zircon

Channel - Add - Fruity Soundfont Player, the same way you add any other plugin. Remember, though, it won't save in your projects. I would advise buying it, it's worth the small price.

Some soundfonts just don't have sounds for some key ranges. There's no real way to 'fix' that unless you manually edit the soundfont.. it will probably sound bad if you do. Also, you can tell if your SF player is a demo if it says "demo" when you add it as a plugin. Your problem is a bit different from the usual SF player demo problem (the channels getting deleted) though..

sfARK is a compression format, like sfpack. Thus, you need the sfARK utility to decompress them. Search for it on google, it's easy to find.

Download my drum packs at www.soundtempest.net, in the resources section. Included are all the classic drum sounds. What you want are 808 and 909 drum samples, basically, which are readily available almost anywhere.

.sfpack is a soundfont compression format. You need to download the sfpack utility to decompress them into .sf2 files. Think of it like zip or rar. Good piano samples? Search for "1-Giga Piano", that's one of my favorites. NS Piano, by Natural Studios (makers of NSKit, one of the most popular free drum kits) is another good one that's a little softer. You might also consider the steinway grand soundfont I have up at the SoundTempest resource section (http://www.soundtempest.net/). What's more important than the sample, though, is how you use it. For piano leads, you should try to humanize the velocity or even record the part with a MIDI controller if it's sounding too mechanical. The piano samples I mentioned are also dry, so room/hall reverb is a must. You might even consider applying compression or EQ to further sculpt the sound. It all depends on the context of the piano part.

Well, it might be just me, but when I use sfz and set the 'quality' to uber or uber++, I find, say, Squidfont to sound better than the fruity SF player. You could try comparing them side by side and see what you come up with. One big advantage the fruity SF player has, though, is that it doesn't give you memory errors like sfz will if you load big soundfonts, and it can do slides I'll post my thoughts on that issue in the other thread.

I'm very bored at work, so I thought I'd write out some VST/DX recommendations of mine. - Recommended free VSTs - * Superwave p8 (http://home.btconnect.com/christopherg/main.htm) - The ultimate free softsynth for dance music. This has a Prophet-ish sound coming from it's "Super Wave" function and massive detuning capabilities. It's CPU-heavy, a bit buggy, and not that flexible, but is superb for making any sort of dance/trance sounds. The presets are also great. * Crystal (http://www.greenoak.com/crystal/download.html) - A real beast of a softsynth. Crystal has more sound-mangling capability than any other free synth I've yet tried, putting it in a class of its own. It uses up massive CPU, is complicated to program, and is not good for simple VA (virtual analog) stuff, but for strange sounds, effects, and pads, this is your synth. * sfz (http://www.rgcaudio.com/sfz.htm) - a simple but effective soundfont player. I both love and hate this plugin; I love it because the sound quality is better than any other free soundfont player I've tried, and even better than FL's commercial player. But I hate it because it refuses to load large soundfonts if it thinks you don't have enough memory. Nonetheless, I would recommend no other free soundfont player over this one. * polyIblit (http://www.bostreammail.net/ers/polyiblit.html) - A surprisingly in-depth VA synth that's not too heavy on CPU. The presets are pretty "blah" in my opinion, but the synth is very flexible and is really all you need for relatively simple subtractive synthesis. * String Theory (http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/1074.html) - A "physical-modelling" softsynth that emulates string/plucked instruments. While it won't convince anyone if you use it to replace real string instruments, I find it can create a whole lot of unique pluck sounds that fit in much better than pluck sounds generated from normal subtractive synthesizers. Very cool. * Drumatic (http://www.e-phonic.com/vstplugins/drumatic.html) - A simple but effective drum machine that's very CPU efficient. Using 808 and 606-modelled sounds, you'll find a lot of potential uses for this synth in any type of electronic music. * Ganymed (http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/217.html) - A complex FM synthesizer that's a bit heavy on CPU. This synth has a set of rock-solid presets, all displaying the potential of the synth; from sharp, digital, sequenced patches to warm pluck sounds. This might be my favorite free synthesizer, and my second favorite FM synthesizer. * "Classic" effects series (http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/classic-series.php) - A set of excellent, CPU-efficient effects. All of them sound exceptional, better than most free effects I've seen. There aren't many presets for each, but what's there is good. If you're looking for a simple, core set of effects, look no further. - Recommended commercial VSTs - * Native Instruments Absynth 2, Pro-53, fm7(www.nativeinstruments.com) - Ok, I know I'm going to sound like an NI salesperson, but I absolutely LOVE these products, which range in price from $200 to $400. fm7 is an incredibly powerful FM synth modelled after the Yamaha DX7, Pro-53 is a near-flawless emulation of the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 (and is probably my favorite VA synth), and Absynth 2 is a modular synth capable of producing a range of sounds, excelling at ambient effects and pads. I use these synths *constantly*, and they're worth every penny. * rgc:audio z3ta+ (http://www.rgcaudio.com/z3ta%2B.htm) - One of the most powerful softsynths in existence, available for a mere 150 pounds (about $230 USD). It eats up CPU like crazy, but is capable of almost any type of synthesis you can imagine. The presets are very good, and the interface is slick and smooth. I believe AE is a big fan of this synth as well. If you're going to buy one synth to fit all your needs, this one is probably your best bet. * Cyanide 2 (can't seem to find a link for this.. where did it go?) - An excellent waveshaping distortion effect. This easy-to-use plugin, which combines waveshaping with EQ and filtering, can turn a mild synth sound into a screaming lead or rumbling bass in no time. There are very few presets, but they should give you a good idea of what the effect can do. CPU usage is not too bad, but grows when you make more complex waveforms for the distortion.

