Master Mi

The 50 Shades Of The Beyerdynamic DT 880 (Edition/Pro) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yo, guys - after finding a former studio headphones topic which I started some years ago, I wanted to share some of my newest information and experiences I got over the years in my next comments. I also updated the main text for this topic. My favourite studio headphones for mixing are still the Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro and I guess this won't change in the next years because they gave me the best mixing results as well as the most balanced, the most analytical and most detailed listening experience of music and movies. But I want to try out some more headphones within the next years, for example the closed Japanese studio headphones Audio-Technica ATH-M50X. My first useful studio headphones were the Sony MDR-7506 studio headphones, which are really good (except for the somewhat overemphasized 10000 Hz range, which can make the sound a bit harsh). They have a high resolution sound as well as a more or less acceptable stereo reproduction and they are not too uncomfortable to wear (wouldn't recommend them for those people with bigger ears). The only problem might be that the frequency response drops off dramatically in the range above 15000 Hz - but I don't think that will be critical to the listening experience and accurate mixing. Some time later, I got the semi-open Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro Black Edition (be sure to use the silver earcups instead of the black ones - it makes a huge difference, for example, in terms of a smoother frequency response) and a high-end headphone amplifier, the Lake People G109-P (to drive the DT-880 Pro much better and get the most out of these high-impedance studio headphones). With my first audio interface, the Steinberg UR22 (just had a USB-2.0 power suply), the DT 880 Pro sounded already really good but it felt that there was something like a little curtain over the bass and mid frequencies where the lower frequencies seemed to be presented a little bit more muddy and with less definition than the DT 880 Pro had to offer. As soon as I got an advanced version of my audio interface with a separate power supply, the Steinberg UR44, the phenomenon with the cloudy bass and mid presentation was finally history. Since the built-in technology of transducers in the UR22 and UR44 is considered to be equivalent, I think it really has to do with the much better power supply of the UR44. So, in connection with the UR44 the bass and mid frequencies of the DT 880 Pro sounded much cleaner, more balanced and they had a higher definition in my opinion. But the best results of the DT 880 Pro I've experienced in connection with an high-end headphone amp (Lake People G109-P in my case). With this combination I got the cleanest sound, best audio definition (audio resolution), the mids and even the trebles seemed to be cleaner and more detailed. The bass also had the best definition and it seemed that it got extended much more into the deeper bass frequency range. So, you really seem to need a good headphone amp or at least an high-end audio interface with some really good headphone outputs to unleash the full potential of the Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro high-impedance studio headphones. The Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro is still my absolute favorite when it comes to important points like: - a natural, faithful and very analytical sound - a very even frequency response - a wide frequency range (5-35000 Hz) - really accurate stereo and depth imaging (when I watch movies with these headphones, I feel like I'm in a small modern Dolby Surround cinema and get sucked right into the action) - a really pleasant wearing comfort And - what's really important with these studio headphones - they gave me the best mixing results when listening to my mixes on other monitoring devices like other studio monitors, stereos, car stereos, MP3 players, etc.afterwards. Nabeel Ansari mentioned some "incredibly shrill spikes in the treble range" at the DT 880 - not sure if the normal DT 880 are much more different in the sound and frequency response that the DT 880 Pro. But I have never experienced some harsh trebles at the DT 880 Pro. The trebles of the Sony MDR-7506 are a little bit harsh and the trebles of the DT 990 Pro are really annoyingly harsh - but the DT 880 Pro have a really relaxed sound (can listen to music with these headphones for many hours without getting bothered). Maybe there are really some bigger sound differences between the standard edition and pro version or between the 32-ohms model, the 250-ohms model and the 600-ohms models of the DT 880. ... I've just checked some sources for the frequency responses of the different DT 880 (Edition/Pro) versions. And here's what I got: DT 880 Edition - 32 Ohms --------------------------------- (I guess these are the harsh peaks, Nabeel Ansari experienced - maybe he got the 32-ohms model of the DT 880 Edition.) DT 880 Edition - 250 Ohms ---------------------------------- DT 880 Edition - 600 Ohms ---------------------------------- DT 880 Pro - 250 Ohms ------------------------------ I also got different frequency response measurement for the DT 880 Pro from a another source (not sure which one is the more accurate measurement): DT 880 Pro Black Edition - 250 Ohms ----------------------------------------------- (The DT 880 Pro Black Edition is considered to be technologically identical to the silver DT 880 Pro - just the dark earcups seem to make these huge differences at the frequency responses. I'll get more into detail on this topic in a further comment. But for now, it should be more than enough new information about the different DT 880 (Edition/Pro) models.)

Thanks for the detailed response, dude. )) Besides, I've listened to your composition "Temple of the Dragon" to understand your musical way a bit better - really impressive stuff. But coming back to my remix. 1) What do you mean with "... in my opinion you could give your track more substance by filling in the complete sonic space. At the moment it feels like it's just panning." Do you think it's lacking a greater impression of depth? That could be because I wanted to mix this ska-punk-like track rather dry, except for the little intro, because I flooded most of my previous mixes with reverb (I couldn't hear and adjust the right amount of reverb due to my previous equipment and my lack of understanding how to mix better and more precisely). ... 2) I'm not sure which brass that could be more in the front you mean. There's a trumpet (more on the left side, starting at 0:43 the first time) and a sax (more on the right side, kicking in at around 0:47 the first time) directly at the front. And there are trombones playing a bit behind the front and slightly left from the center (starting at 0:33, for example). ... 3) The dynamics of the brass element were kinda tricky in this track because just 1 dB more could make especially the trumpet too loud and dominant for my taste - especially in the heavier guitar parts (where the brass should not dominate the electric guitars too much). My intention was to let the brass elements (especially the trumpet) shine more in the less rockin' and more relaxed parts - for example at 0:53. But even there - just one single dB more for the trumpet at this part could make the trumpet unpleasantly loud. So, I decided to handle the brass elements just with the MIDI velocity dynamics and different articulations to give 'em a little bit more realism and dynamics without letting them dominate the track too much nor letting them drown in the mix - they shall have their shining parts in the track just like the electric guitars shall have theirs. ... 4) Hm, you think the electric bass deserves more low end in this track? I just had this deeper electric bass setting before - but then I decided to let the kick drum have most of the low end frequency range for a cleaner mix and use a small low-cut filter on the bass instead to turn the electric bass a bit more into one of those funky radio-rock electric bass presets. I really had the intention to cut even more of the low end of the electric bass and rather raise the volume of the bass afterwards - it sounded really nice at some parts but I guess I didn't want to exaggerate the stuff too much and push my luck in the end - because at mixing my ears can tell me different sounds to the same story of composition each day. Some of the bigger questions for me are often "Will I still like it the next day?" and "Does it significantly improves the previous version?". If there's a definitive yes to both questions, I consider to implement the changes. If there's just one single no, I discard the changes in most cases and keep the old setting, which I have liked for a longer time.

