DarkDruid7

I've had FL Studio 9 for over a year and have been making some songs using the program, however, I've always had problems with adding the final touches and tweaking parameters altogether to get better quality sound. I was hoping to get some helpful advice here so I can get past this frustrating step and start finishing songs instead of leaving them on file for months (years). I've read the mastering/production guide from gamedev.net on the first page, and that helped give me somewhat of an idea of what I should be doing, but it also confused me to no end. I understood some of the sound synthesis concepts it talked about like ADSR, mostly because I've toyed around with parameters beforehand, but I didn't see the practical use of applying the concepts, like how I would know if I wanted a low pass filter as opposed to a high pass filter. Something else that was new to me was where it talked about pitch frequencies, such as a certain number of kHz being considered bass and another interval considered treble and how you don't want the bass voice and kick drum on the same frequency. I'm sure that in some of my songs, the bass and kick drum would be inseparable by ear at some parts, but I didn't know how to fix it and still have trouble separating the two. Anyway, on to the mastering problems. I'll be honest, the biggest problem I am having is making my songs not sound fuzzy and staticy in some parts when I upload them to Youtube or a song-hosting site. However, when I export my songs to MP3 in FL Studio, no problem seems to be heard when I play it in Windows Media Player. Is it my sound card? Some compression problem I caused in FL studio? The way I exported it in FL Studio? I don't know. I guess I should talk about my sound setup and the way I master. To be blunt, my setup sucks. Here's a screenshot of my settings: As you can see, my sound card is pretty bad. I tried running ASIO4all v2, but for some reason it gives me a lot of underruns and doesn't fully buffer my sounds. Although it says the output is through stereo speakers, I have my 20-dollar Sony MDR-XD100 headphones plugged into one of the speakers. That's pretty much it as far as my sound setup goes. For most of my songs, I have Fruity Compressor and Maximus on the master track, though I don't tweak the parameters on Maximus at all (I know I probably should, but I'm afraid of messing something up). For the current song I am working on, a bossa nova piece, my compressor settings are as follows: threshold, -11db; ratio, 3.5:1 ; attack, 15 ms (unchanged); release, 200 ms (unchanged); and type, hard (unchanged). Like all of my other songs, this song suffers from quality problems after it's uploaded on the internet. Other than adjusting the volume bars for individual tracks and toy with the EQ settings, that's all the mastering I do. When I'm done, I set the bitrate anywhere from 160-220 and export the song to MP3. Although I'm sure this has been a long read for most, I'd really appreciate a helpful response. I'm in no way in a position to spend a fortune on hardware or software, but I can break my budget a little if it means that my music will sound better.

The intro with the sound effects starts this piece off well, and then there's that piano tritone that leads into the intensity that follows. The quieter section with the bell builds up suspense that leads back into intensity. I really like this song. It definitely would fit well in a horror film or game.

This piece only took you three hours? It's really good, man. I especially like the piano section, and the silence that preceded it. This song really captures the pirate or sea battle feel very well. Good job.

I'll admit that I have trouble with certain parts of music theory as I haven't had a formal class on it yet, but I don't hate it. It's important to have an understanding of scales, harmony, counterpoint, among other things, but if one absorbs the more complex parts without knowing how to apply it to their music, they would be better off using simpler theory that they understand. Experimentation and freestyle improvisation allow ideas to come out naturally that can later be organized by applying theory. Of course, you could go the other way around, but that's not the way I compose all the time. Anyway, thanks for the welcome.

Repost: Hello, all. I'm DarkDruid7, or simply DD7, and I'm new to the forums. I joined for three reasons: I like video games, I enjoy making music, and I was looking for a good place to get help with mastering compositions. I've been making music for about 3 years, off and on, using FL Studio 9 and Sibelius 5. My main focus is video game music, and that's what I want a job in, eventually. All of my musical ideas are mostly played first on my MIDI keyboard, where I then transfer notes by hand to either of my sequencers. (I can't use MIDI interface now that the USB ports on my computer don't work. :/) As far as my music education goes, I know intermediate theory and I'm going to be majoring in composition starting my next year of college. Though, to be honest, I don't want to delve into theory that much, it leads to too much perfectionism when music really isn't perfect. I like when my ideas flow on paper and when I use theory to organize my ideas, not confine them to theory. I'm not much of a musician as I used to be, though I do play some instruments just enough to get me by: keyboard and electric guitar. In high school I played trombone and euphonium (I was actually good with the former). I have some notable influences in my music. First and for most, Motoi Sakuraba! I love everything he makes from Golden Sun to Valkyrie Profile. I also like other video game composers such as Yuka Tsujiyoko (Fire Emblem), Michiru Yamane (Castlevania), Jun Senoue (Sonic), Koji Kondo (Mario and Zelda), Nobuo Uematsu (FF), and Hajime Wakai (F-zero). Other influences include progressive rock (U.K. and Pink Floyd), metal, jazz, classical, 80's hard rock, and electronic music. Well that's rambling about music; I'm a gamer too! My favorite genre is Japanese SRPGs (Fire Emblem and Disgaea), but I also like games such as Golden Sun, the Tales series, Valkyrie Profile, Castlevania, Zelda, Advance Wars, and Minecraft. Anyway, I think I've said enough. Glad to be here.

http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10835