SnappleMan

Oh, wrong monitors... I had a huge stereo flame ready

Gain is not as important as master volume. If you want a very defined, chunky and heavy distorted tone turn the gain up to no more than 6 or 7. The more gain you have, the less definition and more muddiness you get from the amp. In most cases, low EQ gives your tone more body, mid EQ gives it more definition and high EQ gives it a presance. A good way to find great tone is to set every knob to 5, then play with each knob individually until you learn what it really does to the sound. Once you learn everything about how your amp responds you'll be able to dial in your tone like a pro. Main thing is to treat your amp like another instrument, not as just a speaker for your guitar. And good luck!

Eh, I wouldn't go with the thud/warmth/attack way of thinking because it varies from amp to amp. The relationship between the frequency response and the aural property it creates is dependant on the design of the amps circuit. Guitar tone is very simple to understand, the main factor is the amp, it's the only thing that colors the sound enough so it has character of its own. Guitar pickups are only responsible for which frequencies they translate to the amp, and the amp itself has controls which can compensate for the pickups. The secondary factor in your tone is the wood your guitar is made out of and the design of the guitar. You have to look at it in terms of tone loss from the strings to the pickups. The three main types of guitar design are bolted guitars, glue set guitars and neck through the body guitars. The main factor in your tone is not the body of the guitar, but the neck-to-body relationship. A bolted guitar has direct wood to wood contact at the neck joint, so there's a lower loss of resonance between the body and neck. A set neck guitar is glued together at the neck joint, the glue acts as a block for the resonance between the neck and body, the most loss of the three. A neck through guitar has a neck that goes all the way though the body of the guitar, the bridge and pickups are all mounted directly to the neck, this gives you no loss of resonance. But resonance is a broad term and I'm not sure I'm using it right. What I mean when I say resonance is the translation of the woods own tonal properties through the guitar. Now, don't go thinking that since it has the most consistent resonance, a neck through guitar gives the best tones, because that's all dependant on another factor -- the wood. Lets take the case of the most common woods -- maple neck and alder body. Maple is a very dense wood, which in turn will produce a very bright tone, coupled with a alder, which is not as dense but gives a medium tone, will give you different results depending on the guitar design. On a bolt on guitar, you'll get a very nice balance of the two because the slight stop at the neck joint will damp out some of the brightness. This is why most Strats are made out of these woods, they work well together. On a set neck guitar you'll rarely see this combination because the glue kills the relationship between them, doesn't sound very good. Warmer tone woods like Mahogany are usually used for set neck guitars and yeild very warm and full results (like Les Pauls). On a neck through guitar, this combination gives you a very bright, defined tone. Some companies that pioneered the neck through design (like Jackson and B.C.Rich) are now almost exclusively hard rock/metal guitar manufacturers. This combination is also a "standard" with a neck through guitar, but it's common practice to have a neck through guitar made out of mahogany or walnut. Since this guitar's tone is almost completely dependant on the neck wood, a warmer body wood is needed to counterbalance the brightness of a maple neck. A good combination for this is maple + ash. What's the point of all this? Well depending on the guitar type you have, the wood it's made out of and the frequency range of your pickups (if you dont know the range of your pickups then you are probably using stock crap which you should change) you can carefully craft any guitar tone you want considering you have a decent amplifier. Granted, it's possible to get any tone out of any guitar depending on the amp you use, but it's considerably easier when using a guitar made to generate the frequencies that make up that tone. And yes, I did use two long dashes in one paragraph, eat it.

Just because every studio has PT does not mean it's still the best around. Most engineering courses taught in universities today use only PT, most engineers are too stubborn and scared to try something new, most people shell out $5000 for a Les Paul because they believe that they have to be using one. Pro Tools went from being the trend setter in DAW innovation, till everyone else caught up. Now it's struggling to keep up.

"Top dawg" was top dawg many years ago when there were no other options. ProTools is not good at all compared to most other professional DAWs on the market. Sonar may be $500, but it's completely beyond what Pro Tools LE can give you, and for $80 more you can get a great audio interface and not have to spend that extra $100 on a VST wrapper for ProTools, WHICH by the way, doesn't always work properly, especially with newer VSTs. That package is not a very good deal when you consider that you're getting a nearly useless stripped down version of already bad software. My projects take at least 30-40 tracks. You can get Cubase SX for around $500, and in my opinion, that right there is better than any other DAW on the market.

I've been found out!! PLAY IT MAN! PLAY IT!!

Well, Sixto seems to really love Pro Tools, and his music rocks, so it must be good software.

I would have taken that seriously had you not defended your previously wrong "on the internet" point. You lose. God I hate fat chicks.

Apples and oranges indeed. Though I've never used Logic, and according to everyone who has, it's LEIK OMGGG GR8! So yeah.

You're still immensely wrong. There are countless games that have gigantic MIDI archives on Japanese websites which will never be listed on VGMusic. The internet covers more than the USA, you should use the "Languages" search in Google before making such an incredibly wrong statement.

In terms of overall MIDI functionality, Sonar is the best. In terms of sequencing, I prefer Cubase. It has an infinately better drum sequencing system and it's faster and more easier with normal piano roll type stuff. Cubase hates using my windows GM wavetable. So when I want to make a GM midi, I'm stuck with Sonar.

