Langriman

I don't strive to follow rules for the sake of following rules, but I wonder if the fact that I can't hear anything wrong with parallel fifths means that I need to train my ear more, or that I'm not a very critical listener. Or that I've just grown up with a wider range of music than what 19th century European theorists listened to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartal_and_quintal_harmony that's really interesting

I'm reading through a textbook on harmony right now ( http://www.amazon.com/Harmonic-Practice-Tonal-Music-Second/dp/0393976661 ) and after getting through the introductory chapters which were quite helpful (what are the main chords, chord transitions, cadences, rules of thumb for voice leading and so on), I've found that a good chunk of this book is "good ways to go from chord A to chord B without doing something that should be used sparingly". A lot of the stuff that should be used sparingly generally makes sense, like using lots of melodic leaps greater than a whole step, using dissonant intervals, and crossing two voices on the score. However, an enormous amount of attention is paid to avoiding parallel fifths and octaves. Now, I understand the basic justification for this rule: it confuses the individuality of the voices. However, if I'm not writing contrapuntal music for a single instrument or ensemble of similar instruments, is this really important? When I listen to examples of tunes with and without parallel fifths, I can't hear anything wrong. Most of the music I want to make isn't concerned with keeping a continual dialogue between two similar voices. Furthermore, other sources I've looked at say that other schools of music beyond Western classical music from the common practice period don't worry about this rule at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_fifths I know that the usual advice given to beginners is to learn the rules first and then experiment with breaking them later, but it seems like this rule might be completely irrelevant and it's taking up a big chunk of the information I'm trying to digest from my informal musical education. So my question to you composers and remixers out there who put a lot of thought into your harmonies: Does this rule inform your music-making at all? Can you tell when a piece you are listening to has a parallel fifth, and does it sound bad to you?

I already got the computer replaced; the problem was still there. Besides this problem, I don't see what's so bad about the D830... I looked at a lot of other laptops, and this looked like the best combination of price, features, and service record.

Man I asked this question about USB interfaces a few months ago and I got no useful responses... screw y'all! Anyway, for a long time I was planning to get the M-Audio MobilePre USB, but a musician friend-of-a-friend pointed me to the Tascam US 122L, and I decided to go with that instead. The reasons included: recommendation from professional the bundled software appeared to be better 24bit/96kHz MIDI connections bigger headphone jacks You could get this stuff from an M-Audio product, but for the products I looked at it seemed like I'd have to pay an extra $100 to get the same features. Among the possible downsides of Tascam products I heard about were poor customer service and no SDK (although it appears M-Audio no longer offers an SDK with their products, last I checked). I've only used my US 122L a few times so far for both recording and playback, but I'm pleased with it. HEADS UP: I also have a laptop with sound problems. It is a Dell Lattitude D830 I got a year ago that I wanted to be a music machine. It had snaps and pops from the very first day. I sent it back to Dell and got a replacement and it still had the same problem, but I kept it because otherwise it is great and I figured that the USB interface I planned to get someday would bypass the crappy sound card. Fast forward to a month ago when I finally got my USB interface and the problem is still there. I've noticed that the cursor sometimes spontaneously jumps around, so my best hypothesis is that somewhere inside the computer there is a faulty circuit that produces bogus signals to/from IO devices. The rate at which the pops occur is only about once a minute and I've learned to live with it, but that something to think about if you are determined to solve your sound problems by doing sound IO through another route.

... did that answer your questions about my questions?

I'm hoping to record myself singing... I have a normal male voice with good range, and I'm hoping to record in an empty stairwell at my school that has great acoustics. Recording software will be whatever the manufacturer packages with the USB interface, or Audacity or the Windows recorder or whatever else I can get my hands on. I'm a good programmer and a cheap bastard so I'm hoping to keep as much of the music-making process inside ChucK, SuperCollider, C or Matlab as possible... I do have access to Max/MSP and Logic Pro at a lab near here, as well as an AKG C1000S, but it's inconvenient. I'm assuming the raw stream of numbers that is sucked out of the USB cable is independent of the software. Like I said, my sound card stinks, so I was hoping to get the USB interface for both the mic and my head phones, and at the moment I do have a condenser mic (AKG C1000S) on short-term loan so phantom power would be needed for that. I'll check out the Audix OM2, it looks like a lot of people agree with you. EDIT: The MobilePre comes with Ableton Live Lite... cool...

I've got a similar question... I'm about to get an M-Audio MobilePre USB because I'd like to be able to record in out-of-the-way places with a good microphone on my Windows laptop, and I was also hoping to get better playback out of it than through my laptop sound card, which sounds crappy. I don't have a FireWire port, and I don't want to spend too much. I've heard mostly good reviews of that model, but a few customer reviews said their recordings came out noisy. Anybody here have good/bad experiences with it? big giant circles sez: "It doesn't even have a master output control knob, which is just plain silly. " That's not a big deal for me... is there anything else wrong with it? I'm planning to buy an SM58 to plug into it, to record my singing. Good choice?

I don't know about injustice and oppression, but otherwise OCR sure as hell sounds like a site which follows these ideals. Anyone can come here, get involved and potentially get a mix posted. And this isn't just any site. It's a (perhaps the) paradigmatic example of a fan's project expanding to an extent where it's recognized by and even influences the industry. The great equalizing power of the Internet has given fans a voice which the higher-ups actually listen to. If OCR was a bottom-up democratic structure, UnMod would still exist, there would be fewer bans, and no judges or moderators. OCR is more of an oligarchy. It has lasted as long as it has because the willingness-to-poop-on-people/willingness-to-do-lots-of-work-for-free ratio of the people in the oligarchy is sufficiently low.

Thanks man! It's good to see someone still remembers those halcyon days of 2004.

No love for OCR blue version? Back when the site used to look good???

Alright, close enough. Thank you.

I read that thread a long time ago, I don't remember seeing an apology.

Not to sound like a jerk but... if the managers really cared about community, why was UnMod deleted? I don't come here very often these days, so maybe I missed the explanation/apology.

Yeah, probably because Nomura's better. Nomura 5uXX0rz!!!11 Seriously, there's nothing interesting about his style. Amano's is both beautiful and original.

Gah, it burns me up that there's a dozen or so Squaresoft characters up there, but only two are designed by Yoshitaka Amano and one of them is chibi.