Winner's Rig THE ROK BOX!!

I like it a lot, sounds right up my alley.

Thanks for all the nice comments guys! Cliff has been reading them too :) 

And actually, his dream was always to be a movie composer! :D

Very cool & sweet setup Congrats again!

Hey just wanted to post a link to a vid Cliff created a bit ago on the Rok Box.

He spliced together a couple different videos found on the net from Batman Arkham City and wrote his own musical score for it

Here's the post he put with the video:

"A musical tribute to my favourite game of all time. I spliced together a couple of different trailers and wrote and recorded my own musical score for it.

*DISCLAIMER* This is NOT the official music from the game. The music is solely my original work and is intended strictly as a demo and a fan tribute to honour a game that I've spent many hours enjoying."

Here's The video:

Feel free to sub to his channel http://www.youtube.com/user/Klif

Once again !! Absolutely Ain't  No Doubt About That Rok Bok rig is def in the right hands and sharing some stuff like this is a tribute to this community as well.

Very Nice ! & tell Cliff thanks   

  sounds to me like someone gots some pretty sm th chops -  skilz & a heck of a lotta talent !  

Thanks Manduhh :) very cool and sounds great. I agree this piece of HotHardware definitely ended up in the right hands. Tell your BF thanks for sharing his work with us :)

Very nice!!  I love Arkham City as well; the game is amazing and I'm glad he's having such a fun time with his HotHardware Custom PC :)

Hey sorry it took so long to post, been really busy.

Totally awesome video Cliff, the music fits perfectly.

What are some of your favorite patches and samples so far,  and how does this software compare to what you were using? Was it fairly easy to pick up on, or harder that what you were using?

That sounds amazing; that could very well be my Batman: Arkham City score if I buy the game. Again, the RokBox certainly went to someone deserving of it; your boyfriend is putting out some pretty impressive music with it.

Hi folks. Many thanks for all the positive feedback.

I finally set up an account here. I was a little hesitant because this Manduh's place to hang out and I didn't want to intrude. Also I'm not really as computer savvy as everybody here so I wasn't really sure what I could contribute to your community. I did notice that there's subjects other than computer gear so why not give it a whirl? ;)

Instead of having Manduh be the middle person, it's only proper that I respond to your questions myself. Warning: this might be a little long-winded as this is my first post on the forum.

A little history on myself.: I've been a musician for about 30 years. I'm self-taught and have never taken any lessons. Just spent hours in the local library teaching myself music theory. I started out playing guitar, (acoustic 6-string and 12-string, electric). Moved on to Bass Guitar then Piano. I've also got my hands on the Mandolin and even Banjo (although both of those experiences were pretty brief). I've been into recording music for quite a long time. I bought my first Tascam 4-track cassette recorder and was off to the races. Years later, I managed to get my certification as an Audio Engineer. 24-track 2-Inch tape and hardware outboard gear was the stuff I was cutting my teeth on before I got into home recording on a computer. Some of my Audio Engineering courses were computer based so the transition to digital wasn't that hard.

Okay, enough about me. Now onto your questions.

Before getting the RokBox I was using my old trusty Pentium 4 system with 2 gigs of ram. I upgraded the audio card with an Echo Audio Gina 20-bit digital interface and that's pretty much it. I had been using it for years without a hitch. If it ain't broke, why fix it, right? My main recording software was Cakewalk Pro Audio 8 - the predecessor to Sonar which is on the RokBox. There were basically 2 obstacles I had to overcome when using the RokBox. First, the user interface in Sonar was significantly different. Thank god for YouTube. There's some great tutorial vids that got me up and running in no time. Second, the version of Cakewalk Pro Audio I was using was not VST capable. Meaning, I couldn't run software synths and samplers and couldn't record and monitor audio effects in real time.

That was never really a problem for me because most of the stuff I was recording was acoustic-based such as guitars, vocals, etc. I did use some synth parts because I have a Roland JV-30 hardware synth that I'd record via external MIDI signals. The only downside about that was that I was limited strictly to the samples that were in the Roland. Now with the introduction of the RokBox, I have a whole new world of synths and samples at my beck and call.

So far I'd have to say that my favourite samples that have seen the most use are Cakewalk SI Virtual String section (for some nice sounding orchestral string samples). There's quite a few of the instrument samples in Cakewalk's SoundCenter that I've found quite realistic sounding. The DropZone synth has some excellent ethereal sounding pads and synths that I've found quite fun to play with as well.

All in all, it's been a real pleasure having this new system here. Huge thanks to Hot Hardware. My music making experience has become so much more fun and fulfilling with this awesome system.

Lastly, thanks once again for all the kind words from everyone in this thread. Reading them definitely encourages me in my home recording endeavors.

Welcome Cliff!  Already you're more coherent than half the new members!

Pretty impressed with the music you're coming up with, so this (begrudgingly) went into the right hands.  It strikes me as one of those prizes that's a minute to learn and a lifetime to master (the XILS 3 SE alone looks like many, many hours of head-scratching fun.)

If Manduh is cool with "worlds colliding", hope you'll hang around, post more tunes and join the technobabble.  Don't  worry about not being too computer savvy, the way you're rocking the Rok Box tells me you're as savvy as anyone here.

And when the biggest jerk on the forum is welcoming you, that's pretty much a red carpet.

