|
Time to specialize in vocoder-heavy tracks? 
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2021 15:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 22:20 |
|
|
Pollyanna posted:Time to specialize in vocoder-heavy tracks? well it's really more of just getting the rough shape and then I can take the midi notes wherever and fix up the timing and pitch and all that. Of course then I still need to do the layers and percussion the old fashioned way but once a melodic skeleton is there that other stuff is easy enough to do intuitively I figure there's a million ways to skin this cat but my usual method for starting a track has been chords or percussion, I guess because I tend to be a rhythm player. This is a nice little foothold into a composition pattern I've never really felt comfortable with before. I realize this is probably an old trick at this point but I feel very pleased having just found it after a decade.  New tool in the arsenal Good Soldier Svejk fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Nov 30, 2021 |
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2021 15:33
|
|
|
Anything that helps develop structure and get pen onto paper is a good thing! The hardest part of composition is gaining a foothold onto something, anything, and building off of it is far easier than building off of nothing. Not that building off something into a full-fledged track is easy 
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2021 16:35
|
|
|
Lol another one I've heard of is people doing bass music by just recording themselves going "wub-wub wub wuuuub wub wub" and then mapping the amplitude of that track to the LPF cutoff.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2021 16:57
|
|
|
Pollyanna posted:Anything that helps develop structure and get pen onto paper is a good thing! The hardest part of composition is gaining a foothold onto something, anything, and building off of it is far easier than building off of nothing. Not that building off something into a full-fledged track is easy *mashes random button furiously*
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2021 17:39
|
|
|
Good Soldier Svejk posted:So here's a workflow I'd never thought of before and just tried to interesting results: sometimes I've got a melody in my head but my dumb meat fingers can't get it out fast enough in time before it's mutated and gone off into the netherworld of thought. This is how I get down most of my ideas / parts these days using Live's audio to MIDI feature. The conversion can sometimes be a mess that requires some cleanup, but it's general good enough to get started. There's also definitely some technique to the humming/whistling/singing to get cleaner results. The best part is just being able to spit out multiple parts/riffs back to back without stopping (just stacking the voice recordings), and then going back and working out the details of the MIDI conversion and sound design after the inspiration has passed.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2021 22:42
|
|
|
VCV Rack 2 has been released.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2021 01:56
|
|
|
Good Soldier Svejk posted:So here's a workflow I'd never thought of before and just tried to interesting results: sometimes I've got a melody in my head but my dumb meat fingers can't get it out fast enough in time before it's mutated and gone off into the netherworld of thought. Vochlea just released Dubler 2, which is a standalone plugin for this. I think it's overpriced for what it is, but I grabbed it on their black friday sale because I enjoyed the demo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MNa5iJmzxM Overall it's pretty good, but some tweaking after-the-fact is often necessary unless you have the "stickiness" dialed in just right.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2021 02:56
|
|
|
I hardly ever have formed melodies in my head like you guys are describing, I almost always end up getting an idea by noodling around on guitar or piano until something sounds good. Gonna have to give this a try because with an instrument-first approach you definitely get limited by the scales you know and the muscle memory licks you always reach for.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2021 05:20
|
|
|
prom candy posted:I hardly ever have formed melodies in my head like you guys are describing, I almost always end up getting an idea by noodling around on guitar or piano until something sounds good. Gonna have to give this a try because with an instrument-first approach you definitely get limited by the scales you know and the muscle memory licks you always reach for. That's my other approach (especially with guitar), but yeah, with voice I'll come up with things that I never would while improvising on guitar (for the reasons you mentioned). I'll even occasionally come up with guitar parts via voice, then work out how to play it on guitar.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2021 07:29