Maybe it's a little bit late for a helpful reply... But after searching for a similar topic and reading your comment, I thought of something that would really fit your needs - as I was in a similar situation years ago. Ever heard of the Yamaha MSP studio monitor series? They are the flagship of the Yamaha company as far as studio monitors go, and arguably some of the world's best studio monitors you can get right now. The MSP series is even better (better audio resolution and flatter frequency response) and also a bit more expensive than the Yamaha HS series - here are a few official links from Yamaha to compare the two series: https://de.yamaha.com/de/products/contents/proaudio/musicianspa/products_studio_monitor.html https://europe.yamaha.com/en/products/proaudio/speakers/msp_studio_series/index.html The MSP studio monitors have been hard to get in stores for a few years now (especially the MSP 5 and MSP 7 - more recently the MSP 3) - this may have to do with the MSP series designer retiring (but it appears they are opening a new line of the MSP series, starting with the Yamaha MSP 3A). The MSP 7 and MSP 5 got a younger brother, the MSP 3, a few years ago (followed by a newer model, the MSP 3A) that would be great for your needs (I own the MSP 3): https://europe.yamaha.com/en/products/proaudio/speakers/msp3/index.html https://europe.yamaha.com/en/products/proaudio/speakers/msp3a/index.html I use the MSP 3 (65 - 22000 Hz) in connection with a small Japanese subwoofer, the Fostex PM-SUBmini 2 (enhances the frequency range in the lower bass section down to 40 Hz and is only turned up just a little with the lowest crossover setting - so, it's really just a very subtl deep bass support for the MSP 3 to have a good impression of a kick drum or the bass right between your feet). I've placed them on the desk in my living room, which is about 6 meters (length) * 4 meters (width) * 2,50 meters (height) in size. I don't use any kind of professional acoustic treatment in this room because I really like the cozy, bright and sunlit Mediterranean atmosphere of my living room. There is only more or less unintentional acoustic treatment like wallpaper on the walls and the ceiling, two thick carpets filling almost the whole floor, a bigger couch and a wall unit on the sides, a standing model of a punching bag in the back corner and some smaller wooden furniture - that's all. And because I got problems with bigger (and even slightly bass-boosted) 5-inch studio monitors like the Adam T5V flooding my room with nasty bass reflections and making it impossible for me to mix my tracks accurately or even enjoy listening to music, I decided to look for a smaller version of studio monitors. After this, I got the Presonus Eris E3.5 as kinda useful entry-level reference studio monitor speakers (where I really enjoyed listening to music on a higher quality level without annoying room reflections - though, for accurate mixing they are not optimal because they sound a bit overpolished, so the mixings often sound too good too quickly before they are actually finished). A few years later, after already owning a professional studio headphone solution, I also wanted to get professional studio monitors in a similar size like the Presonus Eris E3.5. And after researching for a long time and getting a nice tip from an employee of a music store, I got more and more into the Yamaha MSP series, especially the smaller MSP 3 model. After ordering a few MSP 3s for a friend, I didn't like them at first because my mixes with them sounded kind of fuzzy and less clean. But the amazing audio resolution of these studio monitors was some of the best (along with the Neumann studio monitors) I've ever experienced with any type of speaker. Right after borrowing those studio monitors from that friend and doing a first mix on them, I was impressed how much better the track sounded later on all the studio monitors in the music store and all the other sound systems - even though the MSP 3 still showed me some weaknesses of that mix, the track sounded really fantastic and clean on the other studio monitors compared to my earlier mixes. And then I kinda fell in love with the MSP 3 and bought them for myself a few years ago. Since then, I've never wanted other studio monitors. ... And the good thing is - the MSP 3 (as well as the newer model MSP 3A) are pretty close to your budget. A pair of them costs around 400 to 500 bucks. And of course, with the MSP 3 or MSP 3A, you don't have to worry too much about the acoustic treatment of your room. The design of these speakers is really nice, and the fairly low wattage of about 20 to 30 W per speaker makes them a really energy-efficient and sustainable professional studio and sound engineering tool these days. If you can't find a dealer near you for the still available Yamaha MSP 3A, maybe try the Thomann online store for professional audio equipment: https://www.thomann.de/gb/yamaha_msp3_a.htm If you want to get an idea of the sound and audio resolution of the Yamaha MSP series, put on some professional studio headphones and check out the links below (there are also some frequency response measurements of the MSP studio monitors in some videos): MSP 3 -------- MSP 3 vs MSP 3A ----------------------- MSP 5 -------- MSP 7 -------- MSP 7 vs Tannoy Reveal Active MK1 vs Presonus Eris E8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I hope I could help you or someone else with my information and experience about studio monitors. ))

