theshaggyfreak

I agree. I generally don't hear a lot of positive things about Garritan's libraries. The only thing that it has going for it is the price. So, if that's something you have to worry about, it might be worth looking into. As far as EWQL goes, PLAY is really not the best sample player but you're stuck with it if you use their orchestral library. EWQL is also known for having a fairly poor level of tech support. I can vouch for that personally. I don't plan on ever buying another library from them. There are plenty of alternatives out there to these two companies and some of them have been listed. I think it'd a good idea to research them before you make a decision about what to buy.

I personally would recommend starting out with Vienna Symphonic Special Edition Volume 1. I also have EWQL Gold but I tend to use Vienna more often. It really depends on the sound you're going for, though. EWQL definitely has the Hollywood sound. Vienna's instruments are all dry which gives you some other options. If I could have just one, I'd probably go with Vienna but that's mostly because I truly dislike EWQL as a company.

I guess they've been at this new place for about a year now and it's fairly large. They also now have a month event where people sell their private collections and they also have little tournaments.

I find that the quality of a GameStop store varies from location to location. I've encountered courteous and knowledgable employees. I've also encountered the product pushers and rude opinionated idiots. If I'm walking around the local mall, I will browse through their store for a few minutes to see if there's anything that catches my fancy in the cheapo bin. Other than that, I tend to buy new games online and it's usually if something is on sale. I rarely buy a game on release. As far as buying used games, I tend to go to eStarland since it's about 15 minutes away from me. They have a massive collection of games for current generation systems as well as classic consoles. Most of the people that work there have been doing so for a number of years and they've always done a good job taking care of any problems that I've had. I'd rather support a small local business if I can help it.

SID Sounds Volume 2 is the sequel to my original SID sound set. While Volume 1 concentrated on the raw wave forms of the SID chip, Volume 2 is all about lead sounds. I multi-sampled ten different synth patches using the MSSIAH cartridge and set them up as Kontakt instruments. While some of them are bread and butter type sounds, you'll also find some wave table arpeggiated patches. Each sample was recorded for several seconds and I spent a good bit of time doing my best to set the loop points properly. There are a total of 325 samples weighing in at about 214MB and the price is $10. You can find it in the sound design section of my website at http://www.pureshift.com. Please let me know if you have any questions!

I've used them in the past without any problems. Once they sell those 5-6 CDs that yo initially send them, you then will send them more and this time a larger batch. They only have so much room in their warehouse after all.

With only 10 days left to go, we're at 223k for the MTVN Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fredrin/megatokyo-visual-novel-game Now, this is over 10 times what we originally planned on but a lot of stretch goes have been put in. I'm going to try and do my best to make music as professional as possible. There will probably be a few paid spots to be on the OST aside from vocalists. I'll definitely be coming to the fine folks of OCR on a few instrumental areas. I'm not entirely sure of what my budget is going to be, though. There's also going to be a bonus DVD data disc for backers that get a physical OST CD. I'm looking at doing something quite similar with the bonus disc in the Balance and Ruin release. While I know that we already have quite a bit of money in the KS, I really could use the support of OCR being that this is my first major video game(ish) project. If you can't back it with dollars, I'd truly appreciate having the word passed around and such. Even a vote of confidence is helpful. Whether you like or hate Megatokyo as a web comic, this project really means a lot to me.

I guess there are still plenty of fans out there and maybe even some new ones. Either way, I'm hoping to make the best out of the situation.

So, we're about 48 hours into it and it's nearing the 85k mark. I figured we'd reach our goal rather quickly but I wasn't expecting this much support in just two days. Needless to say, I'm excited. We have a long road ahead of us and I have a lot of work to do to cover my share of the work load.

It looks like the goal has been met (and then some)! Hopefully we can keep things moving so that we can make the game that much better!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fredrin/megatokyo-visual-novel-game Some of you already know about this but I can now openly talk about things now that the KickStarer is under way. I'm quite proud to be able to work with my friend Fred Gallagher and a crew of amazing geeks to get this game off the ground. This is by far the largest project I've ever taken and it will be the first time that I will be responsible for so much music. Needless to say, this is a very important project for me and I would be in the debt of all you OCRemix folks if you could support the KickStarter in anyway you can. I'm not necessarily asking anyone to pledge but I would be grateful if the word could be spread to the masses. On a side note, depending on how well the KickStarter goes, I may be able to hire some guest artists. So, that's something to keep in mind with this. This game could potentially require a fairly large amount of music and I'd love to bring some of you aboard if I'm able to. I thank you all in advance for taking the time to read this. This is probably one of the most important projects I've been involved in to date. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well.

I drove back and forth for a few years like Arrow but I decided to get a room a couple of year ago. It really is worth every penny and I highly recommend it if you can afford to do it. Having a place to get away from the crowds and relax is really nice. It also helps to not have to worry about driving home tired after a day of having fun.

