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Offline Not a Number

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Not a Number - "Cure?" [Alternative Rock] (Out now on Bandcamp!)
« on: April 09, 2012, 08:49:31 pm »

Title:Cure?
Length:4:11 (Single Edit)
5:36 (Full Edit)

My debut single "Cure?" is out now for download on Bandcamp - download the Single Edit for free, or click "Buy Now" to get the Full Edit for just 79p (US$1.24, CA$1.60)!

Also available on YouTube:




Old post:
I've been making music now for a long time, starting the "Not a Number" project in 2007. Only recently have I been able to make what I've truly wanted "Not a Number" to sound like. Not to say what I didn't enjoy what I made in the past, that's not true in the slightest.
While I've always wanted it to be a Progressive/Alternative Metal/Rock one-man-band, I doubt I'll reach the likes of Dream Theater, Ayreon or Devin Townsend. But damnit, I'll give it what I can.
Spoiler For Spoiler:
So, without further ado, I present my latest outing, "Cure?". This track's my third outing in this style (but I still regard those as "testing the waters"), but, at the moment, is a lot calmer/slower than the other two. I do have plans for this song, such as another couple sections to add, which will make it longer - I've put an estimate on the final product being about 5:30... but I'm still a little unsure on that. Given how I plan to release this song and the album it'll be on, part of me's wanting the final version being much longer (but that's a secret I'm not willing to share. ;))
What I will say is that this is part of a storyline told in the album, which I'm sure you can get the idea of through the lyrics to this song. :)

Title: Cure?
Length: 2:49
Listen here: http://soundcloud.com/vulpes_corsac/not-a-number-cure-demo
« Last Edit: May 22, 2012, 06:07:36 am by Not a Number »
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Not a Number - "Cure?" [Alternative Rock] (Demo 20120409)
« Reply #1 on: April 09, 2012, 09:01:17 pm »
That sounds quite nice actually. I also like the melody. That is usually not my style but I liked it :D

Also nice to see you around here. By the way are you still planning to do that thing Albion did for one of his metal song and use real guitars, while doing the drums in a music sequencer? (in his case MODPlug tracker) I think he even used the tracker for the choir pads and the bassline. Only the guitar seemed to be a real instrument.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2012, 09:05:44 pm by DJ_O »
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Offline Not a Number

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Re: Not a Number - "Cure?" [Alternative Rock] (Demo 20120409)
« Reply #2 on: April 10, 2012, 09:52:53 pm »
I've not heard any of Albion's stuff, but that's the idea. Drums are in the PC version of MTV Music Generator, guitars and bass are done on my own guitar (I've managed to tweak some settings on my amp to make it sound like a bass (and also play it in a different style; using my thumb to pluck the string instead of a pick), which I did in my previous song, "Ceci n'est pas"). Pads/Keys'll be done on my keyboard.
The only downside is that I'm recording and mixing all my stuff in Audacity, so I don't get the luxuries of compression or EQ. But I suppose that gives it an slight old-school vibe to it.
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Not a Number - "Cure?" [Alternative Rock] (Demo 20120409)
« Reply #3 on: April 10, 2012, 10:25:20 pm »
Aah ok cool. Here's an example of an Albion song using that technique by the way: http://albion.bandcamp.com/track/wip-22-feb-2010-soul-eater

And yeah in Audacity EQ'ing is a major hassle it seems. There are some tools to do some, but they're not very reliable sometimes. :/ EDIT Actually there's High/low pass filter, which can be very helpful. However there's no way to completely eliminate an entire frequency range, only reduce its volume.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2012, 12:55:32 am by DJ_O »
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Offline Not a Number

