Kanthos

I'd also like to have it done by an actual jazz band, or at least have a pianist sit in who's much better at comping than I am. Like I said in the inspiration thread I started, the challenge for me here isn't coming up with a concept; it that's all I was trying to do, I would've submitted sheet music for this a few weeks ago What did you think of the flute solo? It's obviously lacking articulation, but I mean in terms of the notes. The challenge of the Black Omen is that the key changes and chord changes of the B section (1:42-2:04, and the flute solos over it at 2:36-3:10) are hard to solo over if you're not used to soloing much on piano (I'm way more experienced on sax than piano when it comes to jazz). I'm not sure whether to leave the solo as is, since some of the unintentional dissonances work pretty well, or whether I should edit or replay parts of the solo to end up with something a bit more straight-ahead. By the way, happy birthday!

This definitely has potential. I agree though that it needs something to make it more than just light background music (albeit nicely-arranged background music). Also, if there's anything you can do to get better-quality horn samples at 1:41, that would help a lot; to my ear, they don't sound that realistic.

If you want easy levelling, go with a hunter, frost mage (once you start getting a lot of frost talents, you can go through most fights without taking damage; I play a frost mage) or shadow priest.

To add to what Leah says, you don't want to add Guitar Rig as an instrument, only as an effect. The only advantage of using it as an instrument is if you have a pre-recorded MIDI or MP3 file that you want to play back with effects, and even then, you'll only really want to do this in standalone mode, not within FL Studio. In FL Studio, you're better off using an audio clip with Guitar Rig as an effect.

I finally have a WIP worth getting comments on. The tune is as-of-yet untitled, but it's a jazz waltz version of the Black Omen from Chrono Trigger. The song isn't finished (I still have to add a piano solo and restatement of the melody), I haven't done any mixing or processing yet, I still have to tweak the flute (all I've done is play it in from my keyboard; I haven't used the keyswitch to make the staccato more realistic and make the velocities on the melody more realistic) and the bass (the sample I have has a few nice acoustic bass effects, plus I want to tweak the part), as well as adding drums. But, for what it's worth, here's the piece. Version 1 - April 9 Version 2 - April 18

A DI box is a small unit that converts a 1/4" input into a mic input. Your laptop probably has no more than a 1/8" stereo output (i.e. the headphone or speaker output), which you'll want to connect to the mixer if you're playing live. Converting 1/8" to 1/4" is easy (you can get a tiny adapter that screws onto the 1/8" head; shouldn't cost more than $10), but you need to also convert the 1/4" input into a mic input so you can connect it to the mixer and use the main signal flow for the mixer (as opposed to doing something like running the 1/4" into the tape or CD player input on your mixer).

I've been married for two and a half years.

