Game Audio Network Guild

How are you doing folks?

I hope all is well, soon we have the christmas rush upon us. yey! =)
Last week I produced a couple of new themes (as usual), some pitches and I'm also working on the third AZURE album with my friend Robban Kanto.
5 new songs are currently in proces, I've wrecked some of my drum-gear so I have to buy some new stuff this weekend.

Ahh, and I also just got the heads up from CDbaby that the two EMBRACING albums we produced in 1996/1997 will be released on digital distribution in the coming weeks. iTunes, Spotify etc. So check them out when they are available.

 Don't forget to check my twitter and webpage www.morningdewmedia.com
for new music themes and mp3 demos.

Have a nice weekend my fellow audio artists!

Cheers,

Mattias Holmgren
MORNINGDEW MEDIA
http://www.morningdewmedia.com

 

 

Hi there,

I hope you all gang members are having a brilliant beginning of Q1 2009.

I'm just wrapping up the last music theme recordings and voice over stuff for the game LEGIO, which is supposed to be released in a month or two.

Between work and other stuff I managed to record a clip of me performing a wedding song I wrote some years ago for a friend. The song is called "Midsummer union" and can be hear at -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QO9tb4roPI

I've also updated the mp3 player at my main blogg over at www.tiredtree.se/blogg
The player now handles categories (like a filebrowser), the player is coded in AS3. =)

Bought some new gear recently, like a tube preamp called BlueTube DP, it rocks on vocals, organs, guitars...everything. I also bought a smaller controller keyboard, Axiom 49, since the big Yamaha EX5 is a bit misplaced in my studiosetup (in a non ergonomic way...).

Enjoy the songs and hope to share a beer or two at the next GC, I thinks it's 31. Juli – 02. August 2009, Leipzig (Germany).

 Stay in touch!

 /Mattias Holmgren

MORNINGDEW MEDIA
www.morningdewmedia.com

 

Hi,

Yesterday I did a video capture of the song Sapphire.

Check it out here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjICjhoJDlE

 Hope you like the song!

 

Cheers,

Matt

 

 

I just thought I should write a short review of the East west symphonic orchestra Play Edition library and also give my viewpoint on the cons and pros of the new interface and workflow.

I've been living with the original EWSO platinum edition for quite some time now and have grown used to the sounds and how they work together in different setups. It's an amazing box when it comes to quality and usefullness, and the new PLAY edition which has the same core-sounds but with a new GUI (graphical user interface) and totally new sample-engine, PLAY also feels like a solid product.

The keyfeatures of EWSO PLAY EDITION is:
° 64-bit compatibility - which means we can get access to much more RAM than 2 GB per application.
° Convolution reverb - many impulses from the original recording halls of the EWSO library.
° On screen mic position mixing - much easier to access and mix the different mic positions
° Improved sound quality of the audio engine
° Hi fidelity one pole filter for natural cross-fades
° Performance section - portamento, repetition, legato and round rabin reset
° Improved articulation window and controls for easy keyswitch assignment

The first glance of the GUI is that it's more modern and sleek, candy for the eyes.

To access instrument-patches you press the "browser" icon on the top right side of the interface. In the browser you manage your instruments and East West have added something called favourites, where you can drag-n-drop the patches you use the most into your own folder for easy access.

This was the first weird bug I came across.
I created a favourite folder called "New folder 1", but I wanted to delete it...which was impossible, even in the latest version of PLAY. I hope they will fix this in the next update.

After loading up an instrument patch "Platinum Strings->10 Violas->Short->VAS Pizz RR.ewi" I head back into the player (by pressing the PLAYER icon).
In the middle of the player you see a big window which shows each articulation you have loaded, you can also adjust their separate levels and which articulations you want active (loaded).

To the top left of the screen you can also see which MIDI channel the instrument responds to.
After each instrument you load in the player they automatically get routed to midi-channel 0, which means omni-connection and the patch will play on every midi channel. Almost all other vsti instruments have a unique midi-channel set for each instrument you load. It would have been great if they at least made them pre-set to a unique channel and that you can change it afterwards if that is your intention. But for MOST cases you want them pre-set to a unique channel number, and that isn't the case with PLAY. For each instrument I loaded up I had to set the midi-channel every time manually (which is time consuming and an uneccessary feature).

Another thing I noticed is that you don't have a patch-list of your loaded instruments like in other programs, the patch-list in in PLAY is kind of "hidden" from the user at first. The developer have chosen to put them in a sub-menu, so if you want to see all the instruments you have loaded you click on the instrument name on the top-right of the player. This brings up a window like in (picture 3) which shows the loaded patches and also their connected midi-channel in the brackets ie. (2).

