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A few compositions

Started by Majora, 13, February, 2013, 11:42:24 AM

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Majora

Have about ten, fifteen new pieces written, demoed and ready to be reworked at the moment. Will get around to completing them soon.

Rolina

If memory serves, weren't you the guy who converted the DD songs to TLA's soundfont?  Do you remember which threat that was in?

Majora

Nope, you're close though. I'm the one that extracted the instruments from Dark Dawn and compiled them into a SoundFont library. I also extracted its sequences and converted those to MIDI. Think both can be found in the 'Sound Studio' section: http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2256.0

Not entirely certain exactly where what you're looking for could be found, can't imagine where that would be. You're looking for versions of songs from Dark Dawn that use the GBA instruments, right? I'll look around for them.

Lord Wolfram

if you were to put them in DC project then they are no longer existing.

Rolina

I'm aware - I've tried hunting them down, but I think that's where they wound up.  I had checked my PMs, because I know I talked to the guy about seeing if he could make a march-style remix of An Adept's Home to work for a military town, but I think I may have deleted those a few years ago.  Ah well.  Anywho, off chance you can recreate that stuff?  Get the DD songs using the TLA soundfont?  I always thought they sounded better with that one.

charon the ferryman

Really reminds me of DKL2 for some reason.

Majora

#26
If I can make this in five minutes, http://f.cl.ly/items/3V1p1I000t2R3z0V1v2E/SESSION.mp3
I can do that, no problem. Do you have a soundfont file for The Lost Age using all its instruments' original settings? I've only ever seen one Golden Sun soundfont besides my own floating around online, can't say I'm a big fan of it, sounds like its creator went in and sampled everything themselves, custom loop points, static decays and releases and all that.

I'll use that soundfont collection for now, unless you have a superior one.
Here's Dark Dawn's main menu theme using the GBA sounds: http://f.cl.ly/items/0e180a403u0W0H0n021h/MAIN_THEME.mp3
And Kaocho: http://f.cl.ly/items/3x1k0D1D1j1N381Q0C2H/KAOCHO.mp3

Took a few creative liberties with some of the instruments, as the original GBA games simply don't have as many instruments Dark Dawn has.
Think it's merely a matter of taste, preferring one sound set over the other. I think they're both pretty decent.

Rolina

I think Daigonite does... or at least, she was one of the main ones working on music and such back in the Dimensional Crisis days.

charon the ferryman

I do not have a soundfont - when I produced the music, I directly imported it into the game. I was pretty good at that lol. The advantage is that you're using an emulation of the hardware so you get the closest sound (much closer than a soundfont) but a soundfont is easier to use.

Majora

Can't beat the real thing.
Here's a link to all the sequences from Dark Dawn. Feel free to do what you do (although some channels will undoubtedly need to be reassigned due to the ratio of instruments between the two games):

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6RDTwb4OndTeHhOV2plV185eGs&usp=sharing&tid=0Bz8PWXTWctXKNlpVelUySUZrNHc

Rolina

Ah, thanks for the clarification.  Anywho, if we can get things converted to the TLA soundfont, I wouldn't mind seeing if other games done into it.  I'd love to hear Sally Beacon and Clash With the Librarian from Suikoden Tierkreis done in the TLA soundfont.

Majora

Updated October, 2014 with the 'Enter Sol Sanctum' piece.
Let me know if I should look into reworking existing Golden Sun songs like that in the future.

Luna_blade

I like your work and have a question:
How do you make this?
"Hear the sounds and melodies
Of rilets flowing down
They're the verlasting songs
Whispering all the time
As a warning that behind some rocks
There's a rigid grap even
Oreads fear the tread"

Majora

#33
Sorry for the delay, only just saw your question.
I use both hardware and software for audio production and processing. Sampling is a key factor, as well, I sample just about everything at some point for the performance aspect, including sequenced parts such as hi-hat riffs and the like. Sampling is very important because I like a nice large, layered quality to my mixes, so things like snares, bass drums, and other percussive elements will often be comprised of several individual samples from my own kit, other people's loops, synthesizers, and a variety of other sources to create unique samples.

Here's an example, layering two simple samples together to form a more interesting instrument:
http://f.cl.ly/items/0n00081L3S3a3J3b0q0x/Layering%20Demonstration.mp3

Another key element is the importance of arrangement to a song, which I find often dictates the direction of the mix later on in terms of mastering decisions. Production-wise, I tend to start in with a basic song demo or a set of guide sounds that evoke a particular mood to get things moving. It's often a matter of throwing ideas at a song until a theme or concept comes together that can be focused as you go. The piece can then be presented to session musicians or vocalists once it's deemed acceptable, which is what was done for that last song I posted here, the Sol Sanctum one.

If you'd like the dry details, here's a short list of the most used software and equipment:

Synths:
ARP Odyssey
Oberheim OB8
EDP Wasp
Moog Minimoog
ARP 2600

Samplers:
EMU EMAX II
EMU Emulator II/III
AKAI S1100 (16MB)
AKAI S3000XL (32MB)

Reverbs/Delays:
Eventide SP2016
Roland Space Echo

Recording:
AKAI ADAM DR1200 12-track digital multitrack
AR100 monitors
Various Drawmer units, including DL221 compressor/limiter and DS201 dual gate
Zoom 9010
Alesis Quadraverb
Korg DVP-1 vocoder (it's more of an effects unit than a vocoder)
Yamaha SPX 90
Manley stereo 10DV limiter/compressor

Software:
Pro Tools 10
Ableton 9
FL Studio 11
Various Waves plugins

Kit:
Yamaha recording custom:
Bass drum, 57cm
Noble & Cooley snare drum, 36cm
Zildjian hi-hats, 14"/36cm
Zildjian crash ride, 22"/56cm
Zildjian China boy low, 18"/45cm
'K' splash cymbal, 8"/20cm
'K' medium thin dark crash, 18"/45cm

Drum machines:
Roland TR808, TR909, Emu Drumulator, and other various drum machines

For strings and orchestra, EastWest libraries get things done fairly well. I often merge individual samples or recorded parts from libraries in with strings sampled from other sources like classical music videos from YouTube and such for a fuller sound.

