Dynamic Range Compression

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression

I'm just reading up/refreshing and reaffirming my memory regarding audio signal compression related subjects. Here's a page from wikipedia.org that defines and answers a lot of technical terms involving audio signals.

I wanted to confirm my belief that limiters are an extreme form of compression. Turns out that they are. The article in Wikipedia mentions that limiters are similar to compressors in process, but different in the degree, and the perceived effect.

Limiters have very fast attack times and high ratio of compression. It has a high chance of sounding unpleasant to the ears of the listeners. Therefore it is often used as a fail-safe ceiling to prevent an audio signal from peaking and distorting.

Technically I could use a compressor and double it up as a limiter for my workflow in place of a limiter, since  the process is the same. Furthermore because since a limiter produces unnatural sounding results, it is probably more pleasant for me to apply a compression ratio slightly higher than average near the ceiling of the dynamic range, than to directly use a limiter. 

SampleTekk Super Summer Sale 50% Off Everything!

SampleTekk is having their Summer Sale 2012. EVERYTHING is half price!

They have a huge collection of all sorts of pianos, organs, electric pianos, synths, woodwinds, and even a analogue choir product!

Do drop by their website, have a look, and have a listen!

Free Product from r-loops!

r-loops is generously offering 'Remix' for free. Go to the product page, listen to a demo track, and download!

Remix is a collection of 100 loops sampled at WAV 44.1khz/24-bits and WAV 44.1khz/16-bits, totalling 181mb on disk.

Instruments from this pack include strings, brass, pianos, organs, synths, and many more!

The tempo of these loops fall in between 70bpm to 150bpm.

Also, the loops are royalty free for commercial work and other-wise.

This product is Mac and PC compatible.

This is a comprehensive pack of loops taken from r-loops' other libraries, so it is a really good way to have a good idea of the outstanding quality of their other products. The libraries where the loops come from include:

- Bass Down Low
- Dirty Beats
- Urban Groove
- Dirty Stuff
- Hood Symphony 2
- Kingdom of the South 1
- Music Toolbox
- R-Strings Melody
- Black Piano Collection
- Black Brass Collection
- D-South Loops 1
- Platinum Orchestra

Miroslav Philharmonik Classik Edition Test02 v002

Listen on SoundCloud.com

Added flutes parts, altered a bar where the voicing wasn't really great.
Strings were EQ-ed a bit to take off that shrill edge in the frequency. Also increased the attack time by a few milliseconds.

Added panning and balanced levels of the sections. Also modified reverb settings to that of a larger space.

Hope you like it. :)

My 2012 Mid-Year Bargain Hunting Splurge!

Today I made 2 purchases online:
- EastWest one-for-one sale: Gypsy and Ministry of Rock 2 for US$395 (usual price US$790)
- Image-Line's 40% off: FL Studio 10 Signature Bundle upgrade for US$126 (usual price US$210)

These offers are just too good to pass up, so I just 'had' to grab them! :)

Adding to my previous purchase of these items in the past week:
- SampleLogic Morphestra for US$275 (usual price US$549)
- IK Multimedia's Miroslav Philharmornik Classik Edition for US$39 from www.audiomidi.com (usual price US$99)
- AAS Strum Electric GS-1 (US$20) from www.audiomidi.com (usual price US$199)

I did not have to spend a cent for the purchase of FL Studio Signature Bundle because I was using the 300 points of IL Cash I won from the IL merchandising competition. I still have some points left over from it even after upgrading my FL Studio.

So All my spendings added up to US$729 (SG$922), excluding FL Studio. That is a lot of money, but also notice that all the items were on-sale items. Without all the sale, I should have been spending US$1637 (SG$2072) (excluding FL Studio). But because of all the sale going on, my total savings (excluding FL Studio) came up to US$908 (SG$1,149.43)!

Therefore in total, I saved about 44% on all the stuff I bought!

Image-Line 2012 July Sale: 40% Off

Image-Line (creators of FL Studio) is having a 40% sale on their products! These include FL Studio (and upgrades), Deckadance, Plugins & IL-Loops. That is about almost all the products in their shop, so do go to the Image-Line Shop and check them out!

Just enter the code Yardsale2012 at the point of checking out your cart where you are shown the total price, and you will be able to see a revised amount of all your purchases with the discount applied.

Sale starts 1 July 2012 and ends at the end of 13 July 2012. (Please visit the official Image-Line page for updates).

Your purchase must cost a minimum of US$49 to enjoy the 40% discount.

Miroslav Philharmonik Classik Edition Test02 v001

Hear it on Soundcloud.com

An original track that I composed to test drive the Miroslav Philharmonik Classik Edition that I just acquired. 


Since this was an exercise to test the sound of the virtual instrument library, I tried to minimise the use of instruments from another library. 


All instruments are Miroslav Philharmonik Classik Edition (MPCE) with the exception of the timpani and crashes, from Kontakt Factory collection. 


I used NI Kontakt for these two because:
Timpani patches in MPCE are not tuned. 
Cymbals in MPCE do not include rolls.


Just for my own reference, the total time taken for this piece was about 5 hours.