Music: Cataferal (music thread) [!OT]

[mrwiseman]

IRT Cata from the "What are you doing thread":

I'll be happy to review your tracks, I have the "granaboard" account [img]smile.gif[/img] (I got it when GeoCities and Yahoo! fused). For MIDI playback I have a Roland Virtual Sound Canvas VSC-88, which is rather good quality (certainly better than the samples Microsoft bought to Roland and bundled with DirectMusic (DirectX, Win2K, WinXP) a few years ago).


BTW, have you tried ModPlug? It's an Amiga-style tracker with semi-professional to professional quality; can sound much better than MIDI samples/instruments (so this means you can very well add voices), you've gotta find good samples though, it's all about the samples you use (you can get IT samples/instruments, or import MIDI libraries, DLS, or Sound Font 2.0 banks). The mixing quality is excellent (96 KHz, 32 bits, 200 channels, MMX accelerated, minimal latency buffers). It has a bunch of effects (many more than MIDI), and you can define instruments professionally (i.e. one sample per note if you have them (if you don't you can use a few or just one sample played at different frequencies), define volume, pan, and pitch envelopes for the initial, looping/ping-pong looping, and final part of the sample, etc.

You may not like it or find it confusing because it's made by programmers for programmers, though. You program the song and all the effects with the editor, you don't have to "play" the music (although you can, with a piano, or [ugh] teh keyboard), and you can export to MIDI and import from other MOD formats, MIDI (tools), and SNES games SPC-700 dumps (!).

I've uploaded a couple pics of the program for you to see: 1 | 2

This technology has been used in a variety of professional products like the Unreal games or the 3DMark benchmark demos. As you can see in these and other products, the quality can be as professional as the samples are. You can load as many samples as your RAM permits (for example, 1 GB), but you only load the ones you're using in your song (so you may very well have several gigs of them in your HD). A professional quality song usually takes 0.5-3 MB, but you can go up to 1 gig if you wanted. Techno instruments are best done with short, synthetic, clean samples, that fit in just a few bytes and sound like FM. Oh it's also uber fast, taking approximately 0% of my Athlon XP 1800+ CPU to play a 32 channel high-quality song with many effects and MMX filtering. (MOD trackers were designed for very limited machines, the usual song taking no more than 64 KB RAM and having no more than 10% of a 486 computer to run ? and that's the modern ones!)

If you're interested, tell me and I'll send you the URLs to download it (it's free software) and a few examples, including a complete version of "Light from Netherworld" ? the Xenogears intro FMV music ? which sounds really similar to the original (and could have sounded exactly like it or better if they used the right samples).

<font color="#101010" size="1">[ October 27, 2004 09:39 PM: Message edited by: -Wiseman- ]</font>

[Cataferal]

Wow, that sounds like it'll do the job. I doubt the interface of it will be as straight-forward as Guitar Pro 4, however, what i can do is sequence using GP4, and then transpose it to Modplug, and upgrade the sound quality, and perhaps replace it using my own .wav samples (hopefully). After a while, i should be able to get used to its interface and functions. Yes, i would like the URL, im dying to get out of this MIDI habit. Thanks!

Ive added you to my Yahoo! friends list, so you can access some of the orchestrations ive put up there (currently 4, i believe). As said before, i'll be making a new one every week, inspired by whatever music ive been listening to at the time; usually its quite a range, although the midi format doesnt flatter its variety.
I hope you enjoy it nevertheless.

<font color="#101010" size="1">[ July 08, 2004 03:52 PM: Message edited by: Cataferal ]</font>

[mrwiseman]

IRT Cata: Go http://www.modplug.com , in the drop-down list select "Learn about the ModPlug tracker", I don't think you have to register to download it.

More features about it I forgot to comment are:

- Note effects (volume slide, pitch slide, pan slide, vibrato, tone portamento, arpeggio, tremor, tremolo, panbrello, retrigger, filtering, hack sample/envelope positions, macros, and more)
- Up to 1000 samples per song
- Playback effects (automatic gain control, noise reduction, equalizer, bass expansion, reverb, surround)

If you want, you can IM/PM/email me your email address, and I'll send you the examples I have (including some Xenogears fan-made stuff, some SNES converted stuff, and some tech demos).

[Cataferal]

It is indeed quite complicated, id quite like the Xenogears stuff as an example of what can be done with it. I shall PM you my email address (thanks for the help ^_^).

[Cataferal]

Ive gotten a higher quality synth midi plugin (SoundBlaster SBI Synthesizer), which gives a much higher quality sound. All this time ive been using the standard Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth, which means i'll have to reconfigure the volume and reverb of all my orchestrations. Not a major problem though.

I'll release two versions of my orchestrations, one for the standard microsoft synth settings, the other for upgraded higher quality synth plugins.

Also, the celtic piece ive been working on is almost finished, and it should be more compatible with the higher quality midi plugins than my previous works.

<font color="#101010" size="1">[ July 08, 2004 07:42 PM: Message edited by: Cataferal ]</font>

[William66]

Cataferal has been making waves in the music industry with unique sounds that blend electronic beats with soulful melodies. Producers aiming to create music like Cataferal often rely on advanced tools to craft their tracks efficiently. One essential tool in modern music production is logic pro templates, which provide pre-arranged setups for instruments, effects, and mixing. These templates help both beginners and professionals experiment with sounds while saving time. By using logic pro templates, artists can focus more on creativity, capturing the essence of Cataferal’s style, and producing music that resonates with listeners worldwide.