Arcana

I didn't get around to donating and then when I recall that I should do that before it expires.... BOOM there's a problem! How silly. Hope it works out (and that we can still make the deadline). I'd be tempted just to mail DJP a $50 cheque at this rate. PAY TO THE ORDER OF DJ PRETZEL.

Darn maybe I should have posted in the original thread, I just went right to this one

Wolfram Alpha is a general mathematics and physics database that has a lot of random stuff in it now. It does populations, mathematics, integrals, and all sorts of other crazy stuff. If you use Siri many of the questions are processed through Wolfram Alpha.

For music you really have to "just do it". Also, don't expect to sound like an awesome musician for the first year or two or three (or forever). You really have to work your way up to it. Join compos. There's a list here - http://ocremix.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=31 Participate in PRC, or OHC, or JHC, anything that gives you a reason to pick up your guitar and crank out a song. (Eventually) learn your tools. For you it seems like it's a guitar, so you may want to try to learn techniques so that you're a better live player. Maybe that's lessons, maybe it's practice, who knows what'll work for you.

I've been to one con (CN Anime in like, 1998). It was fun when I was 18 but I used it mostly as an opportunity to pick up merch, get some autographs, and shake hands with celebs. Since getting merch is no longer a problem anymore due to the prevalence of good online shopping, you're left with two and three. For some people it's nice to meet friends from online and all of that I guess, too. I suppose the big question will be, what if MAGfest starts becoming really huge, like it becomes this thousands-of-people thing? Would you stop going?

People sell their fan art all the time for commission without license. Is that bad?

We are almost up to the 200th One hour compo! That's going to be happening in less than four weeks!

Lol I thought she meant computer speakers. No, two screens isn't necessary but they sure are nice to have!

As a suggestion, even if you run out of stars, you might consider pairing together novices anyway. I understand that the point is supposed to be "the stars remix with the novices" but the range of expertise is so gigantic that getting people to collab is in itself a worthy goal - not all of the "novices" are going to truly be novices. I mean, even the mere idea of collaborating with someone who doesn't use the same tools as I am is downright frightening and yet I realise that I'll have to figure something out if I commit to this.

Let's say that I offered a remixer $150 to remix the Main Theme from Game YYYYZ. Would that be considered a game remix being sold for money? (yes I'm just trying to make this topic hard.)

The fact that you took all of that overage and decided to make a printing of a second album (FF7) in addition to FF6 really does show that you guys are thinking of the backers. Please tell me that this'll go to present and future backers instead of the ones who already donated! I didn't contribute initially, well, I'm generally under the impression that Kickstarter is just all drama. But seeing the reinforced "for the backers" extra print run makes me want in on this, I think I'll do this when I get home. By the way, the fact they added a second print run on another album and will give it to backers should be a statement that this money isn't just going to OCR's bank account.

A mixer is useful if you have multiple sound sources or if you want to output to different outputs at the same time. So for my setup, I have two hardware synths, a computer, and two studio monitors. I plug my two hardware synths into the mixer and they go through to the speakers. I also plug my computer into the mixer, they go through to the speakers too. Now I can play all of my instruments at the same time and have them all go out through the same set of speakers. In addition, instead of using speakers (or in addition to!) I could output the sound to a tape or to my headphones. If your computer has an audio interface with multiple inputs, you could plug the instruments into your computer too, but that means the computer has to be on, so it's not as versatile. You'd also have to adjust the volumes using the computer's audio program. There are more advanced uses (ex: if you want to mix send effects) but the multiple inputs or multiple output use case is probably the common one.

And that'll run you at least $400 for a new box that has a reasonable amount of power (enough to, for example, play back 1080p video). A big appeal with the console is the low price point. You could also get a Nexus 7 with an HDMI cable. You could also get an iPod Touch and the TV-Out. You could get a Wii. They're either going to cost you much more than $100 (usually twice as much) or they're not open and don't let you run what you like (as on the Wii).

I'm cautiously optimistic as well. I'd be willing to purchase this from a store shelf for $150 but I'm not sure yet if I will back this for $99. I think that piracy will be a big huge deal. I also think that the company's deadline is overly ambitious and that the only way that it'll make a March 2013 date is if it's done extremely poorly.

I think the idea is that the existence of a console without high licensing fees might change the way that AAA game publishers do business, rather than competing with them directly. It's kind of like how Steam made game distribution on the PC viable and helped to revitalize PC gaming (and made Valve rich in the process). If nothing else OUYA has the potential to depress the prices of games from $60 downward.

