this is as valid a form of musicianship as any other compositional approach imo. this track is really cool so please keep it up.
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i got to play my new keyboard with a drummer recently and it was so nice
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I2C1ofWmwFfWHxUuM8E2d_mc9j7sss_7/view?usp=sharing
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this is so dreamy
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another try!
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yeah – more my insecurity talking than trying to gatekeep. thanks for the encouragement!
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i’ve 1000% used ableton’s convert melody to midi tool to transcribe voice memo humming before, it’s absolutely valid haha
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this whole thing is basically pieced together by editing ableton’s convert harmony to midi files.
https://sad-rave.bandcamp.com/track/xiv-2 this one too.
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yeah tbh I didn’t even know that existed and I’m like damn I think I’d rather use that than input notes with a midi keyboard lol
i’m very proud of this one!
the time signature was tricky in pico 8 because it’s locked to 32 notes per section, so I ended up using one channel as a “timing” channel. that did limit the tempos I could use, since they had to be integer ratios between the number of notes I wanted and 32.
also, to use that channel without having weird polyrhythms i used the custom instrument feature to get the right tempo, and then just play that instrument the whole time.
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why would this be a good thing
e: that was just me being silly, this is fantastic
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to follow up the work I did using earthbound’s samples, as an experiment I decided to mix the source song from earthbound on my mixing console. I think it’s… kind of neat? but probably you wouldn’t notice the difference if you didn’t know how it was made. I was hoping there might be an audience for this extremely nerdy idea but listening to it I’m just like… idk it’s pretty subtle.
like idk I think the stereo image is a little more “realistic” and there’s more defined separation and low end but I’m hard pressed to say whether it’s an improvement overall from the original. maybe this particular song wasn’t an ideal candidate to try this with… I bet something more bombastic like the secret of mana soundtrack would get more mileage out of analog compression and EQ and stuff? idk. I’ve just kind of fantasized about doing this for years so I finally gosh darn did it.
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as a side note it’s actually incredible how much instrumentation this particular song gets out of the SNES’s 8 channels. there’s a ton of switching instruments between channels for different sections, and all of the guitar chords are single notes on different channels, which I guess produces a more full rich sound than crowding them all on one. same for the complex trumpet arrangements. it was actually a pain to edit it all to have each instrument on a single channel in the DAW so I could EQ them all together and stuff.
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what console is this through, for the record?
Ramsa WR-S4424
now that I think about it I really need to adorn it with some kind of final fantasy tactics material
these are sleeper units that sound great and can still be found for fairly cheap… I’m almost reluctant to name it at all lest it fall victim to the hipster tax
an old mate of mine runs all his john carpenter-y beats through a soundcraft 200b which i’m sort of interested in replicating
i do think there might be something to the whole analogue summing wheeze but i’ll need to hear it for myself and do null tests and shit
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for what it’s worth it was an immediate night and day difference to me. I think some of it is just the natural irregularity/randomness with pan pots and preamp settings, the way the signal path is just slightly imperfect no matter what you do. I’ve been considering tweaking an in the box mix to replicate this factor and see how much of a difference it makes. also it forces you to use reverb solely on the aux which I now believe almost always sound 100% better than putting it on individual tracks, unless you’re going for a specifically reverby effect on a single instrument (I still sometimes add a lot of extra reverb to piano because it’s just such a natural fit)
but the real benefit for me is that setting levels, adjusting EQ, and applying compression via outboard gear is ~so~ much easier and faster than it has ever been in the box. things that I have struggled to use properly and achieve the things I want in the mix on a computer have just happened effortlessly in the analog realm. also you can’t really replicate distortion from driving preamps using plugins. at least to me there is like no comparison at all, the real thing sounds so much more natural, punchy, and usable.
also ironically I have found gain staging to be ~much~ easier this way.
if you’re morbidly curious maybe compare the plugin to your own desk!
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really i don’t think i could give up project settings recall to go totally outboard
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