Where to find good Tin Whistles samples? I want to add a Celtic flavors to my song!

Category: Soundpatch analysis / Link to other useful websites
I surf the web for a long time and finally came to this page, called Raw Acoustic Waves (enter these keyword in Google). You have to submit your email first and finally get an access to the website, where you can find many useful ethnic / world music samples in gigasampler and kontakt format. So if you use another sampler, you have to convert it first using software like Chickensys Translator or Cdextract.

One of the samples is Tin Whistle in Bb. Although the samples were recorded on Bb, but you still can use it in other keys, however the samples may sound slightly out of tune caused by improper interpolation of the sampler you use. The cons likely give the samples more real instrument sounding for me.

I blend it with the solo violin samples from Synful Orchestra, playing the same notes and get an instant melodic Celtic music we usually hear.Other free sound samples that you will find on that sites are for example: Breton Bombarde, Peruvian Tarka Flute, Indian Whistle, Thai Mouth Organ, Indonesian Suling and many other.

How to add a pseudo stereo effect to your mono drum loops?

Category: Mixing/Sample Manipulation
For example, you have a mono loop ripped from your old vinyl recording and want to use it in your song, here are a way to make it sound more interesting. All you have to do is duplicate the mono drum loops track and pan them hard left and hard right. Now slide the second audio track a bit to the right and play them, voila now you hear them in stereo. Usually a 1/64 notes setting is enough to make the pseudo stereo effect. It means you slide your second audio tracks 1/64 note to the right (use grid mode in your sequencer to make it easier).

My definition about what a great song is.

Category: Thought and Ideas
According to my opinion a great song is a song that make me feel something. I’m sorry, I don’t want to sound dogmatic here, but this is the one thing that I can describe about what a great song is. Please give your comment or ideas on this subject because I am still surveying and researching on this topic :).

I came into this conclusion because many times I heard music and don’t feel anything, just a plain feeling. But many times also I heard another songs that me feel as if I want to cry, or just a warm feeling in my heart, and even sometimes I can feel anger in a song. I describe the latest as a great song.

I believe that there are many factors that build a great song, such as the lyric, the instrument choice, the arrangement and other factors, but it still make me curious to investigate what is the actual reason that can separate great song from the ordinary ones. Or should I meet the entire requirement above first, in order to make my song sounds great. In many occasions I heard a technically perfect song, but still feel the plain feeling, what I mean with technically perfect are the chord are correct, the notes are struck right, the mixing and mastering sound good and balance. It even makes me more curious.

I hope that if we have found the formula, we can always recreate it in our future songs and that ability become our habit as a songwriter, arranger or band member. Please give us your comment! Thanks a lot.

Don’t let your lead solo loose their interest!

Category: Performance
I used to make a common mistake when I make a solo lead melody using my synthesizer. The common mistake is playing the melody without pause. When I finished with an arpeggio (for example), I follow it with another melodic run, which I think will add interest to my solo lead.

But after analyzing it for a while, I feel that it would better if I pause the solo sometimes, as if I am speaking to my audience with my solo lead. Trust me! it will make your solo more interesting to your listener.
Don’t also think that a quick melodic run will always impress your listener, so you bomb them with massive “quick chick corea melodic run” every times in your solo lead, since sometimes a simple melodic phrase but played using carefully chosen notes will add greater impact to what your listener will feel about your song.

Don’t let your drum tracks loose their punch!

Category: Mixing
This is what to do when your drum tracks seem lack of punch. Copy your drum track into another new blank track (simply duplicate it) and add compressor plugins to the new track. Apply a heavy compression on the second track (for example: ratio 9:1) and set a lower threshold (for example –25 db). You can also add eq plugins after the compressor to brighten the track someway. And now set the second track volume fader to minimal and move it up gradually until you hear the punch added to your first track. This trick works also for other audio signal such as vocal. What happened is the second (heavily compressed) track modify the transient of the first (uncompressed) track in someway that make the drum track sound punchier.