zircon

The Smash Bros lineup changes a bit every year, but the constants are Midee, Ailsean, Norg, Prozax, and virt. This year, they had ktriton on drums (I think last year was shawnphase?) and then this other guitarist, but I didn't recognize him. They played a bunch of tunes including Zelda 64, FF6 (Phantom Forest), Actraiser & Castlevania, "You Got the Touch", and an original written by Jake. The whole thing was really great - not just that set, but the whole weekend. SO many cool people.. the only thing I didn't like was that it seemed to end so soon!

I'll show you the first original song I ever wrote, which was done entirely in FruityLoops using lots of presets and some bundled MIDI riffs. I did write some stuff myself, but I don't take credit for all of it. http://zirconstudios.com/twilightforest.mp3 My first remix, which was done using Magix Music Maker 7 deLuxe and LOTS of loops.. http://www.zirconstudios.com/motavianbattlefield.mp3 (Phantasy Star IV battle theme) A few other early "gems"; http://www.zirconstudios.com/nightstalker.mp3 (Castlevania "Vampire Killer") http://soundtempest.net/zircon%20-%20Fall%20of%20Man.mp3 (Chrono Trigger "Magus") http://soundtempest.net/zircon%20-%20Aerial%20Fortress.mp3 (Phantasy Star IV air castle) etc.

FLAC is just not feasible on a lot of levels. To respond to a few things.. The vast majority of people don't have a problem with 192kbps. Hell, the vast majority of people don't have a problem with 128, which is the iTunes standard. Not everyone is an audiophile. In fact, hardly anyone is, so catering to that tiny niche is not worth a great expenditure of time and effort. Additionally, saying "what are production values worth" is highly ignorant... artifacts from encoding are negligible at 192, 160, 128, and really even at 64, compared to the impact of a wide range of production issues. If you choose an unrealistic flute sample it's going to sound unrealistic at any bitrate. I don't think this is a good hypothetical. It is inexpensive to purchase a player that can store all of OCR's library. Most people have pretty nice MP3 players these days. If you don't have one, you have your computer and/or CD/MP3 players. It's not the end of the world to have to switch CDs or files around every so often, not that many people even do that these days. How many people actually know how to produce good encodes? And of this niche that doesn't have a decent-sized MP3 player and can encode properly, what are the chances their tiny player will support that encoding format..? It's not an option, and we don't retain them if they are submitted that way. We have a 6MB filesize limit for bandwidth reasons, why would we allow people to submit files several times that size? I would estimate that over 80% of the OCR repertoire is not available in lossless format and the source files are either gone or corrupted. That is a conservative estimate, too. There is no convenient way of distributing them via HTTP; that is really out of the question. If we were to create a lossless torrent, it would at best be 20% complete, and only provoke an unending stream of inquiries.. "what's flac?" "where are the rest of the remixes?" etc... The bottom line here is that lossless/FLAC would be appreciated by SUCH a small niche that it really is not worth all the hassle required to make it an option on a site-wide or official level. If you want lossless versions your best bet is to contact individual remixers.

TOTC = TOTCProductions, a guy that makes synth presets. In other words, it's just the name of the designer. TC = Tim Conrardy, another preset designer. VA = Virtual Analog, probably refers to standard subtractive-style sounds. However, could be a preset designer. DJ/MC = Probably preset designers. KBD/KEY = Keyboard (generally refers to stuff that you can play like a keyboard instrument, eg. higher polyphony) SYN = Synthesizer (not a very helpful designation, but probably refers to generally synthy sounds) RYM = Rhythm, could represent a patch that is played percussively, eg. a tom, bongo, snare, etc. Alternatively, a rhythmic sequence of some kind.

Hey so, I can't find my Marvel Ultimate Alliance/Forza Motorsport 2 package anywhere. It was on the floor next to my 360 last I checked, but it seems to be gone now. Did someone take it by mistake, or put it ANYWHERE else? I was playing a lot of MUA so.. :/

A few months ago, ReMixer & judge Jill Goldin (aka pixietricks) was added into rotation at radioMystic, a popular net radio station specializing in new age music. She was also made a featured artist on the site with a front page spotlight. Now, the station has brought her under the spotlight again; her original song "Hajime" (stream it at her MySpace) has been selected as one of their Best Tracks of 2007! Only twenty-three songs were selected in total from the entire year, especially impressive considering radioMystic's rotation includes new age stars as Enya, Loreena McKennitt, David Arkenstone, and Enigma. The top tracks were selected both by the staff of radioMystic as well as favorites from listeners, and you can listen to the 2-hour podcast with all of them at this page (artists are not listed in any particular order.) Once again, congratulations, Jill!! :< ps. Keep your eyes peeled for her upcoming album release "Origins", which will contain the full-quality version of Hajime as well as lots of other awesome tracks.

