Moseph

When the Dojo announces Mega Man, it will be a surprise for everyone!

Yeah, generally when you're dealing with speakers of any kind, they're first to get turned off and last to get turned on. I don't think it'll really matter if you're just booting and shutting down a computer, though. When it's really more of an issue is if you're dealing with mic/instrument cable and are physically messing with the connections, because you can unintentionally make some really loud, sharp noises. EDIT: My talk about being able to damage any monitors wasn't intended to make you super-cautious -- rather, it was to point out that any monitors can break if you abuse them, so I don't think you need to be too hung-up about whether or not these particular monitors are possible to break.

He probably mostly just wants to make sure that you won't destroy your monitors through negligence and then try to blame it on him or the store (I imagine that audio stores would tend to have problems with people doing this). I have no experience with RP-5s, but I would think that listening to stuff at normal volume levels isn't going to damage the speakers unless maybe you take an EQ and crank the bass frequencies up 36db or something. The issue is basically that cones of that size just can't produce low frequencies well, so don't try to make them sound like a subwoofer would. If you need the subwoofer sound, buy a subwoofer. Also, keep in mind that it's possible to damage any monitors; it's not an issue that's unique to this particular model. (A general no-no is plugging or unplugging audio cables that are active, because the pops this produces can damage monitors -- mute the related channels first.) Googled the headphone-out issue for you. It looks like using a headphone-out probably wouldn't be a problem. As always, just be careful with your levels and use common sense.

Super Mario World had that drum track that appeared or disappeared depending upon whether you were riding Yoshi, so I think that counts as interactive.

I just bought an E-MU 0404 USB interface ($160-ish), although it hasn't shipped yet, so I don't have any personal experience with it. For this price range, it's supposed to have pretty good mic pre-amps. My understanding of the USB vs. Firewire issue is that Firewire is better because it relies less on the processor to allocate bus usage than USB does, so CPU load is less likely to cause recording errors with Firewire. Anecdotal evidence suggests that recording errors aren't really an issue on USB 2.0 unless you're, say, recording 8 tracks simultaneously (which, obviously, you can't do on something in this price range). If you're considering a Firewire interface, check and see what kind of Firewire port your Viao has. You need a six-pin port if you want to power the interface through the Firewire connection; if you have a four-pin port, you'll need to plug the interface into the wall to power it. Most USB interfaces can be powered by the computer (although the 0404 I just bought can't). If you're considering a USB interface, it's probably a good idea to get a USB 2.0 one. Potentially helpful links to comparisons of Firewire interfaces and USB 2.0 interfaces. EDIT: Most of these are Windows XP/OSX. If you're going to be using it at all on Vista, definitely check the manufacturer's site, because not all of them are Vista compatible.

That same thought occurred to me the first time I played the old Sega game named Flicky.

Have you tried uninstalling everything related to Flash, cleaning the registry, then installing the latest version?

It just gives you the option of dealing in a different way with how the sound decays. If, for example, you want some of the hits to be cut short but others to be the full length, that would be the easiest way to do it -- like maybe if you're trying to program a flam on a snare drum, it might sound best if only the last hit was the full length.

Epic orchestroktronica!

If I'd heard it without knowing what it was, I'd have guessed it was from a movie score. I wouldn't call it epic orchestral, but I can't really offer a better name. Orchestral rock band, maybe?

Maxis had a thing about llamas, too. I always loved that about their games.

How about if I write something and put your name on it? Is reverse-plagiarism okay?

As an illustration, here's a quote from the guy who made Cave Story, which has pretty good music (and the game has a couple of OCR mixes): (Link to the interview) In general, the more specific the requirements of the style you're writing in, the more your theory knowledge will factor into the actual process of composition. Excluding writing in historical styles (e.g. writing fugues), I think the style of music where theoretical knowledge is probably the most important is jazz. It's such a big deal in jazz because you need to know how the chords and scales are constructed so you can understand lead sheets and improvise, and if you're arranging, it's good to know something about chord voicing so your harmonic parts will sound nice. EDIT: I joke with my friends that when composing modern classical/art music, we can pretty much do whatever the heck we want for whatever reason we want and leave it to the theorists fifty years from now to try and make sense of what we did.

