Cerrax

Yep, it's official. I have the MAGFlu (M1N1). Doctors say it is terminal and most sufferers die within a year or so. The only known treatment is a hearty Music And Gaming Festive environment. But some symptoms can be treated at your local OCR and clinics such as ThaSauce, VGMix, etc. So, anybody else suffering from MAGFlu?

I'm leavin right now! MAGFest Ho!

The toughest part about sequencing a MIDI orchestra is that the way it appears on sheet music is not how it will work in a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). There's two major problems with writing in Finale and moving to Logic/Cubase/whatever. 1) Using Garritan or some other sample library with Finale is pretty basic and it will end up sounding like a very elaborate MIDI tune instead of a flourishing orchestra. Finale does not allow fine tuning of the actual playing of the instruments, it merely guesses which samples to use for the articulations. It sounds quite unnatural most of the time. 2) Writing a tune in Finale and then making a MIDI of it and sending it to Logic/Cubase can work, but often times, methods used in Finale do not translate well into a generic MIDI and thus some of the writing can be lost in translation. Your best bet if you're dead set on using a DAW is to get familiar with it's scoring/piano roll/matrix editor/whatever (every company has a different name for the damn thing) and the sample library you intend to use. A convincing MIDI orchestra comes from knowing how to write the phrases correctly and utilizing the samples to their greatest potential. Truly if you already have a handle on GarageBand, it should be adequate for your needs. I've done many many tunes in GB that sound quite good. If you have some money for some nice samples like Garritan or EWQLSO (Apple's own Symphonic Orchestra JamPack isn't too bad either for the price), they do work with GarageBand. on that note: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26911

Ugh. Uncharted left much to be desired. If FFXIII is like Uncharted, I will not buy it.

I've given up on Final Fantasy. FFIX was the last one I really got into. I only played FFX for the battle system. FFXI and FFXII were just embarrassing.

I'm really interested in the battle system. After the groan-inducing systems in FFXII, I'm hoping this one is better. Its headed by the same guy that did the battle systems for FFX and Front Mission (both of which I absolutely loved)

First of all this belongs in the remixing forum, but I digress.. as a fellow OS X user, I would say for MIDI you want either Cubase or Logic Express/Pro. I've also heard a few OS X users say they really enjoy Digital Performer. Logic only uses Audio Units (AU) which some plug-ins are not available as and many freeware plug-ins do not come as AU either (though most "professional" plug-ins and large companies will provide AU versions) Cubase can use VST but not AU. Logic and Cubase are able to competently handle MIDI and real audio in the same environment which is very useful. Also, Logic has lots of features like the Scoring Editor to help you actually layout the MIDI as sheet music a la Sibelius/Finale/etc. Logic also uses ReWire, which allows you to route MIDI data from Reason into Logic, which in your situation, may be very helpful. ProTools is (from my experience) quite poor with MIDI and is generally only used for audio editing. As I've said before, Logic and Cubase can do both very well in the same environment. That being said, ProTools has a lot of nice features for audio editing that are better than they are in Logic and Cubase. Logic carries a much heftier price tag than ProTools LE or Cubase but it also does a bit more than either of them. In the end, it really comes down to personal tastes. I prefer Logic because of the multi-function capability of it's environment, but others swear by ProTools audio editing or Cubase's plug-in versatility. hope that helped a little.

-Nintendo Monopoly -couple of movies -some cables for my laptop -nice leather gloves -Symphony of the Night t-shirt -Dr. Horrible calendar -Pittsburgh Penguins t-shirt Good Christmas

Sweet. This is awesome! I just DLed the EWQL Starter and I aslo got a link for the Kore2 player and sample set from NI. Many new music toys to play with. I also got my friend the Pigtronix Mothership pedal, but I'll probably use it as much as he does

Me and nonsensicalexis are leaving the Burgh at 10 or 11 so we will be in DC by like 3 or 4.

Sorry Willrock. I PMed Darkesword because I wasn't sure how we signed up. But just for everyone's info, I am METAL MAN.

So for the MAGFest New Years Eve thing, it's got a James Bond thing going on. The poster says "dress in Bond attire" and I expect OCR peoples to show up in some snazzy apparel for the New Years Eve party. It would be awesome.

So for the MAGFest New Years Eve thing, it's got a James Bond thing going on. The poster says "dress in Bond attire" and I expect OCR peoples to show up in some snazzy apparel for the New Years Eve party. It would be awesome.

Speaking of getting shafted, why is the demo only on PSN? I couldn't find it anywhere on XBox Live. EDIT- Apparently they're waiting till the 24th to put it on XBox Live. I'm guessing this has to do with competing against God of War 3 in the PS3 market.

I've told numerous people about the site. I've brought a few friends who like to remix to the forums. nonsensicalexis is the only one who stayed ;(

For great action RPGs look no further than Enix during the Super NES days. You already listed Terranigma. But the spiritual predecessors to it are all Enix games that are very loosely related to one another. Soul Blazer Highly addictive. Graphics take a backseat to level design and combat (which is a good thing) Illusion of Gaia Not much in the way of depth, but an excellently executed action RPG with beautiful graphics and great story. ActRaiser 1 + 2 More of an action game than an RPG but it features some Sim City type gameplay as well. Square also did a few action RPGs back in the SNES days called Secret of Evermore and Secret of Mana. As for newer titles, well there's old standbys: TES III: Morrowind TES IV: Oblivion Fallout 3 (All 3 of the above have Game of the Year Editions with tons of extra content from the DLC added) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1+ 2 Mass Effect (Basically anything from BioWare or Bethesda) and I really enjoyed Borderlands. definitely doesn't lack any depth (literally millions of guns) and you can customize your character pretty far beyond the four basic classes to choose from.

