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Here's some music I made many years ago using a midi sequencer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2i2wZRut9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ptJWD4r-5M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyoEN7ti_t8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWE7wscSm0Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoPlp3Nfjok
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmscSN5qBSM
--
- Warp
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On 13/11/2011 12:24 PM, Warp wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2i2wZRut9w
That's really damned nice.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ptJWD4r-5M
I think I like the first one better - although the addition of
percussion was very effective.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyoEN7ti_t8
Also good, although it kept sounding like it was building up to a climax
that never really arrived.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWE7wscSm0Q
It has some very nice tones, although I would have prefered more
variation in harmony. (Then again, it's still better than anything I've
ever produced in my life, so...)
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoPlp3Nfjok
That is very, very smooth. Really atmospheric too. And with the little
background details, this one almost sounds professional-quality.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmscSN5qBSM
Really, very nice. I am impressed.
In summary, I like some more than others, but basically every single one
of them is better than anything I have ever produced in my entire life.
(So... I guess the thousands of pounds worth of music hardware and
software I own was TOTALLY WORTH IT then. :-P Sadly, talent isn't
something you can just go out and buy in some shop somewhere...)
I'm surprised you managed to get such impressive sound quality from a
MIDI file. Usually that means using the default software renderer, which
(depending on which version of Windows you have) sounds abysmal. I've
heard toy pianos that sound better than that thing!
Also, I fear YouTube has probably chewed up the sound somewhat. The
tracks did all sound a little muffled, and a bit crunchy in places. But
such is life...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoPlp3Nfjok
> That is very, very smooth. Really atmospheric too. And with the little
> background details, this one almost sounds professional-quality.
Incidentally, that's the only song I made 100% with a midi keyboard,
with only extremely small amount of post-editing to fix/remove the most
obvious errors. (All the other songs were made almost purely with the
midi sequencer software itself, iow. with the mouse and PC keyboard.)
For this reason there's no fixed tempo. It's basically "tempoless".
It's also mostly unrehearsed and hence improvised (iow. each channel
contains what I played for the first time, without restarting; I did try
a bit to find some tune beforehand, but after a while I just started
recording.) I first recorded the main melody (the synth sound, with
both the melody and the accompaniment played at the same time) on one
sitting. Then I added the choir sound on top of that (also in one go),
and then the various other random sounds (one recording session per type
of sound).
So it's basically an improv.
> I'm surprised you managed to get such impressive sound quality from a
> MIDI file. Usually that means using the default software renderer, which
> (depending on which version of Windows you have) sounds abysmal. I've
> heard toy pianos that sound better than that thing!
Well, I used a SoundBlaster AWE32 with a partially custom soundfont as
my soundcard back then. Not a pro-quality soundcard, but good enough for
my purposes. (The card supports recording to a raw WAV file the raw PCM
data that the soundcard produces, so there isn't any need to make a
quality-losing useless digital-to-analog-to-digital conversion.)
Curiously, the only PC hardware that I have that has gone backwards in
quality is precisely in the sound department. My current PC is unable to
produce these sounds from the midi files on hardware (because I can't put
the AWE32 in this PC, as it has no ISA port.)
Of course via software it would be possible to produce even better-quality
sounds.
--
- Warp
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On 14/11/2011 05:10 PM, Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoPlp3Nfjok
>
>> That is very, very smooth. Really atmospheric too. And with the little
>> background details, this one almost sounds professional-quality.
>
> Incidentally, that's the only song I made 100% with a midi keyboard,
> So it's basically an improv.
That's even more impressive.
If I get time tonight, I'll post a couple of the things *I* improvised.
Sadly, they don't compare at all...
>> I'm surprised you managed to get such impressive sound quality from a
>> MIDI file. Usually that means using the default software renderer, which
>> (depending on which version of Windows you have) sounds abysmal. I've
>> heard toy pianos that sound better than that thing!
>
> Well, I used a SoundBlaster AWE32 with a partially custom soundfont as
> my soundcard back then. Not a pro-quality soundcard, but good enough for
> my purposes. (The card supports recording to a raw WAV file the raw PCM
> data that the soundcard produces, so there isn't any need to make a
> quality-losing useless digital-to-analog-to-digital conversion.)
>
> Curiously, the only PC hardware that I have that has gone backwards in
> quality is precisely in the sound department. My current PC is unable to
> produce these sounds from the midi files on hardware (because I can't put
> the AWE32 in this PC, as it has no ISA port.)
>
> Of course via software it would be possible to produce even better-quality
> sounds.
Now, see, I'm a little lost here. I thought a soundcard is just a thing
that converts digital audio into analogue audio...
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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Now, see, I'm a little lost here. I thought a soundcard is just a thing
> that converts digital audio into analogue audio...
The SoundBlaster AWE32 converts a midi file to audio. It has RAM and a
big bunch of sound samples which work as midi instruments.
