Kanthos

I was just asking because it sounds like you're playing with nylon strings. It's a really neat texture that fits well with the atmosphere of the song.

Happy birthday! Though I haven't had the time to try out your various IRC scripts as much lately (work has been much busier the last few months), I definitely enjoyed them in the past and will surely amuse myself with them again.

Birthday question for you: what type of guitar effects and what type of guitar and strings did you use on Dragon Song? best. remix. ever.

Thanks for the input. I asked around on #ocremix and #ocrwip and got some of the same suggestions. The one thing that seems obvious is that implementing a system with multiple instances of a VST talking to a single instance of a standalone program is much too complicated from a programming perspective, and will probably waste resources (very important when you're taking away from resources you can use to load more samples). If nothing else, someone suggested using MIDI Yoke to connect my program to Cubase. It doesn't surprise me that something like logic or live do that kind of thing. I know that Cubase can at least do filters (I use them in my current performance setup), and can probably do more as well. I just don't want to go out and buy Live when I'm happy with Cubase and have other things I could better afford to throw money at. Obviously, I'd imagine switching tracks in live is easy, and it's probably not that hard to make a track switch also send a bunch of PC and CC events. My concern with it would be whether or not it lets me have a really large number of tracks (I'm talking 30-50 two-manual organ presets, the same number of one-manual organ and piano combinations, the same number of one-manual organ/rhodes combinations, the same number of one-manual organ/rhodes splits with piano, plus a few other tracks for synths). If so, would the data be easy to manage in Live? Would I get a good user interface that showed me all the controls I wanted to see using large enough images so that I could clearly see it on a 1680x1050 laptop a few feet away? Would the interface reflect my hardware in terms of how controls are grouped, visualized, and displayed? My suspicion is that anything I could get, whether free or otherwise, would either not be able to do the transformations the way I'd want them or wouldn't have the kind of interface I'd like. At any rate, it's not like writing something would be a waste of time, as I'm looking at doing it in C#, a language I don't yet know, so learning it through a project like this makes me a lot more marketable.

If you made it through the description of the program, I have a few questions. 1) Is this something you'd want to use? 2) Is this something you'd pay to use, whether as a fixed payment or a donation? How much would you think is reasonable (assuming, of course, that it looks good, behaves well, is bug-free, doesn't use much memory, etc. I wouldn't ask people to even donate anything for something that's buggy or poor quality). 3) In the description, is there anything that sounds like a bad idea? 4) Are there any other features I should consider with this project? 5) If you use a DAW other than Cubase, does your DAW support VSTs that transform MIDI data? What DAW do you use? (Obviously, this idea won't work for you if your DAW can't handle plugins that transform MIDI data before it gets processed by a VSTI).

