Collection of Hack-Phreak Scene Programs/cleanhpvac.zip/cleanhpvac/IT214.ZIP/HINTS.TXT

Text File | 1997-08-10 | 13KB | 268 lines

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Hints for Composers
 -- Pulse

Well, I'm not the best person to ask for hints, but here are a few anyway.

1) Never release your first song. There are very few people who are gifted
   enough to really make a quality song the first time - it's all practice
   and experience! Once you *HAVE* finished a song, listen to it a couple
   of days after... see whether you can view it from another point of view.

2) For channel echoes, use the Mxx command in a second column - this will
   save you from adjusting volume related effects (ie. you can leave all the
   Dxx commands alone, and it'll sound right)

3) Don't be afraid to create multiple instruments from the same sample! The
   reason for why I created instruments the way I did was so that you could
   have different *articulations* of the same sample. You can achieve this
   by playing around with the envelopes, fadeout, NNA - whatever.

4) Listen to other tracked music. Try and learn how other composers have
   achieved the sound they did. Experiment yourself.

5) Start by writing music that *YOU* really like listening to - don't try and
   write am orchestral piece if you don't listen to it - it'll show.

6) Take the time to tune all your samples as accurately as possible! To do
   this, play a long, clear, looped sample, then move to another channel
   (using '.') and tune ALL your other samples to this one sample (so they
   all have the same reference). Many potentially excellent modules have
   been spoilt because they were poorly tuned. Of course, this doesn't
   count the cases where samples are intentionally slightly sharp or flat
   for effect (which should be the rarity instead of a rule).

7) Try to avoid having too many samples at central panning - if you modify
   the initial panning - you should be able to 'fill' out the sound with
   very little extra effort. Or perhaps if you use instruments, you may
   want to play around with instrument's default panning...
   Pitch pan separation also provides a very convenient way to achieve a
   nice pan.

8) To find the 'perfect' loop:

     a) If you have a GUS/IW, first turn the loop off, then reload all GUS
        samples (so that their entire waveform is loaded).
     b) Now, select either a forwards or ping pong loop. Only select forwards
        if you have a sample which has the same amplitude at both ends. If
        you have a sample which has vibrato incorporated into the sample, then
        you'll probably find ping pong loops inappropriate. If the sample has
        an obvious reoccuring shape to it's waveform, try to account for that
        when you select your initial guess at a loop.
     c) Play a note at a MUCH higher pitch than you'd normally play it at.
        Then, hold down '+' (or '-') on on of the loop boundaries to find a
        region of lowest clicking. Then adjust it carefully (one byte at a
        time) until you find the best loop location. You will normally need
        to change both beginning and end points of a ping pong loop to find
        a nice loop, whereas forwards loops usually only require either loop
        end or beginning to be modified.
     d) Now that you have a decent loop at this pitch, decrease the pitch
        (typically by an octave)
     e) Repeat steps (c) and (d) until you have a nice loop at the pitch that
        that sample is played at.
     f) Once you've finished and if you're using a GUS, press Ctrl-G (to
        reload the Gravis' samples) and do a final check that you have an
        appropriate loop.

   This method works very well MOST of the time - don't forget that the '+'
   and '-' keys can be used to easily modify the loop - and the changed loop
   is taken into account when you change it (ie. you don't need to replay the
   sample).

9) If you want to make a song realistic, try to imagine how the instrument
   would be played. Pretend you are a musician when you write a part..
   Also, if you use an instrument such as a piano, try to use more than a
   single piano note - a real piano will ALWAYS have more than one note
   playing at a time - use some chords, etc.

10) For a nice fill to the sound, try to balance the usage of low and high
    frequencies. Songs with too much bass and too little treble sound rough,
    songs with too much treble and too little bass sound insubstantial.

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Hints for New Composers
-- John Hawksley (a.k.a. Greebo)

1)  Listen!

2)  Spend a day figuring out every feature of the tracker.
    Yes, I'm talking about all the effects and all the keys.
    ST3 is widely acknowledged to be a bitch to learn, but is (sorry,
    *was*) the most  powerful tracker out.  Once you have all the
    keys and functions sorted, you'll be ripping around IT's in
    no time.  You can leave the advanced instrument stuff for now.

3)  Listen to other tracks, find out how the nice-sounding bits are
    done. (ie look at the effects and volume/pan column).

4)  Be different. A lot of .MODs are in the same style. Sure, if you
    like this and feel comfortable with it, then go for it! But if you
    want to create a new feel -- do that too.  People are always ready
    to try new styles.  I personaly enjoy arranging (that covers
    a lot of styles) but you might like composing rock tracks, for
    instance.  So do it!

5)  Samples.  Be selective.  Sort all your samples into directories.
    If you have an editor, the trim thein sample; try to remove the
    noise or click at the start.  Remember -- samples are the building
    blocks from which we craft music.  If the samples are bad,
    the music will be too.

6)  Tune the samples!  When you rip a sample or create one yourself
    try to do it at the same pitch, or tune it (using the speed value)
    so that everything is uniform. This will save much hair-pulling
    later as you try to figure out why half the piece seems to be
    in G# major and half is in Dflat minor.