--
- Warp
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On 15/11/2011 04:48 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Now, see, I'm a little lost here. I thought a soundcard is just a thing
>> that converts digital audio into analogue audio...
>
> The SoundBlaster AWE32 converts a midi file to audio. It has RAM and a
> big bunch of sound samples which work as midi instruments.
Right. So it has actual sound generation capabilities as well. What are
those capabilities? Just sample playback, or actual synthesis?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> So it's basically an improv.
>
> That's even more impressive.
>
> If I get time tonight, I'll post a couple of the things *I* improvised.
> Sadly, they don't compare at all...
http://download.orphi.me.uk/Music/G2/Acid.ogg [1.1 MB]
http://download.orphi.me.uk/Music/G2/Sequence1.ogg [8.4 MB]
http://download.orphi.me.uk/Music/G2/Sequence2.ogg [10.2 MB]
Obviously, you'll need something that understands Ogg Vorbis.
with lots of knobs and dails on it) and a Boss BR8 recorder (portable
digital 8-track recorder using the obsolete "zip disk" technology).
"Acid" was sketched out in literally 20 minutes flat. Everything is 100%
live, just overdubbed. I didn't even use the metronome for timing, it's
just freehand (rather like yours). You can even hear a few places where
I missed a note or two. (You'd be amazed how many people claim to not
know which bits I'm talking about!)
The other two tracks... probably aren't even worth bothering with, to be
honest. Listen to 30 seconds or so, and now you basically know how the
whole track sounds. I was attempting to emulate the iconic sounds of
Tangerine Dream. (What do you mean you've never heard of them??)
As you can probably tell, I am not a prodical genius like the band
members of Tangerine Dream. My method was simply to program my Amiga
1200 to feed a few MIDI loops into the synthesizer while a twirl the
knobs like crazy. The result could at best be described as "sonic
texturing". Calling it "music" would be a bit of a stretch.
As an aside, one nice thing is that I can program the 8-track to start
recording the instant my sequencer starts playing, for inch-perfect
synchronisation.
Of course, these days I build everything inside my computer, so
synchronisation is a total non-issue. I have Native Instruments
"Komplete 6". That's basically a bundle which includes almost every
[software-only] product that NI sells; synthesizers, drum machines,
samplers, effects processors, etc. Added to that, I have Steinberg
Cubase SL3.
Together, they theoretically make a powerful home recording studio. In
competent hands, they could probably do some serious damage. In my
unskilled hands, they don't produce much of any merit. But for your
amusement, here is my latest opus:
http://download.orphi.me.uk/Music/G3/DistantLands.ogg [4.9 MB]
The long intro is freeform. Only later on did I turn on the metronome
track to synch everything up. The track basically evolved from an
interesting chord sequence I was working on. I'm not sure it works too
well when constrained to a regular beat. That beat does have a slightly
80s vibe going on with it. I'm not completely happy with some of the
fills and breaks. The dynamics are a little all over the place.
A few days before producing this, I was studying the work of Enigma.
Their stuff is interesting in that it seems to have insane amounts of
reverb, and yet it still sounds tight and controlled. It has lush thick
strings in it, and yet the melody still cuts through. Obviously whoever
mixed this knows *exactly* what they're doing. All that *I* took away,
however, was that their strings tend to be very "dark", whereas I tend
to gravitate towards the brightest, most flamboyant sounds I can find.
Using something darker leaves more spectral headroom for the rest of the
mix, as exemplified here. That part did seem to work out quite well...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 15/11/2011 04:48 PM, Warp wrote:
> > Invisible<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> Now, see, I'm a little lost here. I thought a soundcard is just a thing
> >> that converts digital audio into analogue audio...
> >
> > The SoundBlaster AWE32 converts a midi file to audio. It has RAM and a
> > big bunch of sound samples which work as midi instruments.
> Right. So it has actual sound generation capabilities as well. What are
> those capabilities? Just sample playback, or actual synthesis?
Instruments consisting of (possibly) several samples, which get mixed
(with a maximum of 32 channels), with a limited amount of sound effects
(such as reverb).
--
- Warp
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> Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> On 15/11/2011 04:48 PM, Warp wrote:
>>> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>>> Now, see, I'm a little lost here. I thought a soundcard is just a thing
>>>> that converts digital audio into analogue audio...
>>>
>>> The SoundBlaster AWE32 converts a midi file to audio. It has RAM and a
>>> big bunch of sound samples which work as midi instruments.
>
>> Right. So it has actual sound generation capabilities as well. What are
>> those capabilities? Just sample playback, or actual synthesis?
>
> Instruments consisting of (possibly) several samples, which get mixed
> (with a maximum of 32 channels), with a limited amount of sound effects
> (such as reverb).
>
32 hardware channels, and possibly several more software based synthesis
depending on your drivers and the software used.
I've seen up to 128 SW channels... and that was around '98~'99.
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