This thread appears to have gotten quiet, but I thought I'd go ahead and add a tune I've been working on. Here it is at SoundCloud:
This tune is an instrumental and was created in Band in a Box using its MIDI instruments. Then I imported the MIDI file into Cakewalk's Sonar Platinum, where I used Cakewalk's TTS-1 synth for most of the voices, and the Sforzando VSTi for the melody instrument. Once I had the mix pretty much set the way I wanted it, I exported the sounds to a .wav file, which is what you're listening to in the link above.
Actually, it's more or less complete. There's really only one aspect about it that I'm thinking I might be able to improve on, and that's the EQ on the melody instrument, a nylon string guitar. It sounds a bit too bright to me, but I'd like to know what others think.
As for the rest of the mix, I'm open to suggestions. I think it's worth noting that I found a website a while back that gave a quick method for improving ones mix, and it wasn't one I'd been using. Before taking this guy's advice I had been setting all my instruments dead center in the mix. So they ended up all piled on top of each other, and it sounded like it. This guy said that the instruments needed to be separated from each other, so that's what I started to do. In the case of this tune, the bass and drums are located approximately in the center -- the drums are located dead center and the bass a few ticks to the right. The solo guitar is located a few ticks to the left, and the rest of the instruments are located much further from the center. The piano is hard right, the rhythm guitar is hard left, and the vocal Oohs are about 45 degrees to the left.
I used a BlueTubes BT Equalizer Model GEQ-12 on the melody guitar and boosted the highs, because the default sound of the classical in Sforzando is very muffled. It really needed some work to bring it out, but I think I might have taken it a bit too far.
For the final mixdown to audio, I added BlueTube's BrickWall BW2s-XP, which is a simple, but effective compressor/limiter, set to its "CD Mastering" setting. I like that setting. It gives my tracks a lot of punch and an added volume boost without pegging the meters.
OK, I guess that's about all I can think of. If you like that tune, I have about 66 others up at SoundCloud that you can listen to, if you should feel so inclined. Just go here for the complete list of them:
https://soundcloud.com/michaelmcbroom/albums
This thread appears to have gotten quiet, but I thought I'd go ahead and add a tune I've been working on. Here it is at SoundCloud: This tune is an instrumental and was created in Band in a Box using its MIDI instruments. Then I imported the MIDI file into Cakewalk's Sonar Platinum, where I used Cakewalk's TTS-1 synth for most of the voices, and the Sforzando VSTi for the melody instrument. Once I had the mix pretty much set the way I wanted it, I exported the sounds to a .wav file, which is what you're listening to in the link above. Actually, it's more or less complete. There's really only one aspect about it that I'm thinking I might be able to improve on, and that's the EQ on the melody instrument, a nylon string guitar. It sounds a bit too bright to me, but I'd like to know what others think. As for the rest of the mix, I'm open to suggestions. I think it's worth noting that I found a website a while back that gave a quick method for improving ones mix, and it wasn't one I'd been using. Before taking this guy's advice I had been setting all my instruments dead center in the mix. So they ended up all piled on top of each other, and it sounded like it. This guy said that the instruments needed to be separated from each other, so that's what I started to do. In the case of this tune, the bass and drums are located approximately in the center -- the drums are located dead center and the bass a few ticks to the right. The solo guitar is located a few ticks to the left, and the rest of the instruments are located much further from the center. The piano is hard right, the rhythm guitar is hard left, and the vocal Oohs are about 45 degrees to the left. I used a BlueTubes BT Equalizer Model GEQ-12 on the melody guitar and boosted the highs, because the default sound of the classical in Sforzando is very muffled. It really needed some work to bring it out, but I think I might have taken it a bit too far. For the final mixdown to audio, I added BlueTube's BrickWall BW2s-XP, which is a simple, but effective compressor/limiter, set to its "CD Mastering" setting. I like that setting. It gives my tracks a lot of punch and an added volume boost without pegging the meters. OK, I guess that's about all I can think of. If you like that tune, I have about 66 others up at SoundCloud that you can listen to, if you should feel so inclined. Just go here for the complete list of them: https://soundcloud.com/michaelmcbroom/albums