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. Sometimes a little encouragement makes a big difference Because for me, jazz is all about performance. Sure, you can be a jazz composer or arranger, but the true life of a jazz piece is in its performance. My problem with jazz is that I can produce way better stuff in my head than I can actually play, especially if it's a big band or combo chart with horns (I only have an alto sax, and don't know any decent players for other horns, having lived in Toronto for only a few months, and Garritan jazz and big band sounds like crap for horns if you want something realistic; I wasn't impressed with their demo tracks and wouldn't spend money on it). I have a piano trio arrangement of the Black Omen from Chrono Trigger worked out. If I can get it where I want it musically and not screw up the production, it should be OCR-worthy. I just have to spend hours trying to play it out and hope I don't aggravate my arms in the process. Again, with any style other than jazz, using the mouse and keyboard wouldn't be a big deal. I just know that I can capture the nuances of jazz piano at least much more easily on a piano keyboard than with a mouse and computer keyboard, and from what I've seen of FL Studio's piano roll, notating swing rhythms and triplets isn't that easy if you want it to sound authentic. I can handle playing a piano most of the time; slow pieces don't bother me and fast ones are fine if I don't stay at fast speeds for too long (although the lack of dexterity I have from not playing regularly over the past 10 years makes a difference). I'll definitely try some of the things you suggest about workspace and tools. I don't really have the option for a different workspace at the moment; we're saving for a house and my wife needs her laptop replaced soon (it crashes fairly often when viewing movies, which is the main thing she uses it for), and it won't go over well if I get a new laptop in addition to my current desktop before she gets a new laptop. I don't have that much time at home during the week, since I work full-time and spend 2 hours commuting on top of that, so I find it easier to try and compose in my head than on an instrument. I probably just have to force myself to work at the keyboard more rather than trying to do things in my head or writing down notes at work (I finished my Black Omen mix idea in my head during a meeting yesterday and wrote down a description of each section along with the chord progression when I got back to my desk). As for different styles of music, while the majority of music I own or have downloaded is jazz, classical, and video game music, I also have some music from other genres. I've heard enough rap and hip hop to know I'm really not into that, but my knowledge of electronic music and ethnic/world music is almost non-existent, so I'd appreciate any recommendations from those of you who know the genres better. I did discover Jaga Jazzist from Last.FM and bought two of their albums on iTunes this week, so I'm trying to diversify, but since most of my real-life friends have music interests limited to classical and the mainstream 3-chord rock you hear on the radio, they're not much help

I guess my question is more along the lines of "where do you start?" I have a good ear for reharmonization and altering chords, and could probably put together something that was an enhanced midi rip with some reharmonization, but I doubt that's up to par for OCRemix, and it isn't for my own standards either. I don't have any problem listening to remixes and saying "I'd do this differently", whether it's with respect to harmony, instrumentation or something, but to actually do something on my own...there's probably some kind of mental roadblock that I can't get past at the moment and I'm trying to figure out what it is.

Not yet, although I know there are a few mixers and forum posters in the Toronto area.

I've been around OCRemix for nearly a year and haven't gotten a remix even to the stage that I'd want to post it as a WIP. I know jazz really well, and have a pretty good knowledge of classical, both in terms of performance and theory in those genres. When it comes to other styles, I either lack the skills to play the right instruments (like guitar for rock/folk/other music) or don't really understand the style enough to write anything in a specific genre. When I've tried to do a remix so far, I've either been uninspired or have broke down on the details of making a particular instrument sound realistic, particularly for bass or drums in a jazz setting. The same thing is pretty much true with respect to original music; I either don't like the direction a composition is headed in or I can't make it sound good enough (obviously, that wouldn't be important for jazz if I was writing a leadsheet for the tune to be played live, but since I don't know a band and am not in one at the moment, what's the point in writing something for others to play and having no one look at it?) I'm also limited with regards to sequencing in that I've had tendonitis for the last 10 years so my playing ability is much worse than it used to be in high school because playing too much or too fast aggravates an otherwise dormant injury. My question for anyone is where do you start? Is there anything I can be doing, whether listening or mini composition exercises or anything, to start getting ideas that will actually work? How do you go from playing other people's music to coming up with your own style? Is it just a creative gift that you either have or don't have? Is it something you can work at?

