Yoozer

Anything is better than cheapo gamer speakers. Keep 'm around though, it'll be nice when you hear your first mix on your new monitors on 'm.

You can do this in two ways: - destructive: e.g. you open the original file in Audacity, put a distortion effect over it, save the sample under another name - non-destructive: you load the sample in a software sampler of sorts and put a distortion effect over it. In the first case, it's impossible to get the original back from what you've done to it, which is why the second is preferable when making music. For a software sampler, check out ShortCircuit. However, since a lot of sequencers support audio tracks, you might not need this in specific cases; all you have to do is drag the audio file in the track and put a distortion effect over it. You use samplers when you want to smear the sample out over the keyboard - e.g. you've recorded someone burping and you want to play Mary Had A Little Lamb with it. See - the principle hasn't changed that much .http://lpchip.com/modplug/viewtopic.php?t=1486 has instructions but good god, using VSTs is a horrible chore in this thing and it looks like it's been tacked on later instead of designed for it from the start. If you're starting out, it probably makes sense to pick something that's got a lot more up-to-date tutorials or a more user-friendly interface.

I've had Komplete 4 (upgraded to 5) for almost 2 years now and I still haven't designed my own modules, since what's supplied and what's available is already awesome enough for my needs. Spacemaster, Solina-V, all excellent. Solina saves me from lugging up the original, and sounds just as good.

We can hear if it sounds like crap; we can't hear if you tried your best, and you haven't; because you can get better. Overnight success takes 3 years.

Samples should be plain old .aiff and .wav and a single .prg file for the placement and other settings anyway. Kontakt is one of the most popular samplers, and it makes more sense to distribute samples in that format than SoundFont which may or may not require extra conversion.

Headphones simply don't sound like speakers. Because there's one speaker per ear, stereo effects tend to work differently. There's no ambience to blur the sound, headphones are positioned in the same fashion for everyone (while speaker placement depends on the room). Because the speakers are small, there's a different frequency response. In the end it all comes down to making a mix you can translate. The reason these little 5.1 PC speakers suck is because they have a subwoofer and a set of small satellites - and nothing in between. This means high and low frequencies come out emphasized, for which you compensate in the mix by either turning the mid up or the low and high down. Which means that if you listen to it on someone else's system, your mix sounds like complete crap. However, if you can prevent this and compensate for it (it does mean making things more difficult for yourself), you might get something that works.

A "muddy" sound is caused by the fact that too many instruments compete for the same part of the frequency range. Go read http://www.recordingeq.com/EQ/req0400/OctaveEQ.htm You don't actually move an instrument to a lower frequency. EQing (cutting) and filtering is essentially being given a block of marble (the original recording) and a hammer and chisel. You chop everything away that does not resemble David. An instrument occupies a certain frequency range. A nearby instrument occupies part of the same frequency range. To make these frequency ranges not overlap, you use the equalizer to cut away a part of both so that they fit "flush" - so to speak. No. If you'd have 2 instruments occupying exactly the same range, the volume for those particular frequencies can be summed - it's just like stacking Tetris blocks. The solution is to turn down the overall volume of both so that both of 'm will fit. Start with cutting, not with boosting - this means that the EQ gain is turned down, not up. The frequency knob of the gain merely determines where things get cut. See if you can get this plugin to work - http://magnus.smartelectronix.com/ - it's called the Nyquist EQ. It actually shows you what you're doing. Just don't forget to disable/set to neutral the built-in EQ.

That's certainly the way to keep you from plugging things in and out all the time, and it's what we had to do before audio interfaces . 8 inputs sounds like the solution for your woes; at the very least it'll save you the extra noise a mixer might give you. Real integration is still a way off, with only 2 companies offering it the way it should be done.

Mastering is mastering. It doesn't just suddenly become different because it's another genre of music, so you're working with the same tools. See http://www.vimeo.com/808485?pg=embed&sec=808485

Haha, no. I wish .

That was sort of what I meant - whether you play your own compositions or other people's work. A good percentage of the motivation to pick up the keyboard is to learn how to play other people's songs. Go read http://www.chordmaps.com/ and see http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/ See what you can do just by playing certain chords and playing notes in a scale. You might've been doing this just by yourself all the time; what music theory gives you is a map. You've got a keyboard. You've got a computer. You've got ProTools. You're pretty much there. See http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/misc.php?do=bbcode#quote Yes, but that's like saying driving a car consists of A) turning the wheel and pushing the accelerator pedal . There's a lot of room in between. You (generally) use a sampler for the sounds your keyboard can't do (or doesn't do right). I have a Yamaha W5 synthesizer. Back in 1997 when I got it, I wanted to make trance and techno; but the on-board drumkits were fixed. I could not get them to sound like this thing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHan3Rd3X98 When I got a sampler, I was able to record the sounds of this thing, and use them; so I didn't have to buy that thing, and I could record any drum machine I wanted. Of course, I wouldn't have the option of turning the knobs and changing the sounds, but it's the second-best option. A sampler does not care what you put into it, so if the piano sound on your Yamaha doesn't sound that good anymore; use a (software) sampler to replace it. An mp3 says more than a thousand words, so: http://theheartcore.com/music/cassius_sound_of_violence_remixes.mp3 See what I'm doing there? I find out the pitch, and then I try which chords work with the melody. If you want to learn what's being played, it's a matter of listening and trying to play it back. Lots of listening, because you have to find the notes of the melody and the chord progression and even if you could read sheet music, video game music hasn't been transcribed much. There are no steps . The submission guidelines here can be summarized in the following way: - be original - be proficient The first implies you can't carbon-copy a song or modify only a little bit and call it a day; you have to show that you've put your own effort and thought and creative spin into it. The second implies that you should know your tools (software, instrument, other hardware etc.) well. You can make the most original melody ever heard, but nobody's going to listen to it if it sounds like ass. Likewise, you can polish an existing MIDI file to utter perfection, but if it's exactly the same arrangement without any input from yourself, it's not going to be an exciting new take.

