I'm using Reason and Live mainly to make music. If you wanna check some of it out, go to www.mp3.com/blitz_music and give it a listen.

I find that Reason is all you need to make music =) 

i guess i'll get round to checkin stuff but as my dj partner says: make the choons first and only then start complaining about the sound. at least you made somethin!

i cant understand how the .mod contains such accurate info but in such little space. way better than midi. so why do we use wave format? ok, for the live instruments recorded with microphones i guess. but do we need wave for dance music? 

i'll be using renoise possibly. looks interesting. cant do a websearch for "Live" realistically, so if anyone has their website, it would be useful.

the main prob i have at the moment is that with reason2 i can make 90% but for one off samples and stuff i have to use an external sequancer. also i have problems with tempo signature (3/16 in a 4/4 tempo for example).

ps remixonline is a nice site 

"i cant understand how the .mod contains such accurate info but in such little space."

Many MODs are very MP3-sized. The samples are basically WAVs. You can convert a WAV to a MOD, but the filesize is essentially the same. Two things make them small -- without lossy compression. One is if the total length of the samples is shorter than the song. If the sample is a note, it can be repeated and transposed. If the sample is a bit of something like a voice or riff, it can be repeated or played in any fraction. The second thing is that a bunch of lo-fi samples playing together sounds much better than a whole piece of music squashed into a single waveform at the same quality setting. Different quality samples can be used according to frequency of use, sample length, and volume (it's also easy to make different quality versions of the track).

You could make a huge MOD, for example if many tracks played a different hi-fi sample each as long as the song, like a conventional multitrack almost.

A MOD is basically a MIDI with samples attached and few extra frills. MIDIs use stock sounds; they can be OK, but for some reason few are... could be the composers, or those sounds don't inspire.

As you can see from the above, MODs are basically put together by hand, so conversion to that format tends to be impractical. Playback also requires a compatable player, and streaming is impossible. Since they're based on uncompressed audio, low bandwidth versions can be slightly harsh, but tighter and less homogenized than MP3. 

cheers for that. i understand it now. i know what you mean about quality of samples and stuff. often you can get them down in size quite a lot without hearing difference (not on PC anyway). 

"...i have problems with tempo signature (3/16 in a 4/4 tempo for example)."

Are you talking about dropping in samples with a beat rate of 4 to 1, in which case the loop will resolve temporally every three bars. Or have you matched the beat rate and thus require 12 bars for resolution? 

I tend to have a Electronica Playlist on when I'm playing... Quite a chunk of it is by Killjoy :) 

basically playing 3 notes in a 1/4 length. easy with a keyb. havent found a way of doing it in reason. that's NOT 3/4 tempo I agree.

I am not yet making tunes where the tempo signiture changes (unless i was making eclectic music like QUeen or something). so its just a matter of finding ODD divisions in an EVEN matrix. i'll figure it out somehow... 

have you heard Dream Theatre? 

"also i have problems with tempo signature (3/16 in a 4/4 tempo for example). "

...are you talking about sixteenth note triplets? i.e. each note getting one third of the quarter note? if so yeah, alot of music progs like acid, etc dont even consider these, and it sucks. not all music is based around 4/4 and derivitives thereof.

by the by, tempo is not the same thing as time signature. time signature is a representation of what gets the beat and how many there are. 5/8 = 8th note gets the beat, 5 of them per bar, etc. tempo is pace, the speed of which the beat is played. you might have known this, but w/e.


and yes, dream theater r4wks. if you like that sort of stuff but without the cheesey vocals check out don caballero 

Acid is loop based, so you just do a loop at 3/4
Most of the software synths let you change the length of the pattern. IE set bass machine pattern length to 6 beats and drums to 8 or 16 and there you go. 

not really the point, speeds. when you paste samples (snare hits, etc) on the beats, that are not premade loops, theres no way to change the layout of the bars to go to anything besides 4/4. so you cant subdivide by 3 for triplets and you cant do anything in odd time signatures like 6/4 or 3/4 without just putting over the 4/4 and just doing math on when the bars resolve, tempo, etc, which sort defeats the point of using such a program. 

render a single track to wav and then use it instead of sequence of samples - this way you can have odd ratio. Ofcourse ACID stratching quality kinda sucks, you cant do 'shuffle' and yadayada.. its just a simple loop-based multitrack thingie, not Logic Audio or Cubase 

Anyone used FruityLoops here?
That program rox >:P 

well, currently i like playing almost any song from PK while i play quake maps. both the ambient ones and the 'action' ones go really well with quake's mood and style.

also, the theme song to resident evil (movie) is pretty good while playing-- very mysterious and evil sounding.

cyltl: yes, i use fruityloops. 

I don't like softsynths.

I listened to some of the music from Painkiller from the website, too loud/distracting for me. 

[nt] 

You mean cookie-monster bands. 

Listening music while playing Quake (or other FPS) is what I do every time ... but I think Death Metal is not the only option... Quake particularly, and FPS in general required demoniac and hell satanic ambiance... So why not trying with Death Metal or Black Metal... or Grind Metal.... for example brand old groups like Slayer, Massacre, Death, Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse, Crusher, or others.... Even old album from Sepultura (like Arise) can be really cool playing with... Think about it..... 

The better is to use your CD player instead of adding directly "samples" into the game.... It lets the player choose his prefered music....
Bye.... 

Cradle of Filth!


mmmm... Black Metal... :P 

All you guys map to pretty much death metal exclusively? 

Depends on the game/theme. Lately I've been mapping without music as I found I map faster that way. Older Metallica for medieval themes, dark ambient for dark/runic themes, and grunge or pop metal for base themes. 

right now i am mapping to the terran music from starcraft.

good songs from PK that i like playing and mapping to are:
Train Station Music 01
Monastery Music
Cathedral Music 01
and Bridge Music

Good COF songs to listen to while playing: anything on the Midian CD. :P 

Kudos for RPG

Tool + Runic Grey
System/Down + Zerstorer