is this any better?

[marv cripps]

I tried running my midi through soft synths. Any feedback would be great.

[Ray Kemp]

marv,

The sounds aren't good but you can do better with them if you just tweak them a little.
Even if it's hard to get expression from such one dimensional instruments you should at least phrase the melody a little better. You wouldn't sing it like a robot so why not adjust the note lengths and accent those on downbeats etc. Make it flow.
Remind me of what you're using there to create your cues. soft synths? DAW?

Ray

[marv cripps]

Thanks Ray,

I got Sonar Home Studio 7 and don't know how to use it yet. Soft Synths are new to me and I'm probably trying to go too fast - driving in the dark. I will take a good hard look at that phrasing - again thanks.

[Ray Kemp]

It'll keep you busy for a while Marv. Even now I listen to a track I did a year ago and want to remix it with the ongoing knowledge aquired since. If you're loving doing it then it'll be worth the effort. Pull the kick drum level back a bit, vary the velocity on the snare especially on rolls. Like 64,44,74,54,84,64 etc experiment with different velocities on all instruments so you lessen the machine gun effect that makes the lines so false.

Have fun.

[Jan Civil]

Per the machine gun effect, with certain VIs, it can't be avoided. If what you have has a box you can tick in preferences or somewhere in the interface that deals with it, do so. (In general terms what a developer uses to obviate this is called Round Robin, where a sufficient number of different samples is rotated so no sample is triggered twice in a row. I choose instruments where this is totally sussed.)

A tom tom roll, has to use samples of different hits to be believable. The velocity curve is going to look somewhat like sines in many cases doing these kinds of fills...
there should be tools in the editor which draw via curves and lines. I think your Sonar has at least a pencil tool.

the drum part, being a pop type of drum part, needs a hihat keeping the time along with the rhythm guitar, or it sounds just very odd. Even if you went orchestral with big toms for the fills, a lack of hats for such a poppy part is going to call attention to itself as peculiar.

Other parts which have a longer envelope, you won't get away with the notes all being the same duration, or you sound like a casio. Listen to a record with attack, duration (and release) in mind for each part. Although, a drum part isn't much concerned with durations (a drum controller gives you just a tick basically), it's all velocity tweaking. There has to be a lot of attention to this for all instruments. (I think mocking all the roles in an arrangement is the best learning situation ever available to a musician.)

It all sounds one-dimensional in terms of sonic space, you have to locate things. A good drum library will solve that as far as the drums. Convolutions (models) of acoustical spaces goes some more of the distance putting the sounds 'in a room'....

[marv cripps]

Thank you for all your input. I think I might need some brain enhancment though. I get too anxious to make it all the way through my tutorials. Thanks again for your advise.

[Leon]

I kinda missed the first part of this thread, but I just want to say I liked the track. I think it would sound good through some real guitars. The melody would sound nice on a bass.

[marv cripps]

Thanks, Leon
A positive comment is always welcome