Yeah, I've seen some pretty funny parodies of the FF7 universe too. Another parodic side story just popped into my head. It goes like this: ------------------- After several months of dooming and conquering the world, Sephiroth wanted to visit his hometown with his supposed mother Jenova to take a nice picture for the family album with the help of a professional photographer. When he posed for the photo with his - somehow different looking - "mom", a small urban legend was created by the incredulous looking people around him. The legend tells of an apple that fell quite far from the tree, rolled down a long hill and splashed into a raging river, where the apple was swept along through several countries and realms, but then one day was eaten by a fluffy horse on the riverbank and pooped out several thousand miles away on a haunted graveyard. Sephiroth - still brainwashed by the Shinra corporation's secret files and believing that Jenova is his biological mother - tries to defend his mother to the crowd, telling them: "What would your mothers look like if they were several thousand years old? It's... It's just my special shampoo combination that keeps me young, fresh and beautiful - one whole bottle per shower should already be enough." (based on a really serious Crisis Core background story >>> https://www.thegamer.com/crisis-core-reunion-sephiroth-hair-care-routine/ ) The crowd: "Ahhhh - we want that shampoo too." ... And so, the evil Sephiroth turned into a capitalistic salesman and started a huge business with his still-favorite mother Jenova. His goal was to build even a more powerful and influential megacorporation than the Shinra company - to destroy Shinra economically by returning natural beauty to the mako-infested people.... ... and dominate the world with love, joy and natural beauty to fully counter Shinra's policy. )) (just some thoughts that came into my mind during the night time when eating one of my famous seven-course meals and preparing for the kinda annoying snow-plowing service)

Unfortunately, the VSTi developer Native Instruments seems to follow a political-economical way of pressure and double standards against the people of the Russian Federation and Belarus because of the war with the government of the Ukraine - a way which I don't want to support as long as they continue with that: I'm not even really sure if the creation of music should be polticized and economized that much at all. Music should rather come from the minds, hearts and souls of people, instead of being just a tool within an unjust political and economic morality. I mean... Did Native Instruments make such an outcry back then, when the US government, based on private companies, waged a huge war against many Arab nations, in which many civilians - including women and children - were shot and bombed to pieces? And did they equally exclude the entire population of the USA from their client list to put (a hypothetical) pressure on the US government back then? So, what do the developers of Native Instruments even think they will achieve with their customer poltics against (mostly) the common people of the Russian Federation and Belarus. I guess their leaders won't have the big urge and time to compose soundtracks in these days of war between their countries and the continuously expanding NATO getting closer and closer to their borders - so, they might not bother too much with some joyful hours of DAW pleasure at the moment. And the common people of these countries are not likely to write a nice letter like this to their leaders: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Dear leaders of our nation, I know we get more and more surrounded by US and NATO bases. But as a musician I want to beg you. Please give up your ambitions and let the western forces take over our country until everything gets so peaceful, joyful and just like in the western coun... (Wait - that's not the truth. After the fall of the Soviet Union and with growing influence of the western political and economical forces the common people of our country suffered from severe poverty, corruption, political and economical crimes. And even lots of the workers and the common people of the USA today can barely afford housing in this life-hostile swimming pool full of real estate sharks - just for food and clothing they might need to get a second job during the night time to avoid hunger or just living in a mere tent. I'm not sure if they even have the money, time or even the inclination for VSTis and composing music in this situation. And if they lauch a big wave of fascism like in the Ukraine and many other countries controlled by the western forces, just to destroy and reshape the society with fear and terror, even the ordinary life will be a completely different game than just working all day and night for room and board.)" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ... So, I won't support VSTi developers like Native Instruments and buy their (indeed really good) VSTi products as long as they continue excluding the common people from the Russian Federation, Belarus and other countries from their customer list. If they were doing a big action against the global arms industry under a slogan like "More common metal 'n' mithril for brass, amps and the biggest fucking drums instead of loveless bombs, ammo and guns", it might be a totally different one. But the way it's being handled right now, I'll be on the lookout for other VSTi horizons. I'm pretty sure there are also some really sophisticated VSTis from Japanese developers (like Yamaha/Steinberg or Roland) that I've completely overlooked in my musical journey so far, and that may also still be some of the best the world has to offer, as I've come to expect from Japanese developments. ... But on the other hand, I think I'll stick with my 70 GB large Independence Pro Premium suite full of well-sampled VSTis that won't even clutter up my hard drive space with unnecessary loops and pre-made stuff I don't want to use for compositions and remixes either. Since the drum VSTis in this library are really excellent stuff, I kinda feel the urge to create a new and very realistic VSTi-based solo drum composition to show what I can do with this stuff. Yeah, guess it will probably be my next music project. Look forward to my upcoming drum solo track "Drum Grooves Lvl. 3", which will be created entirely with my Independence Pro Premium Suite and maybe some other good drum VSTis from my good ol' DAW Samplitude Pro X4 Suite from MAGIX. )) This could also be a nice step to take my drum programming skills to the next level.

Crisis Core is the spin-off of the Final Fantasy 7 compilation which is the closest one to the original Final Fantasy 7. If you like the original Final Fantasy 7, you will love Crisis Core because: - of an excellent storytelling. - you will get a lot more background information about some important characters and organisations like Zack Fair, Aerith, Cloud, Tifa, the Turks, the Shinra company, the 1st class soldiers Angeal Hewley (Zack's mentor), Genesis Rhapsodos (a kind of poetic guy who, driven by the famous epic "Loveless", also seeks to be a great hero in the world - knowing also the story of Dirge of Cerberus, I'm sure he will play a bigger role in the future of Final Fantasy 7) and Sephiroth (especially about his former strong friendship with Angeal and Genesis and his incisive - maybe kinda accidental - shift from a rather mindful and caring man into a cruel monster seeking vengeance and leaving a trail of destruction and death). - lots of optional side quests and Soldier missions, which may keep you busy for around hundred hours aside from the main story and which become really hard challenges as you progress. - because of really beautiful soundtrack compositions - new ones as well as well-done arrangements of beloved original Final Fantasy 7 soundtracks (just the awesome soundtracks are worth playing the game!). Let me show you a new track within the game which describes the atmosphere of Crisis Core really well: ... and an old track you might know because it has been beaten into your head when you played the original Final Fantasy 7: Not convinced yet? No problem - I'm staying tough like a heroic golden retriever in full persistent mode. ... In this game here are also famous scenes and places many of you might already experienced in the original game - but with much more background information and details. I want to show you a famous scene in Crisis Core (PSP version), which also appears in the original Final Fantasy 7 (so... no big spoilers), but which also contains some new information about the deeper backgrounds in the FF7 universe... If you don't want to be inundated with information beyond the original Final Fantasy 7, just stop the video at exactly 4:50. And there's lot more interesting stuff going on in the story of Crisis Core. ))

