Meteo Xavier

They're just more experienced in the field of knowing what that stuff is, having done it themselves.
Additionally, that may be a solution where trying to recreate it in MIDI (or, to say it simpler, in your music program) is just plain unlikely to achieve the results you'd like. For needs like that, many people and companies have recorded humans performing them for the reason that programs and humans have different strengths and weaknesses for instrument performance. Even expensive MIDI orchestration books recommend finding a recorded phrase sample for some of those things as opposed to wang-banging the software and note grids to try to replicate it. Sometimes it can be done, but other times it really is just not worth the effort.
In this particular song, oddly enough, Uematsu is NOT using the Sound Canvas that he uses for at least 90% of the rest of the soundtrack. I wager he used a real orchestra or at least premiere (at the time) orchestral phrase sample CDs that recorded real orchestras.

They're just more experienced in the field of knowing what that stuff is, having done it themselves.
Additionally, that may be a solution where trying to recreate it in MIDI (or, to say it simpler, in your music program) is just plain unlikely to achieve the results you'd like. For needs like that, many people and companies have recorded humans performing them for the reason that programs and humans have different strengths and weaknesses for instrument performance. Even expensive MIDI orchestration books recommend finding a recorded phrase sample for some of those things as opposed to wang-banging the software and note grids to try to replicate it. Sometimes it can be done, but other times it really is just not worth the effort.
In this particular song, oddly enough, Uematsu is NOT using the Sound Canvas that he uses for at least 90% of the rest of the soundtrack. I wager he used a real orchestra or at least premiere (at the time) orchestral phrase sample CDs that recorded real orchestras.

Why would that surprise you? Not everyone who likes music is into it the way you guys are. Not everyone wants to enjoy music to the point of studying composition history of the last 100 years of jazz and its roots in rock and roll. It's a pleasure in life that has the distinction of being a universal language, highly variable, and being an obligation to absolutely no one to practice or absorb in any other way that what perfectly fits them.
If you don't understand how ridiculous music elitism is, then I invite you to listen to a guy rant about how people don't appreciate waterslides at Dolly's Splash Country and bitch about their "mainstream" construction and design like I did back in 2004 for close to 20 minutes. God, I still can't figure that out.

JARRING ONLY BEGINS TO DESCRIBE IT!
Image Line can kiss my ass until there's nothing left to kiss but a curvy little tailbone! RAWRRRRRRRRRRR!!! >:S

TWENTY!? The hell... I'm still on Fl Studio 11 and it's not been outdated THAT long.
I think Image Line forgot how to count..

Will it let me use the slide function on more than just FL Plugins now?

#7 is my favorite. I only have a limited amount of music friends from high school, and only one of them is at least a little interested in the same genre I am, jazz. I'm going to a school for Liberal Studies now (to ensure complete unemployability), and believe me when I tell you there are absolutely no other students at this school that play jazz. So my options are limited, and I don't have anyone better to play around. Being a big fish in small pond isn't that great for me. Being a freshman, I can only hope that I can find incoming students in the next coming years who know how to play, or at least want to learn just as much as I do. But for now, I have no expansions to my circle so I have to work inward. Taking hours and hours a week trying to make the most of Garage Band using Keyscape on my Macbook Air Laptop, and it's a really slow process. But it's all I got, and even if I wanted to go around gigging places, I wouldn't be able to rely on anyone. So I'm trying to push my performance ability and my production ability so that tomorrow, I'll be able to do these things a little better, and that ten years from now, I'll be able to keep a decent flow of income. I can really connect to #7. Hopefully after working this summer I can upgrade my DAW.
 
EDIT: Number 7 from the original post to be exact.

I want to start out by saying how much I LOVE this site and HUGELY appreciate all the super awesome, talented remixxers who have given me my best driving tunes for years. There's nothing cooler than hearing hot new takes on game tracks that mean a lot to me.
So, that said: Hi! I'm Rowena, from Cape Town, South Africa. My tiptop gaming franchise is LoZ, and I found this place after seeing some of the Link To The Past special album in a YouTube Let'splayer's video on Lynel fighting.
I have a newb-o-rama question: if there's a game track that there's no remixes of -- specifically in this case, the Gerudo Desert theme from Twilight Princess (and I'm not sure *how* there's no remixes, but I guess it always gets overshadowed by the Gerudo Valley theme) -- apart from simply requesting it on the suggestions forum and waiting in hope... is it possible to set up kind of a call for commission or contest? I'm an illustrator, so I could offer game character art as a prize (http://faerthingpen.tumblr.com), if that appeals to anyone?
Thanks again!!

