Ghetto Lee Lewis

I'm definitely sold on Shreddage. But I also need some decent leads to replace Slayer. $150 seems a bit steep considering Ministry of Rock 2 is coming out in a week for $355, which includes 57 gigs worth of guitars, drums and basses (and will eventually end up on sale). Evolution Electric definitely seems slick and easy to use, but I'm mainly after guitar for texture and use in massive orchestral productions. DirectGuitar still seems like a good buy for what it can do, and I don't mind spending some time tweaking it. Irregardless, I think I'll hold off on purchasing a lead set until I try them out and see which one I like using better.

I guess I'm one of the old gamers who started gaming on the 2600 but really got hooked on the NES and SNES. This year I finally got a Wii, which is the first new console I've had since SNES (though I've played most of the other new-gen consoles with friends). I must say, the Wii has tons of potential for being fun, but I've been very disappointed so far in the games. There seem to be a lot of cutesy Mii-style games, and a few work-out style games. It seems like the work-out type games try to emulate going to a gym or casual recreation, which I don't find very fun at all. At least the Dance Dance Revolution series had a way of making exercise extremely fun and addicting. Though I have to say the Wii DDR games seem pretty lame, with mostly hip hop crap (though there are a few good songs like Never Gonna Give you Up on DDR Hottest Party 3). Then again there are a few gems like Zelda. So far every Zelda game I have ever played has been extremely good and addicting. Though I have to say putting fishing into the main storyline of Twilight Princess was a cruel, horrible thing to do. Aiming the bow with the remote was a pain in the rear also. I am really looking forward to Skyward Sword and the new motion-plus based system. Bottom line is, I still spend more time playing Flash games on Kongregate.com than playing my Wii. I am a strong believer that concept and gameplay will always be more important than graphics. I became bored with Elder Scrolls Oblivion due to poor gameplay elements, even though graphics were amazing. All in all, I think any old game can be enjoyed by anyone if it's simply made to be fun.

Fruity Edition is only $49. I wanted Maximus and a few other full versions that come with Signature Bundle.

I know both songs well enough, never realized the melodies are almost exactly the same. =) Unfortunately I don't think OC Remix is that friendly toward mashups, though I could be wrong. I'm not exactly sure how you could combine the two either since parts of the melodies don't really go well with the other song. I'd be more inclined to do a Robo (Chrono Trigger) meets Rick Roll remix though, or a Faithfully (Journey) meets Elecman remix. ;p

Direct Guitar $64 Shreddage $49 I assume you can't really do leads that well with Shreddage, though I could be wrong. Direct Guitar seems like it can do anything and just needs some decent soft amps and tweaks to it. The key switching certainly seems very convenient at least. Seems like that's all you need plus a few amp sims. It seems pointless to me spending hundreds of dollars on giant VST libraries to do the same thing. My personal favorite amp is Native-Instruments Rammfire for Guitar Rig 4.1. It's a VST version of a Mesa Boogie pre-500 dual rectifier amp, the same one used by Rammstein's guitarist Richard Kruspe. Makes anything sound insanely huge and scary. I've been looking for good sounding guitars for quite a while, since I absolutely hate playing the real thing, and it's scary to think of collabing with guitarists (shudder).

The 50% sale has been re-instated and extended to this Thursday, Jan 6, so grab your copy while you still can.

I'd take a look at Tonehammer's choirs. They're not really an all in one like Symphonic Choirs, but absolutely incredible sounding. Also, try hunting for Peter Siedlaczek's choirs. They were probably the very first choir samples that let you build syllables (though it was quite advanced to do so). They might be abandonware by now, or reasonably priced. Of course, Symphony of Voices and Voices of the Apocalypse are classics. VotA is being sold now as an upgrade to Symphonic Choirs, but even the old version has incredible power to it (including an impressive 4 1/2 octave range) and features a word builder if you can come by a copy of Gigasampler (though I've seen a Kontakt version also). Sympony of Voices doesn't have word building, but has excellent textures and some very emotional samples and effects.