There are already a few Let's Play videos of the new Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion out there. Since I know the story and don't want to spoiler too much of the story of Crisis Core, here is a nice video that gives some impressions of the first 20 minutes of the Crisis Core remaster: Here are some of my personal first thoughts on the PS5 remaster compared to the PSP original of Crisis Core: 1) I'm not entirely sure I'll like the new voices (at least they're not extremely different) and the slightly more adult, realistic character animations in the PS5 remaster as much as the damn well fitting and very passionate voicesl and the more anime-like character animations from the PSP original. Perhaps these points are just a matter of getting used to. 2) But really outstanding improvements in the remaster can be found especially in the much higher graphics resolution with much more detail, the visual special effects, the really powerful sound effects, the newly arranged soundtracks, the motion animations and the even more dynamic and rousing combat action - which doesn't even have to hide from a Final Fantasy 7 remake. 3) As it seems, they have adopted the FMV cutscenes of the PSP original almost 1:1 (just added the new voices and probably a higher graphics resolution) - which might have been a very good choice. 4) Another very nice feature is the public dubbing of all conversations and all speaking characters in the game - whereas in the PSP original the side dialogs were only presented in text form. I'm really curious if there will be some interesting extras for players of the PSP original in the coming PS5 remaster - like small story expansions (maybe with segues to the FF7 remake), new SOLDAT side missions, more (of the already extremely many) Materia fusion options, DMW-based Limit Breaks, Summons, etc. ... But I'm sure we'll soon find out.

It has definititely to do with the platform - but I'm not sure if that's the only problem why the hi-hats and cymbals, which should originally rather sound like "tss", sound more like "shhh" with less defintion and less sharpness (as if a PS5 game would remastered for the NES or so) in the Soundcloud stream. You can perceive to this phenomenon very well at 0:53 in this track if you compare the Soundcloud upload with the Youtube or Niconico upload. But it could also have to do with the samples, because in tracks by other composers and remixers who use different drum samples, this problem doesn't seem to occur (at least not in such a bad way). ... And apart from a rather unimpressive reverb effect with a recording studio preset, there are no other big effect plug-ins on the drum tracks - no delay, no bitcrusher (although it sounds a bit like it), no compressors/limiter and a small EQ reduction is only present on the bass drum in the frequency band around 350 Hz. There don't seem to be any clipping issues throughout the frequency band (measured from about 40 Hz to 20000 Hz - the highest signal peak seems to be in the bass section at about -5dB). The highest master track peaks (around -5dB) and the highest peaks of the individual tracks (around -10dB due to my individual mixing method, where I set the volume of the loudest/strongest instrument to a level where the peaks don't really go above -10dB, and all other instruments/synths are below that) show similar results. Perhaps the most accurate measurement of my metering devices shows a "Max. True Peak in dBTP" value of -4.3 dB. So, I think the clipping factor can be ruled out. ... What was interesting, however, was uploading the same remix composition at different audio bitrates to Soundcloud and taking a Snipping Tool screenshot of the slightly different visual displays of these versions (I'm not entirely sure what the displays actually show - but I suspect they are alternative representations of the waveform measurement). Although the WAV upload (as well as my regular 320 kbit/s upload) obviously sounded better than the 192 kbit/s and 128 kbit/s uploads on the 128 kbit/s Soundcloud stream, it seems that Soundcloud limits the dynamics somewhat on uploads at higher audio bitrates (according to the waveform displays in the screenshot image below): Maybe you can't rely on these waveform displays because they are not accurate enough. But who knows - it could also be that the uploaded audio files are processed with compressors or peak limiters on Soundcloud. In case the problem is also caused by the quality of the drum samples, I will try to use higher quality drum samples and upload a single drum track in the future. What do you guys think of Native Instruments' Abbey Road Drum Collection - one of the best drum VSTi stuff out there? (quick reply, please - because if I remember correctly, the Black Friday special ends around December 14 this year).

