zircon

I was messing around today with the FL sampler, and you'd be surprised how you can use it! First, think about what a synthesizer is. Typically it's got at least one oscillator, a filter, envelopes, etc. The oscillator has one waveform, usually a very very short one. What's cool about the FL sampler is that you can use the "CRF" knob to select a very small portion of a sample. This means that after the first part of the sample plays, it will go through the looped part very fast. The higher you play on the keyboard, the faster it will be repeated. Eventually, it will be going so fast that a definite pitch will be created. http://www.zirconstudios.com/Funkysynth.mp3 Check this out. It's a TR707 kick, truncated and then loaded into the FL sampler with some basic effects. Definitely a usable sound, sort of a clavinet/organ hybrid kind of thing. You can do the same with lots of samples, and apply envelopes, filtering, and the like. So before you get out your wallet to pick up a new synth.. mess around a bit with what you have

Ah, I thought you already had ASIO drivers. asio4all is indeed a lifesaver. If the latency is too much, you can simply decrease the buffer size. Easy.

I'd very much like to do this with a guitar, except for some reason all the IN menu lists for me is "none". Does anybody know of a way to add the sound card's line in\mic in to the IN menu? Make sure you have the proper audio drivers selected.

Wait, what? FL is one of the cheapest and lowest CPU/RAM using programs there is.

Yes. In your mixer, select a track. Say, track 1. There's a menu with the word "IN" next to it. There, you can select from any input you have. This includes physical inputs, such as those from your soundcard. Once you have that selected, assuming you've hooked up your instrument properly, your guitar will be going right through that effects track and then output through FL. By clicking the little disk icon, you arm the track for recording (right click to arm it, or left click to arm it and name the recording file). When you want to actually play, you hit the main record button on the transport (next to the play and stop buttons), hit play, wait for the countdown, and go to it. Like any other recording software.

Actually, Colossus IS mapped to GM. At least, there is a bank you can load in it like that.

Try Garritan Jazz & Big Band. Probably the only library of its kind oriented towards that kind of sound.

The synth used in "Jump" was a big ol' Oberheim OB-Xa. Oberheims were analog synths capable of the most monstrous, earth-shaking basses around.. many people consider them to be even better at that than Moog synths. Anyway, the patch itself is more or less a simple subtractive patch that can be replicated on any good VA synth (even Superwave P8 I think has a Jump patch, could be wrong). However for the exact Oberheim sound you're out of luck. There are no synth emulations of them because of licensing issues.

Well, even classical music requires a degree of compression and limiting. You'd be nuts not to have some sort of safeguard against the volume spikes associated with crescendos and loud passages.

YEA. My track is gonna hitcha hard.

It's not a matter of having problems with my WIPs, it's that they're not even good. At least you have stuff that COULD be good, you just keep running into technological difficulties. I'd still rather be in your shoes any day of the week.

Hey, that's the progression from "The Final Countdown".

If you want great, reliable customer service and you plan on buying music gear in the future, Sweetwater. But there's nothing wrong with the other one, I've ordered there before too.

Cool! If you found it useful here are some more. i -> III -> VI -> VII Another good trance one, not bad for 80s style stuff either. I find it sounds best in the following voicing: C G C Eb Eb Bb Eb G Ab Eb Ab C Bb F Bb D Alternatively, you could look at this as vi -> I -> IV -> V, which could resolve to the vi or the I. A C E C E G F A C G B D This one is kinda funky, I used it in "Endorphin" on Impulse Prime and it's got a pretty bright feel to it. I -> VII -> I -> VI-7 -> VII (the last two take place in one measure). Example voicing: C G C E C F Bb D C C E G Ab C Eb G Bb D F Something like that. This next one could be used for a lot of styles, but I think it adapts well to something like smooth jazz. There are two parts. Here's the first one; i -> iv -> VII -> i. C Eb G C F Ab Bb D F C Eb G Then the next part is i -> iv -> ii(diminished) -> V -> i (with the ii(dim) and V being in one measure). C C Eb G F Ab C F D F Ab D G B D G C Eb G You can hear this in action here. http://www.zirconstudios.com/Smoov.mp3

Using those things for rep is not worth it. In a normal ZG run you get thousands of rep anyway so it's really easy to get to at least Revered now. 20 bijous = about 1k rep, would you rather have the equivalent of 2-2.5 hrs of ZG clearing or up to 1k gold? I'll take the gold.

FLStudio 6 comes with a multiband compressor. It's pretty good, though I personally don't use multiband compression because I'd rather just solve volume issues at the production stage (just my opinion though). If you don't want to upgrade to FLStudio 6 for some reason, pick up the C3 Multiband Compressor, available on KVR.

