zircon

League of Legends

* The SNES - I had seen ads for it in Nintendo Power, graphics blew my mind. I was extremely hyped at screenshots for Final Fantasy IV. * As mentioned, the release of Final Fantasy VII. It was very controversial among my circle of friends. It didn't SEEM like Final Fantasy - it seemed so much darker, edgier, more mature. * The blood and gore of Doom. Was a big thing in elementary school. * The legendary PlayStation 2; I remember the hype and shortages, people paying outrageous sums to get one, that kind of thing. * Emulation scene and fan translations. I remember that it was a BIG deal when we finally got to play games like Final Fantasy V, Seiken Densetsu 3, etc.

Voted! Good luck.

Sounds like something I'd like. Is it this one? http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Improvisation-Tonal-Rhythmic-Principles/dp/0823025594 If so, $13.78 isn't so bad

Switch to song mode?

If I do have an idea, transcribing it is pretty easy. After studying theory/ear training I can do that fairly readily. But I believe ideas are actually very hard to come by, and you sort of either have them or you don't.

If that were true nobody would rise in elo. But yeah, there is a lot of 'noise' in the 1k-1.3k range or so.

Yep, that's what I do about 98% of the time.

I hate writer's block. I almost never have a full plan for a piece in my head. Most of my composition comes 100% from improvisation, not realizing ideas in my head.

Hey jobro - are you the same guy that does jobromedia? If so, welcome. I've seen you around on KVR for years Anyway, I have an edition of the Indie Bible from a few years ago. I actually never got around to submitting to anything but it is a pretty comprehensive list of alive/active labels, publishers, radio stations, etc. Literally just a giant list pretty much.

Haha, I should take my own advice. 6 games today, 5 losses and only 1 win. In every game I won my lane but we still lost, even with me ganking.

Losing streaks are usually a result of you psyching yourself out, not pure bad luck... you get in a bad mood, you lose confidence, etc. Usually a better idea to stop and do something else. Anyway, the elo system does work, otherwise everyone would be in the same range. Clearly 1900 players are better than 800s. I just think the elo hell range makes life harder by making it mostly luck as to whether or not you get out, unless you are a SUPERB player way above that range (which most of us are not.)

AFK at champ select should just drop everyone back to queue. Leavers should get auto-reported in addition to team reports. Tribunal DOES work too, but you need to actively report people and get your teammates to as well. I've found that playing support, mid or AD bot (pretty much in that order) is the best idea if you want to carry games. Jungler and top don't influence things enough (IMO) unless you're a godly scaling jungler. Support lets you save your stupid teammates over and over. Let's say a mistake at bot would normally kill both people because they're both bad. If you're good, and you're the support, you can save both of you. If you're the AD, and support is bad, you both die. Ranged AD scales really well, so if you can like a boss (70 CS in 10 mins minimum) then you can usually hypercarry at the end as Graves, Cait, etc. A strong mid can constantly gank other lanes. Just my 2 cents. But yeah, it is very hard to pull yourself out.

What keyboard(s) are you using Kanthos?

Haha, thanks everyone for the kind words. And I'm sure Jill would thank you too (she's on her way back to the states now, 25+ hours of travel...) I'm very happy and even a little surprised people like this album so much. I wasn't even going to release most of this stuff initially. It gives me very high hopes for my next full length album which is a few months away, and what I consider to be my very best work yet.

LoL's matchmaking doesn't actively try to put you on bad teams when you're doing well. You're right that it DOES attempt to find matches where the chance of either side winning is 50-50. What else would you want it to do? However, elo hell definitely exists. If you take, say, a group of 1500 ELO players then chances are very good they all belong there. It takes a number of games to get to that point. Therefore it is unlikely that an unskilled player just happened to luck his or her way up to 1500. Likewise, if someone is at 800, it would be very unlikely that they're actually good and just happened to play 30+ bad games in a row to drop down. However, when you get into the 1000-1300 range or so, things get murky. This is the range of people doing their placement matches, and people who have recently completed them. Someone at 1200 might actually belong at 1700, but just haven't made it yet. Or, someone at 1100 might belong in the 600 and is still on their way down. Tensei's right that feeders could be on either team, but the point is that in the "elo hell" range, there is a much wider variance in skill level than there should be. As a result of all this statistical noise, whether you win or lose becomes more a matter of luck than anything else. Once you push past that range (which I am only just now starting to do), things begin to clear up. Your losses aren't because of random feeders or people on the other side going 20-1, but because you just got outplayed. Likewise with your wins.

