Hi everyone. One of my colleagues at my job is working on a personal project and asked me to submit two songs for her, despite the fact that I'm still pretty new at all this (making music with a DAW). It's nothing elaborate, she only needs them to be 20-30 seconds each (think YouTube intro/outro length). The style she wants is music similar to this:
However, I'm afraid I don't have any synths/samples in the style she wants. Can someone have a listen to the above tracks and guide me to where I can get a few great (preferably free) VSTs that I can use that will allow me to match her preferences? The project is due next Friday so I'd love to get started as soon as I can. Thanks for any help you can offer!
Can someone have a listen to the above tracks and guide me to where I can get a few great (preferably free) VSTs that I can use that will allow me to match her preferences? The project is due next Friday so I'd love to get started as soon as I can. Thanks for any help you can offer!
This is a bit of a tall order, since those tracks weren't made with synths or samples. To produce usable tracks with VSTis won't be difficult, but they will sound like synths, not like a live reggae band. In my experience of electronic reggae, that's probably ok....
The bass is the easy part. Personally, I'd use a soundfont, but this might do to get you started; http://www.yohng.com/software/bass.html
You might want to put that thing through a virtual bass amp.
Drum sounds are easy; there are samples all over these forums. It's not so easy to program good reggae rhythms if you haven't the experience; it might be an idea to download some MIDI reggae tracks, and throw out everything but the drums. Throw in a few rimshots....
Faking guitars is notoriously difficult. Fortunately, you'll probably just want some simple stabs, so you should be able to find some clean samples that will get the job done. http://www.looperman.com/loops?gid=4&cid=3
It would probably be a good idea to compose around the samples, rather than trying to force samples into a composition. If it comes to it, though, it shouldn't be difficult to persuade someone to make custom guitar samples for you. It might even be me....
This is a bit of a tall order, since those tracks weren't made with synths or samples. To produce usable tracks with VSTis won't be difficult, but they will sound like synths, not like a live reggae band. In my experience of electronic reggae, that's probably ok....
The bass is the easy part. Personally, I'd use a soundfont, but this might do to get you started; http://www.yohng.com/software/bass.html
You might want to put that thing through a virtual bass amp.
Drum sounds are easy; there are samples all over these forums. It's not so easy to program good reggae rhythms if you haven't the experience; it might be an idea to download some MIDI reggae tracks, and throw out everything but the drums. Throw in a few rimshots....
Faking guitars is notoriously difficult. Fortunately, you'll probably just want some simple stabs, so you should be able to find some clean samples that will get the job done. http://www.looperman.com/loops?gid=4&cid=3
It would probably be a good idea to compose around the samples, rather than trying to force samples into a composition. If it comes to it, though, it shouldn't be difficult to persuade someone to make custom guitar samples for you. It might even be me....
Pro tip - find out the ranges of the real instruments, and play within those ranges.
Thank you SO much! I'm at work now so I can't research these in depth until I get home but I did want to thank you for the recommendations. I honestly don't think my colleague is expecting my work to sounds like a live ska/reggae band since she is well aware that I am a newbie, but I do want to give her a good end result. You mentioned SoundFonts for bass; I don't have any experience with those, could you elaborate please?
You mentioned SoundFonts for bass; I don't have any experience with those, could you elaborate please?
I will - briefly (I hope) - but you should be aware that you're opening a can of worms here, which won't be an issue if you don't have two cans of worms on the go already, being 1) learning REAPER, and 2) learning VSTs. Otherwise, I can see your deadline making a nice whooshing noise as it flies past.... but I don't know how well you know this stuff.
SoundFont is a file format developed for Soundblaster sound cards which caught on as a way to arrange easily managable sample libraries. Depending on your VST collection, you probably won't have much call for them, but you can find almost any instrument you could name in soundfont format, and for free, if you dig around enough. There are some good General MIDI sets, too.
