At 7/31/09 04:57 PM, Mrmilkcarton wrote: I would REALLY like the school to be open minded to genres. None of that "Classical and Jazz ONLY" crap where they are still stuck in the past.

If you are serious about going to school studying theory and composition, you're going to have to drop your prejudice. Most strong music schools that I'm aware of will focus on these genres, at least for your first couple years, because this is where music comes from. You absolutely need to learn the fundamentals and history to be the best composer you can be. You can't be a mathematician without learning the formulas, and you can't be a programmer without learning the language.

Even a very contemporary school like Berkley College of Music teaches you theory in more traditional methods using classical and jazz examples. That's one of the reasons why there is a 60% freshman dropout rate there; one because they accept most ANYONE, and two because kids think they can sneak their way around learning theory and history and jam all day (and are sorely mistaken).

Anyway, I have yet to hear about a theory/composition program that teaches theory and orchestration using rock and pop examples. Even if they are out there, I'd avoid them and stick to the tried-and-true.

If you've bought a license to use the loops, you can do whatever you want with them as long as you follow their terms of use. In most cases it is perfectly legal to combine several loops and call it your own. You're gonna get a low mark for creativity and originality, but as long as you've purchased a license to use the loops it's fine. People here tend to think that using loops is illegal and infringes on copyrights, but it doesn't. As long as you have a license to use the loops in a commercial production (which is usually the case when you purchase loops), you're in the clear. What would be the point of selling and producing loops if it was illegal to use them?

SAMPLING pre-existing copyrighted songs is illegal and could get you into trouble (without proper permission). I'm not familiar with every detail of the Newgrounds TOS, but if somewhere in there it says NO use of ANY loops under ANY circumstances I'd be very surprised.

I'm interested in the Magix TOS, the fact that they prevent you from uploading your music to Newgrounds is pretty bold. This seems to be an example of when they give you a license to use their software but not claim it as your own work/profit off of it (I'd have to read the whole TOS to figure out exactly what bindings are in place). If people would just read the TOS instead of clicking yes every time they see a block of text these forums would be much less cluttered!

This is a great idea, but there is a LOT of information to be filled in. So much, in fact, that entire books that are several hundred pages long are dedicated solely to this topic. If you're serious about orchestration I'd recommend checking out Alfred Blatter's book Instrumentation/Orchestration, it's packed with great knowledge. I've read it through a few times, and I still learn new things as I go along!

I'd go with the Axiom. Findng a full-weighted keyboard that is less than 88 keys and in your price range will be very tough. The Axiom line is very well built (I've got a 49 key as a secondary input keyboard). I find the action is nice for a semi-weighted keyboard. Unless you're a classical trained pianist, the semi-weighted action should feel fine to you.

At 4/13/09 09:25 PM, Kor-Rune wrote: Push yourself to play faster than you actually can cleanly.

That's actually something you shouldn't do. The rest of what Kor-Rune wrote was good advice (at least in my opinion), but never player faster than you can cleanly. You will learn mistakes that way, and then you'll have to go back and undo them. Speed comes with time, don't push it or you'll end up sounding like many wannabee musicians out there. Pushing yourself with a "reach" piece though is a really good idea. I like to have one or two "easy" pieces that are almost sightreadable, a normal piece, and then a piece that is a bit beyond what Im capable of. That way you have a good mixture of music to work on. As time goes on your easy pieces will start to get harder (but still remain the same level of easiness for you), and you'll end up finding what you one thought was a reach piece much easier. That is what motivates me to practice. If you can structure your work you'll get more done, and the results you'll see will make you push yourself.

Magix is the company, not the software. The software is Magix Music Maker. Maybe I'm just being nitpicky, but I believe it's important to be accurate. Magix also makes some VERY pricey pro-audio software (check out Sequoia).

Just clarifying so you don't go looking for the wrong thing!

