[I suck at] Making Music

[zourtney]

So, I hooked up my guitar to the line in on my computer. But the playback is slightly delayed, which at best really annoying. Welcome back, driver issues 

Or is it?

[Nick]

No samples of the sweet riffs?

[zourtney]

I didn't really have much going. I was just trying to get LMMS and Audacity installed and working (which I did). Apparently this issue is common and is really ticking off a lot of audio professionals (if you saw the link above).

I'd really rather not have to use my laptop or some Linux variant justto effectively record music. Not that I don't like Ubuntu, but yeah. I remember having this problem when I had the Win7 RC installed, but it somehow disappeared after a while...and I don't think I did anythig to fix it.

I installed the official driver but, of course, the issue remains.

[Nick]

That sucks. And you think it would be something they would want to get fixed... and that might be an easy fix for people who wrote a whole OS....

[zourtney]

Yeah, I'm not really sure what to do about it. Other than mess with drivers for hours upon hours and hope it fixes itself.

[Nick]

I have a few old PCI sound blaster cards you can try if you like.

[zourtney]

I saved away a few gigs for running a native (non-virtual) copy of Linux. I could always try that. The tools I've been using for making stuff are LMMS and Audacity. Both are Linux friendly.

The only problem is that I've never figured out how to set up the lmsensors and fan-speed control utilities in Linux, so everything's running full bore, all the time. And I can't monitor CPU/GPU temps like I'd like to. It's a bit annoying, but ultimately harmless, I suppose.

[zourtney]

Well, I think I've resolved my audio delay issue. My "resolved" I mean circumvented. It seems that there is an inherent delay in the playback driver. However, I can monitor inputs by enabling the "stereo mix" and disabling playback.

It's probably not actually very complicated, but I changed everything around so many times that I don't know what my start state was. And I will probably have to screw with it for a half hour next time I reinstall Windows (or my sound driver).

Hopefully it works. I haven't tested against a drum track yet, but it's noticeably better than before.

[Nick]

Good to hear!

[zourtney]

Is anyone looking for crappy game music still? I've got a crapsterpiece in the works, but it probably doesn't fit anywhere.

[Brad]

Yes! Let's hear it, who cares were where it might fit.

[Nick]

Crapsterpiece should go into the sb-dictionary. Right along side sucknado, crapnami and failquake.

[zourtney]

If anyone can make a list (aka: one or more) of desired song themes, I can try to work with that.

...Strangely, I can't really make music. It's more like discovery. I sit there hitting random notes until something sounds not terrible. Then I try to happen upon the accompanying song; I know it's in there, but usually can't find it. Sort of like a memory you can't recall with sufficient detail. (Like when the last time was that I saw Nick's pocket camera on the Tentin' outing.) It's hard to explain. And probably not worth trying to do so.

[Brad]

If it's hard for you to create music that fits a theme, then maybe you should create some songs and then try to see what theme you could match them to.

As far as a list of music themes which would be really awesome (for me, as I'd use them in my game):

"Exploration" music, for when the player is out adventuring in the wilderness
"Lost in the woods" music, spooky-ish music for when you are deep in the woods and you aren't sure how to get back out
"Battle" music, fast-paced music played while fighting, also need one for "boss" type batlles
"Dungeon-crawler" music, for when you are making your way through dank, cavernous dungeons
Buying/Selling Items music
"Wandering through town" music
Title screen music
Anything else you come up with

But really, you don't need to listen to my ideas. Just make something that sounds good to you and that you like.

[zourtney]

That does help. I don't know that it'll produce better results, but it helps to a least have some broad categories actually defined. Gracias.