Meteo Xavier

This trainwreck, Jojo's-Bizarre-Adventure-meets-a-Cannibal-Corpse-album-cover-pandemic-existence I'm in has not slowed down even a little bit. It's been a new, high level gut punch every day. 
Highlights from the last five weeks include:
* I discovered my best friend of 18 years, and one of the very few I have left at all, as well as someone who got me into Ocremix to start with, had waged a full-scale smear campaign against me to my ex-wife behind my back while he knew we had plans to get remarried. He sold me out as someone who's on the verge of going on a shooting rampage, telling straight up lies, misconstruing things I told him in confidence that he used as ammo against me. And for what? Just so he could exchange lewd videos with her.
I can't even compare the sheer scale of that betrayal to anything. I'm just as jaw-on-the-floor shocked now as when I discovered it 5 weeks ago. It's explicit. I have screencaps of it. There is no ambiguity whatsoever. And he still had the gall to talk to me as always with his other face like he was justified for it. When I confronted him, he wasn't even sorry. "Why would I defend you?" he said. I called him a hedonist at one point, he took that title in cheerfully.
It's the kind of thing that you go pay a local voodoo witch to curse so there is some kind of cosmic karmic reprisal, but there's no point, whatever karmic reprisal would be in store for him has already been going on his entire life. There's nothing to take back as punishment. It's the most senseless thing I've ever seen with my own eyes, and I've seen actual paranormal shit.
* Oh yeah, and his efforts to derail my remarriage were pretty ***damn successful. My progress there went so far back that my depression relapsed into overdrive and I had panic attacks every night for two weeks.
* My dad's cancer recovery has not been working out. He still can't talk and is eating out of a ***damn medical bag.
* Two weeks ago, my dad also announced he was getting divorced from his wife who is not my mom. This is while he can't talk and can't eat anything. He lives 2,000 miles from me and I can't get to him to help him directly.
* One week ago, I learned my dad's wife did NOTHING to help him during his cancer recovery. That's 8 months of leaving him to fend for himself. Also, he's the one that had to move out. My brothers just hauled off and drove across the country to help him out (though no one told me about it until they were already out of the state).
* Got sick one day, non-COVID related, took a nap for a brief bit, woke up and somehow one of my cats got out again. Waited for him to come back for 6 hours, then spent 9:00PM to 7:30AM chasing him all around the mountainous woods trying to get his ass back inside because he refused to come back in on his own for some reason. You ever hike a mountain? Not just the trails, but all the ledges you're walking by that slope obtusely and are covered with bushes and trees? Yeah, do that chasing a fucking cat for 10 hours in the dark until the sun comes up. Literally walking through bushes. I got him back in but my body was cut the fuck up.
* And my worst fear came to life - the cat contracted fleas with him. I lose even less time in the day keeping things COVID kosher and now fighting flea infestation (although I've almost won it).
* Last week I woke up to several responses on Facebook and a few privates messages from a Trump supporter who was threatening serious, call-the-police violent interaction on me for a meme I posted in response to someone's pro-Trump bullshit. This wasn't the typical Trump-thumper chest-thumping, this dude was claiming to me privately he knew where I lived, making a countdown to when he was going to show up, and that he was going to murder me and my cats.
So what did I do? I just responded by posting to him in PM the same meme that set him off to begin with.
Dude blocked me on Facebook from there. Ironically, I'm pretty sure he really was Trump-thumping chest-thumping after all, he just wanted to go a few steps further than most. I've had dozens of folks tell me they're going to find me and fuck me up and not a single one has shown up yet.
* Then came a gut-punch I really was worried about - I got a letter from the IRS saying I still owed them several thousand dollars even though I know I'm paid up for the year. A long and frustrating accounting journey to get into my IRS account while my tax guy is out of the state for several weeks and while the IRS hotline has "extremely limited capacity" to serve me showed that they received my money and still said I owed them that amount. They put my payment in the wrong fucking year. Eventually I got it straightened out, but after all the rest of the shit going on, something like that coming in just feels predictable and typical, right?
* Currently operating at 15% reserves, functioning and power from already challenging atmosphere with depression and depression-medication complications and additional lifestyle complications from COVID-19 while living entropy continues to overclock at 178%.
* Newest gut punch? Another of the last few actual friends I had suddenly died. Suddenly to me, at least, it turns out they'd actually been in a medically induced coma for 25 days. They relapsed into drugs and this batch was cut was something unknown, so it went straight to their brain and began literally eroding it. Then one by one all the organs shut down. Even if they had survived the MI coma, they'd just be a living corpse. So essentially they'd been murdered (and now the third of my classmates that has been murdered out of like 8 at most that had died), they leave behind an 11-year-old child, and what's left of the family does not have the $10,000 it takes to cremate them.
I think I've reached the point where I can call this some "Marquis De Sade shit" without it being exaggerated melodrama.
I darkly wonder how much more of this awaits before I have my heart attack or stroke or both.