There are two catches - you need a soundfont player to play them in REAPER (there are a couple of good free ones hiding on the web), and the fonts themselves are often compressed into a unique format which you need to unpack before you can get at them. Still, once you've got the player (works in REAPER like any other VSiT), the unpacker, and some fonts, you're good to go. Then there's the possibility of making your own sample sets.... but that's another can of worms.
Deadline. Focus. What you need is a cheesy organ. I don't know why, you just do.
Haha these are great! I won't lie; I am a fan of cheesy organ. But I do agree; I need to focus for my deadline and I think it would behoove me to stick to what I know for now and learn once I don't have to worry about a due date. Again, THANK YOU!!
The organs I posted are just standard VSTis. I can see you having some fun with a Combo V.
What's your friend's project? Video? Theatrical performance? Why the deadline?
Let us know if you get stuck with anything, and keep us posted. I'd be interested to know how this works out.
One more idea for you - try to find some appropriate vocal samples you can use. This, more than anything else, will give your track a human feel which it would otherwise lack, I think.
The organs I posted are just standard VSTis. I can see you having some fun with a Combo V.
What's your friend's project? Video? Theatrical performance? Why the deadline?
Let us know if you get stuck with anything, and keep us posted. I'd be interested to know how this works out.
One more idea for you - try to find some appropriate vocal samples you can use. This, more than anything else, will give your track a human feel which it would otherwise lack, I think.
So she's trying to start a Youtube channel as a budding food critic. Starting small for now but if she gains traction she's hoping to make it more professional. What she wants from me is a 20 second intro and outro for her videos. I'll definitely keep you posted here!
Hi everyone. One of my colleagues at my job is working on a personal project and asked me to submit two songs for her, despite the fact that I'm still pretty new at all this (making music with a DAW). It's nothing elaborate, she only needs them to be 20-30 seconds each (think YouTube intro/outro length). The style she wants is music similar to this:
However, I'm afraid I don't have any synths/samples in the style she wants. Can someone have a listen to the above tracks and guide me to where I can get a few great (preferably free) VSTs that I can use that will allow me to match her preferences? The project is due next Friday so I'd love to get started as soon as I can. Thanks for any help you can offer!
I hope you play guitar...this style really needs guitar. I think sampletank free would serve you well. It has several instruments you could use , all in one download. I know your friends request sounds easy but... From where you are starting, I believe it may be quite a challenge, I hope you have lots of hours. Do consider the kind offer you received for the forum member to do a guitar track for you. Best wishes.
OK guys, it looks like I bit off more than I can chew here. Every time I sit down with Reaper, I realize that I am spending more time figuring out how things work than actually writing. I've been a musician for years (bassist, primarily) but I've never composed before and I'm finding the task to be pretty difficult. It's one thing to have great software to use but it doesn't mean squat if I can make anything good. I'm going to have a serious chat with my coworker tomorrow and let her know the trouble I'm having. I really don't think I can pull this off for Friday. I don't even know where to begin! Chords, melody, key? Or do I learn the things Reaper can do first?
You can do this, or most of it, by Friday. It's only a few seconds of music. Most of us who have as just as much experience with REAPER as you will have when you've completed one piece could knock something out in a few hours, if we had to. It doesn't matter where you start; just start. If you get can get a piece done (or done-ish), ASAP, then, at a pinch, come Wednesday or Thursday, you can start worrying about deriving another work from it - just changing the tempo and key at that point will spark something. Or, depending on how you prefer to write, it might be expedient to work on both pieces at once.
[Edit: For your friend's purposes, I'm not even sure that you need two separate pieces. One piece, perhaps with tweaks, could serve as both intro and outro. I'd probably be looking at presenting two or three alternatives, even so, because I like to show off.]
You don't get to start by learning what REAPER can do first. Kenny Gioia says he doesn't know nearly everything there is to know about REAPER, and he makes and sells instruction videos on the subject. REAPER will do what you need it to do, when you need it to do it, with a little help from us lot to get you started. You certainly don't have time right now to learn everything REAPER can do that you don't need it to do, snd you very probably never will. After almost ten years, I've only ever dipped into the manual, and I discover new things about REAPER all the time.
