Kizyr

Aww. Though to be honest, given how busy you are, I'm surprised you stayed this long in the judges panel. Most of the jokes have already been made in the first 6 pages, so I got nothin' more to say. I hope this frees up enough time to keep making more awesome music. KF

See you folks tonight! Definitely looking forward to it. Does anyone know if parking's going to be a problem? It wasn't at all last year, but I didn't go to the New Year's Eve party then. KF

I live in the area, so put me down. I'm also totally fine with any excuse that gives me a reason to take another day off work. KF

Ok so the forecasts are saying a chance of freezing rain for some of Friday, but no snow and the temperature won't drop below freezing, so it should be ok (I can deal with rain, even freezing). So, is everything still on? Also, I'm fine with the highways/interstates in bad weather. But if Brushfire's place is like at the top of a hill, there might be some difficulties. Should I wear my Ice Climbers costume there? KF

Man, I just spent two hours last night (well, more like 12:30am~2:30am in the morning) shoveling snow around my car just to get out. I'm gonna be pissed if there's another snowstorm that blocks me in again... Oh yeah, and if I'm snowed in and can't make it up to MD, I pretty much got nothin' to do that weekend... Yeah, let's hope for good weather. KF

Translation: "My goal, as always, is to be more awesome than I was last year. But every year it gets tougher!" ...waitaminit, that was my 2008 resolution... KF

I think this one's unanimous. By the way, are you thinking just live-action, or would stuff like be in line with what you had in mind? (I'm surprised that hasn't been mentioned yet--maybe I missed it) KF

Sounds great! Well, the news that is. I've already mentioned how the tracks themselves sound great. When I went back to my mother's place for Thanksgiving, one of the first things I did was hook up my old NES and pop in Street Fighter 2010. I'm still good at it, but not good enough to get past the sand-dunes... By the way, I'm not recognizing the theme from 1:45 to the end in your YouTube demo. Where's that one from? KF

Riulyn's Sheet Music Shrine is one place I rather like. No Breath of Fire there, unfortunately, but several other games (including Lunar 1-2 and Tales of Phantasia). The problem with MIDI->Sheet Music is that MIDI files are designed to be played as a file, rather than by a person. It can translate into sheet music, yes, but your ultimate goal is usually going to something meant to be read and played by a human (which requires some arrangement, a little or a lot depending on how complex the MIDI file itself is). KF

That explains a lot. Thanks! @GT: Yeah, I checked the liner notes after posting that and saw the same thing. I'd totally forgotten about all the other vocals (in that track and others). KF

I'll still definitely be there. How far is Brushfire's place from Arlington (or DC or downtown Baltimore, just any frame of reference), anyway? EDIT: Just saw the main MAGFest thread. Never mind! KF

Finally got around to pre-registering! I'll be bringing at least one person with me, maybe two. Finally found the original thread for that which answered my earlier questions anyhow. I'm never good with forum searches... Anyhow, since I don't actually celebrate Christmas, and have nothing else to do that weekend, you can expect me there. Dagnabbit. KF

The Dragon Teeth ones are a bit too expensive. Otherwise I would splurge for that, but I can't justify the expense. Maybe much later. What do you mean ugly? Do you mean the shape, or the color (as they're available in different glazes/finishes)? It looks fine to me from either perspective. KF

The three singers on Mado Kara Mieru are all Japanese, so Jill isn't one of them. I didn't think she was on the album, actually. But if I had to guess, I'd say Lux Aeterna (sixth track). (I don't have the liner notes on me, but I think Lux Aeterna's singer was credited in there...) Caoneaidh could be, but that's credited to Anonymous 4. KF

I'm 100% behind the "Name That Remix" contest. For added fun, you can toss in some OLRemixes in the middle. I'm 100% behind this one as well, on one condition: the first person who says "more cowbell" gets thrown out. That is all. KF

I suspect the higher cost of the OoT ocarina is due to the platinum on it. It does look and sound fantastic, but it's really only worth the extra expense if you're a Zelda fan. Since I'm interested in it more because of Lunar than Zelda, it doesn't hold as much value for me. That being said, everything I've heard about Songbird since starting to look into this has been really positive. I'm probably going to end up ordering this one this weekend: http://www.songbirdocarina.com/sweet-potato-ocarinas?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=67&category_id=12 Alto, close to the range I want, key of C, and $72 (the 'forte' version sounds interesting enough to try out). KF

