#this is the first thing i ACTUALLY finished in famitracker

[just-jammin]

i did a thing on famitracker

cover arrangement is based on the original song, as well as a musescore sheet

yt version coming up soon :3

(all links will be listed in subsequent reblogs)

[ddrkirbyisq]

This month is definitely a bit of a rush...after coming back from the Asia trip, I had but a short time to catch my breath and then it was onto the celebration of my 30th.  I had better write about that now I guess? This was quite definitely the best birthday I've ever had.  Of course, it also tends to sometimes fall around the time of the spring Ludum Dare event, so sometimes the timing is weird, but even without taking that into consideration, this was by far the best it's ever been. I wrote in 2012 that "birthdays are a reminder of how little attention people put into me and how often I can be taken for granted, as well as a reminder of the imbalances in my relationships with other people." and that sentiment was definitely an honest one at the time.  Whether these perceived imbalances were ignorantly self-inflicted or through no fault of my own is up for debate, but I definitely had not found the types of social connections that I had truly desired, and would not until the coming years (though I had at the least gotten a lot closer than before).  It was because of this (along with my own knee-jerk reactions to oppose social trends) that I originally started to deactivate my Facebook account every time my birthday rolled around -- it left me with a disgusting feeling really, that horde of people who now suddenly bothered enough to type a meaningless message to me, but only because of an automated Facebook reminder.  Realizing that that automated birthday reminder had spurred them onto more action than anything else of our relationship during the 364 other days of the year was a terrible thought.  Of course, the family celebrations didn't really help, as usually they feel like little more than rituals for their benefit and not mine (still working on that one -- but at least I have gotten them to start picking from my wishlist so I don't also leave with wholly impractical gifts). Yet somehow after 30 years I managed to get together a great group of people whom I not only cared about but who also cared about me.  It was pretty astounding when I thought about it, I really was struck by the group that surrounded me that day and I think that day may ought to really serve as a sort of marker for myself in my life.  I planned some great activities, we had a lot of fun, and I had great help as well.  From one friend helping with tea, another helping with food preparation, another helping with miscellaneous logistics, it was truly amazing to finally have gotten together such dependable people.  Just read that post from 2012 that I linked -- what a difference! Of course, we also totally rocked the Roosevelt Escape Room -- great success, and I felt quite proud of the team.  I think we had a great mix of both people who tried to think very quickly on their feet (me) and people who tried to be more methodic and careful (i.e. catching everyone else's mistakes). And with that, all those people sending me short messages, somehow didn't really feel so bad anymore. Of course, that being over, it's right into the next thing...Ludum Dare 44 is coming up this weekend!  I've been doing a bunch of prep, including updating to Unity 2019, testing some things to make sure they still work, and also setting up and testing some things for itch.io!  itch.io is sort of like the "Bandcamp of game distribution" and I've always been a fan of them and the developers that gather on their platform despite not having used them. I do plan on trying to copy over all of our existing games over to itch, but it looks like that might (???) have to wait until after the dust from LD44 settles, as most of our recent games are actually domain-locked to avoid nasty people coming and stealing them onto their own sites.  I've added a rule to allow for itch.io hosting and tested that all to make sure it works, but I still have to go about recompiling all of the old games (probably also updating them to Unity 2019, hopefully not breaking anything in the process?), and setting up each of the project pages, etc etc etc. and that is something I just don't have the time for right now.  But I am at least set up to upload our LD44 entry onto itch.  Part of the reason I wanted to set up itch.io in the first place is because I think it does great discoverability for LD games, especially since the LD site itself has never been great at that.  (Not to mention, I might want to use itch to distribute Rhythm Quest as well!) Anyways, Unity 2019 seems to be working well (the itch.io tests also gave me some chances to verify that older games are working fine after the upgrade, which is important since there were some bugs that I had been working around and the workaround are deprecated, so good to know that the root issues were also fixed), and I've updated my unity template project as well as forked it over and made the repo.  Other things I still need to do before LD44: - Draw some 100x100 pixel art for this month's "Monthlies" album.  I knew this would sneak up on me even before I left for Asia...I was going to try starting this today, but then I got sidetracked by some more of the itch.io stuff and now this blog post...ugh.  Will have to try again tomorrow.  Need to get it done before LD since the end of the month is really soon after LD ends. - Laundry! - Do a big grocery run on Friday and get lots of food and snacks :D - If I have time, there's a boatload of letters I could probably catch up on...but not sure if that will happen =X  maybe will try to at least get to one or two... - Keep recovering physically and don't get sick... Things that will NOT get done before LD44: - I have a famitracker song that I "sort of finished" on the trip to Asia but might try to flesh out (or just call it done and master it). - Have a music commission on deck (due mid-july) - Also a remix to do for an arrange album (due august) - All the itch.io stuff - Potentially hosting a GCC dance on the 18th, but leaving that up in the air based on what I feel like doing. - There won't be another full-on JaSmix event for this quarter, but I will host the usual Summer event.  I've already done an initial reachout, now I just need to pick a good date. Well, on the plus side, I'm somehow still cruising along and handling everything despite having a full-time job.  I do feel like I'm taking care of a lot of things...just keeping on chugging along like I do best.