|
|
|
I come up with melodies and progressions in my head sometimes, and I do wish there was a quick and easy way to record and quantize them without having to use my extremely horrid voice. At least I’m familiar enough with a keyboard to replicate them. But it’s all for naught if I can’t develop a workflow that streamlines the creation process, otherwise those recordings and snippets will just languish in the void. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2021 14:28
|
|
|
I whistle or sing them usually to get them down. If I'm not around people (and sometimes when I am) I'm pretty much constantly either singing something or whistling something so I have a lot of practice at it and am usually within a few cents pitch-wise. I can hear the entirety of songs in my head and wish I could just read them out as they are. Melodies, harmonies, ornaments, etc. I think orchestra music is a really good place to start with composing because you already know what the instruments sound like. Synths are super tricky because they can sound like basically ANYTHING, and you can so easily get distracted fiddling with knobs and buttons and whatnot. When I'm putting something down I almost always start with piano first because it has all the pitch range you're going to need, can have multiple lines/chords going, and most of all you aren't thinking about some specific sound you want to try and get out of a synth. It's better to get the notes down first, then worry about what synth sound you want to create or specific instrument sound.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2021 17:38
|
|
|
Guys my pc wouldn't boot into windows because a secondary drive failed. So its in the shop. I have this crappy little laptop/notebook thing, Acer Swift 1. its like 4 gigs ram, and a quad 1.10ghz cpu or something. Would it be worth trying to install my scarlett and seeing if it can run my standalone amp sims at all? or is it too frail to do so. I wanted to play guitar this weekend.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2021 23:56
|
|
|
I am kind of familiar with that CPU as my kid's laptop has one also, it can probably run an amp sim of some kind. https://www.simulanalog.org/guitarsuite.htm hosts fine in Reaper and those should run on any PC made since like 2010, but try a real amp sim, might be fine if you keep the workload small. Softube has their Plexi and Silver Jubilees at $19 direct from them with the HOLIDAYSPECIALS coupon. Silver Jubilee is in the revamped Focusrite software bundle too if you bought one of their hardware products lately, bunch of nice plugins in that now including a few I paid for this year. Agreed fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Dec 17, 2021 |
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2021 01:10
|
|
|
Lol there are people running (Linux) amp sims (and Reaper) on Raspberry Pis. You might need to turn off cab sims and any heavy reverb, but should be able to manage something.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2021 01:15
|
|
|
Would reaper + amp sim or just using the standalone amp sim versions be better? I could install them and try. I might just go buy another amp to keep around tomorrow anyway. I gave my Katana to my brother because I didn't really use it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2021 01:20
|
|
|
If you can find a standalone one that's fine -- your main goal is just to jam, right? But most amp sims come as VSTs, in which case Reaper is about as cheap and lightweight a DAW as you'll find to host them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2021 01:31
|
|
|
I have Neural DSP sims, as well as STL Amp Hub. Also a couple of cheaper audio assault ones. They all have standalones which is what I usually use when I'm just playing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2021 01:37
|
|
|
Eh, it's worth giving those a shot, but don't be surprised if they can't handle on the crappy little laptop thing. If they can't, you'll need to try out the lighter weight options suggested by Agreed, or your plan of just buying a new modelling amp.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2021 02:08
|
|
|
I've got a question about lovely rear end iLok. I was installing and it said something about if you change hardware you need to remove your license from that device first or you'll lose it. Since my computer just poo poo itself, does that mean I lost one of my licenses? So if your computer shits itself enough, does that mean you can't use the programs you payed for without buying it again?