1. I'm definitely attending (not just tentative), so I could be moved from one list to the other. 2. Has that Christmas Day OCR get-together at Level99's (or Brushfire's? I forget which) place been settled yet? KF

For once I actually have some musical goals. Though I'm well-behind anyone else here. - Learn to play, and get good at, the ocarina - Improve my ability to learn things by ear (I'm better at simple melodies, I'd like to work up to picking up chord progressions next year) - Get a keyboard - Actually start work on one of two remix ideas I have in mind Those are sorted in order of most to least likely. KF

(Not sure if this is the right forum; apologies if it needs to be moved) I got to thinking that I'd really like a smaller, portable instrument that I could play and, as a bonus, seemed befitting of a video game nerd. An ocarina seems like the perfect choice (incidentally, not because of Ocarina of Time, but Alex in Lunar: Silver Star Story). My only problem is, I don't have any experience spotting quality with this. Anyway, first of all, I'm wondering if this is a good choice to begin with. I played alto sax and piano for years, so reading music, learning notes, reading music, etc., is no problem. I can't see a down-side, but... there might be something I'm missing. Second of all, like I said, I don't know how to spot quality considering I'm not that familiar with this instrument. I'm basically looking for something that's: - Under $100 (and worth the expense) - Meant for music and not just decoration (although if it's both, that's a plus) - Has at least a 2-octave range (willing to bend this rule) After some searching, first two things I found that looked promising were: http://www.songbirdocarina.com/sweet-potato-ocarinas?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=71&category_id=12 & http://www.stlocarina.com/ocarina-by-type-12-hole.html But, I'm wary of purchasing something more than $50 without some guidance beforehand. Any help? KF

Hm, the first thing I would've mentioned was UrbanizmMusic (urbanizmmusic.com) and particularly DCT (http://urbanizmmusic.com/artist/dct), though that's all already been brought up. The latest revamp you posted and mention of Sandopolis zone got me thinking of a few other sources, like with French/Arab hip-hop. Though since you're focusing on the instrumentation, some of these might be of more or less interest to you: Cheb Mami, K-Mel - Parisien du Nord (Cheb Mami does rai, K-Mel rap; there's some mix of the two genres here) Sniper (mostly Tunisiano), Leila Rami - Entre Deux http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4UyIYeLv5k (more mix of Arab/hip-hop influences here) Tunisiano, Zaho - Citoyen du Monde (both hip-hop though I think Zaho is closer to R& Sully Sefil - J'Voulais Tunisiano - Je Porte Plainte http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnLw3Ghjym8 (these're more about lyrics though; the beat gets repetitive after the first 20-30 seconds) For something completely different, there's Hime (Japanese hip-hop, one of the few female artists in the genre). Here're a couple that may interest you: Ukina- In the Rain- Tateba Shakuyaku- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDiP1s0EexE Hope this helps. I tried to focus on stuff that wouldn't normally come up in conversation, and might've overshot it. KF

HOLY @#*%(&!@*)&%) SID MEIER IS GOING TO BE THERE! There is no font large enough to express my excitement. I wonder if he'll object to me bringing like 6 games for him to sign. And then punching him for causing me to nearly fail my midterms when Civ3 was released. KF (Oh yeah, The Megas & Entertainment System are back, and we get to see Select Start and The OneUps too. All even awesomer.)

Oh man, this is bringing back so many memories now. This was one of my favorite games growing up--I completely forgot how absolutely amazing the music was! (Actually, I think this may be one of the reasons I always had an affinity for cyberpunk.) It tended not to get as much notice for some reason... maybe it was the insane difficulty? Anyway, on your two-minute demo, the theme from 0:56 to 1:20 is perhaps my favorite (theme-wise and remix-wise, from what I can tell thus far). I'm really looking forward to the completion of this. Excuse me now while I load this game up for some nostalgia. KF

Male or female vocals? I'm not asking 'cause I want to apply (awful singing voice; you wouldn't want me, I assure you), but because I'm curious what sort of awesome stuff you're going to come out with next. KF

I always use MP3Tag. I don't know if it'll do something as specific as add a word onto the end of an existing tag, but I've found it extremely useful for all my mass ID3-tagging needs. The Filename->Tag and Tag->Filename features are what I use the most. KF

Even if it's down for a couple months, as soon as it's back up then I'll be there. I might be an outlier, but I actually had more free time after college than during undergrad. That continued right up until starting grad school earlier this year (and still working full-time). ...now I got nothin'. Anyway, yeah, I hope it comes back soon, and I hope y'all have the time to pick it back up soon. KF