That's strange. How or why would the Soundcloud mobile version have a drop of quality that far down? Just something wrong in the coding that distresses the audio or something?

Would anyone believe I've actually become a composer who's managed to grab a series of worthwhile gigs and absorbed enough commissions to kinda be sick of working on music? I know I don't. A decade and a half of putting in tens of thousands of hours behind a DAW has been yielding some returns and I've reached heights no one should take for granted.
From my vantage point, I thought I would like to share some of the less-talked-about things I see from this elevation that could be useful advice to newer composers or even some older ones. In no particular order, here we go:
1. There is no recipe or gimmick for success. If there was, we'd all know it and use it by now. It's all pretty much random. All you can do is get creative with your ideas and execute them with the best audio quality you can.
2. Only upgrade your sound and studio if you can't produce quality work with what you've got anymore. You don't need 18 orchestral symphony libraries to make a quality orchestral track or soundtrack, you don't need the latest version of this or that for everything, you don't need loads of hardware just to pretend you're staying current. Master what you have before you start thinking you need to spend $$$ on more shit.
3. Synth nerds are the worst people to get hardware advice from. Sorry, but it's true. Nothing is ever as good as the best there was from the 1970s or 1980s, and therefore nothing is ever worthwhile enough. If you have your eye on a keyboard or hardware item, listen to it, think on it for a while, think on it, think on it for a long time and decide if it's really for you or not. No one else can decide that for you, you have to decide that for yourself.
4. Doing a bunch of songs at the same time and in stages is better than trying to knock out one song at a time. This is because you need a break from audio both to give your ears a rest and also to let your judgment become less biased. While doing a song, there are the stages of beginning it, working on it and finalizing it. You get into these stages naturally, and it is surprisingly easier to do these stages with multiple songs than just one.
5. To expand on #4, after a few years of experience in finishing and finalizing tracks, you start learning a skill for a music ear that can hear where your songs are supposed to go, rather than where they go now. It's almost a 6th sense in a way - you start hearing and expecting it to go this way when where you actually have it going is wrong. You can also hear what ISN'T there and what needs to be there. It's kinda freaky, really.
6. Some people try to write and arrange a track starting with the melody and designing everything around it. This is dumb. Building a song is like building a house - you start from the ground up (drums and bass), then the walls and body of the house (chords and arps and accompaniment), and then the roof (usually the melody). Doing it with the melody first is like putting the furniture in a field in a certain way and designing the house around all that.
7. Rely on as few people for your songs and projects at any given time as possible. Other people have lives and crises, too, and you would be better off doing or learning to do things you need yourself than hope their timeframes work out for you.
8. All business success requires risk to fuel it, however not all risk is the same. Being smart and meticulously deciding where your money is best to go and getting clever and resourceful with your situation could still create the concoction that provides success without putting you in danger.
9. "Value" or "reward" for your audio work is not always money. This is a VERY controversial and unpopular opinion, and there are good reasons for that, but the fact remains those who only consider value and reward to be coin or cash will find it much harder to navigate throguh business success here.
10. Even if you hate loops products, many are worth getting anyway for a variety of reasons. One of the best is that they often come with MIDI files that can be an excellent teacher for how to humanize notes in a DAW.
11. No one doing indie games has $300.00 per audio minute. Success from the indie game sector comes more by showcasing artistic achievement through its humble roots, not trying to do what AAA game studios are already doing. Know this, accept this, and use it to your advantage while builsing up a career in game audio.
12. The more artistic a person is, the less skill they have for conventional thinking ideas in audio like how business really works, humility, common sense and even at times common decency to others. This is not a guaranteed exclusion, but the "artist's brain" phenomenon really does seem to be true.
13. You can work on next to no music for years and years and suddenly be chosen for a big project seeming for no reason. Don't question it too much, just give thanks to the god or powers you believe in and do it.
14. Don't count on tempo-sync'd loops and samples to work correctly. Many do, but many also do not for whatever reasons. It's better to just get a BPM that works innately for the samples' speed you want to use.
15. Every composer, sooner or later, does work for free, undercuts a friend/competitor for a job. If they say they don't, they are most likely lying. Also, every composer eventually pirates stuff as well.
16. It doesn't matter what tricks you need to do to get a track done (just don't use illegal samples!), just get it done somehow. Arranging and recording music is supposed to be that difficult.
17. Have a Plan B and Plan C for all music you're working on, as it's incredibly easy for that music to not go used or be cout out somewhere else.
18. Don't worry if you use a loop or phrase or sound that's been used ad nauseum or something. It turns out the niche for LIKING recognizable sounds is bigger than we though.
19. Uploading MIDIs from Valkyrie Profile, Secret of Mana, Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy VI, Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy Tactics and some of Tim Follin's work to your DAW and studying them will teach you pretty much everything you need to know about doing game audio.
20. When approaching someone for possible music work, be bright and cheery, but don't be desperate. Act like a seasoned professional, even if you aren't, and use a tone that says "I can do this work, but I don't need this work." Talk in length about the fine details of how you do things and how this works whether they might understand it or not, as it creates for you an air that the client thinks "Hmm, this guy knows his business." and helps keep it so the client respects you enough not to take advantage of you. If they leave soon after you establish this light bit of dominance in the conversation, then it wasn't meant to be.
These things are obviously not objective, and they are subject to much scrutiny and debate themselves, but potentially useful stuff I'd like to impart all the same.

