Hy Bound

The best way I know how to describe this is: You know those little toys that used to be really popular that has a plastic plate with a bunch of little pixel-esque pins that can slide in and out to make little sculptures of your face and hand? A vocoder is basically that same toy but instead its using audio. The vocoder takes a sound (or in the toy metaphor, your hand or face) which in the audio world is called the carrier, and applies that to its own modulator (or the pixel-like pins in the board). The modulator is based off of frequency so you can modify the different frequencies or using the same metaphor, the height of the pins raised to get a different audio "picture." Sorry if thats a little confusing, but thats the simplest way I can explain it. If you still have questions, I have researched this a bit so i may still be able to help

Let me start off by saying that I know I'm going to be screamed at for this, but I never really played many of the old-school mario games, especially Super Mario World 3 which is supposed to be the best. But I really enjoyed the atmosphere and secrecy that the different worlds gave off in Mario 64 and Super Mario Land. I was wondering if anyone can give me any problems that Galaxy has. I know its kind of a downer for this thread, but I'm still relatively skeptical because I have just bought Mario Sunshine, which agreeably blows and I want a damn good reason to go out and spend 50 bucks for another game. If the only real problem I hear is 'its just too awesome' i think i may just wait, since the feeling I've got from most of these type of discussions is based purely on "mario games can do no wrong" but if there really are at least some problems that turn out to be pretty minor I'll actually look into it.

I got it! Its absolutely amazing. The story is pretty awesome so far, and the only real fault i can find so far is that the fighting can get somewhat pointless. Otherwise, this game is better than sex. with Jade Raymond... Which means its pretty fucking good.

Damn, im gonna have to get it monday... It looks amazing in all of the reviews except for the 1up.com and ign.com reviews, which give it a strange 7.something as opposed to the 9.somethings and 10s. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR... I wanna play it now!

Thanks for the comments guys! I really appreciate them. Truthfully, i didn't expect this to get passed or even submitted... It started out as something completely different and then got a Hybrid overhaul to it. It turned into something that wasn't quite as approachable as what I had first imagined, but I'm glad that you guys like it. And yes, I am going to be submitting more and more as time goes on.

I actually really liked the source for this... Yeah, its kind of annoying at times, but its all cheery and happy and sets the mood for the happy-go-lucky Chocobo racing. Anyway, I'd have to say that I really like this version even more than the original. The synth-work is top-notch and the different moods going along with the instrumentation changes really is fun. Good work Anso, you sexy Swede!

I've been incredibly excited about this until recently... Everyone who has played it recently seems to just be into the mood of going "yeah... yeah... this is, um, awesome. very, very... um, awesome." as far as controls and stuff. I'm really wanting this game to be one of the best games ever, as the premise seems really interesting and the parkour stuff seems awesome for an assassin game. So basically, I'm hoping SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO badly that its going to be good, but everyone (gamespot, ign, 1up and the like) seems kinda lackluster in their coverage, which doesn't sound good. I am just hoping it isnt going to be an over-hyped piece of shit *cough*Lair*cough*.

This is great. It sounded at first like it wasn't going to be too interesting, but i guess a lot of Dn'B intros are like that. That bass that comes in a bit later on is quite interesting and badass. You definitely can't tell there is a restriction on the sounds. Good job keith303, this is quite a good song and very well done despite the restrictions.

This is really nice and fits incredibly well into the description you made of the source. I really enjoy how natural and flowing and rolling the orchestra feels. There are some parts at about the 2:10 where you use a pitch-shifting technique that sounds pretty unnatural; I would tend to shy away from those if I were you. I can't really comment on the actual mastering or anything because I have to listen to this on shitty laptop speakers, but from what I can hear, the samples used are kinda meh, but you have done a pretty good job of making them sound better than they were. I'd say that if you upgraded your samples a tad, this song would be fit for a filmscore. The only other minor quibble is that towards the end it gets somewhat repetitive. Its quite a good build, but tends to get a bit stale, I would suggest maybe some arpeggios on a harp or something to break up some of the monotony and give it a bit more drive in the later stages of the build up. However, I think this could definitely pass if you fixed some of the little bits I talked about; not necessarily the upgraded samples though (thats just a personal opinion and hope, since the arrangement is so good). All in all its awesome and you are sexy.

From what I can discern from the little snippet, I heard Zils or a Riq. They're kinda both more ethnic, and I couldn't tell if it was doing more of a jangling sound, but thats what it sounds like to me.

