Lessons with PhantomOftheOpera

Well, I made this piece we are working on mainly for "educational" purposes, but it's not a problem, I can come up with some more parts for it, it will just take me some more time. I wanted to make an old idea I had but, It proved to difficult since it is really complicated rhythm-wise, so I decided to leave it for a later time when I improve my skills. But I kinda came to like this piece so we can continue working on it.

I think the best thing to do, is that I continue working on this piece until I get it done, and you continue with the lessons, so we don't waste any time. I will then post it when I finish, and you can review it and I can move on to mastering it.

I

K, great, I will check in tomorrow about 12.

Sorry for my last mistake - it

I already pointed out that the characteristics of a tone / sound can be defined by the envelope. This would pretty much depict the horizontal analysis.

The vertical aspect of this is a little more detailed:

Our ear tends to define the key note of any audio signal by the lowest frequency that is detected by our ears. This means that the tonal characteristic is defined by frequencies that lie above the key note and they are called overtones. There is an interesting fact about the arrangement of overtones. Let

Okay, there

Well,first of, about the speakers... they are Jazz 2.1 as I said before, but I can't find the number, looks like it was on the box only... maybe there is some info in the woofer box, but I don't really feel like opening up the whole thing (i might not be able to put it back together, lol) I bought them about 3 years ago, and they work very well, but I'm afraid that's the only information I can give you. I tried googling for them, but couldn't find the model, looks like they don't make them anymore. I have a set of ordinary philips headphones, but I don't really use them, they give me a headache.

I began working on a new song, I want to make it at least 2 minutes, so I might not be able to finish it for another 3-4 days, my creative process takes a bit of time :)

I was thinking, when I already learn all this useful stuff why not make a good use of it.

I didn't quite get it about the music you want me to show you, do you want to hear some more of my projects or the music I like to listen to? If you want my projects, you might get disappointed since most of my earlier work is done totally with my keyboard which like we agree sounds crap. I will try to see if I can find some documentation that came with the speakers, like the warranty papers, so if I find anything I will let you know.

Let

Well, they are somewhat similar to those at the pic you posted, specifically the woofer is about the same only it doesn't have speakers at the sides, the satellites are a little larger, well almost as large as the woofer itself. And the speakers are made of wood, not plastic like these. The satellites have one mid-range speaker and one high (treble) horn. They have volume\bass\treble knobs.

The headphones have some markings tho': Philips SBC HP 200, I came to see that I really can't work with any kind of headphones, because I really have a problem with stuff on my head... I can't even wear hats... it really irritates me and gives me a headache.

As for the music here are a couple of youtube songs:

YouTube - Echoes of War - 03 Eradicate and Evolve (Starcraft) (I'm really in love with this one, if I ever created something like this, I'd probably stop composing in fear I will never do anything better :P and this is the perfect mix of the music I like, I kind of feel like that I should have written this one)

YouTube - Echoes of War - 05 The Hyperion Overture (Starcraft) (this one is from the same album)

YouTube - The Village Soundtrack - The Gravel Road (James Newton Howard, beautiful and emotional peace for a beautiful movie, awesome violin on this one.)

YouTube - He

It

Well, I just found out an hour ago, that I can use Native Instruments Artist Grooves (which is based on kontakt engine) as a FL plugin. Here is a little solo I made with it just now, give it a go and tell me what is your overall opinion. (well actually you might want to leave out the artistic value of it comments :D) Yeah, I already checked out all the soundfont download sites on the web I could find, I have downloaded the ones I liked. About the speakers, if I remember correctly they were about 80e when I bought them.

I was thinking on how to incorporate the samples I have, the percussion is not really a problem, but choirs are. I was thinking of creating soundfonts of the libraries I have (I found a book on how to do that) but it seems like and awful lot of work, and I don't really have much time to waste.

