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Now that my Sony VAIO's given up its six-year-old ghost and been replaced with a brand-spankin' new iMac, it's time I went back to composing awesome stuff for 15-year-olds to jam to on Guitar Hero. (See Dragon Commander v0.5 for more on that.)

But here's what I was thinking when I decided to combine a Japanese [i]samisen[/i] with rock music: a lot of people do it, right? Kevin Kmetz is a prime example. So why not try it myself? Of course, my songwriting is nothing compared to Kmetz's (not to mention just about every metal musician in Newgrounds), but whatever.

Honestly speaking, this isn't a new idea of mine; I first laid it down in 2007 or 2008 on Cakewalk Music Creator 3 and left to rot until it was picked up again in January 2009 and completed.

But, wait! It sounds different! Gone is that ugly MIDI drum kit, replaced with a more realistic-sounding set! And the guitars sound marginally better! What the heck is going on?

GarageBand, that's what. I did my base composing in CWMC3 as usual, but for the final polish, I eschewed the standard "use EDIROL synths to export to MP3" route (since they're missing, anyway), Boot-Camped back to the Mac side, retrieved the .mid from the Windows partition (which Mac can read, but not write to), and buffed up the tracks a bit using its built-in music software.

So, yeah. My stuff sounds better now. Even though my Amp Sims still suck. Comments? Questions?