[sinewavemuzak]

Music and Tech II Post #8: MoonRiver and WhatDoesItMean Complete on FamiTracker

My two FamiTracker songs are finished:

MoonRiver.wav: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VXmly8yECPZPjh9guf4o16_kx02eG8Dy

MoonRiver.ftm: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AdMFji8WLAgehjnu7knfesKCKOY7MJEa

WhatDoesItMean.wav: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qnGS7QvqOSZNovqlnypK5PFdC_YQMCN-

WhatDoesItMean.ftm: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CgMHOdEPfeAeZFMW55Lr7zKECfFKqkor

So the Moon River song I made is pretty amateur, in hindsight.  That was the one I started with, trying to figure out FamiTracker for the first time.  I do have a problem with trying to figure out how to fill in negative space in my music, and that could be because of a flaw in my work methodology.  But sometimes, it does work out, like in WhatDoesItMean, which I think is much better.  I made this after MoonRiver, and I used a lot of staccato to keep things lively and mix things up a bit.

It’s a bit difficult to determine what volume should go where, that’s why you see the blue hex numbers indicating volume hard-typed into the tracker.  That’s actually quite common in tracker music, as far as I’ve seen.

This does make me want to continue with FamiTracker later this semester, or perhaps even a different hardware tracker.  There are other modes in FamiTracker itself that emulate expansion sound chips like Konami VRC6 and VRC7.

[lifeasarandomdudeknowsit-blog]

Entry #361 - Sights And Sounds

Well, today was certainly a bit different from the past 360...or, more accurately, different than the last thousand or so.  For the first time in a very long while, I found myself writing music.  I've talked before about my music past, and I will admit that starting again after such a long time away was not the easiest task.  But once I started to become familiar with the instrument, things began to fall into place relatively quickly.  And as of now, I believe I have produced enough content to consider my podcast ready to record again.  I really wanted to get the music ready to go before I recorded the first episode again, and now that that has been taken care of, I don't have to think about it...at least for the time being.  It's actually a pretty huge weight off my shoulders, as I was somewhat dreading attempting to write something for the first time in literal years, but after my initial hesitation and a bit of early struggling, I was feeling pretty good about my output.  Which is something I don't normally say about anything I do.

Not only was this an experience relearning how to write music, but it was an experience in learning how to write for a wholly new instrument.  In this case, a virtual instrument.  I've wanted for years to learn how to use a so-called “tracker” program that allows me to write music in the style of old video games, and after watching some tutorials and dedicating some time to just messing around in the program, I've at least cobbled together a halfway decent intro/outro theme song and a few interstitial jingles between sections of the podcast.  Each jingle is unique, and I think they fit each section's subject pretty well. There is always room for improvement, though, so even though these are nice for now, they are far from good.  I may tweak them a bit the more I learn about tracker programs, or if I can somehow convince a friend who writes music for a living to write new music, I won't have too many qualms replacing these.  But for what it's worth, I actually really like all of these little jingles, probably because I created them from my own brain.  I suppose you really never totally lose something once it's ingrained into your mind and body.  Like riding a bicycle, only with bleeps and bloops.

