Guides for the inexperienced composer / musician?

[Bren_McGuire]

Hi all,

I've come a long way in music, playing keyboard almost as long as I can remember, yet I still find my work lacking "something". I can't compose or remix to save my life despite having a very good ear for music (and close-to audiophonic memory).

I was wondering if anyone knows of any useful guides for getting started in composing / remixing, or has any general suggestions? I love C64 remixes more than anything and I'd love to be able to get good enough to contribute some work to the vast collection here and at KWED.

Also, the sound quality always seems to be somehow "lacking" in my work, and I can't figure out why or what I'm doing wrong. They usually end up sounding very "MIDI-ish" (if you know what I mean).

Hardware / software-wise, I have nothing fancy. I'm running a Linux set-up, so obviously this limits what music hardware and software I can use. I have a crappy Yahama MIDI keyboard connected to my Sound Blaster Live! I use RoseGarden as a MIDI editor, Audacity as an audio editor (I also use this to convert MIDI to WAV). I have about 7GB of free sound font files (*.sf2), though not many are of any decent quality. Nevertheless, I still feel that I am the limiting factor and not my set-up.

Anyway, here's a sample of my efforts so far:

Penetrator (Red Alert Mix).mp3

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Bren

[Chris Abbott]

There's a number of places where you can improve technique: your technique sounds a bit similar to the one I used to create "Back in Time 1" and bits of "Back in Time 2": create MIDI file, render (or record through synths), and end up with WAV.

I'll give you some advice I've found helpful, and how I work. Your mileage may vary, but since I had to make the mental transition from a MIDI sequence approach to a multi-track recording approach, I know it's not too difficult to comes to terms with.

1) Never render a whole MIDI file: apart from the rendering engine not necessarily doing a great job of the mixing, it discourages you from concentrating on how individual tracks fit into the overall mix.

Instead, render or record each track separately, and without FX (unless you're using a synth specific effect which is integral to the track). If you're happy with the panning, record it with that. Make sure you get a good hot signal: punt the volume for the instrument (controller 7) up to 100: essentially you'll be recreating your mix in a multitrack WAV editor (what? You haven't got a multitrack WAV editor??? I'd also recommend recording each track two or three times with different interesting instruments for layering later.

What you end up with is loads of identically sized WAV files. These should be loaded into a multi-track WAV editor (I told you you'd need one).

What you can then do is apply appropriate FX to each track: often this might be EQ (to get the track to fit in with other sounds), reverb (in these days of high quality reverb plugins there's no excuse for using the crappy Reverb algorithms built into MIDI renderers), compression, and/or SFX.

Since you're dealing with each track separately (and making changes to one doesn't affect the others, and since you're not limited to 16/32 channels any more), you're forced to concentrate on each track individually.

Once you've rendered that nicely mixed lot down to another WAV (preferably a 24 bit one), you can apply post-production, such as global multiband EQ, multiband compression, stuff like that, which makes the piece sound dynamic and, most importantly, loud.

If you have a "cheap" MIDI source, you can sometimes make it sound expensive by using the layered sounds, and you can beef up rhythms by recording the rhythm line twice with different kits. I often find I can superimpose two or three rhythms into the same track, and somehow the brain sorts it all out

Chris

[Bren_McGuire]

Thanks, all great tips and a lot of things I didn't know! I do already use a multi-track WAV editor (Audacity) so that won't be a problem. I will try to implement your suggestions in my next effort and see what happens.

Thanks

btw, I love your Lightforce 2000 remix... that's the kind of thing I'd like to be able to do... Sounds very solid and well integrated. I must've listened to that track well over a hundred times!

