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MrSolidSnake745

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Everything posted by MrSolidSnake745

  1. Early Access 2/21

    I'm in my final semester of college working on this huge project of mine! So little time, so many different, unrelated things to do! Plus I've stepped up at my job place and have a lot more responsibilities/hours there. I hope you will again forgive my usual absence from these forums and instead enjoy my latest videos =D If you're at all interested, you can learn about my final project through this Powerpoint: Link! Had a ton of requests for Daft Punk at one point and it's also one of my favorite artists. Therefore I devoted a whole set of videos to them. I tried quite a few new things too. Let me know what you think of them and above all, enjoy! 1. One More Time 2. Digital Love 3. Aerodynamic 4. Something About Us Click here to view the article
  2. Early Access 12/6

    I've been extremely busy lately as I was taking all my finals early and getting ready to go to India to visit my mom/brother (thats where I am now =D). But, I manage to find just a little bit of time to make these videos! Enjoy! Gangnam Style Power Rangers Theme (Remake) Beverly Hills Cop Theme Guile's Theme This post has been promoted to an article
  3. Early Access 12/6

    You can request, but I have no idea when I'll have the time to look into it. Sorry. Plus, I don't really have time for the next few months to do any new songs. I'll be pulling from a bunch of projects I've already started and Yu Gi Oh isn't in there >_< Hopefully once I finish college (next semester) I can't focus again on development of not only new songs, but expansions of my setup =)
  4. An apology and an explanation?

    I actually can't find it again, sorry. I get all my wallpapers from wallbase.cc. From now on I'm going to include links in the description of videos where I got the wallpaper from.
  5. An apology and an explanation?

    Hey guys! I just wanted to fill you guys into what I'm all about. First off, thanks to Tarquin999 for giving me this awesome opportunity and spot on his forums =D It's taken me ages to get around to starting this, so I hope he doesn't hate me too much for it. Secondly, this is going to be a frequent thing... I work, I go to school, I have tons of other responsibilities. You will not hear from me often, but I will read everything you say. I hope you will understand <3 Thirdly, I have no idea what I'm doing so expect to see all kinds of random things that pertain to my interests here. Fourthly, I'm really fond of explaining things and people asking me questions. You should totally do that That's all I have right now. Look forward to hearing from you guys and again, thanks to Tarquin999 for being patient.
  6. Early Access 8/17

    Another set of videos. Before the general public has them of course. Hopefully there is something for everyone. Enjoy.
  7. Slight scare from BBC

    One can only hope =) I wish there was more one single person could do against an entire company. Thanks for the support!
  8. Slight scare from BBC

    Hello! I'm so sorry I've been out of touch, but I did warn you about being really busy a majority of the time. Just wanted to talk about something that had happened recently. My Doctor Who video was taken down as it apparently was being claimed as a copyright infringement. From a legal standpoint, I guess it's a pretty valid claim if you're being super technical. And two companies I'm working with told me there was nothing I could do as BBC obviously had full rights over Doctor Who. It was really quite worrying. Could this mean companies are starting to take notice of my channel and would also be taking down the rest of my videos? Is there no reason to continue working on these since it would only take two more reports to get my entire channel wiped? I didn't know what to do and there isn't anyone I knew of to help me do anything about it. So as a last ditch effort I wrote an email to the address given to me on the copyright infringement report from YouTube. Basically the email was me pleading that there had to be something I could do to be allowed to post my video up. I honestly would have consulted them before posting the video had I known where to go. A few days later, my video was put back up and the strike was removed! No response to my email, but either way everything was back to normal and I was extremely relieved. I'm not sure BBC even read my email, but I'm hoping they did and had mercy on me =P Anyway, just thought I'd share. Sorry if it's a boring read. More videos soon.
  9. A modification to the setup

    I enjoy improving things. Even if it's unnecessary. It's just fun to think of ways things can be better and see if they work =P So I made this small mod to my setup so that I could make it easier to connect my drives to the the Arduino. Plus I attached all the components that run the drives to the table so it's own little standalone piece. Useful if for some reason I have to move it around or transport it? Maybe one day? Who knows. I'm putting in some photos here, but this is a link to the gallery on my FB page. I'm going to update it so that there is a description of what's going on in the more important photos. Eventually >_> Initial measuring and placing of the components. I love right angles =D An overview of what supposed to happen. Plug in floppy drives to the Arduino. Close of of the wiring for the Ethernet jack to Arduino. The cables I made. Floppy drive to Ethernet. Can't get those on Ebay =P
  10. Interesting problem

