Music Works In Progress Thread

[Coolboyrulez0]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

yeah the composition itself is good but a better library will make it sound phenomenal and less midi-ish

although i feel lows could be more prominent and there is a bit of cacophony at parts (intentional?) / mixing could also be better

[V-Ormix]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

well the midish feel comes from the fact that everything is playing at one velocity which immediately takes away any realism from other samples in the voices im using and this was recorded through my mic jack so sound quality isnt near what it could be if I only had the right F*cking drivers for my audio interface... gg windows 8... I cant even install the proper midi drivers for my module cause the installer said "your processor is not adequate" but guess I'll upgrade my setup a bit more in the coming months :V

[StoneMcKnuckle]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

If you think that's expensive look at Vienna instruments rofl

The old Vienna banks cost $10000, but their newer stuff is very affordable AFAIK. Vienna Pro is like €145, Ensemble is €235 etc...

but here is were I'm at currently, and yes I have a habit of adding drums that don't fit a style lmao

Er, I dunno what to say. Knowing you, I expected a lot more. Composition is just plain bad and the drums have no place whatsoever here. If you want drums, use something like Stormdrum or Drums of War or even bass cello slaps, nothing else. Anyway, I'm not sure what the hell's going on here but it sounds like you have several chords layered on top of each other on different scales or something, resulting in an assload of cacophony throughout the entire thing which makes it tedious to listen to. I'm not sure how you missed this. Was it intentional or something? Either way, I don't think it sounds good at all.

Putting the composition aside, here are some tips:
For softer/sustained strings, automate volume. For leads like flutes or violins or whatever, automate vibrato in whatever way you can - it's sometimes built into the VST, sometimes you have to manually make a vibrato LFO in Kontakt and automate that (guides on this @youtube), and sometimes you just have to use pitch automation... either way, vibrato and volume automation is really important for that dynamic sound you're going for. Automating the tempo is also easy, just set FL to "record everything" and press play and then fiddle with the BPM while the song is playing. You'll still have to program the super drastic BPM changes by hand, but if you're just going for humanization the method I described is really simple and effective. Just don't think BPM fiddling is crucial for orchestral music - most tracks don't need it at all. The volume/vibrato programming I mentioned is much more important.

And when I say volume, I mean channel volume, but you should also ALT+R to randomize velocity settings and then adjust velocity from there.

Hope that helps.

EDIT: Also, I really can't stress this enough: High quality banks are super important for orchestral stuff.

[V-Ormix]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

Basically that composition was a polyphonic test to see how well my racks playback was, I used it only as an example of the typical route I take when building some thing "big" or "straight forward". I'm glad I did that track cause I found my rack could not handle 12 channels at a time with out seriously lagging unless you have it hooked up with usb... course the drivers wont install so fml...

As for dynamic tempo, I just try to give a piece a "pulse" by recording tap tempo into the event editor on a blank channel and if it sounds too mechanical I'll try to keep it more consistent but I find playing ghost notes in a sampler channel and working with them after the fact would have a nice humanization cause, well, I'd have to play the notes. course I guess the main idea is to keep what ever I play in a certain time frame and I'm good...

Automation is powerful in every respect regarding dynamics (and most anything else) - but yeah sooo time consuming, and that's usually were I hit one of a few brick walls is just on the automation alone... I'm working on some thing now and I hope I don't get burned out too soon cause I'm def exploring more of what I'd like to think of as interesting compositions.

For me the brick walls can even be mental, most of my songs might have 1 point that even make them listenable at all well the rest of it is filler... I'm having problems simply making a good track from start to finish and I begin to think I'm thinking too hard D:

edit: thanks for the advice tho :3

[Coolboyrulez0]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

i made happy musiks !?

(melody is just improv, quantized heh)

ps panning is fun, kids

[V-Ormix]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

Candy man aint got jack on cbr' dem kidz be at the record st0re getting freaky to the newest pangasm master pieces from cbr O:

[customstuff]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

I was just fooling around for like half an hour and came up with this. It seems good to me but maybe I have that effect where you listen to the same thing over and over and it eventually all seems good when it's not haha.

(Also, volume warning. I start it off very loud...)

https://soundcloud.com/customstuff/i-should-really-finish-a-song

[Ohaider]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

Soundin professional, Culprate - Call It What You Want came on after your track and I'd never heard it and thought it was yours untill I actually checked, if that's a testamate to you at all heh

[StoneMcKnuckle]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

yeah that sounds pretty pro

[customstuff]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

Thanks guys! That actually means a lot considering having a professional sound is what I feel has been holding me back but I've been working on it. And Culprate is basically my idol haha, so thank you!

[V-Ormix]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

yeah those sounds are sick custom, I love how the high hat came in too. those frequencies are lethal.

I've been really nutty about orchestral stuff in the last 3-4 days for whatever reason, this is a dynamics test I was working on... slowly getting my bigger orchestral track ready for the end of this year, this is good practice.

https://soundcloud.com/ormix/basket-drifting-the-river

also, some random thing I did last weekend. comes from my more chippy kind of stuff.
https://soundcloud.com/ormix/the-next-transition

[StoneMcKnuckle]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

ormix that orchestral thingie sounds pretty good but is very lacking volume automation. should fiddle with volume absolutely everywhere for maximum effect, I promise it'll sound a million times better.

[V-Ormix]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

yeah and automated porta and vibrato too O: but it becomes challenging to automate cause I make the common mistake of composing in the production stage and fear I end up putting more time into automation than the piece itself... but yeah I know exactly what you mean and I am trying to incorporate as much as these tips as I can in my future orchestral stuff

edit: but I did take your cacophony advice in that piece ;0

[Choofers]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

no presets were used in the making of this (shitty) thing

https://soundcloud.com/asphyxzero/glitch-house-type-shit

[V-Ormix]

Re: Music Works In Progress Thread

speedy closed hi hat sauce