Master Mi

That's what I've always loved about OCR. Y'all care about human interpretation, performance realism, personal touch, and other aspects of music that go underappreciated by the casual listeners out there. At first I thought the perspective towards AI-generated music was because of that philosophy, but I do understand that there is also the bit about unethical training practices.
Good to see OCR still going strong, and I hope to continue seeing real music coming out from real artists, using real production efforts and/or real studio time!

This is an interesting topic I've been thinking a lot of lately because the recent hype with AI generated music got me in a time when I just released my first original music album. Since I'm still learning and lacking of experience the results aren't that great so some people might prejudge that and assume it's AI, even though actually I manually wrote every single note in the pianoroll.

But it was a pleasant surprise to see you all pointed at exactly the points I'm concerned of. It's not about results but more about the process. Nowadays AI generated music might be still mediocre, to say the least, but even if it eventually got real good... there's something special about the satisfaction of simply having your work done after all the time and work spent. You kinda grew with your works in a way that it makes them more like friends you build memories and stories with, and when you finally see them ready to be published you feel like you accomplished something you can be proud of. It don't matters if the compositions or arrangements are bland, if the mix sounds horrible or the genres/styles are not everyone's cup of tea. It's your work and you love it and want others to enjoy it just as you enjoyed the process, with all its moments of both tediousness and happiness. And then you keep learning and being able to do more and better stuff as you keep trying and doing more and more of that.

If all you did to get it done is just writing some text line in a web/app form, however... where's the story? Where's that special feel that may connect both artists and listeners? That work ends being nothing but some randomly generated product, very much like any of these old Flash avatar generators.

Music making can be often too hard and frustrating, especially if you are under disfavorable conditions of some kind (like lacking proper tools, dealing with ancient hardware, being in some kind of depression or any mental craps that makes everything even harder, etc), so I can totally understand people loving the idea of having access to such a task with just asking some cold and emotionless AI. I'm all into making things as easy as possible for anyone to show their creativity to the world, actually. But making things easier is one thing; and I can see how practical AI tools can be to just ease some parts of the process; but for the end-product? That's a totally different thing that does nothing good for creativity but rather the opposite.

very good.
i haven't kept track with how advanced the publically available music a.i. stuff is compared to the text and visual stuff...and i really don't wanna. getting back into music making is freaking hard enough as it is :D
i wanna take my stand against a.i. in my own little way...i have to believe that the value of making music lies in the process, not the results. the personal relationship you form with the notes and sounds while making music.
got a lot to learn until i can completely embody that stance; honestly a large part of me has always been very results oriented, kinda greedy that way.
we artists have to prepare for 'spiritual war' in that sense; like, fuck it, we're doing it live.
but nothing against folks who wanna use a.i. in a creative fashion. 
not for me. idk, i might cave in for deep fake vocals at some point...as long as i write the notes and lyrics myself. basically, as long as i feel like i am doing the damn thing, more than the machine.
like, give me a vocal model of freddy mercury or rob halford or celine dion, and give me all the fine grained controls to make em totally glitch out when i want to.
 

Just from the point of the artistic level and the joy and intensity of a creative journey, AI is even worse than using premade loops.

You might be able to get something that sounds good 'n' ready for the masses of listeners - but you'll never be able to put all the compositional details, thoughts and feelings from inside your imagination into the realization of the soundtrack.

And if you don't have the knowledge and experience in music theory, composition, mixing and sound design, you won't even have an idea about what's even possible in the soundtrack you create.

For the most part, AI draws on things that already exist, on things that are known or have been grasped by the human mind.
A fine consciousness of a vital life form in combination with a high level of creativity, on the other hand, might be able to recognize things, energies and phenomenons that are still unknown in this world, and to create some really new 'n' unique stuff.
...
 
Or to put it in some more romantic words of video game poetry:
Creating video game music or remixes with AI technology is like feeding the plastic/wax fruit to the hungry, music-loving Green Tentacle in Maniac Mansion.
Even if the Green Tentacle likes the artificial stuff and already feels stuffed after eating it, as a hungry composer fueled and inspired by true life force within and around you, you wouldn't feel vital, nourished and satisfied if you ate the stuff yourself. ))
 