Remixing is not different from making music. The only difference is that in this case, you have existing material as opposed to a composition that's entirely your own. You can use the material as a guideline, you can make something that's reminiscent of the music, you can completely copy the piece but use better instruments; the possibilities are endless. That's great! You might want to take lessons though; after all, it's not like writers throw away all their books when they start their first novel, and a nice bonus is that when you're playing you're no longer guessing what comes next, trying to hit the right chord and having it not work. Why would you have to? There's an entire world of music out there. See if you can reinterpret something you like as opposed to something that specifically comes from a videogame. The trick with a video game remix specifically is that for a certain era in videogames the music had constraints - non-realistic instruments, not a lot of room for a complex arrangement, and not enough polyphony; e.g. a full-sized orchestra can have 100 players. That's at a minimum 100 voices of polyphony. The NES, compared to that, managed to squeek out a measly 5 voices. So, a challenge for a remixer could be to see if that space could be filled out with more; to replace instruments, to compose additional melody lines while still retaining enough of the original to have people recognize it. The actual tune for Super Mario Bros 1 last about 40 seconds, then loops. It consists of 2 distinct themes. A regular song lasts 3 minutes; simply copying those 40 seconds 5 times to fill out a song gets boring, so a remixer has to think how to keep it exciting enough. These questions - how to arrange, how to keep it listenable - are for all songs, not just for remixes, so it's not like you're having to deal with a different kind of problem. Remixing just gives you a leg up because you don't have to compose all of it from nothing; however, the material imposes its own limits since (at least here) it has to stay recognizable enough. Do you write your own songs? Do you play other songs by yourself?

http://www.resolume.com/avenue/features.php On the one side, you have a complete library of short clips. You generally trigger these with the letter keys of the keyboard. You also have two clips next to eachother that you can crossfade between. On the other side, you have a whole load of filters. You handle these in other ways (e.g. numpad, F-keys, maybe the QWERTY with holding shift or ctrl). Then you start playing with the clips. All the VJing I've seen was for techno/house/trance whatever and for that you need a strong sense of knowing when a DJ is about to introduce a new track.

No, it should be blared out of the speakers at high volume and shown in a 72pt font before you post here. And even then, it won't help.

If your track should be louder, the listener should turn up the volume. If all tracks are loud, none are. There's nothing wrong with having dynamics left, really.

No, he'd be a hypocrite if he was still using it. Vote with your wallet; get something else, like Sonar, which does notation too. You're making the rest of us pay more, it's as simple as that. Your question was wrong. You expect to learn a horribly complicated DAW in a few days using a forum while most people doing a full-time study need weeks and usually more than that to get comfortable with it. You only wanted good samples and good notation. You should've asked for that; instead, you've been caught with your pants down. Next time, be more straightforward. Also, Cubase 4 and 5 comes with samples (HalionONE), so if you're looking for something like that only decent, rather try Kontakt, Halion or EWQLSO. As for posting: 2000+ posts do not entitle you to anything. It gets you a cute custom title and a number denoting how bored you are.

We've got another forum for that, but I'll shoot. Lots of high frequency stuff in there; watch the bumps. Try http://www.voxengo.com/product/SPAN/ Start with plain old volume adjustment; right now the high frequencies are too loud. Identify the instruments doing this and decrease their volume a bit.

Let's say it's not an unwarranted assumption to make. Plus, if you have no idea of the difference between VSTs and samples, why'd you buy the all-bells-and-whistles SX version and not something more light-weight? Secondhand Cubase isn't easy to get by, and I'd trust any copies offered on eBay as far as I can throw an anvil. The chance you pay $150 for a cardboard box and a copied CD-ROM is far too great. There are none for the newer versions; that's the entire problem with it. Plus, you need the USB dongle to post questions on the Steinberg forums (to which you're entitled if you have a legit copy of Cubase), so that'd be the first place to ask. It's simple; prove that you've acquired it (and actually asking particular questions goes a long way in warding off suspicion) and if someone didn't, I won't judge them - it's just up to them to figure out things for themselves. RTFM, UTFS, DIY, HAND, HTH.

http://www.axon-technologies.net/ This does what you want and works like Harmony described. I don't think there's a software-version of it, though, and a keyboard would be a cheaper option.

Your friend simply took a page out of Brian Eno's book.

How about reading the manual? You really really need that manual.

MIDI is not audio.

Noise + noise just makes it twice as loud. You only need a single noise oscillator, because (white) noise implies that all frequencies are sounding at the same time .

why do these people have a zillion bucks for a great modular and days of time to figure this kind of shit out but always, always, always fail to record their work with a decent harddiskrecorder/audio-interface/anything that's not a camera mic ffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu

If the songs have nothing to do with eachother, group them. If you're telling a story with the songs, the order's obvious.