The Pezman

Well I certainly won't be going home (to NJ) after the show lets out. I do have a friend's place I can (hopefully) crash at, and then I can be around to hang out the next day before I leave. If I do have to take the train, I guess I should schedule the departure for around 6 pm the next day so I have enough time to ask questions and do other stuff.

I know it's over a month away and people are still purchasing tickets, but does anyone have an idea/suggestion about what (if anything) we should do before the show? I know I'd like to bring my laptop and ask all sorts of mixing questions, but if we'd only be going out to eat, that obviously wouldn't be advisable. I know we have time to figure it out, just want to keep it on people's minds.

One of the most irksome things about video game music coverage to me is the repetition of the themes covered: the most well known themes from the most well known games. Covering the Super Mario Bros Overworld theme was fun about the first twenty times. Then... well... Anyways, what about a piece of underappreciated music: the CT boss theme, for example. Or what about an underappreciated game: Threads of Fate. Before anyone goes up in arms about how both of those sucked, keep in mind it can be anything you feel is deserving of more attention. That, at least, is what I had in mind.

www.asio4all.com I brought this up in my thread about live performance, but people seem to have forgotten about that and the specific event I was preparing for is long since over. However, the biggest obstacle proved to be something Suzumebachi pointed out: that my piddly directsound laptop card has a high degree of latency. Upon testing this I found that to be the case. But I then I found that program and downloaded it. It also comes packed in FL7 (if not earlier versions as well). So it's my guess someone here has attempted to use it. I did, but it didn't seem to eliminate the latency issues. This, of course, causes me to wonder about Asio4All's overall use? Help, anyone? By the way, please don't try and suggest I purchase a new sound card. I am attempting to SAVE money. If Asio4All can work for me I'd like to find out how. If I can't I'll need to put off live sound for a while.

Could we make a sticky in the Reason and/or FL threads for people to upload their music files? Does OCR have the space to host even a couple? I'd certainly download them.

Help a noob out. What kind of funky fresh things did he do? Plugs? For what?

Kay, just paypalled it over. I imagine I'll be able to go. And if I can find a place to sleep (I remember I have a friend there) I may even spring for a train fee. But if anyone is driving from Jersey (or north of that) let me know, and I'd like to work something out.

Kay, lots of stuff going on, and rather than troll through the entire thread to find my answers I'm gonna tally up what I believe to be the tentative schedule, along with all the questions I've got: Anyone coming from Jersey? I'm in Montclair... We meet up mid Friday afternoon, hang out, play games, go to eat, and go the concert. Do/can we sit together? I should probably know that before buying a ticket. We sleep - where? Not a hotel, preferably. I'm still reeling from MAGfest. What do we do on Saturday? More hanging out?

That's cool. There are two reasons I ask: 1. I don't know if I'd have a place to stay, and I REALLY prefer not to pay for a hotel on top of food, transportation and ticket fees. But I do have a friend who lives in DC, so it may not be a problem. 2. I was wondering if there'd be an appropriate time for me to whip out my keyboard and laptop and get some personal help on configuring things just right. But if we were to meet at a restaurant and then go to the concert, such an opportunity might not present itself. I would have taken advantage of the skills of those present at MAGfest, but I was just meeting everyone (still am) and trying to get comfortable.

I presume this would be a one-day thing? Meet up for the concert and then go our separate ways?

Sorry, I know it's not proper forum etiquette for me to do this, but the (possible) gig is coming up and I need assistance. I downloaded Asio4all and started futzing around with it... I have not been able to get it to work quite right. Anyone ever used this before?

Bad news... I wanted to order a MIDI/USB cable from them, but they only had a Hosa cable. I try my best to research products before I buy them, and not only was I not impressed with Hosa's website, the cable was PC only. Now I actually use a PC, but if I ever want to use a Mac I don't want to end up being screwed. They didn't seem to have any other MIDI to USB cables. So Im'ma get an M-Audio one from Sweetwater instead.

According to teh RPGamer, it's not yet slated to make an appearance stateside. So.... just thought you all oughta know.

Kanthos - The mixer that I'll be using (it's not mine) has a quarter inch input, so that's what I'd like to use. But even if I didn't have a hardware mixer available, I'd prefer to bypass it anyways and preset my eqs through the computer. suzumebachi - As I do with all things I don't know, I wikipedia'd ASIO and discovered what it was. The article gave me a link to this: http://www.asio4all.com/ Wikipedia says it "brings ASIO support to users of virtually all consumer-grade soundcards and integrated audio chipsets." Would this solve the latency issues you're referring to?