Alright, let me briefly break down compressors and limiters for ya. A compressor works like this. You set a THRESHOLD volume level. When the waveform reaches this threshold volume level, it is reduced in volume. You control how MUCH it is reduced in volume with the RATIO control. 1:1 means that for every dB of sound above the threshold, 1 dB of sound will go through - in other words, no effect. 2:1 means that for every 2 dB of sound above the threshold, only 1 dB will be heard. 5:1 means that for every 5 dB of sound above the threshold, 1 dB is output. And so on and so forth. Thus, if you only want to compress something a little bit, you wouldn't use more than 3 or 4:1 compression. Finally, the compressor has a GAIN knob to increase or decrease the overall volume of the sound AFTER the limiting. Now, a limiter is simply an extreme form of compression. It has a very, very high ratio (sometimes infinite). In other words, as soon as the sound hits the threshold, you could send 50 dB through it and it will only output the threshold level. You can effectively use a compressor as a limiter if you just set the ratio really high. Other controls to be aware of - Attack: This is the time it takes for the compression to take place. This is usually measured in ms. If you have an attack of 15ms, that is pretty quick, but some sound will still be uncompressed. So, if you're compressing a snare heavily, you'll hear the *THWAP* right at the beginning and then within 15s the sound will be compressed. Release: The time it takes for the compression to stop after the sound has gone below the set THRESHOLD level. Usually between 200-800ms. Any longer and it's going to sound funny. Knee: This isn't on every compressor, but this basically controls how "hard" the compression activates. When the sound hits the threshold, does it limit it very sharply right off the bat, or does it ease into it? Here's a diagram of what this looks like: -10dB is the threshold, for that image. So what are practical uses of compression and limiting? Let's say you have a recording of a guitar. Throughout the recording, you have quieter parts at -28db, and louder parts at -8db. That is a 20dB dynamic range, which is pretty big. So, you set your compressor to a threshold of -16dB, a ratio of 3:1, and gain of +10dB. So now, all the parts louder than -16dB are being reduced to around -16dB. Your loudest peak before was -8, and the ratio is 3:1. 8/3 = 2.6dB, so your loudest peak after the compression will be -13.4dB or so. So, the quieter parts are still -28dB, but now the louder parts are -13.4dB instead of -8. That means that the dynamic range is now 14.6dB instead of 20. But wait, didn't this REDUCE the overall loudness? AHA! That's where the GAIN comes in. We set the gain to +10dB, meaning that the quietest parts are now -18dB, and the loudest ones are -3.4dB. This is pretty loud in the grand scheme of things, but not uncommon for a commercial track. Now, think about it - if you had just pumped up the volume by 10dB before, the peak level would have been +2dB, which is clipping. If you had done that then thrown a limiter on it, you'd still have a big dynamic range. So, compression is very useful. Of course, in an actual song situation you usually aren't constantly measuring the quietest and loudest parts of your song, so you won't have exact numbers. If you DID, you wouldn't even need a limiter because you'd know exactly how to set your compressor so that nothing would clip. Because this is not the case, it's ALWAYS good to put a limiter set to about -0.2dB or so at the very end of your mastering chain to make sure that some really loud spikes didn't get through the compressor. Some limiters also offer an input drive or saturation function that will boost the volume before limiting it, creating a slightly distorted but often pleasant sound. Finally, there are multiband compressors/limiters. Why would you use these? Think about the following situation.. you have this kickass bassline and kick part. Man, it rules. You gotta keep the volume jacked up so people can hear it. Then you also have a cool vocal line that's sort of floating above everything else. If you're just using a normal compressor, because you have the bass parts boosted, they're going to trigger the compression of the entire waveform. So when the bass part gets dropped a few dB because it's going over the limit, the vocals might not even be close to that threshold yet. Oops. A multiband compressor gets around this problem by separating the audio into THREE bands (low/mid/high), with individual compressor controls for each. This way, you can compress just the bass but not the vocals, or vice versa. Or anything else, really! I hope that answered your question. By the way, this should also explain why compressor plugin presets are not useful. How COULD they be? The nature of compression is such that you have to tailor it to individual tracks. The only time you should be using presets is if you've designed (or come upon) a preset that works really well for a certain type of sound, and you know how to recreate that sound well. This is the situation with me. I have a preset I created for my compressor and limiter that works extremely well for nearly all the original electronic songs I do. However, I can do this because, well, I've written enough original electronic songs that I tend to use the same production techniques in all of them. Thus the approach to mastering is going to be the same. Edit: Here's an MP3 example of compression in action. The first loop (played for 2 bars) is uncompressed. The next one has a threshold of -15dB, 4:1 ratio, and a little bit of gain. Same peaks as the first one, but you can hear it sounds a bit louder overall. The third one is pretty extreme, with something like a -30dB threshold and 10:1 ratio with lots of gain. Again, not TECHNICALLY louder than the first too but it certainly sounds that way. http://www.zirconstudios.com/Compression.mp3

It is not a huge difference, in my opinion. There are some new plugins, a better browser, and some changes to make recording easier. However, if you got the boxed version and would have to pay for the upgrade, I don't think it's necessarily worth it. On the other hand, most people have free lifetime updates and thus there's no reason NOT to upgrade.

