Losing One's Self in Too Many Choices

I've been working on some new music for Wrack. It's taken a lot of research since the goal of the music has morphed with the game, and Brad Carney (the creator, developer, programmer, marketer, accountant and driving force of the project), has requested music with the feel and sound of classic games like "Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3," "Megaman X6," and the like. So, I've been listening to a lot of that kind of music.

The first thing that hit me regarding the music is it draws heavily from disco and dance rhythms. There is also a heavy use of synthesizers.

I've been on what has seemed an endless journey to find some instrument/effect plugins that will help meet this music goal. I've discovered some interesting things during the journey. One is that I can get really lost in all the hype and debates on the web about what are the "must have" plugins (effects and instruments). The wealth (glut?) of information has bogged me down. While I have a lot of music roughed out, I have yet to select all the instrument sounds for that music.

I forgot a rule I've always lived by: Don't get caught up in the method of music production, and don't think that the lack of one plugin, device or technique will make or break a production.

So, today I decided to let fate (and my ears) tell me with very little experimentation what sounds I need to use for each song. Believe it or not, the right sounds are popping up.

Earlier today, I ran upon a pdf book that says better than I can what I've considered as my philosophy of music production. Reading the 16 pages reminded me again of the #1 rule in recording. A big THANK YOU to Graham Cochrane for his free e-book, "The #1 Rule of Home Recording."

You can find the book (and some good information, too) at http://therecordingrevolution.com/.

And I agree with the name of Graham's website. We do live in the age of a recording revolution which has given us all the power we need to compete with the huge music corporations. We just have to get down to the basics and get the music out there!

Now I'm going back to creating music -- and I'm limiting my choices so making them doesn't get in the way of the creation :-)

Will This Work To Make Backups Easy?

The other day, I received an email from Berkeley about helping out again by donating CPU time to BOINC -- that's open-source software for volunteer computing and grid computing. People who need massive computing power can use BOINC to run their software using volunteer's computers. These programs have to do with mathematics, astrophysics, physics, biochemistry, climate, aerospace engineering, astronomy, cryptography, chemistry, drug discovery, epidemiology, cognitive science, factorization of large integers, artificial intelligence, seismology, environmental research, molecular biology, biology, computer science, astrobiology, biology, molecular biology, chemical engineering, nanotechnology, genetic linkage analysis, life science, software testing, medical relearch, humanitarian research, and evolution. Here's more info: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

What started this was years ago I volunteered CPU cycles to SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Yes, millions of computers are processing data from "the beyond," looking for intelligent communications.

If you keep your computer running 24/7, I highly recommend donating your CPU idle time to one or more of the projects listed on the Boinc subdomain listed above.

But that's not the original reason for this post. It's what brought this post about, though. Part of helping through BOINC includes software that uses virtual machine software from Oracle -- open source, free software called virtualbox (https://virtualbox.org). I did not know this software existed until the email from Berkeley arrived.

I know enough about what I'm writing below to be dangerous. I've worked through several problems with what I'm going to tell you, but I'm no expert here. That's why I hope you'll add to this post with your learned comments.

You may have heard of (or used) VMware, which is a commercial product. And Microsoft has it's own VM software. If you have, skip down a bit to get to my reason for bringing all of this up.

"VM" stands for virtual machine. VM software allows you to create virtual machines that run on your computer. These machines operate like a separate computer within your computer. I use Windows 7, but with virtualbox, I also use Ubuntu, Windows XP, DOS, and a copy of my Windows 7 that's on my "host" computer. These VM's are "guests" by the way. People who test software often use virtual machines for their testing. If the software crashes the VM so it won't boot -- if the software contains a virus and totally wrecks the VM, it's no big deal. They just delete the virtual machine and create a new one with a fresh installation of the operating system. All the while, their "real" computer (the host in VM terms) is untouched, unchanged, left alone, working as it always has, etc. This is similar to using a sandbox, except it runs completely independently of the host machine's OS. Programs run by sharing the CPU and system memory. VM disk drives are virtual drives that exist as a file on host machine hard disks. Virtualbox allows you to create a drive that's dynamic in size, so it's only as large as the virtual machine needs for storage of OS, programs and/or data.

Here's where I'm going: why not install your music creation software on a VM running a copy of the operating system you use on your computer? After the installation, you have a virtual computer that you can tweak just for your music software. And you'll have your exact setup that's easily saved and backed up. As an example of what I'm saying, take Sonar, which I use (mostly). To properly back it up as I like it, with all the settings, file locations, VST's, registry settings, etc., I have to back up my entire system -- something that takes many hours when I do it. To save just the OS and a complete Sonar installation, I'd have to save all sorts of directories located all over my  system. And what if I leave something out? And there's no way for me to check a complete backup to see if it will work. I'd need an exact duplicate of my physical system to test that.

