negative_zero

Hey all. I've been making music for years but I still consider myself pretty amateur in the sense that I don't know too much about production, I just sort of tend to randomly move a few knobs around until I get something that sounds ok. I'm currently working on a soundtrack for a game that I'm developing, I think it is some of the best work I've ever done but... the bass definitely feels off to me: https://soundcloud.com/andrew-nee/sets/untitled-video-game-soundtrack Is it too low in the mix? It's tough for me to tell, to be honest, because A. I'm making this stuff on a system without much bass so I barely hear anything either way and B. Even when I work on it on a system with better bass and try to compare it to other music, I lose context very quickly. Also, it seems that when I pull it much higher it sound of turns the songs a bit muddy. Is that a frequency issue? I have no idea?! I'm sort of beating my head against a wall with the bass issue. I keep trying a variety of different VSTs and such and can't find anything that feels right. The one that I used on the songs above is at least close to the sound I want, just something simple and straightforward, but it still feels off. I know a lot of people say just record your own bass, but I sort of suck at guitar and I don't have the equipment (or money to buy it) to record right now anyway. I'm open to suggestions about everything else too... composition, my other instruments, you name it, but to be honest I have WAY too much to do on the game itself to keep spending so much time on the soundtrack, so I consider the soundtrack "almost done" at the moment. Just want to get it polished up a bit, and the bass is the main thing that sticks out as feeling "off" to me at the moment...

that doesn't sound so bad. What I have is everything that can with Ableton Live 8.2.2, as well as a lot of stuff that my brother gave me. I'm not really satisfied with any of it, to be honest. I've also demoed Trilian, which I think is probably as good as everyone says it is for what it does, but it didn't seem to match my desires. What I am looking for is basically something "simple" that sounds almost like a recorded bass guitar would, but erm... less guitar-y? And maybe a tad bit electronicish, although not too much. I just want something unobtrusive to fill out the songs, but that sounds pretty good on its own. Right now I use EVM Bassline v1-3 and this is what it sounds like: In a song: http://www.negativeworld.org/andrew/music/XXXXXX-full.mp3 By itself: http://www.negativeworld.org/andrew/music/XXXXXX-bass.mp3 It sounds pretty bad, right? Still, it fits the whole simple and a tad bit electronish thing I'm looking for. So I want something similar, but with a way better sound quality. Advice can be one of the following... A. Point me in the direction of a VST that would do the trick. B. Point me in the direction of how to take what I have and make it sound a lot better, which would also do the trick. I kind of prefer A, but either way works.

I'm not really sure what one of those is.

You know, that honestly never occurred to me as a possibility. I have used other "chiptunes" type plugins like Peach, quadraSID, Basic64, NESPulse, etc. without this issue though. And usually in the past if I did stumble upon a click it'd be small and could be minimized through messing with the attack or something but I can't figure out anything that will work here and I spent like two hours beating my head against a wall last night trying to make the clicking go away. Here is the same line done in Peach, for instance. Maybe a tiny pop but it's a lot cleaner. I just don't like the actual sound as much. http://www.negativeworld.org/andrew/etc/Powered%20Up%20and%20Powered%20On%20-%20Pop%20-%202.mp3 Here is what it looks like visualized: Compression, hmm. I haven't done much with that outside of drums, will have to play around with it and see what I can do.

Hey all. Maybe you can help me out with a little issue I'm having. While using Chipsounds as a VST plugin with Ableton I've noticed that pretty much no matter what I do, I always get a little popping noise at the start of each note. Example: http://www.negativeworld.org/andrew/etc/Powered%20Up%20and%20Powered%20On%20-%20Pop.mp3 Here is what it looks like visualized: I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, or these two don't play nice together, or what. Anyone have any ideas? Especially anyone who uses Chipsounds... ever have a similar issue? I'd really like to figure this out because I've tried out a variety of "chiptunes" VSTs and this is the first one I've used that has a good combination of sound quality, options, and ease of use.