I do a fair bit of live performance, and I'm not happy with my setup. I've got two MIDI keyboards and a MIDI foot controller that all interface with my laptop, and I find it fairly hard to get what I want, plus there are a few other weird quirks. At the moment, changing sounds means changing MIDI channels on both keyboards, probably changing the program on both keyboards, and possibly hitting a few stompboxes on my foot controller to change effects. I also can't reuse hardware controls across multiple plugins easily, without having them affect both (i.e. I can't selectively use a foot pedal to control wah for one instance of guitar rig at some times and volume in another instance of guitar rig at other times). I also use my laptop for playing, and find that it's hard to see the things I want; while Guitar Rig has a nice live view, the B4-II shows me much more of the organ than I'd want to see, and I can't ever tell what the drawbar positions are from the display (the numbers are too small). I'm thinking of the following solution. I'll write a light-weight VST plugin that will act as a MIDI transformer: it'll inspect every MIDI event and either pass it through, filter it out, or change the channel. Setting up a project in your DAW would basically involve creating MIDI channels, Instrument channels, Effects channels, and adding an instance of my MIDI plugin as the first insert on each MIDI channel. The plugin would have a minimal interface; all you'd have to do with it is set the output channel. There would also be a standalone program which would have two views: one where you set up your configuration, and a live view. I'd make it standalone so that it's not limited by the interface of your DAW. The basic idea of setup would be this: 1) Set each of your MIDI devices to output on a different channel (or, some/all devices to the same channel, if that's what you want). 2) Set up a virtual device for each hardware device in the program (give it a name and say which MIDI channel it will send on). Of course, multiple devices can map to the same channel. If you use different hardware in different places (I have two keyboards at home but only bring one to church and use it with the church's upright digital piano), you can use this ability to have the same setup in different locations *independent of hardware* (as long as you set the MIDI channels correctly on your hardware; see #1) 3) Define a number of Instruments in the software. Most likely, these will correspond to the VSTIs you plan to load, but you can define multiple Instruments for a VSTI to handle transposition and/or limited ranges. For example, if I'm playing organ by itself, I'll use both keyboards for the organ, like a real organ. I'd define two Instruments for the organ here (one per channel; B4-II uses channel 1 for the upper manual and channel 2 for the lower channel by default). But if I'm playing mainly piano and want some organ chords and some Rhodes in a song, I'll use one keyboard for the piano and split the other, using half for the rhodes and half for the organ. I'll likely want to transpose the organ and Rhodes so that both sound in the best range for the instrument, regardless of where I'm playing. I can do this with my Axiom, but it takes a few button presses on the keyboard to get this working, plus more to change the output channel and patch for each of the two instruments in the split. I'd like this to happen *automatically* when I change patches. 4) Define Control Groups and Controls. A group is just a logical grouping, such as grouping the 9 drawbar controls on an Axiom together. Each control should describe the hardware control; the software should know what channel and CC number the hardware control will be sending on. Besides the input, you can define the default output values for a control. 5) Set up banks and patches. Banks should be obvious; a patch in this sense has a few parts. One is a mapping of the virtual devices to instruments. You'd accomplish a split by mapping a device to two instruments that don't overlap. You could also have the same part played on two different instruments this way. Patches also contain control states (whether toggle controls are on or off, and what the starting values for pedals and other continuous controls are; this would let you default your distortion effect on for some patches but not others) and can optionally override any control values (for example, I'd use a lot of organ patches, and the organ uses the mod wheel to toggle the rotation speed of the leslie speaker, but if I use a synth that has the mod wheel hard-coded to control some synth parameter, I can override the control settings that change only for the patches that use that synth). Patches will also have actions they can perform when they're toggled on, so you could use this to send program changes to your VSTIs or to do other hardware things that aren't otherwise captured by controls. 6) Switch into live view and drag the control groups around so that they make visual sense based on how they're used. My complaint in this regard with Guitar Rig is that I want to see the controls arranged the way they are on my hardware, not Guitar Rig's virtual Rig Kontrol, since I don't have a rig kontrol. You'll be able to drag and drop your groups, and also change the sizing so that you can see exactly what you want when you're in live mode. 7) Start playing. The VST plugins will be really light-weight (all they need to know is how to transform the channels and notes), and will talk with the standalone program so that the live view on the standalone program will be updated when a program change happens. This sounds a bit complicated, but the basic idea is that I should be able to do a program change on one piece of hardware, or by clicking the right area in the live view, and that should generate program changes for all the instruments I want, should set my effects the way I want, and should set controller values the way I want. And it should be easy to see and should match my control scheme. A goal in this is to make the setup as easy as possible. It'll be possible to copy patches and controls around and to apply changes to all selected objects much like iTunes (so I can override some values without changing all of them). Adding a new patch should be easy, as long as I know what VSTIs and Effects VSTs are being used and how I want to map the hardware controls to the controls in the VSTs.

Ok, it's really freaky that I started playing pixiemix and then went back to work for a few minutes, and right when pixie says "yay", the software I'm working on at work popped up with a map that I'd named "Yay". Weird. Happy birthday Jill! I'm definitely anticipating the new CD release,; based on the previews, it'll be great. Hope you're having a great day and that zircon does something extra special for you.

