Jorito

Woei! Immediately added Bitwig to my profile I noticed that Renoise is not in the DAW list. Might be intentional (too few people here to bother about it) but if you add it, it's another excuse for me to edit my profile

Sweet! I wish I'd have thought of having voice acting in my track, the theme of the album is perfectly suitable for that.

I still have the previous version (really love the Alternatives feature of Logic) so going back should be a problem. I'm mixing in context, that's the only way that should make sense. The only soloing I did was for an entire section (strings, brass, etc) at times to check their individual balance. As for panning, I knew LCR panning in this kind of track would be a bit of wild experiment, and apparently it shows . Didn't think it was that bad myself and I intentionally balanced the various sections opposite to each other (violins 1 to the left, violins 2 to the right, etc). But yeah, if you are used to traditional orchestra panning it's a bit weird. Unfortunately I use instruments from different libraries, and not all of them come pre panned. Pretty sure I didn't touch the string EQ, but I did notice that one of the string trills sections sounds less good. Unfortunately the midi part for that got lost and all I have left is a not-so-good audio export that might sound bad when boosted. Will have to check. Anyway, back to the drawing board (and previous version) I guess

I'm bit too busy atm to sign up as a novice, but if you're one star short you can ping me, I'm happy to help out. Not sure if it's a good idea though, the last times I was a star it meant only my novice submitted a track

As we say in Dutch: "nieuwe ronde, nieuwe kansen" (new game, new changes). Here's an updated mix with a ton of small volume automation tweaks, some different layering, rhythm guitars sidechained to the lead instruments for a bit of gain reduction and an attempt to mix with LCR panning. Oh, and some changes to the bassline around 1:17 to align it with the timpani. The difference isn't as big as with the earlier ball-of-mud and although it probably could use some more refinement I'm getting pretty happy with it. I'll do some double checking on speakers (too late for that now) and unless my ears (or system) are messing with me there's clipping that I want to look into. Anyway, here is a new version: http://www.jorito.net/files/Contra/Contra%20-%20Waterfall%2020150511.mp3

Wow, that's a lot of helpful feedback, thanks! As for offering your help on mixing, just keep this kind of info coming since it's educational and will help my mixing skills so I can do it myself. But if you really want to play around with it, I can bounce some stems for you. I'll do some more mixing in the coming few days to see what I can squeeze out of it. And reduce some of volume automation and the brass and strings sidechain experiment when Juan's guitar comes in

So, I submitted the track, and the judges said "no, not just yet". TL;DR version: great arrangement, great performances, but the mix is too muddy. Longer version: http://ocremix.org/community/topic/40815-no-contra-oh-noes-there-be-aliens-in-my-waterfall/ Since there's lots of cool people here with better ears than me, I'm hoping to get some feedback on how to fix the mix and clean up the track. I already did quite a bit of work on it myself, basically redoing the entire mix from scratch but feedback on the good and bad things I did is most appreciated! Hope the new mix is at least better, but I guess I will find out... Submitted track: http://www.jorito.net/files/Contra/Contra%20-%20Oh%20noes%2c%20there%20be%20aliens%20in%20my%20waterfall%21.mp3 New mix: http://www.jorito.net/files/Contra/Contra%20-%20Waterfall%2020150509.mp3

Wow, really? This seems such basic functionality to me (all DAWs I tried support this) that this really surprised me. Also, wanted to point out the modwheel isn't only useful for synth expression, lots of Kontakt (orchestral) instruments use it for dynamics too. Depending on your genre that might be a dealbreaker (unless you like drawing in everything with the mouse).

LOL, the stuff in that NO thread is at least 10 years old so I think I learned some new tricks since then. There's like a handful of tracks in the judges' queue right now (oldest from July last year iirc) but until any of them get judged I guess I'm doomed to send over some samples Which I just did, so let's wait and see

I'm interested in claiming "Go Above the Clouds", would prolly work nicely in some electronic setting (maybe even with vocals). What does the timeline look like? Also, need me to audition or am I good to go?

I don't have any experience with FL, but I bought Logic Pro X when it came out, and it just clicked with me (unlike Logic 8/9, which confused me). That doesn't help much in your choice maybe, but in the end I suggest go with the program that feels best to you. If you like FL based on their demo, go with that. If you feel good about Garageband, well, Logic Pro is a much more advanced version with a lot of cool instruments and effects. At the end of the day you can music with either one of them, pick the one that matches your brain and workflow best Also want to point out that you can demo Logic in an Apple Store (prolly your best option since no demo).

