Yoozer

The keyboard's "phones" output is amplified. If you had something with L/MONO and R (or in other words, standard stereo outputs) and you'd plug a headphone into that, it'd be very quiet. How to match: Play a song in the genre you're looking for on your computer and adjust the volume on your speakers. Chances are that the song is already mastered; e.g. volume is normalized, the compressor/limiter has done its job, and it's comparatively loud. Write the setting down. When you're composing, all those things haven't done anything yet, so yes, a single melody on a piano will be obviously quiet, but there's room (dynamic range) needed for the rest of the instruments. If you record the audio of this, then put a normalizer/compressor whatever over it and it's the same volume as your pop song, you know the volume's right. Write the setting down again. Then, let the keyboard's built-in demo play. Set the keyboard's volume to 80% or so. Try to match the volume on your computer. Most wave editors show you when something clips (VU meters go in the red). If you have adjust the input volume and you can play the entire set of demos without clipping, you're doing it right. Make sure there's still some room left. Again, yes, a single piano will sound rather quiet, but you can't fix that. Just write down another setting for solo instruments. Try to alternate between these three; in the mastering stage you are allowed to lower the volume again because a properly mastered (pop) song should still have certain elements (kick, snare, vocals/lead melody) audible when the volume is very low.

A groovebox is usually sample-based and has separate stuff going on for the percussion. That's what you get if you only select some layered performance patches that combine 3 or 4 actual synth patches with sequencer or arpeggiator lines running. No. The ESX handles samples differently. Still, a Radias and ESX would make a very nice combo .

I commend you for spelling the name right. Everywhere else people couldn't read and spelled it "RADIUS" . I however cannot commend you for only finding out now. It's been on the market for a while. Have you seen the videos? http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=2608 The 7 or so seconds of sampling with the formant whiz-bang is really nice, and it features probably one of the nicest Rhodes pianos I've ever heard from a virtual analog. http://www.zzounds.com/prodsearch?q=korg+radias&button=search%2Fheader&form=search There is however a considerable price difference between the keyboard version and the rack version. It's worse if you consider that the keyboard can only be hooked up to the Radias; it's not a generic controller . Re: other synths; a Virus B would come close in terms of specs, but it lacks the formant stuff and its oscillators (standalone) are less refined and more prone to aliasing. It also has a smaller display. A Minimoog is an entirely different machine - the only similarity is the tilting front panel.

I would say that it's a good thing that there's something like the EDM Guide because scouring several hundred forums for people's personal definitions 1) takes too much time and 2) sucks, especially if people say just the word "techno". There's Detroit, there's Richie Hawtin, there's Adam Beyer and there's Ken Ishii. There, the singular definition of "techno" has become worthless because it's all but not all are alike. So, a central reference is a wonderful thing . Anyway, this sounds very much like something that'd appear in Dance Dance Revolution. The origins of this are from Italo-dance and happy hardcore. The bass is the easy part. If you're familiar with a 16-step interface; bassdrum goes on 1-5-9-13, and the bass comes inbetween, together with the hihats. Use sidechain compression on the bass so the song starts to pump. Choose a tempo that's 140 bpm or higher. The bassdrum is typically "plastic". Don't use realistic bassdrums for this. Gather all the orchestral hit samples you can find. Choose 1 or 2. You hear 2 distinct lead sounds; don't do everything with a single supersaw but alternate between one and the other lead. Also, an old favorite is a synthetic-sounding piano (Korg M1) where you play heavily quantized chords+bass with. A rule of thumb is that it should sound like someone increased the playback speed. This is nice; it means you can compose your song in a lower tempo and then use a wave editor to crank the pitch 2 semitones up. TheRugi: it would help tremendously if you could tell us which song you are trying to remix, and what application (Reason, FL Studio, whatever) you use. That way you can get more specific advice. *edit* made an example. Don't mind (the lack of) mastering or EQ, it was a quicky and merely to illustrate the point. Reason for the source, Soundforge for pitching it up 2.5 semitones. http://www.theheartcore.com/music/eurobeatloop.mp3

Kids these days. Worst possible choices. Built-in crap media player. www.rapidshare.de www.yousendit.com You're welcome .

What is this Eurobeat you speak of and where would it appear in this helpful little map? http://di.fm/edmguide/edmguide.html Also, it would probably help if you'd tell us what game you're making a remix of.

