One of the greatest tragedies in life is to live, or die, without knowing the effect we have on our friends and acquaintances. In my moments of introspection (which is a lot), and thinking about the people who've affected my life (sometimes drastically, both good and bad), i've often wished they knew just how much they meant to my life. More importantly, each of us never stops to think the impact we made on someone else, their fond memories of us. As i've gotten older, i've found and gotten in touch with people i once knew, to remind them of such, and to give them a sense of the place they occupy in the universe of souls, and of how they "went with" me as i carried on thru my life. They often had no idea. (Sometimes it actually overwhelmed them to know of their impact.)
So i'd like to prevent that oversight here. I don't want in 10 or 20 years, perhaps long after i've moved to other tracking software, forums, or even interests, to look back and wonder if my compatriots in music knew of their affect on MY art, or never know how much i affected them artistically. Why wait until we pass on to the next world to know of our influence on each other?
What i propose is a posting of our lists of the music by our forum co-members that we, for one reason or another, keep with us. I'm sure most of us can say after listening to our colleagues' music that it had some artistic merit even if it wasn't our favorite genre of music, but there's also another group of songs from each other that we want to listen to more than just once, our "rotation" if you will. I'm curious to know which of my works people keep, and i'd like you my colleagues to know which of yours i keep. I think it would be a real exercise in soul-searching and artistic self-analysis. And this can only bring substance to our self-worth, and exchange knowledge of the level of respect we have for each-other.
Every process needs some guidelines so that folks don't misunderstand what's going on. Here's a few that will help us:
1. The idea here is not to stroke egos or be retaliatory over past offenses. We are simply exposing knowledge that our co-members may have not been aware of, and to make them aware that certain musical pieces somehow have had an effect on us. We're not trading anything here; our compliments should not be thought of as commodities (they really shouldn't be thought of as compliments either, but rather, "allowed observations")
2. I would suggest that just because you don't see your music in someone's list, don't take it as an affront; they may like your sense of aesthetic, but they're just not into that kind of music, so they have no reason to keep it.
3. The list should show music you like to listen to regularly, not a list of music you've archived for posterity's' sake or (god-forbid) draw samples from. And it should only be music of members of this forum, past and present.
We will find our lists changing over time, so if you add (or subtract) from your list, add a new post rather than edit your list, so it will bump the thread and keep it open for discussion. While i don't want this thread Stickied, i also don't want it to get buried over time.
At the risk of standing alone with my heart on my sleeve, i guess since it's my idea, i should start....
My Rotation - music i play in the background (besides my own music) while i work on the computer, in no particular order...
Royal (psishock) - Quintessential Trance; use for inspiration in my own EDM; would have paid money for
Drifting (psishock) - almost as good as Royal, the excellent melodic progression makes my mind move; often set my alarm to this music
A Winternight (Rakib) - a sonic story being played out in my brain; i love the ebb and flow of the song's driving pulse
Doop (Rakib) - Our own little Rave party!
Lake Shock No. 1 (Sam_Zen) - love that bass fingering! Zen's avant-garde approach to sound teaches me to be ready to abandon the comfort of self-imposed structure, so as not overlook an artistic nugget of gold
Periodes (Sam_Zen) - As close to EDM as i'm going to hear from Zen! the stereo soundplay works both sides of my brain
Evening with You (bvanoudtshoorn) - Nice mood music, just out of chiptune range to make it undistracting and old-school
System Partition (unfa) - Not comedy and not my kind of music, but it makes me smile EVERY time. This is what i get for being open-minded! Now i can't make myself get rid of it! It's a system partition! :D
Hmmm - I mostly devote my listening time like that to material I'm working on, commenting on (especailly for So On members) or something I'm trying to "grok" like Wendy Carlos or Shostakovitch or Britten or Debussy.
That is not to say the music posted here is not good enough - to the contrary I have been influenced by composers who post here.
Sam - what is there to say? Sam has one of the most musically open minds I've ever had the pleasure to know. I have been and am still learning from him.
Psi has taught me to open my mind more about what I can do with synthesizers - I'm learning from him too.
Harbinger - you also have quite an open mind towards music which I really appreciate and I'm trying to understand your thinking. My guess is that we may in a way be kindred spirits.
LPChip - wonderful improvisations and other work - but the piano improvs have captured me.
That's my short list at Modplug
I really do appreciate all posters at Modplug - even the freshest newbie - to be honest there is no one I haven't learned *something* from because everyne does it differently.
A nice initiative, Harbinger.
I'm afraid I don't have a list of rotation, because I never play music while I'm at work.
So my archive is all there is, and I only select work from authors who are worth to save imo.
So not like single favourite tracks, if I start saving an author, I gather every work.
My earliest one of you is "Band for Orbiter V", when you were using the Korg.
If I decide to review a track, I prefer to start listening as unbiased as possible, no matter author or genre.
To me that's a condition to keep learning from all of you. Thanks for that.
And it's nice to watch the developments in skill of improvisation by both LPChip and Clones's daylies for example.
Psi's contributions are relatively new here, and I much appreciate his work, his fresh approach and his humour.
I have too many tracks in my playlist... :P
My last.fm profile (http://www.last.fm/user/sagamusix) tells a lot about my favourites already... As you can see, I listen to a lot of Radix, Allister Brimble, Xerxes, Radix, D Fast, Reed, Xaimus and Nighthawk, to list some scene musicians. My most played tracks are Tournesol and Yuki Satellites, both by Radix.
Xaimus was a member here.. what happened ?