Welcome Cliff the more the merrier :)

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this system and I think I can speak for the HotHardware community that we are happy that this system is going to good use :)

Keep on rocking and maybe one day you will be creating a soundtrack for a game or movie yourself. I can see if happen.

Thanks again. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to contribute but I'll definitely be lurking around the forum for any opportunity to add an opinion or two. ;)

@ eunoia: the XILS synth is a monster! Even the SE version has me scratching my head most of the time. What I've been doing is loading up presets and then tweaking them, just to wade into the pool a little bit. So far, I think I'm about ankle-deep. LOL  Once again, I've always been more of an acoustic musician so the whole world of filters and oscillators is a little daunting.

I have a couple of more tunes for anybody who's interested.
This first one is basically a dance tune. I know the term "dance tune" is pretty generic but considering that there's probably a hundred different types like Trance and House, etc, I'm not quite sure where to classify it. Dance Tune works for me. :D

Here's another little ballad idea I had rolling around in my head. Nothing particularly earth shattering.

All the samples and synths you hear came with the RokBox.

CliffB:

the XILS synth is a monster! Even the SE version has me scratching my head most of the time. What I've been doing is loading up presets and then tweaking them, just to wade into the pool a little bit. So far, I think I'm about ankle-deep. LOL  Once again, I've always been more of an acoustic musician so the whole world of filters and oscillators is a little daunting.

Don't threat, I'm kind of a noob to using synths (the SynthMaker I'm going to have to learn since it's ability to make any kind of synth will prove useful for me.) hence the current focus on sampling (I do hope to learn how to use the instruments well.).

Other then that, just experiment a little bit, dabble in the manuals and you'll be synthesizing in no time. Again, you are the best person to win this system, you're a musician, you have talent and you can put this thing to good use.

Welcome to HotHardware!

Welcome to the site Cliff, glad you are here. It's nice to finally get to talk with you. You sure do have the talent for creating music.

The patches and samples you are using sound incredible. For me finding believable snare, guitar, and vocal patches have been some of the hardest to pull off.

The pitch bends in the dance song were really cool, were they done in real time or programmed? And I loved the interaction of the strings weaving in and out of the guitar melody in the ballad.

TaylorKarras:

Don't threat, I'm kind of a noob to using synths (the SynthMaker I'm going to have to learn since it's ability to make any kind of synth will prove useful for me.) hence the current focus on sampling (I do hope to learn how to use the instruments well.).

Other then that, just experiment a little bit, dabble in the manuals and you'll be synthesizing in no time. Again, you are the best person to win this system, you're a musician, you have talent and you can put this thing to good use.

Welcome to HotHardware!

Thanks for the compliment Taylor. And the words of encouragement. The funny thing is, during my audio engineering studies, synthesis was a required course. It was basically a history class starting with the behemoth synths from years ago and how the technology grew to what it is now. I don't know if you've ever seen pictures of the early synths but they were HUGE. The problem is, it wasn't something I focused on at the time. I passed that course but years later, it's stuff I wish I had retained. I still have my old text books. Maybe I'll try to dig them out. It was a pretty in-depth course.

CDeeter:

Welcome to the site Cliff, glad you are here. It's nice to finally get to talk with you. You sure do have the talent for creating music.

The patches and samples you are using sound incredible. For me finding believable snare, guitar, and vocal patches have been some of the hardest to pull off.

The pitch bends in the dance song were really cool, were they done in real time or programmed? And I loved the interaction of the strings weaving in and out of the guitar melody in the ballad.

 

Thank you! I've been rummaging through the forum to see what topics I can contribute to. I have to admit that this is quite a tech haven with some very knowledgeable people. I can see why Manduh likes coming here. Since Gaming is my other "addiction" you'll probably see me there the most, although I will be searching through the forum to see what else I can learn from you fine folks.

Ever since I got my first acoustic guitar when I was 16, I was hooked. I knew music was going to be a big part of my life. But something strange happened with me though. Unlike most budding guitar players, I never found myself wanting to get out there and be a rock star. Sure, playing in front of people is a lot of fun but I've always been into music as a whole. I never wanted to limit myself to just being a guitar player in a rock band. That's why I ultimately ended up teaching myself how to play other instruments. It's really satisfying being able to create any kind of music in my head, record it and then listen back to what I created.  The RokBox definitely opened up a much larger world for me and I'm extremely thankful that it's here.

Finding great patches and samples is definitely tough. I've already found myself searching around for third party developers to add to the arsenal I already have. East West is a great company that has some excellent libraries. But we're talking $700-$1000 per library so it's a little hard to justify considering I'm a home enthusiast who is not making money from music. Thankfully the system already came with a very nice library so it isn't a necessity to add to it right now.

Those pitch bends were recorded in real time. I'm still using my Roland JV-30 but I'm no longer using the internal patches. I just use it to control the software synths and it has a pitch bend and modulation controller on it. Very handy for creating pitch bends and modulation effects on the fly.

Cliff,....it's good to see you here on HH. Welcome.

I'm glad to see that the RokBox ended up where it did. I know you'll get a lot of good use out of it and it should expand your digital capabilities to no end.

It, combined with your musical talent (yeah, I already saw a few of your recorded performances) will be a potent combination in the future.

Your posted song samples sound great.

RealNeil