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[ToyTree]

I just finished an EP that I've been writing this spring. If you have a minute to check it out.

http://toytree.bandcamp.com

I'm a Portland, Oregon based multi instrumental musician and have years of experience in both the creative and production ends of music. I wrote this EP as a sort of musical portfolio for game development. If you're working on a game and looking for a score, I'd love to be in touch! Or if you just like what I've been working on, hello! Thanks for taking the time!

[ToyTree]

Whoops, looks like this isnt the place to post this. Sorry!

[dawid w. mika]

I enjoyed the music anyway It's great!

[ToyTree]

Thanks man! I just checked out your stuff, it's super awesome! Really like Lettuce in the Sky. May I ask what software you're working in? The audio engine sounds unfamiliar to me, so crispy and bright. Great samples too!

[dawid w. mika]

In "Lettuce in the Sky" it's basically actual lettuce from my kitchen. Processing includes hard pitch shifting, stretching, and again pitch shifting, granular sampling with alchemy from camel audio.

[ToyTree]

Excuse the slow reply Dawid. That's awesome its actually lettuce! Haha, love when people use samples they actually created. What program are the synths being generated from? Sounds like Reason?

Also, on another note, would you have any advice for someone who's trying to break into audio work in games?

Thank you!

[dawid w. mika]

Bass and drums are made with hardware synth Waldorf Rocket, for pads I used Alchemy by Camel Audio (this flut-like sound playing mostly 9th's and 10th's as far as I remember). There is also real glockenspiel (stretched a little) and pieces of Jenga game.

For daw I'm using Reaper by Cockos - very flexible, cpu friendly and cheap program which everyone should try

I'm also trying to break into audio work in games at the moment but I'm just starting in this field. I was working on music for some game but project appears to be dead now and developer isn't answering my messages... For now I'm just participating on musical challenges here and preparing showreel.

[ToyTree]

Geez I'm rude, excuse my once again slow reply. Waldorf Rockets are so awesome! I love that grimy acidy sine wave. The best! Thanks for all this info, I'll check out Reaper. I recorded the recent EP in Logic 9, though most the sounds are sampled or plugins. I just bought a Tascam field recorder! Next EP I want as many found sounds as possible. It's amazing, the gain on the condenser mics is crazy powerful!

Sounds like we're in the same boat. And if you touch this thread, I'll be better about replying! Also, it's never bad to have friends across oceans!

[dawid w. mika]

Yeah, Rocket is great and so easy to use - almost every sound that you can get with this beast can be very useful. I've never tried Logic but there are some people who moved from Logic to Reaper, so you can check their thoughts on this but in general reaper is running better on PC.

At the moment I'm using midi and vsti's only if I have to. I feel much better with raw audio - there are some restrictions, but also another level of freedom with this approach.

Since this went so technical, maybe you can tell us something about making of your EP?

[ToyTree]

I'll have to check it out, now that this EP is done I want to try something new! Can I ask how you're inputting the raw audio in Reaper? I've been running synths/instruments into a reel to reel machine for it's preamps, then into a crappy old audio interface (the interface doesnt have preamps). How are you getting such lovely warm sounds on the raw audio? is it a direct line into a Apogee or something?

And my EP was pretty straight forward! A lot of the sounds are Logic instruments that I modified, or AU plugins that I messed around. I made a couple plugin chains that I really liked that I would apply to digital prints (MIDI--->Audio) to make them sound a little less phony. On top of this, there are a ton of samples on the EP, and sadly some sort of vanished amid mixing and mastering, but oh well I guess. For those, I just toyed with samples I recorder on condenser mics, until I found colors I liked. The Aeronaut song starts out with what I hope sounds like a propeller plan taking off, but it's actually a microwave mixed with doors closing and a dirt bike played in reverse over a heavily tremelloed helicopter. Fun stuff!

I really really want to work on making a larger sound stage for songs like this, I want them to sound as rich and spatial as possible. Any tips?

[dawid w. mika]

Sorry for my slow reply at this time - I had a plenty of work to do in the last week. Anyway, if you haven't figured it out for yourself, you can just press ctrl+alt+x which opens media browser in Reaper where you can even choose custom loops of audio on your hard drive.

As for the audio I'm using mostly my roland r-26 and cheap focusrite 2i2 (I'm moving to rme anyway). Mics are sennheiser e606, shure sm57, some octavas of my friend, korg cm 200 contact mic, and internal mics from roland for stereo in the field. And since I have sound in the box, I'm just using eq's, compressors, reverbs (especially those valhalla), saturation, some guitar effects (ehx memory boy or tube screaemer copy). After that I'm playing with it by pitch shifting, stretching, looping.

With creating artificial space you must be aware of phasing problems and always check your mixes for mono compatibility.

I was thinking about moving this thread just to private messages, but maybe these informations can be helpful to someone.