Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

At 5/5/08 09:07 AM, Khuskan wrote: We are approaching 100 page get. Brace for epic.

Oh shi- I meant 1000.

We are approaching 100 page get. Brace for epic.

You might want to check with the Fulps before committing to this method of keeping down filesize. There probably isn't a problem as long as what you are making is Newgrounds specific - but I don't think they would be too happy with a flash leeching bandwidth from the site if it isn't on NG in the first place.

There are ways to make Sibelius play things that aren't on the score or ignore things that are already on it.

Be damned if I could work it out though.

At 5/4/08 10:43 AM, Sp1r1T wrote: I just bought WoW (Snort) and Half Life 2.

downloading hl2 off steam is taking ages :'[ I really need to get a dvd drive.

Your internet connection must be fail then :-P

Took me about 2 hours.

At 4/24/08 02:42 PM, Jala-Fox wrote: Nvm, I'm leaving, NG is dead in audio, and all my collab friends left. c ya

And nothing of value was lost.

>>> KHUSKAN HATH MADE NEW TRACK <<<

Gasp in amazement at my second failure to create drum and bass!

Back to the slow stuff for me.

Stolen ones.

At 4/17/08 04:48 PM, Rucklo wrote:

At 4/17/08 03:57 PM, Khuskan wrote: Reason 4s new sequencer annoys me somewhat. Or maybe I'm just using it wrong.

I can't seem to make sequencer lanes without first assigning them to devices any more. It used to be really useful for storing ideas or importing midis without having to go through and delete all the devices.

im a bit annoyed with the new sequencer too... just having to create a loop-area thingy whatever it's called to be able to draw is fucked up. also, i fucking hate vector-automations... yeah, i draw everything since i lack piano skills. :)

Well most software packages work on an system that you can't have midi data without them being contained in a clip, but it does seem that Propeller heads took some features out unessential that were in widespread use.

I prefer the vector automation though, it's far more precise for me.

No. Buy FL studio.

All the free stuff basically constitutes trackers, which are pretty high-level as far as music production goes.

Hmm. I could give it a shot. Hip-hop style things, backing music I take it?

Would you rather play with loops or full tracks?

Reason 4s new sequencer annoys me somewhat. Or maybe I'm just using it wrong.

I can't seem to make sequencer lanes without first assigning them to devices any more. It used to be really useful for storing ideas or importing midis without having to go through and delete all the devices.

Guitars are difficult to emulate, but not impossible. The thing that makes guitar synths sound unrealistic is how the people using them have little knowledge of how a guitar works. If you write the music as it would be played on a guitar, then carefully make sure it's possible to play, then you're half way there.

The next part is adding in a natural amount of fretting noises and other finger movements, and making sure that notes played on a single string sound longer than those being played quickly on frets. Guitars are not pianos, once you start playing a note, it's not exactly easy to stop it again without hitting the string again with your fingers.

Adding more genres is making music harder to find, especially when adding genres that nobody but the author knows what they actually mean.

If people are looking for music with distorted guitars in, they will look for 'rock'. Not 'Progressive'. Not 'Black'. Not 'Neu Metal'. Not 'Scandinavian fire rock'. They will look for rock.

I still find the whole name of it hilarious.

'Happy hardcore'.

Jesus, they couldn't make that genre sound more pink and fluffy if they tried.

At 4/12/08 03:58 PM, JoeyNukes wrote: Might want to invest in an interface. For cheap, check out the Line6 TonePort line.

Yup. The line in port on mobo-based sound cards is always a total load of wank. I'd recommend a phono based input system, though if you're serious about making music with computers, you should probably invest in a full blown sound card.

If you just want the standard phono inputs, have a look for a Behringer U-Control. They're about $50, have 2 phono inputs and 2 phono outputs and the all important software to make it work (though you probably won't even need it for XP/Vista)

If you're going for a sound card, but want to keep it cheap, have a look at the Audigy series of sound cards from Creative, or if you arn't too techy, get an external USB sound card such as the m-audio audiophile USB. If you'd like to shop around a bit though, here are a few pointers:

ASIO (midi controller) performance is identical across ALL Creative cards, and it's basically an enhanced midi system allowing lower latency's (time between key press and sound heard) for midi controllers, as well as latency in software (time between pressing play and sound heard) though the latter is normally pretty unnoticeable anyway. ASIO is somewhat of a processor hog though, and as a scale of reference, on my 3ghz pentium 4 machine, I run at latencies of about 5-7ms while leaving enough CPU for the rest of my software. On my newer 2.4ghz quad core, It's happy at 2ms latency as the ASIO driver can't actually go any lower :P.

