WC1 Music

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Post by chuck_starchaser »

The style is a bit Wagnerish, a bit Musorgskian, so it would be no sin to take some elements from their composing and tweak the composition a bit. Say, for instance changing the volume in time. Sometimes you want instruments to come in sort of surrepticiously, so you can ramp up from a lower volume. Adding an instrument that only plays the tonic at high pitch, low volume, once every four bars, for instance, most people wouldn't notice it consciously, but would add like a whole new dimension to it, kind of subliminally.

Once you're finished, please upload it at high quality, ***uncompressed***, and if possible in multi-track format. Klauss is a master of sound processing and he can pull myracles, no kidding; but not if the stuff is compressed. The artifacts of compression are not undo-able.
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

I'm talking bout MIDI compressors here, to avoid the confusion, not file format compression. As I said, I want to get all the tracks down before I do any tweaks. Going to seek after Justin Durban for some advice on changes, the man is a composition genius.

Another track:
Debreifing

[edit] And another:

Escort Duty
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Yeah, it doesn't sound synthesized, but does sound midish, specially the last one. It will take *a lot of* tweaking, I think, to make it sound like real instruments played by real musicians, besides more real sound fonts. The drums sound like rockband drums and cymbals. Got nothing against them, but they kind of clash with the classic or miliary band type music.

One thing I'd try:
To each instrument give a slightly different reverb time. Very slightly, like 2 milliseconds difference. See what happens.
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

That's one of the areas I need to improve upon. I don't have a lot of diversity in my soundfonts and samples. I definetely am going to borrow a few from Justin if I can :mrgreen:

It'll take a lot of tweaking on the notes, too. I like the Escort Duty theme compositionally, but I think I'll tweak it a bit. I'm going to turn in (need rest where Im sick), but I'll have it up in the morning, along with others, hopefully.
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

Found much better drum and woodwind soundfonts; gimme a couple hours to whip something up.
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Post by klauss »

Hey... I know how to make things sound human rather than synthish. Not sample-based tricks, just dynamics. So, when you get the samples right, just send the FL file my way, and I'll try my hand at it.

Some of the tools I use work post-synthesis. That is, on the PCM file (.wav, .mp3, whatever). So... it should be the last step applied (meaning... if you are unhappy about something and change it, we'll have to do the "humanization" all over - which is no big deal, but I thought I'd let you know).
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

Klauss, I assume you'd want .wavs of each mixer track?

[edit]: Re-do of the Debriefing track with some better soundfonts:

http://lfs.lfhost.com/wcu/Debriefing_v2.mp3

That snare sound better Chuck?

I'll export the mixer tracks and post them as a zip, give me a moment.
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Post by klauss »

.wav files would be ok, but .flp files (or whatever you save the files as) would be better (and smaller).
If you want (and can - and have to) include the soundfonts too - no problem.
Last edited by klauss on Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

Eh, ... I'd prefer not to give out the straight source ... no offence Klauss, but I've had some of my other art stolen before, so I'm a bit paranoid about that.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

It sounds VERY good; except, in fact, the snare; of course, being sampled, it's bound to sound monotonous. I'll let Klauss come up with some idea...
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Post by klauss »

Ok, then. WAV files will do.
Separate tracks if possible.

I'll just remind you, though, that you took those from Origin. Or so you said.
Last edited by klauss on Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

I did change velocities here and there, but not much; I figured I'd see what Klauss could come up with. Believe it or not, this is my first go at bat with music composition (not sure if that's the proper turn since I'm using a sourcfe, but you know what I mean :P), and while I'll admit I've had a bit of help, I'm rather happy with what's coming out of it.

The wavs for ye, Klauss:

http://lfs.lfhost.com/wcu/Debriefing_src.zip

[edit]:
klauss wrote:I'll just remind you, though, that you took those from Origin. Or so you said.
Point taken. That's why I attribute it to paranoia and not rational thought ;) :P

[edit2]: The zip is split up mixer tracks. It does include the master, though.
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Post by klauss »

Great. Leave them there till I get home and can grab them - I don't have my toolbox here ;)
I'll tell you when you can put them offline.
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

Sure thing. If you can at all explain what you're doing, I'd love to learn; like I said, this is my first time at bat, so the whole thing is a huge learning experience :D

[edit]: Bah, I feel kinda shitty not giving you the source, but I've jsut been burned too many times that way in the past. I USED to make good money in the design business, but now everyone and there dog seems to copy my designs, so I kinda got off that. Just kinda a personal issue I guess, but I felt it needed some explaining
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Post by klauss »

Well... it's hard to explain precisely.
But, mainly, it's a tool I wrote some time ago that analyses music, separates the instruments, adjusts them, and rejoins them. Not in that order, nor in separate steps - it's a heuristic which gets that result with mindbogging simplicity.