Would anyone believe I've actually become a composer who's managed to grab a series of worthwhile gigs and absorbed enough commissions to kinda be sick of working on music? I know I don't. A decade and a half of putting in tens of thousands of hours behind a DAW has been yielding some returns and I've reached heights no one should take for granted.
From my vantage point, I thought I would like to share some of the less-talked-about things I see from this elevation that could be useful advice to newer composers or even some older ones. In no particular order, here we go:
1. There is no recipe or gimmick for success. If there was, we'd all know it and use it by now. It's all pretty much random. All you can do is get creative with your ideas and execute them with the best audio quality you can.
2. Only upgrade your sound and studio if you can't produce quality work with what you've got anymore. You don't need 18 orchestral symphony libraries to make a quality orchestral track or soundtrack, you don't need the latest version of this or that for everything, you don't need loads of hardware just to pretend you're staying current. Master what you have before you start thinking you need to spend $$$ on more shit.
3. Synth nerds are the worst people to get hardware advice from. Sorry, but it's true. Nothing is ever as good as the best there was from the 1970s or 1980s, and therefore nothing is ever worthwhile enough. If you have your eye on a keyboard or hardware item, listen to it, think on it for a while, think on it, think on it for a long time and decide if it's really for you or not. No one else can decide that for you, you have to decide that for yourself.
4. Doing a bunch of songs at the same time and in stages is better than trying to knock out one song at a time. This is because you need a break from audio both to give your ears a rest and also to let your judgment become less biased. While doing a song, there are the stages of beginning it, working on it and finalizing it. You get into these stages naturally, and it is surprisingly easier to do these stages with multiple songs than just one.
5. To expand on #4, after a few years of experience in finishing and finalizing tracks, you start learning a skill for a music ear that can hear where your songs are supposed to go, rather than where they go now. It's almost a 6th sense in a way - you start hearing and expecting it to go this way when where you actually have it going is wrong. You can also hear what ISN'T there and what needs to be there. It's kinda freaky, really.
6. Some people try to write and arrange a track starting with the melody and designing everything around it. This is dumb. Building a song is like building a house - you start from the ground up (drums and bass), then the walls and body of the house (chords and arps and accompaniment), and then the roof (usually the melody). Doing it with the melody first is like putting the furniture in a field in a certain way and designing the house around all that.
7. Rely on as few people for your songs and projects at any given time as possible. Other people have lives and crises, too, and you would be better off doing or learning to do things you need yourself than hope their timeframes work out for you.
8. All business success requires risk to fuel it, however not all risk is the same. Being smart and meticulously deciding where your money is best to go and getting clever and resourceful with your situation could still create the concoction that provides success without putting you in danger.
9. "Value" or "reward" for your audio work is not always money. This is a VERY controversial and unpopular opinion, and there are good reasons for that, but the fact remains those who only consider value and reward to be coin or cash will find it much harder to navigate throguh business success here.
10. Even if you hate loops products, many are worth getting anyway for a variety of reasons. One of the best is that they often come with MIDI files that can be an excellent teacher for how to humanize notes in a DAW.
11. No one doing indie games has $300.00 per audio minute. Success from the indie game sector comes more by showcasing artistic achievement through its humble roots, not trying to do what AAA game studios are already doing. Know this, accept this, and use it to your advantage while builsing up a career in game audio.
12. The more artistic a person is, the less skill they have for conventional thinking ideas in audio like how business really works, humility, common sense and even at times common decency to others. This is not a guaranteed exclusion, but the "artist's brain" phenomenon really does seem to be true.
13. You can work on next to no music for years and years and suddenly be chosen for a big project seeming for no reason. Don't question it too much, just give thanks to the god or powers you believe in and do it.
14. Don't count on tempo-sync'd loops and samples to work correctly. Many do, but many also do not for whatever reasons. It's better to just get a BPM that works innately for the samples' speed you want to use.
15. Every composer, sooner or later, does work for free, undercuts a friend/competitor for a job. If they say they don't, they are most likely lying. Also, every composer eventually pirates stuff as well.
16. It doesn't matter what tricks you need to do to get a track done (just don't use illegal samples!), just get it done somehow. Arranging and recording music is supposed to be that difficult.
17. Have a Plan B and Plan C for all music you're working on, as it's incredibly easy for that music to not go used or be cout out somewhere else.
18. Don't worry if you use a loop or phrase or sound that's been used ad nauseum or something. It turns out the niche for LIKING recognizable sounds is bigger than we though.
19. Uploading MIDIs from Valkyrie Profile, Secret of Mana, Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy VI, Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy Tactics and some of Tim Follin's work to your DAW and studying them will teach you pretty much everything you need to know about doing game audio.
20. When approaching someone for possible music work, be bright and cheery, but don't be desperate. Act like a seasoned professional, even if you aren't, and use a tone that says "I can do this work, but I don't need this work." Talk in length about the fine details of how you do things and how this works whether they might understand it or not, as it creates for you an air that the client thinks "Hmm, this guy knows his business." and helps keep it so the client respects you enough not to take advantage of you. If they leave soon after you establish this light bit of dominance in the conversation, then it wasn't meant to be.
These things are obviously not objective, and they are subject to much scrutiny and debate themselves, but potentially useful stuff I'd like to impart all the same.