Starting today, the sharing of music generated by feeding a prompt into AI-software is prohibited on OC ReMix, both here on the forums and on our Discord.
LLMs, AI, and other machine-learning technologies are both interesting and impressive, but the implementation of these technologies in popular usage rely largely on unethical training practices. Copyrighted works are used without artist consent to train commercial AI-models. Moreover, OverClocked ReMix has, over the course of over 20 years, established itself as a place for artists to learn about the composition and production of music and hone their craft. We ask artists to pay tribute to VGM through the art of interpretation; we're looking for the personal spin, the human touch. I, personally, don't believe audio generated by a machine-learning algorithm is doing that.
There are ethical implementations of AI-technology in the music sphere, such as sample libraries, physical modeling software, and audio production suites that use machine-learning to perform complicated tasks that an artist can use in the production process. Sharing music that uses this kind of tech is absolutely fine. But tracks generated wholly or in-part by services like Suno and Udio (among others) do not belong here.
And just to clarify, the discussion of machine-learning, LLMs, and AI here at OC ReMix is not prohibited, but should be tempered by an understanding of the goals of our community, which include artistic development and education and the appreciation of VGM through thoughtful exploration and interpretation.
Thanks.
-- DarkeSword

Closed the thread as per request of the OP.

Awesome, dude. ))

Really amazing working spirit, even at the possible vacation times at the end of the year.
Problem's totally solved - no further request incoming for 2023 (at least not from me).

Guess it's always wise to have a passionate white IT mage in the party.

...

-----------------------------------
"Well... that was impressive.
You have earned your reward... and your freedom."
-----------------------------------------------------------------

As a reward you radically deserve a decent 7-course dinner.

But since I've almost finished mine, I'd give you the radically legendary "Joy 'n' Fluffiness Gold Award" instead, which has been successfully treasured in the depths of the internet:
 

Carrying it like a daily accessory in your life, it should be some kind of a lucky charm which might lower your attack and defence stats or even block your amgery (limit break) bar, but it will reduce your stress level, drastically boost the kinda mystical "luck" stat or even unlock some good ol' memories music-wise.

...

But now you need to take a well-deserved break from work and have a good nap (just the special final fantasy regulations in employment law), have an interesting video game evening with friends or family, put on some good music or even continue composing your own passionate music project.

...

Happy New Year to the OCRemix community. ))

Thanks for the detailed report. This was another side-effect of adjusting some permissions with recent group changes.
I've fixed the permissions for Guests to allow attachment downloading.

We recently got rid of the Contributors user group, which had certain permissions tied to it, but was vaguely defined on our end it didn't make a lot of sense to keep around. A side-effect of this was that upload quotas were tied to that group.
I've adjusted the upload quota and permitted file types for Members. You should be able to upload again. Thanks for your continued participation in Workshop! Hope this helps.

If you haven't watched all of Dan Worrall's stuff, I highly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/@DanWorrall.  He also does tutorials for FabFilter's stuff, but in a general way such that it can apply to everything ("Introduction to..." series).  Here's a few tips I've picked up on:
-Reduce the stereo width for your kick channel to mono or near-mono, and consider it for the bass (maybe don't go all the way to mono for bass)
-As far as I know, it's generally a good strategy to HPF each track up until it starts affecting the sound.  The low frequencies stack and build, especially after reverb + effects, after combining multiple tracks, etc.
-On the master, cut all the sub-bass with a HPF @ 20 Hz - you won't hear it anyway.  Consider setting it a bit higher depending on your mix - for music you don't always want the 'rumble' of low bass frequencies.
-Definitely try a HPF @ ~90Hz for just the side channel since our ears generally aren't sensitive to lower frequencies on the sides.  Depending on the specific content of your mix, this may change your stereo image for 90Hz and below (due to phase differences in the filter's slopes and target Hz) - if it sounds worse, play with the slopes of the 20Hz HPF and the 90Hz HPF or use a linear phase EQ for this specific HPF.
-Try HPF'ing your input to your reverb so that lower frequencies aren't 'verbed (probably want a shallower slope for the filter here).  Or at least ducking the wet low frequencies on a new note.
Why care about the phase so much - are your filters not clean (e.g. there's a resonant bump at the target frequency)?  Your ears only pick up on the relative phase differences e.g. if you have different phases at a frequency on the left channel vs right channel or mid channel vs side channel (you can give some width to a mono track by using e.g. a 12dB/oct HPF on L channel but a 24 db/oct HPF on R channel at the same frequency).  But you should be able to use steep filters on individual tracks without issue (as far as phase is concerned). Phase can be a problem if the stars align and a bunch of individual waveform peaks line up, but that would very likely only be an issue for that individual note and not overall.