What's crazy about this whole thing is that I've been wanting to learn how to use tracker programs for YEARS, but I could just never figure the damn things out.  Looking at a program like FamiTracker for the first time can be terrifying and daunting, and unless you know what you're doing, everything will sound like a complete mess.  Thankfully, there was a really great tutorial series online that spelled out everything very clearly, and it helped me write out everything I needed.  The tutorials even taught me how to add little effects to each “instrument” so they sound really cool.  To think that I spent I don't know how long trying to figure out trackers all those years ago, and all the things I needed to know I learned in about an hour.  There are still many more advanced techniques I want to learn, but I have the basics down decently now, and that will allow me to build more and better songs in the future.

This might actually get me back to writing music as a hobby.  One of the things I found during The Great Unboxing earlier this year was a huge stack of unfinished songs, guitar riffs, and snippets I had written many years ago but never used anywhere.  I may end up going through that huge stack of song bits and work on creating actual songs from them.  I'm beginning to think that I'm just a really, REALLY late bloomer in life, because my twenties were mostly a waste and I never really accomplished anything.  But turning thirty may have changed everything for me. I'd like to think that nothing had really changed the day I woke up and my twenties were over.  But looking back on my life, I've done more in the past two years of my thirties than I did in the entire decade of my twenties.  Sure, I finished college in my twenties, but I haven't really ever bothered to use my degree until now.  And I'm not even talking about the fact that it's a music degree.  I mean I haven't really ever used my degree to find work.  Now, I'm actually doing things that can and should benefit me in the long run, and there are so many more things I can do.

I mean I never really even accepted my eyesight until I was nearly thirty.  And I didn't really seek help from the federal government until then as well.  And I certainly never bothered to ask the government for aid as far as finding work and receiving training until after thirty.  Nor did I really bother asking ANYONE for help until sometime last year, and now that I'm really beginning to accept who I am, my life has changed so drastically that it's difficult to believe.  I feel far less nervous in large crowds or when entering a place for the first time, because as long as I have my cane, people will know I'm not necessarily going to see everything around me.  People are more patient around me (some possibly begrudgingly so, but I have yet to hear anyone complain about having to wait for a blind guy to do something), and some are actually curious about my condition, which I used to be very reluctant about doing.  But now that people know I'm not fully sighted and I'm becoming more comfortable with who I am, I'm happy to talk about it and educate more people about low vision disorders.

I think this is a decent place to stop for now.  I can't believe I'm down to just a few more entries before this yearlong project is over.  At this rate, though, I'll very likely keep going after the year is up, just because this has become part of my daily routine.  Maybe I'll take a day off.  Then again, if I do, I'll probably just spend the entire day panicking about having not written that day's entry.  So I'll probably just keep going.  And going.  And going.  And going.

[ddrkirbyisq]