    While recording lately, I stumbled across an interesting problem I didn't realize was happening. See that? That's a problem. If you've read my recording process post, you'll know that I record my floppy drives multiple times and then mix them together. Those two tracks there are the exact same microphone recording the exact same piece the drives are playing. It's supposed to be exactly the same length, but you'll see that it most definitely is not. It's off by something around 0.5 seconds. Doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me there is a bad echo caused by this. I first noticed this issue a while back when trying to record this really complicated piece, but didn't think much of it. I just gave up and pushed it to the side thinking there was something wrong with the song I edited. Plus I had homework and studying to do so I couldn't invest a lot of time into researching it. One of the few cons of doing something not a lot of people in this world do, I can't just google it lol. I noticed it again lately when recording some more songs. Something bigger is going on here and it definitely has something to do with really busy songs and the system not being able to keep up. But which part of the system could be the problem!? OK, let's start with what I already know. The odds of it being something relating to the computer are really slim. A CPU is immensely powerful when it comes to the tasks I'm having it perform. Hell, it does more work surfing the internet than it does running the floppy drive software or sending serial packets to the Arduino. So I can rule out it being a software issue or recording issue. There's a lot more thinking that went into this, but that's the gist of my argument and it makes sense to me. So it has to be the Arduino. I've seen it not been able to keep up with the information it receives before. Many times and have had to compensate. But this difference is so slight and inconsistent it's hard to tell what to do next. I'm still thinking through some options, but the easiest way would be to divide the work. I know that without a shadow of a doubt, one Arduino can more than handle four floppy drives. So it might be a good idea to just put in a second Arduino and have only four drives attached per microcontroller. It's really quite easy to do since I made that mod for setup so that I can just plug in the drives to the Arduino with ethernet plugs/jacks. I probably should've posted something about that first... I'll do that after I'm done here. Sounds like a good idea to me. But who knows. There might be another solution lurking out there. Such as making the Arduino code more efficient, overclocking the Arduino, or getting a more powerful microcontroller (Arduinos are pretty lightweight). Either way, it's a problem that stands in the way if I want to record by combining different tracks like I have. Otherwise I could just have one track and lose some sound quality, but since each time a complicated song is played the discrepancy is different I'd also have to record with the mic visible in the shot. Oh the options to contemplate...
  11. Early Access 6/8 =D

    Early access to my upcoming videos. Enjoy before others!
  12. An apology and an explanation?

    Definitely. That's one of the reasons why I chose to use FL Studio to do my editing. While, I didn't make any really good songs, I got really familiar with the functions within FL Studio. Plus I broke apart all those sample projects it comes with. It was a ton of fun back when I was younger. But then my computer crashed so I lost most of my good work... Oh and then I became an adult. That sucked. Lol no, I love questions, keep them coming xD As far as the floppy drive music goes, I was inspired by this video: My only goal with all of this, was to do that, and maybe a couple more songs that I liked. I was never going to get more drives, or do any non-video game related songs, or buy recording equipment, or get a spot on someone's forums, or get 5.5 million views. I have no idea how I got here lolololololol. Guess this goes back to that thing I said before about starting something small and building up on it. As far as people who inspire me, the tons of people who do projects and share them on the internet. I do tons of other things besides the floppy drives and it's all because of the people who do things and show that is possible. I want to build an LED cube like chrmoe, play the piano like Verdegrand, make floppy drive music like Sammy1Am, do glow-sticking like schlosser90, and much much more. Think I got one of those down though =P
  13. Recording process: From start to finish

    Nonsense! I sure as hell didn't think I'd be able to do it. The key to my success was the incremental improvement between each set of videos. Just compare what I started with to the last video I posted. A world of difference, but not achieved all at once =) Start with something small and do-able, build it up to be something awesome. While your strengths may not reside in making floppy drive music, I'm positive there is something else you can do and become masterful at.
  14. Recording process: From start to finish