Nicole; you don't need perfect pitch to be able to hear chord progressions in your head. Really, if you just learn the common ones, play them on the piano, and listen to songs that have them, you'll pick it up in no time. For example, I -> vi -> IV -> V is a really common trance progression and it's also used in oldies music. Example (key of C) C E G A C E F A C G B D Very bright and happy. Another one is VI-7, VII, i. Ab C Eb G F Bb D G C Eb BT used this one in "Force of Gravity" and it's a pretty popular one in a lot of kinds of music. The variant is starting on i, then going to VI, VII, and back to i. Then you have a sort of Fatboy Slim style progression: I -> III -> IV. C E G Eb G Bb F A C I used this one in "Throwdown", it's very happy and fits upbeat music. Here's one that's used in LOTS of different pieces, from anime soundtracks, to trance music, to classical music. i -> VI -> III -> VII. C Eb G Ab C Eb Eb G Bb Bb D F It's very expressive and emotional. Finally, here's one that's somewhat serious. I used it in a couple tracks on "Impulse Prime" (Hourglass, Dimension) and I think it has a cool sound to it. i-7, VI-7, iv. C Eb G Bb Ab C Eb G F Ab C

Here's a tip. Items from Zul'Gurub often go for a whole lot of money. What you can do is get a team of 5 people and go in there by yourself (you need a healer and 2 mages, preferably). Enter the instance, hug the right and go in the water. Kill any fish on your way, drop down the waterfall, and then swim around the shores of the instance killing the packs of crocodiles. The crocodiles are very weak (can be AOE'd) and have as much chance of dropping coins and bijous as any other mob. You can even try to make your way to the tiger area where there are like 40 non-elite mobs. On my server, you could sell coins for 10g each and bijous for 40-80g. Bijous have something like a 5% chance of dropping and coins about 20-25%. So it's really easy money.

Well.. my report; after planning out a song beforehand, it came out like crap anyway. I couldn't even force myself to keep going with it. No surprise there I guess. I couldn't even get the basic groove down right.

Just in general - they want to keep your business, so sometimes they'll bend the rules or go out of their way to do something nice for you.

Yeah, man; I LOVE Sweetwater. Those folks have some of the best customer service I've ever encountered. Very prompt shipping times too, and they're flexible on a lot of different things.

Don't forget the Fruity Granulizer! http://www.zirconstudios.com/fruity%20granulizer.mp3

Oh, I HATE writing actual notes on manuscript paper. Can't stand it. What I came up with today is was.. interesting. It's a bunch of boxes from left to right with different labels, like "Vinyl breakbeat mix (highpass/bandpass), "Light affected percussion", "Dropping sync/perc fx", "Rhythmic nonpitched chug syn", etc. I placed them from left to right to represent the time they come in in the song, and drew arrows to show where they went. I also wrote out a bunch of rhythms for the different parts. For the drum part for example, I wrote something like this | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | K (K) S (roll)sK S With | representing one 16th note, K = kick, S = snare, (roll) is a fill, lowercase s is a ghost note, (K) is done every other measure.. that kinda thing. For the guitar chug rhythm I did the same thing but put little dots over where I wanted the chugs to be. For the bass part I didn't really have any ideas for notes, so I did the same rhythm notation thing but moved the dots up or down depending on the general direction I wanted them to go. There are a FEW musical scribbles, but not traditional notes; I just wrote out "C" at the beginning of a 16th note ||| passage, then F# Bb OR EB depending on where I wanted the line to move. I got up to the main chorus, which is the word CHORUS in huge letters. Under it; "thick main drumline", "layered vinyl", "syn fx", "heavy crunch dist bassline". So uhh.. I have no idea if this is going to work or not. Again, I didn't really have any particular ideas in mind, just general feelings for sounds that I wanted. I tried to write them down. PriZm; interestingly, a lot of my songs are born from little things I've heard from other songs. For example, the main riff of "Hourglass". Go to a keyboard and play the plucked instrument melody that plays in Prodigy's "Mindfield" track from "Fat of the Land". F C Bb C Ab G Eb C, F C Bb C Ab G Eb C. Well, I was listening to that track and playing that riff on my keyboard, and I just got stuck on the Ab G Eb C F part - the second half of the riff plus the first note of the beginning. I played it over and over and that became the basis for Hourglass! The song "Endorphin" from the same album was inspired by "Over the Line" by The Crystal Method, "Acid Dominion" was an attempt at doing something like "Smack My Bitch Up" (hence the main distorted synth line) and so forth. I think it's always a good idea to look at songs and break down why they sound good. I do that a lot whenever I find a song I like. I'll load up a bunch of VSTs and just sort of play along first while listening to the song, then I'll actually pause the song and sequence some of the chords or the melody and look at how it's constructed. Unfortunately, this is not very helpful when writing the kind of electronic music I do, because a song like "Badass" by TCM or "Dig Your Own Hole" by The Chemical Brothers hardly have any notes at all, and what's there isn't very interesting. What makes the songs good is the simplicity of the riffs and the sound design. Were I writing trance it might be a different story.. I haven't really tried working in different time signatures, perhaps because out of all the electronica CDs I have, nothing is in anything else besides 4/4. Just recently, I wrote a final boss theme that was in 6/4 (I think) but whenever I try something like that for breakbeat or big beat it just ends up sounding stupid. Really stupid. If I had a bunch of examples of grooves in weird time signatures I'm sure I would be able to come up with something. Thanks for taking the time to respond.. some great advice in your posts, even if a lot of it is not working for me right now.