33 Reply by vgx

(49 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Pretty much all my "songs" are unfinished, I mostly use Nanoloop so I just come up with lots of small ideas and musical phrases and then jam on them live, hence my lack of full releases. Anyway if other people or I like some of those ideas I'll flesh them out to full songs. I don't do that a whole lot but at least it gives me a huge library of material to play live. I find I tend to write the most material when I'm coming up to a deadline wink

So basically my method for overcoming writer's block is writing (and saving!) lots of small song ideas, no matter how small, and have a reason & timeframe for everything to prevent procrastination and messing around too much (for example: i am writing this song, which is a floor destroying dance track, for my live show this saturday, and i will achieve this by ...). It's also worth coming to terms with the fact you won't like everything you write, you will have off days. Take some time out, no point in dragging out your misery ... unless you have to finish your project soon, in which case inspiration will come, trust me smile

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34 Reply by vgx

(39 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Saskrotch wrote:

i dont really get what you mean

As an example, a lot of chiptune musicians use Game Boys to write their music. A Game Boy is just a basic computer for playing video games. LSDJ/Nanoloop/whatever is all software designed to run on the Game Boy, which people use to write music. So, it's still a computer telling a synthesizer what to do.

On a similar note, a lot of modern synthesizers/drum machines/samplers/etc are all basic computers running a specialised OS for accessing or generating a synthesized sound or playing back samples, so unless you're 100% analogue you're still using a "hybrid" approach by your own definition.

Your computer tells your sound card's hardware what sounds it needs to reproduce as well, it has to go through a hardware stage at some point.

Anyway I tend to agree with what Jellica's already said smile

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35 Reply by vgx

(47 replies, posted in Past Events)

that was fun!

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36 Reply by vgx

(47 replies, posted in Past Events)

totally on right now!

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37 Reply by vgx

(47 replies, posted in Past Events)

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: We are streaming this event in approximately 50 minutes on Ustream!!!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/valley-fi … cket-music



Possibly might start a bit earlier or later, if it's earlier it's because I got my MIDI controller working and I'm DJing

Edit: this is now known as the OKTOBERFEST edition

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38 Reply by vgx

(37 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Pretty cool stuff, I like the style even if the 2d to 3d jumps seem a bit jarring sometimes hehe.

KeFF wrote:
akira^8GB wrote:

The CGI is ugly, specially character-wise (the render looks OK but I think nowadays it's relatively easy to achieve such a rendering)
I only like how it switches to 2.5D and it keeps the charm of the old games pretty intact. Other than that, mmm.

Also in the 2D parts, it's really hard to understand what is happening. I'm not sure if this is cool or not.

Don't be afraid to have an opinion man!

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39 Reply by vgx

(15 replies, posted in Other Hardware)

@noisewaves: JBL makes some pretty good speakers, if nothing else they'll last a long time. Haven't got any experience with Phonic or Kustom, they'll probably do the job but I don't know how they'll stack up over time.

@Theta_Frost: It might make more sense to hire if you're not going to use it a lot, then again if you hire it out to people it'll pay for itself, there's always someone who wants a PA system.

The problem you'll get with cheap systems is they won't have an even frequency response and may not be able to handle high SPLs very well. That might not sound like a major issue but you'll find their weaknesses show up fairly quickly once you have to put on a big show. Cheaper speakers also generally take bad shortcuts to save money which reduce their operational life, not sure if it's still the case but Behringer speakers traditionally used overhung voice coils which have a nasty habit of melting if you drive them too hard. That said a good system doesn't cost too much these days and you may be able to get a good one second hand for a steal.

For a cheap new system maybe look at Mackie's Thump TH-15a speakers or one of Yamaha's Stagepas systems. You could potentially build a system if you've got the patience to research speaker cabinets, might take a while to make some that sound really good but it might be a fun learning experience.

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40 Reply by vgx

(3 replies, posted in General Discussion)

I do have an old 386 with a Soundblaster 16 somewhere, unfortunately the only part of it I can find is the CPU sad I think the closest I'm going to get anytime soon is an emulated version in DOSBox or something.

Those ancient IBMs sound pretty funky for mono machines hehe.

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41 Reply by vgx

(16 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Lazerbeat wrote:

- Also, and this is sad but true, if you are worried about having a difficult time at customs, shave, use deoderant, wear nice clothes, a suit if you can.

On this point, a psychologist friend of mine said that it's a good idea to keep your eyebrows raised as you go through any customs checkpoints, for reasons he didn't really explain it makes people less likely to want to perform any baggage checks. In general not looking like a backpacker or you just came from Amsterdam will help too.

Also if you ever go through Dubai, make sure you tell them you've never done drugs even if it's a bold faced lie, trust me on this one.

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42 Reply by vgx

(38 replies, posted in Past Events)

well that was certainly a thing

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