Sierra and Cubase 5

[2Mourty]

I am a choir teacher and seem to have hit upon 2 rather time consuming hobbies that take my mind of work.  I love playing old computer games and I love messing with Cubase.  I have Cubase 5 because I sequence soundtracks for musicals and such;  Nice hobby, it even pays sometimes!  Though I would be the first to admit that I am a rookie at this sort of work.

Anyways I got the wonderful idea to import some of the midi files from this site into cubase and start messing around with the instruments in the tracks to try and make the music sound more acoustic.  I have a large database of sounds commercial and opensource that I use in my soundtrack sequencing to mess around with.

The question is, is this legal?  I wouldn't try and sell these tracks.  They are for my personal enjoyment, but I wouldn't mind posting a sample to see what some of you guys think and get some CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.  There is a lot of experience in this realm on this forum it seems... 

[Alistair]

Perfectly legal, in addition, the owners of the copyright in the music seem to have little/no interest in the franchises any more, let alone derivatives like the musical scores.

Sounds neat, BTW, I would definitely like to hear what you come up with.

Got any tips for choir sounds in MIDI?

- Alistair

[2Mourty]

Hrmmm....  Choirs can be hard to get to sound right.  Especially if you are using only free stuff.  You have to tweak the sounds quite a bit.  I am a rookie at this and still learning and I am working on my instruments sounds right now.  If you want the best (it is a bit pricy though) you can buy this product:

http://www.soundsonline.com/product.php?productid=EW-182

You can make a choir that sings all the words in a song etc from your midi keyboard!

Good,  I am glad to know that this is legal.  I will start working on QFG4 and Robin Hood Conquests of the Longbow tunes and go from there.    Also how would I post a sample for some of y'all to listen to?

[Alistair]

I'd recommend a free filehosting place like megaupload, etc.

thanks for the link, I'll have to check it out.

- Alistair

[2Mourty]

Thanks, still working on hosting a sample file, but I will try and get something up over the coming weekend

[Alistair]

Thanks sir, look forward to hearing it

[2Mourty]

Wow, that took forever for me to get back to this post.   Here is the first sample.  This is the Adventurer's Guild Theme from Quest for Glory 4.  Again, constructive criticism is fine.  I am the first to admit I am not a professional doing this.  This is a direct translation of the midi file.  Once I become more finessed with my equipment (and start taking cubase classes at the University while I am studying for my Masters Degree) I might start actually arranging the music, but for now I am content to make the midi files sound a tad more realistic.  Here is the link:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mhywnjfj5in/Adventurer's Guild.ogg

I am working on a few tracks from Conquests of the Longbow and the Quest for Glory games.  I will post some more samples when I am done tweaking them.

[2Mourty]

Here is another link to the file, maybe it will work better.

http://www.mediafire.com/?mhywnjfj5in

[Alistair]

Thanks for posting this, and coming back to the topic. This is really good, and has better sounds than some of the $1000+ synthesizers I've heard.

Sounds almost like an advanced ED Sound Canvas. Exciting.

Now you have to spill what sound banks you use!



Heh, I just wish this was the complete 4 minute version of the song, but this is just a exercise, I understand that. Really good job Sir, hope to hear more from you.

- Alistair

[2Mourty]

Do you have the midi of the 4 minute version?  If so it would be easy to fill it out since I have already done a lot of the work.  Also I am thinking about editing the decay of the harp plucks to make them feel a little more drawn out.

[2Mourty]

Here is another track.  This is probably the last one I will post for a week or so.  This is Erana's Garden from Quest for Glory 1.  I am uploading two versions.  Tell me which one you like more and why.  One track has a nylon sting guitar strumming the arpeggio in the background and the other has a jazz guitar playing the arpeggio that I slightly tweaked to make it sound more airy:

Nylon String Guitar Link
http://www.mediafire.com/?gzt5kz3mjzj

Jazz Sting Guitar Link
http://www.mediafire.com/?lynxgw4uznt

Make sure you listen all the way through.  Mark Seibert is a really good composer.   He lets the music build over almost 4 minutes.  2 minutes and 40 seconds is where the piece hits the climatic passage.  The Next two pieces I am going to work on are Fantima's Dance form Conquests of Camelot and Wattling Street from Conquests of the Longbow.

[2Mourty]

Right now for soundbanks I am using EASTWEST Symphonic Gold (lucked out and picked it up for half price on ebay last year), Native Instruments Bandstand, and a lot of free instruments that Native Instruments released along with its Kontakt 4 Player.  Once I get some money I am going to buy the EASTWEST Gypsy collection.   Any body else no some really nice soundsets that would sound good in this music?

I'm starting to learn that good soundsets are important, yes, but I also need to know how to tweak the sounds to make them sound more realistic in the given setting.

Oh one more thing.  I will also in the next month or so work on the adventurers guild them from QFG1.  If anybody wants to record themselves snoring I would insert it in the track.

[Cloudschatze]

Any body else no some really nice soundsets that would sound good in this music?

Spectrasonics' Omnisphere might be worth looking into. The included 40GB(!) sample library includes a bunch of material from their acclaimed Symphony of Voices, Distorted Reality, Hans Zimmer Guitars, etc.. libraries. At $499, it might be a bit costly, but then again, that's the same price as just the Symphony of Voices library alone...

I'm not sure if you have a VST sampler that will read Roland stuff, but if so, I have spare Preview and Rhythm Section Vol. 1 (L-CD701) discs that you're welcome to have.

[2Mourty]

Hmmm,  I will have to find out if my sampler can read roland samples, a collection of rhythm section sounds would be appreciated, I don't have a huge collection of those.

I'm almost done tweaking Wattling Street from Conquests of the Longbow, I will probably upload it by Saturday.  Fatimas Dance is turning out to be a tad difficult due to the instrumentation.  This track was composed for  the MT-32 and because of this Sierra made a custom patch that sounds like an Arabian Mizmar as the lead instrument.  For some reason Arabian Mizmar sound banks are not in high demand and I have not found a good one yet.  I have found and arabia Du duck sound bank, but it just isn't the same. 

[2Mourty]

Here is the Link to Watling Street

http://www.mediafire.com/?d0yowmymhiz

Sorry that I posted it a little late.  It took a while to tweak the nylon string guitar sound.  Let me know how you like the pan pipe sound for the main theme.

[2Mourty]

Wow, the most popular download by far is the Quest for glory 4 Adventurer's guild theme.  I was working on a song from Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers, but maybe I will return to QFG4 since it seems to be the most popular.