bobbass4k

[quote name='ubassman' timestamp='1364022212' post='2020943'] I challenge anyone to get a groove counting 11s [/quote] Challenge accepted: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox9SfroL0uQ[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI-us49j5-o[/media] Of course groove is subjective, but for me those both have 11/8 sections that are really easy to lock into and groove along to.

Time signatures are such a subjective thing when it comes down to it, you can even see it in this video, Pino's tapping his foot in quarters and the keyboardist (don't know his name,I'm impressed I recognized Pino...) is tapping his foot along in eights, so they're both counting it differently. Personally I'd count it (the first bit at least) as 3 bars of 5/8 and a bar of 7/8, but that's equivalent to 2 bars of 11/8, or a bar of 15/8 and a bar of 7/8, or you could write it out as a single bar of 11/4. Personally I don't like time signatures bigger than 7/4, I think they're unwieldy, so that colours my hearing of time sigs, this could very will have been written as 11/4, but I prefer to break it down as w bars of 5.8 and a bar of 7/8. Music theory probably dictates which one is correct, but I think as long as it works for you, who's to say it's wrong?

FINALLY got mine written and the VST's all programmed, now I just need to mix it. Yours is great Skol, almost entirely opposite to mine, which should be interesting. Mine's not even remotely "video game" themed, but it IS angry. Definitely the most conventional song I've written for a while, it's mostly having fun in 6/8, except the first bit which is 3/8, and the breakdown bit which is 5/8, and a riff towards the end in 11/8, and there's a couple of random bars of 7/8 because that's the sort of thing I'm into. Hmm, maybe "conventional" is the wrong word, should be interesting to see how people react to it. I might slip a video game reference into the title, I just need to pick a good'un.....

The XP-100 whammy has the 5th/octave up harmony mode that he uses for Disposition, mine works a treat. The xp-100 has a lot more modes too, apparently the bass whammy sounds better, but to be honest I think that assessment is usually made by people who've spent the equivalent of a half-decent car on a bass whammy. Mine is one of my essential pedals, they can be had for < £100, in fact I think someone's selling one in the classifieds at the moment.

[quote name='Shambo' timestamp='1363783542' post='2017485'] Now I'm wondering if I need lower profile RAM that won't interfere with the CPU cooler I'm yet to choose. [/quote] It is something you need to consider, but personally I'd recommend a water cooling block for the CPU and GPU, although if you're not going to be gaming you could get away without water cooling for the GPU. They're low profile so they won't interfere with the RAM and generally quieter than a big honking fan CPU cooler. You can get simple no-maintenance systems that are sealed and have no reservoir. They won't last forever but you never have to buy coolant or bleed the system or anything.

Scan are my go to, the site can be a bit of a chore to use, and their prices aren't always the absolute lowest but there's never more than a few £ in it and the service and selection far outstrips OCUK and eBuyer, in my experience. As for CPU, you may not necessarily [i]need [/i]a quad-core, but quad-cores are the dominant force now, a decent quad core is well within a reasonable budget. I upgraded my PC last year and I sprang for one of the new Ivy Bridge i5's, 22nm! They can probably be had for £150ish, but if you can afford 32GB of RAM, you might want to look at an i7. Or I suppose you could always look at an..... AMD, if you're into that sort of thing.

I'll have to find some time to give this a listen, but to be honest I've kind of been going off Dave Grohl a little lately, he's started coming off as a bit insincere, even hypocritical. I saw Foo Fighters in Germany, and towards the end of the set he made a big speech about how he was "proud to stand on stage and play true rock 'n' roll, with no f***ing computers behind (him)". The nord and novation synths their live keyboardist was using are basically computers, not to mention all the fancy rack gear they were no doubt using. It's an extremely arrogant viewpoint that I was sad to hear from him. It kind of adds to the Wasting Light thing, he made such a big deal about tracking on to analog tape to get back to "true rock 'n' roll", I can kind of see the appeal, but what was the point when they were just going to compress it to hell? Wasting Light sounds exactly like most major label modern records, which is to say, f***ing awful, I certainly can't hear any vintage tape mojo.

Should have mine finished soon, it's essentially just a lot of riffs glued together, but I think it works.

Been pretty great with everything I've thrown at it. I tried one of my own proper songs and it got it mostly right, the chords in that song aren't really conventional but it got the roots right and got the key change right. I tried it with an ambient noise thing too, and considering there's no chords it followed the notes pretty well. Very impressive, this kind of thing has been around for a while but it's nice to see a really accurate one in a free simple web interface.

