Kanthos

I'm taking a look at this for you. One thing I see is that your closing tags for your framesets should be /frameset, not /frameste. Also, gray can't be spelled grey for most browsers to interpret it correctly. The problem with your frames is that you don't specify the number of rows or columns. You'll want to do a <frameset rows="200,*"> or something like that; it'll give you a 200 pixel frame and a second frame. This won't work on your page though, possibly because the framesets are in tables and only contain one frame, or possibly because CSS and frames don't play well together. I'd suggest too that you find another way around this. Frames have been considered poor web design for probably the last 7 or more years. Most people who have MP3 players on their site either are fine with the fact that leaving a page changes the MP3 player, or they'll do something in flash.

Frames are evil. Use CSS for positioning.

I've got plenty of comments on all three tunes. Spring Yard Jazz: I'd be surprised if this passed without *a lot* of revision. The ideas are reasonably interesting, but three things will help you a lot. 1) This song is basically a wall of sound: horns wailing as loud as they can for the majority. Where are the dynamics? Where's the build in the song; it doesn't have any kind of melodic or dynamic climax. 2) The samples are horrible, particularly for the saxes. Sounds like Garritan Jazz & Big Band to me, which despite being marketed as a great product, absolutely sucks for sax sounds. Even their demos sound fairly unrealistic. If you want to do a convincing big band remix and don't have the capability to record live, expect to do *a lot* of processing on the sax effects to get anywhere near realism. As it stands right now, the sax sounds really take away from the quality of the track. 3) The horn arrangement is too simplistic. It sounded to me like they were all playing unison almost all the time, and were playing the original melody. A good big band arrangement will have the horns playing various chords, and wouldn't stick nearly so close to the original. Rhythmic and harmonic deviations, things like little sax riffs between the melody notes, there's a lot that you can do with the horns to make it sound like a decent big band arrangement. Your version feels somewhat monotonous and plodding. Also, way too much clapping, and this track is simply too loud. Casino Night: Same wall-of-sound feel and loudness as spring yard. Dynamics The drums sound a lot better, although they need some rhythmic variance in the basic pattern. If you want to go with more of a jazz feel and less of the original (which it seems like you do), don't have the snare play only on 2 and 4; throw in some off-beat snare hits (listen to your favourite jazz albums; there'll be good examples of what I mean on nearly any decent jazz that has a swing beat). The bass is good, although you'd benefit a lot from using an upright bass sound; it sounds like this one is electric. The second chorus seems to go nowhere; there's no real melody, solo, or anything. It sounds like you just forgot to put on another part. My comments about the horns are similar from the last one. This one is much improved, but it still feels a bit too unison and not varied, and the horns are pretty close to the original. This one is significantly better than spring yard, but still needs a lot of work to pull off the style you're going for. Ice Cap: Can't say as much about this one; the WIP is too short to get a really good idea of where the song could go (I'm assuming that it's not all going to be more of the same). The track sounds fine for what you have; develop it more and I'll comment again. A thought about doing jazz arrangements. I've tried doing a few myself: a 6/8 version of the Black Omen track from Chrono Trigger reminiscent of Wayne Shorter's Footprints, a latin jazz version of Besaid Island from Final Fantasy X, and most recently, a 5/4 and 6/4 funk/jazz version of a song from Final Fantasy Legend 3 for gameboy. What I've found for each of them, and is mainly the reason none are complete now, is that in jazz above any other genre for remixing, realism is *essential*. A great jazz mix *must* capture the feeling that it could've been played very similar live. You have to think like a jazz drummer with your drum part, think like a bass player with your bass part, think like a pianist with your piano part, and think like an arranger for your horn section. You listen to a techno, rock, or classical track and hear something that's too repetitive and it's not that hard to dismiss that as a minor problem with the composer or band. You hear a repetitive or boring jazz tune, and you think, "No one would actually play it like that", so beyond the fact that it's boring on its own, the nature of the genre highlights that significantly more. Jazz is meant to be organic, live, improvised (well, for some parts, anyway), and natural. It's about sitting back in some coffee shop with your band and letting your collective imagination and interpretation go. The challenge of a good jazz remix is to capture that aura. I'm a long way from where I want to be myself, although in different areas (your drum parts are generally better than mine, for example), and it's a hard and long road. Good luck!