    When I decide to do a song, these are the steps or stages I go through: 1. Find the song in MIDI format 2. Determine if the song is do-able on floppy drives 3. Create a project in FL Studio and start editing the MIDI 4. Test on drives 5. Edit MIDI some more 6. Test on drives 7. Make a decision whether to record or not 8. Record (Left Channel, Right Channel, Both, Video) 9. Edit audio 10. Edit video 11. Merge 12. POST TO YOUTUBE! Let me break it down a little further for you =D 1. Find the song in MIDI format There is a reason this is a step, even though it might seem trivial. Sometimes it's really difficult to track down a good MIDI of the song I want to do. There's a ton of MIDIs out there that really aren't the exact song, but instead a popular bit/piece of it. Then you have the MIDIs that just don't sound like it at all or there might not be a MIDI available at all! The worst situation is when there is a good MIDI, but I can't get my hands on it because I have to contact someone to get it, but that person NEVER replies! WTF! 2. Determine if the song is do-able on floppy drives I know a lot of tricks/techniques for making songs sound good on my drives, but there are definitely some major exceptions. So at this point, I've got a decent MIDI, but I still need to make sure it will work for the drives. One of the things that stop me from doing a song usually are songs where the notes travel more than 5 octaves. The drives are limited to octaves (as denoted in FL Studio) 1 to the very first note of 5, which is C of course. Another thing that stops me is songs with a lot of low, long notes. They're meant to just be played in the background against some other, more prominent instrument/track, but I have no such thing as volume control. I also think about whether there will be enough and suitable parts for my 8 drives. If it falls short of eight unique parts, I look for ways to fill it in. What I mean by suitable is that not all my drives were made equal. Some do things better than others. Drive 7 for instance is my ultimate bass drive. Nothing is better at it than that one. 3. Create a project in FL Studio and start editing the MIDI This is where I start making the changes to the MIDI. I separate chords into individual tracks. Arrange the song to better suit the drives limited range. Fill in blank spaces if necessary. Determine what part should go to which drive. That sort of thing. There's really too much that goes on in this step to explain it all. Just know that this is where I employ those tricks/techniques I mentioned earlier. 4. Test on drives First listen through. Make sure everything fits well, see what parts need special attention or might be able to be improved. Thus why the next step is... 5. Edit MIDI some more After I've heard it, I can see what else can be changed/improved. This step also is for letting me experiment. It's not like I know absolutely everything about arranging music for these drives. Though I do know a crap ton xD I try out some different things at this point that I think might improve it or should just be tried out to see if it might make the song sound better or to my liking. One of the things I discovered in this step is doing slight echos/reverbs with the drives. I can slightly delay a second drive playing the same sequence as the first and get a really cool effect from it. Works well on a lot of older video game songs =D Did that in Zero's theme of the Megaman Collection video btw. 6. Test on drives Of course I need to listen through and make sure all is good =) 7. Make a decision whether to record or not You'd think that after all the work every song I've done worked. All kinds of no. I've got a ton of projects that are failures. I still keep them around in case I maybe think of something that can be done to make the song work, but if after all this editing it isn't sound right to me, I don't go any further. 8. Record (Left Channel, Right Channel, Both, Video) What I'm doing now for recording, is to record the left channel, right channel, both channels, and then the video separately. I'm lucky I can do this because the drives operate exactly the same each time =D When I record the left and right channels, the microphone is suspended above the drives using a stand. This gives me really clear mid-highs and lets me pan them out to each side. Makes it a lot easier to hear the details of songs this way. For recording both channels, I put the microphone on the table. The inside of the table is hollow which amplifies the drives nicely, but the surface of the table vibrates along with the lower frequencies which gets picked up when the mic is also on the table. So by recording this track, I have really good lows-mid. And of course, I record the drives doing their thing =) Sometimes it takes me longer to choose a wallpaper for the video than it does to record the audio >_> I get all my wallpapers from Wallbase.cc! It's a great resource and you should DEFINITELY check it out. 9. Edit audio This is where I: sync all the tracks, filter out noise, push the audio to their respective sides, put the bass track through a bass boost/low pass filter, mix the tracks in appropriately, and just generally make sure it's all fine. 10. Edit video Some simple things here: Cut out a lot of extra recorded video, add my watermark, find the points where the song starts/stops, and make sure the video plays for an additional 1 second before and after those points. 11. Merge A last step. Add in a delay to the audio track, supposed to be 1 second, to get it synced to the video and then merge the two together. Lo and behold, I have a floppy drive video! =D 12. POST TO YOUTUBE! This doesn't mean just posting to YouTube. I put up the videos, make them unlisted, make the available to Twitter/Facebook/Abyssal Forums (A new addition =D) before releasing it to everyone, add in a YouTube info (Description, title, tags, those kinds of things), make the audio available for purchase on vibedeck, and then make a decision when I'm going to make it available to everyone! You know, after writing it all out, it seems to be so much more than what I felt >_> So about how long can this take? A day. A long, dedicated, focused, day. I've really refined the process and know what I'm doing now. But in my life, having a day's worth of free time is so rare. I end up splitting up these steps across a week. I record a bunch of videos all at once because it's much easier once I'm in the flow of things. This is always subject to change. So this isn't the final way I'm going to make these videos. For now though, it seems to work pretty damn well lolololololol. I hope that answers some questions that you might have. Feel free to ask more or add in something you might think is a better way of doing things! Thanks for reading/watching.
  15. An apology and an explanation?

    Phew. OK. I've broken it all down. I think =3 I started a new topic to answer your question! Check it out: http://forum.abyssalgaming.com/index.php?/topic/2916-recording-process-from-start-to-finish/