This is the newest version of my Goldfinger remix "Safe 'N' Sane Skater Heaven Superman". Besides a few new composition elements, the new version of this remix comes up with a brand-new mixing concept, which I'll explain in the text below the links. But first, here are the links for the new remix version 1.1: >>> >>> >>> https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm41413951 ------------------------------------------------------------- After taking some time off from making new music in order to finalize my concept of a new mixing style and get used to my new Yamaha MSP 3 professional studio monitors (which are perhaps some of the most accurate and truthful studio monitors in the world, and definitely professional tools for mixing and sound engineering), I am now back with the latest version of my remix for the "Superman" soundtrack, originally composed by the punk rock and ska punk band Goldfinger, to demonstrate the progress of my new mixing concept. The big goal of my new mixing concept is the production of very clean and dynamic soundtracks without the use of compressors and limiters for the best possible sound quality within a soundtrack which feels much more alive, moving and natural. In my opinion, the mixings of modern soundtracks should be similar like the really good and highly dynamic mixings of the early 80s and the decades before, long time before the loudness war of the modern music industry kicked in and provoked a kinda nasty and dull trend of producing louder and louder records (just to get noticed like an intrusive but mindless commercial) to the disadvantage of dynamics, the natural behaviour of transients, sound quality and the pleasure of the listening experience. In the future, I want to prove that this kind of dynamic mixing concept works with all kinds of music genres, even electronic music and metal. With the EBU R 128 loudness standards, developed by truly farsighted audio engineers to counteract the loudness war phenomenon, I got a solid foundation for my ambition to create clean and dynamic soundtracks without using signal-degrading compressors or limiters. Even without using compressors and limiters, I don't have to worry about the signal peaks in the master track, as they barely scratch the -5 dB mark. Soundtrack productions mastered at EBU R 128 loudness standards may be produced just half as loud (much like the soundtracks of the early 80s) as most modern soundtracks (still, remember: "The listener owns the volume knob."). But they have the great potential to sound much better than their compressed versions, which often contain more elements of bloody sound surgery than sophisticated sound design. And... You won't have these nasty loudness jumps between different tracks, different music genres oder different audio programs in general if you master your tracks at EBU R 128 standards. ... In combination with: - some professional and really neutral tuned monitoring equipment like the Yamaha MSP 3 studio monitor speakers (gently supported by a small Fostex PM-SUBmini 2 subwoofer) and the good ol' Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro studio headphones (driven by a Lake People G109-P high-end headphone amp connected to my Steinberg UR 44 audio interface) - more or less bold but fitting EQ editing decisions - my deep relaxation in leaving out unnecessary effects and effect chains which you will barely hear on less dominant tracks in the mix (but which might clutter up and cloud your mix kinda fast) - and with the help of a really useful 2-channel surround editing feature (which allows me to visually place the instruments and audio signals any old in the stereo and surround field for even better separation of frequencies, and to create a more accurate imagination of depth in my mixes - finally, all the audio information is converted into a stereo signal which should also be fully compatible with surround speakers), ... ... my mixing concept seems to pay off more and more. Feel free to compare this new mixing with the first version of my remix, which you can still find here (I guess I'll keep the old version for a few months) - that way you might be able to hear some of the things I'm talking about: https://soundcloud.com/master-mi/goldfinger-feat-thps-safe-n-sane-skater-heaven-superman-master-mi-remix ... The original track, on which I based this remix, became quite famous with the Playstation game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (also called "Tony Hawk's Skateboarding" in some countries). And since I really digged this song when I played the game as a teenager, I decided to use my new mixing skills and my new professional studio tools to create a kinda worthy remix of this track. So, I put a lot of time, effort, passion and inner fire into the new composition of this remix, and I really had a lot of fun creating it with my own musical style, which in this case consists of a nice alternation of ambient soundscapes, heavy rock parts and some casual jazzy lines. … I'm not fully sure what kind of compositions or remixes I will do next. But no matter what the future holds - let's mosey. )) … If you are a socially just skater, always make sure to skate 'n' destroy rather lavish private property than communal property.

There are a few news for the coming Crisis Core Version for PS5 and PS4. No matter how much more than just a remaster the game will be in the end, the new arrangements made by the original composer Takeharu Ishimoto already kinda got me straight into stellar listening mode (though, I hope they'll leave the players the option to choose between the original soundtracks from Crisis Core for PSP and the new arrangements in the option menu within the game). If they don't mess up the voices and animations of the characters (which would deeply affect the game's atmosphere) and bring in some further extras, it might become a serious title once again. ... For all Final Fantasy 7 fans who might have missed out Crisis Core on the PSP: Definitely play this game! It has a really interesting and deeply touching story with some funny, but also lots of serious, sad, heroic, tragic and magic moments - similar like in Final Fantasy 7 for the first Playstation console.

Heya, musical maestros. I'm looking for the sophisticated stuff in the title. At the moment, I'm still working with the drum samples of my Independence Pro Premium Suite - which are really good in my opinion. But I guess, they are just around 1 GB in total - so, either they are highly compressed in size or they just lack some crucial audio information of realistic acoustic drums played by a rock-solid drummer (I think so, mainly because of a problem that occurs after I upload my tracks to Soundcloud, which is mentioned a few lines below). Or what 's your opinion if you check the sample preview of the "Acoustic & Electronic Drums" of this library (just click on the speaker symbol)? https://www.magix.com/de/musik-bearbeiten/independence/libraries/ In this video there's also a small MIDI passage with some of these acoustic drum samples (at 3:27): So, they don't sound really bad in the music project or in audio files at or above an audio bitrate of 192 kbit/s. But whenever I upload a remix on Soundcloud (just happens at this platform) these drum samples tend to degrade (especially the cymbals and hi-hats) - as you might hear in the newest version of my Goldfinger remix I uploaded some days ago: If you check the same upload at Youtube (better quality) and Niconico (best quality), this problem won't occur: https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm41413951 In the first place, I thought it must have to do just with the Soundcloud platform. But if you check some other drum recordings and drum sample demonstrations on Soundcloud, you won't perceive such problems with the cymbals and hi-hats: So, the problem must have must to do with the sample quality as well. Maybe it's also the audio bitrate of the upload - but if I upload a track on Soundcloud usually as MP3 file with an audio bitrate of 320 kbit/s (WAV file doesn't make a perceivable difference for the stream since the audio bitrates of streams at Soundcloud are just around 128 kbit/s - and with 320 kbit/s it has at least a proper size for possible downloads I might activate sooner or later when I'm fully satisfied with my tracks) it still sounds worse than my video version I upload at Youtube and Niconico (there, I always upload the WAV in my Movie Maker program, but the highest audio bitrate I can set for the export of the movie file as WMV is an audio bitrate of 192 kbit/s - and even then, it sounds much better than the upload on Soundcloud with 320 kbit/s). ... Since mostly the drums are affected by this issue, I might solve this problem with some better drum samples... maybe. An online friend tried to convince me to get some stuff from Toontrack like Superior Drummer 3 - but with around 300 GB in size (obviously contains lots of loops, grooves and repeating stuff I don't use - I just want the raw samples for composing via MIDI editor), I don't want to clutter my 2TB big hard disk drive just for better drums. I guess, the many possibilities of settings in Superior Drummer 3 are far too complex for me and my needs. And I'm not sure. The bass and snare drums or the toms sound really good - but the cymbals and hi-hats don't sound too convincing for my ears (at least not for this big library size): ... So, I'm really looking for a not tooooooo complex drum VSTi software - but still one with excellent raw, unprocessed (no compressors, limiters or other effects - which you can't deactivate - used on the presets) high quality acoustic drum samples with lots of different drum units as well as many articulations, velocity layers, round robins, drum variations and possibilities to play. Maybe you know some good drum VSTis which may satisfy my needs. ... Some days ago, I also got a newsletter of different Black Friday special offers with various VSTis from different developers. And from there, I also got to a drum collection of the Abbey Road series from Native Instruments. Since I'm quite a big fan of the high-quality VSTi stuff from Eduardo Tarilonte and from the developers of Native Instruments, I got dragged into the collection much deeper, checked some audio demos and videos of the virtual interface, the content and the settings - and I kinda fell a bit in love with the stuff: - 6 different drum kits from important times of drum-based music since the 30s to the modern times (quite useful for compositions of different music genres as well) - obviously really raw, unprocessed and natural sound (or what's your opinion about this?) - over 200.000 professionally recorded high-quality samples - useful settings and an overseeable interface that isn't bloated with too many things - different, interchangeable drum units - library size of around 43 GB compressed and around 105 GB uncompressed data content (somebody knows if there 's an option to install the uncompressed data content as well?) might be totally okay (still, I hope you can leave out all the unnecessary grooves, loops and MIDI patterns for installation - because you can always perform much better and go more into detail with the real single samples in a way you really need it for your composition via MIDI editor) - reduced price from almost 600 bucks to around 100 bucks (which is quite an offer for an ordinary worker) And for the sound... If you check out only the first raw preset in this video (at 0:14), you might be also blown away of how greatly deep-sampled and velocity-sensitive these libaries are: Even the hi-hats and cymbals of these libraries sound really good and not so stiff, lifeless and indifferent like in Superior Drummer 3, for example. There also seems to be a feature of choking the cymbals like this video shows (after 4:30): I think I've nearly made my decision of going for the Abbey Road Drummer Collection. ... But first I wanted to hear your opions as highly critical composers, remixers and listeners. Maybe there's also a professional drummer around who could give some additional tips on this topic?

