zircon

The saga seems to have come to an end. Micro Center agreed to switch out my MOBO for a newer one that is compatible with the Q9450 out of the box. Not only does everything appear to be working, but I got a gigabit NIC out of it, more USB ports, and up to 16gb of supported RAM. Oh yeah, and my temperatures? Way lower now!

Wow, must be a pretty old computer (5+ years) to only support 1gb of RAM... I'd imagine what would happen is your BIOS simply would not read the extra memory at all.

Posted this in another forum:

I have no problem with the stat reset. For example I sucked a lot before, which brought down my current k/d ratio, making it very hard to improve.

Aaaand because I was at Micro Center all day trying to get a cab, I missed my own mix How'd it go?

Who doesn't? Pyrion, Dhsu, myself, Darkesword, Wes... we're all there.

Thanks Sinewav - yeah, 5PM EST. I was really happy that Pandora decided to add me (they don't add everyone) especially since I've gotten some new fans through that.

You're a terrible human being.

I don't believe you > Also, three votes? What would the third vote have been? Israfel, GL... ?

Speaking personally, I tend to only post in response to music I'm really passionate about... such as the OneUps vol 2, Pendulum, Audix, to name a few recent examples. I don't know if I'm considered an "important" person or not. Free releases are definitely cool, and I don't know anyone who DOESN'T support them, but considering how many of them there are, and how the quality is often highly variable, even within a compilation, I don't post in all the threads because I'd rather not give out half-hearted recommendations. I also agree with sgx that "free" still bears the stigma of "lower quality" for a lot of people, which may be why some people are less likely to click.

Yeah he gave me some tips on DJ mixing in general, though I did all the song selection and actual mixing. Global Trance gave me some advice too.

I was asked by internet radio station puresound.fm to do a DJ mix for their Water World International show. I had never done anything like that before, but I ended up using a number of ReMixes from artists like bLiNd and Siamey, some of my own original material, and of course various prog. trance/house tunes. The end result is pretty cool IMO and I'll have the download link up after the show is over tomorrow night. The mix is nearly an hour long and will be played on Friday, September 12th, at 5:00PM (midnight at GMT+3, where the show is based.) Just tune in to www.puresound.fm to listen. Looking forward to any feedback once the show is over! Also, an unrelated but still pretty cool thing, my first record label release, "System" (PGR038) was reviewed at TranceCritic.com. Here was the conclusion, if you don't want to read the full thing: If you haven't picked up System yet, you'll hear it in the DJ mix, and you can purchase it at iTunes, Amazon MP3, Beatport, Juno Download and many others. Just search for "zircon". ---

TELL US WHAT YOU KNOW, damn you!!

Aw man, don't play with us like that. What are you talking about?

There is definitely no way to contact him anywhere. JigginJonT and I even did searches for his name on those "people search" sites and called the numbers of many people with the name "Gary Alexander" (there is no "Gray Alexander".) Nobody knew what we were talking about. The closest we came was someone that had an address in California and moved to Nevada, which Gray said he did. But the number was disconnected when we called. Gray never shared a pic and refused to talk on the phone even in desperate situations. He talked about himself and his real life but absolutely none of it can be substantiated. I think there is probably not much doubt that GrayLightning was some kind of false persona, but as to whose it was, I have no idea. Of course regardless, that person was a great ReMixer, mod, judge, and friend.

Nice BT-style effects processing at the beginning. The drums here are really nice.. being a fan of vintage drums, this tickled my fancy. All the chaos and glitching of the drums at parts was nice too. The overall atmosphere is very chill. On the other hand, the slow triplets underneath the other 4/4 elements didn't really work. Additionally, around 2:24 there's a weird harmony with clashing notes. The reliance on the fairly mechanical sequenced piano for melodic lead was not necessarily the best choice either... I would have liked to hear it doubled with synth, or possibly replaced at points. One suggestion I have is to maybe span out the drum glitching more. Most of the time, the drums are playing a fairly simple pattern, then at times they go nuts. Why not integrate little glitched fills and effects here and there? The rapping really caught me off guard. Introducing such a major element 3/5 through the song is a weird choice, and I don't think it worked, from the overall perspective of structure and flow. I agree with Larry that the vocals themselves sounded 'off' and could be cleaner and better produced. Carving out some of the low end would help. The harmonies didn't work that well, IMO, but the delivery overall was solid. Then they just stop in less than a minute.. again, from a structural standpoint, OI didn't think that was effective. The ending "sequence" of the piece with all of the glitching was really cool, though I'm a sucker for that stuff. Again I would have preferred to see more of that scattered through rather than in huge breaks, but as a climactic ending, absolutely a nice touch. The interpretation of the source is there, but I have to agree with Larry that you could vary up how you're presenting the source melody (not just in terms of instrumentation, which I suggested above, but also in terms of notes/rhythms.) Definitely a solid sub, but I feel like it could use some extra polish to hit the bar. Main issues for me were the spot with the clashing chord, lead instrument & melody variation, and vocal production. Any changes above that would be great too but those fixes would push it into YES for me. NO, resubmit

Very good stuff... tangential learning is certainly powerful, I've experienced it many, many times myself. However, one problem is that many topics simply cannot work with this method, and you even cited one perhaps without realizing it: Math Blaster. Once you get past simple arithmetic, do you really think there is any non-standard educational method of helping the player learn about, say, Calculus? Trigonometry? Accounting? Engineering? At best, you can encourage the player to look up a few things when they're done playing (or link from directly within the game, as you suggested) but to meaningfully teach most topics, video games with the philosophy of "fun first" can't really work, IMO.

