Geeky Stoner Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 Thanks again Rozovian I honestly thought something short would be easy to mix. a longer source kinda intimidates me, i think oh god what am i gonna do with all this. thanks for the pick me up rozo. on a side note i did recently grab some gradius 3 midis I really disappointed that theres no ReMixes of that soudtrack on this site i thought it had an awesome soundtrack. and 3's version of overworld just plain rocked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted March 12, 2009 Share Posted March 12, 2009 A longer source kinda intimidates me, I think 'Oh god what am I gonna do with all this.'Well, I'm gonna give you another way to look at it... If I'm using a shorter source, I'm thinking 'Holy shit! How the hell am I gonna keep everyone's interest for a considerable amount of time with a 5 second source without getting too liberal?!?'.It reminds me of a bet that I made with my brother when I (stupidly) said I could make a remix out of anything, and he gave me the damn hammer theme from Donkey Kong (it's even shorter than the starman theme...). I managed to get ~1:24 out of it without it getting too boring, but even that was DAMN hard... I have minimal formal music theory knowledge, and I seem to be doing fine (shut up, Gario ).Formal musical knowledge helps, I'll admit, but like Rozo so kindly pointed out you can make do without it (in fact, most composers do without any problem... and that's straight from this horses mouth '~' ). The only thing I suggest is to listen, listen and listen to all sorts of music. When listening, take note of things you like and don't like. In other words, listening to music critically will make you a better musician (even if you don't ever touch music theory - all theory does it label what you hear, anyway!).It also takes practice and dedication in order to get better. Let me clue you in on something... I sucked when I started out. Whereas you actually know what the best sounds like, I didn't know about OCR (or even VGmusic)... your lucky, you've got a reference (In my noobish nature, I didn't and thought I was the shit). I made this when I was first leaning MIDI... http://www.box.net/shared/0a9on45cfo It's terrible (Clipping? What clipping??). Had some nice things, but compared to the best (as your comparing), it sucks. Move 6 years into the future, I made this... http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/snes/CTOceanPalace.mid It's much better, and there are few midi writers that can match what I can do (or used to - I lost my program over a year ago ). The point is, it took me YEARS to learn anything about midi music, and I'm sure it'll take me years more to learn the nuances of production and sampling. It's never an easy process, but everyone has done it - In fact, I'm gonna open up a thread asking how long it has taken remixers here to get where they've gotten. You'd be surprised how long it can take. I hope to hear more from you in the future Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeky Stoner Posted March 13, 2009 Author Share Posted March 13, 2009 I'll elaborate on that a longer source intimidates me comment now that I'm putting things in more perspective. i guess with the limited time i have to create something that a longer source intimidates me(with not being able to save project data with the demo of flstudio)I opened up a grad 3 midi and it had 8 different channels on it and i was a little bit overwhelmed at it so i pretty much ended messing around with the midi for about a half hour and never really got anywhere with it. i was also at the image line site looking at the minimum specs for flstudio and realized that I'm under the min specs for flstudio i don't have enough ram only 258 megs and im not sure about my sound card but i guess everything sounds ok. Also when i get about 6 or 7 voices generating in flstudio it really starts to lag up my computer.Anyway I'm on an old computer as is (also a shared one as well) So it might be a bit before i post anything as i want to get my own computer and a full version of flstudio to really seriously pursue this. It's really a little flattering to see you say that you hope to hear more from me in the future. And yes i have been listening to alot of music lately with newfound appreciation for it. ill listen to something like pendulum or even the beatles (anything really) and start playing the underground theme in my head alongside it and try to come up with ideas in my head.Though I'm still not good at spotting flaws in music (aside from things i don't personally prefer) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CC Ricers Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 Correct me if I'm wrong but you can still export wav files with the demo version of FL Studio, right? If so you can work around some of your problems by exporting parts of your music after you're satisfied with them. It's not a very smooth approach but at least you'll have a basic framework of music that you could at least try to reproduce from memory. When you have a music pattern that you like, export that as a wav, then you can load it in the audio clip section. Best of all, playing back audio clips won't lag your computer as playing lots of instruments triggered by notes. For me, shorter source are the most challenging to work with because you don't have much to go on. I have to create more variations without running out of ideas or letting the ideas go stale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeky Stoner Posted March 13, 2009 Author Share Posted March 