Are there new allegations against Soule? If not, I'm not sure how it's only now come to your attention. The news about Nathalie Lawhead* was back in 2019.
* - As far as I know, I'm not related to Nathalie Lawhead. I did email her to ask if she knew any family relationship between us and never got a response.

I agree, it sounds like some kind of fizzy saw or maybe even a wavetable thing that's really high up, doing a simple 1, -5, -12 arp and having some filter modulated on it so that only the first note sounds really "fizzy". I feel like I've heard this sound in z3ta+2 and Synth 1 (though obviously that's not what he used here).

I agree, it sounds like some kind of fizzy saw or maybe even a wavetable thing that's really high up, doing a simple 1, -5, -12 arp and having some filter modulated on it so that only the first note sounds really "fizzy". I feel like I've heard this sound in z3ta+2 and Synth 1 (though obviously that's not what he used here).

I have to tender my resignation on this project, to no small amount of personal disappointment and chagrin. I wrote it on over to Rexy first and now I'm writing it publicly.
The conflict is all on my end - when I first joined up to try to help push this sucker out and today is the difference between World of Balance and World of Ruin, to put it in Final Fantasy VI terms. I wasn't exactly Spring Chicken at that time in terms of vitality and work availability, but I could do it. Then I had a medium-sized relapse into (depression-related) depersonalization in August, then me and my family's world got pretty damn well upended just before Christmas 2019, then we had snow and floods in February just before COVID-19 hit, THEN COVID-19 hit the planet, THEN my dad announced he has throat cancer. Now my Mom just started having an episode of anxiety-related something that is similar to the depersonalization and I have to be helping her with that. Of those items, only the flood and snow has actually cleared up, the rest is still present.
As a result, my administrative performance so far has been well below what I would personally find acceptable and it's pretty plain to see that I'm not currently fit to tackle the role. I don't have as much invested in this project as I did SD3 (err, "Trials Of Mana" now, fucking Square-Penis...) so powering through it isn't really justified this time around.
Sorry to bring a downer to this album's projection, but I'm at "unarmed Jubei Kibagami in Ninja Scroll" stage on this end. Best of luck, or whatever we have going on for statistical chance in 2020 right now, for following this album forward!

Major clinical depression, insomnia, divorce, dead kid I use for "social currency" whatever that is, misanthrope, vulgarity, projects that just refuse to ever get finished no matter what happens and my dad has cancer.
So pretty much the same as it's ever been before COVID-19 except for that last one.

I have to tender my resignation on this project, to no small amount of personal disappointment and chagrin. I wrote it on over to Rexy first and now I'm writing it publicly.
The conflict is all on my end - when I first joined up to try to help push this sucker out and today is the difference between World of Balance and World of Ruin, to put it in Final Fantasy VI terms. I wasn't exactly Spring Chicken at that time in terms of vitality and work availability, but I could do it. Then I had a medium-sized relapse into (depression-related) depersonalization in August, then me and my family's world got pretty damn well upended just before Christmas 2019, then we had snow and floods in February just before COVID-19 hit, THEN COVID-19 hit the planet, THEN my dad announced he has throat cancer. Now my Mom just started having an episode of anxiety-related something that is similar to the depersonalization and I have to be helping her with that. Of those items, only the flood and snow has actually cleared up, the rest is still present.
As a result, my administrative performance so far has been well below what I would personally find acceptable and it's pretty plain to see that I'm not currently fit to tackle the role. I don't have as much invested in this project as I did SD3 (err, "Trials Of Mana" now, fucking Square-Penis...) so powering through it isn't really justified this time around.
Sorry to bring a downer to this album's projection, but I'm at "unarmed Jubei Kibagami in Ninja Scroll" stage on this end. Best of luck, or whatever we have going on for statistical chance in 2020 right now, for following this album forward!