Bitrate isn't too important for playback, though recording it may be. You'll want something that can at least record at 44.1khz, though this is pretty much a standard and you'll actually have a hard time not finding a card capable of that.

What ports the sound card has is useful, for example more phono sockets, XLR etc, but you can get converter cables that run between XLR/Jack/Phono to pretty much anything, so it isn't that important. Sound cards also accelerate MIDI devices on ANY input to your computer, not just the ones plugged directly into them.

Most sound cards have two main outputs that are intended to be used all the time - A headphone socket and some sort of speaker output. A good quality soundcard has both of these as two seporate outputs which would normally constitute 3 plugs (Headphone, Speaker left, Speaker right). Some cards (Audigy etc) have additional ports for anything up to 7.1 surround sound but you probably won't end up using those. Look for a card with a 1/4" jack plug as opposed to the 1/8" or whatever it is. All headphones these days come included with a 1/4" adaptor, except the really high end good ones which only come with 1/4" plugs, and although you can get converter sockets, they put a lot of weight strain onto the tiny 1/8" hole.

Wow, that's gone pointlessly in depth. Hope it helps.

At 4/11/08 11:23 PM, devildog1785 wrote: I want to create a quick song or loop but i need some beats and stuff that i can just download and import. Drums guitar piano horns even, a site is what i need

The Free Sound Project has a magnitude of loops and samples, and all of them are licensed for entirely free usage. It's probably your safest bet to poke around there before committing to buying sample cds.

At 4/9/08 09:04 PM, Mercenary81 wrote:

At 4/9/08 08:59 PM, riemannSum wrote: Those lyrics are derivative and tried, most likely came from a teenager (angst style). Things along that line are overused.

Actually, i wrote them, and they're about my mother ;)

Ouch.

Put yourself in the shoes of the people who have to sort all the music.

There are over 100 tracks submitted every day to the audio portal. There are only a handful of people to sort through them, all of whom are part time. The NG system relies that only the first track someone submits is checked for legality to help cut down the workload, and that's still assuming the person who is assigned to verify it would actually recognise if there were 'stolen' parts to the track.

A lot of music software such as EJ and all that crap relies on stock loops, but those loops are technically loyalty free and so you can't really turn down such tracks on legal grounds. Likewise, if the mods started deleting tracks that they knew contained loops, that would result in outcry from people new to the music scene getting confused as to why their work is not 'good enough' to be on the site.

Pretty much the safest way around it is to make it as clear as possible what is allowed and what isn't, and even then you're going up against a few brick walls. New grounds, though predominantly in English, is very much a multi-national website, and although it's safe to say most people speak English to the extent they can use the site, it doesn't mean that they would be able to understand a more complicated sentence about the legalities of using loops. Likewise, people rarely read small print these days.

There are other more experimental ways that could be used to help. For example, with the first track submitted, users could be required to send a screen dump of the software they're creating it in with the file name clearly visible. Sure, it would be open to abuse, but far less abuse than the current system.

The simplest way would be to make the listeners aware of the rules as much as the authors, and make reporting questionable music easier. However, it's harder to tell if music is stolen than a flash.

The audio portal is becoming more and more popular. I remember when you could submit a track and a week later come back and it would still be on the 'new submissions' list - Basically the time before Chronamut started mass-producing :-P. Without going all out exclusive and start accepting songs based on quality as well as source, It's going to be tricky for NG to clean it up.

By submitting music to NG, you're agreeing to a Creative Commons attribution/non-commercial/share alike license, which essentially means that people don't need to ask your permission to use it and they have to give you suitable credit for your work. It also means that people can remix your music or sample it free of charge.

I have a Rode NT1-A under my desk right now. It's not exactly mine, but damn it's decent.

At 4/9/08 04:50 PM, Khuskan wrote: I'd suggest a hardware solution instead - Purchase a mic splitter cable (cheap as chips) and then you can listen to the same thing coming out of the microphone port on your whatsit.