Key, and tempo for that matter, surely can't be particularly important. Unless and until you commit to complex audio, these remain easy to change at the drop of a hat. Derive a suitable tempo from your example works, and derive a key from your preferred method of composing. Will you be using a keyboard, though not a keyboard player? Write in C - no black notes to worry about! Will you be composing on the bass? Write in E, A or D if that feels right for you. [Edit: Open guitar stings sound great. Open bass strings, especially as accidentals.... well, you know.] Will you be writing straight to the piano roll? Go with whatever sounds good to you with whatever instrument voice you're using.
Have you considered jamming to a drum pattern to get you started? Drums will be something of a challenge to you first time round - you might as well make a start right there, to start to get the problem out of the way. Either find a loop, whether MIDI or audio, that you can jam to, or build something suitable if you think you can get it done in a couple of hours. Will you be recording your actual bass guitar? Getting a rough demo of that could be a great next step.... or you could go jam with a cheesy organ, or a piano.... it really doesn't what you do, in what order, so long as you're doing something, and making progress.
Go work. Post progress, post problems. We've got your back.
Last edited by Fex; 12-01-2014 at 09:08 PM.
Reason: Wombats, and assorted marsupials.
I think you'd be well advised to accept a little help here. For twenty seconds of music, your friend isn't going to care so much about the composition as what the thing actually sounds like.
Making this sound amazing is actually going to be surprisingly easy. Write any crappy MIDI drums you like, and someone here will run it through EZD2 or similar for you, if you like, and make it sound great. I could do it. Not fast, but by Friday, certainly. You've got the bass, right? Got the interface? (It doesn't matter.) Somebody called martifingers says he's got the guitars. We've all got the 1337 produktion skillz to make twenty seconds of reggae good enough to sound better when played LOUDER (which is to say, not completely crap), thus blowing your friend's socks off.
Just go write something. Anything. Write one chord thst we can all jam to for thirty seconds. It doesn't matter. Do everything under a Creative Commons license, have contributors agree to it, and make sure your friend understands that. Or, if you need to retain copyrights, for some reason, you probably can. It's only twenty seconds....
There was a time I would write something like twenty seconds of reggae in Windows native wavetable synth. As versatile as it is, if you can make an arrangement sound halfway acceptable on that thing, you know it will sound fantastic when the pro sounds come in.
You can't quit - you want to get laid, don't you? When you have a gun to your head, and it doesn't need to be high art but just a catchy intro, loops and samples are your friends. Here's a Reaper project, reggae style, made with three free loops from Looperman, just sliced and synced to create a quick idea you might find useful to build on. Only took about 20 minutes - add more tracks, your own bass, vocals, whatever feels good. Hope this helps as a starting point, usually works for me.
Chromatican, DON'T ANSWER THAT! Trust me on this, your friend might have cause to read this thread, and whatever the relationship, there is no right answer to that question, so just don't go there!
I've been playing with those kitchen noises, just for fun.
This would probably better suit a cookery show. Tell your friend to do a cookery show....
Still, at a pinch, I guess you could steer your friend away from this thread, and pass this off as your own work....
See if this works.... it's easier to post this as a project file, but I haven't done much of this sort of thing. You can open projects in a second project tab and cut and paste tracks (or FX, MIDI, whatever) from one project to another.
It's much better to build this stuff in REAPER yourself, of course.
See if this works.... it's easier to post this as a project file, but I haven't done much of this sort of thing. You can open projects in a second project tab and cut and paste tracks (or FX, MIDI, whatever) from one project to another.
It's much better to build this stuff in REAPER yourself, of course.
So, what have you got? It's Thursday. You should be 'mastering' something.
Unfortunately not quite. Working on the final groove as I type this, and also I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to mixing and mastering since I'm still really green at this. I should have the 1st draft within the hour, ready for your ears to bleed, haha.
I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to mixing and mastering since I'm still really green at this.