As much as I like this style, I fear I would trivialize it by making another remix in a similar fashion. I *was* working on a remix of a Secret of the Stars battle theme, using a more dramatic (and less whimsical) approach to my instrumentation, but I decided against it.

Link us up to your FF6 mix, man For an example of the detuned saw sound I'm talking about, like I said, check Breath of Fire Sad Melody on this site, by ffmusic_dj.

Actually, Rellik, I agree with you. I've tried making ultra-fat detuned saw synth leads with 3xosc, but I haven't gotten anything really good out of it. To date, the best detuned saw lead I've tried is the first preset in the Junatik ensemble which comes with Reaktor/Reaktor Session. Second would be fm7's "Trance Lead" preset. Both of these are very similar to the detuned saw instruments found in ffmusicdj's Breath of Fire - Sad Melody.

Are you insinuating something? He's insinuating ROFL, or that you're a fag. or both?

very cool stuff. From personal experience, I can tell you that it's very hard to make 'full' mixes like this one, and very hard to sequence guitars and solos in the kickass way Prot does. The whole mix is just amazing, with tons of energy and great synth/drum work. This is probably his best work, narrowly beating out KRool (which was also excellent).

Can't you use the Layer tool?

thanks, everyone getting on OCR was my motivation for getting into digital music, so this mix getting posted made me very happy. a big thanks to various wip and remixing forum people for helping me out with an assortment of issues that came up in the production of this. In case anyone is curious, I used the following tools for this remix: * FLStudio 4.5.2 for sequencing * Fruity soundfont player for all the orchestral instruments * Free drum samples, all of which can be downloaded at http://www.soundtempest.net/ in the resources section * z3ta+ for a few of the lead synths and harmony synths * Roland V-Synth (which I've now returned) for the 2nd chorus lead * 3xosc and String Theory for various other harmony synths * Free soundfonts for everything else, including Florestan Martellato Strings, Cadenza, Cadenza Strings, and Fluid R3 If I remember correctly, almost all effects were FL effects, with maybe a few mda ones - I don't quite remember. Finally, if anyone wants, I can send them the .flp for this, though I don't know how useful it would be to them.

