zircon

I'm on now, zirconst, where is everyone?!

I SHOULD be getting mine around 10am EST tomorrow - I'll be lined up at the Gamestop where I have it preordered at about 9:45am. No idea how busy it's gonna be, but I'm hoping not very, since I live in the 'burbs and not in a major metro area (there are more Gamestops closer to Philly that will most likely be jam-packed.) So, you can expect to see me online around 10:30am, but I will be in practice mode/challenges first to test out Hakan and new Fei, probably ready for online matches no later than 11:15am.

It comes out tomorrow, no?

Looks like...

I have a remix coming out very, very soon that I think you all will enjoy.

Yes I know Pro Tools is great in the studio. However this guy is clearly NOT at a studio and clearly not looking for a large-scale recording setup, so I don't know why you guys are going on about that. Hence why I qualified my statement, there being almost no reason to get PT over REAPER.

WOW. Amazing stuff man - I've had this mix for awhile and I absolutely love it. You deserve every last view.

Actually, I WOULD get FL just for the piano roll. The PR, sequencer and sampler tools are the best in the DAW world bar none. The audio recording isn't the greatest on earth but it's still quite usable... I certainly have no problem with it. But that being said, it's also trivial to get something like Audacity or REAPER as a free download, record your audio and then put it in FL where it can be more easily manipulated and processed. I really think there is almost no reason to get Pro Tools these days when you could instead get REAPER, which is about as powerful, much lighter on CPU/RAM (it can be run off a 16mb flash drive) and significantly cheaper, with no required hardware. Nah, it still has a stigma.

The problem with home tests like these is that if you are playing back very high frequencies on a not-so-good sound system (even if YOU think it's good), you can potentially end up with some signal saturation or distortion. This can add some extra harmonics (possibly below the fundamental, which you're trying to hear), which in turn can lead you to believe you're able to hear that high when you really can't. Also, DO NOT TURN UP YOUR VOLUME when doing this. Once your hearing is gone, you can't get it back, and blasting anything through headphones is generally a terrible idea.

Nah, Championship is identical. The competition isn't better - if anything it's worse. In Ranked, I usually end up playing people in the 2-4k BP range (3x+ my own.) Tried playing about 20 matches with Rufus though today, who I had never played before. It's like night and day. Actual... OPTIONS....

OK, it's official. I really suck at SF4. I need someone to really teach me how to play it. The sad thing is I've played hundreds of matches, I KNOW my character (Fei) pretty well, I've read threads, watched tons of videos, know all the basics (I think) yet I still get my ass handed to me. I can't even break 1000 BP and I've lost my last... 25 matches or so. I've even tried playing Ryu, Dhalsim and Boxer, other characters who I'm OK with. I don't get it. At HDR, I'm considerably better. I usually go at least 2:1 online, and even in my losses I still put up a hell of a fight. In 4, it's a complete slaughter and I just don't get it. If anyone is on 360 and is willing to help show me a few things, I'd really appreciate it.

It's simple humor, but executed very well. Clever and entertaining.

Haha, thanks everyone! I've actually been on Pandora for a few years now, and a number of people have definitely said (while purchasing albums) that they heard about me solely through there. Unfortunately I have no idea how to edit or add a bio on there. It's a completely closed system pretty much, as opposed to a social networking site like MySpace, so I guess I would have to email them to request any changes. Also, check out Jillian Goldin on there too. I believe it has her CD "Origins" and lots of good associated music. She's been on since last year!

Happy birthday Mike! Nice thread recycling too!

AK beat Synthogy Ivory, considered by many to be a gold standard of piano libraries, in a shootout on VI Control (ie. two unmarked demos posted, same material, users were asked to pick which they liked more.) The same test was done at Gearslutz, with the same result. Alicia's Keys is definitely high quality.

Rufus had a theme before. It sounds like it should be Fei Long's theme, and unfortunately the new Fei Long's theme sounds a bit lame (but I guess I'm biased because I did an awesome remix of it ) Rufus' theme:

It does matter... kinda. If you have multiple sources of volume together, and they're louder than the digital clipping point, your speakers will pop and distort. Very unpleasant, and can be avoided by turning your software volumes down to 50% instead of 100%, then turning up your speakers. If you have bad speakers, turning up the speaker volume may introduce unwanted hiss and hum, but if that's not a problem, that's generally preferable. Otherwise, there are no sound quality issues.