Each hard disk on a virtual machine is a single file. That means that I can save my whole Sonar setup and the OS by copying this one file to a backup drive -- or the cloud -- or wherever.

I'm in the process of testing this thought out. There are problems that have come up. I'm not sure how well a Virtualbox Windows 7 guest is going to work with my USB digital audio interface. Will I be able to use ASIO drivers? I don't know yet. I have been able to get the Win 7 VM to use DirectSound to play the sound through the USB audio interface. And I got Ubuntu audio to work by turning off the enable audio setting in that VM. Somehow that still routes the audio through the USB audio interface. 

I'm sure that at least a few of you reading this have some experience trying something like this. I'd love to hear how it worked out for you. And if this starts some of you on the journey, feel free to share your experience.

Backups are a huge headache. Where do you store a huge backup of a whole system (say you have 4 TB system)? Compression ain't gonna help that much.

Some things I've learned:

1. Disk2vhd (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx) will create a clone of a disk drive as a vhd file, which is the Microsoft version of Virtualbox's vdi (virtual disk) file. Virtualbox will mount a vhd directly (it also handles many other types). Where this came in handy is that I had a USB drive with multitrack files on it. Instead of making that USB drive available to a Win 7 VM with Sonar, I cloned the USB drive to a vhd so I could work with the data as a second virtual drive. That saves having the USB drive connected to the system. I have enough wires running already. And the drive is completely cloned (byte for byte) as far as I can tell. Backing up the drive will be a fairly quick copy of the vhd file to a backup drive or the cloud. I've read where people have had problems with vhd bootable drives. I've only tried it with data drives.
2. I haven't found a free solution to cloning a vhd to a physical drive.
3. Windows 7 works well in a VM. It's interesting to see how much I have tweaked Windows 7 over the years of use. I've only updated the VM version with updates that were required by the software I've tested. Since I don't plan to use the VM to connect to the internet, I'm not worried about firewalls, anti-virus software and the like. So, the VM runs faster than the host, even with less physical memory and one or two cores being dedicated to it.
4. CloneVDI is a free tool for working with vdi files outside of Virtualbox. It will save many virtual drive types as a vdi. Virtualbox has added some of the benefits of CloneVDI, but it still does some things faster and easier. https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22422 

I'll post further information about this as I come upon it. I'll be trying out some different music creation software to see if it plays well in a Windows 7 VM.


Happy 2014 and may the best things come your way this year!

EDIT (18 JAN 2014) **********
I've been in "experiment land" for the past week and have learned quite a bit.

1. As far as I can tell from my own trials and hundreds of searches, presently there's no way to connect a MIDI device to a VM (Virtualbox or VMware). My USB MIDI interface doesn't appear in the USB settings of a VM.
2. Same for the USB digital audio interface, which does appear in the VM USB settings but does not directly appear as an audio device in the VM audio settings.
3. Virtualbox has an audio driver that gives the host machine access to the USB digital audio interface through DirectSound.
4. No ASIO drivers are seen by the VM.
5. After discovering the above, I thought that maybe the best way to use one machine for everything is to have all the "interface intensive" software (video, audio, MIDI, etc.) reside on the host and put all the other (non/no interface intensive) software in a VM. Then backup the host, but exclude the VM's from the backup. They can be backed up separately.
6. With free extensions to Virtualbox, it supports dual monitors, among other things.
7. Maybe someone reading this has the knowledge to make MIDI work? and even the USB digital audio interface?
 

DOSBox VST!

I just received this information from Nicholas Rezmerski -- thanks for the info, Nicholas! 

 For those of you who'd like to remix old video game music or use OPL2 instruments to write your own music, YouTube user "theycallmebruceful" (I think he's bsutherland on github.io) "wrapped the OPL2 emulation code from DOSBox (hardware/dbopl.c) in a VST instrument. Almost all the available parameters are programmable. Each instance of the plugin emulates a complete chip."

He goes on to say that he loaded MIDI note data ripped from the game [Syndicate] into Renoise, and loaded an instance of the VST for each instrument. Instrument parameters were programmed as closely as possible to the originals by running the game in DOSBox and capturing the register writes to the OPL device. He's named the VST JuceOPLVSTi.

Here's the YouTube demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI7U5XxTSW0

And here's the VST (32 bit): http://bsutherland.github.io/JuceOPLVSTi/

When I have some spare time, I'm going to check this out. I'll be interested in what any of you have to say about it after you try it out.

Nicholas said he has been listening to Doom midi files using this plugin.

Artistic Creations That Die

Computer game music is among the creations that die. They die because some corporation owns them and doesn't see the financial benefit to keeping them alive -- listened to.

That's where the remixers fill the void. Probably few of them have paid for a mechanical license to record and distribute the songs -- but they definitely do a huge service to society by keeping the songs alive.

