saxman

...but I LOVE her "Your Love is my Drug" song. My thoughts: Anyone else have this guilty pleasure of actually liking such crap? I mean, I don't like anything she does, but this sounds so '80s to me, and it's just so darn catchy. Is this where music is heading? Is it all starting to become good again (I'm talking pop music)?

Title says it all

I do stuff too, awesome stuff. I mean, REALLY awesome stuff. You couldn't handle it. Nobody can. Except me, because I'm awesome.

Yeah, fluorescent lights don't work well for lighting at all, and you can't dim their brightness either (at least mine you can't.) Should have kept the incandescent =/ Looking forward to it!

This video is about New Years resolutions. Submit your responses!

112 kbps - 3.14 MB http://www.4shared.com/file/77203965/e804d...eat_demo_2.html It's a rough demo I threw together in about an hour or two. I want to use it in a YouTube video. I liked it when I was doing it, but hearing it again I'm not entirely sure. I don't know that my voice works too well in it. I need opinions. You don't have to even listen to the entire thing -- half of it would be sufficient enough. Be honest. If you squirmed in your seat or whatever, I wanna know. I don't know if this is something I can really put in a YouTube video and sound "cool" or not. I'd rather embarass myself here than on YouTube. BTW: It will be in a Saxman727 video, so the video itself of course won't be serious, but the effort on the song itself is serious.

Hey I gave a listen, and I like the concept. It's a good tune for a video game, but I wasn't keen on the strings. They have no presence. I think they need some more highs. It sounds like they may have been recorded at a low sample rate, resulting in the loss of a lot of those rich highs that make them seem alive. I also think you need at least some bottom... just something there that plays periodically. It would help fill up the otherwise very empty gaps in the song. But those are the only two negatives I have. I do like it and I wanna hear an improved version because you have a really good concept here =)

First song recording I've done in almost 2 years! It's a demo, and it doesn't fade out at the end like I want, but it is what it is. Let me know what you think. It's a cover and is synth-style pop. And yes there's singing, you have to wait for it. http://www.4shared.com/file/41698129/27129ea9/Got_the_Hots_demo_2.html

Okay, I whipped up Yakety Sax on my saxophone and posted it. I made a few mistakes, but it was the best recording of the ones I did. Please leave comments and let me know how it sounds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouJDnB2724M

I have a channel on YouTube I'll be doing a bunch of songs on. I haven't done a saxophone video yet, but I will be doing so soon. I'm curious to know what people think of my singing. Sometimes I'm not always confident about it, so I like to hear opinions and maybe some suggestions. http://www.youtube.com/jonathangranit -- there it is. . .

http://www.4shared.com/file/30483233/d781f5b8/Me__low__-_You_Give_Me_Something.html It'll stream. I'm looking for honest critiques of my vocal work. I appreciate all the input I can get =)

. . . Why?

EDIT: I have 6 songs up. The genres vary between them. I also redid the Usher song, and I think it's a whole lot better now. The 6 songs are as follows: '70s - Walk This Way - Aerosmith \\ rock - Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton \\ rock \ easy listening '80s - Billy Jean - Michael Jackson \\ pop \ r&b \ motown - If You Don't Know Me By Now - Simply Red \\ pop \ easy listening '00s - American Soldier - Toby Keith \\ country - Burn - Usher \\ pop \ r&b You can download / stream them at -- http://www.4shared.com/account/dir/4545648...55/sharing.html I did take after take after take after take on some of these to try and get a good solid performance out of each of these. I'm still not entirely happy with Walk This Way though. I'm also planning to do 3 more songs before I upload everything on my brand new YouTube channel. I have a Justin Timberlake song (yeah I know, call me crazy) that I am going to do. It's a brand new one that was recently released as a single, and it's doing extremely well on the charts right now. For a modern pop song, it's not that bad actually. Also, I'm thinking of doing "Hero" from Nickelback. Does this song interest anyone? Again, I'm trying to be diverse in my music, so I'm thinking that doing this rock song will help appeal to more demographics. And for another song... I don't know! Really I need one more good modern r&b / pop song to do. But it can't have explicit lyrics, and I have to actually like it at least a little! If anyone has any suggestions for what song I could do, let me know. I'd prefer something very recent (like within the past couple months) that was a big hit. Any opinions or suggestions on my performances are also welcome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl88PLwcVXE I was told by people that I am a good dancer, so I put together this video showing my cool dance skills. Rate me!

I decided to put this out there for no real reason. I just felt like doing it. Tell me what you think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ8sCeFuNcQ

I sure do -- http://dgrove.blogspot.com/ I use it to talk about a variety of things, but any ProSonic news and updates I have available will be put there first. Eventually when the engine is about to be released in complete form, I may launch an official ProSonic engine website. But for now my blog works.

Well I'm looking at this from different aspects: - Graphics and level code - Scripting code - Player code These are each 3 big areas of the engine. Graphics and level code is what I have been tackling for quite some time. The player code from the older ProSonic engine has been scrapped to allow me to focus on just getting the graphics and level stuff perfected first. I'd say we're about 60% on that aspect. The scripting code -- I'm going to use the AngelScript library to do that, but implementing it and compiling that is what I'm going to fight with. The player code will be last. Player code will be partially internal to the engine, and partially external (in a scripting file). Player code will be the most difficult task because it has to be the most percise as far as replicating the original Sonic games. I'm loaded with algorithms here, but putting them together can be very tricky.

