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Chlysm

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Posts posted by Chlysm

  1. Here is the beginning of the Original Ocean Loader. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njTxV8blffc&feature=youtu.be&t=47s

     

    And then the end https://youtu.be/njTxV8blffc?t=3m38s

     

    The original hangs on the chromatics alot more. Even if it's not a chromatic progression. I feel like the composer picked the 4 notes and then chords to go with them.

     

    As for the second song. I haven't really taken the time to figure out by ear. I didn't say that it followed the same exact idea but something similar perhaps like just dropping a whole step then playing in that key. Either way I doubt the song is soley played in one key. 

  2. On 12/29/2015 at 0:30 PM, Neblix said:

    Firstly, can you rewrite the progression? The way you wrote it doesn't really indicate a chord progression. I thought you were writing slash chords "bass note/top chord" but then you wrote "Cm/Csus4" which doesn't make much sense. Do you mean by "/" you don't know which of those two it is?

     

    The slashes in this case indicate that the chords briefly alternate to the Sus4 or it's relative minor for a half note and then returning back to the major chord and then going to the next one.

    (example. Each chord = half note)

    
    *Bb Key*===================================*Ab Key*======================================
    (Bb),(Bb),(BbSus4),Bb |(F),(F),(FSus4),(F) | (Ab),(Ab),(Fm),(Ab) | (Cm),(Cm),(Csus4),(Cm) 
    
    
    The suspended chords aren't 100% essesntial to the 'feel' of the song. The effect can be achieved by picking any major progression and playing the I and V chords, then dropping a whole step to play the chords I, and vi in that progression
    
    You can even try a I & iii (drop a whole step) then I iii(sus4)/vii(sus4).
    
    
    

     

     

     

    The key change what sets it off for me. It seems like it adds alot of character to the song. In some ways, it does depend on how you look at it. In the un remixed version, the song starts out with a chromatic descend using the following notes, (Bb, A, Ab, G) and these notes are utilized in the chords of the main harmony. Plus you can another chromatic progression during the half time of the song Which essentially leads me to believe that this song was written around a chromatic progression.

    The other way to look at it is like you said, the Fm (or Ab) key change in a key that would otherwise entirely in Bb.

    You'll have to forgive me if I'm not making sense initially as I'm not formally trained if you hadn't guessed already.

     

     

     

     

    Quote

    Beyond that, this chord progression isn't anything complicated.The only noteworthy thing that distinguishes it from regular plain old harmony is between the 2nd and 3rd chord which seem to be F major to F minor. It's common in fantasy/sci-fi type harmonies to use a major chord and then a minor chord right after. This change right here is probably what caught your ear; the rest of it is fairly simple.

    Here's a cool technique you can try:

     

    ("^7" means major 7th chord and "m7" means minor 7th chord) 

    C^7 -> Cm7 -> B^7 -> Bm7 -> Bb^7 -> Bbm7 -> A^7 ->... and so on. Pretty neat trick to get a very long progression that continuously changes the tonality. It's basically the same chord change, but the 7th is also changing along with the 3rd. You'll notice it simply can be seen as "lower the 3rd and 7th, then lower the 1st and 5th, then lower the 3rd and 7th, then lower the 1st and 5th" etc. etc.).

    Or, instead of continuing it, Just throw one or two of them into a regular progression. It's a good way to "shift", and that shift is the same shift you hear between what you label " F/Fsus4" and "Ab/Fm".

     

     

    I'll definitely give it a shot. I've been going through a phase trying unorthodox progressions and my own personal variants of chromatic chord progressions seems to produce a jazzy sound which I don't have much experience with. But I really like the direction these experiments are taking me musically. When I wrote my song built around chromatics (in my previous post) it was really one of those moments when the song seems like it's writing itself. and it's so different from anything else that I've made which makes it even more unbelievable. 

    This is another song where I think similar is going on, but more complicated.

     

     I world really like to pick this song apart one day, but have no idea who wrote this. I recorded it years ago off of my Commodore Amiga. I'm starting to think it might be Jeroen Tel (who went by several psuedonyms that I don't recall), but his style was unique, Anyway, I suspect there might be something similar going on. Without trying to match the chords my best guess for the body of the song is that he's alternating between Major chords, and dropping down using a Sus(2/4) chords. (i.e. Dsus4 - Csus4 - C). There is probably alot more to it considering the various parts of the song, but I think the song is probably based around a progression like that.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  3. This is something that intrigued me ever since I heard the Ocean Loader 2 theme. I always wondered how they got that fantasyscape like sound without resorting to something cliche' like a 2 tone scale (i.e. Original Star Trek Theme, Come Sail Away). So I picked it a part and analyzed the chords.

