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Here are a few crazy clips I've saved over the last few days/weeks: Zombie Minotaur: Poor bestrader getting mauled by a zombie minotaur Acolyte Shooting Gallery: Poor aim, good timing. INCOMING NOVA BOMB: Did not see that one coming.

Partial group photo of last night's raid: We're basically pros at it now; we cleared the Vault of Glass in 1h 35m last night (down from the 4h 52m it took us the first time), and that's even after beating Atheon the normal way instead of knocking him off the ledge. I got nothing but shards loot-wise, unless you count Chatterwhite (for the second time) and a useless arm band. Here's hoping we start getting some raid gear soon. I just hit level 29 so that's the only thing that's going to improve my armor. Nightfall is probably going to have to be solo this week.. the closest we could get Phogoth down was to half health and then a dozen wizards spawn and blast us to smithereens. bestrader in the tower tree.

Didn't get as many photos as I thought, and most of them didn't turn out very cool, but here's one that I think sums up our first Vault of Glass pretty well. We'll have to grab some cooler photos next time! Aside from the shards/energy, I ended up with: Gjallerhorn (Exotic Rocket Launcher) Hezen Vengeance (Legendary Rocket Launcher) Praedyth's Revenge (Legendary Sniper Rifle) We should probably wait until everyone has raid gear or level 29 at least before trying hard mode... get some good practice on normal while we're at it. If you have an exotic helm you'll be able to get to level 30 without having to beat hard mode! Edit: HoboKa, feel free to send me an invite whenever! If I'm not doing anything else important already I'll definitely join up. Same goes for all you other guys. We're a clan after all Edit 2: There's a trophy for completing a raid with a team consisting only of clan members. Let's dooo it. I think we know enough to do it on our own without relying on DestinyLFG people who have already done it. Edit 3: There's also a trophy for completing a strike with only clan members! We're doing Nightfall this week! Who can do it tomorrow?

I've started a second warlock so I can complete all of the weeklies a second time -- I'll be completing the Nightfall strike again before it resets Tuesday. Anyone is welcome to join! Sent friend request to HoboKa! I went on a shopping spree and bought Shadow Price (Vanguard Legendary Auto Rifle), Truth from Xûr, and some legendary armor for my second warlock (still only level 3.. might take a day or two to get up to 20). I'm all decked out for the raid aside from leveling up the new gear I got, it should be great. I'm guessing we'll want Void weapons for the raid. Edit: Also, SALVAGE is back this weekend! I always either get put on a sucky team, or we absolutely clean house. It'd be great to get a group together before it's over!

Still having a blast with the game, thanks to the OCR clan! It's so much more fun playing with a full fireteam. We're looking to complete our roster for Vault of Glass so if anyone is out there still looking for a good time, you should seriously join. New happenings in the world of Destiny and OCR clan: Destroying Septic Grime with bestrader and Lucavi00 on weekly Nightfall bestrader got his exotic Hunter helm from Xûr, finally caught up to me at lvl 27 Dancing on the Moon spire (wearing moon boots, obviously) Dancing with Xûr Keep dancing, Guardians.

Ahhh, I gotcha. You're right, there really is no way to tell if their music "budget" is proportionate to the rest of their budget. That's the fun part of negotiating, huh? In this case, it'd still help to gather all the intel you can on the client.. past projects, any signs of production value, and THEN make your initial offer based on their budget and your findings. As long as everything is still mutually agreeable, then it's a fair deal, right? I'm not even sure if you'd ever have a way of finding out if they could have paid you more.

I dunno.. My issue was with your idea that adjusting rates per client was somehow hurting the industry. Your average client is going to have a general budget range. You either negotiate mutually agreeable terms or the client moves on to someone else who will. That is how all industries work.

I don't think anybody is disagreeing that composers should charge a rate that values their time and skills. But if you aren't able to be rate-flexible depending on the client/project, aren't you going to be missing out on a lot of gigs? This doesn't matter so much if you have a day job (because you won't go broke), but if music is your day job, you need those jobs to survive. So many musicians/composers will take to the internet complaining how overworked and underpaid they are, and how they never find any good producers who actually value their work. They want to try and "fix" the music industry so people will just magically start paying them more money. Meanwhile there are people taking advantage of all of the opportunities being left open by the people who are unwilling to reduce their rates and/or make other negotiations (royalties, publishing rights, etc.). There will always be someone who is willing to work harder for less money than you. Let's say you somehow calculate out your rate to be $500/min. That's the quote you put on your website, and the quote you tell everyone who calls you. You get a call from a podcast host looking for an intro theme, and a AAA studio who wants a main theme (each 1 minute long). Would you not adjust your rates accordingly? If not, you're probably not going to get the podcast gig, and you're going to get ripped off on the AAA theme. Also, if nobody wants to pay you $500/min for your music, is your music really worth $500/min? I can agree on that, for sure. Stay away from those assholes!

