Sauraen

Thanks! Please pardon my delay in responding--my hard drive got corrupted and I lost a lot of the programming I had done on this mix. I'm almost back up to speed now, though, and doing it again forced me to do it better. A new DAW is not in my budget for now, not right after I dropped a grand on the CCC. Maybe in a year, I definitely would like to upgrade. But I think I'm going to have to finish this mix with my current software, even if it means more work. My earlier posts complaining about how Sibelius would not do automation from before the most recent version of the remix were not entirely informed. True, Sibelius cannot automate VST parameter channels. However, I not only have access to the velocities of individual notes, I have access to any arbitrary MIDI data I want to include. In the most recent version I posted, the flute is being "automated" in four ways: expression (CC 11), volume (CC 7), velocity, and keyswitches for different samples. Take another listen to the latest version--do you think the flute is passable, or do you think it still needs more work? *ahem* I run Windows. I have used Finale before, and in my opinion Sibelius is basically nothing more than the generally better-designed and more-intuitive equivalent. But your point still stands that I need a DAW, not a notation program. Hmmm, I wonder what DAW you use? I've used LMMS, which is supposed to have the same interface as FL Studio, and I found it to be underpowered, clumsy, and unprofessional. Piano-roll note input seems so 1995 when I could be writing music on a score; selecting between velocities of simultaneous notes is a pain; and drawing automation curves is so difficult that I wasn't even sure it was working until I saw the knobs moving. These problems may just be with LMMS and not with FL Studio, I don't know. (If there's some trial version, I'll certainly check it out.) But most importantly, my composing tends not to be of electronic-sounding music--I rarely use anything that could be called a "loop", which is in the name of FL Studio. I feel that it is essential that the DAW I wind up with allows me to write on a score.

I put like ten hours of work into programming the flute, plus I redid the drums and strings. I figured I would mute the tracks that I haven't fixed up so you can just hear the good ones. What suggestions at this point (other than make all the other solo parts like the flute, and fix the ending)? http://soundcloud.com/sauraen/melodies-of-mabe-village-3-3 Thanks again, everyone, for your help.

Thanks for your comments! I have a lot to learn... First, about the ending, I forgot to mention that there'll be a fadeout from about 5:19 to 5:34, so that ending won't be audible at all. I just didn't want to leave it unresolved every time while it is in production, so I had to at least change the last note! I think I'm facing two problems here: lack of control and lack of experience. In terms of control, I'm using Sibelius 5, the EastWest Complete Composers Collection, and Audacity. In Sibelius, unless I've been missing something big for years, there's no such thing as automation, effect sends, filters, EQ, etc. There's a script that converts crescendos and diminuendos into sets of MIDI volume events, and I used this for the ends of a lot of notes in this arrangement, but I don't even know if the virtual instruments are responding to it because they don't sound like they're changing much. One thing I can do is many of the instruments have keyswitches to select which articulation they're using. I used these here too, but mostly to avoid samples that were slightly out of tune. There must be some way to control things like vibrato, though, because the demo songs for the CCC sound excellent, even individual instruments. As far as the drums, I know what you mean when you say "the drum track is being played through a thick layer of insulation". But that's just how it sounds--I didn't add effects to it or anything, I don't think I even put in any reverb. There's other drum sets that come with the CCC, of course: but they have their own problems: either they use the wrong kind of snare drum, or they have too much reverb, or the toms have too much pitch (I don't know how to describe it). But again, it must be something I'm not doing right, because the demos of the CCC sound amazing and so many people swear by it. Which brings me to my lack of experience. I've been composing and arranging for MIDI or for humans for quite a while, but this is really the first time I've tried to make an mp3 that sounds professional. So here come some dumb questions about what you've been saying (if there's some general thing somewhere I should read, please let me know!): - Why would someone ever use EQ in a piece? If you give a flautist and a pianist some sheet music and listen to their performance, you don't get to decided which frequencies each are emphasized in. - Isn't part of the point of a fancy sound set like the CCC to add those things like velocity modulation and expression that are needed to make the piece sound realistic? That is, if you give it a MIDI that only has what's written on the page for the flautist, shouldn't it generate a flute part that sounds identical to what the flautist would play, including all that extra stuff? - If not, am I really supposed to manually write in a bunch of automation tracks for all the parameters a person would add? When I was taking oboe lessons, I spent years just working on this: in effect, learning how to generate all those automation tracks--vibrato speed, depth, and delay; articulation and release; continuous velocity; almost inaudable things like tone color--in real time for any piece, tailored to my instrument. How can a computer musician be expected to manually (and consciously) replicate that for every instrument in the orchestra? I guess a lot of my problems would be solved with a copy of Pro Tools and a music production degree, but until then, do you have any suggestions? Does there exist a freeware DAW that supports VST, ASIO, automation, and arbitrary audio paths (effects busses and the like)? And, if anyone here uses the CCC, where's the "make this sound realistic" button? One more thing: if I upload the MIDI version of this piece, the samples will obviously sound fake, but all the production issues will be gone. It sounds clean, balanced, etc.,... and like a MIDI. I thought I could buy a giant sound set, replace the sounds, and have everything else fall into place. Evidently not.

https://soundcloud.com/sauraen/melodies-of-mabe-village-3-9 (Updated link) Game: Legend of Zelda, The: Link's Awakening (Game Boy, 1993) (Kazumi Totaka, Koji Kondo) Songs arranged: Ballad of the Wind Fish, Mabe Village, Koholint Island EDIT: Original submission thread: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=38115 This is a the third version of this piece; the first did not make it through OC ReMix's inbox screening and the second was a "NO, resub". Now it's played on the EastWest Complete Composers Collection--there shouldn't be any problem with sample quality anymore!