zircon

Unfortunately mods can't make you a better PVPer, or better at high end raid content. There are decisions that HAVE to be made by a human.

You won't win. But you're welcome to try I don't have ANY BWL gear btw. Lame zero sum DKP system in my guild. If I did, I'd be truly unstoppable.

Yeah. There is no doubt about it that I can still kick MAJOR ass. With my dmg gear on (non-shadow) I can smite for 600-650 normal, 900-1k crits with no buffs and no trinket. I'm not even specced for Force of Will either (pumps up dmg by 5%) or PI. If I get PI, AV buff, pop my trinket, and use a battle standard I can get over 2k crits. The great part is I can then heal myself, shield, fear, etc!

I like this. Very creative in the arrangement, and also in the timbral choices. The production is a little weird at first - it's not your standard rock song by any means. But the choices made are not necessarily bad and listening to it a few times, I don't think there are any major problems. The lead is a little soft comparatively but that is not a big deal. Lots of creativity, enjoyable. YES

Heh. That video is a bit misleading, but yeah, Priests are very cool now. Reasons it is misleading; for one, the guy has full BWL/endgame gear. Every shot just about is him with his trinket up (+280 damage base), Power Infusion (+15%), a Flask of Supreme Power (over +100 damage base), sometimes another consumable buff, Berserking/AV Fury buff.. etc.

In terms of crediting, I think if they contributed less than say... 10% of the total material you probably wouldn't have to list their name there. I mean, this is really subjective of course, but that would be my take on it. For example I'm working on a collab with tefnek right now and Rellik did contribute to it, but he dropped out early on. I'll still mention it in my sub letter but the actual artists in the mp3 tags will be me and tefnek. Traditionally I think performers usually don't get credit either in the file name if they didn't do anything except perform. We have a piano mix or two up like that, and the FF4 battle medley had Ailsean performing with no credit in the tag. Again, all this is just opinion. If you feel that the person made a big contribution you're probably right, go with your instincts.

Someone asked a question. I answered their question. I have experience and I produce good results. This is not being "full of myself". This is what this forum is FOR. If people don't like my advice they can take it or leave it. Same goes for your advice or anyone else's. Maybe for you, but for many people production is really not all that hard. Taking a MIDI and slapping instruments to it, in fact, is one of the easiest things you can do. That's why when we get those at OCR we auto-reject them. It's really not hard at all. A good arrangement, conversely, can take a very long time. Ask any of the recently posted ReMixers here. Things don't just get done in a few hours unless you have some VERY talented musicians involved. Well, I know for a fact that most people in the community don't spend 3 days on mixing. You'll probably agree with me on that. And I also know for a fact that professional mastering studios and award-winning engineers typically do entire albums in a day. So, the fact that it is taking YOU so long says something about your methodology. This is NOT to say that you are not good at what you do. You are. I don't think anyone here would contest that. However, you have to consider that other ways of working may be either faster, produce better results, or both. You have to be careful not to generalize and say that they're all bad. Once again, tell that to someone like Greg Calbi. Engineering takes skill. There's no doubt about that. I would also say you are a skilled engineer with experience, so you know what you are talking about. But an album can take months to years to write and produce. Mastering is something that usually only takes about a day for that whole album. For a community like this, then, thinking about it logically, it should take even less time. Ok, name all the ReMixers here who use Cubase. No, seriously. Do it. How would you even know? "In the practice" no one really cares. Some of the best albums have been produced with terrible gear. One of my good friends is a very successful composer and songwriter who uses Garageband of all things. In the real world, it's a results-based enviroment. NO ONE CARES what you do if the final result sounds good. Ok, so you're telling me that what I did was wrong? Even though not a single person to date has commented on timing problems? No, sorry. My method actually worked. I wouldn't be telling people about it if it didn't. Really, because I did all of "When All Hope Has Faded" by exchanging MP3s. Same with "Lover Reef". No complaints yet. So much for a "definite NO-NO". They might not, but your average "pro" wouldn't recommend FLStudio either to people. I don't give a damn. It's one thing to listen to a professional's advice about something. It's another thing if you develop a way of working that produces a great song in the end, and a "pro" tells you you can't do it that way. How about.. hm, no? This reminds me of when I was in middle school. When we were learning how to type properly, I developed my own method of typing that was different from the one the teacher wanted people to use. Soon enough I was faster than anyone else. In fact I was even faster than the teacher, but she didn't believe me. She was mad because I was using the "wrong" method. So one day, she gave me a blank keyboard and gave me the hardest exercise on our typing program and told me to do it. I did. I did it perfectly and more quickly than anyone else. And now, today, I'm bordering on the world record in terms of how fast I can go (in a year or two I'll actually shoot for it). It's always good to listen to what professionals and teachers have you to say. But if you do something and it works better than what they teach, there's no reason to let them tell you what to do. The engineer, once again, does NOT have to do most of the work. The engineer has an important job but the artist/producer deserves 95% of the credit. We don't have a "huge standard bar" either. Our standards are very reasonable. We've accepted tons of people who have only submitted a single ReMix, people with very little to NO music experience, etc. Yeah, but the person who wrote/arranged the song and did the production should have already taken care of the most of that. The mastering is just the icing on the cake. Most of my compression jobs take me less than 10 seconds. Once again, no complaints yet. I have, however, gotten TONS of compliments on my production values. In fact, I even got a mastering job because someone liked the sound of my CD so much. So yeah, I'll do my thing. Do whatever you want. Here's my underlying point. You have a very weird way of doing things that is not mainstream in the actual music industry, OR in indie communities like this. You have an extreme exaggeration of the importance of engineering that, once again, not even world-famous engineers share with you. So you have a choice. Either keep thinking that the entire world is against you; all universities, engineers, artists, and people in this community are out to get you and you're the ONLY ONE who knows anything about production & engineering.. or accept the fact that other people have methods that can produce results that are just as good (if not better) but are different than yours. We know you are good. Your advice and input is always appreciated. The problem is just when you tell other people that their advice isn't valid for no reason other than the fact that you have been engineering for years and they haven't. As I wrote in my tutorials, the advice I give to people is NOT BY ANY MEANS the only way to do things. I'll say it again here. But that's the difference between you and me. I accept that there are lots of ways to do things in the music world. You don't. You have your way and that's it. You can't go around telling people that their method is "wrong" or a "no no" when it WORKS.

