If you want a soundcard for audio production, I'd recommend against a Sound blaster. Although I haven't had bad luck with them (I'm currently using an X-fi, and I'm pretty happy with its ASIO drivers), sound production sound cards will suit you better. EMU has a few affordable ones as well as M-Audio, I'd recommend checking those out!

At 7/1/08 11:21 AM, KgZ wrote:

Well, it will be possible VERY soon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFCjv4_jq AY

Yeah man! I read about that Melodyne stuff in a magazine a couple months back, and I didn't believe it. But look at that!

At 6/30/08 05:24 PM, Nacnud wrote: I can transcribe it myself if I have to.

Unfortunately, that's what you're gonna have to do. There is no way in today's music world to convert mp3 to MIDI. We're getting closer, but it's very difficult to get a computer to even recognize all the different instruments in an mp3 sound file, let alone convert them to a file that's editable.

It's gonna have to be up to the musician to render the music in MIDI rather than Mp3 format. It's not as simple as that, though. Anyone using pre-made recorded loops in their software won't have that converted to midi, and people that use wacky synth sounds won't get a midi equivalent.

It's certainly possible to get original MIDI pieces for your game, but you'll have to get someone to write them for you (or make adjustments to their current music to be compatible with MIDI), you won't be able to convert it yourself.

There are a lot of ReFills out there that you can get. Some are free, some cost only a few bucks, and others cost a few more. Check out Sonic Reality's website for a lot. Most of those are pretty reasonably priced.

You're gonna have to be more specific than that. Did it work before? Did you add/remove software on your computer? Change your computer hardware? The more details the better!

Korsakov no doubt meant happy in this context, although I haven't read anything confirming this. Had there been any question about his implications, every edition of his Principles of Orchestration would probably devote a chapter's length in side notes discussing the matter.

Anyway, it's great that they've got some of the Principles of Orchestration on the site. They put it up a few years ago as I recall, glad to see it's still up and well! Although there are some parts that are a bit dated (some of the instrument ranges are no longer accurate today), it's a great read for everyone in my book!

At 6/22/08 07:27 PM, DavidOrr wrote:

It'd be something to consider if you think you'll be doing more instrumental recording rather than guitar work

Opps, I meant if you think you'll be doing more guitar work than vocal recording. Sorry about that!

I'd agree with Rucklo and recommend the Shure SM-58. That's a pretty cheap mic, yet is very rugged and has a great sound in a variety of applications.

Another option with a similar price would be the Audix i5, but that is intended more as an instrument mic. It'd be something to consider if you think you'll be doing more instrumental recording rather than guitar work (and I have used an i5 with a pop filter for vocals before and had very nice results). But, since you said you'd be doing mostly vocal work, I'd go with the tried and true SM-58!

At 6/22/08 10:13 AM, 1NerdUnderGod wrote:

At 6/21/08 10:23 PM, DavidOrr wrote: What are you going to be using the mic for? And, what does your budget look like?

We're going to use the mic. to improve the quility of sound for our videos and (hopefully) some music videos for some very bad original songs/ parodies. So some thing that can pick up most sounds within a 5 foot radius. As for our budget something around $100 but the cheaper the better.

But what are you using it for? Imrpove the quality of what sound? Voice? Instruments? Sound effects? The more specific the better. Every mic has its own strengths and weaknesses, so if you're using the mic for vocals, you wouldn't want a mic designed for recording a bass amp!

It depends on the bitrate you rendered it at. Try rendering it at a higher bitrate (128 kbps is pretty standard), and that should solve your problem. Once you've rendered it, you cannot make it a higher bitrate, only worse. It works the same was image compression does with Jpeg.

What are you going to be using the mic for? And, what does your budget look like?

At 6/21/08 03:09 PM, MaestroRage wrote: It depends i'd say. For example, if you wanted fully custom songs for your game, then you're looking at paying more. Though I myself don't charge for my songs it is customary to give a flat rate for already existent music, as long as you're not going to be making billions off it.

