Going all over the damn place with my new track, "Explosive Heat Death"...Also, anime.

Music:

That's right, I've put together some new music. What kind of music is it? I dunno, you tell me. It's got rockin' guitars and drums, Latin percussion, a full brass section, synths, a saxophone solo, and a bunch of other stuff. Influence-wise, it's mainly pulling from stuff by Yes, Mr.Bungle, The Seatbelts, and Iron Maiden.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun making this track, and here it is:

I hope some of ya enjoy that. :3

Anime:

Back in January I did a blog about all the anime I'd been watching, 175 for the year of 2014. Well, it's 194 for 2015 so far, which includes catching up to the current run of Gintama, Hajime No Ippo, Hunter x Hunter, Monster, and so many others I'll probably feel compelled to add up the numbers in January 2016 and "see how I did". I've nearly seen all of the Top 50 on MyAnimeList now.

As for what I'm currently watching:

Fist of the North Star - I'm up to episode 61. Part 3, I think they called it. Souther. Man, that guy. The fights continue to be amazing and hilarious in equal measure.

Keepin' up with Gintama. Mr.Osomatsu. Sushi and Beyond.

Gonna start the third season of Kuroko's Basketball soon. Also the Netflix dub of The Seven Deadly Sins. Probably.

Misc:

I'm also feeling a strong drive to get back into Rocksmith again. Rocksmith 2014 was on sale for $10, so I picked that up.

Oh! As I already track what anime I watch, and what movies I've seen, among other things, I've started tracking what TV shows I've watched. Some numbers I find surprising have arose from that, like the fact that I've watched more Mythbusters than anything. Which is followed by The Simpsons, Looney Tunes and Quite Interesting. What's fun about making these catalogues is that they lead to me remembering long forgotten things and also seeing what things I never finished, so that in some cases I can go finish them now. Like, I should resume watching The Amazing World of Gumball, and Gravity Falls. I should also watch more Charlie Brooker stuff in general. I never finished An Idiot Abroad either.

Anyway, that's all for now. Music, anime, and more cartoons it seems.

I enjoyed the song. Good job!

Man, the beginning parts of the track are reminding me of something and I can't quite figure out what it is. I was thinking maybe a Devil Survivor track, but I'm not entirely sure that's it. Damn.

Sounds good though.

Edit: The brass section...were those real instruments? I'm leaning towards yes. Sounded too good not to be. In fact how much of this is actual instruments vs. digital? Very cool track. I feel like you wouldn't really have a problem at this point churning out a cool game OST. Have you considered going for that? No idea what your actual profession is.

I want to know the coordinates of the dimension where you exist in which time moves 90% slower for you to watch that many shows in a year. Maybe I can finish all my games then.

Thanks, duders!

All virtual instruments, sequenced on a computer. They're all quite intricately and comprehensively sampled instruments, but the brass takes it quite a bit further. They've got everything, you can control the amount of air, the clicking of the keys, tongue flutter, growl, overblow, harmonics; basically everything the real thing does is controllable on the virtual one, dynamically. It's not just switching samples, it's behaving like the real thing. So I tried to really make use of all these things.

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As for game soundtracks, It's certainly a field I'm interested in working in. I've dabbled in it, done some stuff for mods, and have had a few opportunities to work on larger projects, but so far I haven't had any big successes so-to-speak.

@hamst3r: Wow. I was wondering if that kind of intricate control would be available. How recently have virtual instruments gotten this advanced? Has it been like this for a while? That's one of the things that has deterred me from trying to put together my own tracks after having messed around a bit with music software (a long while ago).

I remember listening to that a few days ago. Man, that song fuckin goes places.

Awesome work duder!

I haven't watched anime in sooooooo long, but I've been amassing some shows to check out. FLCL, Mushi-Shi, Gangsta, Iria, Mononoke, Shigurui, and Kekkai Sensen (I really loved Trigun). At some point I'll actually watch them, but it's at least encouraging to find some stuff that actually interests me.

That was a trip. That was awesome. I particularly enjoyed 3:27

I'll also never understand this game.

It's one of those things that hasn't advanced evenly. For instance, I have some virtual violins too, but they don't sound anywhere near as good as the brass and woodwinds do. If I'm making something with orchestral strings, I use sampled instruments rather than virtual instruments. For a non-specific not-quite-a-violin sound though, the virtual violins are perfect (00:01). Here's an example with someone playing it live.

The virtual brass and woodwinds are basically as good as they can get. The Samplemodeling Trumpet was released around 2009. That said, not everything really needs this level of intricacy to be believable. For instance, a solo vocalist not singing any lyrics is easily handled (00:11) by basic sampling. Nothing overly-complicated there, just good samples and legato samples which are pretty standard now.

Most of what's out there is doing what is probably best described as comprehensive sampling.

Comprehensive sampling was mainly limited by ram and hard disk space. That's not much of a problem anymore, so sample libraries have gotten huge, much in the same way that games have. You get stuff recorded with multiple microphones, full-length notes (AKA natural decay), a ridiculous number of velocity layers, multiple recordings of every hit or pluck, and articulations out the wazoo. For percussive instruments this is perfect. It's even good for things like guitars and orchestral ensembles, and the results are impressive.

Where comprehensive sampling runs into problems is with expressive solo instruments, like strings and brass. Which is where the more complex virtual instruments come in.

There are also some attempts at doing virtual vocals with Vocaloid and whatnot, but you've probably heard that before and it's not quite there. The best example of a virtual voice I've heard is probably this one. Which is impressively clear and understandable, but still obviously synthetic.

So, overall, you can't get everything as a super-expressive and realistic virtual recreation of the real thing, but not everything has to be. A lot of things are perfectly good with the other kinds of sampling approaches used these days.

@hamst3r: Thanks for giving the low-down. I remember when I was messing around with this stuff, the strings were the most disappointing part. Although the examples you linked are definitely better than what I remember. Of course, if you know what you're doing, you can make it work.

Hamster! Glad to hear from you again. I really like how you change up the style here and there, feels fresh as heck. Although I do like your smooth jazzy Grand Turismo-like songs best.

Gumball and Gravity Falls are both totally worth watching, but Gravity Falls got really rad in the last couple of episodes. Oh my gosh, it got so rad.

And I have also just bought Rocksmith 2014, looks cool, I'll see what's up with that in a couple of days.

Jammin'. Might be awfully specific, but I think my favourite part was 0:52-1:15.

Wait...where are you watching Looney Tunes at? That's all I need in my life. Haven't listened yet but I love your music and know it will be fun...but cartoons are more important.

Aww shit, I need to watch that!

I'm actually not currently watching Looney Tunes. It was pretty much all stuff I saw on TV growing up, I merely catalogued my watching of them recently.

This sounded fucking awesome, and being a big Maiden fan, I could definitely hear the influence in there.

Great work!

Man, I always look forward to hearing your new tracks. It's always a hit!

Hot damn that song is awesome