[WIP] Tenlar's X-music

exelsiar · Post by **exelsiar** » Wed, 14. Feb 07, 18:42

aye it is -points to the link to the sticky above-

Woffin · Post by **Woffin** » Thu, 15. Feb 07, 00:47

Try turning the overall volume down if you can tenlar. The tracks themselves sound really good and suit the combat as they're intended to do..but when you bring in the bass drum or when you have a lot of insturments playing it tends to overload the mix and distorts/crackles the sound. I'm not an expert (yet) but I've had plenty of experience with mixing and audio

so just a little tip really. I can understand having it loud, lol, but not at the expense of sound quality.

Apart from that, keep at it!

good work!

Tenlar Scarflame · Post by **Tenlar Scarflame** » Thu, 15. Feb 07, 07:18

Woffin wrote:Try turning the overall volume down if you can tenlar. The tracks themselves sound really good and suit the combat as they're intended to do..but when you bring in the bass drum or when you have a lot of insturments playing it tends to overload the mix and distorts/crackles the sound. I'm not an expert (yet) but I've had plenty of experience with mixing and audio so just a little tip really. I can understand having it loud, lol, but not at the expense of sound quality.

Apart from that, keep at it! good work!

yeah, I was feeling the same thing actually... granted I'm not using any incredibly advanced software to make these (Garageband

), but I can probably get rid of the crackle without sacrificing too many glorious decibels ^^

Tenlar Scarflame · Post by **Tenlar Scarflame** » Mon, 19. Feb 07, 20:26

Did a bit of experimentation with vocal transformation in Garageband, and got an interesting idea to replace Bitching Betty with Bitching Bob. You know, the cool male computer voice from the Wing Commander movie and similar things. ^^

Here's a minute and ten seconds worth of what I came up with: note, I didn't bother TOO much with the quality of the recording (you can hear a few breaths

) but you'll get the idea.

Bitching Bob experimentation

SETA Abuse · Post by **SETA Abuse** » Mon, 19. Feb 07, 21:33

I really like hearing original music -- and I love this. Especially "The Thin Line." I do agree that the bass is slightly overpowering at times, but I'm no musical expert. Excellent work. I really wish I had that sort of talent -- I can play music on a few instruments, but I can't write anything worth hearing.

Your vocalization (or vocalisation, depending on which brand of English everyone is speaking) sounds really cool. It has a definite sci-fi feel to it. I thought about replacing some Betty sounds with a text-to-speech voice set -- not one of the Microsoft ones, but one that sounds better (AT&T Natural Voices, Cepstral TTS, whatever). I'm not sure which would "fit" better in the X universe, a real person or a real computer -- probably a person.

I love new audio ideas, since they add to immersion (very important for me). Your music is excellent, appreciate the work!

Woffin · Post by **Woffin** » Tue, 20. Feb 07, 00:16

@ seta abuse....just tried out that at&t voice program, how cool!

http://www.kadair.org.uk/gpm/x3/woffinnova.wav

Also mr Tenlar, hows the music coming along?

That voice file was pretty cool, lol, bet you've been waitin to find an excuse to say those things for a long time

Tenlar Scarflame · Post by **Tenlar Scarflame** » Tue, 20. Feb 07, 00:24

Woffin wrote:bet you've been waitin to find an excuse to say those things for a long time

hah... yeah pretty much.

music's a bit sluggish this week, but I have ideas churning for the Paranid combat track... expect it soonish, and expect it to have a nice dark church organ and a faint choir ^^

Woffin · Post by **Woffin** » Tue, 20. Feb 07, 00:26

church organ + combat music + choir...hmmn, try getting your hands on "Muse - Megalomania"...that song came right into my head right away and it might give you some inspiration

Tenlar Scarflame · Post by **Tenlar Scarflame** » Sat, 2. Jun 07, 19:29

So here I am performing e-necromancy to tell you all...

Track 3 really is on its way.

I had a surge of inspiration last night and this morning and finished about half of it. It should probably be ready for DL this weekend.

It wasn't intentional, but it has a sound that's somewhat reminiscient of Nightwish's Planet Hell. Also, Devil May Cry comes to mind. Hope you all like.

Flybye · Post by **Flybye** » Sat, 2. Jun 07, 19:40

WOW! I really like the "For Pride, for Family" track!