If you want to switch between the instruments you select a patch in this sub-menu.

The other day while having the friday beer I came up with a weird idea (as always). Why not make a song totally made up of sounds from a Heineken beer bottle?

So at evening I went into my studio with a Heineken bottle, sampled it in all kinds of weird ways. Clapping the bottom (makes for a good and solid bass drum sound), hitting the sides with my nails, a screwdriver and some other stuff.

Then finally to create a melodic instrument with actual tones I sampled the windy sound of blowing into the bottle with different levels of beer in the can (which obviously gives different pitch). I sampled the beer at 5 different levels and at each level I made 4 different distinct sounds (like hard, light, and sustained-note blow). Then some sounds from the cap hitting a table etc.

The sampling sessions gave me 28 samples of Heineken notes (all articulations included) and 25 samples of drum-like sounds from the can, and I was ready to start making some music of it. Well, not yet...actually I had to build the instruments in some sort of sampler and I chose Kontakt 3 since it's my main sampler and I love all it's features (version 3.5 is coming out in December I think with lots of new great features like 64bit support and some other enhancements.)

Building the instrument patches took about 2-3 hours and then I arranged a really experimental remix of Zelda with the sounds...creazy stuff!

I will post the song soon.

Hope you will enjoy it. And please let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Mattias

Hi folks, I thought I should share a little bit of insight into my recording projects and how I use the recording gear and software.

This week I setup my drumkit for recording in my recording room which is quite big and therefor can probably provide with good room acoustics. =)

The drumkit is a Pearl Master Custom Series and consists of:
20" bassdrum, 14" Snare, 10-13-14-16" Toms, Zildjian A Series 14-16 Cymbals, Zildjian 10" Splash and a Zildjian A Custom Ride. 14" Masterworks hi-hat.
14" Piccolo snare (used on some songs).
Tama Iron Cobra double pedals. Pearl Double pedals - I played on them when recording Naglfar "Vittra" and the Embracing albums.

The recording pipeline follows:
Drums -> Mics -> Mackie VLZ 16 channel mixer -> MOTU 828mk2 Soundcard -> Reaper (a brilliant recording software).

I setup the tom mics about 3 inches from each head, this ensures that I get a more natural tone from them, a little bit more wood.
My bassdrum is a 20" (most rock drummers use a 22"), but I find the 20" more tight in sound and doesn't get so muddy when playing fast doublebass. For the snare I use a shure sm57 about 2 inches from the head, facing (from the hi-hat side) a bit downwads, and towards the middle of the snare (just slightly to the side). I hope my explanation is dececnt, but I'll provide some photos of the setup soon.

I tested the overhead mics in the usual style, which is one mic at each side of the drumkit, facing downward on the cymbals. But since the kit is placed in the corner of the room this wasn't a good choice. So I tried another approach which is the X-Y method. When you place the mics crossing eachother at a 90° angel (see photo). This gave a broad and accurate stereo perspective and good response from the cymbals, hihat and ride cymbal.

I also wanted two condenser room mics above the kit,  so I placed those about 5-6 meters from the drumkit, at a high position (almost at the ceiling), facing towards the drumkit. When you mix in those mics at a subtle level with the other channels you get instant magic.

The snare was damped with a dampening-ring (just to get rid of some stupid overtones). I could have let those through, but the song I was about to record would not sound as tight with those overtones around. I also have a piccolo snare but it didn't fit with the song so it was erased from the setup.

After placing all the mics and testing a few rounds of drumming I inserted the Alesis compressor into the mackie mixer on the bassdrum and snare channels.
After doing some recording I realized that no matter how I tweaked the Alesis, somehow it killed the sound more than I wanted.

The gain in from the mics seemed too hot for the Alesis to handle for some reason.
Tried the "+4 -10db" switch but it didn't help. I also tried all kinds of various settings for the compressor, but I still liked the natural sound more than the precompressed one. 

 It's also better to have a natural sound than a too processed one, because you have a broader selection of processing within the DAW.
Just keep in mind that if you don't use a pre-compressor on the bassdrum and snare, be sure to set the levels accurately so that they don't peak in the middle of your song.

If you take time to do proper mic placements, room mics and check all levels you can at least be sure to have a decent sound to begin with. I think it's also good to use a few extra mics (maybe on the snare bottom, hihat, ride etc.) if you have them around.
You can always decide in your mixdown which mics to use.

I did a few rounds of tracking and then the levels were perfect for recording.
Finally, everything was setup for a smooth recording.

Listen to a mix of the song "Shape of another soul" on the mp3 player.
I think it turned out well and I hope you enjoy it!

 

Read more about my musical adventures at my official blogg http://www.tiredtree.se/blogg