Kanthos

Time to post a review of the machine I picked up from Brad last Sunday (we live about 3 hours apart, so we met up rather than have it shipped). The machine is great, and the only trouble I've had with it so far is that the front USB ports, which I don't really need to use anyway, don't seem to be drawing enough power. I looked at the connections myself - we both think something got knocked loose a bit in transit - and my first attempt didn't solve the issue. But, that's really minor anyway, since there are enough ports on the back. Putting together a computer isn't all that hard, but where Brad does more than most is his attention to detail and perfectionism. The inside is seriously *perfect*: well laid out, all the cords out of the way and neat, making it really easy to do additional upgrades (I added a laptop drive as a second hard drive). He also pre-installed things like firefox and some useful addons. The other big plus was that when he gave me an initial price and parts list, I'd suggested just getting 6 GB of RAM. When I paid him a week after that, he went to order, found comparable RAM that was the same price for 8 GB, and made that swap. I wasn't expecting it (and didn't notice it in the parts list he sent back after he'd ordered, oops!) so it was a nice surprise to realize it was better than I expected. I highly recommend him to anyone wanting a computer built.

I'm going by what I remember from OS and concurrency courses in school and from what I've learned developing multithreaded programs over the last number of years. If I'm wrong on any point, I'd love to see something from a reasonable source explaining why. Most DAWs that I know of still implement this as a plugin. It's a DLL that the DAW executable loads (meaning it can theoretically be a separate process), not part of the DAW executable itself. And, there's no difference between "regular sample usage" and "crazy sample libraries" as far as DFD goes; the difference is in the sampler used. Kontakt can use DFD for everything, from the piano patch that loads 500 MB of data into RAM to the synth patch that loads 3 MB. FYI, I just got a new computer last Sunday that has the OS on a SSD. it's a little hard to compare to my old machine, which is a) a laptop versus the new one being a desktop, dual core while the newer one is quad core and c) each core has a faster clock speed. I'm not convinced things run noticeably faster though, besides booting up, launching programs, and programs reading their data from the disk. Outside of paging, what other I/O tasks use the disk and run often enough to have a noticeable impact on overall performance? As far as I know, running programs are loaded into memory and not somehow streamed when needed (and besides, the main source of memory usage for nearly every program is the memory it allocates on demand, not the memory required to load the executable code and embedded static data into RAM). A running program will not access the hard drive once it has been loaded unless it contains code that explicitly performs disk I/O or unless, due to memory constraints on the system, it's paged to disk. I assume you actually mean a situation where maybe three threads are waiting on I/O and a fourth isn't doing any I/O at all. (All four threads waiting on I/O says nothing about how threads not using I/O will be improved). Regardless, this isn't true because of how operating systems schedule programs. If you've got four threads, all running at the same priority, they should get equal CPU time (unless, of course, threads are blocked or idle). If a thread chooses to use its CPU time to wait on I/O, good for it; it's not going to be allowed to use more than its fair share of the CPU, regardless of what task it's performing. So far, the non-I/O thread will NOT be any slower, and the only way for it to execute faster is for there to be fewer or no other threads running on the CPU. Of course, OS threads may be run at a higher priority than user threads. Still, OS thread scheduling would notice that an I/O thread is blocked (if not blocked, it is doing actual work and can proceed) and would give CPU time to another thread while the I/O request was processed. It would be a really stupid OS that forced all tasks to wait when one thread was blocked for any reason at all.

Lots of misinformation in this thread. Any quality sampler will have the option to read sample libraries DFD, because it would use too much RAM otherwise. Also, that's not a function of the DAW but of the plugin that's loading the samples. Do you actually know what percentage of background OS CPU usage is dedicated to I/O? I don't (so I'm not making any vague claims), but to really highlight the point here, it is not true that EVERYTHING will be helped. Only processes and tasks which read to or write from the SSD will be improved. I/O to other traditional drives will of course not be improved, and anything that doesn't do I/O will not be improved. The only other way in which processes will be improved is the initial load time when a process is first read from disk, which is pretty minimal beyond initial bootup and the things that first run at login. 64-bit programs can use way more than that, and 64-bit plugins in a 64-bit host (or 64-bit plugins using jBridge or something similar to run in a separate process) are only limited by the available RAM in your machine. 32-bit programs are limited to 4 GB, yes, so again, with a 32-bit DAW and without having more than 4 GB and using jBridge to load your sampler in a different process, your samples, synths, effects, recorded audio, and everything else that your DAW needs is limited to a collective 4 GB of memory. All the more reason to favour DFD even on modest sample libraries, not just "crazy orchestral" ones.

