theshaggyfreak

I've been using the Safire Pro 40 for about a year now. i bought it to replace a Digi 002R after i decided to get rid of Pro Tools. The Safire Pro 40 is a great interface and the preamps are pretty clean. I can't say I have any negative comments about it.

Yeah, I was really only interested in Christopher Tin and Mr. Sakimoto. The price was worth it for those two.

The Christopher Tin stuff is good too! I picked up the bundle myself.

Brandon, you have a severe lack of patience. These things don't work out in such a short period of time. Depending on what's going on behind the scenes, there may be negotiations of some sort going on. If the guys say they're working on it, then that's what is still going on. They'll tell us when they know something. Getting pissy with Kickstarter or anyone else won't make the situation better. Now, go make some music or something.

My only problem with the way that I'm writing now has to do with scoring to film/video. There is no DAW out there that has a comprehensive notation system. Logic has some of the basics but not enough to be usable when you're used to using something like Finale. Going back and forth between my DAW and Finale is somewhat of a pain. This is the only part of my work flow that is a bit rocky.

Believe it or not, many of my ideas come to me while doing the most mundane things. I think I get some of my best ideas while taking a shower. What sucks is when I totally forget what I wanted to do by the time I get down to the studio. The courses I'm taking from Berklee have started to get me to see writing music in a more logical way. Starting to write things in notation has been working really well for me. Sometimes I'll just sit and compose 16 bars that has melody, harmony and bass lines. I then stash that away for when I need ideas. You can really come up with a lot of variations from 16-32 bars. Writing in notation also gets you away from thinking about sound design. In this setting, the only thing that matters are the notes themselves. It's quite liberating and you get to experience the big picture.

The stock organ settings are under default as shown here:

I'll have to put something together this week. Maybe I'll even break out the fretless.

Jazz is actually how I learned to play bass and I spent about five years doing so when I was a bit younger. Speaking of jazz, I'm hoping to take a jazz composition class from Berklee next year.

I really like Carl Sagan's Ghost for ambient stuff and a lot of it is available for free. http://carlsagansghost.com/

http://vimeo.com/45587080 I've had to privelage of meeting Mr. Stocco last year and he has some great insight on sound design. This 80 minute video is from one of his presentations that he gave recently and it's definitely worth watching. It's not so much about music but more about understand sound and how to manipulate it. Enjoy!

Just in case you'd like to read/comment on it, I wrote a post on my website expanding how I feel about these things: http://www.bsodcomic.net/2012/07/19/some-thoughts-on-conventions/

Yes: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=How+many+flats+are+in+Ab

http://www.wolframalpha.com/ I came across this nifty website today while doing some classwork. I'm finding it quite useful for analyzing chord structures and such. So, I thought I'd pass it along to those who might find it useful. Here's an example of how you can use it: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=C%2C+E%2C+G%23

If you're looking for something on the cheap, I would suggest finding an accordion soundfont to use rather than look for a VST. If you have Kontakt, there are several libraries out there that would work. I doubt that you're going to get a decent and/or realistic accordion sound from a synth.

Sharing game time can be good too.

Well, one could always just hang out with significant other instead of gaming. I hear people do that these days.

There are TONS of people (such as me) who got really tired of spending the time and money keeping their computers up to date so that they can play the latest games to their full potential. Not everyone wants to mess about with complicated setups just to play a game. I don't feel that this project is trying to compete with the PC computer gaming market at all. The people behind OUYA are trying to create a gaming environment in the living room that will give a larger share of developers access to that demographic. I support this because I want to support the gaming world in general. Again, I think too many people support a Kick Starter because they want to get something. Giving has it's rewards too.

http://jephjacques.com/post/27366296877/the-problem-with-comic-con My wife pointed this article out to me. Unfortunately, this is exactly the sort of thing that happens to a convention that gets too big and forgets why they started the thing in the first place. This is one of the reasons I'm not feeling a huge desire to ever go to something like SDCC. Meeting celebs is fun and all (did that at Dragon Con last year) but it's super expensive and starts to fall very short of being worth the time and expense. I'm not waiting 5+ hours in line for anything...ever. Well, at least I won't on purpose. Seriously, I'd rather go to MAGfest and such events where I can hang out with my peers, exchange ideas, rock out to some tunes and be artsy. Hopefully MAGfest won't ever get to where SDCC is these days. Hell, even Otakon doesn't have the same appeal to me as it once did.