@Harlem Heat360: Wouldn't bother too much with premade phrases and rather get a VSTi with a wide variety of key switch articulations with which you can create phrases from scratch on your own - that's where the real magic happens. That's why I think that this new tremolo bar feature of Electric Mint is kinda sick. I kinda tried to emulate some whammy bar techniques via pitch wheel and my electric guitar VSTis of my Independence Pro Premium Suite before - but I never got these really authentic results. Maybe I'm just too dumb to use it properly in the best possible way. Does anyone know around how many semitones you can bend a single electric guitar note up and down with the whammy bar of a real electric guitar? (My feeling says, it could be around one full octave downwards and around one full octave upwards - but I'm not really sure about this.) ... @Xaleph Do you have a soundtrack or remix in which you use one of your guitar VSTis (or even a simple synth) with that guitar rig software amp and form the whole stuff into some realistic guitar sounds? I use a similar combination of clean electric guitar VSTis + Vandal: Virtual bass and guitar amplifier (my own guitar amp plugin) with which you can tweak the guitar sounds into nearly all kinds of directions and other electric guitar sounds. (I also tried it in combination with an electric piano and some synths a few times and it also works really well - you just have to send the VSTis and synths completely dry into the amp and use the effects within or after the chain of the amp to avoid nasty distortion effects.) If you use this highly complex software amp with a real electric guitar, it might sound like this (made by somebody else): If I use the Vandal software amp in combination with my clean electric guitar VSTis from my Independence Pro Premium Suite, it might sound like in the newest version of my THPS Goldfinger remix: I would be very interested to know what a professional electric guitarist might think of it.

Yo, dudes 'n' dudines... A new masterpiece of an amazing electric guitar VSTi from Native Instruments has finally reached the surface of this planet. It's called "Electric Mint" and it is another serious part of the Session Guitarist series. What makes electric Mint kinda special and what I really like about this one, are the really well-sampled high quality features like: 1) the amazing raw sound and tonal configuration of this electric guitar VSTi 2) the comprehensive and separately controllable wah-wah effect with which you can compose some highly realistic jazz-like lines with some nice 70s vibes (just reminds me of some of the videogame soundtracks of the Driver series) 3) the awesome emulation of a tremolo bar feature you can control via the vibrato function and the mod wheel of your MIDI keyboard (I kinda wished for such a cool and pretty realistic feature for electric guitar VSTis) For just around 100 bucks, it seems to be a really low price for such a VSTi masterpiece which needs around 15 GB of hard disk space. Maybe an option would be nice where you could install just the melody instrument without the many patterns/loops (which I won't use for compositions and which you could also compose note by note in the melody mode) to save some hard disk space for other VSTi stuff. I still don't understand why Electric Mint is cheaper than the first electric guitar VSTi installment of the Session Guitarist series called "Electric Sunburst Deluxe" - because Electric Vintage and Electric Mint seem to be much more comprehensive further developments with much more cool functions than the first one. But yeah, I won't complain. I guess I'll save up some money for Electric Mint after leaving out Electric Vintage completely (Electric Mint is much more the one I was looking in things like jazzy 70s electric guitar vibes) and I'll look forward to possibles further developments of the Session Guitarist series. Enjoy. ))

Free time, energy (both almost impossible or at least kinda rare conditions in modern working class jobs) and passion (the bliss of being able to do it fully with the heart) are indeed some of the most important factors to enhance musical skills with joy and without haste. But I'm sure you will also need ambition or a higher working spirit (the sheer willpower and perseverance to finish a soundtrack, even if you are not in the perfect mood for doing it) and maybe some lucky connections in order to become a much more successful musician. But for myself, I still want to keep it all the joyful way, although I already made some connections with a kinda famous local pop singer I coincidentally met during my job as a landscape gardener (and who asked me to be his driver and PA system dude for his live performances on the weekends after we talked about music production several times). But I'm sure that this won't be the way I want to pursue in the long term - and doing it just for money doesn't give me the kind of motivation I'm looking for. A much more promiseful arrangement of life for me was the change of my job around nearly two months ago. I never thought that I would feel less exhausted and less focussed on the job at the building sector as a landscape gardener. But the new boss seems to be a kinda social dude who offered me the wage and the 4-working-days-per-week conditions I demanded. So, Im sure that the free time and energy problem is solved so far after leaving my previous, more and more profit-minded company (where just a highly compressed six-hours working day could feel like a 10-hours working day at the building sites of my momentary company) behind me. So, I'm sure I'll come back with some new and improved old remix content in the next time after gathering quite some musical knowledge, solving some musical problems and silently bringing my new mixing method into a clear form and much closer towards perfection for over one year now.