Start training your ear. Chances are, the reason you find it hard to improve is because you can't hear what needs to be improved in your music. When I hit a wall when I'm developing my piano technique, I do a lot of listening and ear training. You'll be amazed at what your ears won't pick up on. That's why there are a lot of crappy vocalists out there that think they're great; because they simply can't hear all the flaws in their singing.

Training your ear will also help motivate you to do more practicing, because you'll start to hear new things in music that you had never heard before.

-Orr- ST Conflict, by DavidOrr Type: LoopGenre: Classical

Another addition to my ST series. Review me and I'll return the favor!

At 4/9/09 02:23 PM, Bjra wrote:

At 4/9/09 01:45 PM, DavidOrr wrote: They certainly did followed rules, just not the same set of rules that Bach and Beethoven followed. The point is, it's a good idea to know the rules and observe them BEFORE you start breaking them.

what about musicians who smoke pot and have no conceptualization of rules of music theory or physical reality for that matter, and churn out genius?

I'd consider them the exception, not the rule. And plus, will most of these geniuses be remembered in 20 years? How about 100?

I have Ministry of Rock and I love it. My piece Final Encounter uses a lot of MoR, so have a listen to that to hear someone outside of EW using it in action.

For what it's worth, I've been really happy with all of the products that I've purchased from East West.

At 4/9/09 12:15 AM, brokendeck wrote: At 4/8/09, DavidOrr, HalcyonicFalconX, and Mrmilkcarton wrote:

STUFF

Hmm keep in mind, you can break these rules and still sound great. For example, take into considering Igor Stravinsky and John Williams. Off the top of my head I can tell you they didn't exactly follow the "rules" in many of their compositions. You might even say that John Williams might have gotten some of his inspirations from Igor Stravinsky. I don't know if that is true, but some of his soundtracks certainly sound like it... meh enough of my blabbering... i don't really know what i'm talking about... I think...

They certainly did followed rules, just not the same set of rules that Bach and Beethoven followed. The point is, it's a good idea to know the rules and observe them BEFORE you start breaking them.

At 4/8/09 07:30 PM, Mrmilkcarton wrote:

At 4/7/09 01:00 PM, DavidOrr wrote: words

When you voice chords for an orchestral piece do you have parallel octaves and fifths not including pedal tones. I've been told to avoid using them if I can.

Nope- I'd avoid those when possible. The thing is, if you follow strict voice leading practices (as was done by Bach and countless others) you should NEVER have parallel octaves and fifths. Some rules can be broken under certain circumstances, but the only instance I can think of where parallel 5ths can be accepted is when you're using a German Augmented 6 chord to a V chord (which you won't encounter a lot). Modern music is such that anything goes. However, since a lot of the tonal music we base our studies off of follow standard voice leading practices, our ears have developed in a way that parallel octaves and fifths sound strange (they stick out to me like a sore thumb because I'm so used to avoiding them). So, it's not that you CAN'T use them, but you should avoid using them if you're striving for smooth voices.

In an orchestral setting, when parts are doubled (i.e a cello part doubled in the bass), parallels are acceptable because the two parts are considered one unique line.

So, in short, you should not use parallel octaves or 5ths, unless you are doubling parts between instruments. Hopefully that made sense, let me know if something is confusing!

-Orr- ST Suspense, by DavidOrr Type: LoopGenre: Classical

This is a new short loop I've recently written. It was written with a suspense scene in mind, like ones commonly seen in shows like 24. Leave me a review and I'll do the same for you!

At 4/7/09 10:08 AM, HalcyonicFalconX wrote:

I actually disagree with this one. Keeping everything in root position works, but only if that's the feel you're trying to get for your song. Say you're working with choirs. I think it works better when you start off in the root position and use various inversions on the following chords. This way, your chords won't just go up and down with their roots, but they can move up or down in pitch as you like. And this can be useful in producing a counterpoint to your main melody, especially if your main melody is (as previously stated above) so well fortified and presented so strongly. In addition, a strong melody with a strong harmonic counterpoint sounds much "larger" and fuller.

