Moseph

Exact Audio Copy. You will never need another ripper -- it handles scratched discs wonderfully, it can get around a lot of copy-protection garbage, and it can call an external compressor so you can use any compression type you want.

The verb forms of the mic spelling (which I otherwise prefer over mike) have always been troubling to me -- micing? It sounds like you're throwing mice at people.

Using only one mic would give you a mono recording, which might be okay if you were mixing this with other instruments, but two mics would be better for a solo piano performance because it would let you get stereo. As long as the mics are positioned well, it will sound good. Six to eight is definitely overkill. If you go above two mics on a single instrument, it's usually because there are specific nuances you want to pick up such as the room's reverb qualities -- more mics doesn't necessarily equal a better recording. The SM57 is a perpetually-popular cheap-ish mic, but it isn't the only option. Really, any mic in the >$40 range would probably give you acceptable sound-quality for OCR. To hook the mic up to a computer, you'll either need it to be a USB mic, or you'll need a soundcard or recording interface that can accept mic input (this site is a good resource for learning more). There is free/cheap software available for recording -- Audacity and Reaper would both work fine. Another option besides actual recording is to download a good free piano VST such as the GIGA Continuous Velocity Piano. This would let you create a "fake" piano performance with just the computer by either programming by hand the notes that you want played or by playing on a MIDI keyboard connected to the computer to trigger the sounds on the computer. The results probably wouldn't be as satisfactory as an actual recording, but if you opted not to buy a MIDI keyboard and wrote the notes manually, the stuff you'd need for it would be free.

Actually, this is why I love the original Metroid.

It does. Clicking a category (General, Audio, MIDI, Special Features) gives you more detail on that section, then clicking "Explain the Rating" gives even more detail.

When I was trying to decide between Cubase and Sonar, I actually came across a website that had an extremely detailed comparison chart with several different DAWs. I'll see if I can dig it up again. EDIT: Found it. Doesn't include FL, though.

Eh ... you're right, the links have gone down. Try them again later today -- the entire samash.com site is acting odd, and maybe they'll get it fixed. What I linked to was an adapter that changed two male 1/4" monos to one female 1/4" stereo (so basically the two mono outputs could be combined to a single stereo output). If you plug the second adapter -- female 1/8" stereo to male 1/4" stereo -- into this, you get a stereo jack that should be the size of your speaker cable. I use the 0404 USB with my laptop because I can't install a PCI card in it. The PCI card has a higher bandwidth available to it, so there's theoretically less likely to be latency problems when recording. Functionally, there's not much difference between a PCI card and an external USB/Firewire interface -- usually there are just differences in the types of inputs and outputs they offer, and an external interface may have level-adjustment knobs physically on the unit.

Just to clarify, this is the Emu 0404 PCI card and NOT the Emu 0404 USB interface, right? I think that you'll need the adapter. Only other option I can think of is to buy speakers with 1/4" inputs, and that would definitely be more expensive. If you can find the particular adapter you need, it should be <$10. If you can't find it specifically, you should be able to hack a substitute from this and this.

Do the right-click-save-as thing on one of the links that says "Download from Aplus," "Download from Dreamhost," etc. You don't need QuickTime -- if you're seeing QuickTime messages, it means you left-clicked the link that you should have right-clicked.

Not all of these directly relate to song lyrics ('cause the image is older than this thread), but it's a similar idea. EDIT: Has anyone else seen this this?

I see the problem. The shamisens that show up on eBay look like they're generally made by unknown people/companies and are imported from Japan, so it's not like you can just read the reviews for a particular manufacturer and make an educated guess as to the quality of the instrument. Only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is to try to find some people who actually play the instrument and see what they have to say. Have you checked around for websites, message boards, online communities, etc. devoted to the shamisen?

Also, if you get good at playing it, let us know. I expect people would be interested in collaborating with a shamisen player.

Sigged. 10char

To quote G.K. Chesterton, "Art is the signature of man." Chesterton's point is that even the very earliest humans already displayed an artistic inclination, whereas such a thing is not present in animals. Humans have a natural desire to create things. You could argue from an evolutionary standpoint that this is an expression of a highly developed intellect, or you could could say, as Chesterton does, that humans' artistic bent is derived from the artistry of the God who created them -- either way, a taste for art is a distinguishing characteristic of humans. Just like visual art is composed of lines and colors arranged on a plane, music is composed of sounds and tones arranged in time. It's a bit more abstract than visual art, but both contain the element of human organization, and I think both may initially have developed from humans' desire both to create things and to organize things. Also, the existence of early flutes seems to imply a relatively advanced musical culture -- one would expect very basic music to consist of only things readily available such as the human voice and whatever percussion devices could be easily cobbled together.

I keep almost buying guitars from these stupid deals, but I always figure I could get a better used guitar for cheaper.

I use these, although not for band practice. The sound-blocking is extremely transparent -- they don't muffle things like regular earplugs do, although they're only ~20dB noise reduction whereas I think normal earplugs go as high as ~30dB. Not sure if they'll help specifically with bass, since they're designed to block all frequencies equally.

One other possible option: You may be able to create a MIDI file in FL using the timings you want, export the MIDI, then import it in into Finale and play it through GPO (with human playback turned off). I'm not sure exactly how Finale would handle this, but it might be worth a shot.

The Harry Potter audiobooks. Even if you've already read them, it's worth it just to hear Jim Dale's character voices.

Reason's not really a DAW in the normal sense of the word, since it doesn't (and has never been intended to) record or edit audio. It's more like a collection of synth units and effects with a built-in sequencer.

I'm afraid I'm not gonna be able to make it -- it's looking like I won't be moving to St. Louis until August.

You could probably get ReCycle to open it if you split the 5+ minute wav file into smaller chunks using a wav editor like Audacity and then loaded the chunks separately. EDIT: You can also load wav files into an NN-XT or ReDrum and trigger them like normal samples.

The quick look I had at the Guitar Suite webpage indicates that these are just effects to be applied to audio (and are probably accessible in the effects section of the mixer view's channel strips), but they're not actual instruments. Have you looked for guitar SoundFonts?

Going to go to Washington University in St. Louis this fall for a master's in music composition. I just found out that one of my friends who currently teaches at the school where I did undergrad is also definitely going to Washington University next semester for his doctorate (he held out on his decision longer than I did). And Wash U's going to waive my tuition and pay me a stipend for doing teacher's assistant stuff. To say that things are ideal is almost an understatement.

Doh! They've just released a set of extended articulations for VSL SE which can be bought bundled with the base library for $850. Perhaps I'll hold out for that.