You really only need an outboard mixer if you're recording a decent number of instruments at once and your audio interface is lacking enough inputs. Some people just like the tactile format for recording things but it's not a necessity. I personally haven't used one in my recording setup for a number of years. For a tactile feel, though, I do use a surface controller to work the mixer in my DAW. Having two monitors can certainly help your work flow. I really do like having my edit view on one screen and the mixer view on another. It gives me the big picture that I need to keep control of my sessions.

Sometimes you just have to step away from the computer and make something with your hands. I wonder if anyone else has made something craft OCR bits. Here's something I did yesterday for fun...

This is actually a pretty good book to have on hand for reference. I got it before I started my Berklee classes and still find it quite useful: http://amzn.to/OvynFr

A lot of what we learn is by looking at a particular scene and pick it apart. When trying to achieve a particular mood, you'll find that there are a lot of key things that usually happen in the music. Take a sad ballad for instance: *** Harmony Sad ballads are written in minor keys. Closely related modes, such as Aeolian mode, can be used. Triads are used extensively. The harmonies are not particularly adventurous, primarily using triads with an occasional added seventh chord. The majority of triads are placed in root position. However, first- and second-inversion triads can be used provided that their voice leading is logical. Suspensions are often used to embellish the progression. The most common suspensions are 4-3 and 9-8. The 9-8 suspension is particularly common in minor. A 6-5 motion is much like a suspension and commonly used in minor. Modulations are used to restate themes in new keys. Melody Most intimate ballad melodies are diatonic. The melodies are based on the pitches in the underlying chord progression, with the vast majority of the pitches in the melody being chord tones. The most commonly used non-chord tones are passing tones, neighbor tones, and suspensions. Countermelodies can be used, but they are typically presented during the second instance of the theme. The first instance of a theme is typically presented simply, likely as a two-layered structure of melody and harmony. Doing so allows the listener to become acquainted with the primary melody. When used, countermelodies have a unique rhythmic structure from the primary melody. This separates the two musical ideas in the ear of the listener. *** It really helps to have some grip on music theory to hear these things, though. It also helps to be able to look at the score itself if it's available. The nice thing about these classes is that we get to see scores that typically aren't available to the public. We study John Williams a lot since he has a pretty good track record for composing film scores. My advise is to watch a bunch of movies you like which are similar to the one you'er working on. Take notes on things you notice in common musically and use that. Do that and write music that follows the contour of the scene and you'll do fine.

It's actually not that difficult to do some basic sample mapping. There are plenty of tutorials on the web that go into detail on how to do it. Even a video like this can help out quite a bit.

There are a lot of what if questions and such but I'm not putting down my $99 just to get a console. I'm donating my cash with the hope that this will come to fruition and help the gaming market as a whole. Sure, it could fail but there's also a chance that it won't. It's pretty easy to argue both ways on this one. I understand that there's a trust issue with OUYA since there's not a whole lot of concrete evidence to support what they're claiming. I'd probably be more skeptical if these guys were some nobodies from Nigeria. I think they're current goals are extremely optimistic but only time will tell whether or not they have the ability to do this and I'm willing to give them the chance to prove it. In the end, anything can be a failure no matter who is behind it. All of the big boys have had their share of bad R&D investments. One thing is of sure, this will most certainly fail if consumers don't back it and that's often the case. That's what my $99 is going towards. I'm an investor in this and I know that these things down't always pan out. That's the sort of mind set I think people need when throwing their money on a Kickstarter.