Author Topic: My Duet  (Read 3843 times)

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Offline ruler501

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My Duet
« on: November 13, 2012, 09:20:59 pm »
I decided it would be nice for me and my brother to do a duet and I've been trying to get better at composing. The result of all of that is this: http://musescore.com/user/39983/scores/72019

Any comments or suggestions would be nice. The recording it shows is not as good as what I think it would be in person. I'll upload the inperson video later when he learns it and can play it.
I currently don't do much, but I am a developer for a game you should totally try out called AssaultCube Reloaded download here https://assaultcuber.codeplex.com/
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCM/CS/M/S d- s++: a---- C++ UL++ P+ L++ E---- W++ N o? K- w-- o? !M V?
PS+ PE+ Y+ PGP++ t 5? X R tv-- b+++ DI+ D+ G++ e- h! !r y

Offline squidgetx

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Re: My Duet
« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2012, 09:34:54 pm »
Wow nice progress since the last time you posted that other music composition thread :D

now here are my comments lol:
Sounds nice, but why is the tenor in F/Dm when the alto is in C/Am? Is the alto an Eb transpose? I like the vivace part, though the transition back to the reiteration of the main theme seems a little sudden and forced. Also, it kinda sounds like it wanders a lot, especially in the third section, without it actually going anywhere. Also yeah, Musescore recordings are... not the best haha. I'm looking forward to see what it sounds like when your brother can record it-- alternatively you can export as midi and put into a program like LMMS or FL to get a better (digital) sound.

Edit: for example, this is a classical-ish piece (string quartet) I rendered in LMMS. I was trying to get a local quartet to record a version, but in the end the rendered one still sounded better :P
« Last Edit: November 13, 2012, 09:55:42 pm by squidgetx »

Offline ruler501

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Re: My Duet
« Reply #2 on: November 13, 2012, 10:05:04 pm »
I'll look into LMMS. Do you have any suggestions other then that for free software I should use for composing/creating the music?

The music it shows there is written for the instrument and tenor is Bb and Alto is Eb so thats where the key signature came from.

I was planning on making it slow down in the last measure of vivace but I couldnt figure out how to do that in musescore. For the wandering i think I just have to work some more on it. Hopefully experience will help there.
I currently don't do much, but I am a developer for a game you should totally try out called AssaultCube Reloaded download here https://assaultcuber.codeplex.com/
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCM/CS/M/S d- s++: a---- C++ UL++ P+ L++ E---- W++ N o? K- w-- o? !M V?
PS+ PE+ Y+ PGP++ t 5? X R tv-- b+++ DI+ D+ G++ e- h! !r y

Offline squidgetx

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Re: My Duet
« Reply #3 on: November 13, 2012, 10:09:21 pm »
My music software environment generally consists of Musescore <-> LMMS -> Audacity, unfortunately I don't have a lot of experience with other tools (LMMS was the first one I tried, and I liked it, so yeah).

Ok, I missed that the tenor is Bb. Sorry about that. But man, reading transpositions makes my head hurt haha. (I'm a strings person :P) Hm, in musescore you can't really change the tempo afaik (or maybe you can, maybe dig around a bit) but you can stick in a ritard as text, even if it doesn't get translated into the recording. And yeah, experience will definitely help. Great work for a first though :D

Offline ruler501

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Re: My Duet
« Reply #4 on: November 13, 2012, 10:17:05 pm »
i was having trouble with text when I made it so I just left. out the rit. I'll try with LMMS and see how that works comparatively. What do you do with Audacity, just touch it up?
What soundfont do you use for LMMS?

EDIT: and how do you set up LMMS? when I started it set the soundfont, imported the midi, and tried playing it I get really weird electronic noises.
« Last Edit: November 13, 2012, 10:19:39 pm by ruler501 »
I currently don't do much, but I am a developer for a game you should totally try out called AssaultCube Reloaded download here https://assaultcuber.codeplex.com/
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCM/CS/M/S d- s++: a---- C++ UL++ P+ L++ E---- W++ N o? K- w-- o? !M V?
PS+ PE+ Y+ PGP++ t 5? X R tv-- b+++ DI+ D+ G++ e- h! !r y

Offline squidgetx

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Re: My Duet
« Reply #5 on: November 13, 2012, 10:20:47 pm »
Audacity is for if I ever feel like recording anything, mainly for touchups that LMMS makes hard to do or does uglily (like fades and stuff). Also it's good for exporting as MP3, which LMMS can't do either (because of proprietary mp3 crap). The only major major disadvantage of lmms that I'd have to cite would be the lack of midi export :(

For orchestral stuff I use sonatina symphonic orchestra. It's pretty awesome, though you'll need an VSTi SFZ player to use them. (Note you don't even have to give your real name or email in the boxes...just typing random letters will do lol)

Offline ruler501

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Re: My Duet
« Reply #6 on: November 13, 2012, 11:29:38 pm »
How do I use that stuff? The tutorials I've found so far haven't been that helpful. Sorry for being so noobey
I currently don't do much, but I am a developer for a game you should totally try out called AssaultCube Reloaded download here https://assaultcuber.codeplex.com/
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCM/CS/M/S d- s++: a---- C++ UL++ P+ L++ E---- W++ N o? K- w-- o? !M V?
PS+ PE+ Y+ PGP++ t 5? X R tv-- b+++ DI+ D+ G++ e- h! !r y

Offline squidgetx

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Re: My Duet
« Reply #7 on: November 14, 2012, 12:47:22 pm »
No problem

VSTi's are virtual instrument packages in the form of .dll's. Make a directory for your vst's and put sfz.dll in it. You can dig around online for all sorts of vst's to use also (LMMS wiki has some good links). Extract sonatina and put that wherever you want (mabye in the samples folder, if you like being organized). I forget which button it is, but play around with the left sidebar in LMMS until you see a bunch of rectangles with graphics and what look like plugin descriptions (mallets, kick, strings, bitinvader, tripleoscillator, zynsubaddfx, commodore64 chip, stuff like that). Look for the red/green graphic marked VST plugin or something like that. Drag it to the song editor window and it should appear as a new, empty track. Click the area left of the volume control, that looks like it could be a button with the words VST plugin on it or something and a small window should pop up. In that area itll say something like "no vst plugin loaded," that's when you look to the right and there'll be a folder icon. Hit that and you can browse for sfz.dll, select that and the sfz gui should show up, where you can browse in sonatina for whatever .sfz you want to load. Hopefully that wasn't too confusing but I think once you know where to look it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what you're doing. Good luck!

Offline ruler501

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Re: My Duet
« Reply #8 on: November 15, 2012, 07:53:05 am »
LMMS crashes every time I try to select something from the sonatina orchestra. I don't think this is an sfz problem since it happened on both of my computers. It might just be that LMMS windows 64 bit is really glitchy

They also don't have saxes :O
I currently don't do much, but I am a developer for a game you should totally try out called AssaultCube Reloaded download here https://assaultcuber.codeplex.com/
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCM/CS/M/S d- s++: a---- C++ UL++ P+ L++ E---- W++ N o? K- w-- o? !M V?
PS+ PE+ Y+ PGP++ t 5? X R tv-- b+++ DI+ D+ G++ e- h! !r y

Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: My Duet
« Reply #9 on: November 29, 2012, 05:03:19 am »
Seems interesting. It would be nice to see this rendered in a software with custom sound fonts or reverb effects. I think Finale does, right? Otherwise maybe LMMS or FL Studio supports importing music scores into MIDI format? Not sure, though, since I never really composed digital music with music scores.