You did it for LESS than nothing.
You did it for ME!

A joke? You mean I started all these Ice Cap remixes for nothing?! 

I approve highly of this year's Easter Fools' Day joke.

He's in good health and spirits as we've gathered from social media, but I might actually suggest staying away from his social media stuff if you're a big fan like I am/was. When I was friends with him on Facebook, I kept seeing him pick apart Roland for their Cloud service pretty much every time they made a post for while (I counted like 6 times he did this), bordering on irate trolling, and he has a habit of making paranoid posts about technology spying on him that's kinda jarring to see. He once made a post questioning Facebook's algorithm for posts and ads targetting certain things about him, I tried to assure him it's not quite what he thinks it is (and gently, I swear), and he subsequently accused me on being on Facebook's payroll to dissuade his thoughts on it in a pretty rant-y way. Months after that, he posted some paranoia about Amazon's Alexa spying on him for marketing purposes and, again, I tried to assure him that that technology really isn't supposed to do that - and boy did he get angry.
Needless to say, I'm not friends with him on Facebook anymore and lost quite a bit of respect for him to the point where I don't feel bad telling this story.
Sorry to derail the thread from appreciation to this, but while I report he's in good physical health, I do suggest staying away from his social media if you want to retain appreciation for him. He seems to not be able to appreciate some of his own fans when they try to help make sure he's not having an episode of something. :S