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2021 02:13
|
|
|
Yes, if your iLok licenses are tied to your computer hardware and your computer suffers a hardware failure that causes those installed licenses to no longer be accessible/usable, then you may lose access to your software if you are unable to recover those licenses. Alternatives are to use the Cloud if available for that software (then it's if your internet goes out you're screwed 'til it's back, assuming no server issues on their end). I am about to get a physical iLok because I've finally got enough of these types of activations that I'm starting to sweat my over-56k-hours-of-continuous-on studio PC potentially costing me them with a hardware failure. I do believe you can try company by company to get those licenses back and in many cases it's not a huge hassle but not in all cases. Sucks with ones that give only one license, but really losing any limited quantity of license on a hardware failure blows your avatar. Y'all I am liking what Softube has been up to. I found their amp modeling nice and competitive in the late 2000s and they've clearly been getting better since. Amp Room hit $40 at one point in the Black Friday / Cyber Monday madness, and these two Marshalls at $19 have been a nice addition, I will keep an eye out for more of the amps to hit low prices from them for sure. Need to check out the new Mesa pack from IKMM, too, but I might wait on that to be available in a future sale alongside FAME Studio Reverb which I also really want to pick up eventually - their similar Sunset studio product has been dynamite for me, great spaces. They've had some attractive releases already since the 25th anniversary GB, I might end up in the next one at this rate too. Agreed fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Dec 17, 2021 |
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2021 02:22
|
|
|
Ah, I'll figure it out. Good news! My shittop is running Nolly @ 48khz and 96 buffer rate which is pretty good actually.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2021 02:40
|
|
|
Rock on DDD 
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2021 02:45
|
|
|
I was on vacation last week and put reaper and some 'lighter weight' plug-ins on my laptop so I could still play around with stuff. It's a 2013 macbook air with a dual core i7 @ 1.7 GHz and it ran them just fine. It took a bit to load some of them but I could play back multiple channels with no problem, and that includes a guitar plugin and amp for it. Oh and that includes using ASIO4all or whatever instead of my normal scarlet. You may have to set the buffer to be a bit bigger than your normally do but it should be fine. Oh I just saw your post saying it's working, great! If you turn the quality down to 44 kHz you should be able to lower the buffer more if it's an issue at all. In regards to iLok, I too used to use the software version of it, but after reformatting a drive and losing license info a while back and not being able to unbind it from that, I got a physical one. Unfortunately that meant that I had to in my case I had to contact the distributors of the license or whatever and have them unbind it themselves. Fortunately it was only my Eastwest subscription and Sibelius iirc and they took care of it less than 30 minutes after I sent the email requesting it. Great service. If the shop wants to wipe your drive, don't let them. As long as it powers on and can really read anything, you can likely recover most if not all of the data using something like R-Undelete (Free) or partition magic (A few dollars but well worth it, you can get the quarterly subscription and DL it then cancel it and it'll work forever, sub is more for people that want/need updates). I actually purchased R-Studio because it's so insanely useful. Over the years it's saved my rear end more times than I can count, but I doubt you need all it can do. Data recovery, as long as the drive still physically works, is pretty easy. It's just incredibly time consuming if it's a large drive. Expect the scans to take overnight if you want an in depth one. In VST news I bought the Acoustic Samples guitars and holy crap they're amazing. Put down some notes, play them, and they sound amazing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2021 16:37
|
|
|
I've lost some activations formatting a Hackintosh partition 
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2021 12:49
|
|
|
Sounds like a good reason to encourage people to do the "thing" if you ask me. Anyway, if I buy one of those iLok USB thingies, does that mean I can download my programs I bought thru iLok onto any pc and use them so long as I plug the magic stick into it? Does it have to stay plugged in, or can you plug it in and it be good for the session?