You can just check the Judges' decisions topic to see what happens. In general you'll find that it takes about 3 votes, and that Chimpazilla is usually the first to judge it If you browse through that topic a bit you may find some tracks that needed more judges but I doubt any track ever needed to pass through all judges to reach a verdict.

Yessir, claimed! Looking forward to remixing this into something cool.

Just gonna steal Chernabogue's comment in the PSX tribute album here: Sent a WiP to Alex, so Tuberz and Furilas get more time to record. ^^

Ooooh, subtle

Obligatory bump to let you know I did some more polishing work on my track the past 2 weeks. It won't be ready yet in 3 days but it definitely will be done before the final deadline!

So far I'm winning the most-people-per-track award on this album Really looking forward to the final result!

Oops, sorry 'bout that... Well, since we're on the topic of Suikoden 2: Hakstock, can you add JoyDreamer (vocals), Lauren the Flute (flute, whistle), Trev (violin) and XPRTNovice (acoustic guitar) as collabs to my track?

Sweet! Have to get used to it a bit but it looks like a big step forward. Great job guys!

What works well for me is having a pretty good sense of what I want before I even start (couldn't make that out from your description, so I thought it's worth pointing out). Basically what timaeus says with "Now I just imagine it first and if it sounds good before I write it, then I write it out." For me that means at the very first that I need a source track that inspires me. That might go through quite a bunch of tracks before inspiration strikes. Bt when it does I already have a pretty good idea of what style I want to use and (partly because of the style I imagine) a global idea of the song structure, instruments and whatnot. Most of the process after that flows quite naturally and I can end up in this creative and inspired cycle quite easily. But yeah, picking a source (or idea or style) that inspires me is key. It seems to me that you are missing this. It should be fun, not a chore

Tx for the bump. I was just about to get off my lazy ass (jk, was working on 2 other album tracks) and resume work, so excellent timing! Time to step up the game

Just did a quick listen to your track and have some things to add that I hope you find useful. First of all the cello sounds a bit thin and in my n00b mind a cello has more body. Also, as far as I understand the strings section, violinists and cellists tend to have a natural swell and drop in velocity when they play a note. So ramping up the sound from soft to louder at the beginning and dropping down from louder to softer at the end of a note. Of course that will also cause tonal differences, and if your samples don't support that it feel uncanny. Not saying I can do a realistic virtual cello, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Feel free to PM me the MIDI part for a try with a decent sample library (https://soundcloud.com/embertone/blakus-blakus-cello-improv).

I'm no expert by any means but I can share some thoughts with you. Sorry for the long post First, your second question because it's easier to answer. What I do when I need a live performer is click on the 'WORKSHOP' menu item on this very site. On that page you'll see a list of skills on the left. Click 'cello' there and you'll get a list of people that can play the cello on the right. This list is ordered by the collab option you can set in your profile; the ones that indicate they want to collab are at the top (marked in green), the ones that are a 'maybe' are after that (orange), and the ones that give a clear 'no' are at the bottom. What works for me is going to that list, check the people marked in green, see if they have been active in the last weeks/months, try to find some of their work to get an idea if it would match what you are going for and just contact them through a PM. This approach works well for me so far Now, your first question. In general, expressive and lively instruments like this (cello, violin, lead guitar, sax, mouth harps come to mind) are a tricky beast to get right with just virtual instruments. So that's why people suggest a live performer for this realistic and human feel. You can get that realistic and human feel using a virtual instrument, but it depends on a few things. Sample quality is one of them and can be a big help. Having good, expressive samples with decent velocity scaling, envelopes, round robins and controls really can do wonders. But other than good samples you also need quite a bit of knowledge on how the instrument works and sounds and what you can and can't do with it. A simple example is a woodwind or brass instrument; those people need to breathe every once in a while and if you don't have any natural breathing pauses in your writing it won't feel right. Also this involves lots of fine grained detailed MIDI automation to control dynamics, expressiveness, velocity changes, transitions, slides, whatnot. It's a lot of work and you need a good understanding of the instrument itself. You can probably still get a remix posted with just free Soundfonts, but I think that the style you pick makes the difference here. Orchestral stuff with just free Soundfonts? Gonna be very tricky and a whole lot of extra work. A more electronic genre will be much more likely to pass.

W00t! Great to see them updates, the album is coming along very nicely I'd say In other news, anyone willing and able to record some acoustic guitar for my second track?