Obviously. Any help would also be welcome in telling us what the hell that horrible system is, so we can either tell you how to use it so it becomes less horrible or tell you what a suitable replacement is. Also, notions of what budget you actually have would help.

we have a separate forum for that here good sir http://www.ocremix.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=13

No, you need a guitar with a distortion. To do what Nineko suggested. Also, to get rid of the following ideas: - programs aren't "meant" for a single genre - they're not programs, they're sequencers and plugins and sample libraries. Those don't come out of a program, those come out of stuff like this: http://www.beladmedia.com/lyrical2.htm (for the guitar) http://www.toontrack.com/superior.shtml (for the drums) http://www.sampletank.com/ (for the typical choir, church organ, piano, etc. sounds) That's a sampled drum kit and a sampled guitar, and an all-purpose library. Those are things called sample libraries. You load 'm up in a plugin such as Kontakt. You then use a sequencer with a VST host (just pick what's in your budget and what you like working with) and play them via that. Before checking out anything, hang around for a while and educate yourself on a few matters. I don't mean this in a condescending way but chances are that if you label everything as "program" checking out is not going to get you far and you'll return with more questions than you came with .

Learn about compression, normalization, etc; it's a Good Thing. If your track is too soft the fidelity can be lower - less dynamic range, LOWER SNR (*edit* hurr: either lower snr or higher noise level) Try to normalize first. See what it does for your work. Then, find out how much louder you have to record everything. Put limiters and compression on what goes over the top; if you have a loud explosion somewhere in the middle of the track normalizing will not do anything for the rest. Here's where compression (multiband) comes in; it lifts up the volume of the rest of the track. http://www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynamics.htm See this on how to do it and how to not do it. That's what OC means with maximum loudness. The distortion is not "professional" or "sounding like a hit", it's "goddamn annoying".

If you have an amazingly underpowered computer already, are you still able to upgrade it or shouldn't you consider buying a new one? Or are you going to take the new mobo + new RAM + new CPU route? To me, it is as follows: 1 gb RAM is twice as big as 512 mb An XP3200+ is only a fraction faster than an XP3000+. If the latter means you can only have 512 mb, it's not a wise choice, if you catch my drift. Also, look into the Dual Core machines. When your host/sequencer can handle it, it's pretty cool.

I shudder at the thought that a completely clueless 11-year old with a hacked copy of FL Studio is going to tell me stuff about synthesizers and how 3xosc > Minimoog. The idea behind a domain is simple: - get rid of all the bloody stickies nobody bothers to read anyway - get rid of all the excess information in all those stickies that make 'm so hard to read. You'd definitely need a keyword search of sorts; and while a Wiki provides this I'd only hand out accounts to a few people.

Komplete is a collection of pretty much the complete Native Instruments line-up of that moment. This means for Komplete 3: Reaktor 5 -- modular synthesizer Absynth 3 -- synthesizer FM7 -- FM-based synthesizer PRO-53 -- emulation of the Prophet-5 Kontakt 2 -- software sampler Battery 2 -- software drum sampler Intakt -- loop sampler and beat slicer Kompakt -- limited version of Kontakt Elektrik Piano -- sample-based Rhodes/Wurlitzer B4 II* -- tonewheel organ emulation Vokator -- vocoder NI-Spektral Delay -- FFT-based delay effect Guitar Rig 2 Software* -- guitar amps, cabinets and effects emulation If you have to ask what these separate parts are, go to the NI website and check out the demos.

Just render to .wav and encode with (Razor)LAME. Better quality, free codec. I also have mp3 encoding in SoundForge, Samplitude and Cubase SX, and I've never used those because LAME does the job .

Well, most of the work of gathering artist names has been done already - http://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/cs80.shtml for instance (which was what Vangelis used).

We may have egos but at least they're not that easily bruised (badum-tish!) Nah, don't take it that seriously . Anyway, Compyfox maintains the site so he'd be the one to ask to have it included. You can always try.

The site isn't just for remixing only, and you could've better sent an e-mail to Compyfox himself to have it included. While mr. Uematsu might be famous and all that, including artists in the liner notes would only be a good idea if you'd put them there for every piece of gear.

Making music can be horribly expensive . Anyway, sounds like a soundfont player with some good orchestral soundfonts is the way to go. http://www.rgcaudio.com/sfz.htm for part one, and do a few searches for the soundfonts.

Oh, wait... now I get it. Sibelius plays back as GM. I was thinking that if you rendered things anyway, it wouldn't matter. What's your budget? You could consider a do-it-all like Luxonix Purity, IK Multimedia SampleTank, Quantum Leap Colossus, Steinberg Hypersonic (just Google for the names) - all of which would be magnitudes better than what the wavetables in your soundcard could do. You could also consider a specialized solution: GPO (Garritan Personal Orchestra > http://www.garritan.com/ ) for your orchestral stuff and buy the whole trance/techno/whatever thing later ( however, keep in mind that this usually doesn't come in a single package, until something like ReFX Nexus is released).

Everyone bitches to everyone who posts a "HAY GUYS HOW DO I REMIX" to read the stickies. It's an initiation ceremony of sorts, and it separates the men from the boys. To keep in line with the drugs reference, the first shot/snort is always free.

