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danimal cannon

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Posts posted by danimal cannon

    Halo 3

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    His name is Marty o Donnell actually, I was rereading my post and noticed it.

    I met Marty O'Donnell this weekend. Really nice guy. I gave him an Armcannon tshirt and he made us sign it for him.

    Personal Music Achievements.

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Let's see.

    -Playing out for the first time with all original music I wrote, and having it actually be a good show.

    - Performing at Magfest

    - Being paid and given hotel rooms for multiple nights just to play a show

    - Winning a contest with a remix of mine at RPGamer.com, even though they stiffed me on my prize. Watch how many songs I'll submit over there.

    - Winning the Dwelling of Duels contest, twice in a row.

    -People coming TO ME for recording advice.

    - Having Armcannon mentioned in an article in The Guardian newspaper.

    -And tomorrow, I will have performed with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Videogames Live. That's gonna be a notch on the old belt.

    What are your preferred 2D Super Mario platform physics?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Yea people, blame the controller or the game for misjumps or stuff ups....the likely excuse. :-P

    Na, on a serious note, the earlier games did have a lot more slide than the others, but that was intentional. Mario had less skid than Luigi but couldn't jump as high, fact of the game and a fun little quality. Pick an early SMB game and try to run through the whole level with Luigi without slipping off an edge or slamming into a waiting enemy, it's quite the challenge. I always hated those parts with a massive gap to jump, and only the most tiny ledge you have ever seen to land on, now that's just teasing.

    um? except in SMB2 there are no diffferences between mario and luigi

    What are your preferred 2D Super Mario platform physics?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    SMB 1 and 3 were just right.

    When playing as Mario in 2, I sensed that there was a bit more "gravity" and he didn't hang at the peak of his jump like he does in 1. I can still pull off some smooth moves in SMB2, but 1 and 3 are where it's at.

    Also, when playing Mario World, the way I first held a SNES controller, the spin jump button was where my mind wanted the regular jump button to be. I couldn't handle that game for the longest time.

    All Time Hardest Boss

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    The Nemesis weapon in Final Fantasy 10. It's the top elective battle you can fight at the monster ranch. I had Tidus to full power, max sphere grid, damage break skill on his weapon, BLitz Ace, so he did 900,000 damage per break, and everybody in the team had full overdrive bars, with the Entrust skill learned, so they could give Tidus their overdrive so he could Blitz Ace again. I popped off about 5 of these attacks, for nearly 5 million Hp damage total...still wiped the floor with me. One day I'm gonna go back and try again.

    I had a friend who I saw beat him. I think his trick was to use keep everyone at auto-revive at all times and use quick hit as much as possible.

    Musicians: Do not read

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Yeah it changes... for the better because the composer has more drive to get it done. I'd rather work for myself doing what I love rather than sit in a cube from 9-5 every day. Now THAT is souless.

    I couldn't disagree with you more. The spirit and determination behind every achievement of mankind is compensation. Whether it's money, fame, recognition, salvation... Who would make music if nobody listened to it? There is nothing wrong with making money as there is nothing wrong with compensation. Money is just a form of many.

    If I HAD to write something with the purpose of making money, it would sound different than if I just wrote because I felt like it. Why? I would be writing it for my audience not me.

    Yes deadlines can be a good motivator, but they can also be the ruiner of something that just needs a little more time to expand on it. I've had songs that have been perfected over the course of months, and if I had to shit something out with a limited amount of time, it might be good, maybe it could be better.

    I'm not saying money is the root of all evil. Why doesn't want to make money doing what they love? I'm just saying the rules change when money gets involved. Like I said, you start writing FOR YOUR AUDIENCE rather than YOURSELF. THAT is how things change. Is that a bad thing? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you LOVE to please your audience, and more power to you and that gives you all the fulfillment you need.

    My keyboard player is a video editor for commercials. Many times he comes up with wacky ideas that he likes and suggests them, but ultimately it's about what the customer wants. But on his spare time he DOES express himself, even if for just a little bit

    I've seen Virt post about doing the soundtrack to the Ninja Turtles DS game. I know dozens of people around here would kill to do VG soundtracks. Anyways he said he was forced to do all these ambient tracks because that's what the director wanted. A bunch of his originals were rejected for being "too megaman-ish".