Whether or not knowledge of music theory will necessarily make you a better mixer is an open question, but it definitely will not hurt you. I think one of the greatest benefits will be that it will enhance your ability to communicate with other musicians because you'll know how the jargon relates to the music. Like zircon, my theory knowledge comes mostly from study in college (two years of theory and ear training, and additional jazz theory studies). I don't think the basics should be all that difficult to pick up on your own, though. If you can find other people to hang out with who are accomplished musicians or are just interested in music, that would be a great thing, too, because it always helps to have support from others who share your interests. Again echoing zircon, learning the piano will probably help with learning theory -- the piano keyboard gives you a concrete way to visualize scales and chords, for example. I'd played piano for years before I started studying theory in college, and I think it gave me a tremendous advantage over those who didn't have any piano experience. (Although be warned that if you do acquire piano skills, suddenly everyone will want you to play Happy Birthday for them. ) Another thing that helps improve general musicianship is (big surprise) listening to music, especially types of music that you're not familiar with or might not even like that much. In one of my theory classes, the teacher made us listen to about twenty hours of 20th-century classical music -- lots of weird, artsy, avant garde stuff. We all hated him for it at the time, but in retrospect it was one of the best things anyone could have done for us (or for me, at least). Looking back on all I learned in college, I think that class was the thing that most broadened my musical perspective.

I almost hate to bring this up, but judging by the screenshots a few days ago, it looks like you can only register up to 64 friends. So much for the hope of registering every single person on teh internets as my friend.

If this issue's still relevant, one thing you could do is consult the ormgas.com Top 100 list. The official OCR site might not track popularity, but the Ormgas list is as close as you can get to an official favorites list.

In the file menu, Action > Copy Range > Compressed (or Uncompressed) brings up a window with two sliders that cover the entire length of the CD. One sets the start for the rip, the other sets the end. At the very left side of the sliders' range, the "Relative timepos" field will be a negative number. That's the pregap stuff, so set the start slider all the way left and the end slider where negative becomes positive, then hit okay. Like I said, this makes my system hang. I just did a quick Google on it, and some drives (mine apparently included) can't read this pregap stuff. If yours can't either, I guess the simplest thing to do would be a line-in recording from a regular CD player.

I frequently listen to jazz or classical music while I level-grind in WoW. Or Ormgas, sometimes. I've got two monitors, so I can pull the media player over to the second one and still see song info while I'm playing.

I think you do it with Action > Copy Range ... , but IIRC I've tried it a couple times and it always made the system hang for some reason. And yes, there is a hidden track there. You can access it in a regular CD player by rewinding past the start of the first track.

That darn internet is all over the place, revealing Smash characters, government secrets, and Harry Potter plots.

I co-composed a score a three-minute cartoon that a student did, and I had similar problems. The guy would send us a version of the cartoon, claim the timings were locked, we'd compose to it, and then he'd revise it and we'd have to rewrite our music. We finally told him that the next thing he sent us needed to be the locked picture and we wouldn't accommodate any more changes. He got our score, but then he made more changes and chopped our carefully composed music into little pieces to try to make it work with his new version. The final product was a mess. Inexperienced directors don't understand that a movie must be essentially complete before scoring can even begin. They think you can just write some stuff and stick it in somewhere. They probably need this done for an end of semester evaluation and are behind schedule. My advice: Explain that you need the final locked picture in order to write a score. If they can't give you that plus a reasonable amount of time to write the score, then get the hell out. They can use their temp track. There's no reason that you should be expected to accommodate this nonsense, especially when you're not getting paid and have never even met the director.

I remember playing this game at a friend's house. I must have been about six. How's the music? ReMix worthy?

Have you tried reinstalling?

Have you tried searching the hard drive for the file you attempted to save? It's possible that it's somehow getting put in the wrong place. EDIT: Actually, this sounds like it could be a permissions problem. If you haven't already done so, you should repair your permissions in OSX. If you don't know how to do that, follow the directions here.

TASCAM's Giga Continuous Velocity Piano is good, especially since it's free (they're giving it away to advertise their Giga Virtual Instrument). Available here.