Your first hint is Read all the friggin stickied threads here. There is no single program; there is also no single purpose. It depends on what you use (software synths, hardware synths, both, mostly audio clips) and what you can afford. Then the most powerful program is that one which does what you need and which allows you to work with it in the most fluent way. Ever heard of Logic and ProTools? Good, Logic won't be of use if you don't have a Mac. Yeah, that's never a good idea. Curiosity and a desire to learn. Can you hear if you play out of tune? Good. That's what you're going to need. Okay, here's what you do. If you want to take the software route, do the following: - install the ASIO4ALL driver if you don't have any fancy audio interface yet. It'll make things less frustrating. What it does: if you play a sound in one of the programs, there's usually a delay between pressing the key and hearing the sound. This is called latency. The ASIO4ALL drivers make this delay smaller so playing feels more natural. www.asio4all.com - obtain trial versions of all programs you know of. Propellerheads Reason. Steinberg Cubase. ImagineLine FL Studio. Sonar. Cakewalk. Ableton Live. Mackie Tracktion. Check them out one by one and see what you can do with them. Try to make a little song in them, see which allows you to do the job the fastest. It doesn't matter if it doesn't sound good or pro yet- this is purely a matter of getting an idea to paper. Once you've decided which program works for you, start looking into - an audio interface (you have a guitar. To not throw that sound and skill away means you could record it and use it in your music). This will also lower your latency even further. - a controller (this is basically a "dummy" synthesizer without built-in sounds, but which has a lot of knobs and sliders that will come in handy). This means you don't have to click in the chords with a mouse. - a set of speakers or headphones (but I'd recommend speakers) that are better than your average cheap-ass computer speaker set. Speakers: depends on budget. Headphones: AKG K240, Sony MDR7506. Look here: http://www.ocremix.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=74141 - the program itself. Buy it. You sometimes can get a student discount which is really nice. Now, you also are going to need some theory under your belt. Pick up a basic book about playing piano. Learn how guitar chords translate to a piano keyboard, because that's what you're going to use to enter the notes. There's more than that, but it depends on budget and how deep you want to go. Read the stickies, try out what you already can try out, then return.

Don't be sorry for your questions. Be sorry because of that mastodon of a signature. "Audio interface" is a nifty name so you know you're not talking about an onboard box or gamer card. Obvious suspects; E-mu 0404 and M-Audio Audiophile 24/96. Most likely a preamp, albeit that there are mics you can plug directly into USB, like this : http://www.zzounds.com/item--SAMQ1U Do you have any other devices like hardware synths? Do you plan on recording these? If yes, then a mixer is handy, but an audio interface with more inputs is also handy. Just more expensive generally than a cheap small mixer. You plug the mixer's outputs in the PC's inputs. It can't get any simpler than that . Harmony Central has a Classifieds section. Caveat emptor however. If it works better for you, do it. Prove any naysayers wrong by making better music than you did before.

Not retarded. Just interface confusion. It already took blood, sweat and tears and several years of battle to wean off from CV/Gate. How they ever agreed to use MIDI is nothing short of a miracle - it's like herding cats. In the meantime, MIDI is a slow, serial protocol. Nothing wrong with serial but holy crap, it's time for something better than that, and preferably via a single cable. MIDI should've been as overspecified as IPV4. Anyway, I digress. People put the USB cable in the USB bus because it says "USB". They ask "which one" because there's more of 'm and they've been burned in the past by putting a mouse in a PS2 keyboard port (an equal idiocy). There's nothing wrong with making something impossible to hook up the wrong way. Think why 3.5 disks look like they look, or why those memory cards have that edge; you should not be able to flip them around and get away with it. People put the MIDI out cable in the MIDI out input because it says MIDI out. Perfectly logical. And wrong. If they had color-coded these things you'd never be confused. Too bad it just doesn't look cool if you have a blue, red and yellow 5-pin DIN port on the back of anotherwise completely black synthesizer.

Is this with one of those horrible joystick port cables? Anyway, a mistake a lot of people make is to read the labels. MIDI out should go in your controller's MIDI in, and vice-versa. MIDI out means "the MIDI signal coming -out- of the computer" in this case, not "connect MIDI out to MIDI out". The cable should show up in Windows as MPU-401.

Tip 1: There's Reaktor "Sessions" - a set of highly popular quality musical instruments where playing is more important than engineering. This was sold separately (as a non-editable product) but the ensembles are included in their Reaktor-shape. Tip 2: Native Instruments has a user community with a crapload of stuff to get for free. Tip 3: Read Sound On Sound's Synth Secrets here: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/allsynthsecrets.htm . Protip: once you build things yourself, try to make a simple 2-oscillator synth with a multimode filter and envelopes for amplifier and filter. That basically gives you the template for many famous synths (Prophet, Jupiter, etc) and serves as a good starting point for learning synthesis.