DDRKirby(ISQ)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=mGP&q=what+is+vst&btnG=Search http://www.google.com/search?q=install+vst+cubase&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a hey, post-processed square waves can be cool too...

(technicality: a 3xOsc with noise+noise+noise is actually the same volume as one with noise*1 and the other two set to 0% volume, since the 3 volumes are relative)

Putting a limiter on the master channel is usually a GOOD thing to do. You just want to have it do nothing except limit--i.e. you dont want to turn up the gain and make it try to squash everything--you only want it there to prevent clipping. you can also use the "soft clipper" for this instead if you want (i know beatdrop does/used to do this). again, posting a project zip file might allow us to take a closer look at what's going on. listening to your mp3, it's not clear what you're going for in terms of drums. You just have eigth note kicks for most of the piece which is somewhat jarring. You could potentially either go with UUNST UNNST drums, as in a trance track, in which case I have a bunch of advice i could give for that, or you could be going for more of a...zircon-esque, style drum beat, for lack of a better term (some might call it breakbeat, though at times it's not quite as aggressive as actual breakbeat). Or you could go for rock-style drums, in which case the toms might be necessary. I'd be happy to give you some more concrete advice and even guide you through some concepts and tricks, but you're gonna have to work with me here, otherwise the best i can do is give pretty vague suggestions. I've sent you a PM with details.

if something is too soft, turn up the volume no, seriously. Compressors shouldn't be used to alter volume. They can be used for other things, such as: -being used to add PUNCH (which is where the "attack" of the compressor comes in--the first part of the sound gets through uncompressed, meaning you have more punch at the beginning of it) -being used to regulate the volume of something (i.e. "remove dynamics") -being used as a limiter -being used for sidechaining the two ways, in general, that compression can make things "louder" is by 1) accentuating the first part of a sound (the "attack") 2) bringing up the soft parts of a sound (this is because the soft parts are unaffected by the compressor since they're below the threshold--the loud parts are compressed, so overall when you bring up the gain you get a more uniformly loud sound) if turning up your snare makes everything else sound weird, it means there's no more "room" in your mix. This could be due to several things: -if you play the snare by ITSELF, and turn the volume up, and it's STILL too soft, then either a) you have a shitty snare sample or you need to turn up the volume on your speakers/headphones -the snare may have various unwanted frequency content that should be surgically trimmed using EQ. usually if you have a decent sample this isn't that much of a problem though, as far as volume goes. -you may have too many other elements in the mix that prevent the snare from coming through. This is especially prevalent if you have other instruments that overlap in the same frequency range and thus cause a "masking" effect. You mentioned that you have pads, so that might be the culprit. Or, you might possibly be slapping a compressor on the ENTIRE mix, and expecting it to selectively increase the volume of the snare. This could easily lead to the "pumping" effect you described, and is an absolute nono (why would you compress the master channel if you want to make the snare louder? o_O) Again, compressors should never be used to increase or decrease volume. That's what the VOLUME knob is for one trick that some people use for drums is to duplicate your drum sound and have one copy run dry while the other runs through a compressor. The idea is that the dry copy retains the original full sound while the compressed version adds the extra oomph. we can look at your actual project if you upload it somewhere (as a .zip file).

Thanks zircon (b^^)b

i dont get how polyphony has anything to do with distortion.

+1 if all else fails you could just convert all of your samples to wav beforehand ;

I wonder where you can get sounds? I wonder how mixing for free works? I wonder what freeware is available?

yes, where oh where should you start?

demos, demos, demos would be helpful for people to judge what your project is and how it looks.

ahahahhaaha

plenty is possible without a MIDI keyboard. In fact if I had one I don't think i'd use it (for much). I'm using my onboard soundcard as well. hooray. if you really want a keyboard though, you -should- buy one. And if you're planning on any kind of live recording, you need a decent soundcard. obviously things like doing a piano piece with the correct dynamics, pedaling, etc. is really really troublesome to draw in with mouse. use your best judgment short answer: yes, many (most, all) sequencers/DAWs give you the ability to sequence using a piano roll. Or if you prefer staff notation, there's options there too (though that's kind of a different beast) look up some software, and try it (free demos = your friend)

just copy and paste from the midi channel to the actual audio channel...?

1:30??? damn... 90% of my incompleted projects are more like 4 measures long...

www.ocremix.org ......

wait seriously...here I am reading back through old FLMC threads and this one got resurrected? ...rofl. it's actually like an actual entry too (though i'm not digging the oh-so-heavy compression). that's ridiculous. I mean seriously.

instantly reminded me of the "Braid" soundtrack...=p

for myself (and i know this is true of others) starting a mix and getting a cohesive idea is often really, REALLY hard, whereas the rest of the mix seems to "fall into place" after some basic foundation is laid down to go to. which isn't to say that mixers don't have long hours with headaches over mastering, final tweaking of sounds, rearranging things that don't work at first, etc etc.

click (screenshot)

"stack"? o_o;

Or click the little "ramp" icon next to the "green rectangle" in the upper left of the piano roll window before you input the note.

...i was afraid to take a stab at something that I couldn't even test, but:

http://www.djcooler.com/dragor/tutorials.htm "fullness" tutorial should be a good one then.

more specific please. are you looking for: -"how the fuck do i even use this program omg so many windowsss??" -"ok i can do stuff, now how do i make my shit sound GOOD?" -"i'm having trouble achieving a 'fuller' sound, can you help me with that?" -"i really have no idea how to lay out a drum track. can you give me an example of how one might do this?" etc. etc.

i dont do chiptunes myself but that's an ingenious idea. 3xosc ftw~