Nase

however easy you think it's to learn, a matrix looks very daunting to most noobs. imo, give em a synth with a firmly predefined structure to learn the basics. when i was a noob, i enjoyed just randomly tweaking knobs and seeing what happened. just doing that was enough to make me understand the bare basics of synthesis, and i didn't even notice at the time. that definitely doesn't work as well with a mod matrix, so i'd leave it to intermediate synthesists. some people have the attention span and determination to delve into more complex stuff right away, but on average a playful approach works best imo. /Synth1 +1 or WaspXT, or TAL-Elek7ro, or MinimogueVA or whichever of the 257 good sounding, simple, free synths floats your boat.

Bringing the Loudness War debate into this thread is pretty pointless without having listened to the tune in question.

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/kontakt-4/?content=936 should go without saying that you can't expect to have it sound that way without knowing the library well and careful sequencing. still, trust me, it's decent content. not everything in there is awesome, but that's pretty much never the case with all rounder packages.

i got ST2 XL through a group buy for ~$100. that was definitely worth it. at full price, not so sure. Kontakt would give you more value for the money imo. I really only mentioned Sampletank because it'll run on pretty much any PC. it's still useful and has some character of its own, but has been surpassed by other software.

it doesn't expire, you just can't save iirc. so, good for checking out the workflow, not so good for making tunes.

When listening to his album 'Alphabet Planet', i recognised like half of the patches, and later i found an interview with pics where he had sampletank open on what looked like an oldish PC (tube monitor). I can imagine he used Sampletank for the hentai stuff as well. those slightly cheesy workstation sounds probably are a perfect match with the genre The thing is, of course: it's still Kikuta, no matter what he uses. If you're an able composer/tinkerer, you'll be able to coerce your plugin into sounding good, whatever it is.

Listening to your youtube uploads, I thought i'd add that even a <$500 laptop with FL and a last gen all around rompler like Sampletank can offer sound quality lightyears beyond what you're currently using. On a sidenote, ST is what Hiroki Kikuta (Secret of Mana) has been using for the last couple years. Evidently, not all game music requires incredibly realistic fake orchestras. If you're really sure you want meticulously sampled instruments aiming to capture every nuance of the original (and sometimes consisting of gigabytes of samples PER instrument), then sure, get NI Kontakt +3rd party libraries or the EastWest stuff, plus a high end laptop that can manage the software. Be aware though that using these libraries can be a science in itself. all the articulations, keyswitches and whatever can become overwhelming. Judging from what you've been working with so far, i think you should be careful not to go overboard with buying software that, while being excellent, might just steer you away from making music for a good while. That said, Kontakt + a decent amount of RAM would still be an excellent choice. Kontakt has a pretty comprehensive stock library which, while not mindboggingly complex, should be fun to explore for a music software noob. Beyond that, there's a huge amount of 3rd party content if the stock stuff doesn't cut it anymore at some point. If you want to use synths, freeware is your friend for starters. You can get commercial ones later on if you become dissatisfied with the free stuff. any quadcore and 4+gbRAM would be plenty for that setup. I'd rather direct a good portion of your budget towards decent speakers and possibly an audio interface.

if you're perfectly happy with the audio quality and dynamics of the piece as it is, i see no reason to make it quieter. if people want to listen to it while having other stuff go through the audio output, i'd say it's their job to adjust the respective volume levels if it clips. i'd say louder definitely is better if the sound quality doesn't suffer at all. unless you specifically want a song's volume to be subdued.

i had my PS2 replaced 2 times within the first week. the first one's video output didnt work, the second one couldn't read any DVD iirc. the 3rd one is like a rock. 8 years of usage, no issues at all. It's mostly a tekken station these days, but i'll eventually get around to playing the persona series and some other reportedly brilliant stuff i've held out on.

/ot hey txai, your english got really good! it's kind of a shame because your posts were very entertaining back in the day.

I am Daknit, Bard of Tarot.