A man named Bob May created "Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer." He created a Christmas poem for his daughter. He worked as a copywriter -- that is a person who writes copy (usually for advertising) -- for Montgomery Ward, the WalMart of the day. He recited the poem at a company Christmas party and his bosses at Montgomery Ward wanted to print it for distribution to customers. They paid a nominal fee to purchase the rights. By 1946, the book had been distributed to the tune of at least six million copies.

Bob May decided that he wanted the rights back. He explained to the CEO of Montgomery Ward that he had composed the poem for his daughter after she lost her mother to cancer in 1938. Believe it or not, the the CEO returned all rights back to Bob May.

As interesting as this is, fate would have it that Bob May had a brother-in-law named Johnny Marks, who wrote songs. Johnny composed "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" based upon Bob May's poem. He shopped it to several notable singers, including Gene Autry, who was already a singing cowboy movie legend. Autry was like the other singers -- he wanted nothing to do with the song. But, Mrs. Autry heard it and demanded that Gene record it. The rest is history. His recording was released in 1949. It was an unbelievable success, and has sold more records than any other Christmas song, with the exception of "White Christmas."

Do you think that there's a CEO today who would do the same as Montgomery Ward's did?

Only in our wildest dreams!

Remixers -- keep on keeping on!

PS I researched the story of Rudolph back in the 90's when I was writing a Christmas song of my own (finalized with my wife's lyrical assistance and singing in 2008 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St_FctDTKc8). I searched everywhere for a copy of Bob May's poem. Finally I ordered the book. I was sorely disappointed in the poem. I didn't think it was that great -- but it was a great story. This proved to me that Johnny Marks was a great songwriter. He took the poem and told the same story in a little over three minutes of music. He wrote some other memorable Christmas songs. You can read more about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Marks

Working on Wrack

For more than a year, I've been working on the game called "Wrack." It was originally titled "Last Bastion." The alpha version of the game was sold with a promise that the purchaser would get the full game when it's done.

The team working on the game has basically consisted of three people. A programmer/game designer/producer, an artist and me (for sfx and music). I've completed a lot of effects for the game with many more to go. The music is coming along, but I like seeing the artwork for a level before I write something for it.

Anyway, the first episode of the game is soon to be released in beta on SteamPowered.com. What's cool about that for game music composers is that Steam has started offering albums of game music. These are albums that are just like apps in one regard: they can have tracks added/edited at any time, and the purchasers of the album can update their albums to the latest version without additional costs. I think this is something that will become commonplace in the not too distant future.

Imagine releasing an album of your music and promising your new recordings released in the next year or so will be included in the cost of the album. What a way to keep fans happy and to keep in touch with them!

I'll let you know how this experience works out.

Right now the game is available in alpha form at WrackGame.com.

UPDATE: I have heard that Valve (SteamPowered.com) may be changing their policy and may no longer be allowing games to sell their soundtracks on the side. I'll see if I can find something in writing to that effect.

DistroKid.com Part 13

To summarize the DistroKid experience, it got the "music from Major Stryker" album on iTunes within a few hours of my uploading it to DistroKid.com. Spotify came through in a few days. Google Play and Amazon took 2-3 months. So I say the jury is still out. I will be uploading another album before long, and I'll post my experience here. DistroKid has only been around for a few months itself and it's a one man operation.

My question has been answered in the DistroKid FAQ about uploading one song from an album and wanting to upload other songs from the same album to go with it later). You delete the "album" of the one song and re-upload that song along with the rest of the cuts on the album.

Kontakt, Lots of Patches and Not Enough RAM

When I put my computer together, I installed 8 gig of RAM. Sometimes it isn't enough. With Kontakt, there's something you can do to help reduce the memory required for an instrument.

I read this on a website and cannot find the website to give the author credit. I'm sure it's common knowledge for those who read manuals :-) I pass it on for what it's worth.

Load any instrument you want to use. After everything loads, look under the name of the instrument and you'll see Output, Voice, Max and Purge. Purge is a dropdown menu. Below voice is the Memory size of the instrument.

Now click the down arrow to the right of Purge and select "purge all samples."

Look at the memory size now.

Now play one note. The memory size will increase, reflecting the size of the sample the note uses. You can see whenever you play a note that requires another sample. You may also see different samples at different velocities on the same note.

How is this going to help reduce memory usage for a lot of instruments?

Look at the menu bar at the top of Kontakt. Toward the right is Purge. This purge will affect all loaded instruments.

The idea is that as you add instruments to a song, you can use purge and let your playback cause Kontakt to load only the note samples necessary for that song. If you write a part that only uses a few notes, why have unused note samples in memory?

If I'm having trouble getting a sequence to play smoothly, rather than freeze a track where I cannot edit it, I use purge. I play the sequence through once to make sure the samples it uses are ready to play. When I play the sequence from then on, it usually plays without any glitches.

Hope this helps someone. It helped me :-)