AMT

Alright, got some of my stuff up. Here's what I think so far: -Songs on albums should be given track numbers, so that the order can be explicitly defined. -Make it clear that you can have a separate band name and user name from the beginning. I didn't know, so my user name is what I would have put as my band name. -Make a sequential view for the album so that it isn't just a messy grid of CD icons. Nice start so far, I look forward to seeing how it progresses!

Well hey, I'll definitely sign up for this when I get home. Looks nice!

Super Metroid and Majora's Mask exactly as they are. Alternatively, I'd love Sonic Adventure 2 with just Sonic / Shadow levels and better level design. Also, Jet Set Radio Future with some bug fixes and more polish. Hell, a new Jet Set Radio on the 360 would be amazing. Why has this not happened ;_;

Really awesome site! If you ever support REAPER then I will definitely use this. As a programmer, version control for audio projects is really really awesome

Hey, I did! D: Well, and other stuff, but hey =P

Nope, as far as I know there's no way to get Firewire to work over USB. Even if you did, it would be a huge bottleneck and incredibly slow. Adding a PCI card is the easiest option, but outside of that, getting a different motherboard with Firewire is going to be your only other option.

You also might want to try the demo of something like Amplitube or Guitar Rig. They're amp / pedal sims designed specifically to distort the same way as industry standard guitar equipment. They work great on synths / vocals / anything too, definitely worth a look! EDIT: I'm an idiot who didn't read that you already tried this. Try doing this and blending the dry signal back with it.

It's a bit outdated, but there's a tutorial I wrote on here about getting started with REAPER that might be helpful: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=13478 If you have any more questions, just ask. EDIT: To directly answer your question about the piano roll, add a new track to the project with Ctrl+T or "Insert > New Track", then click "Insert > Add new MIDI item". You can now move this clip around, stretch it, and double click it to edit actual notes. As for the effects / instruments, once you've added a new track, click the little "FX" icon on it. This will bring up the effect chain window. Instruments and effects are treated as the same thing in REAPER, and the included effects are surprisingly good (Particularly the EQ, compressor, reverb, and delay). You select the format of the plugin on the left side of the pane; VST are where you'll spend most of your time, but check out the "JS" tab for a ton of awesome effects that are included. Not all of them are the best but there are some solid ones in there. Get a synth like Triangle II or Synth1 and some percussion from Kore or Addictive Drums and you're set. The big difference between REAPER and FL is that the vertical layout of audio and MIDI clips is vital to the sound it makes. Everything you put down pipes its audio / MIDI through the track shown on the left. To turn MIDI into actual sound, you'll need to put an instrument plugin on that channel. If you move the MIDI clip off of that channel, it will no longer produce sound because it's now sending MIDI to a different channel. Look at it like a giant mixing board combined with horizontal Guitar Hero and you'll get the general idea.

Yes! This makes me happy

Thanks for the responses! Yeah, it's at least a $600 difference for the 15". I'm getting an SSD for $200 then selling the original HDD. I went with the 13" because I've always hated larger laptops and I intend to get a more powerful desktop down the line. Right now I'm still chugging along on a 2GHz Pentium Dual core and I can almost get the performance I need, but not quite. I basically just want to be able to run REAPER with one instance of AD, a max of 5 instances of Amplitube 2, and a halfway decent reverb all at a playable latency. The MBP should do that fine for now and if I need to expand later then it's small enough to still use as a day-to-day laptop in addition to a desktop. I'll stick with 4GB for now and maybe save the $200. If I need it I can always buy it later. (And yes, REAPER is a real DAW =P)

I'm buying a Macbook Pro to run REAPER on and I'm considering upgrading from the stock 4GB to 8GB for $200 (buying from Newegg). I'm already replacing the HDD with a 128GB solid state drive (again from Newegg). Will I really see a difference with 8GB? The computer as it stands will be the 13" model with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, and a 128GB SSD. I'll be using it with a Presonus Firestudio Mobile, Addictive Drums, and Amplitube 2.

Good point. When I've got a chance I'll see if I can fix that. Thanks!

Oh, in the beginning? Yeah, my DAW does that now and then and I don't know why. It doesn't mess with the rest of the track at all though, so I'll probably just leave the ones I uploaded. Anyone mixing my songs, feel free to crop that out of the very beginning.

D: Crap, I`ll take a listen next time I`m at a computer and see what is causing it. EDIT: Nevermind, it's just a strange artifact in the very beginning, it shouldn't affect the rest of the track. Feel free to crop it out.

Alrighty, I'll kick this off! public void* - First song off of my album: Calling - ReMix of Calling from The World Ends With You Can't wait to see what you guys do

It occurred to me that the only mixing experience I have is with material that I've written and I'm willing to bet that holds true for many of us here. So, in order to get more practice, I thought it could be fun to post multitracks from songs we've done and have other people mix them. I don't mean ReMix them like we do on the site here, I just mean the technical process of mixing. Don't change the arrangement or anything like that, let's keep this as production only. You can use Tindeck to upload each track of a song, or zip 'em up and host it yourself. The song can be a ReMix or original composition. I'll upload some of my songs, post your own!. Happy mixing, let's see what we can come up with!

REAPER all the way I absolutely love the program, the included plugins are surprisingly good and the internal routing possibilities are amazing.

Has anyone here used this DAW? I've been reading up on it a little and it sounds really nice. I'm hoping to get my hands on a Firestudio Mobile soon and it's included. I'd like to hear other people's experiences with it because it definitely looks intriguing.

Hey, someone else who uses BX5a's and AKG240's! Excellent combination. On that note, you asked for some headphone recommendations; the AKG240's are excellent, and go for about $99.

New vox and better mixing! Take a listen and leave feedback if you can. Thanks!

Can you clarify your question? I'm not sure what you're asking.

Addictive Drums is great, it's what I use for all of my drums. This is an example if you'd like to hear. What kind of genre are you generally aiming for?

Play drums on Expert on Rock Band. No, seriously, this helped me figure out how so many songs had their drums composed, which let me sequence some of those rhythms as starting points for my own.

I don't think anyone has really answered the original question here yet. When you ask if you should work on reverb, EQ, etc., the answer is all of the above. Don't really look at these as requirements or phases of working on a song. Instead, look at them as tools. Your goal is to get every element to sit together well in a mix (By mix, I mean the way the audio meshes together into a stereo audio track, not a ReMix by OCR definitions). You can do this by using the various tools at your disposal; compression, EQ, reverb, etc. There are really no set rules on when or when not to use any of these. The only thing that should matter is, "Does it sound good?" Just remember that something that sounds excellent on its own may sound terrible in a mix, and something that sounds awful on its own may be absolutely perfect in a mix. Experiment and find out! As far as what you should work on first, or in what order, that's really up to personal preference. Find a workflow that you like and stick with it. Personally, I'd recommend using placeholder instruments that are generally close to what you want and arranging / composing the whole song first, then go back and fine tune the sounds into exactly what you want. Then start the actual mixing process. Others can chime in here, there are millions of ways to approach this. This seems to be one way that's worked for me. I hope that helped!

I'll definitely check this out when I get a chance!