Honestly you're making it out to be more complicated than it is. I've done successful collabs so I know that the methods I proposed do work. Presumably you are collabing with someone who's not an asshole. It's your own dumb fault if you chose to work with someone who didn't want to pull his weight. Also, the two MIDI-related methods I described are not the same. In the the first method, both people are exchanging MIDI files and working on the arrangement together. Then, whoever has the better production skills puts sounds to the MIDI. In the other example, the work is split evenly down the middle. One person does ALL the arrangement, one person does ALL of the production. This is the kind of thing I am doing with GeoffreyTaucer. I enjoy it. In terms of THIS WEBSITE, most people use FLStudio or Reason. Other sequencers are simply in the minority. Thus if you're giving general advice it makes no sense to address it to the minority. This may be the case with Cubase, but in terms of general collab methodology, working with the same sequencer is a commonly accepted practice among people not only in this community but in the professional world. Let me just say that I had no problem with this. In the Lover Reef project, I received finals that had slight timing issues. If you have any idea as to what you're doing, you can make micro adjustments, taking the waveform and chopping it up in between transients and re-positioning the new chunks to the beat. This is how I processed ALL of the vocals and instrumentals in the aforementioned remix. The most efficient method is to simply send an MP3 of the rendered track to someone, that person loads the MP3 into their sequencer, then records or sequences their new part over that. Then, they export the WAV of ONLY their part and sends it right back to you. There is 0 possibility for error here unless it is a live performance, in which case, as I said, micro-adjustments are all you need to fix any minor problems. In addition, while there is no particular *harm* in discussing a sound that you're going for, you're placing a bit too much emphasis on the engineering aspect here. In a collab, especially in a community like this where everything is really just done for fun, you don't need strict standards on the recorded material that you are getting (or the sequenced material). I know for a fact that you personally spend an exorbitant amount of time tweaking things. I think that is a bad idea and I discourage other people from doing that. If you get a less than perfect vocal recording, so what? Deal with it! Things don't need to be perfect if the goal is an enjoyable song. It's more important to capture a soulful performance at the right time. No one here is trying to get a Grammy.

I'm now taking a class called "Computer & Digital Applications II" here at Drexel, where the work is all going to be done with Pro Tools LE (w/ an Mbox). Since there's a LOT of work to be done, and the computers here aren't all that great (Mac G4s), I'm going to bite the bullet and buy an Mbox 2 w/ Pro Tools so I can do the work on my own computers. This will also kill two birds with one stone, as I've been looking for a portable interface anyway for my laptop, which is a pretty powerful machine anyway. All I would need now is a decent mic and I'd have a great portable recording setup. Is there anything I should know before I do this? Any particular bundle or set of plugins I should have, outstanding system requirements, something like that?

