Xenon Odyssey

I, too, have completed this thing.

My debut album: a love letter to the Nintendo Entertainment System soundtracks of old! Features every expansion chip used during the system's lifespan (save for the Sunsoft 5B, however). Yes, I did release this a while ago; however, due to some mishaps with the album art, it's finally being promoted for mass consumption! Get it while it's lukewarm!

Anything and everything. Pretty vague, yeah? Well, it could come from an lick I hear on the radio, or from an idea I stumble upon while doing something like taking out the trash. I could be at work and have to keep an idea in my head long enough to locate a piece of cardboard/paper/something to write on to assist me in transporting the idea to a location where I can flesh it out into something tangible. I could be inspired by listening to the latest release from any profilic artist, mainstream or underground, or simply from playing some video games, from the past to the present. Inspiration can strike at any moment, and it's up to you to be able to capture those moments via paper, recorder, or some other medium so you may be able to flesh out those ideas into pieces that inspire other people. In a perfect world, obviously, inspiration would strike when it is most convenient. However, we don't live in a perfect world, and therefore, we must handle our inspiration the best we can, even if that means sacrificing an idea or two in order to live our lives. But in my experience, enjoying life is what spurs my creativity. And sadly, that's advice I need to follow myself.

-still have time, and at least it's all written at this point! -retail is shit -I guess? I was good for a while I seem to recall...not so much recently

So over in the music section of reddit, someone posted a link to a website called Drinkify. You put in an artist, and it'll match them with a drink to enjoy. Thus: The Zircon 1 oz. Vodka 1 oz. Rose's lime juice 10 oz. Club-Mate Combine in highball glass and serve. Garnish with fresh berries. The halc 12 oz. Whiskey Serve neat. The PROTODOME 1 oz. Bacardi Rum 1 oz. Coco López 4 oz. Lime juice Combine in highball glass and serve. Garnish with pickled carrot sticks. The djpretzel 8 oz. Fucking Rum Serve neat. The Xenon Odyssey 4 oz. Fernet Serve neat. Garnish with wedge of pineapple. I had to look up what fernet even was... The site's acting kind of wonky since it hit the front page of reddit, but oh wellz. Also, apparently some drinks repeat, so that's unfortunate. Post your favorites!

Put down my $150 for a boxed copy yesterday. And as of writing this (5:25 AM EST), they'd exceeded their goal at $127,057!

I wrote this arrangement of Sonic 2's Race Results as a lullaby of sorts a few years ago:

Thanks for all the comments guys; I'm flattered to say the least. I kind of agree the arrangement goes on for a little bit, but after each section I did, it didn't feel like a good place to end, so...it took a couple of sections to finally get there. The piano at 5:50 is actually me playing, albeit it with a little quantizing. In general, probably an EWI or hooked up to whatever flavor of synth is needed for melodies and harmonies, and a regular ol' synthesizer could be used for chords. The issue would be the arpeggios...either they'd have to be already programmed, or maybe you could attach a synth or pedal to a harp's amplifier, so when a string is plucked, the resulting pitch would also sound. That'd make the arpeggios somewhat plausible to human capabilities, but the more I think about it, the less I think it would work since acoustics don't work like that. I mean, there's always the route of having everything electronic-wise pre-programmed, and then just played alongside the acoustic instruments, .For this particular piece? Ha, who knows; I'd have to go through again and make sure what I did would be physically possible to play. Plus if that opportunity even arose, I'd probably re-write the tune or just write a new one.

I love how effective the pre-chorus is after everything that happens during the verses. Very nice work here!

http://soundcloud.com/xenon-odyssey/royal-treasure As of today (or yesterday or something), this has been in the queue for one whole year! And that's lame to keep it locked up like that, so here it is! Zelda's Theme, some bastardization of orchestral and chiptunes. Maybe qualifies as 9-bit? Probably not; my productions skills are pretty horrible.

Is it bad I purchased a physical before I listened to the soundtrack?

Oooooooooooo, right in the feels. This is excellent. I can't say too much about the realism aspect since I have no expertise at that, but I'd say you pulled it off very well. As for the orchestration, I thought the B section was a very nice blend of being piano-driven yet keeping all of the other elements involved without bogging the piece down. Strings sounded great to me, but I haven't delved into the world of orchestra reproduction in a DAW, so take that as you please. My only complaint is it's TOO SHORT; I WANT MOAR!

I enjoyed this collections of boops and beeps.

Once I saw they got Mr. Kirkhope on board, my body became so ready. Plus, they are thinking about using Unity, meaning it'd be the closest we get to seeing a Rare game on a Nintendo console in the future.

This was a concern of mine as well, but considering Mr. Inafune has left and the latest was an iOS title...there's a good chance that Capcom probably won't make an MM11.Looking forward to this though! Been wondering what was happening with it.

Purchased so hard, I was blue in the face.

Usually, drafts or outlines can help you gather all of your ideas in one place before you actually start to write, but there's really no 'correct' way to do a draft or outline. You could start with a chord progression, a melodic passage, or even a simple arpeggio that you really like, and then from there see how you would want to continue. You don't even have to have anything of worth produced; I've written at least one outline for a piece basically spelling out what I wanted to do within it, without writing a single passage of notes to accompany. Usually, unless you have a really crystal clear idea of what you want to do in your head, some type of draft or outline is a good thing to have, so you have some type of home base to return to in case you end up not liking where the piece is headed. That also helps you isolate what you liked and what you disliked, and then separate the two, helping you further improve yourself as a musician. I will note that when people say you should allow yourself to make crap, that more or less means not to be worried that every single piece is your magnum opus. You don't have to write something you like all of the time, and by just writing every day, you'll further hone your technique and skills as a writer, which will help you figure out what you like and don't like, so that you'll be able to write music that you enjoy more often.

I heard it was a ripoff of more than Pokémon.

OH MAN, BIRFDAY?! Hope you saved some of that cake I brought you last week!

Never Been was released on a mixtape called Kush & Orange Juice, which is available for free. The legality of it is no more than what we do here and the millions of tributes on YouTube. I'm sure he's probably gotten some schmucks to give him money for it, but it was released for free. Same for this track (source), which is was released on his latest free mixtape, Taylor Allerdice. However, he was signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2009 when he released this track, , however I feel as if he actually sampled the Sonic tune in question, rather than his lazier attempts with Never Been (whether or not he released the record for free is debatable; I can't find too much info on that).He also did ( ), however, this was after leaving Warner Bros. Records earlier in 2009, and we all are pretty familiar with Nintendo's stance on music usage.That concludes your Wiz Khalifa video game sampling lesson for today, since this topic comes up all the time when these threads are posted, and this honestly took me 5 minutes on wikipedia; it took longer finding links for everything.

Well since there's demand: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/557845/VOPM.pdf Note: this doesn't teach FM synthesis! Only how the VOPM vst functions.

That's really weird; you can view it in Google Docs, but if you trying to download it, it says it doesn't exist...if you have a Google Docs account, trying saving it in there, then saving a copy. Worked for me. Otherwise I can PM a link for ya.

Pretty awesome! Look forward to hearing more from you guys.