6)  Chords.  Originaly, people used to sample whole chords to save
    sample space.  Now we've got this wonderful IT with it's gazillions
    of channels.  From ST3 onwards, I have been contructing chords
    from notes because I had the space to do so.  The sound is better
    and is more of a professional approach.
    However (there's always a 'but'): be very careful! If you decide
    to construct a chord rather than use a single sample, some
    musicianship is required. Simple major chords are easy, but
    inversions really add to a piece.  If you are able to do it this
    way (look at some piano parts to any of my stuff, for instance),
    you'll get s professional, crafted sound.  But it does take
    a long time before you'll get a smooth flowing part.

7)  Saving.  Okay, so IT hasn't crashed on me yet, but when (if) it
    does, I'm not going to loose an hours work.  Save regularly.
    Never use IT or ST3 under the GUI in 95 and under Windows 3.1;
    I found that occaisionaly, windows would do some swapping while
    ST3 was saving and the module would be corrupt; but ST3 said
    it was saved ok. Lesson learnt.

8)  Releasing.  FTP sites are hard to come by these days.  Probably
    the best method of release is to uuencode your work and
    post it to alt.binaries.sounds.mods newsgroup.


Hope these are of some help. Remember to visit the Mod Resource Web
at http://www.armory.com/~greebo/mod.html

I can be contacted at [e-mail].

Good luck!

John H.

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Hints for Composers
-- ToalNkor / Realtech

  TIP FOR LOADING EITHER LEFT OR RIGHT CHANNEL OF A STEREO SAMPLE :

  Load the sample as usual and then follow these steps :

  If you want the LEFT channel : Just divide the length by 2
  by using Ctrl-F. This will delete one byte out of two, and therefore
  only the "first" sample (the left one) will remain !

  If you want the RIGHT channel : Cut the first and last byte of the
  sample (By looping it and using Ctrl-B and Ctrl-L). If the original
  sample sise was X, then the actual size should be X-2. From now on,
  just follow the same indications as for the left channel and tadaa...
  your Right channel sample is ready for use !

  After all these operations, dont't forget to multiply the mixfrequency
  by two to get the original samplingfrequency back !

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 Hints for New Composers
 -- StereoMan

 1) The easiest way to produce flanging like effect is to play same sample in
    two channels (they must have exactly the same pan-position) and lower or
    higher the playing frequency of one of the samples - ie:

           1            2                             2          (1 is same)
    │... .. .. Xpp│... .. .. Xpp│              │... .. .. Xpp│
    │xxx ii xx ...│xxx ii xx EE1│      or      │xxx ii xx u11│
    │... .. .. ...│... .. .. ...│              │... .. .. u00│
                                                          u00 and so on.
    <pp>  has the same value in the two channels.
    <ii>  is your instrument number.
    <xxx> is the note you play the sample in.

 2) You can use the above mentioned effect, but instead of having the channels
    with the same pan position you can put them as Left and Right (full) ie:

    │... .. .. X00│... .. .. XFF|
                . . .

    this will give you a smooth three dimensional sound.

    Note: This effect has not been tested on SurrounD equipment - the results
          are li'l unpredictable.


  3) Quite a good way to make reverb-like-echos is shown below:

     Let's say You have some sequence playing in one channel. Put the same into
     another channel and insert one or two (or more) rows before the beginning.
     Now set all volumes to zero (alt-v) and clear volumes which are not
     associated with notes (alt-w). Then apply a Dx0 effect (x=1..4 or more)
     for example:

     │n1. i. .. ...│... .. .. ...│          The results are very good.
     │n2. i. .. ...│n1. i. 00 D20│          Once you get used to this you can
     │... .. .. ...│n2. i. 00 D..│          achieve !very! smooth sound.
     │n3. i. .. ...│... .. .. D..│
     │... .. .. ...│n3. i. 00 D..│          The samples must not be too short
     │n4  i. .. ...│... .. .. D..│          so Dx0 can take effect.
     │... .. .. ...│n4. i. 00 D..│


  4) If you make the above channels with different pan positions (x22 and xDD)
     or (x80, s91) - the results are stunning :)


  5) Take your time to read the whole help (yes, the whole of it) - you'll
     be surprised to find what hides under your keyboard :)


  6) Make your tunes as small as possible. People are not quite happy to find
     they have a 3 or 4 Megs of crap on their already full HD drives.
     Remember: the smaller = the easiest to spread.


  7) NEVER start tracking if you're not into the right mood to track. You'll
     only loose time and perhaps make another crappy tune.


  8) Funny, but I've found that making your own color scheme truly inspires!


  9) Experiment! Play around with the effects, envelopes and NNAs. They all
     make music sound more realistic!



                            George Marinov a.k.a. StereoMan - <[e-mail]>

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Hints for composers
-- Ilpo Karkkainen

- If you listen only one kind of music, it will shut your mind from others. Be
  versatile. When you listen lots of different kinds of music styles, it also
  makes your composing a lot more wider and colorful.

- When listening to music generally, try to sometimes consentrate to something
  specific, for example backing vocals or drums. It helps you realize the whole.
  It's also good to try listen what different notes there are in a chord that
  you hear. At least to me, it has been very helful in chord progression.

- Details make the whole. Use them wisely, though. Too much details make the
  song sound bad. I've noticed that in some of my songs.

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