Yep, there is still room left. You better make it, Doug! LeonK: $20 is kind of low. Getting to Pville alone will be about $14-15 round trip... to say nothing of food. While you can eat on the cheap, $5 for basically 24 hours worth of food is not a lot.

On a side note, maybe I just haven't really watched or played enough stuff in HD or on big TVs, but I frankly have no problem playing games on an old 28-30" picture tube. I've never had a great TV and it just never struck me as a problem. Everything looks fine to me. I'm not much of a video fidelity snob I guess. Admittedly though I do much prefer using my nice headphones when gaming on my PC to using crappy built-in TV speakers (I've never had a home theater system.)

Not even going to respond to the rest of your post point by point, but I'll address this. I'm a music professional and I've been making music exclusively with my computer for years. A good digital audio workstation can be built for $1500, easily. There is no disputing this as I can run all of the latest cutting-edge music software easily with my rig. $5000 on a single music workstation is a complete waste, as the major hangup right now is loading more than 2GB of samples, but that is a limitation in 32-bit OSes - switching to 64bit creates compatability issues, so 8 to 16gb systems are useless. A 10k RPM system drive, lots of additional 7200 RPM storage, a very fast multicore processor, top of the line audio interface, and barebones OS install is what defines a music workstation. In your post you basically listed all the stuff I have to do just to 'keep up with the curve' and enjoy PC gaming, requiring additional time, money, and research beyond what I do now. This is just to match the experience given to me by my Xbox 360, Wii, and PS2, which I am enjoying greatly at a combined price of less than half of what I paid for my computer. Like I said, I'll always play some types of games on the PC, but you're just wrong when you say that an average PC looks better than a nextgen console. I have an average PC (when it comes to graphics) and no, it doesn't look any better. Microsoft's initiative with "Games for Windows" is an excellent step in the right direction, but PC gaming definitely is lagging behind console gaming in many ways.

If I saw such a system I'd believe it. My $1600 workstation doesn't even really run stuff that well. Not everyone keeps their computer on 24/7. When you pay your own electric bill it definitely makes an impact. If you're already booted up then yes it can be relatively fast, assuming your system is tweaked and optimized. On my current computer, UT:3 has fairly lagged mouse controls. Likewise for Hellgate London. Starting up Portal takes awhile too. My system is in general tweaked for max performance, too. I cut background crap to a minimum. I'm not stupid; I do a LOT of optimization to my computer and always have. I do all that stuff and there is just no denying that over time, as you install more and more software and fill up your hard drives, performance takes a hit. On the other hand, my PS2 works as well as it did when I first bought it. Same speeds. Maybe IF I built or bought a computer with the SOLE purpose of playing games and kept ALL other tools and utilities off, plus paid meticulous attention to maintaining it, this wouldn't be an issue. But no matter what way you slice it, it's more work just to get to where consoles are (and have been) for years. Not to say I don't play games on my computer. I've been a PC gamer for way longer than I've had consoles, and I will always play RTS/FPS games on my computer (as well as MMORPGs, if I ever go back to them.) But in general, gaming on a PC is not as smooth of an experience as modern console gaming. This is confirmed especially after I picked up an Xbox 360 and a Wii a few weeks ago.

I don't believe you can make a great PC gaming system from scratch for $400, by the way (the cost of a 20GB PS3.) A capable one, yes, but the nice thing about consoles is that they just work out of the box. There's no question that PC gaming is clunkier and more cumbersome, whether it's the time it takes to boot up the gaming experience, to general responsiveness, to having to worry about your PC becoming slower and more cluttered over time..

Agreed.. do your research first or else you are almost guaranteed to run into problems. That said, my computers have always had relatively low-end graphics cards (decent procs/RAM) and I don't have any problems playing most games that I care to play. That being said, PC gaming is typically an expensive investment and I get a lot more satisfaction out of consoles. So I agree with you in part.

Unfortunately that won't really work. 8:00pm is the earliest or so we can accomodate people. My parents are also having guests over that evening, and Jill and I would like to eat dinner and spend time with them before you guys arrive. Shoot for arriving in Pville by 8, though if you have to come later, that's OK - keeping in mind that it takes 45 minutes on Metro-North to get from Grand Central to there.

