Commodore Remix

Tried as I could i couldn't get the delta chords to fit in that other 'Phantasm' track, so I spent today doing a proper version from scratch.. This ones going to get finished.. The starts a bit sloppy, it's what i was after, I'm playing that bit live straight into Fruity..

Anyways, any comments or advice? it's always welcome..



Holy God!! I love fruityloops!!! ( daddy's discovered controllers!! )

Great concept... I love it.

One of the things in Fruityloops is that it encourages all of the tracks to be put through the same set of FX since the track is mixed in real-time, leading to a rather "caverny" feel in this case: in this case, there's quite a few tracks there that should be dryer, which would make the wetness stand out more and be more effective. I made the same mistake on BIT 1 (putting basslines through reverb), but on BIT 2 I'd moved to recording each track individually.

Well, if you're asking.....

I've often said it before but synths should really sound gritty for this sort of thing. Just conveys the verve the music already has.

thanks for the advice Chris, I've got each track set with its own set of effects, and stopped using the 'master' channel for that stuff.. would you elaborate on the "putting everything through the same set of effects" bit please buddy, that's kinda confused me .. I'll have a play with the fx tonight, fair comment on the reverb, there's 'spacey' and as you so rightly said 'cavernous'. Thanks again for the comments, ( and for the record, BIT 2 was awesome!!! )

Well, in BIT 1, everything was put through the same reverb and chorus settings, since the whole MIDI file was played back at once. This meant that the only control you had over the level of reverb was "some" or "none", and of course no compression at all. So everything was going through the single FX on the cards (Well, OK, there were actually two or three cards).

I find that if you want spacey, delay is much better than reverb (which tends to muddy the sound, especially in the lower frequencies). Sometimes I just created a ghost track (or three) in the sequencer file which was delayed by a certain number of clock ticks and then played with a slightly different instrument (much lower in volume) instrument so that there was a much more interesting delay effect than normal. If you did that of those things, and THEN put the resulting submix through another small amount of delay (possibly adding a slight MIDI pitchbend for a detune) and adding a chorus/flange, you have something pretty rich. In general the bass and drums always gained a lot more from compression (to stick out in the mix) than they did from reverb, but that's probably personal taste.

Chris

Also, if you have one really rough synth (maybe made up of two or more complementary sounds, one providing body and one providing sharpness) it can really crash through and liven up an otherwise smooth mix. The Tetris cover I released a bit back had a similar feel: a very smooth spacey track with a crashing guitar-like sound slap-bang in the middle.

For Karma 64 I would sometimes record the track around 6 times with different dynamic patches on the Karma or Supernova (all of which had rhythms), and then create a composite track of the whole lot (with some almost but not quite inaudible, and some quite prominent). That was a lot of fun, and created tracks where it was impossible to pinpoint any single patch.

Chris

Wow, thanks for the reply Chris, some really useful hints and tips in there.

I think you may have seen an old version of Fruity, I can add individual effects for each VST/track in a mix, upto ( off the top of my head ) eight per track, plus the master channel too.

I've picked up a lot of info here from you guys over the last while, so i ditched the 'master' channel for effects, ( maybe the odd bit of brightening ) and use a different fx for each instrument/group of instrument. Usually a EQ and either reverb or delay to add a bit of body. Sometimes lack of experience leads me to overdo the reverb telling myself it adds body.. starting to believe otherwise now..

I've had a quick go with removing the reverb but the tune sounds kinda weak now.. Sighh ... but I'll keep at it and try and beef up those leads if I can.. Still struggling through buddy but the help you guys offer is beyond valuable.. Thankyou..