Raven112 · Post by **Raven112** » Sun, 3. Jun 07, 01:15

Just downloaded the tracks now, very good! Original and creative, I'll definitely be adding them into the game when I get it.

Tenlar Scarflame · Post by **Tenlar Scarflame** » Sun, 3. Jun 07, 20:23

Updated for completion of the Paranid combat track, Blind to the Power of the Three.

Much, much darker than The Thin Line and For Pride.

Raven112 · Post by **Raven112** » Sat, 9. Jun 07, 16:57

'Tis very good!

Here's something interesting, everytime I listen to your music on my computer it gets added to last.fm online:

Tenlar Scarflame @ Last.fm

You're an official artist!

KaZsaru · Post by **KaZsaru** » Sun, 10. Jun 07, 09:31

Tenlar:

Great work on such original music. Small gripe though (which is turning big even though how hard I try to ignore it

)

Overamp crackling in "The Thin Line..." and "For Pride..."

I dont want to sound like I'm begging, but...

*gets to his knees*

Please please please please re-record them so they dont over-amplify and crackle? I've got sensitive ears and no matter how much I want to listen to your tracks, my ears just say no!

Goes to show that using headphones does have disadvantages

I even tried to cancel out the crackling in Audacity but to no avail

Please, Tenlar, your music is great, I just dont want my ears to start rebelling against me.

Tenlar Scarflame · Post by **Tenlar Scarflame** » Sun, 10. Jun 07, 17:00

I've actually re-exported quieter versions of both "Thin Line" and "For Pride", they'll be up for download shortly. The crackle is 95% dealt with in these.

KaZsaru · Post by **KaZsaru** » Sun, 10. Jun 07, 17:15

Tenlar Scarflame wrote:I've actually re-exported quieter versions of both "Thin Line" and "For Pride", they'll be up for download shortly. The crackle is 95% dealt with in these.

Let me be the voice that speaks for all sensitive-eared-X-flyers as I say: THANK YOU!

Now my F5 key is going to get worn today

Tenlar Scarflame · Post by **Tenlar Scarflame** » Sun, 10. Jun 07, 17:22

The decision to re-export them came after I sent them to my iPod and gave them a listen on the way to work... my little iPod headphones couldn't handle them very well

But Blind to the Power seems to be mixed well? Is anyone getting crackle in that one?

EDIT

The new For Pride is up. I made an interesting discovery about that one- when I mixed it down the first time, for some reason I had the master volume set to about 150%.

Whoops! It's back down to below jet noise level.

With regards to The Thin Line, what's the time stamp where you get crackle? Or is it the whole thing?

KaZsaru · Post by **KaZsaru** » Sun, 10. Jun 07, 18:22

I've ran a normalization filter over all three tracks before putting them in. Cleans the craclke up somewhat. On The Thin Line the crackling happens on the climaxes of the song from:

0:42-0:47
big bas beat at 0:50 and a bit 10 seconds more after that
1:43-2:12 where the guitar kicks in
2:22-2:32 not that bad, but noticable on headphones
2:32-2:53 the buildup to the climax of the song has some major overamp crackle

In all honesty, the entire track may need work like For Pride, since in it's entirety, it actually sounds it was recorded at 120-140% master volume.

NOTE: after running Audacity's normalize filter over the current (read: OLD) "The Thin Line..." track, 99% of all crackle has gone away.

EDIT NOTE:
I have to say, the new For Pride, For Family never sounded so good

Tenlar Scarflame · Post by **Tenlar Scarflame** » Sun, 10. Jun 07, 18:28

Crikey!! You're right, that one was exported at about 130% volume. Okay, that one will be up shortly...

KaZsaru · Post by **KaZsaru** » Sun, 10. Jun 07, 18:32

Goes to show, triplechecking one's equipment is a must.

Sorta reminds me of the time when I went out and fought against 3 pirate novas (in XTM, they were bugged with 1.5GJ of shielding. Yep, 1.5GJ) in my M5 (of which I never noticed I was in it) till I saw "The End" on the first pass.

one big "wtf" moment for me.

Blind to the Power is fine as is, loud, but fine. Normalizing on my end before putting it in X3 is a must, so it'll match the other tracks I have for combat in terms of communal volume level. As that track stands on its own, its perfect in volume level. A bit "off" for Paranid, but still great

egosoft.com

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[WIP] Tenlar's X-music