If your sample sounds too thin, try putting a little saturation on it. FL Blood overdrive or some light natural distortion will make the frequencies sound way bigger. Then eq it after the saturation. Any kind of monitoring tools you have would help also to see what frequencies the peaks are at (<3 FL Wave Candy). Making space for the kick is easier if you get rid of conflict with other instruments via light notch filtering. Compression helps to change the shape of your kick and make it bigger, but only after there is room for it in the mix.

Looks like an amazing game. From what I saw in the videos, the music looks incredible too. Thanks for posting the nsf link. I'll have to find a new nsf player, but I'll probably play the ROM I found on google when I get some free time.

The trailer music sounds really generic and chip-tunish. I'm not sure about the game's theme either. It looks extremely cliche. I don't mind retro style games as long as the theme and story is very interesting and entertaining. Is it midi score, or full audio, what kind of music are you looking for?

After 9 years of piracy (besides that one time my wife/fiancee bought it and lost the cd key) I finally went and bought FL Studio Signature Bundle for $149. If you missed the group buy, you can still get in on the 50% off on all versions until Thursday.

I'm on lousy speakers so I can't say much about the mix. On the whole it sounds like way too much reverb, even if you're going for a live/stadium feel. I've heard live mixes that have a much tighter sound than this. I'd like to hear more bite on everything, like the guitar and the drums. Try putting a little bit of saturation on everything and less reverb (like FL blood overdrive). The bells sound nice, but they kind of take some of the energy out of the song when you use them as a lead. Vocals or brass could do well in this kind of arrangement. Also, the drums might be killing some of the energy. You need some kind of a build section in there to give more of an epic feel to it.

I'm listening on $5 speakers so can't comment really on the mixing. This is very groovalicious. I think it could use some vocals though. I could probably pull something off in this style if I have lyrics. Just bandpass the shit out of it. ;p Autotune wouldn't even be that bad if it's used in moderation. Though halfway through the song it seems to lose some energy and sounds kind of lame. It starts sounding more cheesy and less funky. It definitely needs something else to glue it all together, but I like where it's going. The drum fill at 3:15 sounds out of place without much else going on in the arrangement. I definitely like the filtered saxophone and change of percussion around the 4:00 mark. Could have used a transition like that earlier in the song though. If you bring that transition in earlier, you can throw in another fill and move it into an even bigger juicier beat. That should keep the song moving along better.

I got stuck with a difficult song to remix, and so up until now I haven't even had a solid concept to work on. Ideas are finally coming as of a couple days ago, so expect something epic, come Saturday.

Eating off the strip is usually a lot cheaper. If we had more vehicles we could have planned the whole thing better. It was great fun meeting you guys though.

So where is the party going to be at tonight?

Typically buses run about every 20 to 30 minutes along every major street. But they are late sometimes, up to an hour or two in the worst cases. Riding the bus is about 3x slower than driving because they have to stop frequently. For the most part, the schedules on the RTC website are pretty accurate. Fortunately Las Vegas's streets are layed out like a grid for the most part, so it's easy not to get lost. There is also a monorail that goes between hotels on the strip. I haven't ridden on it, so I don't know the schedules or how reliable it is. That's all the public transportation we have here. There are some other buses for tourists I think also, which are run by different hotels. Other than that there are taxi's, which are expensive.

Which is why I suggested Paradise Park, which is about 3 1/2 miles from the hotel. I know that they have shade and barbecue grills. If not Paradise Park there's Sunset Park, which is way larger, but a bit farther from the hotel. They also offer plenty of places to bbq. I'm a local, but my wife won't let any weird people from the internet over to her house. =) I could also offer a couple people of rides, so we'd have one more car, and I have a friend who could possibly offer his car too, making 6 cars if need be. It would also help if we knew exactly how many people were going to show up. I'm guessing 20-30. So anyone bringing a mini-van? Besides, I'm sure some people might not want to hang around outside in 100 degree weather, shade or not. People might want to do other things instead.

