Antipode

This is EXACTLY what any respectable artist should be doing. This makes it all about the music (instead of about marketing, desperation and profit schemes), and it really DOES make the money you receive equal to how much your music is appreciated. I've never heard of this concept before, and I love it.

Interesting, I never knew about Halo DS until these videos. But from what I hear, the graphics (on the lower screen) and gun animations and all that are identical to the goldeneye rogue agent stuff. Which wasn't so great on ds. In fact, didn't EA make that game? So what's the connection here?

Haha yeah, people mentioned that...but we figure it's spaced out in time enough from where the CMC is at this point that it should be ok. To set them apart, incidentally, Jredd seems to like the abbreviation "OVGMcon" instead (since I don't think he was aware of any of the others when he started this one).

This isn't meant to steal the CMC's thunder, but it is very similar (guess this would be the fourth of its type at this point). The difference (other than the fact that this is more based on video game music than thematic original compositions) is that this contest was born of VGMix, not OCR - and all of us are extending a welcome to any OCR members who'd like to join this month! This competition was started and is managed by Jredd. The basic idea, for those unfamiliar with the other contests, is that each entrant makes a video game song within a month's time, based on a constricting theme. Absolutely anyone can join, no matter the skill level. At the end of the month, voting begins, at which point anyone, including those who weren't participating, can listen to the results and vote once for their favorite (without picking themselves). For anyone skeptical, just check out the results from last time - I think absolutely all of them were fantastic (the theme for the previous month was a high-speed, futuristic race) and though we only had six people actually finish, everyone was really devoted to it. All of last month's results can be downloaded here and read about here (though that contest is over). So - several things to keep in mind. - If you're interested, signups end Friday the 5th, so you'll have to decide pretty soon. Signups only really exist to make a commitment and discourage dropouts. You can still drop out of the competition, but that wouldn't be very nice, would it? - There's a full month to work on your entry, which gives you plenty of time. - The winner of this competition picks the next month's theme! - When you vote, be sure to actually vote in the poll instead of just posting your vote. - Also, be sure to fully explain your vote and, ideally, comment on everyone's tracks in some way or another. - The competition and voting DOES NOT take place in this thread OR at VGMix (which is why this isn't posted in competitions) - instead, visit the thread below. Feel free to discuss or whatever here, though. To participate, you'll need to register for that forum. All you need to do to sign up is just post in that thread, saying you want in. All that said, this month's theme is A Nighttime Village. Go to this thread for full rules, much more detailed info, and signups. Remember that your skill level does not matter - we're just in it for the challenge of trying new styles every month and for the pure fun of it. I'm pretty excited about this next one. Be creative, give it your all, and I'm sure it'll turn out just as good as last month. We already have more entrants than last time, so I'm sure at least it'll be more diverse. I'll bump this thread once the voting begins so that those who don't want to join can still listen/vote.

Bahahaha the Wario one is hilarious. I love how they're talking all serious about this.

Great, thanks for the tips. I'd think this would be one of the FIRST things in the help file. I don't understand why they expect people like my friend to come into this and immediately know how to use the program.

An easy but time-consuming one. So basically a friend is asking me about automations and I realized I don't think I'm able to explain them adequately as I rarely even use them. Could you guys just give me a rundown of everything - what they are, where you access them, how you use them and what you can use them to do? I'll just paste any of your answers directly to him. The reason I'm asking is because I surprisingly can't seem to find anything in help or on google that's basic enough for what I'm looking for - all I keep coming up with is like special techniques, etc that already assume you know everything about using them.

Hahahaha. Very nice.

So agreed. I always though Halo PC was far superior to the console version.

FEEL FREE TO LEAD OFF ANY TlME!

While a couple of 'em still leave a kind of weird taste in my mouth, that's only because none of the policies were changed. This update causes it to be much better organized, easier to read and to understand. So for that, nice work!

I like! Very cool. I could picture the exact scene going along with the music.

Personally I have absolutely no problem with myself or others downloading music. In fact I would absolutely LOVE it if people would download mine. But that's different - I don't rely on my music for income, I just want people to listen. As for downloading en masse, I think it's great for experimentation (download an album by this artist, one by that) and can actually really help artists get discovered. Personally I would never buy a cd unless I was familiar with the artist or had heard the music before somewhere and liked it. But by the time you're really into an artist, particularly one that isn't successful or well-known, you owe it to them to buy some music just because that's the best way to show you appreciate it and would like more. Another great way to discover artists is to go to a friend's place with a big USB stick - give them like a four gig sampler set. Give them a big variety, and they can pick and choose. In repayment, they do the same for you. This is also a surprising amount of fun. Kind of like trading records. Now as to this amazon service, I'm all for it. More music services can't hurt. Personally I'd rather buy from this new one than the iTunes store, incidentally, simply because I just don't want to have to go through the hassle of running each song I buy through my DRM stripper like I do with everything I buy from them. Really though, as other people have been saying, there are lots of other DRM-free music stores online, so why do we really need another? Incidentally, do any of you know the rate iTunes pays artists at? How much would an artist make per dollar/per song using the iTunes store specifically?

