PriZm

Planning your songs sounds like a good idea. I've seen how Dream Theater write some of their songs, using basic ideas from other bands and completely modifying them, and writing their song structure based on these ideas. What I really like about this idea is that you can listen to a specific part in a song you can't stop listening to, and try to make your own interpretation. Obviously, in the end, the more different it sounds, the better; it's just meant as a starting point. One good example would be: 1) Intro, slow pads a la Shine on your Crazy Diamond 2) Fade in sad broken arpeggios, progression like Yngwie Malmsteen's Angel (something like this, I can't remember the title) 3) BAM! Entering heavy drum'n bass a la Pendulum 4) Sweet melody on the shakuhachi (a la FF6 Terra). 5) etc. Mixing genres, or instruments from other genres, can be really helpful too. Take a rock song, like something from Bon Jovi or F-Zero or Top Gear and try adapting it for koto or accordion, for example. They do some rock or sad songs in Naruto OST with koto/shamisen (I dunno) rock solos and it sounds really creative and original. Analyzing songs you love often helps too. Say there's a passage you like, you can analyze it and find out why it sounds so good in a more therotical way. That way, you can reproduce it in your music. Say you really like a passage in a melody because there's a third played over the root, then a second played over VII and a root played over VI (well that would not be very original), you can use it to base your melodies on that. Experimenting with odd time signatures also can help you augment your creativity, because it's something we don't hear often in mainstream music, especially electronica. Try to write a totally swinging drum groove in 7/8, that should inspire you. The reason why I'm telling you all that is in fact to develop your inner hear. Sitting in front of a computer makes the music a mostly 'visual' experience where you become to 'see' where the notes should be and at what moment. By simply jamming at random over a progression, you can make mistakes that actually sound cool, experiment with different scales and all that. Your ear and muscles control the music you make, and that makes the experience totally different, thus strengthening your creative possibilities. You might end up just making your bag-o-licks bigger, but that would already be a huge help. The way I see it, as I already told you, you have a signature sound (recognizable through both your sewer themes). I'd personally try to experiment over this kinda sound since it seems to be your forte, mixing evil-clown pizzicatos and dramatic strings with heavy and thick sounding electronic textures. Anyways, good luck

you need a DI box (direct in box). Plug your guitar in the DI box and the DI box into your soundcard. Guitar Rig 2 is pretty good amp, especially for clean and weird sound and it comes with a DI box if you buy it. Amplitube sounds awesome for heavy distorted sounds. I don't own any of those software amps, so my knowledge is based on what I've heard on the net (demo clips and user sounds). Another possibility would be to buy a hardware amp emulator like Line6 Pod and plug it directly into your soundcard.

well I didn't read the whole thread, so maybe some things I will say have already been said, but I'll tell y ou what works for me. 1) Randomly jam on live instruments (keyboards count) on chord progressions other artists have made. 2) when you jam, try changing patches if you're playing on a keyboard or changing from clean to distorted and playing the same thing on an electric. 3) The thing with live instruments is, whenever you learn to play someone else's song, you can tweak it as you want, change chord progression, change structure, change melody WITHOUT THINKING, just by jamming, and come up with a nearly unrecognizable song to call your own. 4) Furthermore, you can jam with people and improve dramatically that way. Until you are ready to learn to play (well) a live instrument, I'd suggest doing as many collabs as you can in your songs/remixes. That way, two people can help each other out when they're blocked in the song.

yo myf, check yo pms, I need a rapper

I'm not too sure about this, but I'll tell you what somebody once told me with a similar problem. The problem is the console is not designed to accept the signal directly from an amp, it's much too strong. The amp signal is designed for its cabinet. One simple way to solve this problem would be to mic your amp and send the mic signal to the console, or, if there's a headphone output on your amp, use that instead (although you would get a much crappier tone).

DON'T PANIC. Project will still kick major asses.

same here. i'm just waiting on PriZm to send me gweetar parts. then, i'll record my sax parts and have it done the next day. Pressure's on me Prophet: there are a couple of things I'd like to discuss regarding arrangement so I won't be recording guitars this weekend. I'll most likely spend the weekend recording Spc1st guitars and next week tweaking your song if that's alright.

good thing no one yet suspects that THERE IS NO project. It's all a hoax.

I did, I'm doing guitars for Spc1st and Prophet. Gonna start recording as soon as I get my new gear friday

fixed

Ditto. What can I say that I haven't said in the WIP forum. Kickass and admirable job, bro.

Good luck with the project and keep on rockin bros.

well I do have a 7-string

awesome. In the meantime, spread da luv.

maybe because of the 'stupid fag french' reference

Actually, the French translation given by this site 'faire face au sanctuaire' means 'to face the shrine' and not Face Shrine. Face Shrine would be 'Le Sanctuaire du Visage' or 'L'autel du Visage' or 'Le Temple du Visage'

Simply awesome. My favorite aspect would be the use of dynamics, exaggerated at some points to surprise the listener. Great shit.

awesomeness, of course

give it a French name, it always sounds serious/classical

hey how about Marin's Dream or Bubble on a Needle ? they are both quotes from the game if I remember correctly and Bubble on a Needle is quite cool.

Carbunkle, we desperately need more trance shit here... please hurry

mastering sucks

what's the timeline on this ? I might cook some d'n'b metal shit real fast when I'm done with Kyle's project....

hmmm I can't get a hold of most of the older WIPs

Oooh, a little French Canadian Vs. Those other Canadians animosity there, eh? oh no no. When we're talking hockey, it's not about the French Canadians. The most brutal rivality we had was against the Quebec Nordiques (RIP); so it's the Canadiens vs the World. And there's no such thing as animosity, it outright hatred btw, I just submitted a pre-WIP of Law, and Christian and I are currently working on it, I'll have a more complete shit by tomorrow.