SLEEPOVER PEOPLE- On the 30th, my parents are having some guests over at ~2PM or so. This means that we probably shouldn't stay up extremely late and get up late, as it might inconvenience them. The earlier y'all can arrive here the better. Depending on the weather, Jill and I might also have plans to go somewhere at noon on the 30th, as well. If this is the case we'll get some breakfast stuff from Dunkin' Donuts (or something) for that morning so no one feels abandoned, and then we'll all clear out around 12:00. If weather is not permitting for that, we can be a little more relaxed and people can head out by 1pm. So in short, start thinking of how you'll get *back* to wherever it is you live on Sunday morning - if you need info about public transportation, feel free to ask. Me and Wes know Metro North pretty well.

Well as of now, WIP:O is MOSTLY used for finished products anyway. But it gets woefully low traffic. Any solution that involves creation of another forum, I think, would reduce traffic even further. If you mean simply converting the two WIP forums into "In Progress" and "Released", we already considered that at one point, but decided it diluted the point of the site, which is video game music remixing. Most visitors here are interested in exactly that, and so the WIP:Remixes forum should remain as is. Now, C-Disc still gets far more attention. We're extending the privilege to post WIP:O stuff there only to posted ReMixers because we don't want that forum to simply be a place where anyone can advertise. Think about how annoying it would be to see someone who signs up for OCR JUST to pimp an album release. That's their only post. If we were to let anyone post in C-Disc though, we would have to allow that. Of course there is a grey area. You've been involved in the community and are clearly not just here to promote your music. But that's just it - how do you deal with the grey area? What criteria can we put forth to separate noobs and spammers from legitimate musicians involved with the community? The only clear-cut way to do it is to check whether they have a posted ReMix or not. At least, that's what we decided after a lot of discussion.

I got an iPod Photo (30gb) in late 2005, and it has served me well ever since as a PC user. Yeah, iTunes isn't so hot, but you don't have to use it often. The device itself is battery-efficient, has a great UI, and in general works like it should. I've never had any major problems. A few lockups here and there, and a single crash where I had to re-sync ALL my music (a 2-hr automated process) but nothing serious.

Bah, I have a PS2 but didn't bring it from my apartment in Philly. IMO we'll have enough to do without one, plus it's annoying switching cables between two consoles as it is. Thanks for the offer though. Next meetup

Well, it's a street on the edge of a small suburban town.. there's maybe room for 3 cars in the driveway (my family has 2 total), but less if there is a lot of snow, and then 2 on the street.

It has been a great Christmas (+ Eve) with family so far. Very relaxing. * New TASCAM speakers * Soniccare electric toothbrush * Super Mario Galaxy * Advent Children special edition DVD * New long-sleeved shirt * A book from my sister * Address labels (since I mail stuff so often) * Amazon & iTunes gift certificates Stuff I bought for myself on or around Christmas: * Xbox 360 Pro bundle (system, controller, XBL silver, Forza 2 + Marvel Ultimate Alliance), plus an extra wireless controller, charging station, Mass Effect, and Crackdown * Nintendo Wii plus extra controller and nunchuk and 4000 Wii points Life is good.

Correct, they would be moved back here as well. But again, posting them in C-Disc to begin with (under this system) would be an allowance for posted remixers only.

Though you guys won't hear the full version of it for a bit, "Twilight Chaser" is a really cool track. Much like the belting vocals at the climax of "Winds of Change", Jill really does some fun stuff in TC that makes it unique. I'm glad to have collaborated on it.

As many of you know, the WIP:O forum is not as trafficked as Community Discussion, but we do not want to clog C-Disc up with lots of threads that really belong elsewhere. So, we are implementing a new system, as something of an experiment, starting today. If you are a posted ReMixer, you are granted a posting allowance (in Community Discussion) of one thread per month that would normally be WIP:O content. There are some limitations on this: * You may not do this with works-in-progress or single songs. * These threads will be moved back to WIP:O in 2-3 weeks. Threads that CAN be posted: * Multi-song releases (eg. small projects, EPs) * Album releases (commercial or free) * Album announcements (eg. "I have an album coming out in 3 months") * Remix contests or collaboration offers (eg. the Antigravity contest, sgx's remix album threads) The allowance may also be used to move any allowed thread BACK into C-Disc, though it will only remain there for 2-3 weeks as per usual. Your allowance 'refreshes' on the 1st of each month. Post here with any questions or comments!

A cut of the sales would be proportional to your contribution to the album. So for example, say there are 10 tracks, and your remix wins. You would get 5% - 1/10 for the remix being one of ten tracks total, and then 50% of that because you did half of the work (I did the other half, having written the original song.) Not too shabby. As for # of sales, it's hard to estimate, as my albums have grown in sales from each to the next.

Convolution is pretty powerful, generally speaking, but I generally agree with Sixto. It is too resource intensive unless you plan on using only ONE plugin instance (and then use sends.)

Happy b-day Shariq!! Eat lots of cake.