Punqtured information 481 glöps
- demo Wild wolfy by HOOY-PROGRAM [web]
- This, gentlemen, is what the scene is all about! :)
- rulezadded on the 2011-08-14 09:32:05
- 4k Windows RED by BluFlame [web]
- Really amazing 4k. It really has a lot of interesting visuals (don't know if it's technically impressive, but the visual impression sure is) :)
- rulezadded on the 2011-08-13 23:28:08
- 64k cracktro Windows core25000 by Titan [web]
- Watched this on the stream. Really a cool prod!
- rulezadded on the 2011-08-13 23:26:44
- 1k Windows S.P.H.E.A.R by Loonies [web]
- Amazing stuff. Sound AND great visuals. That's awesome!
- rulezadded on the 2011-08-13 23:25:37
- demo Windows Spin by Andromeda Software Development [web]
- The visual impression are really nice in some places but it would have been equally impressive with new models or simply something abstract, I think.
On the musical side, however, I'm not that impressed. My personal preference of style or genre shouldn't get in the way for an objective view on it.
First of all - take a listen to Virgill's song I'm Free from MS2001. Vocals are definately not a bad thing when done right!
In my experience, the vast majority of scenmusicians doing songs with vocals start off by composing a piece of music that could easily stand alone without the lyrics. Then the lyrics are added and perhaps the composition adjusted a bit.
There's actually a huge difference in music meant for vocals and music meant to stand alone.
Gopher has a point about the levels across the frequency spectrum. There seems to be quite a few instruments colliding at the lower frequencies, muting eachother out. Compression would take care of that, and since it's a song for a demo, there should be plenty of compression-modules to chose from. Another - and in my opinion better - way to do it, is to carefully inspect the frequency-response of each instrument used. Try to equalize them, so you have less amplitude on frequency bands that collide. That's a great way to prevent unwanted distortion too.
All in all, I think the track is decently composed, but should be a little less "stand alone" to leave room for the vocals.
Just my 5 cents worth of constructive criticism and reason for the piggy. I am afterall more into music than geometry and shaders, so do forgive me :) - isokadded on the 2011-08-12 00:02:26
- 64k Windows uncovering static by Fairlight [web] & Alcatraz [web]
- Gopher: Yes, I wasn't aware that this track was actually a first of with the new synth. Nor was it obvious that it had to be somewhat rushed to make it in time for the compo. (Those things - especially the last part - doesn't really shine through, which lead me to the conclusion that it was probably not the case) Knowing this puts things into a completely new perspective!
I don't know if I'm particularly much into what goes on under the hood. It's revival's work that I just use ;-)
It would actually be a VERY fun experiment, that I'd be honored to be part of. However, it would more or less require that everyone uses the same host. If the track was done in Renoise, I'd be happy to give it a shot with Quiver-presets and render and mp3 of it. (ofcourse requiring both your and reed's full accept of distributing the midi-data)
It would also require each track to be given a meaningful name in order for contributors to know which track contains which instruments/patches.
If indeed the song was composed in Renoise and you want me to spent a night or two creating new Quiver-presets for the song, drop me a mail at punqtured at fnuque dot dk. Otherwise - Quiver is free in beta and you should be able to replace the instruments yourself. The default presets currently available are not that numerous and there's plenty of room for improvement, but I think you'd be able to do some kind of synth-replacement simply by loading quiver instead of 64klang. - isokadded on the 2011-08-11 10:42:58
- 64k Windows uncovering static by Fairlight [web] & Alcatraz [web]
- It makes perfectly good sence, especially considering the time-limit and definately the fact you point out about digging deeper and deeper into a single sound without ever getting there at all. On the other hand - it's quite hard to hear what timeframe a given tune was created under. If this was your first go with the synth or even second or third, I'd say it's quite well executed. The more flexible/complex the synth, the longer time to spent to get familiar with it's distinct strengths and weeknesses. It definately looks promising and as if there's lots of potential still waiting for your next release. In time, you'll work up a decent patch-bank that'll make the time-limits a walk in the park :)
And for a final word - even though I said it several times already. The composition is simply brilliant. - isokadded on the 2011-08-11 00:06:13
- 64k Windows uncovering static by Fairlight [web] & Alcatraz [web]
- That part was definately just "personal taste" as I wrote. I just know reed's way with distortion-guitars. You do too from panic room ;) It's second to none (T-101 perhaps being the single competitor)
- isokadded on the 2011-08-10 21:02:59
- 64k Windows uncovering static by Fairlight [web] & Alcatraz [web]
- @psonice: No, i wouldn't dream of comparing a 64k intro-synth to a professional hardware synth. That wouldn't be fair at all, and to be honest, I think Roland, Steinway, Nordlead etc. would disagree a bit with #ponce's comment ;)
@reed, Gopher
I promised you to elaborate on my comments about the soundquality, so first of all, I think it would only be fair to tell you, that I allow myself to compare with "Quiver" (the synth we use for 64k intros - thumbnail-screenshots in post above). I know Quiver and songdata is 10-15k bigger and that realtime isn't really an option for us. Still - it's a synth used in 64k intros. http://straightarrow.dk for comparison, and I don't know anything about your 64klang so I have to compare to something I know.