It isn't a general solution, but I still do it on the Master Track because I will never hear or feel below 25 Hz anyway. 20 Hz is too little impact to pick. It will cut out room noise on vocal recordings, and excess low end on poorly-recorded samples.
But low-end clutter to me describes low-mid-range as well, which this does not solve. You simply have to solo each instrument that is occupying that range and decide what you want to be prominent, then scoop the others at that range (140 - 300 Hz or so, above kick drums and below regular midrange).

Since quite some time, Youtube forces ads even upon content from free content creators who don't want to be involved in the YouTube Partner Program and the shady money-making via ads.

An online friend told me about a plugin called uBlock Origin which can also filter out these nasty YouTube ads.
https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

I immediately tried it out - and yeah, it worked without any further settings (I've been looking for solutions like these for months).
There are also uBlock Origin versions for other browsers.


Might be helpful for everybody who simply wants to enjoy music playlists without annoying ads for life-threatening pharmaceutical companies and other profit-over-life companies all the time - just like in the good ol' YouTube times. ))
 

eh, almost nobody here will need to use surround formats.
 
Those tips are good, I'll keep doing things with the traditional tools for width (hard-panning, chorus, reverb, ping pong delays, synth unison/double-tracking).
I think the overlooked thing here is that if you want a wide mix, you then need a huge contrast between the center things and the wide elements. The biggest killer of that is usually reverb, so here's a tip to combat reverb making your mixes less stereo:
Dual-Mono Reverbs, or simply separating the two Left & Right channels and putting the same reverb on them, is a technique that will preserve the position of your panned elements exactly where they are. No more 'stereo image blur' with that.

Just wanted to share another cover of mine.
I didn't know what I was signing up for when I originally joined this community, but I know for certain I'm not OCR music artist material - and I'm totally fine with that. I just like remixing  tunes that catch my ear. I'm no pro at doing full-on arrangements, as I don't understand music to that extent. Maybe one day someone can give me a breakdown on how to do a good arrangement.
Actual graphical art on the other hand, that's totally my thing.

I still enjoy the feedback.
 

Hey there,
as a lucky owner of a 7.2 surround setup, I was wondering how these "VR stereo tweaks" would behave on it. Would it just produce stereo sound on two speakers or also trigger the extra back/surround/etc. channels?
My home setup consists of a Yamaha RX-V 773 7.2+2.0 (2 Zones) A/V receiver (=AVR), a Jamo S626 HCS3 set (FL/FR/C/BL/BR), a pair of JBL Control One (SL/SR), and two LFEs -- a Teufel S-6000SW front-firing into the room and a T-4000 down-firing underneath my couch. Below are two captured screenshots from the calibration program of my AVR, which show the speaker distances and levels that have been detected during the automated calibration process (some levels, though, were manually fine-tuned afterwards).

 
Well, here's what I observed:

Watched the dearVR promo videos first -- these were mastered for binaural listening through headphones. As I'm pretty sure this will sound brilliant with them, I skipped listening through headphones and went on straight to listen on my room setup; first, I used a "straight" 1:1 speaker mapping, i.e. a stereo signal will only be sent through the FL and FR front speakers (frequency separation by the amplifier to fire the LFEs is INACTIVE).
-> L/R panning was fully notable while F/B (front/back) panning was recognizable, but sounded a bit flat (surprise...) on only two speakers. In other words, this is exactly why one should wear headphones for binaural playback...
Next was a preset on my A/V receiver called "7.1 stereo", which outputs the L stereo channel on all left speakers of the system (FL/SL/BL), the R stereo channel on all right speakers (FR/SR/BR), provides a 50/50 mix on the center (C) -- probably with a weighted or even calculated volume depending on the L/R intensities -- and performs frequency separation to the LFEs (low frequency emitters / subwoofers), which are adjusted to take over at around 80~100 Hz and below.
Now that the "stereo plane" was greatly stretched in depth, the speakers acted much like some sort of headphones! No idea whether or not the AVR does some extra processing since I could follow along with only my ears and no extra equipment, but the "back" portion indeed seemed to travel behind the listener's head and thus resulted in a much more impressive F/B panning depth, just like I would expect to hear it in a binaural playback with headphones. In absence of any indicators or other measuring equipment, I'm unable to tell though whether or not the F/S/B portions of a side receive the same signal (leaving the spacial impression "processing" to only my ears and brain vs. "helping a bit" with F/S/B zone volumes being somehow calculated/separated and differentiated by the AVR). At least, pumping the YouTube audio out to the AVR through a VoiceMeeter virtual audio device showed that only the FL and FR channels received a signal before leaving my computer's HDMI port.
Still no extra decoding used on my AVR so far, although it features a Dolby ProLogic-II decoder with various decoder modes (Game, Movie, etc.). Since the "output format" section in the dearVR plugin demo indicated that you're not just limited to binaural output, I think that digital codecs might still be an option for non-headphone/in-room use if the hardware setup provides more than two channels/speakers.

