[Super Mario Galaxy] Rosalina's Embrace

[ChaosSupremeSonic]

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/midi1.htm

That'll help.

The issue with the sax is that it isn't human.

You can have the highest quality soundfonts/VST's in the world and it won't matter.

It has to be human.

Velocity changes, offsetting notes because humans don't play exactly in rhythm, etc. With the amount of experience you have it will take a long time to try and successfully humanize this. It can be done but it's not something easy to do. You have to listen to a lot performed music and figure out what makes their saxophones sound human.

Ooooh. Sounds like a challenge I'm willing to take. It was a challenge (I'd almost say a pain in the ass) to even come up with this arrangement, but that didn't stop me from making one as good as it currently is.

I don't know any guys who can sequence a saxophone except for my brother,

I suppose asking him for some advice wouldn't hurt, or is he either very busy or not interested in giving advice?

Eh, it's worth a shot...

It's not as hard as you think to find a good guy to collab with, it's as easy as "Post a thread and wait a few days."

I'll see how Swann handles it when I get to sending him the midi files. In the meantime, I'm gonna take a shot at sequencing a saxophone.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Ooooh. Sounds like a challenge I'm willing to take. It was a challenge (I'd almost say a pain in the ass) to even come up with this arrangement, but that didn't stop me from making one as good as it currently is.

Try not to get full of yourself, production's a bit of a different playing field.

[ChaosSupremeSonic]

Man, school is really coming down hard on my ass.

Anyway, this update is to test how the sax sequencing is faring out. One thing that I observed (or remembered in this case) from people playing actual insturments is that they don't play as if they hold their breath through a whole song.

People take breaths after they run out of it at certain points while reading music, and they can take a breath at any moment, which is why there were tickmarks at the top of music pieces if you were playing a wind insturment such as a brass or woodwind that indicated where you could take a quick breath. That's part of what I remembered during my days in high school band class.

Now I had displaced some space on the sax part to simulate this quick breath, and I had changed the velocity to make the insturment sound softer in the music.

Here's a sample so far: http://www.mediafire.com/?j2ykt3n1ztq

Any suggestions?

[ChaosSupremeSonic]

Kinda curious as to how I'm progressing with the song. I set the Flute up another octave, increased the volume of the strings, and lowered the reverb of the piano.

Now I know the Sax needs more humanizing, and while Swann deals with his finals, I'm still consideriing listening to his trumpet version to see if I could use it, but for right now I'm sticking with the sax until further notice.

Any flaws you hear, point them out.

I personally think the sax needs to be a bit louder, especially when the Flute plays its melody (GAWD that was silent X-(), and then the piano is sounds like it needs a volume increase near the end after the flute's melody. but you guys have better ears than me at hearing any flaws in the song.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Kinda curious as to how I'm progressing with the song. I set the Flute up another octave, increased the volume of the strings, and lowered the reverb of the piano.

Now I know the Sax needs more humanizing, and while Swann deals with his finals, I'm still consideriing listening to his trumpet version to see if I could use it, but for right now I'm sticking with the sax until further notice.

Any flaws you hear, point them out.

I personally think the sax needs to be a bit louder, especially when the Flute plays its melody (GAWD that was silent X-() but you guys have better ears than me at hearing any flaws in the song.

Still way too muddy (reverby).

Everything's swimming around each other.

[ChaosSupremeSonic]

Still way too muddy (reverby).

Everything's swimming around each other.

Think you can elaborate the flaws a little more? Like what would I need to do to keep the insturments from swiming around each other.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Think you can elaborate the flaws a little more? Like what would I need to do to keep the insturments from swiming around each other.

Turn down the reverb, is what I meant. The piano and the strings are both in the background, and the reverb is making them blend too much.

[ChaosSupremeSonic]

Turn down the reverb, is what I meant. The piano and the strings are both in the background, and the reverb is making them blend too much.

Oh. I thought there was more to it than that. Sorry.

Based off what you said earlier, I'm guessing the piano should be quieter than the strings, so by order of sound:

-Sax being the main melody is the loudest (but not so loud that you can't hear the other insturments)

-Strings are second loudest

-Piano is the quietest

-Flute is the loudest only when it has the melody.

Would that work?

EDIT: ALso I seem to have encountered a problem with FL Studio. The Strings and Piano in the beginning somehow go mute for a split second and then go back to normal, and then sometimes they sound scattered as if something was wrong with the program. It seems to only happen whenever I try to make a crescendo for the introduction of the strings yet if I keep it at a constant volume, the problem doesn't happen as much. You ever had that problem?