I wouldn't know haha. The only thing in here that's consciously stolen from something other than Secret of Mana are the horns at 1:41-1:51. they're a (pretty lame) variation of that awesome breakdown in MJ's 'Jam', right before the rap section.

Camille! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lObVFcyW2iM

Polysics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9aL7tQhnwI

bahamut...i encourage you to watch the replay of that game where i was engi. due to lack of a mic i can't defend myself well ingame. some things to pay attention to: magmus, my lane partner, early game. the way shaman and scout worked together. then, in particular, that point where you did your hb ult, died, and accused me of not landing a stun, saying i had a time frame. somehow, 25 minutes in, the consensus was that i made us lose, partly because i didn't buy wards AND dust early on. as if i was the only support hero in that game. I certainly didn't play well at all (ping didn't help), but didn't see myself feeding much either (compared to others). this dynamic of everyone deciding on a scapegoat just pisses me off. Learn to take responsibility.

I'm thorougly impressed by both WillRock's and Gecko's entries. Might be the best I've heard from them. I used to think that Gecko was pretty much stagnating musically over the last few years, and i'm happy to see that i was wrong!

Pretty fun, though not my fav Morse piece. All the soloing over the frantic groove is very smooth, but it lacks memorability to me. What really stuck in my head though is the disco strings hookline. hella infectious. I would've loved to hear more variations of that in the mix. Ah well, still a solid tune, constantly high levels on my funk-o-meter.

This screams out 'anime friendship theme' to me. Don't take this the wrong way though, I have a very soft spot for that kind of sound. Very soothing overall, contrasted with some lively elements here and there, but the chord progressions also convey a hint of melancholy. This stuff tells stories. Very enjoyable!

Ha, no clue. Well actually, in my case I believe chippy stuff inspired 'Danger'.. Famitracker was open and i just randomly decided to track the intro. Could very well be that Shna's mix made me think of it in the first place. His is just THE definite Danger mix. Anyway...weird how everyone so far seems to dig this! For comparison, The RL reactions i got from this mostly amounted to a big 'uh..huh.' even the J's just went 'k. k. k. k.'. I think I was secretly hoping for a bit of controversy there, it just adds entertainment value. Fun writeup though! The ending sentence left me grinning like a moron. This is such a classic cheesy Lloydian punchline...I love it, thanks man :B

she lacks a tentacle rape skill

DAA DAA DIDLDIDLDAA DA DIDLIDL DA DA DIDLIDL DA DA DA DA!!!! pretty rockin, but i'll probably have to listen to the entire phil collins discography to get this out of my head. thanks in advance.

i think the production fits the tune here. Thought it was gonna be very soft when I heard the intro, turned up the volume a bit, and didn't have any issues with the soundscape at all. sure you could get more loudness out of it without sacrificing anything, but i don't think it's a problem as it is. don't sacrifice the dynamics at any rate, it's one of the strongest points the mix has going for it. I can't comment on the arrangement much (my total FF experience amounts to about 5 hours of playing time), but I can say that it held my interest throughout. Loved the drumming, the cheese organ, the bell/music box lead etcetc. i do think that the bass could be brought up a bit more, and at 1:00+, there were moments when the bell lead overpowered the tune, doing those fast runs. nitpicky, it's just a matter of a few velocity values. zero gripes with the composition itself. the ending sounds very WIPish, am i right? Great track, all in all. Funny, I'm getting more of a Kikuta than an Uematsu vibe at times. Gotta check out the original. Edit: oh, it's supposed to be a Rhodes, haha.

Are we talking remixes only? cause when it comes to making original music out of nothing but movie samples, Fagottron delivers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlS_Rnb5WM4

wow, models at my uni get about half of that. maybe you have to thank american prudery for a less crowded market

Huh? The relative controls are what make it good! It's clearly meant to fuck with your mind, and i enjoyed that. i'm pretty sure it taxes the brain twice as much as regular tetris.