17. July 2018, 06:31:46

#15

Deu sexQuote

Sure, I'm using Viena to edit soundfonts and instruments on a crappy Dell Inspiron laptop ! Viena is a great tool but the software is crashing a lot unfortunately, you have to close it and reopens it at each soundfont edit/save to minimize the crashing !

The soundfonts I'm working with are :

-ChoriumRevA
-Crisis General Midi v3.01
-FluidR3_GM
-Giant Soundfont V6.0
-GMRBasico1.1
-MuseScore
-SGM-V2.01
-Timbres Of Heaven GM_GS_XG_SFX V 3.4 Final
-WeedsGM3

Which are all supposed to be free to use soundfonts if I believe Virtual MIDI Synth's website.

The process consist in testing instruments from each soundfont and deciding which is best, first without testing with the game, and then testing with the game to replace the few ones that doesn't match the system shock feel if I can say so.

As for the composer's vision, it only means that I'm restricting myself to use the intended instruments first, for example where there is a bagpipe (why ? lol) I shall STILL use a bagpipe (even if it sounds terrible and I hardly understand that choice) maybe bagpipe on mac had a great sound effect to it ?

Anyways, the first complete iteration will remain faithful to the originally used instruments, after I finished that there will be an arranged version where I'm going to take a lot more freedom.

17. July 2018, 11:42:38

#16

nintendoeatsQuote

Ahhh, I get it. That sounds like a really cool process.

28. July 2018, 09:12:40

#17

Deu sexQuote

We're moving from pre-alpha to alpha, were all instruments choices are final, except drumkit which is still WIP.
Beta stage will be tuning the drumkit, and ajusting volumes and effects in all instruments further to what I've already done (which should be faster than alpha, alpha was a lot of work, I worked every day on this since last release !)

Even if it is "only" alpha, I'm still really satisfied of how it sounds, I'd say it's entierely playable from start to finish without weird sounds or problems

https://mega.nz/#!S8xFgIbT!Ru60at2lAwmw4vhK6P0eM3O82YxBM_0ylirXhJ7LUNg

Somehow I managed to fuckup "gun shot" and "acoustic bass" before the upload, they sounded way too loud in the elevators and in the grooves, this is now fixed and the new link is here :

https://mega.nz/#!rxxhWYrL!oJWmemIMly7HL9-tQoJzZHbiK4QEC_o2n3O2NGn3XiU

Link removed replaced by lattest alpha hotfix version :
https://mega.nz/#!O1gATIYD!YoxR_cHbMrHyoRWt-AG8_FjYYTygfBbtKJwF4cFhnQA

28. July 2018, 16:01:51

#18

nintendoeatsQuote

Security in particular sounds much improved! I also think the quiet bits of Groves have an even more ominous feel. Executive continues to be my favourite. It sounds like it's coming along really nicely.

A couple notes (which are, of course, entirely subjective):

--

To me a lot of it sounds very arpeggiated. That's cool in Research Labs where it is part of a "delay" effect, not so much in Medbay or layered on top of Security.

Anything with a distorted guitar sounds really weird to me, especially the SecurityBot and ServBot add-ons. Most of the insturments feel like they are intended to be synthetic to begin with, but the distorted guitar is like somebody wanted a live performance and had to make due with MIDI.

The mixing can be really strange, and often it feels like the most prominent part of the music is not at the fore. Medbay C1 and C2 for example (using the nomenclature of the MIDIs I uploaded elsewhere). Executive D is another one, it actually feels less aggressive than the other sections which is definitely not the original intent.

--

Great work!

28. July 2018, 16:56:46

#19

Deu sexQuote

Yes, pretty much everything you stated is part of Alpha -> Beta work, as for the distortion and overdrive guitars unfortunately, it is very hard to obtain a better result, I tried a lot of things, some sounds feels less live performance and much more electronic, but also a LOT cheaper unfortunately, like it's coming from a $15 keyboard you bought for your 3 years old kid to discover music (you know, the kind of ones that only have 3 or 4 instruments lol).

I'll try to get the most of them, maybe with frequency and attack adjustments... not sure about how to go from there, seems like we are (hopefully in a sense) going to enter the personal taste territory ! It's not a problem to me, once I've finished this project (or even before) I'd be very happy to see other people improving upon my stuff, what I do is really amateur stuff (in the MIDI engineering world ofc), so a real sound engineer could do miles better than me maybe !

What's executive D ? the section just before Edward Diego ? Near the master jettison switch ?