theshaggyfreak

Unless someone can give you a ride, getting to the Gaylord from BWI can be tough. You'd have to look to one of these companies:http://www.bwiairport.com/en/travel/ground-transportation

I have a Zoom HN2 which is a great multi-element handheld mic but it also doubles as a USB mic and does so quite nicely.

Depending on what airport you're arriving at, you have several options. So, first off, what airport are you coming in at?

You might want to look into finding a local group to join. I know that in my local area, there are a few groups that get together for taking pictures of various things and sharing techniques. I dabble somewhat in photography myself and will eventually join one of them. The ones that I came across ended up coming from Meetup.com. Aside from there, I have found some books that have helped me out quite a bit. Scott Kelby has a large series of books that has really helped me out quite a bit. You can grab them fairly cheaply from Amazon if you have a Kindle or an iPad. He doesn't dive into subjects on an extremely technical perspective. Instead he very practical about the way he instructs you. I would definitely check his stuff out.

True that. One other thing that I didn't mention is that my wife is the bread winner in our home and I'm the house husband. She's got the electrical engineering degree with a lot of physics type stuff added in. I make music and pretty pictures (or not so pretty) but tending to the house is probably my main job. I do nearly all the cooking and cleaning as well as things like grocery shopping. Despite the day and age that we live in, we still find people who are surprised at our situation. Another thing that some of Kate's co-workers are surprised of is the fact that I have no interests in professional sports what so ever. I'd rather see a Broadway show than a pro football game any day. I know a number of guys who are in the same situation as me but people still find it odd that I don't have a favorite team or know what the score was from last nights game. Women do get penalized more by society for breaking gender roles. I think it's going to be quite some time before society truly breaks away from that sort of thing. Women have come a long way when compared to how things were between the 30's - 60's, though. I'm hoping that things will progress further over time.

Getting Sazh's theme to fit into 4/4 and still retain the same feel was a bit tricky. I'm trying to get a bit away from creating mostly electronic tracks. It's a lot more challenging to step outside my element and I feel that I learn more that way.

Marketing is a seriously power that isn't to be trifled with. Gender roles are pretty much shoved down our throats constantly and it's pretty easy to sway a large number of people this way. As a consumer, we are the ones that can sway what advertisers do by making smart purchases on a consistent basis. As a guy, I can attest that I love robots and things like that. One might say that is a very boyish quality. I also like cute things such as the various girl racer toys from Wreck It Ralph. I'd rather have any of those than something that sports the main character himself. I adore the Princess Belle mug on my mantle that I got at Gaston's Tavern at the Magic Kingdom. I also have a blanket with Tinkerbell on it. I like what I like and I don't give a shit at what advertisers think I should be buying.

Garpocalypse - From 0:24 to about 0:40 I personally would have loved to hear a bit more separation of the instrument. It's a bit muddy and robotic sounding. The same happens at about 1:15 to 1:45. Other than giving the piece a bit more humanization and maybe a bit more sparkle in the upper frequencies, I really like it. The composition itself is nicely done! I love the heavy guitars! MindWanderer - Everything sounds great! Lovely piece! I think my only real complaint is that I would have liked to hear a bit more space in the lead line during the middle section. Maybe a little delay? The piece has a really nice ending to it. Great resolution! Avaris - Wow. I have a feeling I'm going to lose this round! I really dig what you've done here. Lots of great atmosphere and texture! I love swirly pads! I don't really have anything negative to really say on this one. Tuberz McGee - It has a bit of that Enya thing going on, doesn't it? The only thing that really sticks out to me is that the volume levels could be a bit more fluid. Sometimes a part will just suddenly lash out at you and it kind of breaks the atmosphere a bit. Kudos for being so ambitious with this piece, though! No matter what you're using, choir stuff like this is not that easy to do via just software. It'd be interesting to hear what this might sound like with real voices. Good job everyone!

I also suggest Yamaha when it comes to digital pianos. They generally make the most affordable stuff that's worth buying. We have an older semi-weighted piano that's done well for us for about 9 years. The Yamaha P-105 is a pretty good deal at about $600 and it'll last you for quite some time. It also has fully weighted action which is something that a piano teacher will really want for their student.

Yeah, the Tingklik is a bit cheating as far as sticking strictly to Japanese instruments. I believe, though, that there is a Japanese equivalent or at least something a little similar. I do need to work on getting Kains material to fit in more. That's something I'll definitely work on before I submit it to the judges. Thanks for the listen!

