Kanthos

Didn't look too hard, did you?

I have to go pick up a copy of Tetris tomorrow, as well as Final Fantasy VI Advance. My wife finally decided to try out my DS and loved it, so she's ordered a pink one from Amazon, so I get to get her Tetris. I'm pretty excited, since I've wanted to play games with her for quite a while. I don't think I'll be seeing my copies of Clubhouse Games or Mario Kart DS for a while though

Delphi? Someone still uses that in a commercially successful product? Crazy, I had no idea. Is there a list anywhere that describes all the new features and changes? I downloaded FL 7 last night but didn't have time to install it, and am really curious.

Did anyone else hear the flute and violin being very slightly out of tune with the rhythm instruments and with each other, especially the first time the violin plays the melody? As mentioned, the flautist was a bit off on the solo, mainly playing triplets unevenly. The best part of the song for me, and perhaps the one thing that differentiated this from the original version (besides instrumentation, of course) is the chord substitution in the second major part of the tune.

I won't be making it from Canada, but good luck! From what I know of the composers (based largely on orchestral, not vocal works), it's a pretty broad list. Not surprised to see Schubert in there

If you feel like paying for it, I think you might be able to transfer characters between accounts using Blizzard's paid transfer thing.

FF VII was only 4 CDs in the PC release, and that's because one CD of the 4 was the install CD that copied data that was duplicated on the other game CDs to your PC. It wasn't a game CD on its own. The PSX version is only 3 CDs and does everything the PC version did.

You'd have to convert video file formats. VirtualDub might be able to help you do that. I know it opens and saves AVIs, but I just can't remember if it saves to other formats. If so, you're set. I'm at work so I can't download it and see for myself, and I couldn't see a note about file formats on the page, so you'll have to see if it works for you or not. It's an easy-to-use program though, so conversion should be easy.

Are you selling all your current machines to help pay for the new one? I know you want the PCI slot for a DSP card; what about inserting it into an old machine and using FX Teleport, using the old machine either as a dedicated DSP box or possibly for additional computing power as well as the DSP card?

My current machine is pretty good, except for the processor. The machine is a 2.4 GHz Intel of some sort that I've had since April, 2003, but I've done some upgrades on it, and it has a lot of hard drive space, 2 GB of RAM, and pretty much everything else I'd want for audio. I still don't get the performance I want though, and seem to be pushing CPU limits without doing a whole lot in FL Studio. Obviously, getting a new machine is one solution, and one I'm considering, but another would be to get a second machine and use both together. A second machine has a lot of appeal in the near future. My wife and I are looking to buy a house (we rent an apartment now), which would, among other things, give me a room to use as a studio and require me to take a single-train commute to work every day. We also spend most of our time together when we're in the house; even if I'm doing stuff on my computer and she's using hers, we're in the same room. That won't work if I have a separate studio, so one possibility is to get a new laptop that I can use on the train and around the house, connecting it somehow to my existing desktop to get better performance and so on for music. What kinds of setups could I get out of having two computers? Would it be realistic to, say, compose/arrange/remix on one using lower-quality or lower-memory use samples/soundfonts and then use both machines to use better-quality samples (for example, doing a full orchestral arrangement in EWQL SO) and render the audio? How would that kind of thing work? Do any DAWs let you specify some channels to be played back on a different machine? Does anyone here have experience with this kind of thing, or know of some online guide to doing this? I'll be looking around the Internet myself too, but if someone else knows about this and wouldn't mind helping me out, I'd like to hear from you. EDIT: I should also add that ideally, I'd like a dual-machine setup with FL Studio, so I don't have to go out and get another DAW, but I'm not excluding the possibility of switching DAWs if there's no way around it.

I doubt they'd have enough space no a DS cart for all the data, particularly the 3D models, even without the cutscenes. Sure, they could remake the cutscenes by reusing the in-game models, but they still have too much other content in the game. Not to mention all the code needed for the various minigames. People wouldn't like the game nearly as much if a bunch of content had to be cut in order to port it, and it certainly wouldn't fit with Square-Enix's new trend of adding more to re-releases.