It's a common progression for creative people, even experienced ones.
You can read up on a what a lot of other people have done to break through the point of losing excitement to do a track and actually do the work of finishing it, but I think in general what you really need to be told is just to FINISH YOUR DAMN TRACKS. No tricks, no shortcuts, just sit down and get ready to go through the bog of working on it regardless if you feel interested or excited by it or not. I say there's not much good a lot of more specific advice can do for you because it's all as unique a process to you as your music style is. You won't know what the best way for you to get "motivation" to get through it until you do it. And do it again. And again. And again.
To be serious about doing an art means to employ a dedication to its discipline - in other words, get ready to sacrifice lots of time that won't be fun. Everyone here that ever got successful at music had to go through the same ritual and just accept it as part of what we do. I get the feeling what you're running into is just losing that OMG THIS IS AWESOME feeling we all get when starting something and getting the idea this could really be something and then just quitting it when that "high" runs out. Without experience in getting through the other end of it and going through the meticulous stages of making sure every single little fucking thing in it is perfect, you won't get through that barrier.
The encouragement part is, once you start getting experience in doing it, it can really build up quick. In fact, I personally make it a point in the soundtracks and albums and stuff I do now is to start a bunch at a time, work on them until I feel like I've got them at a good place, and then go back and do the "finishing" part for all of them in a "stage". I don't get obsessed with making sure I focus and start and finish one track at a time anymore because I've personally found that I work better in "batch bursts", what I call them. I'll get a bunch of tracks up to "nearly finished" stages, then one day I'll just burst right through and do the finishing stages for all of them in a single day because where my mind and energy at is "finish the job". No more "come up with something that could be something" or "ok, start getting some next parts going for this shit", it's "ok, the composition and arrangement is done, now to finish them off".
So, in actuality, you accidentally painted yourself into a good corner where now you can work on building a shitload of "finishing" experience. Start with one track, take as much time to make it perfect as you need, finish it and release it. Then do the same for another. Then the same for another. Then do 3 with a made up weekly schedule for each. Release. Then another 3. Release. And so on.
I tell you straight, few things in the world are as satisfying as finishing a song after you went through the not-fun part of doing it. It's like a non-gross orgasm that lasts all day. Then you realize you're quickly getting better and faster at doing it because the satisfaction of finishing a song is also a major EXP. POINTS burst. It really feels like you level up the first time you get an Ocremix posted, then your first whole album finished, then your first album published by a small label and so on. And those experience points don't go away as quickly as some other achievements.
So there's your motivation - sit your ass back in that chair and get to work and you'll get day-long orgasms you don't necessarily have to wipe off, and then find out you secretly jumped from Level 1 to Level 8 in just a few days and secretly picked up some "abilities" along the way, like being able to hear missing notes, missing instruments, wrong instruments and whole wrong sections just by listening to your own WIP a few times.
You'll be surprised how accurate I am here.

It's a common progression for creative people, even experienced ones.
You can read up on a what a lot of other people have done to break through the point of losing excitement to do a track and actually do the work of finishing it, but I think in general what you really need to be told is just to FINISH YOUR DAMN TRACKS. No tricks, no shortcuts, just sit down and get ready to go through the bog of working on it regardless if you feel interested or excited by it or not. I say there's not much good a lot of more specific advice can do for you because it's all as unique a process to you as your music style is. You won't know what the best way for you to get "motivation" to get through it until you do it. And do it again. And again. And again.
To be serious about doing an art means to employ a dedication to its discipline - in other words, get ready to sacrifice lots of time that won't be fun. Everyone here that ever got successful at music had to go through the same ritual and just accept it as part of what we do. I get the feeling what you're running into is just losing that OMG THIS IS AWESOME feeling we all get when starting something and getting the idea this could really be something and then just quitting it when that "high" runs out. Without experience in getting through the other end of it and going through the meticulous stages of making sure every single little fucking thing in it is perfect, you won't get through that barrier.
The encouragement part is, once you start getting experience in doing it, it can really build up quick. In fact, I personally make it a point in the soundtracks and albums and stuff I do now is to start a bunch at a time, work on them until I feel like I've got them at a good place, and then go back and do the "finishing" part for all of them in a "stage". I don't get obsessed with making sure I focus and start and finish one track at a time anymore because I've personally found that I work better in "batch bursts", what I call them. I'll get a bunch of tracks up to "nearly finished" stages, then one day I'll just burst right through and do the finishing stages for all of them in a single day because where my mind and energy at is "finish the job". No more "come up with something that could be something" or "ok, start getting some next parts going for this shit", it's "ok, the composition and arrangement is done, now to finish them off".
So, in actuality, you accidentally painted yourself into a good corner where now you can work on building a shitload of "finishing" experience. Start with one track, take as much time to make it perfect as you need, finish it and release it. Then do the same for another. Then the same for another. Then do 3 with a made up weekly schedule for each. Release. Then another 3. Release. And so on.
I tell you straight, few things in the world are as satisfying as finishing a song after you went through the not-fun part of doing it. It's like a non-gross orgasm that lasts all day. Then you realize you're quickly getting better and faster at doing it because the satisfaction of finishing a song is also a major EXP. POINTS burst. It really feels like you level up the first time you get an Ocremix posted, then your first whole album finished, then your first album published by a small label and so on. And those experience points don't go away as quickly as some other achievements.
So there's your motivation - sit your ass back in that chair and get to work and you'll get day-long orgasms you don't necessarily have to wipe off, and then find out you secretly jumped from Level 1 to Level 8 in just a few days and secretly picked up some "abilities" along the way, like being able to hear missing notes, missing instruments, wrong instruments and whole wrong sections just by listening to your own WIP a few times.
You'll be surprised how accurate I am here.