    Generally speaking it follows a progression of Bb/Bsus4, F/Fsus4, Ab/Fm, Cm/Csus4 and the notes within those chords to make it chromatic are Bb, A, Ab, G.

    Trying to find information about this technique seems to be difficult as it mostly seems delegated to Jazz making it somewhat obscure. Another term I found for this was called an Omnibus progression, but the examples I've seen all ascend rather than descend so I don't know if that makes a difference.

     

    I've also done some experimenting myself and there is alot you can do with this IMO. I even made my own song following a similar chord progression (link).

     

    I'm not that well versed in Theory so I'm interested in hearing some educated insight on this.

     

  4. I recently got an iPad air and I've been having alot of fun with the garage band app and now starting to dabble into some other stuff. Been impressed with it's capabilities so far and so I've been thinking about using it as a DAW via an interface.

     

    I currently have an aging Aardvark Pro Q10 from 2000 which records up to 8 tracks in CD quality. Works great, but I need to have a dedicated PC running Windows 2000 so it is kind of a pain. Especially considering that it is rare for me to need to record more than one stereo track at a time. I have and still plan to use it for the rare occasion when I'm recording an entire band but it would be nice to have something that would interface with an ipad that could record 2-4 tracks at a time at 24/44.1KHz without latency issues. 

     

    Midi interface would also be nice too,

     

    Any recommendations?

  5. The Ocean Loader 1 & 2 themes have always intrigued me for some reason and so one day I decided to analyze them and I figured out that they are based on a chromatic chord progression.

    So that's when I decided to start coming up with my own ideas based on that.

     

    So I spent this weekend messing around with garage band on my iPad and I came up with this among a few other tracks.

     

    https://soundcloud.com/chlysm/flight-of-fantasy

     

    The lead practically wrote itself.. I really wish I had found out about this a long time ago.

     

  6. A long time ago I had some Commodore Amiga MOD tracks recorded on to CD so I could listen to them on CD players and stuff.

    Since I knew what the tracks were I didn't bother to write them down and now that I'm going through them over 10 years later it has been a challenge to ID these tracks.

    Since I have manged to Identify all but three and I was hoping that someone here could have some info that could lead me to identifying the song and artist of these tracks so I can list them properly in iTunes.

    They may or may not be from video games and files 2 and 3 sound like it might be from Joegir Liljehdal (or however he used to spell his damn name lol).

    https://soundcloud.com/chlysm/unknown-mod-file-1

    https://soundcloud.com/chlysm/unknown-mod-file-2

    https://soundcloud.com/chlysm/unknown-mod-file-3

  7. This is going on a friend of mine's Album as an intro on a Horror Metal themed band.

    He wanted something erie but like a lullaby so I decided to experiment with a 5/8 time which seems to give things an erie sound when used.

    https://soundcloud.com/chlysm/lullaby-of-the-damned

    Most of the song is in 5/8, but the bridge is 6/8 for 4 measures and then it goes back to 5/8 and fades out.

  8. I've heard this done at the end of many songs (particularly in progressive rock) and it involves a key change at the end (not referring to the cliche final verse key changes common in 80's songs).

    Instead it usually takes place at the very end of the song where the lead or vocals has hit it's final note and a chord in a different key is played to give the resolution effect. After which a rave of sorts is performed and the song ends.

    To provide an example I'll post Dream Theater's Trial of Tears.

    The song itself is 13 minutes so to skip over to the part I'm referring to....

    http://youtu.be/ZJ-epzgRjzo?t=11m40s

    When LaBrie sings "Rainin deep in heaven" for the last time, the "ven" part at 12:04 is what I'm referring to.

    I tried to pick it up by ear and it seems like it's going from Abm to F# to C# and when they change they go from Abm to F# to E which would be in a different key.

  9. I really was against doing this because there has to be about a dozen or so remixes and covers of the ocean loader track.

    This is just a rough mix. I just plugged in my keyboard and started playing and I pasted the tracks together later. I suppose it's more of a cover at this point, but I basically just want to know whether I have something here.