On to Master Mi's demo videos, I did the same comparison procedure with "straight" and "7.1 stereo" output modes and ended up with "7.1 stereo" being the more "realistic" one. Output to the AVR was still limited to FL and FR signals, so both the "2-channel surround editor" (left portion of the screen) and the "Independence FX plugin" (right portion of the screen) were both operating on unencoded stereo output. While 2CSE just seemed to work with some sort of position and distance loudness, I'm convinced that Independence heavily utilizes convolution reverb parameters to fake a 3D room impression -- which feels WAY MORE REALISTIC AND NATURAL, such as you wouldn't move a 2D plane in space (2CSE sounds like this) but catch all the changing reverb details of a point audio source in 3D space instead. If I had a choice to make, I'd definitely go with Independence FX.
Regarding the deviance in L/R levels which Master Mi was wondering about, my best guess is that -- because all the simulation and calculation stuff seems to boil down to psychoacoustics -- there are beating wave and cancelling effects in the "reverbed" signals that may cause spikes or drops on a particular channel at a discrete point in time.
For the "Goldfinger" THPS remix, I was hinted by Master Mi that there should be some "encoded" signal in the stereo stream for the "back" speakers -- but it wasn't. Neither did I recognize differentiated signals from the F/S/B speakers in 7.1 stereo mode, nor did the S/B speakers produce any sound at all in both 1:1 passthrough mode and with an active AVR surround decoding preset. IMHO, there are two possible reasons for this to happen: Either there was no "real" 5.1/7.1/whatever signal (or 2.0 signal with encoded 5.1/etc. information) produced by the DAW, or this information was simply just a victim of conversion and recompression when the video was uploaded to YouTube. In other words, listening to this track on a standard stereo setup, a surround system or just headphones would make no technical difference. However, regarding the psycho-acoustical difference and spacial impression, the clear winner would be headphones -- directly followed by a surround system that's able to perform 7.1 "upmixing" by replicating FL+FR channels to their respective S+B pairs. Still, the signal would just be plain stereo with some (unencoded) psycho-acoustic voodoo magic inside.
Listening to the track with that "7.1 stereo" mode active at least "felt" like being in the center of it, even with no "real" surround sound. Instruments could be clearly distinguished and located -- and I had a hard time indeed to figure out that this trumpet was equally present on my FL/SL/BL speakers although seemingly sounding from somewhere between the FL and SL speaker. Aside from that, recognizing Pachelbel's pattern of descending fifths near the end of the theme inevitably put a smile on my hobby organist's face!
 
In summary, I think that mastering the way you did it in the THPS track works pretty well and -- without having the "flat" version as a reference -- can only enhance the listening experience. The good news is that no listener would need special hardware for that since it's just all about tricking the brain with some psychoacoustic modeling and nothing else; the bad news is that you cannot provide "real separated surround" using this method (like encoded stereo formats do). Even with just two speakers and no upmixing, the result still sounds impressively "live and vivid", however I'd still recommend headphones for the full listening experience.
Mi, if you could provide the raw audio track stereo export from your DAW as a WAV or FLAC file, this could help to find out whether or not encoded surround information was dropped during the YouTube upload and its subsequent conversion processes. According to the output still sounding convincing, I think this might not have been the case; but this way, we could be able to find out the truth.

I agree that most advanced torrent users are accustomed to selecting what they want to download but I'd also suggest (and this is pure conjecture) that the average torrent user is just downloading everything. Like Larry said, OGG was a thing many years ago but ultimate it comes down to what file formats are ubiquitous amongst the larger listener base. I don't see any significant advantages to offering ALAC alongside FLAC aside from catering to the specific use case of iTunes/Music.app not supporting FLAC.
MP3s are offered because MP3 is the ubiquitous, de facto standard when it comes to lossy compression. FLAC is offered for the same reason (ubiquity), and also because once someone has lossless files, they can do whatever they'd like, such as converting to other formats like OGG, AAC, or ALAC. My personal feeling is that having the one lossy set (MP3) and one lossless set (FLAC) covers all of the bases for our distribution channels. If we start offering more encodes based on the idea that people can just deselect what they don't want, we're going down the rabbit hole of providing more and more sets. This is extra work for everyone for very little return, IMO.