It's a common progression for creative people, even experienced ones.
You can read up on a what a lot of other people have done to break through the point of losing excitement to do a track and actually do the work of finishing it, but I think in general what you really need to be told is just to FINISH YOUR DAMN TRACKS. No tricks, no shortcuts, just sit down and get ready to go through the bog of working on it regardless if you feel interested or excited by it or not. I say there's not much good a lot of more specific advice can do for you because it's all as unique a process to you as your music style is. You won't know what the best way for you to get "motivation" to get through it until you do it. And do it again. And again. And again.
To be serious about doing an art means to employ a dedication to its discipline - in other words, get ready to sacrifice lots of time that won't be fun. Everyone here that ever got successful at music had to go through the same ritual and just accept it as part of what we do. I get the feeling what you're running into is just losing that OMG THIS IS AWESOME feeling we all get when starting something and getting the idea this could really be something and then just quitting it when that "high" runs out. Without experience in getting through the other end of it and going through the meticulous stages of making sure every single little fucking thing in it is perfect, you won't get through that barrier.
The encouragement part is, once you start getting experience in doing it, it can really build up quick. In fact, I personally make it a point in the soundtracks and albums and stuff I do now is to start a bunch at a time, work on them until I feel like I've got them at a good place, and then go back and do the "finishing" part for all of them in a "stage". I don't get obsessed with making sure I focus and start and finish one track at a time anymore because I've personally found that I work better in "batch bursts", what I call them. I'll get a bunch of tracks up to "nearly finished" stages, then one day I'll just burst right through and do the finishing stages for all of them in a single day because where my mind and energy at is "finish the job". No more "come up with something that could be something" or "ok, start getting some next parts going for this shit", it's "ok, the composition and arrangement is done, now to finish them off".
So, in actuality, you accidentally painted yourself into a good corner where now you can work on building a shitload of "finishing" experience. Start with one track, take as much time to make it perfect as you need, finish it and release it. Then do the same for another. Then the same for another. Then do 3 with a made up weekly schedule for each. Release. Then another 3. Release. And so on.
I tell you straight, few things in the world are as satisfying as finishing a song after you went through the not-fun part of doing it. It's like a non-gross orgasm that lasts all day. Then you realize you're quickly getting better and faster at doing it because the satisfaction of finishing a song is also a major EXP. POINTS burst. It really feels like you level up the first time you get an Ocremix posted, then your first whole album finished, then your first album published by a small label and so on. And those experience points don't go away as quickly as some other achievements.
So there's your motivation - sit your ass back in that chair and get to work and you'll get day-long orgasms you don't necessarily have to wipe off, and then find out you secretly jumped from Level 1 to Level 8 in just a few days and secretly picked up some "abilities" along the way, like being able to hear missing notes, missing instruments, wrong instruments and whole wrong sections just by listening to your own WIP a few times.
You'll be surprised how accurate I am here.