What I meant was that at a tournament, you'll see maybe 1 out of 100 reasonably good players using a pad. I've never seen anyone rank high using a pad. Nobody in the HDR or SFIV finals, semifinals or quarterfinals used one, for example. Once in awhile a pad user will show up and get beaten. So, if anything, that proves MY point which is that they're not as effective as sticks if you really want to get good.

Yeah, you can get used to a pad, but it's objectively slower and less accurate for so many things. I guess piano inputs are less important in SFIV which has the most relaxed timing ever (you have like 120 frames for reversals, whereas in Super Turbo it's more like... 2-3) but still, it's stuff like that.

Great video, great points.

There are a ton of reasons. Forcing your thumb to do all the directional work is slower than being able to use all of your fingers, your wrist and your arm. This is especially important for double-tapping to dash, for example. Button access on a stick is way easier. You have 8 buttons on the front instead of 4. Having to use shoulder buttons, especially on the left shoulder, reduces your reaction time. It's simply not as fast. Plus, with a pad configuration, it's next to impossible to do piano inputs (rolling across all 3 punches and all 3 kicks in quick succession to do tightly-timed reversals or supers), since on a stick you can use three fingers, but on a pad you have to contort your hand into a weird position, if you're able to do it at all. And the list goes on. There's a reason why maybe 1 high-level tournament player out of 100 uses a pad, and everyone else uses a stick... including people who don't practice at arcades. I played HDR and SF4 for months on a 360 controller, and while the transition was hard at first, having access to 8 front buttons, being able to dash consistently, do piano inputs and have more control over directionals was well worth it.

I think we'd potentially be up for it, but we also want to do another Philly meetup at our place. We're hoping that our apartment complex will have its pool ready sometime during the summer so we can have a BBQ and then chill out in (or around) the pool afterwards. So, hopefully we can time that so it's not too close to this one.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?p=1411524#post1411524 This will be my submission to the AGI Pusher contest. I'm pretty proud of it, since it addresses the issue of making a ranged AGI that can somehow push hard without the potential of carrying, farming hard, or being obviously "extra damage vs. buildings." I really like Tensei's idea as well. Great concept overall, powerful ganking since she has very good mobility, an AOE stun/trap/block, and an AOE nuke. Can't really ask for more. Seems like she would make a good babysitter too to some extent, since pretty much all of her abilities are equally ANTI-gank (trap the ganker, silence the ganker, run from the ganker, blind the ganker, dispel your friend, debuff the ganker.)

Thanks for all the comments. You might notice that none of my mixes are very repetitive. I prefer to present ideas and then move on rather than repeat them ad nauseum, which is why I find a LOT of dance music (especially electro house) extremely boring... it's literally the same kind of loop for 16, 32, 64 bars. The way I write a lot of my arrangements is to have smaller builds and falls in the energy and layering of the track. So, 2:18 is a mini-climax. Then we have a fall to a lower dynamic with lots of new elements (the glitchy bongos and hand perc.) That rise continues for about a full 42 seconds before we get "the money", which is similar to the first section of the track, but up a whole step, with bongos/hand perc, a more dramatic bass and lead, and of course a huge ending. Could I have repeated that last section for another 8-16 bars? Yes, but what would this have added, musically? Nothing. No additional dynamics, no excitement, no drama. Right now, the ending is 16 bars plus the 'hit' at the end. Doubling the length would make it extremely repetitious since we've essentailly already heard a toned-down version of this section once before. Also, it's very hard to transition from 3/4 back to 4/4 feasibly, and while I could have eliminated the whole breakdown... where's the fun in that? Again, it's not exciting to just keep things going at the same dynamic when there are so many new potential elements to play with and showcase. Here's what I like to be able to do: jump around in a remix I've made and be able to tell, without looking, whether I'm closer to the beginning, middle or end. Too much repetition and filler material diminishes that and makes the whole track sound same-y.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=102399 Vote on my Rampage changes plzzz