Me neither, but this is a simple gig. The answer to mixing is, keep it simple, and the answer to mastering is, depending on how your friend is compiling her project, let someone else do it.
Delivering a file to blow her socks off tomorrow might be another matter, though....
Me neither, but this is a simple gig. The answer to mixing is, keep it simple, and the answer to mastering is, depending on how your friend is compiling her project, let someone else do it.
Delivering a file to blow her socks off tomorrow might be another matter, though....
Yeah so it doesn't look like it's gonna happen I'm afraid. After endless trial and error this was all I was able to come up with, and it's not even finished. It sounds like a ten year old playing guitar for the first time to the tune of "Baby's First Garbage Band". What I heard in my head was definitely not what came out see here, if you dare https://soundcloud.com/menomarcato/intro-alpha
I don't know why it sounds so bad, but it does. Anyway, I spoke with her and she's understanding so she will look for someone else much better than me for now. Not a problem for me, but I think it's going to take a very long time before I agree to any kind of project like this again. I'm not giving up mind you, I think it's just I need to reevaluate my goals; maybe take some composition and music production courses at night somewhere. At any rate, thank you SO MUCH Fez for your help; I could not be more grateful!
Don't be hard on yourself, Chroma. Much of the process is trial and error, just putting out lots of sounds and ideas until something clicks for you. Play with any ideas you have, no matter how silly or how it sounds in it's current incarnation. Your small song structure is good, actually - but that has got to be one of the cheesiest guitar vsts in existence Just playing with sounds, snagged a copy and put it through ReaEQ, Stlllwell Rocket, and GlitchMachines Hysterisis - called it "dying camel", think you'll see why Point is, just keep playing with sounds, song structure, effects, and have fun. The more you play, the better you will get, and before you know it you wll blow yourself away
imho, it's the guitar vsti used - try spicy guitar instead, but most guitar vstis aren't that great in any case. Can't track the guitar live? Then better off substituting with an appropriate synth sound.
Hi chromatician
Yes, don't be down about this. I think she should have stuck with you and viewed this as a rough demo.
On a technical point (on which I may be totally wrong btw!) I found it hard to get a reggae feel somehow as you sem to change chord sometimes on the first and third beats of the bar whilst the usual guitar part would sound on beats 2 and 4. Nothing wrong with this of course and it could make for a pleasingly complex arrangement.
And the chord progression invites all manner of soloing...
Guitars are all about the order and velocity that the strings are struck, the guitar and the amp used. You don't get to fake guitars like that.
You do get to fake pianos like that.
If you want that kind of sound, and you don't want to use a guitar, use a piano. Use a good one, or use a good bad one if you have to, but either way, mash the crap out of it. Run the same MIDI through an abused piano, use ReaEQ on it, and your track will probably sound immediately better.
Guitars are all about the order and velocity that the strings are struck, the guitar and the amp used. You don't get to fake guitars like that.
You do get to fake pianos like that.
If you want that kind of sound, and you don't want to use a guitar, use a piano. Use a good one, or use a good bad one if you have to, but either way, mash the crap out of it. Run the same MIDI through an abused piano, use ReaEQ on it, and your track will probably sound immediately better.
Now, where's the bass?
I had to cut the bass out because it simply did not jive with the (awful) guitar VST I used. It was overpowering to the point where I just didn't know how to deal with it. I tried compression but my ears couldn't tell the difference. Now that I don't have a deadline to worry about, I will go back to it at my own pace and take another crack at it as a learning experience, but man, playing bass and composing bass using a DAW are two completely different beasts I was totally unprepared for. I can't remember the name of the specific bass VST I was using, but once I'm home I'll update the post with it.
Thanks to all for your encouraging words. Like I said, I'm gonna keep at it, just without taking any gigs anymore, until I get better at this haha.
Need Help For a Project, Please!
When you have a gun to your head, and it doesn't need to be high art but just a catchy intro, loops and samples are your friends. 
see here, if you dare 
Linear Mode