I'm holding out for silver or black too; I don't like the bright colours as much.

I managed everything except Cyndr the Mountain Heart with heroes and henchmen, and I bet that's even doable with hereos if you know what you're doing and are really good at flagging them. Also, it's nice that you can use all heroes now, and no henchmen; makes things much easier. Completing the campaigns alone won't give you HOM points though, unless they'll push you into the next bracket for points in the titles category. What's the name of one of your GW1 toons? I'll look up your HOM and suggest which points might be easiest.

I might do that. What points are you going after, specifically? Some are much easier than others.

As far as having access to hardware keyboards or better-sounding VSTs, it's easy to sink a lot of time into getting the perfect sound, especially if you're using a lot of synth sounds. If you're going to record at all, make sure you've clearly worked out the sounds you want to use and the arrangements you want first. A good producer will give you suggestions, so be open to change, but it's a waste of time to hit the studio without having done your homework first. Spending studio time saying "I don't quite like this synth sound; how can we tweak it" or "can you find me a better piano or strings patch" is probably worth it; spending studio time saying "I want a synth part here but don't know what it should sound like" is throwing money away.

While I wait on my computer, I decided to play some more Guild Wars 1, and managed to get my Hall of Monument points up from 19 to 30, which is where I'm stopping since I've done all I can without farming massive amounts of gold or putting all kinds of time into more-or-less useless titles. At least I get all the possible rewards.

I've been talking to Brad and he's going to be building me a machine. I'll post a review here when it's received, but from previous dealings with him and all the other feedback from other happy customers, I know I'll get nothing but the best

I haven't played more than a few levels so far, and honestly may not until I get a new computer, hopefully in the next few weeks (to avoid overheating my laptop), but I'm Kanthos.9415 on Yak's Bend.

With a standard KVM, yes. With some other device, like the one Moseph linked, no. I mean, there's VNC and other similar technologies that let you use a remote machine graphically over a network, so I figured someone might've made a device that did the same thing but perhaps faster.

The reason why a standard KVM wouldn't work with my initial suggestion was that I was hoping to use my laptop instead of a separate keyboard and monitor. When I was talking to you today, I'd given up on that idea and was just going to keep the monitor and a keyboard close by.

I'm pretty sure it's only velocity-sensitive (or, if it's semi-weighted, it certainly won't be a GOOD semi-weighted feel for that size and price). I'm also not sure if the keys are full-size, shorter length but standard width, or smaller in both length and width, so that might be an issue if you're at all used to playing a normal-sized keyboard or piano.

My current laptop is great for music, and as far as CPU goes, good for the types of games I play too. I played Skyrim on mine, which is two years old now, without issue (with some of the graphics settings turned down, of course). The reason to go to a desktop would be for a better graphics card and more opportunity to upgrade. Also, yes, Moseph, that would work, but that price is crazy!

It's not quite so much about judging how hard you're playing. On a synth action keyboard, it takes a lot less pressure to play the notes, and thus a lot less pressure to play at full velocity than a weighted keyboard. The range of velocities is compressed into a smaller range of pressure on a synth action keyboard. I agree that this is something you should try out yourself, if possible. People's tasted will vary; I'd never buy the Akai MPK that Flexstyle loves since I found it to be unnaturally stiff; it was trying to feel like a piano without there being actual weight to the keys. Good luck!

I found a service called StreamMyGame that basically charges a small monthly fee (or uses ads, in the free version) to stream the video and audio from one machine to another. I haven't seen much positive stuff about it though, and I'm certainly hesitant to save up for a desktop without knowing it will work well. I wasn't expecting great results or a simple solution for this, but figured it was worth a shot.