This is pretty cool. It kinda feels a little bit like psytrance in the beginning. A lot of the sounds are pretty interesting and it seems pretty well produced (at least on my earbuds). The only problem I would say I have with it is that it doesn't really feel like it has any type of drive.It just sounds like you have 3 different melodies that you switch between the entire song with only slight variations between them. You may just want to add some quick-fire hi-hats a little later on to make it feel like its going somewhere other than where it was a couple of minutes before. There really isn't much of a difference between 1:00 into the song and 5:00 in, which kind of goes counter to what trance is. I would go look up the "trance formula" somewhere on the net. It's definitely an interesting melody and you have some interesting elements, but if you want this to be a trance song, you're gonna want to put it into the trance arrangement format. Don't get me wrong; I really enjoyed the song, but you may want to work on the arrangement a bit to boost it to where the production is.

Ok, so many of you probably haven't heard the original, but I had written a filmscore based on ancient China composed entirely in Reason. It sounded alright, but a little flat and I had since wanted to completely re-do it using higher quality samples since I felt the arrangement was one of the best I had made, possibly ever. Well, I had put it off and put it off and now have decided that I have enough practice to try and make it the best I could. Its about halfway done and I'm getting QL Colossus pretty soon to round out the ethnic instruments, so there basically aren't any ethnic instruments in here other than a gong . (I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to direct you to my myspace page, as its the only hosting that will let everyone listen to it.) http://www.myspace.com/hybound Thanks for the comments! EDIT: Put up on soundclick for better quality: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=466433

I get an 'error loading page' link.

This is great! The guitar is really cleanly recorded and sounds really good with that slight phaser added to it. I really enjoy the melody and the light vocals compliment it very nicely. I would say that it would definitely be worth finishing, especially if you added maybe some very light orchestral stuff in the background later on or maybe another guitar that kind of duets with the guitar now. But seriously, this is REALLY great! i could just sit back and listen to this for days on end. The only problems I have, which are very slight, are that the key change near the end is a little awkward. I think it maybe that the note that starts it off is kind of soft, so if maybe you made it a little louder it wouldn't be awkward at all. The other, very minor criticism is that there are a few little background noises that could be ironed out later on. Some of them while the guitar is playing and some before after the song. If you want any help with it I wouldn't mind snipping those out a little bit; I just got some new software that takes out some background noise that I'm itching to use . But otherwise this is a VERY solid song that I can't wait to se finished.

This is some pretty awesome stuff! It isn't what I usually hear from binster, but still quite top-notch. Glad to see him posting some music again.

Wow, I didn't realize I was on there... cool! Thanks for the heads up. However, I still stand by what I said; The point of the matter is... No matter what you want to believe, the synth architecture is not as high a quality sound as other recent synthesizing programs; this isn't to do with what it sounds like, it has to do with the output, its not a 64 bit transfer, like most other modern synths. The samples in the NN-XT are much more compressed in the ReFill format than .wav format. Like someone said that there is the Garritan strings ReFill... There's another version in a .wav format. The filesize in the ReFill pack is about 3/4 the size of the .wav pack. But it may just come down to your personal preference; from the songs I've heard from you, Reason seems very well-suited to your style and you use it very well (i especially like the Jenova melody synth you use in your fanfare remix). However, if you use Reason in the way that I make music; which tends to be more on the orchestral side with heavy manipulation on real instruments, Reason is very limited. There are only a few FX and the way the architecture is laid out, its impossible to get any new FX into it without another sequencer as a host. I'm not saying that Reason only makes shitty songs or anything of the like. I agree with what you said that most people can't tell the difference between a Reason song and an FL song. However, saying that there isn't a boost in fidelity from Subtractor to Z3T4+ is just ignorant. The sound from subtractor may be what you personally enjoy, but unless you layer the shit out of those synths, you aren't going to come close to the fidelity of a newer edition synth. The phaser in Reason is also quite shitastic compared to something like Waves Metaphlanger phaser setting. Its output is a near mono signal... If you disagree, I would be more than happy to show you an example. The point I'm trying to make, and was trying to make before, is that Reason is by no means a bad program, I use it in most of my arrangements pretty extensively. But if you're trying for some bleeding edge electronica track with sampled instruments, Reason is relatively limited in how you can go about creating incredibly rich sounds; you can do it, but it isn't going to hold up quite as well with something you use these $500 sample players for and such. However, if you're going for an electro-based tech-funk song, Reason will by all means fit every bill you will mostly likely try for. But Reason's real strength is in how it is used as a workhorse program; and propellerheads emphasizes this by not updating its architecture and instead tries to include ReWire into every other sequencer possible. This isn't an attack on someone who uses Reason-only, but an opinion that you can get a much cleaner master even when Reason utilizes other program's architecture and features. EDIT: I did not mean that the actual architecture of another program would change the source, but the different FX and features it has most certainly does. EDIT 2: with regards to how older synths are sought after for their sound and how the modern music scene has just gotten used to the new synths: That's basically the same type of things found with mics... The older ones tend to color the sound so it will take away the sub-par response it would have had. Many people find the older mics to be much more suited to what they have heard. People who listen exclusively to old classic rock recordings don't like to use the new mics because they have an idea in their head as to what something should sound like. It doesn't matter to them that new mics sound much more clear and focused; they just don't sound like an old def leppard song they just listened to. The same can be said for different programs. When I listen to Hybrid songs, i tend to think that the Orkester library tends to sound much better when trying to achieve that sound as opposed to my EWQLSO library, which has a much better sound. However, if i listen to film scores, I can't even imagine using Orkester over EWQLSO. So basically, listen to something that has the same type of sounds as a Reason track for a while, then go back to a song done in Reason and you will notice a big difference. For instance, I can tell which orchestral pieces are from Reason from BT's Stealth soundtrack and which aren't after messing around with some of Reason's orkester stuff. And again, that soundtrack is proof that Reason can output really good stuff. But you better believe that BT put that through a LOT of different FX (from other programs) to make it sound that good.

