zircon

If you just want a MIDI controller, that could be a good choice. You would have to compare it to Edirol, M-Audio, Studiologic (etc) keyboards to see exactly which one you like more. They all have similar features. Not sure what you mean here. Could you be a little more clear? Again, not sure what you mean by "cut stuff off when you go back to look at it". But no, perfect timing is not essential. You can always quantize or manually edit the notes later. Don't upgrade to an Audigy! If you want a good soundcard for CREATING music, you want something like an EMU 0404. Not a bad machine. This however is not much of an upgrade. In terms of creating music, you want lots and lots of storage space and RAM. If you are planning on building a new computer (something that you really don't have to do given your current specs) I would max it out at 2GB RAM and the best processor you can find.

I'd give anything to be in your position. At least you have the song in your head. That just means it's a matter of practice - transferring the ideas you have on to paper or into your sequencer. That's the easy part. But there's nothing you can do when you don't have any ideas to begin with.

I appreciate your suggestions, however.. Unfortunately I have no other creative talents. Out of maybe 40-50 songs I've written (counting video game soundtracks) I've had an idea for them beforehand maybe.. 5% of the time. I almost NEVER have song ideas. All of Impulse Prime was written on the spot. I stared at my blank FL6 screen until I was inspired to write something. It's extremely rare that I think of a melody or chord progression in my head, and even more rare that it sounds good. Since my last original song I've done about six or seven songs in totally different styles (remixes, game soundtrack, music for radio) However I don't get a lot of enjoyment out of them because I don't enjoy those genres as much. This is not a bad idea but I wouldn't even know where to start without having some sort of direction given to me. I do this on a regular basis.. I have probably hundreds upon hundreds of dead projects, many of which are me ripping off some big name artists. I've obsessive when it comes to that kind of thing and I've gotten down a lot of the styles perfectly. I don't release these clips of course because there's no point.. I didn't write them. Again, thank you. Arguably this is something I've had for over 8 months now. The one original electronic song I was able to write (Throwdown) was sort of a one-of-a-kind thing and a fluke more than anything else. I have absolutely not been able to do anything since and I have been feeling steadily worse about it. I have also tried forcing myself to complete a song but it hasn't worked. All I have are lots of ultra-crappy WIPs to show for it. They go straight to the recycle bin.

I only get hiss with my UB502/802 when I turn up the volume very loud. At normal listening levels (the master volume and phones knobs at about 9:00) I hear absolutely no noise at all.

I am at my wit's end. I have literally gone for months without being able to write an original song from scratch (not counting songs I've done for a soundtrack, which I do not count). I have a veritable graveyard of over 20-25 project files of failed songs and WIPs. The last song I wrote was a short original around December and before that the last thing I did was my 2nd CD, which was finished in June. I've tried everything. I've tried taking a break, listening to different kinds of music, playing around on my keyboard, studying theory, taking walks and looking at the scenery, etc.. NOTHING WORKS. It feels like I'm just incapable of creating any new music at all, as if I already reached my peak and am now already at the bottom. It's the worst feeling in the world. Does anyone - preferably, someone who writes electronic music in the same kind of style that I do - have any suggestions for remedying this situation? I think I'm going to go insane if I have to spend another day twiddling my thumbs and messing around on my keyboard because I have no song ideas..

They're recorded dry. With the proper reverb, use of the expression controller (modwheel/cc1), and perhaps a little EQ, you can get some good results.

Yeah. It's kind of dumb. I usually don't quite go to 0db either, actually, but SLIGHTLY less just in case.

I agree that the organ is far too muddy at the beginning. You should work on reducing the texture there, especially when the strings come in, as right now it's too dense and dark (in a non-musical way). I can't tell exactly what reverb you're using (kinda sounds like GlaceVerb) but regardless it is a little too resonant and spacious, further adding to the mud you have going on. I would cut back on it a bit. Basically the lows and low-mids are just completely swamped all the way up until 1:36. Speaking of 1:36 the piano sample here is really not very good.. I would pick up NSPiano or perhaps the Clavinova Piano and use either of those instead. Don't forget to boost the high frequencies as the current piano is a bit dull. The mixing could use some work. While I didn't hear any clipping I think the whole thing was compressed and limited too much, especially in the sections with swells and crashes. Reduce the volume of everything first and try not to squash things so much. Overall I'm not really feeling the arrangement either, unfortunately. There are some very basic interpretive ideas but definitely not enough for this to pass our bar. Basically what you have here is more of a re-instrumentation than anything else. You need to expand more on the ideas presented in the original theme or add your own. In addition, you should try to give your song structure some kind of direction. Because the texture and dynamics are the same throughout, you can skip to any part of the song and it pretty much sounds the same. That's something you want to avoid. Either through changes in your instruments, rhythm, tempo, key, or whatever, you want things to be moving over the course of the song. It's a hard concept to explain but I suggest you simply keep practicing and listening to good music and you'll hear what I mean. Keep at it and don't forget to make use of the ReMixing forum for any technical questions you may have. NO