[Chris Abbott]

BIT 3 was I think the point at which the procedure really took hole: BIT 2 is interesting since tracks like Warhawk and Thalamusik were essentially "MIDI recorded" tracks, and tracks like "Driller" were the first to be mixed as separate WAVs. On Karma 64 sometimes a very basic MIDI track was put through the Korg Karma engine to get very complex results. You take five very complex tracks and put them together at varying volume levels, and you end up with something really unique. Oddly, as long as you choose the right things happening, it seems to work really well. But you've got to listen to my CD tracks to hear the development: although the Slow Poison stuff on RKO mainly exhibits this (though the Zoids was a straight MIDI record from the EMU Virtuoso).

Chris

[DHS]

Hey Chris, are you sure you didn't give the same advices to timbaland?

[Analog-X64]

Hey Chris, are you sure you didn't give the same advices to timbaland?

Shhhhhh!! thats a secret.

[tmx]

Sadly I cant listen to your song at the moment (at work)
But maybe i can give some pointers.

I love remixing too, ive got tons of them but almost none of them have seen the public, i just do for fun.

Practice makes perfect. Ive been creating music on my puters for the past 14 or so years,
When I started I had no idea on how to use my tracker sofware on my amiga, but i keept at it for so long till i learned. Even now days I still learn new things and get new ideas on how to do things, now im in a phaze of trying to do guitars, its not perfect yet but it will be one day

I often recreate all kinds of music just for practice and to sort of make my self do thinks i'd normally would not do. They are not nessesary remixes, just recreations using the simple tools I have. This is one of the main ways I learn new things these days.

Im on a simalar setup as you, i have a cheap midi keyboard. But I dont use it all the time, i sertanly dont record real time on it. Just jamming for new ideas that I could not come up with using only the mouse and keyboard.

When you create music they dont have to be a remix of a song in a totally different style.

If you start out by just trying to recreate, you will for sure get Ideas and things along the way. I stumble on all kinds of cool ideas when I do this. I sort of just hear it in my head as I go along, thinking it will maybe sound good in that particular part or so.

Alot of my songs i do in buzz are short and so as I just do things that comes to mind, but I still save everything I do.

More then once have I imported small songs and "testings" into full remixes and just tweaked the sounds a bit to follow the general style of the song in question. All notes are there so not too much work has to be put in to it just tweakings.

Or some times i just strip one of those small test songs I make and make use of for example the drum lines and build something compleatly new with it.

One of the best ways for me to get inspiration is to just hear sounds.
Like different presets in Vst instruments, I browse through them and when I hear a sertain sound I like I assosiate it with a song in my head, thinking on how it might turn out, and them in in for an all nighter.
So download new samples, or any way you get a hold of sounds for your music software, or just browse your collection (7gb sf2's 0_+ wow!)

Overall soundquallity will come in time as you get used to your music creation tools, you will learn new ways on doing things and so on.
Just keep at it as much as you can

Studying other peoples remixes and try to analyze them, that also a great way to get inspiration and new ideas.

I cant give you any insight in your music software and I am a total noob when it comes to midi sequencing. Im a "tracker" by heart and will prolly always be.

I cant read musical notes what so ever so I play with my ears alone, but as ive been doing it for so long I usually dont have a hard time recreating what I aim for. And since you have a good musical ear too

Does your music sofware support vst´s ?
If so, go find YmVST, its a free vst instrument that emulates an atari sound chip. It has arpeggio support and all those must have things and its quite easy to use, Its exelent for c64 remixes as you can do drums and everything with it (pitch bend a Triangel sound or Sine, or a Saw for a punshier sound note down fast and have some white noise in the begining)

I rarely use samples my self only for drums, i stick to what Buzz has to offer and add on some vst's. Samples are good but In my oppinion some what limited as you would have to edit to suit the need of the song.
But on the other hand, they can make all the difference too if perfect for your song

I dont know of any good guides, when buzzmachines.com were up they had tips and tricks, many I think you could utilize in more then just buzz.
madtracker.org has some good tips too in the forums.
And Im sure theres plenty to be found here with all the c64 gurus available

I can't think of anything more specific at the moment but I do hope have some use of what I have to offer.
Best wishes in your musical projects!
//
TmX