Aaaargh!

[davidn]

I've recently been trying to get a new sound for my music, as I've been using the same SNES-like samples for a number of years now and I feel it's time to move on. The trouble with trying to find new instruments is that you need to find ones that sound not only good on their own, but also along with your other samples. And with the vagueness of requirement for a "voice" instrument, that's more difficult than you might think. VSTs are electronic instruments that contain special effects far beyond those of the normal samples-with-volume-information that I usually use, and they're all the rage now (even though they're primarily used in electronic genres like dance), so I downloaded a few and tried them out.



I should point out that this is just one window among the pack I downloaded, which offer layouts of varying sizes and complexity, each containing at least six waveform windows and more dials, sliders and switches than the average NASA spacecraft. We learned in HCI that replicating real systems exactly on a computer doesn't work because we use computer interfaces in a conceptually different way, and this is a practical demonstration of it.

I feel I now have to take back everything that I might have once said about dance music. It may consist solely of arpeggios, synthesized chords and 80 minutes of the same drum loop, but that's because you need a PhD in particle physics just to understand your instruments.

Maybe I'll just actually learn the guitar instead.

Comments

[kjorteo]

I'm suddenly reminded of that one scene in Airplane! where they show the humorously long extended cut of the cockpit's instrument panel.

[malefact.livejournal.com]

Try something like Miroslav or Halion - they're VST orchestras with choir. I use the former with Cubase and it's seriously stunning. Back in December '95 when I first started to dabble, all I had was an 8-track sequencer (with each track strictly monophonic and with no effects at all apart from pan). It's taken over eleven years to wait for enough money and modern technology to become available, but finally it is. Have a listen to some of the product demos out there and be amazed.

[davidn]

By looking through those names I found "Virtual Guitarist 2" by Steinberg, which sounds amazing, but at $299.99 it's about $299.99 out of my price range.

[malefact.livejournal.com]

http://www.steinberg.net/687_1.html

Give the above a click for demo files of Steinberg's Halion Symphonic Orchestra. A working lad like you can save up, like me. :)

[gravityfirenze.livejournal.com]

I'll teach you!

[davidn]

A generous offer indeed - however even after going through your userinfo and website, I'm not entirely certain who you are...

[gravityfirenze.livejournal.com]

No, you don't know me, but I think I read a couple of entries of yours and found you interesting. Don't worry, I'm not a stalker lol

[davidn]

Thanks, good to know I'm going through an interesting period :)

[kjorteo]

Hey, I'm curious about something, and this was about the most relevant post I could find in which to ask about it.

How hard is it to make MOD music? Assuming, of course, you don't do anything crazy like the subject matter of this post.

Or, let me put it like this. Let's say you occasionally get a random tune stuck in your head and think "Hey, that might be neat." Is actual song-making something even remotely feasable for the entry-level person? I might be tempted to dabble in it some day if it's approachable, but if it's not, well, the last thing I need is yet another creative field to suck at.

[kjorteo]

Oh, and to clarify, I'd prefer if it was something that was able to sound nice. Like...listen to songs like "Writhe in Pain," "Fuuga" (sometimes also called "Elegance,") and "Simple Life" from the Guilty Gear XX soundtrack. (If you're not familiar with those, send me an e-mail, and I can send them to you.) Not that I want to plagiarize music, but we're talking something of about that level of complexity. How hard is it to make something like those?

[davidn]

That was going back a bit, wasn't it? Although I admire the dedication to find a remotely suitable post!

MODs are written in a rather different way from most other kinds of music file because they were meant to be entirely electronically generated - some people have likened it to "coding a song" rather than writing one. Notes and effects are laid out on a piano-roll like view that isn't really as quick to read as traditional musical score, but is closer to what the computer "sees" as it scrolls through it.

Actually using Modplug to enter notes into a song is another sticking point for some, but I imagine it would be easier with an external keyboard - you can either copy and paste notes around and decrease/increase their pitch by keyboard shortcuts (something I've got quite quick at over time, though it took ages at first), or use the computer keyboard as a faux-musical one, but I've never got used to that.

The only major problem with MODs compared to other music formats is ironically the strength that attracted me to them in the first place - the way that their instruments are entirely based on sample information in the file. This means that the sound entirely depends on the samples that you can scrape together yourself, rather than being able to download pre-made instruments and use them (OpenMPT tried to correct this with the addition of VSTs, which were what I was using in the post, but I've later discovered that the support for them never really worked anyway).

However, MPT was the first musical software that I downloaded for the PC, and I've stuck with it for years, so it can't be that difficult to pick up. :) There's a fairly decent tutorial in the starter pack and the OpenMPT wiki, I think, if you decide that you want to look at it further. It's not something for instant results, but it lets you get your ideas down.

Fruityloops is the major amateur music software at the moment, but I find it absolutely overwhelming - the interface is much the same as the screenshot above and I can't understand much of it at all. I find MODs really pretty obvious and logical in comparison.

(I haven't heard the Guilty Gear XX soundtrack, by the way - an email with them would be appreciated!)

[kjorteo]

Oooh...that's good info! Thanks!

Hmm...I don't have a keyboard...this might be tricky.