I must be healing a bit if I’m able to compose again.

Take a listen: Ownzies

Without giving too much away, here are some shots from somewhere in the game 🙂

More to come!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving whether you celebrate it or not.

I’m not a big eater, so Thanksgiving dinner isn’t my main goal (spending time with friends and family is), but I love the leftovers; which essentially means free food for approximately the next week.

Personal Stuff (boring!): My overall health seems a bit better. I’ve been pretending to relax pretty well. I’m slowly gearing up for the 能力試験 (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) N1 which is on December 5th. I finally started reading 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン. New Harry Potter was awesome. I went to the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix and geeked out (Yay! Phoenix actually has a respectable museum worth visiting!) which I’ll post about at another time.

Japanese Stuff (really boring!): While I am still SRSing every day, I’ve been in a slump where I have a backorder of 800 sentence cards due in Anki, and I really haven’t had the time to beat them all out yet. Out of the 7300 cards though, there’s really no rush. Heisig is about the same with 400 cards due (out of 2600 or so, I haven’t checked), but I’m less worried as I know most of those are over a year old (stuff like 一 and 食 and when I get them right, I won’t see them for 3 years).

Arvale Stuff (finally!): As far as Arvale IV, which is just around the corner, here are some shots of some upcoming levels:

Anyone who has played Arvale II: Ocean of Time may be familiar with the name of this island 🙂

It was one of the little gems from that game, with a small village of natives who spoke a strange language and tried to pawn off authentic glowing skull necklaces  to tourists.

…Not that you need to have played Arvale II: Ocean of Time to enjoy Arvale: Treasure of Memories, but… if you have want to tide yourself over until ATM IV comes out, well, it’s on the Free Games page for Free. And you can’t beat Free.

And some shots from the continent of Sytae, which has been hinted at and spoken about since Episode I…

… Which is just as dark, creepy and desolate as its been described by Duncan so far. I’ll go ahead and added mysterious to the list of adjectives now too.

That’s it for now, expect more stuff to materialize soon.

Now go eat a Turkey Sandwich.

Arvale Ep. 4 is still coming along, and I just thought I’d post a few screenshots of one of my favorite continents. Ever. That would be Stygia.

It’s always difficult recreating an old continent. Keeping true to how it looked and felt in any of the previous Arvale titles. But it’s a fun challenge, and Stygia is still one of my favorite areas. So I just thought I’d post some shots on how it’s progressing.You know, give a quick tour of the continent 🙂

Near Klumet, one of my favorite towns (which you’ll also see soon).

And the Ferryman, who is a staple of the series, second to possibly the Narrator and the Wheelbarrows.

Pike, the mining town was one of my favorite maps (and random quests) from the original Arvale: Journey of Illusion. You may also notice the new ‘Enter Town’ icon. I think it’s quite neat 🙂

A picture capturing the town of Idraces, the old Sorcynth Factory and the one of the dragon caves all at the same time. Man this is such a cool continent. Perhaps it’s just me.

You may have also noticed that Duncan is in none of these pictures. I could explain why, but that would totally ruin the story, so I’ll let you speculate for now.

More to come soon!

I recently had to make a new Demo CD, which pretty much everyone and their dog requires when applying for a Music job, and with good reason. That is, unless you’re an established, well-known artist like John Williams, Jack Wall, Hanz Zimmer, Chance Thomas, or Vanilla Ice. In those cases, they probably don’t need a demo. For everyone else, there is the Demo CD dilemma.

I always hate making Demo CDs because it feels like I’m writing my own obituary for some reason. When you have over 300 songs to choose from which you’ve written (almost half of which are on this site here and here) you have to choose which tunes to slap together, which best represent you, hopefully in under 5 minutes. Also, I’ve worked on multiple platforms and genres, should I blow them away with my orchestral pieces at full quality, or my chip-tune music in XM format? I’m sure the following doesn’t only apply to Game Music either, this could be applied to pretty much any Music Demo CD.

In any case, Tip 1: Use one track for multiple clips of songs. Not only does this keep people from a bunch of tracks to choose from (stuffing a CD full of 99 short clips of stuff you worked on is really, really frowned upon. I forget the real reason why, but I’m sure I could make one up: people don’t like a lot of choices), but this also proves that you know how to use a DAW competently by using crossfades between clips and also shows off a bit more of your composition skills by selecting what pieces to transition in and out of.

And here is what my first track ended up like (this time): Hi-Fi Mix

Tip 2: If you have done different platforms and have a bunch of portable music lying around, it’s always a good idea to show this off on another track. This also applies if you’ve worked with a bunch of live performances (orchestral, live bands, or otherwise), you don’t want to mix them in with any electronic stuff. That’s just confusing for the audio director (or whoever is listening to your stuff).

And here is how my second track ended up: Lo-Fi Mix (I named it lo-fi mix for a damn good reason and made sure it wasn’t the first track, most audio directors may not even listen to more than the first track; but if they do, then this is where you put your other expertise-like stuff)

Tip 3: Stay around 5 minutes per track. That’s a good target, and most people (including me) miss it everytime. The above tracks ended up around 6 minutes even, which is still very acceptable. 7 is pushing it. 10 minutes and you’re crazy. This area is really gray and sounds a bit silly, but it’s not. Keeping the listener engaged for 5-6 minutes is possible, after that you’re just getting greedy. Cut some tracks out.

And here is how my third track ended up (which is way shorter to make up for my two 6 minutes tracks, see how that works out? 🙂 ) Pop-Mix

Anyway, if you ever end up in the position where you have to make yet another Demo CD to get hired for a new project. I feel you. Just keep the above in mind, and you might just get the job this time 😉

Leaving off from here. More random pics of Japanese stuff which ranges from mundane to outlandish.

Above is a  sliced-sausage donut.

A local, neighborhood map.

The trashy book section of a book store. My favorite 🙂

And more…

Still love this title.

Wait a second… that’s Korean! (あなたの韓国語の片仮名はどう？）

See, the difference between a connector and a charger?

Watch your head! (ずじょうだ。I know, but it *is* actually used, as you can see here)

The perfect example of 盛り合わせ。

Not really in this picture, but I just thought of something; don’t let anyone (日本人も先生も）ever tell you you don’t need to be able to say/read 玉蜀黍 because they have the 片仮名 for コーン。That’s bupkiss.

馬鹿な平仮名、鯖。There, know you can use both 🙂

Oh alright, I’m in a good mood: 眺望　敬策路入口… the rest is in your hands…

This pic is awesome. You won’t find this 漢字 combination in many other places.

In the same way that you won’t find this 漢字 unless you’re reading women’s health articles.

I still want to take a bath with Mario.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a cooler way of presenting 灰皿

Aside from the drawings, the 日本語の説明文書 are actually really concise and easier to follow than other languages (Magyarul, I’m looking at you 😉 ).

Hope that helps some!

Now… back to studying! 😀

Just finished up another new music track for Arvale: Treasure of Memories, Episode IV.

Lots of organs, strings, fast tempo with rockin drums and stuff. You know, like final boss music 😉 Give a listen here (just click on it, or right click and save–as your heart desires):

ATMIVFBM

It’s long (as will be the final boss battle, so I guess that fits)… hope you enjoy it 🙂

That’s what my desk looks like recently as I’m writing a few more songs for the final episode of Arvale: Treasure of Memories.

It’s been some time since I composed anything so it took a bit longer than usual, but here you can listen to the song which will be used for the Airship scenes in the game:

Hikousen

Did I say Airship? I hope that doesn’t give away too much of the story 😉

Enjoy!