A couple more: Not really sure I'd call any of this a riff, but this is heavy guitar music at it's absolute best (this is my favourite song but check out Sputnik or Machines Part II if you want something shorter): [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OB8oKLxS5c[/media] And it wouldn't be a heavy riff thread without Amplifier: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-udAlxevMqw[/media]

Overlooking the more obvious "heavy for the sake of heavy" bands, I'd go for: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVavzZyMApE[/media] The whole song is pretty brutal, but I was mainly thinking of the outro riff, listen from about 2:59 for the full effect: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmh6EVoKIWg[/media]

[quote name='Truckstop' timestamp='1362752321' post='2004262'] Its weird, some of my favourite Deftones songs are on their worst album; Hexagram, Minerva and Battleaxe are huge! Truckstop [/quote] That's because the self titled album is one of their best, Deathblow is spectacular. I love the new album, their melody and huge soaring choruses are always why I've loved them. I've never seen the appeal of Adrenaline and Around The Fur personally, I certainly can't understand why people say ATF is their best album when they are the band who made White Pony. White Pony, Deftones, Diamond Eyes and Koi No Yokan are all spectacular. Saturday Night Wrist has some of their best songs (Hole In The Earth, Riviere, Rats!) but it's just too disjointed to be a great album.

Interestingly Bilbo, to me your belated February intro sounded a lot more video gamey to, it may have just been the general MIDI sound, but that sounded like it was straight out of one of the PSX Final Fantasy's... I considered going "video gamey" for this one, but after an hour in Reaper with an 8-bit synth VST it just felt forced, video game music to me has always been more than 8-bit synths, most of my favourite games have brilliant orchestral scores or a really atmospheric score. Ironically though, I'm not going with that either, I've got a lot of fast jumpy riffs coming to me so I think I'll go for something heavy that captures the energy. I was pretty impressed with some of the sounds I could get out of Guitar Pro 6 so I think I'll stick with that, even if it is a pain in the arse to use. I imagine I'll throw in a couple of quick samples to acknowledge the video game theme though.

Nope, a lot of very self important musicians act as though they could rattle of as many hit pop songs as they liked if they were so inclined, but such empty frivolity is beneath them, they are "true" musicians and people who don't appreciate their music are uncultured philistines. The reality is that writing a song that literally millions of people will enjoy immediately is an incredibly difficult task. Just one personal touch could alienate half of your potential audience, one note or an unorthodox key choice could change the mood of a riff or hook and suddenly a lot of people won't like it. That's why a lot of the very successful modern pop albums are designed by committee, to smooth out everyone's influences to a marketable, accessible average. Take a look at the credits for Adele's "21", 7 writers and producers for 10 tracks (discounting the Cure cover). So no, I couldn't write a hit pop song, and even if I could, I definitely lack the industry contacts and experience to get it recorded, as do most people.

Don't think I've posted mine since the first page: http://soundcloud.com/bobbass4k It's mostly just a convenient way of hosting stuff, like for the composition competitions, as such there's an eclectic mix, mostly improved noise/ambient stuff, but there's some proper songs too.

My aborted but now finished idea for the Feb comp: http://soundcloud.com/bobbass4k/a-dream-of-the-fayth The mix is a little off and there's some errors (that flute is supposed to be a harp...) But hopefully it gives an idea of my, err, idea.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1362177222' post='1996955'] Here is mine This is just a sketch. I got distracted by technology and trying to set up some new Miroslav Philharmonik VST software. This is as far as I got. I am not bothering to work on it any more as it is not worth it but I wanted to show that I was trying [url="https://soundcloud.com/robert-palmer-1/aurora"]https://soundcloud.c...palmer-1/aurora[/url] [/quote] Wow that sounds like it's straight from a Final Fantasy soundtrack, very good work. In fact on a second listen, it reminds me very strongly of this: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti_iazvRLD4[/media]

Excellent, I can feel a fast post-hardcore type thing forming this month. I finally managed to get the rest of my aborted February entry written, so I'll slap together an unpolished mix of it, in case anyone fancies hearing where that intro leads (to scooped power chords and 9/4 riffs is the answer)

There is a place for growling and screaming (done well, which this isn't), but it has to be counterpointed with more melodic vocals. Case in point: Deftones

Sorry to put a dent in your figure, but mine was not an entry, that was a sample mix of the intro I put up for comment, unfortunately I didn't get chance to finish it and I don't think the intro in isolation is up to the standards of the other entries, so could you please remove it?

Ableton is geared towards live performance, any time you see someone on stage with a laptop, they're probably running Ableton. If you want to really dive into a DAW, Pro Tools would be as good as any.

Again through an odd combination of procrastination and being too busy I've not finished again this month. Probably for the best though as that riff I appropriated from an old song of mine ended up forming the spine of the song, so even if I had finishedI'd have probably elected not to enter it. Oh well.