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2021 17:16
|
|
|
Once the activation is on the iLok device, you keep it plugged in and the software is usable while it is plugged in. You can move the iLok to a different computer and the licenses are now active for that computer while it is plugged in. Removing it stops the software from being usable as far as I know, just like a cloud activation stops working if you lose internet access. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Mine will be here tomorrow, I'm getting back in after not having one since the first generation.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2021 00:56
|
|
|
Pollyanna posted:
The Amiga 500 had 4 channels of digital audio. You could use one channel for kick, snare and hihat if they did not play at the same time. You could use another channel for bass. This would be a single sample bass note as an A500 can’t generate sounds in realtime like that. Another channel for lead, and the last one for chords - sample a minor and a major chord of some synth strings and there you go. Of course, instead of individual percussion, you could sample the Amen break and chop it up in kick, snare, hihat, and some individual rolls/fragments. Then you could recombine them easily into something rhythmic and creative if you stick to the 64 step grid and choose divisions of two. Just transpose the breakbeat up and adjust the tracker’s global tempo to match. Renoise is a descendant from older trackers, and sample usage has not significantly changed. Each track is a monophonic sample playback instrument; this gets you really clean sounds since the sample cuts itself off. Try the Amen break on a single track. Just make rhythmic variations by retriggering it. Amen basically goes boom boom chack diggy diggy boom chack diggy. Cut out the boom, the chack and diggy. Use channel one for the chack and boom, and play diggy every time on channel two. Enjoy Squarepusher.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2021 01:28
|
|
|
Agreed posted:Once the activation is on the iLok device, you keep it plugged in and the software is usable while it is plugged in. You can move the iLok to a different computer and the licenses are now active for that computer while it is plugged in. Removing it stops the software from being usable as far as I know, just like a cloud activation stops working if you lose internet access. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Mine will be here tomorrow, I'm getting back in after not having one since the first generation. I was mostly curious about that since I think my USB slots are at a premium right now, unless they make USB splitters that would work.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2021 00:03
|
|
|
Drunk Driver Dad posted:I was mostly curious about that since I think my USB slots are at a premium right now, unless they make USB splitters that would work. you mean a hub? that should be fine. even if for some weird reason the ilok doesn't like hubs, everything else will be fine with it _especially_ if it's a powered hub
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2021 00:14
|
|
|
Good reverb vsts for ordinary room/chamber sounds? Don’t need intense wild off the handle stuff, just trying to get my 60s pop on
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2021 09:06
|
|
|
you can never go wrong with valhalla dsp for reverb. i think they have a retro verb as well but room and hall are very very versatile
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2021 09:16
|
|
|
Voxengo Oldskoolverb is good to have for basic room and plate sounds.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2021 11:21
|
|
|
I got Native Instruments Raum for free with something - maybe a free download at some point - and it sounds pretty good to me.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2021 16:51
|
|
|
Raum was offered as a holiday gift for a while, and it rules.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2021 01:46
|
|
|
Raum is indeed great. Speaking of holiday gifts, Arturia's just dropped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS-xv4FMi0s
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2021 02:47
|
|
|
Trig Discipline posted:Raum is indeed great. During the process of claiming this I saw that Pigments was on sale for $69 with some preset packs included so I bought that, too. I still mostly just minorly tweak presets but Pigments sure has a lot of those to start with.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2021 03:28
|
|
|
Pigments is so good. I cannot get that tape mello-fi thing to show up in my Arturia account, though. No idea what I'm doing wrong. e: And it just showed up. Had to restart ASC for some reason. Trig Discipline fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Dec 22, 2021 |
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2021 05:09
|
|
|
Trig Discipline posted:Pigments is so good. It took hours for mine to show up. Pigments showed right away but the bundled presets took hours, too. I'm totally going to abuse that tape thing, especially the slow to a stop button. Fits right in with my normal approach of very precisely making things sound like poo poo. Edit: deeply enjoying myself making only stuff for me (not trying to be overly negative) havelock fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Dec 22, 2021 |
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2021 07:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 22:20 |
|
|
Making stuff for yourself is the way to go if it's not your job. And drat, $69 for pigments is great. Just an endless number of cool sounds you can make with it. Raum is good and I use it a lot of non-orchestra stuff. For that I use Eastwest's Spaces II. It has a ton of sampled locations and a lot of them have FR (front stage - more treble heavy instruments) and RR (rear stage - more bass heavy instruments ) options or even instrument specific ones. A lot of them also have M-S and S-S (mono to stereo or stereo to stereo). I've been playing with Elysion II and it's pretty incredible. Just putting on a random preset and hitting play is something I could sit and enjoy for quite a while. I'm afraid at this point to look at how much money I've spent on plug-ins. Pretty sure I could have bought a decent used car.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2021 18:47
|
|