Flexstyle

I started off as a very Eurotrance-esque artist. After that, I moved into drum'n'bass, mostly of the aggressive, bassline-heavy variety. Once I'd gotten a handle on DnB, I switched things up a little bit, and went to atmospheric downtempo/chillout music. The atmosphere in that genre coincided nicely with my trance background, but I added a healthy dose of hip-hop inspired drums and such instead of the more electronic drums in my previous work. From there, I've kinda evolved into someone who can literally tackle any electronic genre and a few types of hip hop, rock, and even jazz. Everything tends to borrow elements from each other, so by just changing one element at a time in your music, you'll eventually have a really extensive sonic arsenal.

Without saying it quite so, er, bluntly, this is pretty true. Your ability to avoid heavy amounts of buffering will be reliant, for the most part, on your CPU, and a very low-end AMD laptop chip is going to really, REALLY hurt you. An external soundcard will be a waste of money if all you're looking for is buffer relief. It's not a bad investment, but it's definitely not going to solve that particular problem.

If I do dress up, I'm gonna go as a cheesy pickup line. .... Get a bunch of toy pickup trucks, glue them in a line on my shirt, and put cheese in 'em.

I'm being a college student swamped in homework. Oh, wait. ...srsly though, my teacher is a cruel man who gives us a REALLY IMPORTANT test the day AFTER Halloween. >.>

Crap, they're on to me!

This. So much of this. I haven't yet had any truly good experiences with an M-Audio USB audio device (FastTrack series, MobilePre, etc.), but my Delta 1010LT PCI device is still going strong after five or so years now, and it's had a LOT of heat-related abuse in some past computer builds.

My name is Flexstyle, and I endorse this product or service.

Emunator and I may be looking for another guy or two to share our room. Haven't checked with him to confirm, though. We'll probably be a much more chilled area, so if you wanna party like it's 1999 you'll probably wanna look somewhere else.

One more vote for the Bastion soundtrack--that thing is pure gold. I've also been partial to the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Videogame soundtrack by Anamanaguchi. Finally, if you want some of the most beautiful, emotion-driven piano music you've ever heard in a video game, check out the To The Moon soundtrack. Edit: Looks like the Shatter soundtrack also got a mention above me, and that is a really solid OST as well.

Ewww, Fruity Compressor. Pretty much ANYTHING will be better than that, haha. I haven't heard of these two plugins you've posted, although I suspect I'll give 'em a try here soon. I usually use a combination of Blockfish, FerricTDS (several plugins on that page), and good ol' Soundgoodizer.

I've created a list on the first page of a lot of the stuff discussed so far, and I'll be updating it again when I have a bit of time. Keep posting apps, if you think there's one missing!

Hey all, I just purchased a brand-new Android smartphone (Galaxy S3), and I'm wondering what your favorite apps are for that OS. Free or paid, doesn't matter, but you'll have to make a good case either way. I'm completely new to the world of smartphones, oddly enough, but some things worked out to where I ended up finally purchasing one. I figure this fits in Community since there are bound to be several game recommendations. UPDATE: I decided to go ahead and create a list here of all the apps and games that have been recommended, as well as a link to the Google Play store for each one where possible. That way, this thread can be useful to more people than just me. Let me know if I've missed anything, and please do continue to post your suggestions as well! MY PERSONAL FAVORITES: Robotek HD by Hexage (Free) - Beautiful game combining strategy, robots, and slot gambling. Words With Friends (Free) - If you're a word nerd, this is an essential. Dolphin Browser (free) - Excellent browser which has won several awards. Spotify (Free/Subscription) - If you like music, and you do, you need this. Doubletwist (Free) - Great upgrade over the stock Android media player. Caustic (Free demo, $7.99 to unlock) - Make music on your Android! EVAC HD (Free) - Modernized PacMan with a gorgeous art scheme. SwiftKey 4 ($1.99 on sale, $3.99 normally) - Excellent keyboard. Massive improvement over the stock Samsung keyboard, which wasn't that bad. GAMES Rayman Jungle Run ($3.99) Canabalt HD ($2.99) Swords and Soldiers ($2.99) Final Fantasy I ($6.99) Final Fantasy III ($15.99) Spectral Souls ($14.99) Smiles ($2.99) Draw Something (Free) Scramble With Friends (Free) Productivity Dolphin Browser (free) ....more to come later, when I have time to edit this post the rest of the way.

This isn't a proper mod review, but I do want to pop in and say it's quite an enjoyable listen. Unfortunately, this song veers dangerously close to "cover" territory, which will be a problem when dealing with the judges. On the production front, it's very bright-sounding--which isn't a bad thing, everything seems to be pretty well melded together--but there isn't a lot of bass in the song, at least not through my setup. Might not be a bad thing, per se, but the source tune you posted was noticeably deeper-sounding. There's a bit of an awkward transition at 1:55 or so, which I realize is part of the original, but probably wouldn't fly for an arrangement. Overall it's a really enjoyable track, just probably wouldn't cut it for the judges. Cheers!