I'm actually doing quite well in FL (mostly thanks to you) now, but as in all things practice makes perfect and I can see that I just need some more time with it. The thing that is really bothering me now is that I can't seem to connect certain areas of the song like I want to. I think this is due to my inexperience, because often I find myself rewriting passages, moving things back and forth etc. when there really was no need, and I find out a way I could achieve the same result with much less trouble. I kind of find it hard to connect all the patterns I made in my head, so I constantly play the whole thing so I don't loose every idea of what I wanted to do. Unfortunately this way often I actually forget something else in the end.

That sounds like a neat solution!

But i cannot see any link

Sorry, here it is:

RapidShare: Easy Filehosting

Ouh yes, that is good!

There was really a lot of knowledge about how to play the drum set, cool stuff.

There are just some minor things i would get rid of:

Depending on the usage of this solo you can make the stereo base a little more narrow to make it sound much more realistic. The panning of the samples makes it sound like the listener is sitting right where the drummer is.

These samples are suitable for the simulation of a real drummer playing this, so you could also humanize this even more and have more dynamic, especially on the HiHat and some tom fill-ins.

Then there is only one passage where it would get a little troublesome for someone to play it - semiquavers on the Hihat overlap with the snare, which would be possible at a little slower pace.

Add some small cymbals, referably splashes, because these can be hit more frequently due to their short sustain.

And the final step to maximize the tremendous tom fills would be to add the tapped HiHat on each quarter, when you see it fit.

Really good work... guess the soundfont which included the drums you used first can

Ohh yes, actually I was just thinking of adding a syth lead, like the one you can hear in the Eradicate and Evolve track I posted.

The problems I have come from the habit if composing mostly with an instrument, so I can't really work well on a program. guess I just need some more time.

You should use an interface to link your Keyboard to FL Studio so that you can record notes within your piano roll if this is seems more appropriate to your way of composing.

You would not have to click all the notes that way. Do you have an interface?

No, I have to record everything with the keyboard sounds, but I will get that soon I hope. Anyway, about synths, any advices on that?

Oh yes, are you sure that you want to start with synths already?

Somehow it seems more appropriate to me if we go through the mixer first and cover digital effects before synths.

Once we

Well ok, you know better. :)

I guess I can go with the default presets for now.

If something comes up while you

Ok, thanks, I appreciate it.

Oh yeah, what did you think of the music I posted?

Great, i never payed so much attention to soundtracks alone without watching / playing the related games or movies.

Music that is meant to intensify a certain impression has great power and i can imagine that there is plenty of stuff that waits to be discovered there. However, without playing / watching the component that is related to their work i cannot tell how well the soundtrack composers understood what they had to do. The tracks you showed me are therefore an audio-only illustration and i can look at a variety of technical aspects.

Now i really thought about the process of creating a soundtrack from all over. I guess one could say that the major purpose of a soundtrack is to intensify the impression given by the movie / game. Now, this being quite obvious, let

Yes, this is exactly why like soundtrack music, its really intensely packed with emotions, and sometimes, when hearing a track I can pretty much guess what the movie is about. That happened with the King Artur OST (also great one).

The Legend Of Zelda music is great, some nice ideas, but for me, midi sounds kind of ruin the overall impression. I think that I maybe have some problems with conveying a certain feeling trough musical means. I guess I usually don't spend enough time thinking about what I want to achieve, rather I just kind of start working, and go with the flow. And it happens that more often then not, I end up with a totally different feel than the one I had in mind.

That overcolored Nintendo-like look of Zelda adds up quite well to midi sounds like these. Of course this is not the common type of soundtracks, but they certainly knew how to deal with it. Nowadays this type of Zelda doesn

Hey Tuskle, I'm bringing my project to a finish soon, and I am using some of my samples from the libraries I got, so I wanted to ask you when I send you the project file, how are we going to make that happen, since you don't have them. Do you think that sending individual samples to you to put them in the same folder where I keep them will work? I hope you have a D: drive on your computer...