You can have all of those things you mentioned and still keep every chord in root position. Keeping something in root position only means that the bass will be playing the root of each chord. I believe you're talking more about voicings, not inversions. I prefer to try and keep all of my chords open voiced when possible. Block chords are rarely something you want to work with, because they sound clunky and usually get in the way of the melod(y/ies). That's not to say you can't even have chords in inversions- sometimes when a chord has a passing function it makes much more sense to move the bass in a stepwise motion.

When you work with choirs (3 or 4 part) following voice leading procedures is standard. However, when you're writing this epic orchestral music, you want each chord to sound rock solid. The best way to have a chord feel like it has a strong foundation is to put it in root position. The rest of the voices can (and should, ideally) be properly voice led, but the bass is a different beast in my eyes.

A few months back I created a musical example of what I'm talking about. Have a listen to this to hear what I mean. The clip contains two examples. The first example contains a simple chord progression but uses poor voice leading, an lots of cluttered voicings. The second example (0:20+) takes the exact same chords, but properly voice leads, spaces the parts out correctly, and the bass has a much better choice of notes (mostly root position chords, except for the cadential 6/4 chord at the end).

At 4/7/09 02:28 AM, audixmusic wrote: Expensive indeed.

http://www.eastwestsamples.com/details.p hp?cd_index=963

I've heard nothing but bad things about the new PLAY interface though.

I use the PLAY interface, and I have no problem with it. When it was first released it was pretty buggy, but they've smoothed out any bugs I came across. Symphonic Choirs can sound very good, but it takes a LOT of fine tuning with their photox language editing tools to get it to a presentable stage. Any choirs in my music from 2006+ use the Symphonic Choirs, as I haven't found anything better yet.

The key to epic orchetral music is to have driving percussion (and lots of it), along with a very pronounced melody. Whenever I write something I want to sound big and epic, I almost always double the melody in octaves throughout the orchestra. Violins may have the melody, and violas may double the melody an octave lower. Or maybe horns will double the melody an octave or two down. A counter melody is nice, but only add one after you're sure the main melody is in the forefront. As a side note, strings make very good percussive instruments. They can be used to help the percussion drive a piece forward.

The second thing you want to be aware of is the chord progressions. Keep them simple, and try (as much as possible) to keep everything in root position. This means that the double basses will always be playing the root of each chord. This will keep the progression feeling rock solid and powerful. Once you start putting in inversions of chords the foundation of the piece will begin to become weakened, as inversions tend to be less stable sounding than root position chords.

For some music to check out, you could have al listen to Metal Gear Solid music, (pay attention to the last couple of minutes). Also, if you're using Hans Zimmer as a model, I'd go back and take a look at Gladiator, Lion King, and Rain Main. Although the later two aren't the most epic of sound tracks, they do have some pretty powerful moments in them. Some of the World of Warcraft music would also be worth a listen. This piece is a good example of the strings driving the music. Without the strings, the music would be bland and would drag on.

I'll probably jump back here if I can think of anything else, but I consider those points to be the most important. There are plenty of better music examples than my works here on Newgrounds, but I'm honored you're using my music as a model!

Make sure everything is written out correctly, without mistakes. Submitting a recording is usually optional; they usually just rely on the written scores. Sending a MIDI file pushed through finale won't cut it, you'd be best off sitting down and scoring a piece from scratch to make sure it's exactly how you want it.

A MIDI to USB cable (where the midi part is plugged into the keyboard) should work with your computer, regardless of manufacturer. Most MIDI-USB cables have an actual converter box in them, you will just need to install the proper drivers. If there is a problem, it isn't Acer's fault- if anything it'd be a Windows driver/BIOS problem.