[Nabeel Ansari]

Oh. I thought there was more to it than that. Sorry.

Based off what you said earlier, I'm guessing the piano should be quieter than the strings, so by order of sound:

-Sax being the main melody is the loudest (but not so loud that you can't hear the other insturments)

-Strings are second loudest

-Piano is the quietest

-Flute is the loudest only when it has the melody.

Would that work?

EDIT: ALso I seem to have encountered a problem with FL Studio. The Strings and Piano in the beginning somehow go mute for a split second and then go back to normal, and then sometimes they sound scattered as if something was wrong with the program. It seems to only happen whenever I try to make a crescendo for the introduction of the strings yet if I keep it at a constant volume, the problem doesn't happen as much. You ever had that problem?

No, the strings are used for chordal support, but the piano has individual notes that need to be heard. I'd say, first, turn down the piano reverb and make it louder. Next,

for the flute, instead of making it LOUD just make it the same volume as the saxophone. It's at a higher FREQ than the sax, so there'll be no blending/clashing whatsoever and it's okay to make them the same volume.

Also, that just means the volume is getting too loud so that your sound card can't handle the output so it starts to clip. I'd recommend lowering the volume of the master channel until it stops.

If the frequency meters turn yellow and red (at the top, should be where you see the frequency spectrum display) , that means you're exceeding a certain threshold so it starts to get iffy. For full details, I recommend Zircon's production guide.

It's an amazing article and teaches you almost everything you need to know about good production values. It's no substitute for practice, but it's a great place to start practicing. xD It taught me all about mastering and such.

[ChaosSupremeSonic]

No, the strings are used for chordal support, but the piano has individual notes that need to be heard. I'd say, first, turn down the piano reverb and make it louder.

Speaking of the strings, I recently figured out a better way to separate them. And I got a good grasp of how panning helps better organize the sound.

In VST I'm using, DKS Strings, I had the strings put all together, with a violin being the insturment that stood out. I originally had it set like this:

Violin Section (P) + String Section (P) [the VST has two insturments settings put together]

Here's the sample:

But after observing how orchestras are set up, I split the string sounds into this:

Violin (P) + String Section (P)

Cello (P) + "

D.Bass (P) + "

In a real orchestra, Violins are set to the left (second violins are to the right of the first violins), and the Cellos and Double Basses are set to the right. So to mimic that, I had to pan the Violins, Cellos, and D.Basses according to that. Here's how that sounds:

I think it sounds a lot better, and I can better hear the insturments without them sounding like they're fighting each other to be heard. Tho the D.Basses sound a bit overpowering in some parts of the actual song, so I'm on to changing that.

For full details, I recommend Zircon's production guide.

It's an amazing article and teaches you almost everything you need to know about good production values. It's no substitute for practice, but it's a great place to start practicing. xD It taught me all about mastering and such.

Yeah, I know about that. It's one of the things that's been helping me while I've been working on this.

[ChaosSupremeSonic]

You know, over time I've been testing out the insturments of this song, and I've really been changing it a lot since I first started this.

At first, it was meant to be a jazz song, and over time it became a bit more of a orchestra with a saxophone playing to keep a bit of the jazz I wanted. Now, I changed it into a full blown orchestra, and it took a lot of time to transform it into such.

It didn't take me long to re-arrange the insturment, but it did take me a while to understand how an orchestra works. It was worth it, and wasn't as frustrating as I thought it would be.

After obtaining a new VSTi, I went ahead and re-organized things to a more orchestra feel, similar to that of the orignal song.

So here is the work so far:

I took out the Sax and replaced it with an Oboe, completely took out the Piano with no substitute, added French Horns, Viola, Tuba, Clarinet, Trumbone, and a Second Violin.

Obviously unfinished; I need to set the volumes for the insturments so they don't over power the melody, like they're doing with the Oboe, and I need to finish the ending.

But even with all that...how am I doing so far?

[Nabeel Ansari]

This sounds really unrealistic, especially the horns, and everything is really bland and fighting each other. And there's dissonance near the beginning.

[ChaosSupremeSonic]

This sounds really unrealistic, especially the horns, and everything is really bland and fighting each other. And there's dissonance near the beginning.

Wow...not really what I was expecting. Was I better off with the original one?

Then again, I'm still working on it, so it's not like it would've been perfect. I still need to humanize it and work on the notes along with other things.

How exactly would I fix the horns? Is it just a matter of it not sounding human?