Okay...let's catch up on everything. Visiting Houston Last weekend I visited a good friend in Houston!  It was a really nice trip in many ways for me and I'm really glad that I decided to go.  Just being able to see someone again that I care about really meant a lot to me and I was so happy being able to spend that time with them.  I got really sad at the end and didn't want to leave...I feel like I would definitely go again someday. It was also really nice getting a a 4-day weekend (I took Friday and Monday off), especially since I had been working a bit hard leading up to this time.  Sometimes I get a bit more stressed than I realize and it actually felt nice to not have to worry about so many things anymore.  During the first night of my trip my back actually ended up being pretty sore but I couldn't figure out whether it was because I sat wrong on the plane or something or whether it was just stress manifesting as psychosomatic pain...but either way it was gone after that and I felt really refreshed as a whole. In terms of the trip itself, I feel like no matter what we did it would have been a lot of fun, but I got to see the NASA space center, see the huge rest stop (more like a department store) called Buc-ee's, and of course eat some yummy food while I was there!  I had BBQ, TexMex, this bun thing called a Kolache, good ice cream, and a Cajun crawfish boil, mmm~  And my friend introduced me to an anime that just finished airing called A Place Farther than the Universe (Sora yori mo tooi basho) which I quite liked so far!  I'll probably watch more of that on the train at some point.  But yeah, all the food was really yummy... On a side note, I spent a good amount of time during my plane rides...actually working on music!  But not in the usual sense -- I was working with FamiTracker (a music tracker used for writing NES-style chiptunes) to make a Mega Man-styled track.  It actually works quite well since, well, you don't really need a lot to do chiptune tracking, so it's super portable.  I mean, I already don't use much of anything for my normal music production, but with FamiTracker I don't even need a mouse!  I ended up being able to mostly finish the track with the time I spent during that trip, which was pretty nice. Being out of it This past week I've generally not been on top of my game...I don't really know why, maybe I'm just off, but in multiple aspects of my life I've just been forgetting loads of things or not concentrating or just not making good decisions.  Not really anything to be super concerned about, but more just....it's unfortunate.  Hopefully I will have better luck this next week, but I guess it's also important to remember that in the grand scheme of things these mistakes (mostly) don't matter too much so although it can be good to express my dismay, it's not something I really need to beat myself up over. Finishing Celeste Well, just yesterday I finished the final C-Side level of Celeste.  It's been quite an amazing journey through this game and it really is true what they say about the design leaving no stone unturned.  It really makes me get the feeling like nobody can ever make a game with this same mechanic anymore.  Well, not really, because I know it's already been done, but more like it's really hard to believe that any more could be brought to the table.  I know that's not 100% true, and I'm sure if they really wanted to the developers could come up with another twist or mechanic that they could build another level out of.  But it just =feels= that way, because of how complete everything is.  I guess if there was one thing that felt a bit missing, it was that the C-Sides were fairly short -- mostly it was two or three "warm-up" rooms and then one specific long challenge room that was the brunt of the level.  I think that works too, but I wonder if it would have been more satisfying to have a longer setup, like in the B-Side levels. Anyhow, I'm not going to bother 100%ing Celeste (leave that to all of the super dedicated people), as the things I have left are the golden strawberries (finish each stage without dying...A, B, and C-side...), and the secret 200th strawberry, which I started trying but gave up once I learned that the jump tricks you need to do to get it are really painstaking to nail.  I think that's super cool...but for me, I'm onto other things!  The absence of Celeste will surely leave a gaping hole in my life ("what do I dooo noowwww??!?") but I think next up is supposed to be Finding Paradise!  So we'll finally get to see how that is... System Shock 2 Actually I lied!  Next up wasn't Finding Paradise, but surprise surprise!  I've been building up this itch to play System Shock 2 again and I finally installed it along with all the community mods and patches.  I hope to play co-op with a friend soon, but for now I actually just ended up starting a game on Hard difficulty (OSA character), and I've actually made it quite far -- to the end of hydroponics, actually!  I'm certainly much better at navigating the corridors and objectives in SS2 than I was X years ago when I last played it; that's for sure (to be fair, it was probably well over 10 years ago). I started getting a little bit of the 3D game motion sickness that I tend to get for some games, but it seemed to help when I turned the FOV up slightly and disabled any view or weapon bobbing, so that's quite cool. Stardew Valley We just reached Winter!  As I mentioned earlier, I've been having brain farts left and right so I made some really silly mistakes this last session -_-;  But anyhow, we've reached winter!  We have 2 sheep and a pig now (we just installed heaters in the coop and barn), and we've got a bunch of crops happily growing in the greenhouse.  I think my goal for the start of winter is to ensure that we can still have a steady cashflow coming in...expanding the amount of crops in the greenhouse (I finally got enough iridium ore to make one or two iridium sprinklers), and then maybe starting to plant wild seeds for winter. Other Stuff Spring has definitely made its presence known this past week -- it felt like the seasons changed during my trip to Houston.  My respiratory system is....not pleased, so far. *achoo!* Decadance rehearsals continue...I've finished rehearsals for my first piece and I'll be starting the second one up next week... I skipped dance last weekend since I was in Houston, and skipped this week as well...should be good to go back again next week.