Well, it depends what you want to do. Sibelius and Finale are designed to be notation programs first and playback tools second, and they don't really provide you with any audio editing capabilities, effects, mixing/levels, etc. as far as I know. You're basically at the mercy of their playback engine. If your goal is to make sheet music, with the added bonus of being able to hear a demo of what you've made, go for one of these. On the other hand, if your goal is to produce high-quality digital music that won't actually be played back by live musicians reading from the sheet music (i.e. if the reason you want sheet music is because you're more used to composing that way), you should go with a DAW (digital audio workstation; basically a program that has mixing capabilities, effects, can apply all kinds of plugins, synths, and sample-based instruments, can sequence MIDI, etc.). Programs like logic, reason, FL Studio, Cubase, and Sonar are all DAWs, some better or worse at certain features than others. As people have mentioned, some DAWs have notation editors. None of those will be as good as Finale or Sibelius, as Finale and Sibelius are dedicated notation tools, but on the other hand, DAWs allow you to produce higher-quality audio. If you only care about sheet music, get a notation program. If you care about actual audio, go with a DAW. You could consider one that has a built-in notation editor, or you could also consider getting a DAW along with a scaled-down version of Finale such as PrintMusic or Allegro, doing the notation there, and bringing it into a DAW to produce audio. I've found Finale PrintMusic, which cost me around $100 to be sufficient as a notational tool, and in all honesty, there aren't a lot of notational features that Finale provides and PrintMusic doesn't (or, at least, there weren't when I bought PrintMusic 2006 a year ago; I haven't kept up with the latest versions). Sure, you lose the higher-quality Garritan plugins that Finale proper has, but if you're doing the audio in a DAW anyway, you probably won't care. EDIT: Also, Finale vs. Sibelius seems to be a matter of debate, but I'm not convinced that one is significantly better than the other in any feature, just like there are people here who will champion their favourite DAW over all others, deserved or not. If possible, try to demo them both if you're spending that kind of money.

Cubase also supports notation.

I play alto sax and have a decent recording setup. I can also arrange wind parts and do notation and stuff. I have a bit of experience with wind arrangement, both with writing horn parts for a jazz band I was involved with in high school and for turning a one-person reed book (tenor, bari, clarinet, and flute) into enough material to keep 3 musicians busy for the musical Footloose. I don't know how this would fit, depending on the exact style we end up with, but I'm also interested in playing around a bit with non-traditional sax effects: delay, wah, a touch of distortion, putting together several layers of alto parts and applying effects to all of them (the kind of thing you'd do with an autoharmonizer, only I don't have one), that kind of thing. The best example of what I have in mind is Jeff Coffin, the sax player from the Flecktones (check out, in particular, the sample of the track Scratch & Sniff from Live At The Quick; it's actually a bassoon player who's playing melody at the startup, but it's a similar kind of sound; you hear the sax come in and play with the bassoon, using the same effects, in the last 10 seconds of the sample).

I've got a copy of Legend of Mana that I'm not playing. Only problem is that it's packed up, since I'm moving in a month, so I don't want to dig it out until early October. If you don't mind waiting that long, I'll be glad to let you borrow or sell it. Also, you can use paypal with just a bank account.

You mean you hate hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE them?

Not sure how often I'll be on later in the day, but I can probably swing by once in a while. I'm interested in coding it though. Never done any mIRC scripting, but I know plenty of other programming and scripting languages, so I'm sure it won't be too hard to adapt. If you don't see me on tonight (likely not, it's my anniversary), PM me or I'll try and be on later tomorrow night.

Here are two great ones. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321385551/ref%3Dnosim/jeffreyzeldmanprA/ http://www.amazon.com/Eric-Meyer-CSS-Mastering-Language/dp/073571245X/ref=pd_sim_b_5/105-7607693-0734067