There are lots of Wal-marts. You could have gone to walmart.com store locator. There are also Targets, K-Marts, and several malls. There is even a mall on the strip about 3 blocks from the hotel, The Fashion Show mall. People actually live in Vegas. It's a fairly large city.

It doesn't feel as hot as places with high humidity. Just be sure to wear high SPF sunscreen (especially if you're going to hang around the pool all day). You WILL get burnt if you're outside in the sun longer than 20-30 minutes without sunscreen. I checked weather.com and they forecasted like 102-ish for next week, so it's not that bad. I figure a Thursday bbq would be best since everyone should be used to the absurd amount of sunshine by then. Just don't miss the bbq because your dumbass got sunburnt hanging out by the pool for too long! There will definitely be plenty of shade at the bbq. I'll bring an ice chest to the bbq, if somebody will get us some drinks.

OMGLMAO!!! Our parks do actually have grass and trees, just not as many trees as some places. Here's a picture of Sunset park, which actually has a small lake. I'm thinking like maybe sometime on Thursday for the barbecue. We could do the barbecue at Paradise Park: 4775 McLeod Dr. Las Vegas, NV 89121

Buca de Beppo has awesome pizza. It's only about a mile from the hotel, and my wife might have some extra coupons. I mentioned it in another post. I didn't see anything about a giant outdoor barbecue either. The weather has been much less than brutal lately. Day time highs are only in the low 100's. That's about 10 degrees cooler than normal. Keep in mind there's basically no humidity, and we can bring some cold drinks or shade in the park. If we schedule a barbecue I can cook up like 20 pounds of beef ribs. They take 2 days to marinade though. I make my own barbecue sauce and everything. If that ends up being too much work I could grill up some green chili cheese burgers and maybe some veggie burgers.

I can't find those kazoos, sorry.... But I found my native american flute and harmonica. I think Sam Ash sells kazoos for cheap though.

I will definitely bring along an acoustic guitar, some keyboards, and maybe even my drum set if I can get some help moving it. It's a super cheap 5 piece set, but we could have some fun with it maybe (though it might be too noisy for a hotel). I also have some kazoos laying around somewhere, a C harmonica and a cheap bamboo flute if anyone knows how to play one; and my wife has a tambourine; maybe she'll let me borrow it. I also have a 2 channel mixer and a couple of mics. The closest music stores are Sam Ash about 2 miles NE from the Flamingo and Guitar Center about 3 miles south of the Flamingo. There is a piano bar right next to the guitar center, and I'm sure we could find some karaoke places. There is a coffee shop that has open mic night Friday night. I need to double check to make sure they're still doing that. Oh, and I highly suggest meeting for ice cream. There is a badass ice cream shop near the Sam Ash music store called Leatherby's.

I have some suggestions for stuff to do. Piano bar karaoke barbecue go drinking dance dance revolution (I have a red-octane afterburner I can drag with me to Jordan's house, yes it's a metal pad). There are some bowling alleys with pool and ddr and stuff (and cosmic bowling if anyone is into that sort of thing). As far as shows go the one that is extremely good is Blue Man Group. I haven't really been to that many. The Luxor Hotel has a few motion rides that are pretty cheap and other fun things to do. There is some go cart racing in town. Besides that I can't think of a whole lot to do around here. If anyone needs to find a good restaurant I can probably name a few (though they're mostly off the strip), Thai food, Italian, etc. One place we could possibly meet up is Buca Da Beppo. Probably the best Italian restaurant in town, serves family style (portions serve 4-6), inexpensive, and they often accommodate very large parties. I have an acoustic guitar, a drumset (although awful sounding) and some keyboards. I also have a 2 channel mixer, Shure mic, and some cables (I can hookup karaoke to youtube from my laptop and a tv if need be). Also I got quite a few pop style sheet music song books for guitar/piano/vocals. Unfortunately I'll probably be working through most of the meetup. If I join up it will have to be after 4:00 or on the weekend. I would keep outdoor activities limited unless Jordan has an outdoor climate control system. We've had some hot weather lately.