There is some new trailer content for two next-generation game titles of the Final Fantasy 7 compilation... 1) "Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth" for PS5 (obviously the coming second part of the Final Fantasy 7 remake): 2) "Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion" for PS5 (a coming remaster or maybe even a little remake of the famous PSP game "Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7") Enjoy. ))

Three-finger technique seems to be the most effective and most comfortable way of holding a mouse... ... whereby you don't have to spread your index and middle finger in an unhealthy-looking way and where you can get a good and fast control over your mouse - especially when browsing through the internet or working with your DAW. But don't ask me this question when I'm digging some tasty sticky fruits and pounds of fatty sashimi - then I'm suddenly able to control the mouse with just one single finger and the mere palm! ... But the two-finger technique as the main mouse controlling technique seems to be radically retro to me. They say that in ancient times people had to work with mouses which only had two buttons - a left and a right button - without a mouse wheel between them. And in this new Flintstone Age, you really had to push some force in those things like those ancient mouse buttons in order to move something. So, the only three fingers which could easily manage to control such a Neolithic computer device were the thumb, the index finger and the middle finger. But the thumb, the strongest of all fingers, was the fat short kid the two longer and less stronger fingers couldn't longer play with (at least up to those glorious reunion days when the mouse side buttons were invented). But back at the Neolithic days, the thumb became the tragic outsider in the mouse business. So, just the index finger and the middle finger remained for this strength-sapping task. I guess, that's how the two-finger technique in the ancient computer age was born. And many children of this pioneer era learned moving the mouse this way. ********************************************************************************************************** * And they all lived happily and used their legendary two-finger techique ever after. * **********************************************************************************************************

Nope, quite the opposite. Your surround mix (or your surround recording) appears to be better in clarity and staging for some reason. Or let's say the clarity is almost the same - but the panorama and staging catches my attention much more.

Not sure if it's just the source material, your good mixing skills or the recording of your nice room impression. But with my Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro studio headphones, I can really hear a noticeable difference in clarity and staging between the original stereo mix: ... and your surround mix: Whatever you really did to the original mix - good job, dude. ))

Really smooth and well-mixed track. What I would try to improve, might be the clapping sounds (at least I guess these are clapping sounds) which can be heard first around minute 0:50. I would try to let it sound more natural, maybe more off-beat and with a more unique clapping rhythm (maybe play the track in your DAW without the momentary clapping track, think about how you would clap your hands at these parts and also create an alternative for the second clapping part - and finally try to recreate this with your clapping VSTi in the MIDI editor or by playing it live via MIDI keyboard (which might be a bit difficult by the fast-paced clapping)...). The second thing you could improve might be by composing a different part that leads into something completely new. Maybe a silent part with dream-like pad sounds and a piano or an acoustic spanish guitar- or a small, a little bit wilder part with ethic drums, exotic flutes, shakers etc. The voices for the second part are really a good choice which enhance the atmosphere. ))

What might also help you to get a deeper imagination of what your VSTis and synths are capable of pretty fast is by writing a little test MIDI as just a simple sound check music project. This MIDI should be around 25 to 30 seconds long, play within around 1 or maximally 2 octaves and contain at least following things: 1) a little groovy melody sequence which contains a big variety of velocity dynamics which you can set for each note between the values 1 to 127 (so, for example, create a melody line where the values of the following notes are around 85, 62, 90, 112, 127, 103, 74, 54, 27, 1, 16, 33, 49, 95, 57, 68 - with the help of this you can get a glimpse on how much effort the developers put in the sampling of different velocity dynamics and different expressions which come with it)... 2) a few chord progressions ('cause VSTis and synths may sound very different with just a one-line melody and complex chords - so, you can get a better vision for the later use of the VSTi or synth in your later music projects)... 3) and at least one very long (around 15 seconds long) legato note (with the help of this you can check out how the long played notes will behave - depending on the VSTis and synths I have checked and which I use myself, legato notes of different VSTis and synths might behave kinda differently - so, some will just fade out in silence after a while, some might behave like endless loops which won't drop the volume at all and others tend to behave rather irregularly but can create pretty cool effects sometimes. With such a little self-written test MIDI, you can get a very quick and deep look into the potential of the samples behind your VSTis and electronic synths. Just select the VSTi or synth you want to check in the track with the test MIDI, and then maybe set the right octave of your notes to match the VSTis and synths. Make sure that you have activated the loop mode on your MIDI object (so that it will be played over and over again). After a preset of the VSTi or synthesizer has been played completely through the MIDI object, check the various key combinations of your VSTi or synthesizer for the next passes and then move on to the next presets. At least that's what I do after I want to check out some new (or old) VSTis and synths in a very fast and efficient way.

Really atmospheric and well-mixed remix! Love it. )) The only thing which you might improve, would be by composing at least one really outstand peak (maybe right before the finish), where the track really explodes with some nice chord progressions, a faster drum beat accompanied by the original melody... ... similar like in the remix "Trance of Doom" created by Game Music Finland, at minute 2:25: But even as it is just right now, it's already an amazing remix. ... PS: And don't forget to upload your track on YouTube or another common video-streaming platform that offers at least an audio bitrate of around 192 kbit/s for streaming. As I remember, the free accounts at Soundcloud are only allowed to stream music with an audio bitrate of around 128 kbit/s.