For anyone who might be interested, The Blind Prophet has been released for Steam and GOG, and other markets like Switch and PS4 consoles to follow, I think. I did the majority of the soundtrack and the 3rd game I've worked on to actually get released.
This is a highly visual and artist-driven project using point'n'click adventuring for a 6-8 hour story that goes into some seriously dark and gritty territory. Although I myself am not fully versed on the story or progression (I wouldn't have had time to get into it over the last year), it combines elements of SIN CITY, Boondock Saints, John Constantine and similar as its modus personae. I combined quite a lot of genre elements for my work on the soundtrack including:
* Gothic church organ
* Heavy, dark, Motoi Sakuraba-style orchestral
* Downtempo Trip-Hop
* Minimalist Techno
* Resident Evil-style dark ambient
* Resident Evil-style minimalist score material with more conventional composition and arrangement.
* Chrono Cross-style emotional score for one track.
* NIN-style Industrial
* A parody of Pink Floyd's "Money" that then turns into a much more subtle parody of Steve Hackett's "The Ballad of The Decomposing Man".
* One song from my Saturn Icarus album that was licensed/used as a minigame track because it was fun, unexpected, and I ran out of time to produce a brand new track. :P

I don't have the soundtrack compiled together as a release yet, I just want to promote the game itself for now.
If this kind of thing appeals to you, please visit https://store.steampowered.com/app/968370/The_Blind_Prophet/ and https://www.gog.com/game/the_blind_prophet.
 

For anyone who might be interested, The Blind Prophet has been released for Steam and GOG, and other markets like Switch and PS4 consoles to follow, I think. I did the majority of the soundtrack and the 3rd game I've worked on to actually get released.
This is a highly visual and artist-driven project using point'n'click adventuring for a 6-8 hour story that goes into some seriously dark and gritty territory. Although I myself am not fully versed on the story or progression (I wouldn't have had time to get into it over the last year), it combines elements of SIN CITY, Boondock Saints, John Constantine and similar as its modus personae. I combined quite a lot of genre elements for my work on the soundtrack including:
* Gothic church organ
* Heavy, dark, Motoi Sakuraba-style orchestral
* Downtempo Trip-Hop
* Minimalist Techno
* Resident Evil-style dark ambient
* Resident Evil-style minimalist score material with more conventional composition and arrangement.
* Chrono Cross-style emotional score for one track.
* NIN-style Industrial
* A parody of Pink Floyd's "Money" that then turns into a much more subtle parody of Steve Hackett's "The Ballad of The Decomposing Man".
* One song from my Saturn Icarus album that was licensed/used as a minigame track because it was fun, unexpected, and I ran out of time to produce a brand new track. :P

I don't have the soundtrack compiled together as a release yet, I just want to promote the game itself for now.
If this kind of thing appeals to you, please visit https://store.steampowered.com/app/968370/The_Blind_Prophet/ and https://www.gog.com/game/the_blind_prophet.
 

Very cool! Some _very_ nice comments about the soundtrack in the Steam reviews!

If the somewhat patronizing responses here like the one above me are not serviceable to you, Misty, consider looking for and trying some older versions of FL Studio and see if they are easier for you to use. I've been using FL Studio exclusively since 2003 and have some accomplished some fairly incredible things on it while having some not-insignificant learning and mental difficulties (to be generous) and I've still probably not used 40% of what the program has to offer. It IS deep and complicated, but with time and patience, you will figure it out just like I did.
I use FL Studio 11, myself. The limitations are the same as the ones you mention above but it has remained a reliable mixture of simplicity and powerful function to the point that I have never needed to upgrade from it. Some months ago I even found and re-installed FL Studio 11 on my laptop here, so finding an older version and trying it out should be a worthwhile venture for you. Don't go too old though, certain functions indelible to FL Studio now are not in the oldest of versions and lifetime license to use FL Studio only goes back to a point.
Also, you do NOT need to spend $900 to get FL Studio and Poizone at the same time. Poizone can be bought and downloaded separately as opposed to a bundle. If money is an issue, go with a vst called Synth1, that thing is free, super easy to set up, and thousands of fan-made presets exist for it to give you all the synth stuff you could ever need.

I bought that RMX thing they have going on last night for $4. EVERYTHING I've listened to that sounds great and exactly like stuff I can use.
Not totally on-topic with the freebies here, but I've been mulling over announcing that deal on here anyway.