    Original

    http://youtu.be/zMMZeqtvyeQ?t=48s

    Remix

    https://soundcloud.com/chlysm/another-ocean-loader-2-remix-wip

  10. I've been checking out alot of the famicom versions of my favorite songs and I've been finding that the famicom version is usually better with Castlevania II OST being the only notable exception that I can think of. What's also weird is how the the different versions can sound nearly identical or drastically different as if they were played on a completely different sound chip altogether.

    Like some of the sawtooth leads used in these tracks sound reminiscent of the C64 (which I think had a real analog chip onboard).

    Castlevania III OST

    NES (

    )

    Famicom (link)

    Legend of Zelda Title Theme

    NES (link)

    Famicom

  11. Nah. If anything, they would be taking loads of middle-eastern influence in this with the sitar emulation and the Mohammedan scales. Wah guitar is nice and all, but it doesn't remind me enough of dubstep here. That's like saying using a filter LFO with distortion = dubstep, because that's basically what's happening to that guitar (though yes, there is more to it than that). Still retaining the metal quality here IMO. :) Cool song though. One of my favorite artists, actually.

    Mohammedan scale? I've never heard anyone refer to harmonic minor scales like that.

    They are one of my favs too. It just always struck me as odd in regards to how much heavier, raw and gritty the live version sound over the studio. TBH I've always preferred it for that reason.

  12. I've been getting into some dubstep lately and I recently heard the live version of "Home" from Dream Theater and I couldn't help but notice how much it kinda reminded me of dubstep during the intro.

    The song was released in 1999 and this was performed in 2000 so dubstep would have been around but ultra obscure. This album also introduced their new (now current) keyboardist; Jordan Rudess who introduced some electronica elements into their future songs.

    However the dubstep-esque sound mostly comes from the guitar played by Petrucci.

    Full Track

    Guitar riff layered with keys and srping loaded wah wah.

    http://youtu.be/hXIHPOV2yl8?t=1m58s

    Nasty digital synth (this is mixed alot higher in both the live and non live CD versions of this track.

    http://youtu.be/hXIHPOV2yl8?t=3m16s

    same part in studio version.

    http://youtu.be/GqHSrJ2mLo0?t=3m2s

    I guess it wouldn't be that hard to believe considering how experimental Dream Theater are with their music. It's mostly interesting that they would have taken influence or even known about something that was so obscure at the time.

  13. Alright, let's see what's up. APZX seems like a pretty technical guy based on what he said here, so don't worry if it feels that way.

    Okay, so based on what you said here, I'm hearing the main issue. You said that you pan your low end (sub bass, bass, low-mids) to the right and high end (upper mids, presence, treble) to the left. That is, put euphemistically, unorthodox. Some instruments make sense to be narrow, some wide, some left, and some right. Just panning instruments of certain frequency ranges to the left or right is going to make things sound odd sometimes. One can argue that it could work for a live performance emulation, but this doesn't involve organic instruments (guitar, piano, etc.), so let's put that off to the side.

    Let's break down what instruments you have in here:

    0:01 - 0:03:

    • Left-panned, gated, sorta digital (or high-passed synth guitar-esque?) synth
    • Right-panned phasered FM sweep
    • Left-panned quiet kick drum (?)
    • Left-panned hi hats

    0:03 - 0:14:

    • Center-panned dance-y kick drum
    • Left-panned, gated, sorta digital synth (quieter)
    • Right-panned phasered FM sweep (quieter)
    • Slightly left-panned distant lead synth
    • Wide bass (which is somehow more trebly on the right)

    0:14 - End:

    • Slightly left-panned (?) soft 80's arp (cool sound, by the way)

    That guitar esque sound is a keyboard voice I have called "psych noise" and it has a tendency to sound guitar-esque, especially when layers and phaser has been applied. In pure form, it sounds like a floppy disk drive when you run them with a midi controller.

    I kinda have a thing for nasty and gritty sounds so I do use that voice quite a bit.

    The drum track itself is layered and I did pan some of the high hats toward the left as they are a more trebly sound.

    As for the bass synth. That is layered and I applied a treble layer to help the bass cut through everything else and preserve most of it's raw sound.

    The lead itself is just a detuned sawtooth with portamento. I added a reverb layer and crossfaded that soft 80's arp at the end. But it's mostly pretty basic.

    And that 80's arp is the same arp used in Rush's "The Camera Eye" from the OPX Pro II. I've been looking for an excuse to use it somewhere for a long time lol.