Does anyone know? thats kind of a huge deal maker for me if it does the smart memory management with all samplers. I hope it does so much! its a pain having to render every little sound i make just to have to go in and tweak it again.

That was what got me into doing Sidechain compression! YAY! Anyone who talks to me about mastering knows i always talk about sidechaining. It's superhelpful for percussive stuff getting drowned out by a longer note of the same frequency. That's the best way to get that stuff done. Thanks for that post malcos! It has been enormously helpful!

See, what kind of bothers me is that most people don't realize Reason is more of a workhorse program than anything. It does basically whatever you need as a backup to any higher quality samples used on other sequencers. Reason started out trying to be the only sequencer you needed to make what everyone else could produce at the time. The fact of the matter is though; they haven't upgraded their core soundmodules since 2.0 (i think) and instead developed ReWire. That's when they changed from all-in-one workstation to ultra-efficient workhorse ReWire program. 99% of what is coming out nowadays has a much higher quality sound module than what Reason's synths and FX can achieve. Does that worry propellerheads? Of course not. They can achieve a moderately high-quality soundstation for the same amount of CPU cycles that a single synthesizer of a slightly higher quality can. I think its just that their marketing is trying to tell people that it is the only program you need to make music; which, you really can do, and very well if you have the knowledge. Sorry to come off as a snob or something, but Reason isn't meant to make the cutting edge end-all songs that everyone seems to think it should, even with Reason 4.0. Don't get me wrong, i love Reason, but a program that prides itself on being ultra-efficient doesn't need to worry about the highest end sounds, that's why you ReWire it into another program that can add it's extra layer of sheen to what Reason produces.

This is f*cking awesome!!!!!!!! I love Pendulum. I really like the vocals and the C64 bits and the synth whistling. Basically it makes me go a big rubbery one. Good find zirc.

I used to do this when I first started. It really does tend to make your music get old to you though. But I really listen to the guys I worship more than anything (Hybrid and BT mostly ). The problem is now, though, that I listen to most of my newer stuff so much that it becomes somewhat dead to me after working on it for so long and I can point out copious examples of something I would have liked to do better. For Instance, I really seriously can't sit through my 'Mark of the Beatsmith' ReMix without cringing uncontrollably. There are a few songs I can still listen to and be happy listening to; like my Coactive remix, that took such little time for me to do that it is still relatively fresh to me. But mostly, I am not as infatuated with my newer stuff as with my older stuff, which took much less time to do (and is technically less proficient).

I found out about the Red Rocks showing about an hour before it started, so needless to say I was pissed about missing it. However, I know where zircon is coming from; I lost a lot of respect when I found out that they had pretty completely ripped off several songs and only make minor changes and switch-ups. That isn't to say I don't still enjoy the music they make. They're live shows have really made me gain MUCH respect for them, however, since they're basically sampling most of their own music and making it into an absolutely awesome show. I would have to say the only artist I actually think is quite genius in his use of samples is Amon Tobin. 99.9% of his stuff is so mangled and transformed into something much different than the original that it is quite enjoyable. When you do actually hear something familiar, its more like an "oh hey! thats what it is..." than "yeah, we get it, its that one loop from a song over and over again" from some of Daft Punk's songs.

Ho shit; I've been trying to do my own version of keyswitches for a while then... I've just been using different samplers for each of them; thats so much help and im such a tard for not knowing that. heh.

I'm sorry if this is already asked, but i don't want to go through 194 pages looking for it... Can you use the 8mb memory cards from the ps2 in the ps3 without the stupid adaptor? I've heard both it can and it can't.

Thanks for the insight; yeah, what I've heard from RA I really like. I have StormDrum, so the Taikos are pretty well taken care of. But yeah; I just wish i had the extra $350 to spend (I can use the academic versions, yay!). EDIT: BTW, I have always wondered what IS a keyswitch? I have tried using it and playing around with it, but I can't tell what it does... It's a super noob question, but meh.