I had posted a previous version of Saturn Icarus here a long time ago. This version is the full release with additional tracks, additional work on some tracks, and full mastering provided by TOKEE.
Saturn Icarus Liner Notes and Credits
TRACK 1 - I Become The Machine (Technoverture)
TRACK 2 - Rarewhere - (OS Boot Menu - Rev. 17.8.104B)
TRACK 3 - Aladdin Continent - (Vector City Skyline)
TRACK 4 - Deincarnation - (Cybercop Bust Gone Wrong)
TRACK 5 - Comfortably Dumb - (Virtua Gangs Rule The Future Streets)
TRACK 6 - Run, Logan, Run! (Android Abomination)
TRACK 7 - Almost In The Shell (After Hours At The Neuro Lounge)
TRACK 8 - Death and Syntaxes (Infiltrating The City Underground)
TRACK 9 - Atlas Lunged - (Forced To Fight In The Mutant Wrestling Ring)
TRACK 10 - Neon Tolstoy - (Megacorp Declares War, And I Bring Them War)
TRACK 11 - Zoso's Bizarre Advertising Venture (The Back Alley Parts Shop)
TRACK 12 - Shower The People You Love With Blood (Final Assault On The Grid Headquarters)
TRACK 13 - Psycho Mass - (The Ultimate Showdown With The Omega Brain)
TRACK 14 - Appetite For Reconstruction (The Sun Rises Over The Metropolis)
TRACK 15 - The Machine Becomes Me (Acceptance, The Destiny In Disguise, Credits)
Notes:
Wow, this production was a hell of a ride. It was originally done for an old-school FPS throwback called SATURN ICARUS (https://gamejolt.com/games/saturn-icarus-work-in-progress/149262) and 12 tracks were produced for it. I got paid for the commission (!) but to date, the game is under indefinite hiatus and I don't know what, if anything, may happen to it from there.
So with the original creator's permission, I have taken the album, along with some other tracks I had done for other things that never got used, and I made a full Synthwave/Hybrid album out of it. Each track is extremely different from one another and features anything and everything I wanted in it - synths, drum and bass, synths, orchestra, synths, operatic choir, synths, trance, synths, Japanese taiko, synths, metal guitar and, oh yeah, synths. A lot of different sounds and genres used here, but synthwave and 80s sounds form the foundation.
I consider this my "Passion" album - inspired directly after Peter Gabriel's "Passion" album which was a soundtrack for Martin Scorscese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" that he went back and did more work on before releasing it as an album. I did the same here.
It is available for $5.00 total on Bandcamp and other markets that follow a listing on CDBaby. Thank you and enjoy!
 
Music by 12 Followers/Meteo Xavier.
Premade loops and construction kits were used in this production for inspiration and convenience.
Mixing by 12 Followers/Meteo Xavier.
Mastering by TOKEE.
Cover Artwork:
Original Illustration by Devine Lu Linvega as it appears on runyourjewels.com.
Edited by Meteo Xavier.
Used with permission by Devine Lu Linvega.
Copyright 12 Followers/Meteo Xavier and 12MX Media, October 2019. Licensed to Mischa for whatever he wants to use it for.

While I'd had worse Septembers than this, it's not been good. The stress of it got so bad that it fully undid the depression progress I'd made since the second week of August. I spent various parts of the last 8 days unable to sleep and almost paralyzed with fears that can't be rationalized away.
I have a moment of clarity now, so before the fear starts back up, I'll give a small update.
I had been talking concepts and ideas with Rexy. I'd not gotten as many .WAVs from people as I would've hoped, so I do think we might have to redo some key tracks. I'm personally not wanting to do a whole full soundtrack arrangement, but a sense of balance has to be brought to it, so I will talk with Rexy on how best to achieve it.
I'd also been trying to get some ideas for project artwork. I had a great idea, but it turns out to be derivative. I'm not too picky on what the artwork should be for the cover, just needs to look good and make sense with reconciling the themes of the game.
Sorry it's not a more positive update, shit's been reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllly fucked on my end as usual. As sanity returns to me, I'll try to get more done on it.

This depersonalization episode has been lingering and I've not been able to shake it fully. I'm past the parts I need to be concerned about, now I'm just waiting for it to pass entirely.
In the meantime I've been slowly trying to gather .WAVs from people and I only have about 8 myself. Rexy might have some others, but we need to get .WAVs in first before we can formulate what to do from there.
So send your .WAVs in, folks.
I'll keep updating as updates and sanity come in.

This depersonalization episode has been lingering and I've not been able to shake it fully. I'm past the parts I need to be concerned about, now I'm just waiting for it to pass entirely.
In the meantime I've been slowly trying to gather .WAVs from people and I only have about 8 myself. Rexy might have some others, but we need to get .WAVs in first before we can formulate what to do from there.
So send your .WAVs in, folks.
I'll keep updating as updates and sanity come in.

Do you like Valkyrie Profile? Do you like Death Metal? If so, then this is THE album for you.
Here is a commercial explaining what this is:
Here is one of the two currently released songs. A new song comes out every two weeks until all 9 tracks are out.
Enjoy the music. Thank you for your time.