It's a shame I couldn't make this... I'm pretty close to DC. If you guys plan another summer NYC meetup I can be there fo shizzle.

What are these DI boxes you speak of? I will be looking at forums for certain. And I'll come back here if I find something in the manual that looks useful. I still need to get all the connectors together so I can interface the two.

Could we start with Reason or FL Studio? They're cross-platform, relatively user friendly and they both have their own support forums (which leads me to believe that they're well known around here). MIDI arrangements are useful to a degree, but my ear isn't good enough to compose faithful arrangements myself so, if possible, I'd like to remix a song using a MIDI that has already been created. With that in mind, it's the real nitty gritty of soundfonts, effects, and the like that I was after.

Anyone ever done/consider this? I've been thinking of ways for newbies like myself to effectively break into the business that is OCR. But remixing takes a while to learn, and then you have to worry about mastering subtleties and the like. There's no quick and easy way, but I was thinking of something which might help: I imagine (hope) most remixers are smart and back up their remix projects in whatever program they choose to use. The details of said projects would be very telling of exactly what the remixer did to get a particular sound. So, I wonder, why can't people post the remix files themselves? If we have the same programs as one another (and it sounds like for the most part we do) it would be an easy, excellent and cheap way for people to see firsthand exactly how others have done what they've done. I expect some people might take issue with this idea because the person who has suddenly been handed these finished tracks can suddenly go ahead and claim the piece as their own. Fair enough, but that's why we should keep it limited to mixes which have already been approved and posted, effectively preventing any sort of full-fledged thievery. Anything less than the whole remix itself (i.e. a particular sondfont, bassline, MIDI sequence, etc) sounds to me like things people would be willing to share anyway. Thoughtz? Am I full of crap? I hope not, since I think this could work out well.

::whistles patiently::

I don't want to have to click tracks. Ideally, my laptop will be nowhere in sight. The keytar has buttons that you can press to change your MIDI mapping on the fly so long as you've preprogrammed it (more details about the buttons available if you need them). I want the laptop to be my versatile sound box, but I want to be able to control everything right from my MIDI keyboard and have the button press be equivalent to clicking a track (again, provided I preprogrammed it). Another question that comes to mind is the sound quality you get by going from a eighth inch connection (the only sound output a laptop ever has) to something a bit more robust (ie quarter inch). Does it sound okay? Can I just run an eighth inch to quarter inch converter from my headphone jack to an amp and be good?

I get the impression that most people here are willing to teach for free. Maybe not in the "I'll sit down with you and go through every single step with you till you've got it" kind of way, but the wealth of free information out there is vast. The problem is synthesizing it (pun intended) all together.

I know this isn't exactly a remixing question, but I thought this would be a good place to get some answers. I just purchased a Roland Ax-7 Keytar. Not everyone's cup of tea, I know (though I don't see why) but that's all besides the point. It's a MIDI controller, so it has no sounds of its own. Descriptions on web sites all say to plug it into a MIDI generating box or a laptop. What they (and the Ax-7 manual, from 2002) fail to do is elaborate. I don't have (room for) a MIDI Box and I don't want to purchase one, not when my laptop is infinitely more versatile and customizable in terms of the different sounds I can generate. But the question is: how do I do that? Should I just use Reason samples (playing them as if I were writing a Reason tune) and play that way? Will it respond to the patching buttons on the Ax-7? Or should I use something else? By the way, I don't think one would necessarily need to be familiar with the Ax-7 specifically to answer this question. If you've ever interfaced a controller through your laptop for the purposes of live sound, you can probably help me.

1. Learn how to effectively mix on a level where I can actually submit something 2. Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal - Team Rocket Hideout (good starter song) 3. Knuckles Chaotix bonus stage 4. Final Fantasy VIII - Esthar That's enough to start.

Hey... I liked that music. Maybe not as a full-fledged song unto itself (that, after all, is why we remix them), but it set the mood pretty well. Fair enough point with AC, but I was definitely thinking more along the DoC lines myself anyways.

It's good... fewer of the definitive themes that Uematsu is famous for and more of the sweeping, flowing, grandiose orchestral-based stuff from Final Fantasy X. At first I thought the music from both games were by the same composer. But it's not.