On YouTube, I have put up a video demonstrating some of the features of ProSonic. You can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXi_WOHXalE ProSonic is a Sonic the Hedgehog game engine being built ground up (with the help of Allegro) that is aimed at replicating the original Sonic engine (Sonic 1-3) down to the tiniest details. It will be able to play levels from the old Sega Genesis Sonic games, as well as brand new levels that can take advantage of ProSonic's "advanced" features. All-in-all, the goal is to present a new platform to game designers to create their own Sonic games that look and play exactly like the old games, but have a fresh new appeal to them. If you want to know more, my outline written back in October is still available for download: DOC format (recommended if you can view it) - http://www.comprosoftware.com/saxman/outline.doc PDF format - http://www.comprosoftware.com/saxman/outline.pdf

I don't know if he'll see this, but I have a lot of respect for him! Some of the judges and such I didn't get along with in the past, but he always liked me. He's probably one of the nicest guys at these forums (not that there aren't other nice people though!), and he's the kind of person everyone wants to be friends with. Good luck Gray with your career, and maybe I'll be able to talk to you on AIM again sometime =)

I've had a difficult time explaining ProSonic, particularly on these forums. I understand the reasons -- this isn't specifically a Sonic fangame community. But I think perhaps a video of ProSonic would help. ProSonic first of all is a game engine programmed in C that replicates all the abbilities of the original Sonic the Hedgehog engine (Sonic 1, 2, 3/K), and it advances on that. It's also backwards compatible with much of the data found in the original Sonic games (e.g. the levels themselves). Recently, I integrated a level editor right into the engine itself. I made a video showing it. If you're interested, you may view it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy2K_4KDeLI I appreciate any feedback you give me on it.

Cakewalk may not be the greatest thing in the audio recording department (in my opinion), they sure do know how to make MIDI sequencing a joy! I've used a ton of MIDI sequencing software, and I can tell you that of the ones I've used, Cakewalk can't be beat. Rather it's the old DOS version, the newer Windows updates to the software, or even SONAR, it's the best around. http://www.cakewalk.com/ And if it's "free" you're looking for, I really don't know. Most of the free ones I've used are junk.

This is a good idea -- but there will still be many people who will miss this thread.... some because they're idiots.... some because they're human. With a ton of stickies bunched together, it's often 'easier' for someone to miss one of these 'important' threads. Therefore, they skip this because they are less apparent to this even though their eyes may pick it up and therefore will continue to ask these questions. What's my point? Well, you're not an idiot I know! Surely you know that this thread can help, but is just as likely be ignored my new members.

I probably did misunderstand the purpose behind the guide. Regardless, don't get the wrong impression if I have given you the wrong impression -- it is a VERY well written guide! BTW: Just a tiny little note -- MAGIX Music Studio is $25. Very cheap and works very well for beginners =)

Time for emphasizing on the things a strongly disagree with that have been mentioned in this topic: SOUND CARD: Sound Blaster Live should be recommended only for beginners. For people who are truely serious about recording should refer to professional soundcards. An Echo Mia is an excellent choice. It costs about $200 and gives to a recording experience that you would never find in anything made by Creative! Keep in mind that even the Echo Mia falls short of what is 'almost' truely professional in recording. The things to look for in hardware are -- - S/N ratio -- this should be low enough to allow a decent dynamic range. Anything that doesn't allow at LEAST 96dB of dynamic range is unacceptable. - Jacks -- should have at least two 1/4" TRS (that's BALANCED) inputs for recording. XLR is even better, but you normally don't see those on budget equipment. - Headroom -- sound should never overload under +22dBu. If it does, then you have problems. That's what makes the Echo Mia fall short -- it allows up to +18dBu. Standard recording level (nominal) is +4dBu, which by the laws of sound recording could be as much as +20dBu. This means that with an Echo Mia, you can't record at nominal level, and you can't remaster anything to a DAT or CD at 0dBFS like it should be. Make SURE that you have at least +22dBu of headroom. - Harmonic distortion -- major distortion of waves should NEVER be above 0.003%. Anything higher is unacceptable and clearly unprofessional. - Mixing -- should allow mixing the outputs which could be used to allow remastering something at proper level to a DAT or CD. - Frequencies -- should support frequencies outside our hearing range. Frequencies above 20kHz and below 20Hz actually make the music and sound quality more present. It's there, we just aren't aware. Our ears do pick it up though which in turn can make the recording sound more realistic. TRACKER: I must note that MIDI-only sequencers are 'also' trackers. A tracker isn't just for samples. It doesn't even have to support sampling. Although, I don't recommend sampling anyway. I believe a high quality recording calls for recording the sounds rather than taking what's already done. More than likely, the majority of the samples found on the net have a terrible noise level which can add up. I could be wrong since I don't download samples myself, but I can imagine that that's probably the case. MAGIX: MAGIX Music Studio is excellent for beginners. The wave editor is by far the best I've seen. However -- I must stress that it doesn't include the things that a professional sound engineer would want. SONAR: SONAR is great for MIDI. It does some cool things with mixing sound -- but it's clearly non-professional. There's no option to measure power rather than voltage which a sound engineer would want. There's also no feature for recording 88.2kHz which simply offends me. Any program that supports 96kHz SHOULD indeed support 88.2kHz. 88.2kHz will give you a better DAT and CD master than 96kHz ever would. Dithering helps the 96kHz conversion, but still ruins what could be crystal clean quality. I hope that my comments could help someone in some way or another.