    If you disagree with me about how things change when money is involved you're severely deluding yourself. I've SEEN it happen a hundred times. Whether that change is a terrible thing is another discussion. I'm just affirming that a change occurs, and its not for the artistic good in most cases.

    Musicians: Do not read

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Well, to make money in the music industry you have to be able to accept that your music IS a product, like a tube of toothpaste, a box of mac & cheese, or a candy bar. Occasionally, a service. However, I do not think this diminishes the art. Does selling a CD for $10, or licensing a song for $200 somehow change the notes on the page? The tone of your bass drum? The soulful performance of the singer? The answer is NO.

    ?

    I write tons of music that isn't a product whatsoever. It's just expression.

    The idea is, that when you change the motives behind writing music, the music itself changes.

    I want SELL an album. I'm probably not going to fill it with ambient 9 minute rock pretentiousness even if that is what I want to do. It ABSOLUTELY is soulless. I have friends who are phenomenal graphic artists. However they spend most of their time doing SPAM advertisements because there's money to be made there. They use their artistic talents, not for art, but for something they care little about except for the paycheck they get out of it. Same thing with recording jingles and god knows what.

    I'm not knocking it. More power to that sort of guy, hell I'd love to break into that sort of stuff myself. But if you're saying you lose no artistic integrity by doing that youre fooling yourself.

    Musicians: Do not read

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I was actually referring to the classic rock coverband as being soulless.

    Making lots of money because you play exactly what the bars want to hear ("brown eyed girl", "mustang sally") and making it impossible for original artists to make a buck.

    This thread should be called "Musicians looking to make a living profesionally: Do not read"

    I'm perfectly content with not making money off of music, I just do it because I love it. As soon as you start putting an agenda behind it, you travel down the road to darkness.

    Megadave, I submitted that song maybe 2 months ago. I imagine it has to get posted sometime soon.

    Musicians: Do not read

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I'm going to make the assumption that most of the OC musicians are not live performers. Or at least not playing out regularly.

    Pretty much one of the best things I've ever done was enter the Dwelling of Duels competition regularly. It built up my recording chops to the point where I can forgo the traditional studio route.

    Recording in the studio and getting a professional sounding recording is fucking expensive. It said in that article that they spent $10,000 on their recordings, and thats totally believable. Time is money when recording, and you can't just shit out a full band recording without taking some SERIOUS time.

    Lets say you want to go on tour? Where's that van gonna come from? Trailer maybe? Merch? $$$$$$$$, fuck maybe you have to pay for your practice space and equipment too!

    Luckily, I did the poor local musician thing for a long time. Learned a few tricks and avoided a few pitfalls. Close to free pro sounding recordings is a godsend.

    Could I do Armcannon full time and live off it it? No. Not currently anyways. However the level of success we achieve on the part time level never ceases to amaze me, and in some cases we make more than some of that bands in that article, with barely any merch sales, and no CD available.

    ---------------------------------------------

    Now I DO know a few professional musicians. One of them is in a hardcore band signed to Trustkill records, has several music videos that have been played on MTV, was on Ozzfest and Warped tour the past couple years. They didn't make money for a long long time. And zero profit came from CD sales. When in California their van was stolen and around $10,000 plus in gear and merch was stolen. So that's tough to recover from. They had merch guys stealing money from them. They were able to sustain themselves when touring the country. I think theyre making money now, finally.

    The BEST way to be a pro musician and pay the bills?

    Be in a good rock or classic rock cover band. Get about 2-3 hours worth of material and play it well. Pro sounding gear is mandatory.

    You can get gigs playing a circuit of bars around your city, paying anywhere from 500 to 1500 a week. You can just alternate bars and cycle them weekly. Built in crowd, no promotion necessary. Then during the week, teach lessons to kids or something. I know a few people who do this, and it's do-able. Soul-less, but do-able.

    The MAGFest 6 Topic (omgz)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Even if I could manage to get the time off and the money, you'd have to travel a good hour north of where your profile says you are now to pick me up though, as I'm between Rochester and Buffalo.

    Then it'd just a be a good 8 hour car ride of awkward silences and saying "Uh....yeah." a good couple dozen times because we have no idea who the other person really is. =P

    Where are you? like Batavia?

    There's actually going to be a fairly sizable amount of Buffalonians attending teh magfest.

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