in case audacity doesn't provide a link to download the LAME encoder, go here.

instead of a mic for your guitar and cello, try a piezo pickup that can be mounted on your instrument's top like this one.

this will cut down on excess noise as well as make it less obstructive while recording. Out of the way and out of mind is definitely the way to go.

be sure to drink lots of water whilst screaming. I can say from experience that vocal injuries suck major balls.

as far as technique is concerned, i would start by tensing up every muscle involved with singing and start screaming. experiment with the shape of your mouth as well as the space inside your mouth and upper throat. Get the screaming 'tone' you want without the pitch and then when you master screaming, slowly add the pitch and be sure to get the right balance of growl and pitch. For practice, try growling different vowel sounds (ah eh ee aw oo) as well as your dipthongs (combinations of two 'pure' vowel sounds) (ay (eh+ee), i (ah+ee), oh (aw+oo), etc.).

yeah, that's about all I have. I'm a classically trained vocalist, so I don't do a whole lot of growling, but if you'd like anything more on vocal tecnique, just drop a PM.

--John

i have two suggestions for you. First one: try setting some text to music. It'll help with note division and you'll have a good sense of phrasing. Then, take away the text and you're left with a melody that shouldn't suck too bad. Second one: Motivic composition. Take a motive and reiterate it in different chords and registers. A motive is a little one part blurb of music usually ranging between 3 and 10 notes.

At 10/27/06 05:56 PM, SBB wrote: There's a program called WaveEditor that can do this pretty well.

yeah. Nero Wave Editor. It'll do it. Just be careful that you don't drop it too far or else it'll sound like shit as far as audio quality is concerned.

Creative's Prodikeys is awesome. It's great for inputing into your notation software of choice. There's also less of a bottleneck setting up than if you had a regular keyboard.

here ye be.

"Driven" by Rush has some good bass and so does "Big Bottom" from Spinal Tap. Big Bottom has three people playing bass. It's awesome.

you could try speeding it up a hair to compensate. Also, if you're recording, make sure your microphone is plugged into the Mic-input as opposed to Line-In. It may seem like an asinine detail, but it doesn't hurt to check.

I use Nero Wave Editor. It works like a dream. You might consider looking into it. (btw, if you use at least nero 5 to burn CDs and whatnot, you have wave editor on your computer.)

go to your public library. They usually have CD's of sound effects.

for space stuff, trance is usually a pretty good bet.

how about this one?

You'll need a sound converter. Outrageously easy to come by.

The sticky (the green glowing thread at the top of the forum labeled 'New to Audio? Read This!') has a link to a bunch of sound converters.

At 9/27/06 12:53 AM, GoreBastard wrote: AAARRRGGGHHH I JUST UPLOADED MY SPERM.

Are you drunk again?

you'll want a mini (headphone) to RCA cable. Pretty straightforward. Plug in from your headphone jack on your computer to the RCA inputs in the back of the PA mixer, soundboard, or whatever else you may be working with.

something like this.

http://www.damienbenoit.com/training/

Theres a good chance that this program you're using has an 'export to mp3' or 'export to WAV' function. There's a link in the audio sticky (the green glowing thread at the top that reads 'New to Audio? Read This!') all about audio converters. If that still doesn't work, www.download.com should have something.

Just remember, when you convert, make sure it fits NG's guidelines for submitting.

You'd be best to ask the flash forum about your problem.

But as for converters, this should help.

Since this is a non-NG affilliated production, I would recommend to the musicians and the producers of the game to get hard-copy documentation of the work being done and the music being used. A printed e-mail is not hard-copy. This will serve as a contract to the producers to legally gain permission to use this music and a contract to the musician stating that "song X will be used for Game A and only Game A", etc. also detailing the payment, if necessary.

I'd hate to see game makers or musicians getting screwed by lawyers should the game take off.

if you don't mind spending a small amount of money, you can get a program called "groove mechanic". It records and cleans up recodings very nicely. You can also try "Nero Wave Editor". It does a nice job as well. (Both of these programs record audio as well.)

If you don't find anything, drop me a line and I may be able to do it for you.

At 9/18/06 01:20 PM, SuperBowserBro wrote: It doesn´t work for me. It says "Convert Selection to AAC". wtf is AAC?!?

.AAC is a dumb mac-only format that causes more headaches than needed. Just go into the preferences on iTunes and make it convert to .mp3. You may need to download an mp3 plugin from apple, but it will prompt you to do so if it is necessary.

There are three ways to make a song smaller in terms of file size: Length, Format, and Quality. Since the song must be in .mp3 format for the NG-AP, that leaves you with length length and quality. I usually don't reccomend shortening a song unless you take out some repeats, so reducing quality will be your best bet. A 3-minute song sampled at 96 kbps will be roughly 3 MB So, unless you're submitting a 15-minute full orchestral Opus, I don't think you'll have any trouble.

iTunes is pretty reliable.

At 9/14/06 05:29 AM, AuntyJamima wrote: i would still get the sm 58 but buy it used on ebay or something.

not too many people sell them used because they work so well.

You could go with a Shure PG-58. You can find them at best buy or just about any place on the internet. They're about $30. Pretty reliable microphone. To get rid of the 'puh's you speak of, you could pick up a windscreen for $20 or so and that'll take care of the problem.

keep this to the general forum.

you could burn all the songs to a DVD and you'd be able to fit nearly all the soungs you'd need onto it. Macs and PCs don't have nearly the same amout of compatability issues that they used to have. Hell, you could even do a direct link between the computers and drag and drop between computers.

John Mills

big fan of the seatbelts, armstrong, and a couple local people. If you want to hear some great sax playing, check out ray blue. He's awesome.

A Shure PG-48 should do you fine. Decent quality, shure name, reliable, and $40. You can pick one up at your local best buy or here

i've got '04

get nero 7. it comes with an awesome editor and a multitrack recorder that can master in 7.1. Plus you get all the kick-ass burning software we've come to love. it's only like $80.