OUYA is an Android-based console that costs $99 and is meant to open up gaming to the world, getting around expensive dev kits and licensing fees associated with some of the big players in the living room. OUYA wants to bust down console gaming's walled gardens Oh yeah! Ouya receives over 1 million in crowdfunding in less than 8 hours http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console The game console is meant to be open for people to hack for and build for. The games are intended to be low cost (free, even) and it's meant to be a way to help indie gamers develop for a TV-based console. As the headlines imply, this project was funded on Kickstarter and met its $1 000 000 goal in under 8 hours, and as of today (Friday July 13) there's $2 829 000 in the fund which makes it the largest Kickstarter ever so far. There are many implications of gaming that this has. Some people might compare this to Steam (and imply that it'll fail), others might see this as a great opportunity to get a $99 set-top box for installing XBMC and not care much about the gaming implications. In any case, this is one of the biggest Kickstarters ever and thus it's gained a lot of media attention. Is this box poised to change living room gaming?

Because this way (and due to the way that Kickstarter just works in general), they're able to meet their funding goal in less than 24 hours with under 1/5 of the people needed to "sell" a 1500-unit run album. BTW that's really impressive that you guys met your $15000 target with under 400 backers and in under 24 hours. Congratulations!

Sure is... Anyway, I thought that for a $10,000 contribution I'd get more than dinner with DJP. Will you continue to offer sales even if people don't buy through the Kickstarter? I am guessing that depends on availability and demand (since Kickstarter is pretty much a preorder page) but I'm curious. Thanks,

In many cases the iPad/iPhone is just another softsynth. I have some synths for it but it doesn't integrate too well into my workflow and I don't have any of the audio docks that would make it integrate better. Korg iMS-20. Really cool and faithful reproduction of the Korg MS-20 monophonic, semi-modular synthesizer. Korg iElectribe. A re-creation of the Korg Electribe. If I got a MIDI-Out for iPad this would be the first thing I'd use with it. Camel Alchemy. One of the best performance-oriented synths for iPad IMO, with keys, knobs, and two touchpads. Rebirth is, well, Rebirth. You get a rack with two TB-303s, an 808 and a 909. It's extremely cool and if you're talented you can make entire songs with it, but trying to program patterns using a TB-303 made my head hurt. iMaschine is okay but doesn't work so well for my style. Great if you're into sampling though since you can grab sounds from the mic and play it back into the loop. MiniSynth Pro: It's basically a subtractive synthesizer but the UI makes it too hard to switch between pages to tweak things. If you're more into using the iPad as a controller, I've used TouchOSC (it's okay) and there's a whole app suite by some guys named iControl for various hardware synthesizers.

I think one difference is that I don't have a band situation to go into (and no logical segue into one) so I won't have the same "pressure" that you might have I'll take a browse through that archive you mentioned though. Yes, I do happen to have some theory knowledge but my piano skills have deteriorated. A lot of the muscle memory from piano didn't translate very well to the keyboard.

On one of your posts (about fingered chords) you write this: Do you have any good YouTube videos you'd recommend? I think I'm a little bit below your target audience with respect to ability but I'd be curious to know if you have a particular video in mind here.

You can play music using the keyboard too, which is pretty cool. I haven't figured out how to play the sharps/flats though.

Hmmmm I don't think I can go to this one. Bay Area is a little far from Pacific Northwest. Now a Vancouver BC, Portland or Seattle meetup I could go to.

While it's interesting to see people with differing and negative opinions, it's also nice to have a thread that's not filled with posts along the likes of, "I'll never play this!" or, worse, "FF XIII was a bad game" (because we didn't hear it enough already a couple of years ago).

So far (3 hours in, which isn't much) I am liking this one too. Here are a few changes: 1) You actually get to explore a town in the game and talk to people 2) You get most of what you need to know about the game in the first 3 hours 3) There are fewer major characters 4) You can jump 5) You an make dialog decisions I still think that they should make it illegal for FF games to start with an epic action sequence movie because they almost always make no sense, but at the same time after the first two hours I could totally see WHY they had design rationale to do that - it introduces how the two main characters in the game (Noel and Serah) end up meeting. I found that there were a few things that continue to make this game more immersive than games in the past. Notwithstanding are the graphics, which are immensely beautiful and are incredibly detailed (you can see goosebumps on Serah's arm!!!). In addition, people often talk at you as well as you talking to them, so it feels more like a conversation. They've also avoided the BioWare-esque conversation view (one-camera talking head view which does get old after a while) and extremely long conversation trees (you can generally ask only one question). I have only "time warped" out of the first area so far so I really have no idea what the rest of the game is like but so far I like what I've experienced. I read in reviews that you only get two main characters in your party (a little disappointing) and that the ending sucks (booooooo) so I'm not not looking forward to that at all but I do want to continue playing this game. Also, the voice acting in the game is fine. Some of the dialog is really strange, but in general I found that they've done well (I thought they did well in FF XIII as well). Finally I didn't get a sense that you needed to know the first game to know this one. They explain the first game in under 15 minutes (through a narrated option on the title screen) if you want to know about it and some of the emotional impact is muted if you're not really sure what things like Cocoon are or who Lightning was, but I haven't seen anything so far that would make a person totally new to FF XIII-2 be like "this makes no sense and would only be cool to people who played the first game".