New update time. Sorry for the delay on my end everyone, I'm bottlenecked yet again and today has been particularly fucked, but I've got enough to update with all the same.
I've gotten some more WAVs from people, I appreciate that and I'll listen to them here soon. I had an ear thing late last week/early this week that made it so audio work was not in my interest, but that has been accomplished and I've downloaded and kept the .WAVs given to me all the same.
Finally got to talk to the previous project creator Brandon to see if he would release back to us the .WAVs he had on his end and he was not willing to support the project's revival (to put it mildly), which is what I expected. And as expected, this project will need to see a fairly full "Un"Brand"ing" so we can respect Brandon's wishes and the fair artistic work he put in to start with. This does not mean starting the entire thing from scratch, it just means taking what we can from the previous project attempt, putting a new frame/encapsulation on it, seeing where we need to go to from there.
I'm trying to think up some ideas of what to do that with - I've actually spent the last several weeks replaying the game on the DS unrelated to the project here and I am refreshed on the source material, so that helps. So far my best idea is Manifest Obscura, taking after the game's major plot of the big world below being shrouded from knowledge, but I'm not solid on it yet. I'm not doing the "Light and Dark" theme again - that was my last project and it has been done to death.
Most likely will need a brand new project thread for it too.
So I'll be speaking with Rexy and relevant personnel about that stuff when I can. That's what I got for now. Please keep sending me your .WAVs and let's see where we can go from here!

New update time. Sorry for the delay on my end everyone, I'm bottlenecked yet again and today has been particularly fucked, but I've got enough to update with all the same.
I've gotten some more WAVs from people, I appreciate that and I'll listen to them here soon. I had an ear thing late last week/early this week that made it so audio work was not in my interest, but that has been accomplished and I've downloaded and kept the .WAVs given to me all the same.
Finally got to talk to the previous project creator Brandon to see if he would release back to us the .WAVs he had on his end and he was not willing to support the project's revival (to put it mildly), which is what I expected. And as expected, this project will need to see a fairly full "Un"Brand"ing" so we can respect Brandon's wishes and the fair artistic work he put in to start with. This does not mean starting the entire thing from scratch, it just means taking what we can from the previous project attempt, putting a new frame/encapsulation on it, seeing where we need to go to from there.
I'm trying to think up some ideas of what to do that with - I've actually spent the last several weeks replaying the game on the DS unrelated to the project here and I am refreshed on the source material, so that helps. So far my best idea is Manifest Obscura, taking after the game's major plot of the big world below being shrouded from knowledge, but I'm not solid on it yet. I'm not doing the "Light and Dark" theme again - that was my last project and it has been done to death.
Most likely will need a brand new project thread for it too.
So I'll be speaking with Rexy and relevant personnel about that stuff when I can. That's what I got for now. Please keep sending me your .WAVs and let's see where we can go from here!

Wow, that's some of my best project administration work yet. Just started and already I've got 3 .wav files in.
Yes, Rockboi, go ahead and put them somewhere where I can hear it and PM them to me.

Ok, I finally had time and energy to look into the thread here and get my brain started in the process here. I messaged Rexy and I think I'm ready to get'er started.

Rexy's awesome, so that's excellent.
I'll see about getting to some of the rest of this stuff later in this week as I'm behind on work in other areas, but yes, that's a good start.

No one else is getting dibs on this news. I'm doing it!
https://kotaku.com/konami-announces-the-turbografx-16-mini-1835430762
I read this and now I need new underwear. And new pants. And a new computer chair. And new carpet and possibly some work done on the foundation of my house because that's how hard I shit myself reading this. ***damn, the Japanese version is even getting Dracula X. Not quite the hard-to-obtain title it used to be, but that alone is going to make import sales go up though I suspect we will have a chance to get it stateside.
Hurray and hallelujah!

No one else is getting dibs on this news. I'm doing it!
https://kotaku.com/konami-announces-the-turbografx-16-mini-1835430762
I read this and now I need new underwear. And new pants. And a new computer chair. And new carpet and possibly some work done on the foundation of my house because that's how hard I shit myself reading this. ***damn, the Japanese version is even getting Dracula X. Not quite the hard-to-obtain title it used to be, but that alone is going to make import sales go up though I suspect we will have a chance to get it stateside.
Hurray and hallelujah!

Hmm, I'm kinda surprised no one responded to this. It actually is a fair question as I've been here for 15 years and I still have to go looking for how to change my signature stuff every time I want to change it, and that process can change as well.
1. Top right of the webpage where you see your chicken picture and "thebitterroost".
2. Click it and go to "account settings" under "settings".
3. Left side of the page in the gray border. "Signature".
There you go.
Didn't used to be that easy, so I totally respect that you had trouble finding it.