I haven't seena ny slowdown yet, but I'm playing on a DS instead of a GBA, so that might make all the difference. Great game so far, although there's nothing really new until later in the game, besides updated dialogue. Some of it is really quite funny, actually, like the kid in Tule running around the garden who says "Spinny spinny spinny whee! I'm going to throw up but it's so much fun", and the other kid in Tule who wants to be a bard and makes some song that almost sounds like a rap about the monster sealed in the canal.

My only complaint with theory is that from what I've read thus far, there's a lot of sweeping stuff under the rug. What I mean is that I've read the phrase "Most of the time, composers do..." countless times, and there's often not a followup phrase, something like "but this and this are also fairly common." I'm not expecting to get a complete overview of all possible chords that follow a V chord, for example, as that's clearly too much to cover, but it's getting annoying to hear that kind of thing so many times. Of course, this could be a result of the books I'm reading, and it's not like I'm not learning anything, but still, it is a bit of an annoyance. As for the application of theory to composition, I think Jack Sparrow says it best: "They're more guidelines than rules, actually."

By 5ths, he probably means a perfect fifth (C-G, for example) instead of an augmented 5th (C-G#) or diminished 5th (C-Gb). Most people use a lowercase b as a symbol for flat when typing in a context like this. You're running into one of two problems with trying to figure out keys. One is that if you stick strictly to the notes in a scale, you don't have nearly as much musical freedom as if you allow all 12 possible tones, so composers introduce accidentals. In general, you're allowed to raise (sharpen) or lower (flatten) a note whenever you like. In conventional harmony, there are a lot of rules dictating when you can and can't do that to stay within the accepted harmonies, but don't worry about them for now. Also, accidentals in sheet music are often written in whichever notation is most convenient for the performer. For example, take the note sequence B Bb A Ab G, in G major. G major is a sharp key with one sharp, but musicians generally find the sequence I gave easier to read, instead of B A# A G# G. Both are played the same way, but using flats is more likely in a descending pattern, regardless of the key. The second problem is that some pieces modulate (change key), and if you're not experienced enough as a listener to identify when that happens, it'll throw you off. As for how to identify what key a piece is in by listening, there's not much to it. You have to be able to recognize which pitch is the tonal center or root of the key. For example, if I play Twinkle, Twinkle in C, the notes are C C G G A A G F F E E D D C. C is the root, and the key is in C. Music conventionally tends towards the root note, which is another clue. Although a piece may not start on the root, it most often ends on the root. Either way, by listening to enough pieces, you'll get a feel for finding the note around which a piece is centered. Then, to figure out the key, all you have to do is match the root pitch you hear to a note you know, by playing notes on a piano or guitar until you find a match, for example, and then determine the key from that note. To determine the key, you have to know if the song is major or minor; You can tell from the sound; to apply the stereotype, "happier" pieces are major. Try and listen to the third note above the root as well; that will generally tell you. If the root is C and the song has many more Eb's than E's, it's likely in a minor key. I'd suggest you stay away from both of the pieces you suggested until you learn to recognize keys a little more. For example, take a song like "Racing Chocobos - Place Your Bets" from Final Fantasy VII. It'll be much easier to follow. I'd also suggest Fiddle de Chocobo, but it modulates between two or three keys, and you don't want to confuse yourself too easily. There are a ton of video game songs that are easier and don't modulate though, so don't push yourself too hard to learn on something trickier. Good luck!

What is EBA like? Everyone here and elsewhere seems to give it good reviews. What kind of game is it?

Would you mind posting the complete specs of what you ordered, Zircon? I'll possibly be getting a new machine sometime in the next 3-6 months or so, and while I realize the machine will be cheaper and better components will likely be available over that time, I'd like to have a good starting point.