I've been involved with a bunch of collabs. There are a few ways you can do it. 1. If you use the same sequencer, share your free plugins and samples, then send the project file back and forth. Boom, done. That's how my collabs with tefnek go. 2. You all use MIDI for the arrangement until one person (or two) puts samples + synths to the MIDI notes. 3. One person uses MIDI, the other person does the production. 4. You send audio files back and forth (WAV) and one master arranger puts it all together.

EMU 0404 is fantastic, I recommend it to everyone in that price range. It works great.

Yes, I have the MGS2 soundtrack. I suppose I should have said "too much reliance on direct sampling".

Direct rip mixed with default Reason drumloop.. uhh, wow? Did I miss something here?

Original Korg Legacy was MS-20 (w/ controller), Wavestation (digital synth), and Poly Six (another analog synth). As I said. $500 tho!

Korg Legacy Collection = MS-20, Poly Six, Wavestation 1. Korg Legacy Collection: Digital Edition = M1, Wavestation 1.5 Korg Legacy Collection: Analog Edition = MS-20, Poly Six They discontinued the original KLC and now offer KLC:DE and KLC:AE at reduced prices.

Yeah. It's nuts. Not only do you get ALL the waveforms and patches of the M1 and Wavestation, but EVERY SINGLE expansion card (all like 25+ of them) for both. There are probably a good 3k patches at least.

Russell Cox is a pretty experienced composer/arranger with a big music background. In addition he has some very high quality samples; that helps with realism. Jeremy Soule is an award-winning, world-famous composer. So.. he's got a TON of things that he does that you could not possibly summarize in one post.

The Korg M1 is simply brilliant. I got the Korg Legacy Digital Edition (which includes the M1 and Wavestation, perfectly reproduced it's only $150) and browsing through the patches, it just SCREAMS "80s". I listen to tons of smooth jazz from the last decade or two and I CONSTANTLY hear M1 sounds. It's such a great synth. I can't recommend it enough.

Well, keep in mind QLSO Platinum is also recorded that way as well. VSL is too I'm pretty sure. But the bit depth and sample rate really have no impact on the actual quality of the orchestral samples. There are tons of other more important factors.

Reaktor 4 and 5 do not use dongles. They use challenge/response which is no hassle at all. Also, Image Line has good customer service that I've experienced. Their forums are very helpful. But why would you have FLStudio 4? Get 6.

I wrote a guide to terminology on this kind of thing but I guess it's not here any more. Can't blame ya. However, Googling for 'VST definition music' (w/o the ') came up with relevant hits. Might want to try a little harder on the searching next time. I'll explain anyway. VST is a plugin format developed by Steinberg. It stands for Virtual Studio Technology. There are VST effects (equalizers, compressors, reverbs, distortion units, overdrives, delays, anything else) as well as VST instruments (VSTis - synths, samples, drum machines, what-have-you). It's a universal technology meaning that if your host is VST compatible, it is pretty much guaranteed to load 99% of the VSTs out there. It's also capable of being cross platform. Cubase for Mac runs VSTs as well as Cubase for Windows does (might require some slight alterations but just about all VSTs are compatible that way). It's really an amazing technology. MOD is a tracker format. Trackers are a kind of music sequencing software, though they are considered by many to be obsolete, and they never really gained popularity with the majority of audio professionals. Rather than using a piano roll or score notation, an odd method of input was used, involving the typing keyboard and an almost mathematical method of defining note start times, pitches, and durations. The sounds themselves came from small samples (eg. WAVs) loaded into the tracker. The resultant MOD (or XM, S3M, etc) files were bundled with all of the note data as well as the samples themselves. The MOD player would then basically assemble the piece on the fly.

That may be true, but keep in mind (as I stated numerous times throughout the tutorial) that my advice is generalized and heavily dependent on style. Nonetheless, libraries like Virtual Guitarist 2, Prominy LPC, and Distorted are all extremely realistic.

Hey, could you go ahead and link to the production tutorial I wrote on this very forum? It has lots of useful info, imo.

As I understand it, you need to match the impedence up with the rest of your signal processing stuff.

I think only one guild on my server (Horde, anyway) has killed Huhuran. Our raiding guilds are not in good shape atm, and the gate only opened recently.