I'm going to google around for this too, but any recommendations from someone who's tried something similar would be great. I own a laptop, and usually use it sitting on the couch, as there's no good place for a desk in our living room and my wife and I hang out and watch TV most evenings. Being a laptop, it's not the best machine for gaming, and it gets pretty hot running Guild Wars 2 at the lowest settings, even with a usb-powered fan sitting underneath the computer. What I'd like to do is get a decent gaming desktop, stash it somewhere out of sight, and use the keyboard, mouse or touchpad, and screen on my laptop to game using the desktop. I would also have the potential to use the desktop for additional audio sample processing. Has anyone here done this before? If so, what would you suggest? I'd imagine it's possible to do either via a network connection or via a KVM switch or something similar. Ideally, I want as few cables as possible; using the network cable I keep plugged into my laptop already would be great. Since it'll be used for gaming, performance does matter somewhat; I don't care about a really high frame rate, but I want to play without really noticeable lag. Suggestions?

If you're not performing live, it doesn't matter much whether you have a joystick or a separate pitch bend and mod wheel, since you can record the two automation tracks separately. For orchestral work, you might not be using much/any pitch bend anyway, just mod. The one advantage of a separate mod wheel is that you can set the mod in position and leave it, hands free; the joystick will always snap back to the mod wheel at the lowest setting. Having some kind of MIDI controller with a knob or fader would be a good way to do that, whether it's on your keyboard or a separate controller. Your choice of keyboard won't do anything to latency; MIDI (and MIDI over USB) are pretty fast. You'll notice latency if either your CPU is slow or if your audio interface has too large a buffer setting. The one concern I'd have with the keyboard you linked is that the keys are synth action, so it will be hard to get a wide range of dynamics. You can certainly play the notes in and edit the velocities after the fact, but that's tedious; using a semi-weighted or weighted keyboard will be better in that regard.

Some of the best music is influenced by artists from a variety of genres, and that can even be within a single piece. Why put any artificial limits on what you can do? Start with whatever genre seems most natural to you, but don't be afraid to step outside the "normal" bounds of the genre (if that can even be defined) to take the song in the direction you want it to go.

To add to what Gollgagh said, world transfers will cost gems (which are either earned in-game or bought with real money, if I remember right), and limited to 7 days a week. Still, shouldn't be that hard to get your characters to another server. It does sound like all characters must be on the same server though. Getting my info from this.

Awesome, thanks for the feedback SnappleMan and everyone else.

I've actually talked to the band and heard their stuff now, and I have more information. All their keyboard parts are done in Reason, and they want to be able to play them live too. What I'll do is create the sounds in Reason combinators with buttons to turn off any delay and reverb, so I can hear what I think the sound should be like when I'm doing the work, and they can have the effects set up for them when they play live, but it's easy to record dry. I won't actually be in the studio with them, so if they want to record the MIDI, that's up to them; I of course think they should, but it might not be necessary since they don't have a huge budget, I won't take time off work to join them in the studio, and they just don't have the skills at sound design to work things out on their own, so probably they're stuck with whatever sounds I make that they choose to use.

A friend of a friend's band asked me to take a look at the keyboard parts for the album they're recording, to give them feedback on the sounds they've chosen and parts they've written. They're in the studio right now, so I'm basically doing everything with them tomorrow night. I have a question especially for anyone who's recorded an album the traditional way in a studio, or for anyone who has knowledge of how the keyboard parts will be recorded. I'm used to doing keyboard parts for live performance in churches with volunteer sound techs, so I do all the effects exactly as I want them. Is it still ok to do it like that in the studio, or is it better to record dry parts so the engineer can tweak effects later? What about if the effect is integral to the sound, something like adding a lot of reverb and delay to a piano part to make it sound more ambient than tonal?

Also, check out DirectSong, the site Jeremy uses to sell his music. There's a 4-CD soundtrack for GW2 up for sale, and he'll autograph if you order soon. He did the same thing when Skyrim came out last November.

Ever since buying Morrowind, Jeremy Soule's been my favourite video game composer. The music was a big part of Guild Wars for me, and I'm sure it'll be the same in GW2.