Happy birthday to one of my favourite remixers. Anyone who has multiple remixes that I listen to for more than an hour straight has a lot of talent

@Knives: Also, no, I didn't misuse orchestral, at least not in the sense that I understand the word to be. I'd say orchestral music was initially a subgenre of classical that includes all classical music written for the orchestra (as opposed to trios, quartets, chamber music, etc.) Orchestral nowadays isn't strictly classical; movie soundtracks often include other instruments or other world music influences. I've played through Warcraft II, III, and actively play World of Warcraft, and based on the definition I gave, can think of very little that I wouldn't call orchestral. You're clearly the expert here; how would you say I misused the term? I didn't say that it takes less knowledge to make electronic music. I said that it takes less knowledge of music theory to make electronic music, based on what I've been exposed to so far. Writing *any* kind of music well takes a lot of knowledge about the instruments you're writing for, be they synthesizers or strings or saxophones, and I'm not and never was making the point that electronic music is somehow easier. If anything, I find it much harder to make electronic music of any kind than to do classical or jazz, and that's because of my background. I have a lot of respect for the people who can tweak their hardware and synthesizers to get the precise result they want, but doing so requires no music theory (although it does of course require knowledge of how sound works, or at least a good ear, creative mind, and a lot of luck). I still hold that it takes less knowledge of music theory to make electronic music than classical or jazz, at least as far as the music I've been exposed to through this site and elsewhere (i.e. obviously not a complete picture of the genre, but given the level of the classical and jazz remixes in comparison to "professional" classical and jazz recordings and artists, it would shock me if the electronic music posted here was so significantly worse). Once again, all I'm saying is that *in my experience*, electronic music requires a different skill set from classical and jazz and doesn't require as much knowledge of music theory. By all means prove me wrong by pointing me in the direction of electronic music that pushes the envelope in terms of chords, voicings, use of modal music, complex time signatures, etc. If anything else, I'll likely appreciate such music more than most of what I've heard in the genre so far, as those are typically the qualities that I see in my favourite classical and jazz pieces.

@Gecko and Knives: Yes, I realize I misused techno. I'm not claiming to know a whole lot about the various types of electronic music. What I can say with certainty is that from the music that is posted on OCRemix, there is, *in general* more theory knowledge needed for most jazz and classical remixes than for most electronic mixes. It may not be easier to create electronic music, but based on what I know, which may not be the complete picture, it requires less knowledge of theory to understand and create electronic music than it does classical or jazz. I'm not trying to be elitist, and you'll notice that I'm not a posted mixer and don't even have anything in the WIP forums right now. I'm just stating my observed opinion. My point was that there are more mixers who favour various electronic genres here than jazz or classical, and that people tend to stick to the genres they're most comfortable with when making a new remix.

Not based on OCR site standards you wouldn't. Being a judge here isn't about whether or not you like a piece, or even how good it is. It's about whether the piece fits the standards. I didn't listen closely, but heard enough to agree with the other posters here as to why this remix likely wouldn't get a yes.

I got 6, or 12%. What's really sad is that two of the 6 I got were songs I only knew from remixes here.

Some Creative Labs soundcard provide a "What U Hear" loopback where the audio that would be sent to the soundcard's output is also looped back and used as a possible input source. If the Firebox card and drivers don't provide a loopback, only software that would look to set up loopback functionality explicitly (Cubase might do that, I think) would be able to take the output going through the Firebox and use it as input. This probably is an issue with the Firebox drivers, not with the video capture software. You could also try routing the Firebox's output to your onboard sound card's mic or line in. Other than dealing with possible latency issues (you'll likely have to shift the audio slightly to line up perfectly with the video unless your machine can handle video recording and processing the sound fast enough), that might do it. I do something similar to practice playing the organ: I have the backing tracks that came with my organ book playing in Winamp and I route my onboard sound card's line out to my Edirol UA-25's line in, and then play the B4-II which outputs on the UA-25. Obviously it's not well mixed, but it does the job. Going the other direction (Firebox to onboard) should be somewhat similar, although you might need a few adapters to go from red and white RCA to 1/4" to 1/8".