It's a common progression for creative people, even experienced ones.
You can read up on a what a lot of other people have done to break through the point of losing excitement to do a track and actually do the work of finishing it, but I think in general what you really need to be told is just to FINISH YOUR DAMN TRACKS. No tricks, no shortcuts, just sit down and get ready to go through the bog of working on it regardless if you feel interested or excited by it or not. I say there's not much good a lot of more specific advice can do for you because it's all as unique a process to you as your music style is. You won't know what the best way for you to get "motivation" to get through it until you do it. And do it again. And again. And again.
To be serious about doing an art means to employ a dedication to its discipline - in other words, get ready to sacrifice lots of time that won't be fun. Everyone here that ever got successful at music had to go through the same ritual and just accept it as part of what we do. I get the feeling what you're running into is just losing that OMG THIS IS AWESOME feeling we all get when starting something and getting the idea this could really be something and then just quitting it when that "high" runs out. Without experience in getting through the other end of it and going through the meticulous stages of making sure every single little fucking thing in it is perfect, you won't get through that barrier.
The encouragement part is, once you start getting experience in doing it, it can really build up quick. In fact, I personally make it a point in the soundtracks and albums and stuff I do now is to start a bunch at a time, work on them until I feel like I've got them at a good place, and then go back and do the "finishing" part for all of them in a "stage". I don't get obsessed with making sure I focus and start and finish one track at a time anymore because I've personally found that I work better in "batch bursts", what I call them. I'll get a bunch of tracks up to "nearly finished" stages, then one day I'll just burst right through and do the finishing stages for all of them in a single day because where my mind and energy at is "finish the job". No more "come up with something that could be something" or "ok, start getting some next parts going for this shit", it's "ok, the composition and arrangement is done, now to finish them off".
So, in actuality, you accidentally painted yourself into a good corner where now you can work on building a shitload of "finishing" experience. Start with one track, take as much time to make it perfect as you need, finish it and release it. Then do the same for another. Then the same for another. Then do 3 with a made up weekly schedule for each. Release. Then another 3. Release. And so on.
I tell you straight, few things in the world are as satisfying as finishing a song after you went through the not-fun part of doing it. It's like a non-gross orgasm that lasts all day. Then you realize you're quickly getting better and faster at doing it because the satisfaction of finishing a song is also a major EXP. POINTS burst. It really feels like you level up the first time you get an Ocremix posted, then your first whole album finished, then your first album published by a small label and so on. And those experience points don't go away as quickly as some other achievements.
So there's your motivation - sit your ass back in that chair and get to work and you'll get day-long orgasms you don't necessarily have to wipe off, and then find out you secretly jumped from Level 1 to Level 8 in just a few days and secretly picked up some "abilities" along the way, like being able to hear missing notes, missing instruments, wrong instruments and whole wrong sections just by listening to your own WIP a few times.
You'll be surprised how accurate I am here.

there's no reason your version of FL wouldn't run on w10. i still have fl11 installed on my music pc as well for a few things.

I personally think it's VERY appropriate that the Secret of Mana project will be released before this one - even with all that implies on the development speed here. Surely the game that precedes this one should come out before this one, yes?
I've not had a ***damn moment to breathe since my last post. I am in OCR Discord a lot but I'm always working in addition to that too (the chat function is to allow me some mental stimulation as I multi-task to keep going. I want to compare it to an engine of some kind, but I don't know much about engines). I have some new work that came in right as I need to help cover the cost of my new car, but I think this weekend will give me the opportunity I seek for the work I need to do here.
Thank you for your continued patience with me. I'm sorry I still have to ask for patience as I'm having yet another one of the most punishing holiday seasons I've ever experienced, but I'll be dead before I give up!
And even then, I'll try to pull some strings behind the mortal veil to keep pushing along as well.

I'm on board.

I personally think it's VERY appropriate that the Secret of Mana project will be released before this one - even with all that implies on the development speed here. Surely the game that precedes this one should come out before this one, yes?
I've not had a ***damn moment to breathe since my last post. I am in OCR Discord a lot but I'm always working in addition to that too (the chat function is to allow me some mental stimulation as I multi-task to keep going. I want to compare it to an engine of some kind, but I don't know much about engines). I have some new work that came in right as I need to help cover the cost of my new car, but I think this weekend will give me the opportunity I seek for the work I need to do here.
Thank you for your continued patience with me. I'm sorry I still have to ask for patience as I'm having yet another one of the most punishing holiday seasons I've ever experienced, but I'll be dead before I give up!
And even then, I'll try to pull some strings behind the mortal veil to keep pushing along as well.

Good lord. I might live long enough to see Disney own Nintendo at this rate. <:O

reducing it to 105$, and including the charger and 128gb SD at this point. just want it gone.
 
edit - sold.