I rolled a blood elf mage, but that's because I wanted to make him my main. The only other character I have at the moment is a level 27 troll rogue, made in December with the purpose of making money for my mage when I was able to create him. But yes, Eversong Woods has been packed lately. I read somewhere that Blizzard now has dynamic spawn rates depending on how many people are in range of mobs (or maybe just bosses, I'm not sure), so for any of the quests I did, there wasn't a lot of downtime waiting for respawns.

Unless you plan on switching to jewelcrafting, probably not. Basically all you get with the expansion is new content in Outland, new characters, and jewelcrafting. Other stuff, like flying mounts, are only obtainable and usable in Outland. So if you can't make it to Outland yet, don't bother. Keep in mind though that it'll be a long time before Burning Crusade's price drops, so while it won't directly benefit you to get Burning Crusade until level 58 (when you can first go through the portal), it won't hurt you much either.

Start Thunderbird and go to Account Settings on the Tools menu. Scroll down to Local Folders and click on it; on the right side you'll see, among other things, an entry named Local Directory. That tells you where Thunderbird is storing all your data. For example, mine is C:\Documents and Settings\mchase\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\5q3rnj90.default\Mail\Local Folders. You'll want to back up one folder (to Mail, not Mail\Local Folders) to get folders for various e-mail accounts as well. I'm not entirely sure how they're used, but I'd copy everything to be safe. On your new computer, start Thunderbird. You'll probably have to create the accounts from scratch, I don't know if there's an easy way to do that or not. When you've done so, find the Local Directory on your new machine, exit Thunderbird, and copy from your old machine to the new machine. You'll have to get the directory from your new machine since the profile name (5q3rnj90.default on mine) may be different. That should import all your folders and messages. Like I said, you'll probably have to recreate your account information. The only other thing you should need is your address book, but the address book has its own export on the Tools menu. I've never actually tried this myself, but there's no conceivable reason why it shouldn't work. I'll take a quick google to see if anything can confirm these steps. Edit: this tallks about exporting to another mail program; it more or less implies what I described about a Thunderbird-to-Thunderbird copy.

My wife is considering getting a new notebook. The "do it yourself" option mentioned in Zircon's thread about getting a new desktop doesn't apply here, since, as far as I know, there are little or no companies that offer do-it-yourself notebooks. She would generally use it for watching DVDs and web surfing. I have two questions. Which notebook manufacturers are and aren't good? She currently has an HP, and for the most part, it's been fine, although it's had a tendency to randomly restart recently (hence the consideration to buy a new one) and has been running hot recently. Secondly, which notebook processors are/aren't good, and is there any easy way to determine the clock speed of modern processors, particularly AMDs?

Remixing requires broadband?

I'd suggest burning them to a CD and ripping them, or if you don't want the quality hit from doing so, try and download them from another source. As far as I can tell, it's the fault of the files. I have a couple songs that are roughly 4-5 minutes that are listed as around 24 in both iTunes and Winamp. There might also be a program out there that fixes the playing times on songs.

Definitely not from SMW. SMW's soundtrack is based around variations of one theme, plus a few other melodies for shorter, non-level sequences (music that plays when you finish a castle, for example). Your song is based on a theme from Super Mario Bros. I agree with everyone else who mentioned it so far: your song is an arrangement, not a remix. While it is good overall, it would never be accepted as a remix on this site because it has no original musical content.

You *won't* erase the contents of your iPod unless you choose to. you can, for example, plug in your ipod into someone else's computer to power it. The only thing you have to be sure not to do is say that you want to sync your iPod with someone else's computer when iTunes asks you. If you say no, then it will power fine and you won't lose your files.

Agreed on the bass needing to stand out more. Maybe boost the lower frequencies to bring it out a bit? I especially love the vibe parts. I can do without the pitch bends on the organ, at least to the extent that they're used. Maybe try to make them more subtle?