I've been playing a Carvin bass for over 20 years. It's never failed me and it always sounds good. Carvin gives you a ton of options to chose from when they build you a bass. The only problem is that you can't really test it out before you buy it unless you go to one of their show rooms in California. Needless to say, I would highly recommend them. The most I ever really used pedal was a bit of chorus but I haven't used anything in years. I either go direct into my audio interface or into my GK amp. I've played a number of different styles doing this and haven't really felt that I needed a pedal of any sort. My personal bass style is a product of jazz, though. I'm not a very flashy player. Now, I may be in the market for a pedal soon for my little Kala U-bass. It could really use a preamp/EQ/compressor type pedal and Fishman makes a pretty good one. The U-bass is kind of an odd beast and I think it needs a wee bit of taming.

So, now that I have a better set of tools for sampling various instruments, I'm going to start offering more mini-libraries for very affordable prices. I have a bunch of analog synths in my studio to sample as well as various acoustic instruments. The first batch of these new libraries comes from the Korg Montribe! Right now you can pay what you think it is worth or you can just grab it for free (for a limited time). Just go to my website at http://pureshift.com/ and look under sound design. You'll also see an older sample set that I did from my Commodore 64 listed there. While I do have my libraries set up for the NN-XT, you can also get them for Kontakt. Enjoy!

It's best to check with each manufacturers website to see if they allow license transferring. Some do and some don't. Some of the ones that do require a specific procedure which usually entails filling out a form or two. I've re-sold a number of VSTs and DAWs in the past without any problems but there are some things I'm just doomed to keep even though I never use them. Native Instruments - Yes you can but you have to contact them here: http://www.native-instruments.com/en/support/contact-support/registration-support/ IK Multimedia - Yes you can but you have to pay $19.99 per plugin.

http://machinaesupremacy.com/ For those who aren't familiar with the headliners, Machinae Supremacy, I suggest you check them out! I've been a fan for years and they were my introduction to SID laced metal. They have a pretty nice chunk of music that's free to download from their website and is a good way to get familiar with or to decide if it's not your thing.

I went ahead and created a room block so that those getting their hotel room can join up! The block name is Overclocked Remix. http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FMAGFest12JoinBlock&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEz3ChXNyYKfUavdP6s3DGE1kqgKw Machinae Supremacy! I'm so stoked!

I've been wanting to get a piece of software to help out with instrument sampling for quite some time. For those who haven't done it the hard way, it really is a bit tedious to go through the process of sampling even a basic sound. There's a lot of editing and making sure loop points work. SampleRobot has been out there for quite some time but it's always been a rather expensive piece of software to purchase. Well, they now have it set up where you can purchase it for specific sample players for the affordable price of $60 (US). I ended up buying the Kontakt/Reason version of SampleRobot. Why are these two paired together? Well, this version of the software will kick out an SXT file which is mainly a Reason file but Kontakt can read it too. As a test, I set it up to sample the square wave of my NES using my new Chip Maestro. The process was pretty painless and extremely simple. SampleRobot will even walk you through each setting that it needs before you hit record. Below is a Kontakt version of my initial testing of the software. I ended up opening the SXT file and re-saving it in Kontakt format. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6718229/NES%20Square%20Wave%20Test.zip So, this is really a great piece of software to pick up if you want to make your own sample libraries. Samplerobot will even assist in creating libraries of acoustic instruments. Between synths and other various instruments, I have quite a few things that I sample in my studio. Anyway, I thought I'd throw this out there for those who might be interested in such things. http://www.samplerobot.com/ Oh! They do have a Mac version of it now and it works fairly well so far. It's a bit quirky since it uses a WINE shell but it's better than rebooting my iMac into Windows all the time. *** I did a 2nd test and this time I sampled my Monotribe. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6718229/Monotribe%20Test.zip

I'm actually starting to go through this process for the first time. I've taken on the position of lead composer/sound effects guy for a game that will soon have a kick starter going. I've talked about this with some folks but I don't want to say TOO much until the Kickstarter is up. It'll be an indy game but it has the potential to have a fairly decent budget considering that the game will be done by a fairly well known web comic artist. Depending on how things go with the Kickstarter, I'm fairly sure that I'll be walking away with the rights to the music I write as well as the profits from selling the soundtrack. Other than that, we still need to discuss any royalties, etc. This is the first time that I'm taking on a project like this. I've been friends with this particular artists for quite some time and I know that he'll treat me fairly. So, once things blow into the wind, I'll be talking about it about more on the forums. Depending on said budget, I may even be able to bring on some guest vocalists/musicians. I know that I'll at least want one guest female vocalist no matter what. Zircon, I actually plan on talking to you about this a bit this weekend to get a bit of advise and such.

I've been using Roland MIDI controllers for quite a while now. I've had the same one working for me for about 8 years now! I'd probably get this guy if I upgraded right now: http://www.zzounds.com/item--ROLA800PRO Another choice would be this guy. I've been pretty impressed with the keys on my Minibrute. http://www.zzounds.com/item--ARAAELAB

Why do you want to buy it? What do you plan on using it for?

Feel free to send me an e-mail with any info you have so far and we'll start working things out.

The Focusrite will have better preamps and I find that their support tends to be much better when it comes to computer audio interfaces. I have a Saffire Pro 40 and absolutely love it.

I'd sure like to give it a shot. Feel free to message me or e-mail me at shaggy@zoiks.org. http://pureshift.com/ has a lot of stuff that I've done.

It sounds a bit more natural since it has some reverb baked in. I don't think it's the end all be all strings refill but it is a great addition to what's already out there.