If you already own a certain DAW which runs smooth and stable and to which you are used to for several years, I'd stick with it.

If you manage to get more into your DAW, figure out all the functions by studying your manual and trying out a lot of things, you might be able to compose, arrange, mix and master great soundtracks with nearly any DAW on the market out there.
The last thing I would do is changing your DAW regularly after a few years just because of some brand-new features by other DAW developers.

There are some general features you may have in all DAWs, and there are often some unique features in several DAWs.
But you can also see that some those unique features tend to become general DAW features over the years.

And you don't have to go for every upgrade of your DAW if you don't like or need the new content - I'm sure there will also be coming upgrades and developments of your DAW you will like again.
If not - don't hesitate to write your DAW developers about the new things you like, you don't like and things you want to see improved (I also do it sometimes).

I wouldn't go for 365 days or monthly offers from DAW companies because you are always kinda forced to get the newest content, the newest operating system and the newest hardware (if necessary).
And I don't always want to set up a new PC with a new operating system after just a few years.
If you don't mind to live several years in the technological past and rather making huge jumps after 10 to 15 years, you won't miss too much. But you can save lots of time, money and nerves.
And in case of being a Windows user, you will have a lot more information of the private customer "Windows test subjects" who have made their early experiences with the latest program versions.

...

But back to the DAW topic...

So, if you already own Reason and you are used to it, stick with it.
If you have questions on this DAW software, you could also ask the composer Thomas Mende.
He works with Reason and he also composes some really good electronic video game remixes with this DAW made by the Swedish developers Propellerhead/Reason Studios:
 

If you own Cubase and you are already used to it, stick with it.
This famous DAW software was originally developed by Steinberg, a German developer which is in the hands of the well-known Japanese Yamaha corporation since around 2004.
And these Japanese companies - especially Yamaha - develop lots of highly sophisticated technological products for musical purposes and they aim to improve their results continuously with their (for the Japanese society pretty famous) Kaizen concept over time.

Even if you own FL Studio (Fruity Loops in the past - a DAW I really don't like because of the less intuitive access to the main functions) and you are already used to it, stick with it.
When I tried this DAW for the first time without any manual, I really hated this DAW because of the kinda annoying pattern system and because I couldn't even manage to create a single empty MIDI object for hours.
But if I remember correctly, even famous video game music composers like Zircon work with FL studio - and they compose outstanding soundtracks with this DAW in combination with some further 3rd-party VSTis, synths and VST plugins.

...

But if you are a newcomer and still not bound to any DAW, you might have also a closer look a Samplitude Pro X Suite (definitely the Pro X Suite version because of the hugely enhanced content).

For me, it was a really close race between Cubase and Samplitude back then - but in the end, Samplitude won my heart because of the really intuitive access to the main functions, the complexity and really huge content of the DAW (which you can use for quite every common music genre), the clarity and flexibilty of the interface and the really stylish black Carbon design you can choose in the settings:

There is still a good video of this DAW which shows some of the content and functions of Samplitude Pro X (the first version of the Samplitude Pro X series) from around 10 years ago.
And even back then, it already had an amazing content of high-quality metering devices, VST plugins, VST instruments and synths - even a sophisticated guitar and bass amp was (and still is) part of the enhanced Suite content:
 
 

With the current Pro X7 Suite version, it got even more content.
And I am still fine with Samplitude Pro X4 Suite.

Many years ago, Samplitude Pro X Suite was around 1000 bucks for the first buy.
But over the years, it went down to around 600 bucks, sometimes it's already around 400 bucks and during several special offers during the year it can be around 200 to 300 bucks, while upgrades are around 200 to 250 bucks.

For the case you want to check out the features in detail, have a look at these links:
 
 
https://www.magix.com/int/music/samplitude/pro-x/functions/
https://www.magix.com/int/music/samplitude/pro-x/version-comparison/#c1574623

...

If want to build up your studio environment, really take your time and inform yourself well about the stuff you want to go for before buying it.
Never be in a hurry, because a huge amount of information and experiences can save a lot of money, time and nerves in the long term.
Rather buy a drop of a product after bathing in an ocean of information than the other way around.


I have built my home studio within a time of around 10 years, and aside from my electric guitar of choice, I'd say it was complete around two years ago, hardware-wise.
If you save up some money for 1 or 2 two studio gear elements per year, it might not stress you too much in times of permanent financial crises and geopolitical changes.