As far as I am aware, Vanguard is a high-quality VA synth. I don't own it, but I've heard plenty of good things about it. Though it has some features that seem to be trance-oriented, I think it seems to be a good VA all-around, and could fit it one of many genres. The reason why it's popular for trance/dance etc. is because of the presets, which are particularly suited for those genres. However, if you're looking for a synth that would fit in a variety of genres and packs a lot of power, you might want to look elsewhere. Some synths you might consider are z3ta+, Rhino, and fm7.

What you can do though is record the VST playing as you're sending the MIDI out, take that audio, and add effects to that. Would that work for you?

I'm not sure what you mean. What kind of VST is this? Most VSTs simply generate sound through the fruity wrapper.. in fact, every VSTi I've used does that. However, regardless of what VST you're using, you definitely can't set any effects on a MIDI Out channel.

Disco Dan rules. He takes simple tunes from game soundtracks, a seemingly random assortment of instruments, and FLStudio and turns a repetitive chiptune into a magnum opus. Then he does it again. And again. And again. And each time, instead of getting tiresome and mundane, each song is just as good, if not better, than the last, never using the same idea twice. As shown by the driving dance/ethnic groove of this mix, the hauntingly beautiful Green Amnesia, or the techno-symphonic bliss of Triforce Majeure, Disco Dan not only kicks the metaphorical ass, but he consistently does it. On a more specific note, this is one of my favorite dance remixes on the site. I really never thought that a banjo, violin, and set of non-traditional percussive instruments could possibly combine with smooth synths, basses, and electronic percussion to form a dance song, but I was wrong in a big way. I don't have any problems with the mixing of this piece either, as I think if you're listening to something energy-filled and uptempo, you *should* be assaulted with a wall of sound. Finally, the arrangement is excellent, far better than the average 'four-on-the-floor' techno MIDI rips that are uncomfortably common. The original melodies and harmonies are still present, but Disco Dan's improv sections and breakdown in the middle are also well-implemented and clear. Speaking as a remixer who has tried this dozens of times, I can safely say it is NOT easy to create original sections or variations in a remix without disturbing the flow of the source material, and keeping the same mood and style. Major props to Dan here as well. What more is there to say? People often consider Disco Dan to be one of the best remixers on this site, if not the best: listening to this remix should tell you why.

Thanks, I'll try that.

No, you can't export to MP3. AIFF is not a compressed audio format, like MP3, but rather a lossless format used on Macs as a parallel to WAV. As far as I am aware, there is no significant difference between WAV and AIFF, though you would probably find slightly greater compatability using WAV files than AIFF files. As time goes on, that too will disappear with the continued development of multiple-format samplers and synths. It's better to only be able to export to WAV/AIFF anyway, since you have greater options. You could encode as an MP3 using any one of numerous encoders, or OGG, or FLAC, or AAC, or WMA, or whatever. My suggestion is pick up dbPowerAmp music converter and grab a bunch of plugins for it. If you know what you're doing, you can encode better-sounding MP3s with it than default encoding schemes of other audio programs like FL.

There's only one violin marcato patch, as far as I know, in Orkester anyway. I'll try distortion + compression though. thanks!

There is no clipping. I've listened to this with three different sound systems (mp3 player and two computers) with headphones, earplugs, and speakers, and I simply didn't hear any. It's probably you

I have a question; how can I make the Orkester marcato violins sound sharper? They sound sort of soft and warm, not edgy and bright like they should. Is there a particular way I should EQ or apply reverb to make them more substantial?

I was more thinking the FL effects, as FL treats its own plugins differently (ie. you can slide with FL plugins but not other plugins). You never know.

Hm.. that's very odd. It SHOULD open in a fruity wrapper. Did you try increasing your resolution to 1024x768? FL had problems with lower resolutions. Also, how are you adding the plugin? You should make a Fruity Wrapper channel, then find the plugin on the list, generally. I also have a rather basic question for FL users here: is the order in which you load effects in a mixer channel the order in which the effects are processed? Or is there a preset order (ie. all EQs come before all compressors which come before all reverbs)?