For the third time, the best way to communicate an effect you're going for is to simply load up a song that has the effect you're going for, edit out the section you want to show off, and upload that clip. It's really VERY VERY simple. For example.. Downtempo, "phat" acoustic/electronic drum sequencing; http://soundtempest.net/example1.mp3 (The Crystal Method - Over the Line) Electronic drums w/ pwm/sync bassline.. very 'techy' sound; http://soundtempest.net/example2.mp3 (The Crystal Method - High and Low) Huge synth bass with phat electronic and acoustic drums; http://zirconstudios.com/example3.mp3 (The Crystal Method - PHD) "Chemical" type breakbeat, with very tight processed acoustic drums; http://zirconstudios.com/example5.mp3 (The Crystal Method - Comin' Back) Massive, hugely saturated and compressed drums.. very 'in your face'; http://zirconstudios.com/example6.mp3 (The Crystal Method - Name of the Game)

I guess we'll just have to disagree there. I find this kind of drum style to be stupid, uncreative, and dull. I was hoping Rexy would cite something like "Roll It Up", "PHD", "Ten Miles Back", "Poison", or "Narayan".

Well.. two things; 1. If we're analyzing THIS particular MP3 example, then yes, simple distortion and bit reduction was used. It's very clear to me. 2. Though it's difficult (if not impossible) to come up with an objective definition of "dark drums", I don't think I would characterize warm fuzz as being part of that.

This isn't amp simulation, it's basic distortion.. and you can hear the effects of the bit reduction in the decay of the reverb in between the drum hits (the "grainy" quality).

These are really stupid drums, in my opinion, and I have no idea why you would want to make something like them (they're also much different from typical TCM, Prodigy, or TCB material). However, that being said; It's a Roland TR-909 kick and what sounds like an 808 or 909 handclap or similar electronic snare/claps. They are both being distorted heavily with standard waveshaping distortion, as well as samplerate and bitrate degradation (I estimate somewhere around 8-12 bits and 22khz). Both delay (low feedback) and reverb (metallic) are being applied. As the clip progresses, the samples are pitched down further and additional bit degradation is applied. At :09 they are pitched much higher. Finally, heavy compression (low threshold, high gain, high ratio) is on the whole thing. It is conceivable that the distortion and bit reduction were applied on the entire loop before the compression, rather than to the individual samples. I'm not sure, but the effect is similar.

I have pretty much every CD from all three artists you listed, but I wouldn't characterize their drums as "dark" at all. Can you please provide an MP3 example with a specific time of the exact effect you're referring to? I guarantee I can help you if you can do that.

As always, this kind of question is nearly impossible to answer without reference MP3s of the effect you're going for.

Strange. No, it wasn't on sale.. I guess East/West forced them to raise the price. Brilliant marketing

Yep, Gray is right here. In this soundtrack I've been working on recently, one level takes place in a big South American temple. Lots of reverb on numerous tracks was crucial to creating a spacious atmosphere.

Some tips: 1. Use two or even three tanks. Have the offtanks build up aggro using just about every ability they have, but not quite all of them. This lets them stay high on the aggro meter. When the MT gets 4 or 5 debuffs, have him stop doing anything (except Shield Block) while one offtank begins taunting, sundering, and otherwise going all out. Keep this rotation going throughout the fight. 2. Have people spread out in a circle around the boss so at most only one or two people get hit with the sandtrap - not that they should anyway, since you can see it coming and avoid it with ease.

Well, that's extreme compression and limiting - reducing a normally large dynamic range to virtually 0 and then maxing the whole thing out at around 0db. It's difficult to do that without actively TRYING to so I wouldn't worry about it. I don't think this is the case. We rarely make a big deal out of compression, in fact more often than not I would say it isn't used ENOUGH. I have an FL mixer preset called "SimpleMaster" that I created for Impulse Prime. I use it in all my projects to date. The compressor is set to a 12.4ms attack, 702.7ms release, 2.47 ratio, .7db stereo enhance, -15db input drive, and 12db output. The eq is a little boost of 1 or 2 db in the very low and very high frequencies. The limiter is set to boost the lows slightly (again), release time of 200ms, 2db input drive, -.2db output. I compress a lot of my tracks besides the master. Bassdrums, snares, leads, harmony synths.. etc

www.scitscat.com

Something that's a bit ironic; there are a fair amount of soundfonts out there actually based on the same samples that Edirol HQ Orchestral is. For example, the "Florestan martellato" soundfont.

Not to nitpick but as I wrote above, you can get Silver for about $120-$125 now.

Well.. yes, it can do the same thing, but do you really want to have to bounce out individual tracks every time you want to use the program? The plugin just mkes infinitely more sense.

Actually, QLSO silver has far less instruments than HQ Orchestral. The quality is higher, of course, but Silver doesn't even have a full string section sample . And it's not like one is bad and one isn't, they're both far above the quality of your average free soundfont. Anyway, I've gotten satisfactory results out of both HQ Orchestral and QLSO Silver, however the sample quality in QLSO is much higher. I have not used GPO, though. So Edirol gets points for having a boatload more instruments than QLSO Silver, but Silver beats that out with a very high quality. Keep that in mind when shopping around. I never said QLSO had "more instruments", I said it had "more samples" - eg. more samples PER instrument.

Actually, there IS a standalone version of TRacks that can't be used as a plugin.. but obviously, you'd get way more usage out of the plugin version.