For example, say you earn $1000 for your project. Say you are using 10 songs from the portal. You should give 20-40 dollars per song. I know I know, 200-400 dollars from the 1000 sounds like a lot, but realistically speaking 10 songs is a lot for a small flash game too. So decide how many you want/need, and then decide the cut rate.

If you are going to be making $1,000,000 off the project. Then it is expected you bring out a percentage. 5% is pretty generous at this point, that's $50,000. Way more then the flat rate. Though if you're going to be making that much money off a project that is when you should consider hiring a full time composer, with the standard rate being $200 a minute worth of audio composed for your project. Newer artists will likely charge less, seasoned veterans more.

Best thing to do is just work something out with the artist. Flat rate for low fund generating projects, a percentage, or rate of composition for higher end ones.

And remember, yes it takes weeks *up to 400+ hours for some projects i've seen*, but it often takes professional composers 10 hours to make 5 minutes worth of audio. Now if you wanted say half an hour's worth of audio, you are reaching for 60 hours worth of work.

The audio artist does 15% as much work as you, but the fee is generally much much less.

I think $200 per minute is actually a low estimate for budding artists. From what I've read in books, lesser known composers for film/game often get somewhere around $500 per minute of music, if they make a good deal. Granted, this is from what I've READ, so the actual amount could be higher or lower. Also the actual license agreement will greatly affect the fees. An all-rights buyout would be considerably more expensive than a non-exclusive license.

But I digress!

At any rate, If I'm going to work for a percentage-based fee, I usually say 7% for only music (if I'm the exclusive composer), and betwen 9 and 10% if I'm doing sound effects as well. In the real world, audio usually has similar (if not greater) proportions of a project's budget, so I try and stick with that.

As a side note, it's in your best interest to do a bit of background work on the artist who wrote the music you're interested in. If they aren't very popular, or if they are desperate to get their music in a project, they may be happy just to get something into a project for nothing! If an artist seems more established, expect their rates to be higher. It's really about supply and demand. I personally charge the rate that will keep my workload how I want it. If I get flooded with requests and can only take on 1 more project, then my rate goes up accordingly.

Ultimately, it's up to you to negotiate a fee that works for both you and the musician. And, respect can really make a difference. I'm much more flexible with rates if the person who wants to work with me is polite and understanding. If I think it will be enjoyable to work with someone, I'd be willing to take a cut in fees to do so. On the other hand, I'm not going to want to drop below my standard rates for someone who I think will be difficult and obnoxious to collaborate with.

Well, mine is my name. Nothing creative behind that!

I used to go by MrMaestro, but then Maestro came along and made things all difficult and confusing! :D

(Now that I think about it, it might have been me that came by after he did...)

Here's one of the loops I wrote for JAZZA'S upcoming game, Brotherhood of Battle (www.brotherhoodofbattle.com).

For the Brotherhood

I'd love to hear any suggestions or critiques!

I think it'd be worth it to more publicly address this issue. A lot of flash artists are misusing the portal, and freely using music for sponsored games. Sponsored games ARE considered commercial games (As was already said), so the AP contract prohibits use for these artists. I've seen several games with my music that are clearly sponsored, yet don't even credit me. Personally, it doesn't bother me that much since the money the sponsored authors are getting often times isn't much more than a few hundred dollars, and I would feel bad trying to get a cut. Nonetheless, there are an increasing number of flash projects that have thousands and thousands of dollars poured into them from various sponsors, and in some instances the developers are not even requesting use of the music they use, let alone paying for it.

I always feel like an ass when I reject someone use of my music because they're unwilling to pay, but in reality it's how they learn how things work. It seems now that almost every week I get one or more requests to use my music in a project (that are sponsored), and when I start to talk about compensation, more often than not the person asking me is baffled that I expect money for the music. Sometimes, they're even angry and think I'm a lunatic, expecting to get paid for my WORK. What's ironic is that they're getting paid for their work, yet that seems perfectly alright to them.

I think it'd be in everyone's best interest to try and get Tom or someone else to briefly address this in one of the NG posts. It may be a long shot, but with the flash industry becoming more and more mature by the day, people really need to start becoming aware of the business side of things. At some point, the fact that the majority of developers have little (if any) knowledge of budgeting will turn around and bite the flash community in the butt.