My point is, the manufacture can't be blamed if you lose something. I don't really see dongles as an inconvenience at all. In my eyes, it's the same thing as having to remember to bring the power supply for my laptop or my audio interface. I feel that all of my equipment is my responsibility to keep track of whether it's one of my guitars or a little USB dongle. Now, the one thing that I will give you is that the iLok (at least the original) has build quality issues and I've seen pictures of ones that have fallen apart from normal use. That's a totally different gripe, though.

Thanks for the compliments! I really wanted to try and give instruments their space and I think I mostly accomplished that. I do plan on sitting down with it and varying things quite a bit more before I submit it to the OCR judges. For those that are curious, here's where the various instruments came from: Shakuhachi - Comes included with Kontakt. You really have to play with it to figure out how all the expression stuff in the patch works. I found most if it was from different velocity levels. Koto and Shamisen - Koto Nation from ISW. Taiko Drums - Some of it is from EWQL Gold. The rest is from the Ten Man Taiko from Nine Volt. Tingklik - This is also from Nine Volt. Kokiriko - This is 8Dio. I hope to be able to sit down tomorrow to listen to everyones submission for this round. I'll post some notes as well.

Now, I think Propellerhead has done it the best way. Their key is required to use Reason but you can also authorize via the internet when you start up the program. You can also designate one computer to hold the license on the hard drive itself. To be honest, if one is worrying about using a USB key or forgetting it somewhere, that's not exactly the manufacturers problem and I tend to find it a weak argument. I have items that are smaller and worth much more to think about. USB keys are quite easy to handle logistically. I personally feel that software developers have the right to protect their IP in the way they see fit. Dongles will scare off some people but I guarantee it's not enough to make much of a difference in their bottom line. If you end up losing an iLok due to one reason or another, it is a bit of a pain getting your licenses back. I had to deal with this once at a studio I did some work for. Some companies are quite easy to deal with when getting a license replaced. Others are a nightmare. This isn't a problem with the iLok itself but more to do with how each individual company handles licensing issues. The help get around that, iLok does have a sort of downtime insurance that you can buy. If you've invested enough in plugins that require an iLok, then it's probably worth getting the insurance.

The jobs will definitely not come to you. If they do, you're quite lucky. My first real job was mostly due to the fact that am friends with the guy who hired me. In the end, you have to pound the pavement and do all of that self marketing stuff. Learning that stuff requires a lot of trial and error and reading some books. I'm sure there are some here who will be better informed as to these sort of things.

If you're not already, it helps to use parallel processing with reverb to help balance things out. Actually, parallel processing in general helps me out quite a bit when adding in an effect to a channel.

The flute is actually the Shakuhachi flute is actually the one that comes with Kontakt. I was surprised that it actually sounds quite nice. The bass is the bass koto from Impact Soundworks and it's usin the same reverb as the rest of the instruments but I do need to work on getting it to sit a bit better in the mix. I wanted to work in more source material but I started running out of time and just decided to finish up with what I had. There's a lot of various percussion in there: taiko, tingklik, kokoriko, etc.The clicky type sound is probably the tingklik that's playing an arpeggiated sequence and I suppose it could be a bit louder.

https://soundcloud.com/theshaggyfreak/brother-from-another-mother This is my second entry for the Final Fantasy Crystal Clash tournament. It's the first time I've composed anything using only far east instruments. I still need to sit down with it and really tighten things up. In this is a mixture of material from theme and theme. Much of the material comes from Sazh but you'll here bits of Kains theme when the Shamisen plays the lead. Rather than stick with the mixed meter from Sazh's theme, I changed things to 4/4 which was somewhat difficult but I think I managed to pull things together.Constructive criticism is welcome...

Well, I got mine submitted. I'm not as happy with it as I was with my first round remix but this was the first time I composed anything with only far east instruments.

I have a few of these dongles myself for various programs and have never had a problem with them. Hell, I think my iLok is about 8 years old now.

I'll have a mix to post for this week but I haven't had nearly the same amount of time to put into as the last one. The holiday kept me a bit busy. I'll get something in before the deadline.

I would look at something from Rode. http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/NT1Kit/ is a good deal.

Ahh, It's a good time to upgrade my copy of Komplete then! $75 isn't too bad at all.

I've set all of my libraries to 75% off for the holiday. So, you have until midnight on Sunday to get the discount. http://www.pureshift.com

Mixed metered stuff can be quite fun. I had a ton of fun doing it in the last round but I'm going a different route this time. So far it's working out nicely. heh

I think you hit it right on the money. You really do need to use both compression and volume automation to get things to sit properly in the mix. I tend to use compression to tame the extreme peeks. I'll then use volume automation to smooth it all out. You play a mean sax Mr. XPRTNovice!