I listened to the original version, but didn't comment on it at the time. Based on what I've heard of your singing (both WIPs here and material from your GooglePages site), here's what I have to say. I'm not a fantastic singer myself, so take my comments with a grain of salt. Also, none of this is meant to criticize in any way, but to help you. Firstly, phrasing. I have a feeling that when you were singing this song, you were focusing on being clean: hitting all the pitches, having the right timing, clear diction, and so on. What you missed out on though is some of the more musical aspects of the melody and lyrics. The most noticeable is the number of interrupted phrases, places where it sounds like you're probably taking a breath when you don't need to or where you're just not singing legato enough (in my opinion anyway). Looking at the opening few lines, you have something like this (| signifies a break) I | am | so afraid | Everyone I know runs away | Walking into dark | ness and turning away from me | I | reach | out to them | Calling to them, wishing they'd come, | They don't even look | back | they keep on walking away. | In my opinion, it would sound better if the only breaks were at the end of each phrase. Based on what I've heard of your music, you're not a strong, powerful singer; instead, your voice has a soothing, haunting quality to it. I'd think you'd do your best singing on more lyrical pieces; while your lyrics and the melody of this piece suit you, I'm not convinced that the instrumental part suits you as well as it could. It sounds a bit too upbeat and peppy given what you're doing with the melody. I'd also suggest that you change the line "Calling to them, wishing they'd come" to "Calling to them, I wish they'd come", just because the phrase puts the accent on the second syllable of wishing, making the word wishing sound a bit rushed and unnatural. Another tiny comment is that there's a buzz when you sing the words "demons strong" on one of the choruses. Lastly, your dynamics don't vary a lot in most phrases. I've been told a couple times that any good jazz musician who wants to play standards should memorize the lyrics in addition to the chord changes and melody, because putting the right emotion into a tune makes a world of difference. You have some great lyrics here; I'd suggest you record a take focusing most on the lyrics and singing them musically. I really like your voice. I think this mix has a lot of potential, and I hope some of what I said helps you. Good luck!

There's multiple translations for titles going around for most Square-Enix OSTs, especially in cases where the OSTs were actually released with English track listings. The fan-translated versions of the Japanese OST track lists sometimes tend to be more literal translations than the official translations on the English track listings.

Sig change is done. It wasn't exactly my fault; Last.FM, for whatever reason, tends to display a ton of text for classical songs. Most of the time, my sig is small, but since it updates dynamically based on the last 10 songs I've listened to, it stretches once in a while. Since the site has a Last.FM user field in the control panel, I put the information in there instead of in my sig.

But it doesn't necessarily boost revenue for the record labels since consumers still have the option of the lower-cost, lower-bitrate DRM files. Paying $1.29 per track for better quality is still cheaper than buying the CD from a record store in most cases, so whichever version you go with, it's still a good deal.

Not sure how much of the music I've bought from iTunes is on EMI, plus I have an iPod, but I'll likely upgrade whatever I can whenever this initiative makes its way to Canada. Good job Apple!

You want this. It's free for non-commercial use.

I completely missed that it was available already. Bethesda only announced it less than a month ago on their site. I'm getting it on the way home from work tonight

I can probably speak for a lot of people when I say that inspiration doesn't come easily. There are very few prolific remixers on the site (at least, that I know of) who are constantly remixing music and have a large number of completed tracks. For those who do remix a lot, it's probably fair to say that nearly every remix they make is from a game they've played. Identifying with the song, not just musically but contextually within the game it comes from, makes it easier to understand the piece and can help inspire new directions to take it in. For me personally, I look through the requests forum once in a while just for fun. If I came across a piece I knew and liked, I'd consider remixing it. The reason why I haven't submitted any remixes or even WIPs is that I'm really good at getting inspiration for jazz remixes and not good at all in other genres. With jazz, I can often hear all the parts I want in my head, but don't have the technical ability to pull it off, particularly with instruments I don't play (especially drums) and with instruments for which I don't understand enough to get to sound authentic in a jazz manner (particularly trumpet). I listen to so much jazz and am a perfectionist, so it's just depressing to hear something and know what it could sound like if played by a group of good musicians and compare that to what I can do on my own.

I doubt World of Warcraft has the capability to determine your exact processor speed and refuse to run if it's less than 800 MHz. More likely, 800 MHz is what they suggest you'll need to run WoW. Keep in mind that you'll need a fairly good graphics card on your machine if you want to go to any of the areas in Outland. If you're not sure about the performance, a lot of stores are now selling 14-day trials for WoW for a couple dollars. Buy one and try it out before you buy the full version of WoW. I'm pretty sure you can upgrade from a trial account to a full account once you get the full version of WoW, so you wouldn't lose any progress.