The thing is though, presh said every time he plays on local Aussie servers, he actually does better (a scary thought.)

I still don't get why you didn't use Sixto's mix, as Larry suggested. That guy knows how to mix metal, and the difference is pretty stark even between this version and his. Not trying to be a hater here.. but I still don't feel like the vocals sound that great here, and the emphasis on drums, rhythm guitar, lead and vocals just gets old in my opinion over the course of the mix. Juan's use of strings made it much more interesting, and WAY more epic. Arrangement is still strong... production is still the weak area. The vocals simply don't sit in the mix that well. Drums (mainly cymbals) could be improved, and the section Larry pointed out at 3:55 is indeed meandering (though in Juan's version it sounds more powerful.) Guitars sound a little more full than last time but still on the thin side IMO. The booming hits towards the end have too much bass and cause the whole mix to limit messily. Overall volume could be maxed out a little more. I have to say, I still do like the mix as a whole, and it has improved since the previous sub... but the production is still on the sloppy side and could use some extra tightening. Very close, though. I can't say this enough but really check out Sixto's mix... I would YES this with no hesitation if that were subbed, so maybe the production should emulate that more. NO, resubmit

This is an extremely tough call for me, possibly one of the most borderline votes I've ever had to do. It's hard to not be biased especially considering I know "Cyan" so well - if this were from some no-name NES game with a bizzarre chord progression and sparse melody, I'm sure the "NO" votes would definitely outweight the YESes by now. Unfortunately that isn't the case... Cyan is a very strong melody and the B-section chords are readily identifiable. Before I get to the hard part, I'll say the easy stuff up front. This is a really enjoyable mix with great performances, strong production, thoughtful structure, and excellent overall musicality. Aside from the pops/clicks (which have already been cited) there's absolutely nothing to talk about here except the arrangement. Let me be clear... the arrangement is really good, OCR standards notwithstanding. The solos are all intelligently placed, dynamics are very present, and everything has a logical flow. All these things are what will make the following vote so hard for me. I absolutely understand every YES vote here. I want to pass this one myself. But in my opinion, even if there are several explicit sections where Cyan in audible, and even if the B-section chord progression shines through during the solo sections, the source usage is simply not "dominant". I consider the first portion of the guitar solo (3:39-4:03) to be valid interpretation despite the fact that any analysis of the notes played would show that very little of it is really "Cyan". I just can't in good faith consider chords ALONE to be interpretation. Some of you may read this as a vote against jazz mixes or against soloing. That would be very inaccurate. There is a vast multitude of ReMixes with solos, and the fact is, many of them incorporate elements of the source tune into the solos. For example, starting a riff with notes from the source, then deviating into original material (like this mix did at 3:39.) But while many of these posted ReMixes do this multiple times, the mix in question here only did so once. There were certainly other creative options to integrate the source without compromising the song structure or even the flow of individual solos, and that is all that really would have been needed, in my book, to push this over the edge. I would be happy to clarify my vote more if anyone needs me to. In the end, this is not so different than trance mixes we have rejected because of intros/endings that simply use chords without source melody. The artists may say "but that's what trance is!" just like many will undoubtedly say "but that's the whole point of soloing!" here, but we have passed many trance mixes, and we have passed many mixes with solos. We should not make an exception when none is warranted, hard as that may be. NO (resubmit)

Arrangement is pretty nice overall - the repetition didn't bother me at any point. It just felt natural, and the integration of two themes worked very well. Some of the sounds are on the weak side, but none (drums included) are any worse than Darke's previous mixes, IMO. Sample quality aside, I felt the production was definitely solid. No mixing/mastering problems that I could hear. YES (BGC edit) Dang it, does anyone else have the problem where they mean to quote someone, but instead they accidently edit the post? D'oh! (Larry edit) No. I think it's just you.

All you people with your "gaming cards". I have an en7600gs...

Geez, I think I play at like 1024x768.

It depends on the person. ReMixing involves two major components... technical ability and creative ideas. Most people have trouble with the first part, but the second part is much harder to develop. You can always improve your technical skills, getting faster at MIDI sequencing or better at recording, upgrading your computer and obtaining easier-to-use samples, but if you don't have ideas, then your mix could still take awhile to finish. On the other hand, if you have both creative ideas and lots of technical skill in production you can pump out tunes like nobody's business. My own personal record is two days (48 hours) for "Kindred", though as it was a collaboration with pixietricks I didn't do all the arranging and performing work.

Legally obtaining ROMs requires having the games in the first place, which, for older games, is definitely expensive. VC = local multiplayer and the ability to play games on an HD TV set easily. Yeah, if you don't care about any of that then I guess use ROMs, but it's pretty cool to have River City Ransom back on my HDTV.