Nominations (in addition to those above): PC Starcraft Half-Life Half-Life 2 Bioshock Battlezone Tron 2.0 Nintendo 64 Starfox 64 Paper Mario

Phantom Hourglass got a 9.0 on IGN. The review is up. They say it's a fun game with great graphics and that it's amazing that such a huge world could fit into a DS game. Apparently it suffers in simplicity - supposed to be REALLY easy and somewhat short - and the fact that occasionally the all-stylus control fails (you roll when you don't want to, etc). The multiplayer is supposed to be fun but a bit pointless. Obviously I'm still getting it despite its faults as it looks fantastic anyway and is a sequel to Wind Waker, one of my favorite games of all time.

Just for clarification on a couple things - by "assembly line" I was simply talking about something that's rushed along through production for the sole purpose of making more money. I didn't mean it literally. Also, I didn't mean that I don't want to be a career musician as you put it (that would be fantastic), I just don't want to become an egotistical jackass (or at least display myself as one) in the process. But yeah, maybe you're right about the money issue. I just find it difficult to consider music a product as an item from a grocery store. But I suppose really the only way to go about getting more people to listen to your music is advertising it as though it's the best thing in the world. I hate the idea of it because I wouldn't want someone to listen to my music and constantly wonder if they're getting their money's worth - I think music ought to be taken at face value. Either way, for someone like myself who's really just starting out, it really isn't possible to sell music anyway because nobody knows who I am. It's got to be free because maybe that if nothing else will convince someone to listen and pay attention to the next one. An album that costs by a totally unknown artist is probably only going to get like, three or four listeners total, if he's lucky. I guess it just takes a lot of time.

There's only one way to fix this perception - release good music for free and accept donations. Change the stereotype and refuse to crank out those tubes of toothpaste and candy bars from the assembly line with no artistic weight - make everything you make count and really mean something. A tube of toothpaste means nothing - it's just a device to make money. Music like that means nothing to me. I don't think musicians should make music for money, make it for themselves and their fans and above all because they have a cool concept in their head they want to make a reality - money is a bonus and is icing on the cake, the way I see it. I think money should mean people appreciate the music, not that the artist has convinced people to pay a ticket price. As to the second part, I think there's a limit to this. There's a fine line between saying an album is sweet and hey everyone check this out and tell me what you think - and saying that the music is amazing and incredible and coming off like their head is so inflated they can barely hold it on their shoulders - almost daring people to contest the price they put on it. Personally, I don't even want to support an artist who does that. If all this means I'm never going to find my place in the music industry when I get good enough at making music, then maybe that's just it - maybe the music industry isn't the right direction for me.

Sure. I mean, that would be best, but any method possible to just see what songs have been listened to via sharing is all I'm looking for. Some kind of widget or plugin would be best though, yeah.

I share my music library constantly over my school network, but I find it really annoying that for some reason they only tell you how many people are connected. What I want to know is what people are listening to from my library. Now, I know there's a widget for mac that lets you do exactly that, but I'm a Win XP user, and I haven't had much luck through google. (I did see one forum post that just recommended I search for most recently accessed MP3s, but that doesn't help much because I listen to music constantly anyway and those are all mixed in). Ideally it would just be some little program that tells me what's being accessed and, better yet, what's been accessed, but I'm open to any options. Any help?

Well I was actually talking about the flamethrower in Halo PC, which I thought was fantastic. But whatever - hope this one is as good.

I think people who don't understand why halo is fun simply haven't played it enough to understand. What makes halo fun is leaping up into a warthog, spinning out and smashing three people, leaping out with shotgun in hand, blasting someone point-blank while walking backwards up the ramp into their base and watching the radar for the guy behind you, leaping over him and then smacking him in the back, immediately spinning around and switching to pistol - zip, pap pap pap to get another, dropping down into the base and grabbing the flag - but now someone stole your vehicle, and two guys are closing in! All at once drop the flag, lose the pistol, grab the flamethrower and light the place up, taking out the two guys and the guard in the base you didn't even notice. Grab the flag, head out the back entrance and take that ghost! But now there's a tank that's none too happy. So just slowly enough to infuriate him, strafe in a circle around just ahead of his turn speed and keep blasting him till he's gone. Rush back to your base with two banshees on your tail, strafing into your base with the ghost while you leap out and score just in time. That's why halo is fun. Shit, now I've got to go play it.

I think it's kind of obvious by this point that I'm probably never going to be well-known to the point where I can make original albums for money (though that's really what I'd like to do). The industry is just too damn hard to break into. Ideally I guess the only outlet for me would be (once I get a bit better at it) to find things I could make music FOR. And that could be the end of the line, if I even make it that far, and I know it.

IGN reviewed halo 3 and gave it a 9.5. That's not bad, but the lowest score they gave of all three. Also, here's a quote I thought you guys might enjoy. Also they said "finish the fight" in this review like 10 times. God I'm sick of hearing that. http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/821/821911p1.html ...Man I want to play this game anyway. The replay system sounds fantastic.

Thank god. I thought stickers were replacing these things for good. Now stickers aren't quite as bad as they were going to be.

Yeah - I thought personally that he was much harder than the Ganon from Link to the Past. It took several tries for me. Not the hardest boss, but one of the harder ones I've fought when coupled with both forms of Twinrova. By the way, for anyone considering it, that game is TOTALLY worth it when linked. I thought it was a lot of fun and it really brought back Link's Awakening for me. I'd recommend Seasons first, then Ages.