At 6/18/08 08:36 PM, Chronamut wrote: actually what it REALLY comes down to is how many snotty elitists are gonna tear apart your piano sound - half the stuff mentioned here isnt necessary - piano is one of hte easiest things to synthesize. And with a bit of filtering you can get some pretty good results with almost anything you use.

oh and heres one - you could take an ACTUAL piano -go into a concert hall - record it - submit it to one of those sites, and I bet they would STILL tell you it sounds midi-ish - ive seen a scenario like that happen before my very eyes. Just use what sounds good to YOU.

Piano is one of the easiest things to synthesize? Then why is it to this day that there isn't a single truly convincing piano synthesizer out there today? Sure, the Korg and Yamaha samples on their flagship boards are very good- but they WILL NOT fool any trained musician. Smacking a filter or some reverb on a synth will not make it sound real.

And, on your second point, the people that say it's midi-ish usually don't know what they're talking about. I've seen the same thing happen (and I'm sure many people here have as well), but that doesn't prove anything. Most of the people that cry MIDI don't know how to distinguish a poor performance from a synthesized one. In reality, the people that will really be able to tell are the people that play the instrument, or spend a considerable amount of time with the instrument. But that doesn't mean that there aren't people that won't be able to tell.

The bottom line is, you can get by with middle-of-the-line piano samples and very few people are going to notice. But if you're going for a top-notch performance, you should be using high-end equipment. There are people who WILL be able to tell, even if you can't. For instance, there are plenty of engineers that can easily tell you what mics are used for each track in a mix simply by listening to it. I personally can't do that, because my ear hasn't had nearly enough time with all the different mics out there to tell how each one sounds in a mix. But that does NOT mean there is no difference. Just because you can't hear the difference doesn't mean there isn't one.

At 6/18/08 11:46 AM, Khuskan wrote:

Reason pianos isn't as realistic as really dedicated piano VSTi's, but it has to its disposal all of Reasons powerful built in effects processors, so you can tweak it to make it sound exactly as you want - which in my mind is a distinct advantage over the 'Exact piano' sound you get with some VSTi's. Sure, you could put Quantum through a few effects processors, but have fun scraping what's left of your processor of the walls with a spatula.

Haha I love the analogy! Within a full mix, the difference between the Reason Piano and QL Pianos may not be worth the money and processing power, but there are some instances where it would be totally worth it. For one, any solo piano piece using Reason's Piano would be put to shame compared to QL Pianos. That's not to say it isn't good- the Nocturne I wrote here on Newgrounds uses just Reason's Piano, and I do think it sounds pretty good for what it is.

It really comes down to your needs, and your resources. If you have 8 powerful computers chained together, The quality gain vs. computer performance drop could certainly be worth it. But, for most users here (and in general), it makes much more sense to pick something a bit more modest, like Steinberg's The Grand 2.

If budget isn't an issue, then take a good look at Quantum Leap Pianos. You WILL need an extremely powerful computer, however. Their recommended system requirements are: Core 2 Duo 2.5Ghz or faster processor, 4GB RAM, sound card with ASIO drivers, 64-bit OS and host. Keep in mind those requirements are to run just the pianos comfortably, with few (if any) sounds from other sources. I'd STRONGLY encourage putting these sounds on their own hard drive for best performance. As of right now, I think these are the gold standard of piano samples.

Going down in quality just a bit, you've got Synthology Ivory and Native Instrument's Akoustik Piano. Both of those will run in anywhere from $100-200 cheaper than QL Pianos, and require significantly less power. They still will need a modern computer, but you should be able to run them fine, even if you don't have a quad core and 8 gig of ram. Aim for a fast dual-core, and 4 gig of ram if possible. They're pretty affordable now, and have really great quality.