Yeah, I guess a big big bundle of Komplete from Native Instruments might be one of the best choices for a wide variety of really sophisticated and realistic VSTi sample libraries with lots of instruments and synthesizers. And yes, you might have to upgrade your system to Windows 10 or higher if you want to install and use the newest Komplete bundles. I'm still a big fan of a very stable former Windows version - and I guess, I won't change my nicely running system in the next years. Not sure if your question is still up to date. But if it is, you might also have a look at the pretty well-resourced Independence Pro Premium Suite (which is around 300 bucks and still works perfectly with former Windows versions like Windows 7 - at least I use it since Windows 7, although the newer specifications say that it requires Windows 10 or Windows 11 - but the content didn't change since then). With the Independence Pro Premium Suite version you get a highly complex sampler ( quite a paradise for sound designers) and around 70 GB of various VSTis and VST plugin content. The instruments are really well-sampled, they sound absolutely realistic, contain lots of articulations and you might find a bunch of instruments and a few synthesizers for nearly each genre - no matter if you are looking for basic stuff like acoustic and electronic drum kits, acoustic and electric guitars, acoustic and electric basses, acoustic and electric pianos, strings, brass and common woodwinds or further stuff. It also contains some pretty rare and exotic VST instruments, like ethnic drums, industrial percussion, a pipe organ, different saxophones, oriental flutes, a waterphone, a rainmaker, a bell tower, a cow tin, chimes, a gamelan, triangle and anvil sets, barrels, taiko drums and a basic set of really good electronic synthesizers. All in all, it's a really big collection of several hundred well-sampled and very realistic VSTis and synthesizers. The only instruments I would probably miss in the Independence Pro Premium Suite collection might be a pan flute, a harp and maybe a bagpipe or an accordion. If you wanna listen to some samples of the huge library, check out this link and click on the "listening symbol" in the top right corner of the pictures for the different categories: https://www.magix.com/int/music/independence/libraries/ ... If you are especially looking for a greater collection of electronic synthesizers, you might be really satisfied with Titan 2. It contains nearly every important synths (around 12500 synths presets from 266 synthesizers in total) which have been used since the 70s, 80s, 90s and in the modern age. It's some really huge stuff of content - I got it several years ago and I have only managed listening to around 50 % of the whole content with the 12500 synth presets. If you want to check the interface, the synth categories and if you wanna listen to some of the synth presets in Titan 2, you might check out this YouTube link:

Just like Jorito already said: It really depends on the type of the game and the kind of music that players would expect for this game. It might be kinda impossible for a composer, who only owns some NES-like chiptune samples, to create some convincing soundtracks for modern RPGs like the Final Fantasy 7 remake. But... Compared to the video game composers who created soundtracks for the NES video game console back then, you have some big advantages (even with similar samples) as a contemporary composer. Today you can use much more complex DAWs with a lot more functions, much better VST plugins for sophisticated sound design and - of course - very good DAWs with no meaningful restrictions concerning the amount of MIDI tracks you can use within one single soundtrack. So, with some rad composer and sound design skills, you might be able to create a soundtrack with a great atmosphere even with the dullest sounding samples as a base. And that's something which can really ignite your creativity and ingenuity. On the other side, you can own the most sophisticated samples - but without the necessary knowledge for using your DAW to the fullest, without the necessary music theory, listening experience, composer, sound design and mixing skills or a bigger creative spark inside, you might not be ready to compose greater soundtracks. So, before buying too much stuff at once, I'd rather buy a decent DAW (definitely a full version without restrictions) and rather invest some money in a faithful home studio first, then read through the manual of your DAW from time to time and try out preferably all of the functions in it, read through basic and advanced music theory or special topics like composing and mixing - and work with the basic stuff you already have. Work with it, try out new and crazy things in your compositions, master it - until you feel that you have almost fully exploited the potential of your samples and plugins. Maybe try with some basic plugins and rad sound designer skills to let an electronic sax synth sound like a real sax - might be a tough goal... but not a totally impossible one. And then master it again on the next levels. If you can manage to create really satisfying solutions for every problem or vision even with the simplest musical equipment, you might already be on a good way to become a great composer one day. So, I'd really try to master the things you already have before you buy too much new VSTi stuff. "Living more in being than in having" might be also as a composer a good mantra to start with. It might deeply relax you in front of all the things you can buy in this big world, eases your heart and brings it down to earth. And on the other side, it can ignite the creativity and the inner fire of your composer soul. If you got to this point, you might have saved some money during your material asceticism. And if you buy a good VSTi then, you might enjoy it much more because you will see much more possibilities when working with it at your compositions.

"Era II: Vocal Codex" might be really interesting for you. It contains 4 different and very realistically sampled singer voices (Celtia, Heroica, Bard and Medieval Tenor) with lots of articulations, ornaments, phrases, humming and breath expressions, vocal FX sounds and even some soundscapes which also represent a lot of great sounding medieval instruments. I really love the 2 female voices - great for epic compositions. It's definitely one of the best voice sample VSTis I own (I also have Shevannai but I mostly prefer this one for more energetic compositions with more realistic voices): Here you can get an imagination of the VSTi interface and the presets with the different articulations, phrases etc.: ... What might be also good for your purposes could be a voice VSTi with an integrated word builder function with which you can create your own words and phrases exactly in the context you need. If you don't need this kind of complexity like in the previous East West Hollywood Choirs, voice VSTis with simpler word builder functions like Altus or Cantus might already fit your needs.

It kinda sounds like a ordinary bass drum from an electronic drum kit - got some of these samples in my Independence Pro Premium Suite. You can listen to one of those electronic drum kits at this page (just click on the "listening symbol" in the top right corner of the picture with the "Acoustic & Electronic Drums" and choose the second track with the "Electric drums"): https://www.magix.com/int/music/independence/libraries/ Just from the nature of the sound, the kick drum in the track of your video link might be also close to an electronic kick drum called "Kick 909" - I've got one in another electronic synthesizer sample collection as well. With some VST plugin modifications and some sound design skills, this might be also a good basic sample to start with if you want to create the bass drum sound like the one in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1AB5H8nwHY