I disagree, ranked is fine. People overall take the game more seriously than in normal blind pick. But there is an elo hell, which is not fun.

You're in ELO hell. It exists, IMO. It's the range where people are dumped during or after the placement matches. I'd say it extends into the 1300s.

How can you make that bass sound good? * Write higher notes. Your notes are too low. * Use something with higher harmonics. The synth sound should naturally have more mid and high end. I don't know how much you know about synthesis; I'd describe further if you're proficient at it. In short, you need to simply use a better sound. * Use something with more dynamics/movement in the sound. This is done via envelopes. The song you linked with the 'bouncing bass' has both an amplitude envelope (louder when it first hits, gets softer and does not sustain) as well as a filter cutoff envelope (aggressive, resonant, buzzy high frequencies at the start of each note, which quickly fade away and are cut off.) * Focus on these things before doing EQ, compression, etc. Trust me. You don't need to focus on that, you need a better sound.

I'm a little confused about the guidelines. You say that we're trying to provide a sense of the track, so they feel as little surprise as possible. OK. But then you say we're not trying to provide context or a "way inside", which to me is a critical component in describing music... this seems contradictory, so could you explain it a bit more? I've re-read what you're asking several times now and I still don't understand exactly what we're writing. Examples would really help. For example, are we writing on a sort of music theory level? Something more abstract? If we are writing for someone who already knows the game, they already have no surprise, so again, I don't really get what we're supposed to be saying.

Ahem... www.youtube.com/zirconST , you might find some good stuff there

I am using the HTC Incredible 2 right now. It was actually on sale for FREE at Best Buy a few months ago, with a two-year plan or extension. Now I believe you can get it for $50-100 easy. Jill has one as well. It's lightweight, snappy and functional with pretty good battery life (better than Thunderbolt or other 4G phones - this one is only single-core and 3G, but about as fast as a single-core will get.) I use mine every day for Gmail and internet, plus call quality is quite good overall on Verizon. I NEVER get dropped calls. Even the camera is quite solid. I do recommend getting a simple rubber/rigid case for it. I've dropped mine a few times onto solid floors with no problems. Highly recommended. Edit: Just noticed Max posted the same thing. So yea, get an Inc2.

Very cool stuff, don't know how I missed this before. Deserves more pimpage.

Bandcamp is better for me at the moment - plus you can tip, if you so desire As for physical vs. digital, I don't make any extra on physicals due to cost of printing + shipping, so whatever works for you!

Mix info please? I know the source thankfully, but the other info, link to previous decision, etc., would be nice. Before I begin, this source is very similar to . Just putting that out there.Orch stuff at the beginning sounds pretty shrill. No dynamics. Use some modwheel automation, swells, etc. Guitar and drums sound decent, but everything is pretty plodding once the violin comes back in. Very coverish and straightforward melody, no change in the harmony or rhythm. Original guitar work is nice but I was dying to hear a change in the harmony and chord progression which just gets old quickly. The rock elements are produced well, at least. Breakdown at 2:30 is really abrupt and does not sound good. The string writing is very 'blocky' for lack of a better word. More part-writing would be better, and more instruments like winds, brass, etc. I know it's hard, but that's what you have to do. Voice at 3:18 is pretty fake/weak-sounding, I don't really see the point of it. The ending is more of the same. The mesh of orch and rock with this arrangement is not working. The orchestration needs to be fleshed out more, better transitions, more change-ups to the harmony, more dynamics. NO