13, 2009 (POOF) gone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeky Stoner Posted March 13, 2009 Author Share Posted March 13, 2009 Correct me if I'm wrong but you can still export wav files with the demo version of FL Studio, right? If so you can work around some of your problems by exporting parts of your music after you're satisfied with them. It's not a very smooth approach but at least you'll have a basic framework of music that you could at least try to reproduce from memory. When you have a music pattern that you like, export that as a wav, then you can load it in the audio clip section. Best of all, playing back audio clips won't lag your computer as playing lots of instruments triggered by notes. Yeah this thought did occur to me but maybe its just me but i think the audio quality suffers a little bit when you save a riff as a wav. also i cant alter it further as my creative process tends to be ill take some thing then make a variation then another and another and so forth.also too much crap in my computer will clog it up and make it slow. that why i have to delete the ReMixes i download on here (I have them on my ipod anyway) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CC Ricers Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 It sounds like you don't have a lot of hard drive space in your computer. Maybe it's just in a need of a tune-up and some disk defragmenting is in order, or delete unused crap that you're not using anymore (CCleaner is a good program for this). Exporting audio files shouldn't result in a loss of quality as the wav format is lossless. As far as your idea approaches go, it's good to just have scraps of music you created to serve for future inspiration. Also, drum loops can be rearranged many ways with FL's Fruity Slicer tool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeky Stoner Posted March 16, 2009 Author Share Posted March 16, 2009 actually i do have a good amount of hardrive space 31.7 gigs and 16.6 left i think it might be my Ram only 258 megs thats really small and yeah a tune up would definitely make it run better. and about the audio quality your right for the most part now that i think about it. i just hate how the sample will cutoff if i have reverb of some other effect on it. i used alot of wav files when i was making my original stuff not really drum loops mostly synth loops and audio clips i did recently figure out the drum loop arranging thing in fruity loops through a tutorial i'm really not too good at slicing drum loops yet though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WillRock Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 Yo I'm judging this on the first track on your below post (underground grooves), i don't have the time or the patience to listen to them all Ok, I'm going to be brutally honest here - your arrangement here isn't bad I don't think, but the production and sound design isn't good. The synth work sounds way to dry at the moment, and the drums sound very weak to. I'm also not a fan of the clicky drum sound, altho you have two drum sounds going on at once, I prefer the other by a long way. I think there was some creative stuff going down around the 1.05 point, with the phaser and panning in the synth so you do have some decent creative ideas Btw the synth you ended the track with was much better than the previous one you used for most of the track tho not great imho. Well, I think this needs work at the moment bro, it sounds kinda empty with only two instruments at once for most of the track and the sound design isn't great either. Do some experimenting with effects on your synth, I think you can make it sound more interesting Not sure what the other takes you have on this are like but i'm not going to listen to them all Anyway, hope you can get this one a little better dude, you show potential in your arranging, you just need to get your production up to scratch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozovian Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Your first lead (or lead-ish part) doesn't have enough highs. Second (2:00) lead is better. Snare has weird panning. Bass could use some subtle cuts to its high range and a bass boost somewhere 50-200 Hz. Something often overlooked and unmentioned is the sytnh/sampler settings. Opening the filter or making it weaker, increasing or decreasing the resonance value, change the filter envelope... those things can be very useful when you've got an instrument that doesn't sound the way you want to. The volume envelope is also important, tweaking those can rid you of annoying licks when the note is triggered or released, give an instrument more or less punch, stuff like that. practice playing with those as well (turn off the other effects so you hear what you're doing). Your drum sounds are terrible. You should also use hihats and crashes, possibly other high range drums depending on the style and sound you want. You should probably add a pad, both to practice writing chords for the melodies and bassline you've got, and to practice mixing a pad. Also, compare this to other ppl's remixes. Listen for how the bass sounds, try to process and mix yours similarly. Listen to how the lead, drums (etc) sounds, try to tweak and mix those similarly. Don't expect to succeed in imitating them, rather try to produce something of the same mixing quality. That's the goal, right? Practice makes pancakes, the more the better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeky Stoner Posted March 21, 2009 Author Share Posted March 21, 2009 Allright new day new version. i listened to this version like 7 times in FL studio i kinda went back to using a lot of preset synths as they seemed to sound better than the ones i made from scratch. This version is pretty minimal too its really just Drums+Synth. there is alot of drums sounds though some electronic sound and some live sounding. but whats done here i think is done well. (it gets a little loud at 2:36 just to warn you to maybe adjust your volume around there) so heres the latest version titled Underground Jam(still looking for any title suggestions) comments? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eino Keskitalo Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 I like how much variation you get out of the minimal source and minimal instrumentation. I'm seriously grooving to this here. --Eino Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozovian Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 Just a quick listen, but... The intro already sounds better. The second instrument used for the lead cuts the sound on the 5th and 6th note, that bothers me. It's kind'a minimalistic, could use a bassline, pads, something to make it more than melody+drums. Sounds better with the fat snare and lead used closer to 3:00, but it's still just melody+drums. I imagine a simple e-piano/bell rhythm on the same key a few octaves up could work, tho imo melody+harmony+bass+drums is still the simplest way to get a full sound out of it. Good improvement. Keep at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeky Stoner Posted March 22, 2009 Author Share Posted March 22, 2009 Just a quick listen, but...The intro already sounds better. The second instrument used for the lead cuts the sound on the 5th and 6th note, that bothers me. It's kind'a minimalistic, could use a bassline, pads, something to make it more than melody+drums. Sounds better with the fat snare and lead used closer to 3:00, but it's still just melody+drums. I imagine a simple e-piano/bell rhythm on the same key a few octaves up could work, tho imo melody+harmony+bass+drums is still the simplest way to get a full sound out of it. Good improvement. Keep at it. Well thanks honestly i tried to mix some basslines and pads in there but i couldn't make anything that didn't sound a little awkward to me so i ended up with something minimal. After a day of listening though... the intro is a little slow i should of progressed a little faster maybe. the second instrument (if your talking about 0:45) is still the first technically with a lower key and a delay (and probably some other effects i can't think of right now) Yeah 3:00 was kinda my big outro(where the main drum sequence comes back in) thanks for the crits. i'll try try again sometime soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeky Stoner Posted March 27, 2009 Author Share Posted March 27, 2009 ok new version hot off the hard drive. still pretty minimal mostly refinement. anyway I'm too tired to go into detail right now so I'll just let it speak for itself. the title Underground groove is starting to grow on me a little (still looking for title suggestions though) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeky Stoner Posted March 31, 2009 Author Share Posted March 31, 2009 Ok forget everything you remember about the previous versions of this song. (well maybe not everything) completely rethought this song out. so I got the hold of the pipe sound from super mario bros and turned it into a sample in fruity loops and i turned that into the new intro started playing with it and once it slowed down enough i started to hear a beat and after some pretty good fun with fruity loops i came up with a rhythm loop,So what started out as the intro ended up throughout the entire song.It sounded pretty cool to my ears. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeky Stoner Posted April 2, 2009 Author Share Posted April 2, 2009 this one is pretty experimental I went a little crazy with the pipe sound and created some pretty "weird" riffs with it. I'm not to sure what to make of this really. comments? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eino Keskitalo Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 Fun to hear you experimenting. The pipe riff is definitely a good, creative idea. I think it clashes a bit harmony-wise in the beginning with the ug theme, but not sure if that's a concern really. Damn, you really take that idea and draw a lot out of it. Loads of kudos for that. On the whole the one previous version I listened felt like a more comprehensive whole, but toying with the pipe riff was ace here. Keep going. This is fun stuff. --Eino Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeky Stoner Posted December 7, 2009 Author Share Posted December 7, 2009 well it's been a while hasn't it. i have been working on this composition on and off over the past several months now. so this is what i have so far now i suppose there are sort of 4 segments to this song I still not crazy about how the theme is arranged in the first part everything after that is ok but I've listened to this and worked on it so much that i might be getting jaded on it so some fresh ears and opinions would be great. the pipe riffage is out i haven't been able to really recreate what i did there oh well se la vi. so without further adieu here's the wip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shox3 Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 dude that was sick, maybe hold back a few of the repetitive parts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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