Xelebes

The treble, agreed is high. By at least +3dB than it should be. The problems begin about 1.5 kHz and above. It's really shrill, way too bright. This is coming from someone who can't stand Judge Jules' high leads. For the content, it's actually pretty good, I'm loving those pads. The lead is ok, if the treble was dealt with and the bass is pretty good. Composition-wise, I dunno, I have never listened to the original but I'm gonna say it is cool..

Try Tape it

Right now, I'm starting to build granular oscillator samples for the 3Osc using SoundForge to extract these waveforms. Right now they are turning out interesting. I'll try and get my piano recorded for the 3Osc. (It might suck, but at least it will give interesting results.

I've heard the best software to do live things with is Ableton's Live. Don't ask me as I have not tried it, but I do hear it is quite better to do what you want to do. AS to have two midi controllers going at once, unless you have the USB 2x2 (which I think can recieve two USB/MIDI sources) there is no way. As for the shortcuts, unlike ReBirth which I know you can control the patterns by the QWERTY keyboard, the best bet is to try and use a tertiary midi device to control this.

Yes.

Left bar is left channel, right bar is right channel.

Experiment with heavy compression.

It is recommended you pan before the compression. I was just giving an example. Something that would mean a lot more is an overdrive.

If you're using light compression, the distortion is nearly non-existent, it just effects the balance you have when you are mixing it with other sources that have different pan sources.

Pan after the compression.

Ok (let's say 50:50 is balanced Channel pan is at 60:40 Piano Roll is at 60:40 -> 70:30 Say you use a compressor, the compression is gonna sound different from either side as the compressor distorts the sound of the left channel more than the right channel. Now the mixer pan will pan it more which ever way.

That knob is the very last of the chain, affecting the fx processes you even put there.

Answer yoshi is... Channel pan - Sets the general starting pan of the instrument Piano roll's pan - sets the pan for each note you make Stereo FX - change the pan by the process you give it.

Thanks for the tips. Not sure if this is essentially what compression does, but I'll look into adjusting the dB peaks and see what happends. Louder may not be better, but sometimes people have speakers/earphones that can only go so loud - so it's nice to get the music as close to the peak as possible when going out for a jog with your walkman on or something; so you can experience the full effect of the song when desired. There are people who like their music, and then there are people who like their music A LOT. You're obviously just somebody who just likes his music. Clipping can make the piece actually sound lo-fi. Unless the clipping occurs in less than 40 ms (when maximising sound through a compressor), clipping at all is discouraged because it degrades the piece's quality.

Compression is used to even out tracks volume wise, and if you apply it too heavily, it will start pumping the music. I made this mistake when using it all the time. Heavy compression is a form of distortion and use it sparingly for certain effects. Moderate compression is advised when it comes to drum tracks and incredibly loud sources. Light compression is useful for just about everything else, except on orchestral pieces as the compressor does eliminate the dynamic range of the piece. Also, I might wanna raise the point that louder does not mean better, it just appears better. Having it louder will just make it obnoxious over time, and probably one of the biggest reasons why people tire themselves out of hard trance and such. Remember to have peaks in your sound but not too prominent or you can actually record a piece at -1.5 dB as being the highest peak and it will actually sound a lot cleaner.

It was lacking brightness, having the sense that it was muffled to the point that I was listening to a speaker with a pillow overtop of it. It was distracting and disheartening. For me, the piece was a bit a superfluous in its phrases (I too have yet to overcome this problem when I write my music.) What I mean, is that the syn brass you use is too relentless, you have to break down the melody into it's phrases. Melodies these long are composed of phrases so that one can follow the song more easily. The backup was okay, the start was a little slow... kinda wanting me to say a little bit of "hurry up, come on/" The thunder and the rain sound a bit gimmicky, just like the crowd applause you hear in hard house tracks which most of the djs never forget to put it in. (The hardest part of making hard house is actually applying the crowd cheering and applause in the track, believe it or not.) -Edit: The syn-brass is not too annoying or superfluous, it just appeared that way when I first listened to the song. Though, there is something bugging me about it. I know it is bugging me.

You can use the quantizing function in the piano roll.

The shuffle function in the step sequencer window. Though, it only shuffles the 16th beat, which is only good for swing hounse but not great for actual swing since the swing is on the eighth note, not on the sixteenth note.

Use the granulizer to actually slow down a sample, though it actually makes the sample sound like it's going through a meat grinder. Or you could use the Fruity Slicer to slow down drum loops.

On the net. Google Organ VSTi or check out www.kvr-vst.com for some organ vstis.

Yeah... probably. You just gotta keep experimenting with timing, playing with the organ settings (assuming your using a VSTi for the organ.) I haven't listen to the song... but I'm gonna make a better response. Edit - And... Add some reverb and some eq to get it that dark feeling.

Xelebes, that only works if you're crescendoing from note to note. If you want single, sustained note to crescendo, I knew that. If he wants a growing note, he would probably called for a tenuto or a volume fade-in or out.

For "slurring", use slides mentioned in your manual. For crescendos and decrescendos, go into the piano roll (assuming you are dealing with MIDI data here) and you'll see two things. One for the notes length and pitch (bars going horizontally) and velocity (bars going going vertically). Velocity = volume of which the key is played. As you might infer, the x axis is time and y axis is volume. I'm sure you can guess the rest of the work.

Yeah... I've only used that on drums though... don't use it for melodic purposes for some reason.

I tried that method and felt sick to the stomach. I prefer that 5.16*10^24 click method over that one... and even then I don't revert to that method. I use sheetmusic software for the very purpose of implementing 32nd and 64th notes. Edit - some people don't have the fortune of recording their music input. Like I, after my soundcard for some reason just stopped accepting the drivers for my MIDI controller and there is nothing I can do. (Even using an uninstaller in safe mode.)