....You're not only wrong, but extremely narrowminded if you think that is every SNES song ever. Dumbass.

Well, I've never really read much of your posts, I was just taking a wild guess.

I'm not saying I don't believe you. I'm saying that I don't think his processor's speed is the problem. Maybe the RAM isn't his problem, but since my 1.7 GHz can run 10 samples with Garage Band, I can't imagine that the processing speed is the problem, considering his is twice as fast as mine. ARRRRGH! I am SICK AND TIRED of seeing this crap.... He didn't specify if he was on Mac or PC. Also, you aren't specifying whether you are using a powerpc mac or a macinteltosh (though based on your clock speed, I'm assuming the latter). That matters A TON in terms of CPU clock speed. It's called the Megahertz Myth, and you can thank intel for it for advertising clock spped primarilly as their benchmark. PowerPCs perform A LOT differently at lower clock speeds than pentiums. PowerPC chips run at lower clock speeds than pentiums for the same performance, though their performance celing turned out to be significantly lower than the pentium's, hence Apple's switch. As the previous poster said, that comparison could potentially be apples to oranges. Clock speed only matters if they are the same specific archetecture. For instance: Athlons are x86, but they historically performed better at lower clock speeds than pentiums. Even that slight difference nullified clock speed as a speed comparison. Do you make music at all? Or do you spend your time trolling this forum giving bad advice and bitching about shit nobody cares about? Take it from a fellow troll, nobody likes it

Also, using reverb, nomatter the settings, will make ANY snare drum sound like a cat exploding from a firecracker shoved up its ass.

"Buy" Sonar, Cubase, Nuendo, or Pro Tools. I don't know what you have against amp sims, but I would suggest you get your hands on Guitar Rig, it'll sound better than any reasonably priced amp you can buy, and you wont have to deal with setting up a decent room, getting a decent mic, or any of that garbage. Get a good audio interface, using onboard, or anything but pro or semi-pro shit is not a good idea. Also, get used to MIDI, get used to complaining about lack of RAM, lack of CPU, lack of inspiration, lack if time to work. But yeah, getting a real amp to record music with will cost you at least $500, unless you want people to endlessly whine about your bad tone. Try Guitar Rig (after you get a good audio interface), you'll be glad you did. But yeah, if you need some REAL help about this, you can hit me up on AIM at SNKFreak, I'll break things down for you and offer what little I know to help you out.

To get a guitar to feedback, just walk up to your amp with the gain turned up.

Okay, this is the final post in this thread. I am locking this thread now, since there is no further need for discussing this project. I will not be EQing any tracks, that's like repaiting a face on someones painting. Some volume will be adjusted, but other than that there will be NO altering of the tracks. The idiots arguing over releases and being impatient assholes have caused me to have to lock this thread. Logically, there's nothing left to do here but argue over release details and other bullshit which don't concern anyone but me. I will open a Project Comments and Feedback thread when I release it. Till then, you gotta find something else to bitch about.

Good sir, by spanky I mean nothing more than a friendly gesture of friendliness or something... I will counter your emoticon with ....

Haha, I hope Subz realizes that I'm just messin around this is a fun lovin' thread, once in a while I like to act like an ass Anyway, I hope there's no hard feelings, Subz!

I don't know if any of this is covered by the FL sticky topics up there which you should have read, but your first problem sounds like it's a case of you using instruments that aren't supported by general MIDI. When you export your track to MIDI it's no longer using the soundbanks and synths that you were using in FL, you've exported just the MIDI data from the track. Unless you configured your MIDI tracks to use standard GM banks and patches in FL, it'll all be in piano when you export it. I hate being the new asshole around here now that Compy is MIA, but you really should learn about what you're using before you get into it. How do you expect to get anywhere if you don't even realise the difference between using an FL synth and a GM patch?

Working on music in a Windows environment is risky enough as is. No way in hell I'm gonna "try" bootleg 3rd party software on what's already an unstable platform to begin with. I tried an earlier version of ASIO4all when I used my SBlive, it fucked up my sound drivers and caused me to have to uninstall the hardware and do a full reinstallation. I made the mistake of recommending ASIO4all to a friend of mine a while ago and he was forced to format his system. My reasons for disliking that horrible software are just as valid as your reasons for supporting it. Chew on that, spanky!

Well, since OCR 1500 is taking longer than expected, it looks like the project release will have to wait for a bit longer. This gives me time to get back home to NYC and listen to all the songs in peace and quiet, make sure everything is cool. With the lack of vacation-type activities I'll be able to revise all the release data and all that and syncronize with everyone involved so the release can be as smooth as possible. I still haven't gotten word from DJP about the 3 songs I'm asking to have posted on OCR, so I'm guessing he'd be too busy to worry about a project release at this time anyway.

Oh, I see, it's "Let's all hate SnappleMan" time Fine

People who know me well enough know that I support the idea of doing what you have to to get your music to sound how you want it to sound. Which is why people getting upset over my criticism of FL is stupid. As long as it makes you happy what does it matter if some fatass on the internet talks shit about it? You don't think I hear the "Guitar Rig sux cuz it aint REAL amp" argument from old people? You think that bothers me? I look forward to reading someones complaints about what I use, that way I might notice that a problem I've been overlooking, or not taking seriously because I might have thought that it's inheriet in all software. Chillax, OCR.