have another link you could put up?

He is making remixes. He has quite a few wips in the forum already. He is doing all he can to learn this stuff as quickly as possible, as we all are. There are ways to convey even the worst possible information in a way that makes the recipient feel supported. We should all learn this life skill.

Again I reiterate... I've started by downloading a midi more than once. Call it training wheels, safety net, whatever. I've never used an entire midi for anything, maybe only one part, or a couple of bars. It has gotten me started, given me ideas, given me courage, given me a push. From a few bars or notes, I've taken off on songs in a way I couldn't without that headstart. I can't see how there is anything wrong with this, especially for someone new to composing. I would only caution against using an entire midi for something... that won't do much for you... and is a bad habit for sure. Use parts of it, get ideas, change it up, learn to be flexible. Is there any difference between using a midi sparingly, and doing a remix of an existing melody? In both cases isn't one using previously created material to launch their own original-ish work from?

I recently got Omnisphere. I downloaded a midi to a vgm song I like, just so I didn't HAVE to write it... I wanted to just practice with my new sounds on a piece I knew. I only ended up using 7 notes in the midi... and a full remix wrote itself on top of them. The midi inspired me massively although I barely used it. I suppose it was sort of a safety net. I think it is ok to start with a midi, for whatever purpose you need. Of course in the end result, the judges would never pass a suped-up midi, so Jordan as long as you are aware of that, midi yourself silly.

Hey PP! It's very cute... I don't know the source... but it sounds really really sparse and repetitive, and the plain synths I predict will be a problem (I usually have this problem myself, working on that). There are some chords that are, well, discordant. And the drums are very simple, judges hate that. It seems you've got a good start... but it will need more work for sure. I like the arp that starts at 1:48, some more interesting stuff like that wouldn't hurt! Good luck and keep at it.

You should always have a limiter as the last plugin on your master chain. The approx -1db setting is to keep you from clipping, ever. If your track is clipping, either something is too loud or you intended it for creative reasons. If using a limiter on your master is muddying up your mix, then the track is getting squashed by the limiter because something is definitely too loud somewhere in your mix. Use a metering plugin like Voxengo SPAN on each of your mixer tracks until you find the offending instrument and turn it down or compress it. That is a tremendous review. Keep in mind that those are Timaeus222's opinions... and some good suggestions... but not rules. edit: Timaeus, I didn't mean to single you out, so sorry! Jordan, many of us have given you suggestions. Some are no-brainer mixing tips that everyone should know. (I'm still learning all this stuff too) Others are matters of personal taste. Don't think you have to make every change suggested!

I think this is amazing!!! I LOVE the lo-fi beginning, you fooled me for sure! It sounds a bit thin in places, but mainly that's ok, maybe just that main lead could be filled out a little with some more unison voices, just to widen it a bit, especially for the parts where it is playing with not much else. Also that gating synth starting at 0:42 is only delayed on the right side, how about some left side love? It gets really noticeable (and annoying) at 1:27. And the track does get a bit sparse starting at 3:10, I'm waiting for moar stuff to happen here. Ending is... odd. Otherwise wow, this is really fun, glitchy and groovy!!!!! I enjoyed it.

Oh wow... that's really, really cool... it's like a patchwork of sounds... it sounds well mixed too... great lead... really fun and groovy! Good luck with the judges.

A tad repetitive in some spots... but super groovy and creative! I love that lead in the second half. Very nice track!