Zircon didn't use the word live. There are a few tools that, if used by someone with a lot of skill and a lot of knowledge about the human voice, can make a realistic-sounding choir from samples. EastWest Quantum Leap Symphonic Choirs comes to mind. Of course, everyone would rather have a live choir than samples, but Zircon didn't really say which option they used.

If you're recording to FL Studio, you'll have to do the two parts separately. Load stylus and vanguard into two separate channels and record one, than the other. It *might* be possible to record both parts at the same time if you can split your keyboard to send MIDI data to two MIDI channels at once; I haven't tried it and don't know if FL Studio will properly record both channels if you do this. If you only care about playback and won't actually be recording, it's a matter of finding out how your keyboard can send data to two different MIDI channels based on which notes you play, something that you need to look at your keyboard manual for.

Fair enough. I haven't read the C++ spec and, for that matter, haven't done any C++ programming in 2 years now. At work, it's all Java and my coworkers tend to use both terms interchangeably.

Agreed. I only did that to show proper usage Definitely go with CSV. Your prof probably said Excel because a) He can easily generate 10,000 random numbers using a short Visual Basic for Applications script within a spreadsheet and He wasn't thinking about the difficulty of reading from an Excel file. Even if the newest version saves XML-based files, you still don't want to touch that. The complexity of reading XML is higher than reading from a simple text file and is probably beyond the scope of the program you're working on right now. I'll also give you a few more pointers about subroutines. Firstly, C++ terminology never really uses subroutine. Method or function are the common terms and are used in the same way (unlike Basic where a subroutine is a block of code that doesn't return a value and a function is a block of code that does). There's no real need to distinguish between the two terms. Also think of methods in a service-oriented way. A method is a block of code that possibly takes some data as input, performs some computation, and possibly returns a result. You want to keep them as simple as possible and avoid overlap. Say you're writing a calculator program and you have a function to invert a number and a function to multiply, and you now want to write a function to divide. *Don't* write new code to do this; all you have to do is something like "return multiply(invert(x), y);". Doing it like this saves you time and saves you from running into bigger problems (if you had a bug in invert(x) and you wrote divide(x, y) by copying the code from invert and from multiply, you now have to remember to fix your bug in both places). Lastly, a note about void: you must specify void as your return type for methods that don't return a value, but the C++ convention is to not specify void for methods not taking any parameter list (i.e. you could write void doSomething(void) or void doSomething(); the convention is to do it the second way).

1) Um, what do you mean by subroutines, and why on earth would you call main more than once? I'm guessing you want a setup something like this: In myHeader.h void doSomeStuff(); float myComplexCalculation(float first, float second); In myProgram.cpp #include "myHeader.h" int main(char argc, char* argv[]) { ... doSomeStuff(); ... float a = 1.0f; float b = 1.0f; float x = myComplexCalculation(a, ; } // Subroutine that takes no parameters () and returns nothing (void) void doSomeStuff() { ... } // Subroutine that does a calculation on two floats and returns one float float myComplexCalculation(float first, float second) { return first + second; } 2) #include should never be used for data files (with a few exceptions that I'm not going to get into; yours isn't one of them), and certainly shouldn't be used for data files that are specified at runtime. #include is used to add header files (definitions of data types and methods that you want to use; I demonstrated proper use in the above example). #include definitions are evaluated at compile-time, so specifying a data file is a bad place to do that. What do you mean by reading an excel file? What is the file saved as? If you want to read a .xls file, good luck. The file format is more-or-less proprietary and is more complicated than you want. If you're set on doing this, try looking through the source code for OpenOffice.org; this is a problem I'm sure they had to get around. If, instead, you want to read a file that's in a CSV (comma-separated value) format, which can be exported from Excel, that's easier. I'm not going to type in an example, but take a look at this, it basically spells it out for you. If I recall correctly, the >> operator used on files reads everything from the current position in the file to the next whitespace character (space, tab, newline) or comma. If it doesn't split on commas, which is what you'd need to read a CSV file, then you'll have to use the example that uses getline to read an entire line of text, and split the string apart on commas yourself.