But at any rate- I'd second the Axiom. It's a little more expensive per key than a lot of midi controllers, but it's built very well and has a nice Semi-weighted feel to it. If you can, I'd go with at least 61 keys in a controller if it will be your main keyboard. Right now I'm working off of a 49 key Axiom and I find myself having to do all sorts of tricks just to be able to play in parts. Just keep in mind that you will get what you pay for; so going for the cheapest think possible isn't the greatest idea.

Check ebay for a used upper-end controller (like the Axiom, or the Novation X-Station). That way you'll keep the price down, but still get a quality 'board.

The only keyboard that costs about $400 with a decent 88-key weighted keyboard is the Casio Privia PX 110/120, which you can sometimes find for $399. There was one keyboard Casio was making with the same physical keyboard but less features that ESP'd at $399, but I don't think they're making it anymore (probably had virtually zero profit off the model). Every other keyboard I've played on for $399 has terrible weighted action (coming from a classical pianist).

I have the same USB-MIDI cable, and mine came with a CD. The CD just had the driver on it (so you should be able to download it and do it that way), but if you have the CD, try installing the drivers from that. I've found that downloading drivers sometimes won't work (for whatever reason). I've never had a problem with the cable, but I've also always installed the drivers from the CD.

It's possible you could have a defective cable, perhaps the converter box is defective.

At 10/14/08 10:54 PM, Bjra wrote:

in fact the ONLY people who ever care about the complexity or originality of a song are the musicians themselves, and whoa re we trying to get as fans here. focus on making good music, not impressing your music butt buddys.

Well said. I think people also fail to realize that much of music theory (beyond the fundamentals) is based off of what "sounds good" at one point in history. The rules of voice leading, for example, are largely based on how Bach and his contemporaries wrote music. They themselves didn't follow "the rules", because the rules didn't exist at that point. Bach's 350+ chorales were written around what sounded good to Bach. These chorales are extremely popular examples of voice leading. We base our studies around his work because it was genius, but his case is a perfect example that music that "sounds good" but doesn't follow the theory of today can still be moving, and is perfectly viable.

This is why I believe that theory should be used as a tool, not as a end all be all way to write music. Some composers swear by following rules all of the time, and this won't help music progress at all. Music theory is VERY important to a serious composer as it provides the musical foundation for a composer. But if something sounds good, there is no reason not to use it.

Aren't these kinds of questions supposed to go here?

I agree with most of the points you made, expect for the fact that people like simple music because they're stupid. People like simple music because they don't have developed ears, it's not because they're stupid.

There is a large market for simple music, since the masses typically have little or no substantive musical training. Anyone who is going to try and make a living at making music needs to take in consideration the target audience they're writing for. Hans Zimmer is a perfect example of this. Although all of his music is painfully monotonous to the trained ear, the every day person loves his music because there are few parts, and each part is very distinguishable and full of raw power.

It's very unrealistic to expect to be able to write whatever you want to write and make a livable income on it. Only the artists that have a really well established fanbase have that luxury. Of course, if you're writing for fun (or have free time), you can write whatever the hell you'd like. But if you have goals to make music professionally or semi professionally, it's important to understand what your target audience likes and doesn't like, so you can write music that will sell itself.

At 8/28/08 06:02 AM, B0UNC3 wrote: I don't think this is important enough to make a new thread, but I decided on which CPU and mothgerboard I'll get now.

Is there any noticeable differences between running FL studio 6-8 and/or Cubase SX 3-4 on a 32 vs 64 bit OS?

Is it true that only Windows Vista supports 4 GB Ram?

the 64-bit OS will support more than 4 gig of ram. Both XP 64 bit and Vista 64 bit can support far more RAM than you could ever currently throw at it, but Vista 32 bit and XP 32 bit will cap it at 4 GB. The actual cap for XP is even less- about 3.5 gig - more than that and you'll start to get strange bugs and errors happening with your system.

