Malcos

Does this help any? http://www.peff.com/journal/2007/04/22/rb-303-final-now-available/

Oh ok, let me try again then. First of all, the sound card will have it's own frequency response curve, which should be as flat as possible (depends on the card), otherwise that will colour things. Of course if you have a great soundcard, great monitors, but crappy cable, the cable will prevent most of the signal reaching the monitors, so again the sound would be coloured. If I didn't answer it properly this time, then oh well, you can't blame me for trying.

I'm not sure if this is the answer you're looking for, and I'm not the most technical person here by a long shot, but - good monitors let your hear the sound for what it really is. So if the digital to analogue conversion is not too good (depending on how good your soundboard is) then the monitors will let you hear that. If you have crappy monitors, you might not hear the difference between a creative live swag edition, an emu0404, and the best soundcard out there. Which means that your music will probably sound bad on any decent system. Good monitors play whatever goes in without colouring the sound much.

Damn you! Actually I never signed up, I couldn't handle having 4 and then having to go back to 3. Let us know what it's like!

You could do that, but that is a lot of effort, there are easier and more fun ways to do it.

I can hear what the remixer was going for here. However, it was the execution of it that is not so great. The bassline and other synths clash in terms of frequency ranges and so sounds very muddy and undefined, especially in the intro section. The drums, while sounding hot, at times push too hard and cause audible distortion, the kind when you push the drums too hard against a limiter. The drums are also 100% dry, sounds like there is not even a touch of small room reverb on them, which would help them sit in the mix a little better, even if they are the driving force. The arrangement was minimal, and the lack of texture and sparseness of the background didn't help things. The sound design was rather bland and didn't hold my interest. At 4.40, some very off-key super high notes emerge. For such a sparse texture, if the sounds had really been amazing it would have been different, but as it stands now, this needs more development. NO

The picccolo was very piercing indeed. The file has a rather blatant edit at 1.05 or something, I'm not quite sure but it seems to cut out then restart - if it was an edit, then it sounded very wrong. The guitar, like the piccolo, is at this very piercing frequency, much like an alarm peaks at the 1-4khz mark. The samples themselves are not too hot, and would need a lot of eq to make them sound good. The mp3 that I have cuts off at 5.20. This submission has several issues - production, sound quality and encoding, all of them combined being so great that it is impossible to go into issues of arrangement. I would recommend that the remixer keep listening actively to music, find some better sounding samples/sounds, and keep practising. NO

Yeah I've done yours already Another Soundscape lol. It's not meant to be hard! Just have fun with it, it's not going to be in a pro production, so do anything you like, even silly stuff. You're trying too hard to make it sound like the best thing ever. Or you could just leave it as it is and then transition it to something else completely...maybe I shouldn't have called it a 'competition', even though I did put it in quotes.

Reason 4! I'm still high from looking at the props' website! Anyways... You can check this out from my 'Not Comercial' album: www.malcos.co.uk/rns/Cold_reception.rns

Thor is a massive new synth in so many ways. The new sequencer looks EXCELLENT! Tempo automation? Yes! Now all we need is a clock lol.

This is a good mix. My only criticism is that I thought that the strings sounded somewhat too heavy and maybe should have been made thinner in order to sit a bit better in the busy mid section of the song. But I always have to crit something, so a minor point. This mix is definitely focused on bringing out the backing/counters etc rather than changing the main melody itself - and there is a lot going on there. A very well done, cohesive collab. YES

I like the arrangement and particularly the energy level here. The drums are particularly good. However, as the other judges have already said, the high mid frequencies are over emphasised. Perhaps the remixer wanted to make things sound as loud as possible - however, here it detracts from the overall impact somewhat, and the low end could do with a boost. It doesn't have to be this loud, you can sacrifice some volume for a more balanced sound. I'm with most of the panel in that I say this is a conditional pass, provided we get a better eq'ed version. YES(Conditional)

I've changed that 5 guideline, as long as when you email me, you let me know your forum name it's fine. Round 1 start! I didn't receive any other rns files other than from Another Soundscape, so he's in first. Let's see how this goes. 2 weeks, so that's July 2nd. If there's anything I haven't covered please let me know.

The energy level in the intro was building and so I wasn't expecting downtempo, which was a nice surprise, however I don't think that the drum sounds sat nicely in the mix. The mixing needs some more attention, as the sparse sound could have been filled out with good use of reverb and delays. The rearrangement level seems to be just changing the melody slightly, more original melodic ideas would make this a better submission. The ending is very sudden, I was getting drawn into the piano bit, but it just ended. This has a lot of potential, not bad by any means, however it needs some more work in terms of sound design, mixing and rearrangement. NO (Resub?)