If you don't have any studio gear yet, I would buy the stuff in the following order:

1 - a good ergonomic office chair with adjustable headrest (a healthy and upright sitting position is a really good start before composing and mixing for several hours at once)
2 - a good DAW of your choice
3 - professional studio headphones like the Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro (with these you can compose and mix in a really accurate way)
4 - professional audio interface (increases your DAW performance and stability - especially when composing bigger tracks)
5 - a good allrounder MIDI keyboard with at least 49 synth action keys (synth action keys should not make any annoying noises compared to some MIDI keyboards with weighted/hammered keys), 8 drum pads, pitch wheel and mod wheel, a good amount of faders, buttons, knobs and editing/programming functions, together with some fitting pedals for your MIDI keyboard
6 - a professional studio microphone with a low noise floor like the Rode NT1 (if you want to use singing voices or instrumental microphone recordings in your musical projects), together with a good and stable microphone stand
7 - professional studio monitor speakers, which harmonize with your room conditions (speakers should rather be a little bit smaller than too big for your room), together with some fitting isolating studio monitor stands
8 - maybe a good compact studio subwoofer to enhance the frequency range of your speakers into the deeper bass range
9 - professional headphone amp (which will drive even high-impedance studio headphones in the best possible way to unleash their full potential)
10 - additional instruments, VST instruments, synths and VST plugins
 

I exclusively use M50x for when I'm working on the tracks but after a session I'll listen on my Sony ear wf1000xm4 buds on my phone and sometimes my HD650's just to see how things sound on different sources.

I'm running Sennheiser HD 600 for headphones.  I'm looking to get monitors - I appreciate your post Master Mi ?

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
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MSP 3 vs MSP 3A
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MSP 5
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MSP 7
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MSP 7 vs Tannoy Reveal Active MK1 vs Presonus Eris E8
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I hope I could help you or someone else with my information and experience about studio monitors. ))

I don`t know exactly what I want to say, and none of this is planed out, but I think its wild this place is still around. For one reason or another Ill check the remixes and get a wave of "the good old days"  and not just from the music but this community, Which Ill admit, I was not super active, but from the time when I first came across it, I think maybe a  TechTv show sent me this way? Its wild people are still mixing Aquatic ambiance, and it still puts a smile on my face. 

I remember the first album I watched get released was Kong In Concert, I burned it to a disc (mp3 cd players were so cool) and would listen to it in Algebra 1, perhaps its why  took algebra one twice.  
I always wanted to be musical I would love to be able to contribute in that way. Thank you to everyone that still makes music for this community even If it gets said once or thousands of time it's very appreciated. 

 

Yeah, by dropping some instruments to the back or moving some to the front, you create the feeling of a room and giving it a lot of depth. Some vst instruments offer you to mix with different microphone positions, but if you don't have that option, there's vsts like Tverb/Berlin Studio/ocean way studios etc., that let you mess with the dry/wet signals. That can sometimes work much better than adding reverb, since it preserves the clarity and if you want, you can still slap the reverb on top in the end.
 
I'm not sure, how it's handled in rock music. What works for me is again placing the instruments in the room in different positions. I use iZotopes Ozone Imager for that, it's free, I use that on almost every instrument to place it in the mix and in the end I fix the frequency issues, for example low-end heavy stuff are centered and instruments with higher frequencies can be stereo. And if it still doesn't work, I try to sidechain the bass or work with layering kickdrums to seperate low and high frequencies.
I have that too, at 3 am it's still insane and I wake up at 12 to find out it wasn't insane at all haha

Hey everyone,

I did an arrangement of Wintery Imil from Golden Sun, because there's never enough of Golden Sun ?
I had to mess around a little bit with the Intro part of the original OST to make it work.

Best Regards 

I really like your arrangement, it has a very happy and positive vibe to it and I think you did a great job! I also dig the transition at 3:06.
If you don't mind a little feedback, 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. You could move the brass more to the front and give them a touch more dynamics and transient designing to cut through the mix better (brass tends to sound synthy and flat without dynamics)
A bit more low end on the guitar, that plays the bass parts would also add some punch!

Best Regards!
 

I bought a super expensive asian instrument library (JEO) a long time ago, but never used it really,
so I decided to finally put it to the test and wrote a short cinematic trailer type track using JEO scattered everywhere.
 
It's finished as it is, but I will extend it in the future. Right now, I just lack the ideas to keep evolving the end.

Best Regards!