And of course, by 'mic splitter' I meant 'headphone splitter'. :-\

At 4/9/08 01:24 PM, Hadriani wrote: Ello thar!

The problem I've got is the following:
I want to record some things I play on the guitar, but I can't hear whatever I play on my laptop. Here's what I got:

I've got a guitar (w00T for that one), a GNX3 "Guitar Workstation" from DigiTech, and a laptop. I connect my guitar to my GNX3 and from there I put the headphones-output (on the GNX) in my laptop line-in/mic input.

My sound gets to the laptop allright, but the problem is that Vista/My audio driver won't play it. It's a feature called "Mute mic feedback" or something. I simply can't disable that feature and because of that, recording has become a lot harder.

I've googled around for ages, but couldn't find anything helpful. If you have the slightest idea on what could help me, please do reply.

Greetings,
Hadriani

Welcome to the wonderful world of making music with windows vista.

It's a hellish situation to be in, and vista was clearly not designed for such usage.

The problem you're having - as well as many more of us - is that your sound card drivers for vista are a lot more basic than those available for XP. Vista greatly changed the way sound is handled which in the music playback respects is pretty awesome but it gets in the way of recording.

I'd suggest a hardware solution instead - Purchase a mic splitter cable (cheap as chips) and then you can listen to the same thing coming out of the microphone port on your whatsit.

Also a note - The GNX3 is capable of recording what you play, correct? It may be easier to record onto the unit while listning through headphones, then simply play it back and record into the PC.

Oh god. I leave NG for a month or so, and then I return to this.

In one thread:

-Not enough genres
-People such because they have a different idea of what genre their track is
-Everyone has a higher score than me and they don't deserve it because they chose their genre incorrectly
-People who don't use real instruments in their tracks suck
-Justification of why VSTs take skill to use

All it needs is somebody to point out that 'skill' isn't a single qualitative value and you can't compare instrument skill to computer programming skill and then the AF thread stereotype will be complete.

Oh and an argument about which software package is better.

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/1 24362

mmmeyes.

At 2/13/08 03:10 AM, dj-pope wrote: Well if you wanna be all technical then NG is making money of your song by putting it on there site and using it to attract more visitors.

Yes, but we agree to that when we submit the music.

This has been bugging me for a while. There seems to be a glaring flaw in the way the NG license system is set up.

Quoth:

Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes unless you make specific arrangements with the artist under another license.

Emphesis on the You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

'Fair enough', you may all be thinking 'go back to that weird rock you've been hiding after the one year, Khuskan!' however, it seems that an awful lot of the games on NG are in fact commercial, even if they are free to play.

Every single game under the sun these days is sponsored by Armour games/Shittyfunawesome games/[insert retarded company name here that was made up because they couldn't find a short URL]. These companies pay the creator depending on how popular their game gets, as well as the game is hosted onto their website, where it earns that company money through even more advertising revenue.

Especially concerning is the new 'mochie ads' thing, where flash artists are (and I'm not having a go at them here, because they deserve it) inserting basically web advertisements inside their games in the preloaders to rake up a bit of cash.

Now, this seems very commercial usage to me. The game is being created, and the artist is at a profit. Fair enough, such a profit may be small, and they are still free to play for the public, but I digress - it's still very much against the usage terms for NewGrounds music.

Now I'm not here to argue that people who get sponsored games/use mochie ads shouldn't be allowed to use the music. They rarely make enough money to justify paying the audio producers, and that's fair enough - but instead the license, I think, should be ajusted slightly to reflect this growing trend in flash-for-money.

Unless of course one of them wins several million dollars, in which case, I want a cut.

Linkin park has been out of ideas since shortly after their first album.

Oh burn.

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. Basically, it's a system used by audio producers to prevent music being shared between computers. There are a number of ways this works, but the whole system flopped out in the early 00's.

Microsoft Media Player tends to DRM protect mp3 files - but it's normally an option and asks you before hand. Your best bet is to reexport as a un-drmable format (.wav) then use another converter like lame encoder to mp3 your track.

I pay for what I use when I can, but that's not always possible, given that when buying VSTs, you're often buying almost totally blind, as demos are too restrictive to tell you what they're actually like.

Also, they are somewhat overpriced, and I feel the burn every time I spend a chunk of my paycheck on a new reverabation unit I'm going to use once.