Basically, I take the harmonic order of sounds (that is... dominant, sub-dominant, etc...) and use it to sort out instruments in a more rational way. Since that's utterly dynamic (depends on which instruments are playing what at some point), the result is a very complex dynamic flow that sounds quite human - right or wrong, it sounds human. Sometimes humans playing right, sometimes humans playing wrong. In any case, it's better than a synth playing wrong (synths always play wrong).

Actually, I arrived there by mistake. But when I noticed, I starting adding side heuristics to further help in that direction and, well... it works.

I have the source, and don't mind posting it. I already put some of it online in here, but the latest version on my HD is much better.

EDIT: Oh... with regard to the sources... don't worry, I don't mind cautious people. I'll just tell you that you'll have to come up with some sort of licence that allows us use of such material, or... well... not post it. I'm not sure how much freedom you have there (I mean... how much can you choose to not give), because I understand that game content (that includes music) can have a separate licence than that of the game engine. I don't know... you'd have to ask someone more knowledgable about that topic.
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

The finished product you can use, fold, spindle, or mutilate at will, as long as my name's still on it.

I'm just cautious as hell about giving out the FL source for it, because then there's not much stopping you from claiming it's yours; with me being the only one that has the source modified in the way I've changed it, it leaves little dispute. Bah, experience was a harsh teacher there.
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

*phew* This one was pretty much what I was working on all day, tweaking, mastering, mixing, adjusting, and finally, I think it sounds awesome :D (in my biased opinion, of course)

Tell me what ya think!

Wing Commander Theme Redux

I'll stick the accompanying zip up for ya in a moment, Klauss.

[edit] Zip is here.
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Post by klauss »

Ok...
...Debriefing zip can be put offline, if you want, to clean up the server.

Here is (or will be... soon) both a .wav and .ogg version of Debriefing. I think it turned out great, in my biased opinion. I like this way of working, so keep em coming :D

Just one thing... be careful with saturation - check your track wavs for saturation (that clipping noise when they get too loud). The french horn and the brass (BTW: bRass - you mistyped it) were clipped, which is a shame...
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

WOW!!! That's progress by absolutely humongous leaps, Ferrius. And I haven't heard Klauss's version yet (still uploading, I guess...).
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

***** HOLLY CRAP! *****

How the hell did you do that, Klauss? You should be millionaire already, with that piece of software. I won't say that it sounds like a finalized track; I mean, it sounds like a band of spastic musicians, but it does sound like humans playing instruments, whether spastic, autistic or whatnot. That's really incredible. The snare drum is still monotonous and distracting, of course; and I think that'll need a lot of work on the midi side. But I'm shocked and awed by what your software is doing, whatever it is...
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Post by klauss »

:D ... just :D

I'll start working on Wing Commander now... it just finished downloading.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Klauss, I have an idea. One part of the debriefing that sounds very odd is at the very beginning, with the first hit of the cymbal. I have a feeling that the reason it sounds so odd is that the snare drum and cymbal sound very far from each other, --different reverbs, different channel positioning. What I would try, as an experiment, would be to position them close to each other. Slightly different reverb times, and very slightly different channel balances.
EDIT: Same thing with the bass drum, and any other percussions... just to bunch them close together and away from the other instruments; the way it would be with a marching band.

Ferris, the snare drum needs to do a bit of what snare drums do best, that very fast hitting that sounds like 'prrrrrrrr' (the rollling kind of 'r') ;-), like in the Privateer music for Perry Naval Base. It doesn't matter, IMO, whether it does it or not in the original. A snare drum MUST do that, or get off the potty :D
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Post by klauss »

Ok... Wing Commander here

I'll also upload a second variant (ogg only) of both WC and Debriefing, attempting something similar to Chuck's suggestion (not the same... but aiming at basically that).

Tell me what you think (v.1 vs v.2).
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Man! If I believed in the Devil, I'd say it lives in that software :D WTF...?!?!?!

And great manual work on your part too, like those crescendos, and channel pannings... absolutely stunning.

You know, I think this is the best feedback Ferrius could get, really. No amount of words could do the same. The problem of synthetic sounding instruments is solved; so all that remains is the problems with the midi work itself, isolated and exposed.
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Post by mkruer »

Is it me or should the new sound track be all orchestra instruments. Right now all the music sounds too synthetic.
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