    Anyway, I'm getting ready to start on this again. It's gonna be a little while because because I'm going back to the completely raw tracks.

    What I have trouble with the most is that after I've heard the same track over and over for awhile, everything starts just blending together and I can't tell whether I made a good or a bad change in the mix. I guess it's part of the learning process.

    Thank you for your patience.

    The soft 80's arp

    With the mixing, I wouldn't personally feel the need to suggest really particular edits, since you might have somewhere near or over a year of experience based on how long it's been since you joined OCR, and doing a bunch of specific things can feel like adhering to someone else's personal preference, or maybe "so why am I doing this?".

    I would pan the bass back to the center. If it's too mono, then there's a chance for a gap in the piece's stereo space when you scan from left to right, so I would leave it simply centered, and just narrow it a little; just enough, so you can tell it's not wide, but not completely, so that it's not too narrow. The reason why is so that there's more horizontal room for sounds that are more suited for wider panning (there are some exceptions to keeping bass centered, one of them being dubstep bass occasionally being wide, but that's beside the point).

    The kick drum feels centered the whole time, which would be fine, though I'm not sure if there's another kick. The first 3 seconds seems to have a left-panned kick---unless it's the same one somehow and the treble frequencies weren't audible yet during the fade. It might be something else. Centering it helps to make it heard most often, considering this is a dance-like piece.

    I'd also pan the lead back to the center; it feels near 10~30% left at the moment, and as it is, it contributes to making the piece as a whole feel lopsided. I would additionally raise its volume, and leave it at that for now. We'll see how it sounds then. Putting it center garners more attention than if it was towards the left, similar to the reasoning for the kick drum.

    The FM sweep is barely audible (the gated synth is louder), so I would suggest either raising the volume on the FM sweep so that you can hear it alongside everything else, or just take it out if you want to make the gated synth on the left side louder and use that by itself instead. Personally, I would choose the gated synth, but whichever one you choose, try making a copy of its instantiation (cloning it), tweaking a few parameters to make it sound a bit different, then panning one instance left and one instance right (that way, there's less phase cancellation than if you panned the same exact sound left and right, and the sound remains intact). Alternatively, if your synth for the gated or FM synth has a Width knob, I would suggest raising it to 80~100%. It would do sort of the same thing, but with only one sound instance necessary. This widening makes use of the left and right, but not so awkwardly.

  14. Mostly agree with G-Mixer on the mix side of things, but the lead I don't feel really needs any more EQ. If it needs more just raise it a dB or two. I think you'd be surprised. But I don't think it is ultimately necessary.

    I agree. I think I took a little too much off the lead this time around so I'll bring it back up.

    Okay, so yeah the left channel is definitely poking out more than it really should. EQ can most definitely help in evening it out. However, I would say take it a step further. Instead of EQ because it sounds fine just too loud I would lower the level 2-3dB and then send it to a delay with zero feedback (basically 1 echo), fully wet, with a little bit of HF and LF rolloff, at about a 1/16th or thereabouts. However, just make the level of it lower. This will not only alleviate the issue of it being pokey in the left channel but also give the track more width. If you don't want it quite so wide lower the delay time :) If you do not want it interfering with the synth rise in the beginning simply automate the send level.

    Now, for the kick. I would cut out in the 200-300Hz range by just 1-2dB and then give a sizable boost of 3-4dB around 5-7KHz to bring out some more of the click. Try that as a starting point. Adjust the freqs and cuts & boosts by what sounds right to you.

    For the bass I would actually straight mono it and drop it in the middle. Then I would add a shelf boost of 2-3dB around 40-60Hz to give the sub some more power. Then I would do a 1-2dB boost at about 2KHz and then roll off around 11KHz (LPF). Then I'd probably give it some light compression. Thinking something like a ratio of about 3:1, attack around 75ms and a release about 100ms with a threshold that would achieve about 4dB of GR. Then I'd personally sidechain it to the kick for a bit of a pump. Sounds like it already is sidechained too.

    But yeah I'd do that as a starting point.

    Gonna be honest that I don't really know how to do alot of these things. I personally use audacity to mix (I can hear you laughing lol). Personally speaking, I like to try to keem my lower frequencies on the right and my higher frequencies on the left to get achieve stereo widening. Not sure if that's a good practice or not TBH.

    I'm not going to get a chance to hack at this again until the weekend, but if someone could explain in more laymens terms in regards to what I need to do I would appreciate it so that way I could read up on it and give this another shot.

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