Hot damn this is fresh! I dig it. It feels like its begging for a vocal track! I have no idea how it would work, but I think a nice female vocal could work in there somewhere. Overal, wow. Lovin it.

I'm not talking about linearity. Some of my favorite games (see Mirror's Edge) are very very linear. I'm talking more about control schemes that really don't give you any option beyond what the game wants you to do. Stuff like Assassin's Creed and Uncharted, where almost every button press is extremely context sensitive and there's nothing left for the player to do but press the button at the right time. It's not fun at all, I feel like a lot of creativity is stifled by a developer wanting smoother animations or more visually powerful scenes. If you watch a match of an FPS, it doesn't look very compelling to a passerby. There's a big ugly HUD along the corners, the camera is almost never steady. You can't see yourself and usually the camera doesn't focus on anyone long enough to see what they are doing either. The whole scene seems like Cloverfield on cocaine. But to the player, its a very intense experience. The games I am referencing seem to give up some parts (if not all) of this formula to make the result LOOK more impressive, but it's just not as satisfying to me.

Is anyone else noticing a rise in video games that are just movies with interactive scenes? It's really starting to bother me. I have read so many good reviews on Uncharted 2: Among Theives and I finally got to play it at my friends house. Well actually, I mostly just watched cutscenes and responded to a few scripted events. The times when I did get to play, the game was so linear and unexciting that I ended up turning it off. The game is drop dead gorgeous and intense, epic, and spectacular are all words I would use to describe the look of the game. But the FEEL was not there. This is a trend that has been going for a while. I first noticed it with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I read how good it was supposed to be and I loved the original PoP games, so I wanted to see the glorious return. But the game, with all it's interesting puzzles and intense battles scenes and lush playgrounds, ended up being more of a "turn the camera and hit this button" adventure. Like a long drawn out quick time event. I understand their idea was to make a simple control scheme with complex results, but I didn't ever feel in control of the character. The fights aren't button mashers, but there's little skill involved either. With only two buttons and extravagant motion capture taking up a lot of time in between, it felt slow, bland, and unwieldy. It looked amazing, but it didn't feel that way. Now we have Assassin's Creed. Same guys that did Prince of Persia, but they promise a new control scheme that gives us control over every body part. Maybe a little over compensation for PoP's lack of options, but it interested me nonetheless. Unfortunately we lost even more control. While PoP still had solid platforming and climbing, AC gives no feeling of scaling a tower, or leaping across a rooftop. Just hold down the button as you move forward and Altair automatically compromises any obstacle he comes across. Where's the challenge? Where's the fun? Is scaling a roof while escaping armed guards supposed to be this boring? Again, it was a spectacular scene, but I never felt like it was me doing those things. It was the game making Altair leap those buildings. I didn't have to time my jumps correctly. I didn't have to accurately leap from one beam to the next. All I had to do was steer him, and make sure I had the button held down. Now we comes to Uncharted 2. The game's beginning is as stunning as any Hollywood blockbuster. But it's loaded to the brim with quick time events, in-game cutscenes and heavily scripted events. I even died once because I thought it was a cutscene but I was still in control of the character! The game tells you nothing, gives you nothing and expects you to know exactly what's going on. Watching someone play this game is awe inspiring. But to actually play is little more than a yawn. tl;dr I like games with HUDs and complex controls. Any thoughts?

Don't know how much power metal you like, but that's pretty much my forte. There's a lot of generic crap in there but there are some really unique ones that haven't been mentioned yet: Stormwarrior- They seem very typical at first, but these damn songs will get stuck in your head! Sabaton- Really good arrangements and plenty of skill mixed with a very unique almost growling type singer. Serenity- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQp0q4jASZw Straight up generic singer, but the arrangements are excellent. Plus they do sometimes switch up vocal between standard singing and growling/screaming. Liquid Tension Experiment- Not really power metal, but it's pretty much Dream Theater without the whiny singing. Easily some of the most enjoyable truly progressive metal out right now. The Black Mages- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aha5Vcshz2c You've probably heard of them already, but just in case. Final Fantasy + Progrssive Metal = WIN. Oh and pretty much every metal band that shows up at MAGFest: Armcannon- http://www.armcannon.com/audio.php Entertainment System- http://www.myspace.com/entertainmentsystem The Smash Brothers- http://www.thesmashbrothers.com/ Year 200X- http://www.myspace.com/year200x Metroid Metal (Stemage)- http://www.metroidmetal.com/songs/ Powerglove- http://www.myspace.com/powerglove

Typing Of The Dead. Easily the best way to get young boys to stay in front of a keyboard and learn to type efficiently. and Mario's Time Machine actually helped me retain a lot of history info.

Yeah we need to update the first post. It would help a lot of people find rooms and rides and would also get a clear idea of what events are going on before and after MAGFest.

Isn't that supposed to be out in 2011?

Me and my friends saw the video last night and we were so drunk and high and laughing uncontrollably at it. At least I was..... <.<........>.>