Went ahead and sent you both friend requests! I'm a warlock, which balances nicely with your titan and hunter characters. I'm pretty much stuck at level 27 until I can gather enough Ascendant Shards to fully upgrade my purple gear.

The first number given in a negotiation will become the central anchor for negotiating. If you have a good idea of what the project's budget is, it could be to your advantage to be the first to throw the anchor. If you're not sure what the budget is, ask the other party. If it sounds like a great deal right off the bat, go for it. If it's lower than you'd like, make an offer that's higher and negotiate down from it. This is assuming you want to be flexible with your rates. If you want to quote all of your clients the exact same price regardless of their budget, you're bound to miss out on a higher paying job eventually. The last thing you want to do is sell yourself way short, or offend all of your clients by quoting them way too much.

I joined the PS4 clan the other night and have been representing OCR pretty well in the Crucible! Anyone wanna play some Skirmish sometime?

For flat rate jobs, a good technique I learned at PAX is setting up two different brackets for your clients to fall into. For example, a $50 bracket and a $500 bracket. (small jobs and big jobs) Let's say you think something is in the general "$50 bracket," but you're not sure if they can pay more. High-ball it a bit and say "I normally charge $150 for this, but how much of that do you feel comfortable paying?" That gives you a nice price ceiling to bargain down from, and let's them decide where in their budget they can afford to meet you at. Another good suggestion is to ask what their audio budget is. Get a number out of them first so you have a ballpark estimate of where to start negotiations at. When doing small tasks for a high budget client, always charge hourly. $10/hour isn't a bad place to start,

Sounds like this will suit Metroid very well! Look forward to the full album

This is so awesome! It'd be cool to see some item variations as well.. Gale Boomerangs, Bombs (bomb arrows?), etc. etc. The only thing cooler than Double Dash!! 2 would be Super Smash Kart.

If it'd help you manage articulations easier, check out the Keyswitch patches for various instruments. These patches will have many articulations combined into one patch (so you can have all articulations on one MIDI track). As the name implies, you can switch to different articulations very quickly by activating one of the switches, which will be MIDI notes that are out of the instrument's range. Something to try out and see if it works for you!

Working my way into the film/game music scene while filling the time between jobs with my own projects. Thinking about going more the route of orchestration/conducting, if not doing actual composition work. I'm open to both possibilities, or whatever other opportunities arise! Even crossing over into more of the sound design/foley areas sounds like it'd be a lot of fun.

Has anyone organized a group badge purchase? $30 bucks per person if we can get at least 8 people to pool together into one transaction by the end of August. I'd love to get in on that if someone else has already started one. EDIT: And actually I'm planning on submitting a panel, but I do have non-panelist friends who might be interested in the group purchase idea.

Very chill. Your collection of instruments is really awesome and makes me jealous. That sitar is sweet.

There's some sort of story being told, (think of it as visual poetry) but I haven't been able to connect all of the dots. She's walking through the woods and comes across a mirror. Okay. Well, what happens when you normally look at a mirror? She could be seeing everything inside of herself. She's then controlled and manipulated by these shoulder angel/demon things and undergoes a transformation. They place a mask on her, to hide who she is (on the inside)? Someone else appears (without any face markings), and she escapes while the others are distracted by the newcomer. She runs away and eventually falls into a pond, where she presumably drowns (inside herself), causing her to wake up. So maybe the moral is to not mask your inner self (or allow others to influence you to do so), or else you might drown in a pond? Your guess is as good as mine! I'm interested in hearing more about the story and inspiration behind the piece.

Loved how the visuals matched the imagery from the music. Really cool costumes and makeup! Couldn't really understand the story, but it was fun to watch the transformations. Nice work!!

I'm so glad they didn't schedule it during the New Year's holiday travel rush again.. Flights might actually be a little bit more affordable. Skipped out on last year's MAG, but hoping to make it this time!

Oooh.. that includes Kid Icarus: Uprising. I want to make time for this.

Really enjoyed this! It's now one of my favorite Metroid orchestrations. My favorite section was around 5:00-6:00 with the cool harmonies and string parts, and I loved the ending. Samples sound great and so does the mix. My one piece of feedback would be that I think there are too many twinkle things.. (windchimes, glock, even some of the gongs, etc.) The name is great; it nicely coincides with the 45th anniversary of the moon landing.

Nice work! The thing I feel it needs most is a melodic idea. You've got some nice textures going on, but there's very little melody to make it feel "complete." Thanks for sharing