For all the music posted here, I've also made it a point to use as many samples from Golden Sun as possible. I'm not a big fan of reworking a song in a way completely and entirely removed from its original form, so using elements from existing Golden Sun music is a key element as well.

Luna_blade

Wow I didn't expect that big of a reply. It's pretty impressive what you've got.
I mainly asked because one of my brothers is very interested in making music with the computer.

So you actually record real instruments and sample them most of the time?

QuoteHere's an example, layering two simple samples together to form a more interesting instrument:
http://f.cl.ly/items/0n00081L3S3a3J3b0q0x/Layering%20Demonstration.mp3
That is really nice.
"Hear the sounds and melodies
Of rilets flowing down
They're the verlasting songs
Whispering all the time
As a warning that behind some rocks
There's a rigid grap even
Oreads fear the tread"

Majora

#35
Yep, a large part of what I do focuses on the aspect of performance, using both electronic and acoustic elements. On one hand, I might like the rigidity of a sequenced percussion part, whereas I might also like to layer in a few loops of actual kit as well for the small dynamic changes and inconsistencies, the human element:
http://f.cl.ly/items/2G2k0b2Y1X112q3A092G/Perc%20Demonstration.wav

For that purpose, the computer can be just as much an instrument as any other 'real' instrument like a piano or a guitar. It isn't like either of those instruments just play themselves, it's the musician that sits down and gets something out of it. The computer takes away (and introduces) a bit of the learning curve involved in learning how to play an instrument well, allowing you to take a little more time to really work and develop a song far further than you could if you just had some guitars, bass, drums, and a microphone. I think it's a question of finding the right balance between the electronic aspect done on the computer end and the recorded elements that makes the difference between an interesting production and the kind of 'computer music' that people sequence and blast out on a whim in a few hours from the bedroom, which does tend to give electronic music a somewhat unfairly rough reputation.

I'd recommend he sit down with a straightforward DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) like Ableton Live or FL Studio and just play around for awhile, the sounds should come together after a few hours of playing around with the knobs. I recommend he learn his way around a simple synthesizer to learn the basic Oscillator > Filter > ADSR > LFO chain of command, which is consistent for most digital and hardware synths. FL Studio has a very straightforward 1 oscillator plugin called 'Minisynth', I think it comes with the program, (their demo version of the program is basically fully-functional) it just has an Oscillator, a (kind of quirky) filter, and a simple tempo-synced LFO. That would go a long way toward understanding the basics of a synthesizer, instead of jumping in immediately with a monster like the ARP 2600...
[spoiler][/spoiler]

A lot of audio-related things like that aren't all that complicated once you've sat down and gotten a feel for it, a lot of it is just learning small basics and building up a wealth of knowledge as you go, but you can imagine it would be a little overwhelming if you jump in with something like that without knowing what does what. May as well teach someone to swim by boating them out into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and tossing them in.

Luna_blade

Quote from: Majora on 10, April, 2015, 03:53:30 PM
For that purpose, the computer can be just as much an instrument as any other 'real' instrument like a piano or a guitar. It isn't like either of those instruments just play themselves, it's the musician that sits down and gets something out of it. The computer takes away (and introduces) a bit of the learning curve involved in learning how to play an instrument well, allowing you to take a little more time to really work and develop a song far further than you could if you just had some guitars, bass, drums, and a microphone.
Pretty interesting.
Quote from: Majora on 10, April, 2015, 03:53:30 PM
I think it's a question of finding the right balance between the electronic aspect done on the computer end and the recorded elements that makes the difference between an interesting production and the kind of 'computer music' that people sequence and blast out on a whim in a few hours from the bedroom, which does tend to give electronic music a somewhat unfairly rough reputation.
Yeah, I see that a lot to, that some people think electronic is bad.
Quote from: Majora on 10, April, 2015, 03:53:30 PM
I'd recommend he sit down with a straightforward DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) like Ableton Live or FL Studio and just play around for awhile, the sounds should come together after a few hours of playing around with the knobs. I recommend he learn his way around a simple synthesizer to learn the basic Oscillator > Filter > ADSR > LFO chain of command, which is consistent for most digital and hardware synths. FL Studio has a very straightforward 1 oscillator plugin called 'Minisynth', I think it comes with the program, (their demo version of the program is basically fully-functional) it just has an Oscillator, a (kind of quirky) filter, and a simple tempo-synced LFO. That would go a long way toward understanding the basics of a synthesizer, instead of jumping in immediately with a monster like the ARP 2600...
He currently uses Magix music maker, which makes it pretty easy for him with all the built-in samples and stuff.
But he likes your suggestions.
"Hear the sounds and melodies
Of rilets flowing down
They're the verlasting songs
Whispering all the time
As a warning that behind some rocks
There's a rigid grap even
Oreads fear the tread"

Majora

I've been hearing about that program lately, it's one of the few DAWs I know next to nothing about. Its interface looks like a more colorful Pro Tools. What does it do, does it support VSTs? Does it have a mixer?

MaxiPower

Keep up the good work Majorica, only hearing these tunes now for the first time.

Majora

Thank you, glad you like them.