Arcana

Yeah I think everyone sees an Asian and then they automatically become either Jackie Chan or Jet Li. Or if they're slightly older, Chow Yun Fat. Hollywood needs more Asians IMO Also, who would be cast as Brandon Strader?

Wow, I watched that movie like two weeks ago when my parents got it from the public library. Also: You're mean Arek.

I met Brandon in real life and he didn't put me in, not to mention that I have like 4000+ posts. So it's okay. We can be stage crew!

Still reading this book. I'm not really past the "basic" chapters of stuff I already knew, but the treatment of things like sound design in this book are a pretty good refresher. I enjoy how they put everything in the context of electronic music. I have a few other books on composition and theory, as well as some of the "How-to" books for specific programs, but this general treatment of effects, what the are, and how they are used in most dance music is relatively enlightening. The book has a lot of minor typos for some reason (ex: "lightening fast reflexes"), more so than most books I've seen that have gone to press, and there are many things that he assumes that you are familiar with without explaining them, like filter sweeps or what a dB is. I mean those concepts aren't hard to figure out on your own but I feel that I wouldn't be able to hand this book to someone with zero experience with electronic music creation and expect them to figure the book out - it would be best in the hands of someone who's already got a program installed and is familiar with the basic interface and knows the general principles of making music on a computer. But, even then, reviewing concepts like the difference between a 12dB and a 24dB low-pass filter, the use of the compressor in electronic music, and the "storyboard of a typical dance track" helps crystallize these concepts for me. Many books and guides I've gone through so far don't offer you specific guidelines for how to get particular styles of sound or what makes dance music production the way it is and instead say fuzzy things like "do what feels good" and it's comforting to have a book that actually says, "many dance tracks use an ABC to achieve a 123 sound" and instruct you on common ways to build 123 and tweak ABC. I'm not really at the level where I'm building good BOOM-tss just from reading this book but I can definitely say that I'm absorbing information and general philosophies on dance music and dance music production so far. Need to read more, I've been mostly flipping through and reading sections rather than doing a cover-to-cover.

It's like cheating, but I learned a lot of beats by simply looking at the preset patterns on drum machines. If you have a drum machine, load up their "House" patterns and look at them, compare them to the "Trance" patterns, the "DnB" patterns, and the "Disco" (ha ha) patterns. You'll learn where the hits go, what they sound like, and so forth and it'll give you a base to work from so that you can vary the patterns/sound but still make your music resemble the genre you want to make.

Hey, I remember Alundra. I was in a game rental store and found the paper map inside the case on the shelf. Being a little shit, I stole the map. I don't remember which store this was in or where, it might have been in Los Angeles or in Boston. I never did play the actual game though.

Unfortunately if they are FuBar plugins you'd have to find a broker equivalent, I don't think it imports directly. However brokers tend to be pretty easy to write. I don't know if there's a broker for AuldLangSyne though. If I used it I'd probably have written a broker for it already if there wasn't one.

I've only flipped through this book so far but as Ectogemia has said, this isn't really a manual... it's definitely not a step-by-step guide on how to crank out a dance track. The Programming Theory chapter is extremely rich and presents a lot of general methodologies. So it brings up things like, "Why would you want to use presets", "what part of the notes to concentrate on when designing your own sounds", "when to use stereo" and stuff. The actual dance music section starts with an overview of the history of house and its influences before going down into the elements of the genre. The section on pads first starts with, "Why do you want pads?" and then goes into different types of pads, describing their construction using the terminology that was introduced in the first chapter on synthesis. The same treatment is given to making synthesized drums and other instruments. So far it's doing a good job applying words to concepts previously I had to describe by, "That up-down-soundy thing". I need to actually sit down and read it in detail.

Anyone here who's looking for an addon to track your XP and levelling progress might be interested in this addon I wrote: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=14690 I updated it this morning to work with 4.0.1. Also, if you're still using TitanBar (or FuBar) you might want to consider moving to a Data Broker system, which is more CPU efficient and a little more customizable. I personally use ChocolateBar (it says Out of Date but the latest version works with 4.0.1) but others I know of are Fortress and DockingStation.

I think it's more beneficial to know how to emulate a style, and then tweak everything to make it something different, rather than to create something accidentally and have the foresight to realise that it is in fact different (and good). You can't know that you're different unless you know what you're different from. (And yes I ordered this book too and it's in the mail).

Yeah I haven't come back to Illidan yet sorry guys. Also there were tons of problems with 4.0.1 (mage tables crashing instances!) and really bad frame rates so far. It's been hard for me to deal with at the moment. Right now I'm more excited about updating my addon to 4.0 than about playing the actual game :0

I'm not exactly a super producer or a super remixer, but I regularly use Logic Pro's convolution reverb unit as well and can usually get three or four going on the machine in a small project before it starts having problems. I'm running a 3.6 GHz iMac (Core 2 Duo based IIRC) with 4 GB of RAM, so it's by no means a super-beefed up machine.

The most hardcore game I've played that resembles a good console title is probably "Towers in Space", a little indie title that is tower defense that actually has voice acting and a storyline as a part of it. It costs $2.99, which is an absolute steal for a game whose dialog is completely voiced. It's also for BOTH iPad and iPod touch... none of this "HD" version crap where you charge 7.99 for. Really hard game though, it took me a while to learn it. If anyone plays it and wants some help let me know.

I'm kind of curious what this "excess stuff" is now. Is any of it worth selling? You might be able to raise a bunch of cash if there's stuff you don't really mind parting with out there.

Hi Starla!! Happy birthday!

I would wonder why you need both Cubase and Reason... it depends on what you want to do (and what kind of music you want to do), you might want to get other software instruments instead of Reason (eg: NI Komplete, Spectrasonics Omnisphere, etc) that integrate better with Cubase. Just something to keep in mind

Is that because WoW and FF14 are totally different gaming models, or is it because you don't want the WoWkids polluting this thread? I'm interested in hearing a review. I don't like reading magazine reviews for MMORPGs anymore, since almost all of them are like "OMG GAME SO AWESOME" and they review it one day after it comes out. Like you can tell what an MMORPG is like after the first day.

Sounds like they all might be homeless soon then.

Unfortunately, even if she is a psycho bitch, she's a psycho bitch who pays her rent on time.

I wonder if there's some way you can get reimbursement for this or something. It might not be worth pursing now but perhaps later on when you don't have a dozen other things that are a bit more pressing. And as Arek said, make sure you emphasize that you are going to be on the street if they don't help you out. A surprising number of 20 and 30 somethings are moving back in with their parents in this age. It might sound ridiculous, but it's true - house prices and rent prices are simply too high nowadays, and the workforce is not really hiring new people. So where do people go? Back to their parents, who own property and still have jobs.

You don't have any savings either from the sounds of it. Damn I thought you were in a 40K/year job. Ugh, how'd you get fired? Was it a legitimate firing? Did you receive any severance? Anyway that sucks Mirby. Sorry, I don't know anyone in that area who can help. Hope things turn up, like Ashamee's connections and so forth.

Well, it would only put ads up if the copyright holders put their ad on YouTube, right? I would wager that there's a lot of people out there who simply don't really care that much - some Japanese Guy (or even some Japanese company) who composed some video game music twelve years ago might not give a damn that the SNES tracks have been ripped and uploaded onto YouTube. However record labels (or soundtrack producers/sellers) would be a little more concerned because they are actively monetising the content.

So what's your situation now, do you have a certain amount of time to get out of your place, or are you already out now and jumping from couch to couch in the meantime?

This post is a good one.