I agree with OA. Sure, there are a lot of good people who comment on WIPs, and a few really great people who comment occasionally, but the problem is one of selective listening. I've seen several WIPs that were MIDI rips (sure, they were done from scratch, but for all the originality, they might as well have started with the MIDI file), and in a couple cases, I've commented to the poster that their mix was too close to the original, citing the submission standards. I've then had people come along and say, "No, I don't think it is, awesome mix, man", or something like that. *ESPECIALLY* since I'm not a judge, or even someone with an accepted remix, the person who posted the WIP is much more likely to listen to the person who compliments their music and thinks it's fine than the person who says, "Not bad, but not OCR-worthy". Basically, all it takes is a few n00bs who don't have a hope of getting mixes accepted at their current level to come in and start complimenting those who are perhaps slightly better but no more acceptance-worthy, and the WIP forums quickly become a celebration of crap. I've also noticed that many people who give the best feedback only post occasionally, particularly if a song interests them. Which is understandable; there's a fair bit of activity in the WIP forums each day, and reviewing it all and leaving good feedback takes a lot of time. #ocrwip, on the other hand, generally has a higher calibre of people in it. Perhaps we're not all acceptance-worthy, but there's generally a small number of people there who generally tend to give much better feedback than the casual person in the WIP forums.

Glad to help (Although I could've done without the listening to smooth jazz part of it)

Ok, more suggestions that it's Careless Whisper. The Dave Koz version is probably the best example; the clip ends with the first 8 of the 16 notes you gave. Hopefully this is it

Do you remember what type of saxophone it was? What kind of tempo and feel the song was (fast and upbeat? Funky? Slow & seductive?) One possibility is that it was a Kenny G song with Michael Bolton singing. You could try poking around allmusic.com; they have audio clips of most, if not all, songs they have up there. Hmm, had two people suggest Careless Whisper by Georege Michael. I'm going to have to burn my ears or something after listening to all this

I can help seeding, although I might stop seeding for a few hours each night when both my wife and I are home and online.

I don't know smooth jazz very well, but I know some people who do. I'll ask around for you

Blue tissue paper? I just got a bubble-wrap envelope Then again, I also got mine internationally in 4 days, so I'm not complaining. The mix sounded fine to me, other than a quiet hiss on some of the vocal tracks that was only noticeable when listening at fairly high volumes. Helen's aware of this. I would've liked to hear a version of Waiting For The Snow that focused on acoustic guitar as much as piano, and had a live part, but then it wouldn't have really been a solo project.

I'd aim for somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes. Any more than that and more casual people won't listen. If you have more content than you can fit into a short show like that, you can always do more shows. The more active a podcast is, the more likely you are to get people listening to it. *expects spam about voting on podcast alley*

Anyone playing Heroes of Mana or Luminous Arc? I picked up both last week, and am especially enjoying Luminous Arc. Some of the characters are annoying, but I'm enjoying it more than Final Fantasy Tactics, mainly because you don't have any choice over which class a character is, so you don't run into the "I have 30 classes, which should I make and when?" thing. Heroes of Mana does have some pathing problems, like the reviewer on gamespot mentioned, but I'd hardly call it a 5.5/10. I haven't played it as much as Luminous Arc so far, but both are good. Jam Sessions looks like a neat idea. What'll sell me is palette swapping. I'd ideally want to put 8 chords on a palette, plus if you hit the left shoulder trigger, it swaps to the next palette you define. It's obviously not written for jazz guitar, but only 8 chords per song seems too limiting to me.

I can give a shot at it. Any more information you can supply would be really really helpful. Do you remember the artist(s) playing it? Was it a big band chart, small combo, or what? What instruments were there? What genre of jazz was it (bop, cool, fusion, modern jazz, etc.)? Do you have any rough idea of how old it was (you can often tell from the recording quality, to some extent; if there's any/a lot of static, that probably puts it in the 40's or earlier, or else it was a really bad recording). Were you giving a chord progression here, or melody notes? Do you remember any more of the song than what you have here? If chords, can you give any of the melody, and vice versa?

I'm getting noticeably better performance under XP than Vista. I got my new laptop a few months ago and left Vista on for about 3 weeks before I went back to XP.

Got mine on the 16th, ordered on the 12th, I think. Sometime over the weekend anyway.

Those will be cheap, but not particularly accurate, particularly in the bass. You simply can't get accurate bass on a speaker that small.

No one's going to tell you, at least publicly, how to pirate it. Buy the software.

Goodrum04, ever heard Bela Fleck? Some of his stuff is bluegrass and classical, some of his stuff (particularly his new album, a duet with Chick Corea on piano) is jazz, and his stuff with The Flecktones is jazz with some neat world influences.