I'm far from being a polished mixer, but I suspect it has to do with complexity. The people who have training in orchestral arrangement aren't likely going to take an orchestral piece and remix it; there's less room for creativity than when taking a piece in some other genre. I'm a jazz/blues/funk kind of person, so I'm not going to touch something orchestral (particularly for a series I love) because all I'll do is cheapen it, and there are too many other songs that'd make better remixes in other genres. And for others with less knowledge of theory or who remix in less complicated genres like techno (not implying that techno remixers don't understand theory; zircon alone strongly disproves that), an orchestral piece can be too complicated musically either for the remixer to understand or for the genre the remixer wants to remix in.

Sorry. I was a dick for posting that, although it made some kind of sense in my head somehow. Your actual point is fine. And I will make a point to stay away from posting on the forums on a bad day.

Could you record the audio elsewhere (on a different machine, perhaps? Run the line out from the Firebox into the other machine's line in) and sync it to the video once you're done recording? Also, does your machine have on-board sound (or an internal sound card) in addition to the Firebox? You could always temporarily change your sound settings in Control Panel so that the Firebox is set as the default device and that applications only use the default device, and then reboot and that might get the video capture software to pick up the Firebox output.

Definite agreement here. Complexity of learning a controller scales with complexity of the games for which the controller will be used. And for the record, the Wii controller is easily the most complex controller used, in terms of degrees of freedom. For Wii games using non-traditional control schemes (i.e. no D-pad and buttons scheme, like using the Wii controller to play Virtual Console games), it just happens that the game designers haven't pushed the limits of the controller enough so you generally get something that's largely familiar to the user because they've done it before. If you'd never bowled before, you'd probably find Wii bowling more difficult than something like Mario 64. Basically, the Wii controller is inherently more complex but is *perceived* as being simpler to use because even a non-gamer has previous knowledge of how to do a lot of the actions done with the Wiimote.

I'd say the left-hand dexterity is useful for nearly any musician, except perhaps someone playing triangle or tympani I could certainly use a faster left hand for playing piano and even sax (although the movements aren't as big there). It's good for everyone, but best for strings. Um, Sudokus teach you logic, not math.

There is a World of Warcraft mix that was accepted; All Nations Rise, by The Wingless.

DragonAvenger does. I'm sure I've heard a couple other people mention it as well, but can't remember who offhand. I'll let you know if it comes to me.

Couldn't pick something with easy chord changes for me, could you? Oh well, I have ideas for this one. I accept my matchup.

Why not a form letter with a link to the Judges' Decision thread for that mix? That'd be less work than cutting-and-pasting comments into the e-mail.

1 When I first found the site, I went and got the torrents that existed at the time (up to 1,000) and kept up with current stuff. When the 1,000-1,500 torrent was released, I got that too. I've heard every song on the site once. If I don't like the production or style, I won't keep it. In general, I know what I like, but I'm open to hearing something new if it's outside the genres I like best.

No, I did understand what he wanted, I just didn't say it clearly enough. He wanted even changes from the center position to the lowest position, and evne changes from the center position to the highest position, but at different scales. I just suggested the hardware solution first, which, if your hardware supports it, would be easy. To the OP, for all that I was poking fun at you earlier, I am impressed with the fourier solution. Very, very nerdy, but I'm not one to talk

I also don't see how applying that level of math would help in any way, You only want to extend the range, and (presumably), have even changes (so moving the wheel halfway between 0 and +12 is +6). Not sure what advanced math buys you here, other than an attempt to impress people who have or will get grad degrees in engineering and computer sciences (there are at least two who posted in this thread). Simple is usually better