I've got Cubase 4 64 bit running on Vista 64 with no problems. I had to go with the 64 bit because when I built my current computer I wanted 8 GB of ram for samples, and I'm having no regrets with the decision. Vista isn't nearly as problematic as it used to be. Most people bashing it today are just going with the trend and haven't actually given it a shot.

+1 for Finale Notepad. I'm not a Finale guy by any means, but I've got Notepad installed on my laptop and use it when I travel, and I don't have any problems with it. It's certainly not going to compete with the full version of Finale, or Sibelius, or Notion, but at the cheap price of free, it won't hurt to try it out.

At 7/31/08 01:54 PM, endlessnumber wrote: Writing in finale and converting midis to mp3s for people to hear and review on Newgrounds is classical music. Using orchestral VSTis and lots of cheesy percussion samples to make a "war anthem" isn't classical music, it's video game music.

So if you write that music for a movie, or for a play, or for a comissioning, or for a stand-alone album, it's video game music too?

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't entirely agree. I think in terms of Newgrounds, the video game genre is a bit of a gray area. I've wondered whether or not I should post so of my stuff in the video game genre or some other genre. But, just because a piece sounds like it could go in a video game doesn't make it video game music.

At 7/31/08 01:38 PM, endlessnumber wrote: it's not actually classical music if you're just using VSTs and are not writing it out. I have zeroed many classical songs on an individual basis, but zeroing all of them would serve no purpose.

it's not simple minded to say that you should record it live. classical music made from just VSTs and a loser sitting in fruityloops will always sound like runescape music because nothing makes it alive.

Who are you to say what is or isn't classical music? What people today consider classical music and what actually is classical music are two very different things. Typically, people just call anything that sounds remotely classical classical, even if it's Baroque or Romantic or even 20th century Atonal music.

There are many educated, skilled, classically trained musicians out there that are writing on Finale and Sibelius, and even Cubase and Digital Performer. Just because you don't have access to a group of musicians to perform your work doesn't give your work any less merit.

At 7/28/08 09:45 AM, LJCoffee wrote:

At 7/28/08 12:53 AM, SymbolCymbal wrote: Or is it better to just to get a usb keyboard with real feel weighted keys

Really depends on what you want to do but I'd say that if you want a good all around solution then grab a MIDI controller, a copy of Kontakt and any software title that has VST and ReWire support. Kontakt will give you the pianos that you're looking for and the software will allow you to use them along side of Reason.

Then again - hardware is nice... but it's a bit pricey and you could probably outfit a new DAW for the cost of a decent piece of gear.

Agreed- the Yamaha Motif is nice, but you'll get a MUCH more realistic piano from a dedicated piano VST. If it comes down to the Motif or Reason's pianos I'd pick the Motif keyboard, but your best bet is a VSTi like Ivory or Akoustik Pianos.

Mixing with headphones turned up very loud can have a few negative side effects, one being hearing loss. I've read before that for every two dB increase, you should cut your exposure time in half (which contradicts that link). So for example, if you should only be exposed to 90 dB noise 2 hours per day, then you should only be exposed to 1 hour of 92 dB noise, or only 30 minutes of 94 db noise. Im no expert and there's a lot of contradiction research, but I think it's safe to use headphones at a moderate volume.

One big negative side effect to mixing on loud cans is that it will actually hurt your mix, and your mixing judgment. Your ears start to distort sound when you approach high volumes, and you won't be able to hear everything clearly. A lot of people say they need to turn up their music to hear all the voices in their music, but the opposite is true. If your music sounds awful at low volumes, then it's poorly mixed. Don't turn it up, you're only fooling yourself.

Im guessing if you think you're losing your hearing, then your headphones are too loud. If you are very concerned, it wouldn't hurt to get your hearing tested every once in a while to see if it's going downhill.

Are you looking for samples, or notation software? Finale and Sibelius don't have good orchestral sounds at all, you need to go out and buy an orchestral sample library for that.