I don't think that's at all fair to the people who have put so much work into keeping OCR out of legal trouble. Please, a little respect. And hey, another month certainly ain't gonna kill this project!

Happy Monobirthday!

I mod reviewed this a while back, too. 0.o

Soldier, in order to answer your question, I'll just go straight out and recommend FL Studio's demo. It's got a lot of functionality, and the community here at OCR has a TON of FL users, myself included. As has been mentioned, DAWs are quite subjective in terms of features and usability, but here is as good a place as any to start: http://www.image-line.com/downloads/flstudiodownload.html. I think you'll find that FL's workflow is pretty conducive to the styles of music you mentioned. If it doesn't work out for you, hey, it was just a free demo. For what it's worth, I'm also manufacturer certified in both Logic and Pro Tools (and have spent time working in Nashville recording studios), so it's not like I don't know what I'm recommending against.

Your belief is false, I'm sorry. Pro Tools is nice for some things, but Windows also has a lot of other stellar options. Reaper, FL Studio, Cubase, Sonar, Ableton Live, Reason, ACID...all of these and more will do the job just as well. Yes, Logic is a stellar DAW. It's also got a very steep learning curve for anything besides basic functions. A lot of other programs are much more newbie-friendly. Same goes for Pro Tools; honestly, in my experience, Pro Tools is not so good as a content creation DAW (i.e. what you'd be looking for as an OC ReMixer), but rather as a content recording and editing DAW. Soldier, my advice is this: go and download some demo software and start playing around. Find out what works best for YOU, because DAWs and their usefulness are VERY subjective. No matter which one you end up choosing, you're probably going to be able to get help with it on this forum, since (obviously) everyone uses such a wide variety of stuff here.

Just got your message, and I have a couple of thoughts. That side-stick sound is definitely a bit annoying the way it is; you may want to either lower its volume, or simply adjust the panning. The closed hat sound could stand to be velocity-edited a bit, just to give it a bit more humanization. Love the keyboard work. The piano and the electric keys alike are really nice. Bassline is also stellar. Finally, my recommendation is that you put a pad in underneath everything to fill out the sonic landscape. The strings come in really late in the song (and they're panned a bit oddly to the left), and I think the song would benefit from having another pad in there. This isn't super in-depth, but hopefully it's enough to give you a few ideas. Really enjoyable song as it stands, and I know you can put that final layer of polish on it!

I've got 5" E-Mu monitors, and they cut off right around 60 Hz or so. 58 Hz might be more accurate, even. My subwoofer saves me a LOT of "check-on-another-system-nope-that's-too-bass-heavy-check-again-nope-too-light-omg-this-sucks."

Yeah, honestly, this is the kind of thing where you're going to want to go and test a bunch of different keyboards out for yourself. The latency is a function of your audio drivers, and have nothing to do with the keyboard. I absolutely love my Akai MPK49, but it's got a LOT of bells and whistles and may not be the best for what you're looking to do. Check out some models at the store, find out which ones you like, and then do a bit of research online and make sure that there aren't any glaring flaws with your favorite one.

Believe me, with the kind of orchestral stuff listed as planned, hard drive space will be a huge issue. I speak from experience, here. Also, whatever drive you get will need to be halfway fast. Most modern hard drives should be alright, but personally I'd recommend at least a 7200 RPM spindle speed.

Yeah, actually, that may well be all you need for now. You'll want to upgrade to a better interface when it comes time to do any sort of serious recording (because that way you can choose your microphone, etc.), but all the actual processing of the orchestral samples 'n such will happen with the processor. That's why having a good processor is so important. And hey, you can always try out your Roland device, and if it ends up not working very well, just upgrade. From what I can tell, though, it should do the job just fine.

Yeah, just make sure Windows is set to use your built-in soundcard as its default. You can set your DAW to specifically use the other soundcard instead, and it works just fine that way. I suppose quad-core isn't REQUIRED, but honestly, there are some really good options out there, and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble that way. If you want, I can probably put together a list of parts on Newegg or something and give you the specs for a custom build. Building your own computer is a really rewarding experience, both because you'll save money and because it's more fun!

If you're going to be doing music (especially any recording of instruments), get a card made for music, rather than gaming. I've had really good luck so far with my M-Audio Delta 1010LT, but it's a bit old and uses ol' PCI. If you've got a spare PCI slot (rare on some computers these days, depending on the motherboard), it's still a fantastic card. I'd recommend something like one of these: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FireStuMobile/ (FireWire) http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Delta1010LT/ (PCI) http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/KompAudio6/ (USB 2.0) The way I have my computer set up is to where it uses the integrated audio on the motherboard for everything but my DAW, and my DAW then has full use of the add-on soundcard. Everything's routed through a small mixer, where I have headphones and speakers plugged in for monitoring options. As far as other components go, I'll second the recommendation for 8 gigabytes of RAM (what I have), and at least a quad-core processor of some sort. An i5 or a higher-end AMD quad or 8-core chip should do the job pretty well, too. Hard drive space? I'm almost at the end of my five terabytes. You'll need as much space as you can possibly afford. Video card doesn't matter too much, but having a decent one helps if you're going to be doing any gaming on the side.