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zircon

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Posts posted by zircon

    VST, DirectX instruments and effects thread

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    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.

    Total lack of inspiration.

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    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

    World of Warcraft

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    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.

    Volume & Limiters, help...

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    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.

    Volume & Limiters, help...

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    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:

    compressor-limiter-grafiek-hard-soft-knee.jpg

    -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

    Total lack of inspiration.

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    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

    World of Warcraft

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    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.

    Total lack of inspiration.

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    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.

    MP3 hosting for Submission

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    Soundclick is one viable hosting option. Filefront and Rapidshare can also be used, as well as sites like Purevolume and Myspace. Some remixers have their own webspace, and others lend out their webspace to other remixers for temporary hosting.

    From our (the judges') perspective, we like something that is very easy to download. Honestly, don't worry about the copyright thing. Legally, this whole site stands on shaky ground to begin with, but it's harmless and no different from fanart or fanfiction.

    Total lack of inspiration.

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    That is an interesting point, but I don't think it's the case. I've probably said this several times in the thread, that while I work in a lot of different genres, electronic music gives me the most enjoyment. I have a lot of electronic music on my playlist that I still am fond of, and I usually pick up new songs every week.

    Sure, doing ethnic/orchestral songs is challenging, and I get some sense of satisfaction for making a soundtrack that really fits in a game, but what I really want to do is making totally original works in my favorite genre; electronica. I think that's all MOST musicians want to do, when it boils down to it :)

    Anyway, I spent about an hour today working out a plan for a song with pen and paper. I basically did the introduction of the song, outlined some rhythms, what kind of tones I wanted, and then a possible structure for the chorus. When I get home I'll work on putting it into action.

    Total lack of inspiration.

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    I know not everyone functions like this, but I can't just force myself to sit down and start writing music if I don't have any ideas to start with. The harder I try to force inspiration, the less I accomplish. Pressuring myself to be inspired has always been counter-productive 100% of the time.

    Don't worry too hard about it. It'll come back. It always does.

    EDIT:

    Well.. I spent pretty much my whole night so far on this track, and I came up with the following;

    http://www.zirconstudios.com/Mixdown.mp3

    Pretty generic chord progression, mixing's not too great, but more importantly I don't know what to do with it. I feel like this would be the ideal time to get vocals - unfortunately, I don't have any.

    If this is your idea of a slump, I really need to go buy your CD. :lol: This is a fine concept WIP. The melody carries some great emotional tones.

    Heh, thanks :) There's not a lot I can do with it without a vocalist but maybe I'll keep messing around and see what happens.

    It's just sort of a weird phenomenon. As I've said before, pretty much EVERY electronic song I've ever written was written on the spot. What you just described - that you said was 100% counterproductive - is how I wrote all of Impulse Prime and many other random standalone songs. I would sit down at my computer, say to myself "I want to make a good song", and just sort of go to work. My process now isn't any different, it's just not working!

    But some great advice has been given so far. I'm strongly considering picking up guitar as a few people have recommended, and as I may have already mentioned, I'm looking into getting a full-range keyboard so I can jam better in my dorm.

    What I am actually going to try over the next few days is to PLAN my songs out. Not necessarily with manuscript paper and pencil, but with some kind of a diagram or flow chart. I've never actually done this before, but I read a thread on futureproducers where a bunch of people doing the same type of music as me said it works really well for them.

    Official Mastering and Production thread

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    No, it's always bad. As in, if you have clipping, it won't even play back properly on some devices.

    There's a difference between that and distortion effects which simulate the effect, or recording the effect of the clipping and then compressing it to use in your song. But there is never any case where your actual waveform on the CD should exceed 0.0db.

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