Steffan Andrews

How could I not go for this? Nobuo is the man.

I wouldn't even think twice about 8 inch drivers. They make a significant difference compared to even 6'ers.

They're ridiculously cheap and pretty reliable. Plus, I wanted them all to match.

Decent monitor for the buck. I have three.

Yes. Finally someone using Reaper. Edit: Put on my glasses. Sorry, not Reaper. Disappointed

Behold. My sweet loop on Stylus RMX.

I just moved my studio to a new location. I will post photos soon when I have time to take some snaps.

No, it's easy to say when you're out of school and working. When I was at college taking audio engineering for two years, I couldn't afford anything, and I had to quit my job in fact. I'm saying WHEN you have the opportunity, pursue it.

That logic sounds fishy. If it's what you want to do, pursue it. Otherwise the McDick's down the street will always need someone to fill their saturday evening shifts.

And in case you didn't know, music for the film, TV, and gaming industries nets you some serious coin. Hence the affording of lots of gear.

Skill + gear = money money = more gear more gear = better music and capabilities = more money more money = more gear Yay.

Couple things to watch out for: SampleModeling released a sax that sounds pretty amazing (does not surprise). Wallander is working on releasing a line of saxes. Currently you can test the tenor sax in the trial download. It's in development but will be interesting to see how creating ensembles will sound for big band stuff.

Here's a tip: working composers typically assemble their templates from dozens of libraries, not just one. That takes not only an investment of money, but a significant investment in time. Half the science of being a working composer is researching the best of the best for each instrument, finding which ones are efficient to use and how to properly manipulate them to achieve the best degree of realism. Even just that can be a full-time job - never mind the hardware, software, workflow, audio engineering concepts, and of course composing and orchestration skills.

Basically the layman's glossary of terms for all things mainstream computing? Might be good to denote that it's PC-centric unless you plan on having Mac-specific proprietisms discussed. Many terms and concepts pollinate both PC and Mac camps, but unless the differences are stated, it could be confusing. I started a comprehensive rundown of 64-bit OS's including memory limitations and practical uses on my site, but it's a bit of a mess. Needs an overhaul and proper organization, as well as updating.

Keyboards that include synth engines and sounds are good if you do live gigs. They're somewhat limited in a studio setting, and have a little more of a learning curve than throwing up a software plugin in order to get multitimbral sound. In the long run it's usually better to spend the bucks on a decent controller, especially if you're on a budget. Unless you're spending a whack of cash I usually find that you're going to compromise on either the action and quality of the controller, or the features of the sound module. A lot of manufacturers are a business first, and cater to musicians second. They're in it to make money and will cut corners wherever they think they can.

Where's the guts?

Personally I don't see why people get so hot any horny about the Motifs. I used one for a couple years and wasn't too enthralled with it, perhaps other than the capability of the VL-1 addon board. For the money, I really think you can build a screaming rack sampler PC and get a nice MIDI controller.

Just missing some mini speaker stands.

Mini KRKs for a mini studio

In before SnappleMan?

I love it when people ask "what program" you use. It's like asking a mechanic what wrench he uses to fix cars. The sequencer is the main frontend, but there can be many components. In a modular sense, the sequencer in its basic form just tracks the MIDI data you put into it, and it offers tools to manipulate and manage that data. It's the synth plugins, sample libraries, hardware sound sources, and sometimes a very large and convoluted setup of networked computers to achieve the entire scope of someone's capacity to produce music - vis-a-vie, the "Studio." True, you can be entirely in one environment on one computer, in your favorite sequencer. I assume that's the "program" you are referring to? In that case, there are many out there, some with lots of sound sources and effects included, some with few. So in a broader sense, it would be better to find out what sequencer someone uses, along with what virtual (and/or non-virtual) instruments they're using. In addition, if you like the sound of some of your favorite tracks on OCR, PM the ReMixer and ask them what they used to produce it.

As well, you'll find a handful of OCR veterans also work professionally in the industry as composers, and not just for video games - television, film and other media too. Some were established before arriving at the site, while others used OCR as a place to learn and experiment before building a career.

Correct. In order to use more than 4GB (which actually translates to a little over 3GB of usable memory for the process) there's a few options, as was mentioned. - Run a second VST Host on the same machine (using LaaTiDo if it's not LA aware) such as Reaper, Bidule, or the ill-fated V-Stack. Depending on your audio driver, it may or may not cooperate. I've had varying degrees of success on different audio interfaces. - A potentially simpler and more elegant solution, just use ReWire. I haven't tested this on x64, but in theory you can use something like Bidule or Reaper in rewire mode, and because it's its own process, it can load an additional 3.5GB of memory.

Arrangement and orchestration is very cool for about the first minute - I can definitely see where this was going with the allusions to the Jurassic Park score (it being one of my favorites, I know it well.) Unfortunately the substance of the track for the remainder seems to wane and wander a bit. But excellent effort all round!

There's a lot more to consider than just the music itself. It depends on what sort of video game you're working on, and who you're doing it for. If it's interactive music, it takes a high degree of musicianship and technical understanding, because there are often many layers to a single music track that can be added or subtracted at any time, and the music can jump from any bar to any bar depending on game variables. You also need to take into consideration the other sound elements in the game, including sound effects, and both write and mix around that.