What have you composed for? Or what medium do you work around?
Other
What is your favorite genre or style of music?
New Age
Is music your main income source?
No - Not Yet
About Me (Must include at least one paragraph of biographical information about you as a composer) - blank or minimal answers on this line will cause your request to be rejected. Include a link to your website if you have one.
Hi! I'm a little chubby disabled guy who loves writing New Age music on his PC. However, I'm having a HUGE technical problem that's preventing me from mixing stuff properly. I've joined so that, hopefully, someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong!
Comments
Hi,
Hows the progress going? :)
I found great book about orchestration. You might want to look in to it.
http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/096257/details.html
All Best
Mik
Hey,
Firstly please don't think about yourself that you're stupid! You're not. It's only lack of knowladge we all have started with. With time you will gain it like everyone.
And please don't use "posh" to express the quality. Because it's all about the second. you have either have good samples, avrege or bad :D
For good DAW i advice you to get reaper It's a great daw and you can use it for free withought any limitations. And it's fairly simple.
Now answering to your question:
0-127 that's not a volume. That's velocity - the strength of playing.
Track Volume in this case has got nothing to do with speakers volume. You have tracks volume and master volume. Try look up the mixer in the qse. As well in Edirol Orchestra I susspect there is build in mixer as with bandstand and there should be volume nobs.
Ok hope that will get you closer to achiving your goal :)
All Best
Mik
Hey,
I understand your pain wth lack of technical skills. I was the same and I still have a lot to learn. But I've listened to your track. I think it's pretty good. Easly would fit in to jrpg game which is a good thing since those games always have most melodic and quality scores.Stop being so hard on yourself becfause that blocks you from letting all of your passion flow :D
Thise are going to be mostly general advices.
The production starts with the composition. If the composition has got badly arranged parts then producing it is a nightmare. I used to put loads of effects and eqs and spend hours upon hours trying to produce my stuff. Once I've realised that it was my composition which was badly arranged causeing the problem I've started to learn and improving my orchestration skills :D
Now badly orchestrated part doesn't mean everything is terrible. It means that there might be a doubled note somewhere or note in the chord could be moved to other octave to make the instruments sound clearer.
With better orchestration/arrangment i'm now only using convulsive reverb and limiter and everything sounds great so far and i can focus on continuing learning about orchestration. You can write with convulsive reverb on and when you finish and you wat to volume up you can put the compression/limiter on.
About your track. My first impression was that piano was to loud and it was distorting sound. Don't worry about the volume when you compose. Make sure nothing is to loud. I usualy set everything to -10 db.
Secendly you need to work on setting better velocity. This is very importand. You have to use your orchestra as it would be a mixing table. Setting the right velocities will create richer sound because instruments sounds will not be overpowering another. It is difficult but once you start working on it you will figure it out.
Don't add extra notes because this way will not make instruments sound reacher only muddled. If you want to bring up particular section just lower the velocity of other instruments and rise the instrument you want it to lead.
Make sure that notes are not doubled within the octave, so for example try only have one C one E and one G in one octave and use other octaves for other sections. And make sure bass has got a lot of space to sound out. But to bring up you the lead you can double the main melody and/or play it in unisono.
Read about the instruments and find out how they sound in different ranges.
Have good monitor speakers or headphones.
Should concider learning how to use ewql. Much better then edirol . Edirol sounds flat.
Hopefuly this will help. Let me know if you have any more questions.
Good luck and all best
M
for some sounds there is free kontakt player with 600mb of samples and some more freebies http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/?category=1339 , so you could give it a shot if you don't have them yet they are oretty good. And cinesamples has got free libs http://cinesamples.com/retail/
Hey man,
So sorry for such late respond. I wasn't checking my page on here. Im not great at production although now im better then i used to be when i wrote pieces that are over here.
There is few things first. I realised sometimes your instruments are to loud, so the first advice is to set all of the tracks to -10 db. You will make them louder later.
In regards to everything else what sounds you're after?
All Best
Mik
Hi Ulrich!
Thanks for your comments and advice. I will take this into account in the future and as you correctly point out I'm not a master in mixing.
I wish you a good 2012
BTW. The summer song was written as a knock-off of Percy Faith song for a TV show that wanted the same feeling
Hello. Just came on to say howdy. Let's make our plan this week! Are you game?
Your friend from across the big pond,
Martha Maria
P.S. Is the royal wedding a big deal over there? Kate looks like a sweet girl. I'm not particularly interested in the royal anything, but I hope that Kate isn't devoured the way poor Diana was.
Hi There, I'm going to sleep very well!!!! This little piece reminds me of those sweet summer days when the ice cream truck came around and Mother always gave us a quarter to buy a brown cow.
Sorry, I haven't checked in more lately. I've been very busy, getting my new label off the ground. It's Dogwood Daughter, a site just for Christian music. It's daunting and scary to launch a new project.
I was wondering how your new job is working out? Write me a quick e-mail. I still haven't given up on your radio idea....I've just been preoccupied with other projects.
I love this section of your piece.....the flute solo in the middle. Your music has a gentle sweetness. Now I'm listening to the Oriental One. The plucked sound reminds me of a hammered dulcimer. I used to play those quite a lot. But the digital world has ruined me for anything that needs to be tuned...I've gotten very lazy.
Drop me an e-mail when you get the time.
Now, I'm going to sleep. Good night, Christopher. Martha
hi Christopher, sorry for answering late
I suggest you to fix any latency matters, and to compose while listening to the loop beeing played. Never compose deaf on piano roll, you should always listen to the result. some instrument has less attack and you would have to move the note a millimiter before... but what you can do is just type on a keyboard the rythmic pattern and only after move the notes on the desires pitch. Anyway a clear idea of the rythm (which is the difficult thing on piano roll) is important to trasform a "time" idea in a visual one. Another fundamental thing is trying to set the right quantize for any piece... i think almost every rhythm is quantizable. also, for me, listening to american minimalistic is a huge font of inspiration, they seem to compose on piano roll, of curse they are not, but they develop useful ideas for computer composers.
I hope i told you useful things
ric