Now for the elaboration on why I think the soundquality could have been somewhat better. I'll try to take it preset by preset, giving my thoughts on each of them. Before I begin, I need to stress the fact, that composition-wise it's definately a fantastic and grandous piece of music. Especially considering it's a 64k intro!
Single string/violin best heard in the beginning and at the "breakdown" halfway sounds really good at low pitches (like it's used halfway), but gets somewhat thin at higher pitches (the beginning). I'm aware that it's not supposed to be some kind of phat synthpad-sound at all, but more likely supposed to imitate a violin.
I do however, think it would benefit from using two oscillators with only a very slight detune or even better - a nice distribution of overtones/harmonics (would require wavetable generation, though).
If you have a detune-setting/bandwidth-setting or pitch-controlled LFO (faster at higher pitches and slower at lower) it would probably get more realistic. Also, a very, very slight distortion would aid in widening the sound just a tiny bit - not too much, but just enough to make up for the otherwise somewhat "digital" sound generated by synths.
The sound resembling a church-organ:
I think this would benefit from a slightly wet'er chorus (or adding one if it's not already there) and in my experience, a very slight distortion will make it sound better too. In general, a lot of "natural" sounds tend to get better with a very subtle distortion somewhere in the voice-path, before effects are added.
The piano:
Now this is quite a puzzle to me. First impression was: Now this sounds great - but after a little while: But why is it so hard to tell apart from the other instruments? You must have some Karplus-Strong implementation (noise->filter delay-line for the attack) and that part of the sounds is very close to a real piano's attack. However, it seems you overdo the reverb on it or the reverb has a strange, metallic sound to it. The sustain and decay of the sound doesn't seem as good as the attack. I can't exactly put my finger on one specific thing with this sound, but it's definately one of the better piano-sounds I've heard from a 64k synth.
The Bassdrum/timpani:
Seems to have a tendency to distort (uncontrolled) slightly at it's mid-frequency "hit". I think I'd have chosen two presets for this sound to have one representing a deeper rumble and one for the "hit/midfrequency". This would allow for the "hit" to be played at slightly lower velocity when frequency-colliding with other instruments in the mid-range.
The snaredrum:
This seems to be a little too heavily lowpass-filtered. It makes it seem strangely "out of place" or "patched on" (Couldn't remember when I wrote my first comment, but this was the one) since the rest of the sounds have a more natural feel to it and a frequency-distribution you'd expect an instrument of it's type to cover. After all, not many snares are played in symphony orcehstras with a pillow inside of them ;-)
It wouldn't damange the sound to have it go further up the higher frequencies (unless you're filtering out unwanted noise that would make it sound wrong or strange?).
Adding a slight lowpass-filtered noise-oscillator played at very low pitch for the "rattle" would make a more trustworthy snare in my opinion. However - I myself find snares to be amongst the hardest instruments to synthesize, so my observation doesn't mean I'd be able to do better with Quiver.
The bassline/lead sound:
Judging from what I've heard you do (in your oldschool executable music from Breakpoint '10) to make fantastic distortion-guitars, I can't help but getting the feeling it would have been so much better if you'd gone that way. Ofcourse, this is just personal taste, but 64klang definately seem to offer the features needed to do an excellent distortion guitar. In a song almost solely consisting of "real" instruments, the synth-bass seems a very odd choice for a lead. You could have gone for flute, bells or some kind of brass. That'd have been awesome!
On an overall level, it seems most sounds are way better at lower pitches than on the higher scales. I have no clue as to why it's so, but it's just the impression I get when I hear your song.
And ofcourse - don't get me wrong on this. I usually don't go to these lengths to critique songs. It's just that I really think the composition is really brilliant. The small flaws I point out in the above are - afterall small flaws.
I hope this cleared my comment up a bit. If not so - feel free to repost here.
- isokadded on the 2011-08-10 20:37:37
- 64k Windows uncovering static by Fairlight [web] & Alcatraz [web]
- isokadded on the 2011-08-10 20:37:23
account created on the 2001-08-23 20:46:06