Next down the ladder you have smaller stand-alone piano packages, like Steinberg's The Grand 2, and the Bosendorfer 290. They have pretty equal quality to Ivory and Akoustik Piano, but don't include multiple pianos. You can find these from $100-200, depending on where you look. For best results, you'd want at least 2 gig of ram and a modern dual core processor. I'd personally recommend 4 gig for this (assuming you're going to be running it with other instruments), but 2 gig should be alright.

Keep going down and you'll get to the pianos included in general sampling packages. Garritan's Personal Orchestra has one, EWQL Silver has one, and several other orchestral libraries include one. The piano will sound quite synthetic if it's by itself (any trained pianist will be able to tell it's fake very easily), but these pianos are still pretty good quality, and fit nicely into a full-bodied mix. These don't require much processing power at all. If you get your hands on one of these, I'd recommend 1 gig of ram, and a modest dual-core processor (even a fast single-core will do well with these) for the piano and minimal other instruments. If you think you'll be using a lot of instruments in addition to these, aim for 2+ gig and a dual-core.

At the bottom of the ladder are the Soundfont/free VST pianos. I hate to generalize, but I've yet to come across any pianos that fall into this categories that are even remotely convincing. If you have an aging computer, or a very limited budget, this is your category.

If you're a typical user (and have a typical computer), you should find yourself falling somewhere in the middle of the ladder. The Grand 2 is very nice and very affordable, and won't require a bleeding-edge pc. the Bosendorfer 290 is also another great choice, although I'd argue that the Steinway piano is more flexible as a whole. Bosendorfers are wonderful pianos, but they do have a very powerful sound that may not be suited for what you're writing.

Hope you find what you're looking for!

Once again Josh hits it right on the money! It's also important to look at the targeted audience of each product. While FL Studio is certainly far more robust than it used to be, it's still targeted to users that are on tighter budgets, which tend to be the prosumer market as opposed to the professional market. Naturally, there are exceptions; I read an article in Sound on Sound magazine a few months ago about an artist who did an entire album in GarageBand, and made it sound quite polished. While the album was pretty simple (as I recall it was just guitar with a few extra instruments here and there), it shows that there will always be some overlap in the level of users using a particular product.

I'm assuming you want to put your headphones that have a 1/8'' jack into 1/4'' jack. There are plenty of cheap adapters out there, just head over to Radio Shack or any electronics store (such as Best Buy or Circuit City) and they should have it.

There are other alternatives as well, such as;

Consumer Level: Garage band, Sequel, Magix Music Maker, etc. (most of the stuff you'll see on the shelves in consumer electronic stores like Best Buy)

Prosumer Level: FL Studio, "lite" versions of DAW (Cubase LE4, Sonar Home edition)

Professional Level: Sonar 8, Cubase 4, Logic, Magix Sequoia, Pro Tools

I'm sure someone will disagree with something on the list, but this is pretty accepted as how things fall into place. Keep in mind I only mentioned software that can be considered a complete digital audio workstation package (take that with a grain of salt for the consumer level stuff, because it's very hard to find a full package for a low price). Products like Reason, although powerful, are not full-fledged DAW.

I read about this in a recent issue of Electronic Musician (I think), and I think it's an awesome thing they've got going. Investing in upcoming musicians gives you a taste of what the record labels go through when they gamble on artists. I might throw in a few things as well to see how things go.

Great find Maestro!

At 2/9/08 03:07 PM, Daddy-L-Jackson wrote:

At 2/9/08 01:21 PM, Envy wrote: I wasnt saying it was bad because it was simple. I just don't like how talking over a beat can get someone famous. oh well.

Now, I do love rap music, but what pisses me off is that, he has a demo of FL studio, takes 15 minutes to make all his beats, puts a bunch of random shit on a piece of paper, and mumbles those lines over his "beat," and becomes a sensation, when music that people actually put time into their music, FROM THE SAME GENRE, let alone any others, gets pushed over and forgotten because people love to dance to simplistic beats, paying no mine to the lyrics.

Did he use a demo of FL to make that? I'm not sure what the license agreement for the demo is, but it seems like if he did use the demo he could be looking at a lawsuit from image-line, because I doubt they allow their demo to be used in commercial production.

Uh-oh!