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Re: Not a Number - "Cure?" [Alternative Rock] (Demo 20120409)
« Reply #4 on: April 11, 2012, 01:11:18 am »
The problem the doing any sort of effects in Audacity is that it's destructive (ie., changes the waveform). Even though I recorded the guitar in mono, I had to make it sound stereo by making duplicates of the original, panning them almost hard-left/-right, bringing the volume, applying a High/Low Pass Filter to them, then moving them ever so slightly out of phase. It's very subtle, but it adds so much.
That in itself doesn't bother me, since it can be done in about 2 minutes. It's using the Envelope Tool to bring down tiny segments of audio so it doesn't clip that's the most time-consuming. I must've spent over an hour doing that with this track alone, and I only had four channels to work with. I don't even know how many channels I'll be using for Pads alone. :P
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Not a Number - "Cure?" [Alternative Rock] (Demo 20120409)
« Reply #5 on: April 11, 2012, 01:15:09 am »
Yeah true. Audacity is really more a software to edit the audio file directly, and yeah I hate the mono issue when recording stuff or for example when not using reverb in Music 2000 (it's even worse in the PC version as well as Music 2002 and 3000). I noticed when doing that that if you have a lot of bass in your instrument, it seems to increase it too much when creating the stereo effect.

On the other hand, though, I noticed that Audacity supports VST plugins. I wonder if there are any freeware ones for EQing or if VST plugins are only for piano rolls and drum loops??

Also what version of audacity do you use? Because the one I got allowed me to use far more than 4 channels... ???
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Offline Not a Number

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Re: Not a Number - "Cure?" [Alternative Rock] (Demo 20120409)
« Reply #6 on: April 11, 2012, 02:33:55 am »
I wouldn't think that the plugins can be used for piano rolls. Audacity doesn't really have any MIDI support, you can only see the notes or something like that.

I use a fairly old version of Audacity - 1.2.6. I can get as many channels as I please (eg., back when I was doing the TIMGUL Hypermix Trilogy in 2009, each mix used 13 channels)
I know Audacity has its own EQ plugin, but to be honest... it's horrible. And of course, it's destructive.

Thankfully, with the way I've set it up, I find a tone with the EQ settings on my amp first (I generally have an idea of what sort of tone I'm looking for). I haven't tried mixing the keyboard in yet, so that's definitely going to be problematic. The drums though, are quite easy. The reason I use the PC version despite its patent lack of usuable reverb, is that I can change one minor thing, re-export it as a WAV and it'll still be in time with the other instruments. I mean, let's say the kick drum sounded great on its own and with the rest of the drum kit, but now you've got everything else in the mix, it's practically not there. Go into MTVMG1PC, change the sample (or mix it with another if you want to keep the original's sound), export it, put it in the mix, and boom, still works.
Plus, you're not really limited in sound memory - I can have every sample play at 44Khz in the PC version. With the PS1 version, well, you have to have samples play at lower sample-rates (which, don't get mey wrong, can produce some interesting effects); you got emulator issues, things will skip every so often, making the entire thing go out of time.
Aside from the inferior reverb (which isn't really that much of an issue since I pan it like a real drum kit), the only problem I have with the PC version is that the opening the right-menu on a Riff doesn't mean you've right-clicked the Riff; Every single time I want to edit a Riff, I always instinctively right-click the Riff, select the option I want, then have to select the Riff again. Other than that, I really have no problem using it.
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Not a Number - "Cure?" [Alternative Rock] (Demo 20120409)
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2012, 02:44:08 am »
Ah I see. What was the 4 channel limit you mentionned though? ALso yeah I meant a custom EQ plugin. I don't like the main one because you cannot preview and it's insanely tedious to customize. And yeah the sound memory is annoying in M2. I personally got around it by saving/clearing/reloading because M2 has a memory leak bug causing memory to not be freed up completely when replacing an instrument, but even then my memory still gets full eventually. I usually can only load 14 44 KHz samples at once. I no longer have the emulator issues, though, except in some rare occasion (usually the song will stop playing a bit for half a second every 50 second or so, which can be fixed in Audacity), but it depends of the computer.

As for the PC version I personally just didn't like the controls, because they seemed to not be standard with other sequencers, not to mention it crashed every minute or so. As for the reverb issue it doesn't help that a lot of my music is trance, though.
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Offline Not a Number

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Re: Not a Number - "Cure?" [Alternative Rock] (Out now on Bandcamp!)
« Reply #8 on: May 22, 2012, 06:05:15 am »

Title:Cure?
Length:4:11 (Single Edit)
5:36 (Full Edit)

My debut single "Cure?" is out now for download on Bandcamp - download the Single Edit for free, or click "Buy Now" to get the Full Edit for just 79p (US$1.24, CA$1.60)!

Also available on YouTube:

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