Ok, I've done another edit, I think we can all be happy with what is there now. Send me your unfinished rns files! One per person please, try to send me your best unfinished song. I'll place it in the queue!

Well I'm not a bassist either lol. This is my first ever bass. To me, it has characteristics of a fretless bass, but because of the rubber silicone strings it has this other quality, that has been likened to a double bass. I would say it sounds a bit like both, but it really all depends on how you play it, you can get lots of different timbres out of this thing, depending on the tone controls and they way you play it. Anyway, at the moment I'm kind of rubbish with it. Like really rubbish! I'm out of tune half the time, playing strings I shouldn't by accident... I'll probably need at least 3 months with this before I even feel I can play one song.

Finally arrived yesterday. A bit smaller than I thought it would be, but it sounds good! It'll take a few weeks for the strings to stay in tune (I'm retuning every 5 minutes at the moment! But I'm happy with my purchase.

I personally feel that 2 weeks is too long, because we're not composing, just working with an already established, but undeveloped idea. However I would still like some more opinions on that, if a lot of people want 2 weeks then kool. Yeah I was leaning towards rns, because we are really sharing ideas here. V___, reading what you would want done with your rns, and what others want done with theirs, I think it's best, and more fun if we let whoever is subbing the rns to say what they want done with it, it's more varied that way. I think working with 2 files at a time would be a good idea, because 2 weeks is a long time for me, especially if someone just wants a few tweaks done to their rns file, or who has a kind of 'lets see how you mix this' request.

I like it! The drums sound solid, but at the same time sit nicely with the strings, which themselves have a very smooth texture, with the pad that's been layered over them. I'd definitely like the hear the final version with the vocals over this.

Ok, let me just pull everything together here into one post, or this is gonna be a very long thread lol. I'll just edit my first post and kinda put all the 'rules' together into that, and then we can just discuss as usual. Please comment on my edited post, let me know what you think of the guidelines and particularly the points for discussion. I'm sure we can get this under way by next Monday!

Production is quite good, although I think that the synths themselves need something to make them sound more interesting, some modulation or effects to add some variation as the song progresses. There is no ambient part as such to this, it has a club like vibe which is suggested by the kick drum. However, a lot more needs to be going on with the synths as I already said to add to that energy, because they are not very engaging at the moment. The main issue here is the arrangement. This is a tranced up version of the source, but there isn't anything really different here. No new chords or melodies. For this to be OCR quality, it would definitely need some original material added in. I think this needs to be reworked, it definitely has potential. NO (Good candidate for resubmission)

Oh Timbaland, how thou hath fallen from grace...He used to make great beats in the past, but I think that Aaliyah's death really messed with his head.

Fishy, of course you could submit a 2.5 rns for the source, the thing is you just wouldn't be able to see the changes that other have made to the file; the only way you would be able to hear them is if everyone rendered as mp3, which I would be happy to host. If you're ok with that, it's more then fine by me. AS, yeah, you can tweak/make whatever synths you want. Basically I'm just trying to accommodate everyone, so that no one says they can't play a particular file because they don't have the samples. Or I could say that if they are stand alone samples, then they should be imbedded in the file. If so, should there be a size limit? This is getting complex! Ok, if we use the SirNuts refill, then that is the only outside refill that can be used, otherwise this will just get tooooooo much. BTW, the conference was ok. I got a free t-shirt. Got a few tips, not that they were giving much away, but I learned more about routing. We got lectures from Peff, and James Bernard as well. I definitely have to get Peff's book, 'Power tools for Reason 3'. That Peff guy knows his shit!

Ok well, 4 or 5 people is more than enough to start this off! Hosting isn't a prob, I've got space that we can use from my web site, so you guys could just email me the rsn files, they would only be small anyway. Yeah Fishy, sorry this is Reason 3 only, it a shame that the files are not backwards compatible in some way. Hy Bound, you were first, so I guess we can use one of your unfinished files? I'm sure we all have unfinished rsn files floating around in our folders! We can start this on Monday if everyone will be ready. I'll edit the first post and put up some guidelines, including the use of only the Reason default bank and the orkester samples, as any synths/synth combis are not dependant on soundbanks. Electromechanical as well? I'm sure most of us will have that refill too? Anyways I have to get ready for the Propellerheads producers conference thingy, it's coming to London this evening! I'll prob start another thread about it tomorrow.

The Prokeys 88 does have all that, well not the large soundbank but still it's pretty good. I have the sx version of this, which is semi-weighted, because I didn't want to be playing synths/drums with full action. I can't remember what the Prokeys sounds like lol, but the action is good. You've certainly done your research! I hope you find the right one for you.