At 5/22/08 07:40 AM, swordman592 wrote: buddy, I'M not getting paid to do this, the company isn't making money off this, nobody is going to make money off this but you. Besides, I have 5 other songs, from 5 other artists, and all I needed from them was a "Yah you can use it" and away I went

Alright, in your first post to me, you should have told me exactly what the situation was. I was given one sentence from you. Unless you expect people to read your mind, you need to be MUCH more specific in your messages or deal with people having no idea what you're talking about.

Second, music is my living- I'ts not just a hobby for me. Go ask someone who writes music simply for fun to write you a piece for a game and they'd probably be more than happy to do it just for the experience. I can't afford to do that, or else I'd have $0 to live on. As I've said many times, my music on Newgrounds is free to use for a non-profit development (it's in the license agreement). But once money gets introduced, that means I'm not working with a kid making a game for fun, or a hobbyist simply doing what he enjoys doing, but with another business man. I know you said you are not profiting off of this, but I had NO way in knowing that from your one sentence pm.

Most of the people on Newgrounds do this stuff for fun, and are either still in grade school, or have another job. But, there are some of us who write music or do games and animations professionally, and you need to realize that they need to make a living. They won't throw the rights to their projects away, because that's essentially throwing money out the window.

In the future, please don't muck up the forums with your angered responses to my replies, no one wants to read it. If you'd like to continue this conversation feel free to reply to my PM or send me a message on AIM/MSN, I'd be more than happy to do so!

Check out Steinberg's Sequel, if you like the garageband simplicity, but it's not free (msrp $99).

People vote each other down to make themselves higher up on the charts. It happens everywhere, so one of the best ways you can counter that is by reviewing people, participate on the message boards (and be positive), and slowly build up your fan base. It'll take time, but if your music is quality stuff, you'll start seeing your work pay off.

At 5/21/08 09:54 PM, swordman592 wrote: I need some epic music, something along the lines of Four brave champions by David Orr, except since I plan to release my game on a companies site (not even for profit) he expects me to pay $200/minute. So if anyone know some epic music that would work good in a midevil RPG, plz post it here. Thx

I'll repeat here what I sent you in a PM to clear up any confusion:

"If you're doing work for a company and they're not paying you, you're getting taken advantage of. Unless you're just getting started with developing games and are simply looking for exposure, I STRONGLY suggest you start reading up on standard rates and fees flash artists typically charge or you're going to lose out on a lot of money you could have earned! Many of the upper-level flash developers can see well over $10,000 in budgeting from their sponsor (plus they generally get a hefty bonus on top of that). There are a lot of people out there looking to profit off of artists that don't know how much their work is worth, so be careful and don't let yourself get scammed!"

Everyone who has music on the audio portal should be aware of the budget that some of the flash artists have around here. It's great to get your music featured in a game simply for the exposure, but there have been many cases when the flash developers had such a hefty budget that they could have (and should have) paid the artist a licensing fee for the work, since it no longer is non-commercial when the developers profit off of the production.

In short, don't let yourself get taken advantage of, it's as simple as that!

If you use a program like GarageBand or Sequel, you can paste pre-made loops together into your own work of art. You should be careful about calling it an "original" piece of music since you didn't really write the parts (you'd probably end up aggravating a lot of musicians here and there), but there is absolutely nothing wrong with using loops to create your own music for whatever purpose.

It's similar to assembling a pre-made puzzle. You wouldn't say that you created the pieces of the puzzle yourself, but you could say that you put it together.

What OS are you running? Vista has some buggy audio drivers (at least in the 64-bit segment), so that could be the culprit. Could you supply us with more info as to when the sounds act up? Are you running a specific program? Does it only happen after you open a file or is it always off pitch?

Before anyone can accurately answer your question, you'll have to provide a bit more information. Cakewalk is a company who produces software, much like Microsoft. Years ago there was a product called Cakewalk, but that was renamed to Sonar quite a while ago.

So, are you using Cakewalk Pyro? Music Creator? Sonar? There are loads of products that Cakewalk puts out, so let us know which one your using (and also provide the version if possible)!