I remember having the following folders/files on my HD:
cubaXD (War at Koboldsburg is f00king awesome!, not sure if I like his ambient stuff)
Sam_Zen (oldskool pack, old tapes, triangle of noise (!!!) and a couple of misc tracks)
barryvan (somewhere near 60% of his stuff posted here)
psishock (not much but still everything he posted so far :) )
Jojo (some of his .it modules)
Skaven (what I've collected from his site)
nads20489 (or nathanD)
LPChip (some of his .it modules for educational purposes, and his Enigma, for sure!)
TheMingeworthyPrinciples - Feel My Tits (man, it's crazy!)
The Eagle what he has posted so far
phanoo Sub-Zero Conditions 2 soundtrack (!!!)
clones a bunch of selected tracks (i remember Enigma and Water will flow everywhere
there are some others, can't remember now (I'm at my workplace)
Xaimus is still here, lurking around. He can be found on IRC most of the time nowadays.
So, not to forget the first ones I've got of :
Nahkranoth - Arrival
Jojo - Digital_loop
Yeah, Sam, I remember, it was the one and only comment :D
BTW I forgot Louigi Verona's Formation and Receiver
I'm relatively new here, but i have 2 HDDs with a sum around ~800gb, so keeping every single downloaded song shouldn't be much of a trouble.
About the "rotation playlist", well i'm kinda sharing the situation with Sam, i don't listen to music while i'm working, but i have a dedicated folder with the musics gathered from this forum and i'm listening to those compositions from time to time. Here are some pieces that i can remember even without searching in the archive, mostly (i think) because of their catchy melodies:
uncloned - Of Leaf and Stream (must be insignificant to him, but i love the melody)
Sam - Triangle of Noise (ahh, white noise, music to my ears ^^)
Barry - The Call (gotta love the melody)
LPChip - Dark December Day (true horror christmas theme)
Jojo - Jumpin Hi level1 music, Timelord
Harbinger - Tu chez Moi (catchy drumplay and a song with full of life =)
residentgrey - electric jazz :P
...i would possibly find more, with a little peek. :D
May I note that the level music from Jumpin Hi was made by a great tracker called ko0x... :P
O rly? I wouldn't imagine lol, so that's why the similarity to his other tracks. ^^
You may haev a look at this mod (http://modarchive.org/data/downloads.php?moduleid=64218#trch-lin.it) which I've discovered today. I think that I can safely say that it's the best progressive rock mod I've ever heard. I'll keep this. :D
Nice work by this Tourach indeed. But quite limited in stereo management.
Quote from: "psishock"
uncloned - Of Leaf and Stream (must be insignificant to him, but i love the melody)
...i would possibly find more, with a little peek. :D
Actually no, I so rarely come up with a nice melody so its valuable for me. I placed 3rd (or 2nd) with that one on an XM Heaven compo (the 2nd one I entered and I had only entered XM Heaven compos for Ander's sake).
Thanks, I'm glad you like it!
Quote from: "Sam_Zen"Nice work by this Tourach indeed. But quite limited in stereo management.
It sounds great with Pro-Logic Surround enabled (I have that enabled all the time)...
I know, but to get a right judgement of other ones pieces, I have to keep it disabled.
What is judgement compared to enjoyment? Many tunes are mono and that way, I can enjoy them much more.
I think...
If you want to act as a consumer - EQ, reverb, surround sound away
IF you want to hear how the composer intended - play it EQ flat and no extras.
As long as you're not writing a review, this can greatly be ignored IMO.
How does the music compare when you listen to it flat for a review after listening with earcandy?
Also I've noticed surround sound doing odd and unexpected things, not always good, when not designed for surround sound. But that's me.
You're not the only one saying this, but to me, it has never sounded bad at all. And not using the sound enhancement features you got is like not using a great soundsystem for reviewing but rather some crappy small speakers, IMO.
(Revolver is the beatles album mentioned below)
Presumably the composer has decent speakers or all hope is lost. ;-)
Try listening to The Beatles on a true surround sound system. Unintentional odd things happen like instruments and voices going to rear speakers.
I used to be really excited about surround sound but now never use it.
Well, I'm not talking about real surround here anyway. :) Pro-Logic Surround on stereo speakers rather mixes the left and right channels into each other, which gives a wider panorma.
Pro-Logic Surround is just a trick to widen the panorama. Not direct by mixing, but first by inversing the phase of one of the channels, so common mono elements, being in the center, will loose volume.
Sometimes part of my enjoyment could be that an author shows skills not only in the musical content, but also in a beautiful panoramic production.
Revolver is a bit of an exceptional example, because this album was made dubbing with a 4 channel recorder, and it has all tracks mixed in either only the left channel, or only the right one. If you mute one of the two, the vocals are missing.
Sam,
Certainly right about the Beatles using a 4-track but I think you can still stereo pan each track. At least my 4-track does.
There was a lot of weight in the 60's for heavy right left panning to make sure you knew you were listening in stereo though - correct? In commercial music, most anyway, panning seems to be a lost art.
Sorry, I made a mistake, I meant the Rubbersoul album.
I read a few of the early albums that George Martin intended to be mono but the American record company (CBS?) took the tapes he sent and made them stereo.
Well despite the hijacking of the thread, my instincts were right, and the various playlists of each other has at least opened my eyes. Each of you who have listed the music pieces you like to listen to inspires me to try to find those and give 'em a listen. This'll give me a better idea of what kind of musical tastes each of you have. Just nice to know! :wink:
If you add to your rotation, add a new post here. It's interesting to know how our attention is grabbed! 8)
Hey Harbinger - we will hijack any thread you want :-)
we are nice people in that way
(honestly - sorry !)
I can give you the most important collection I have: Nifflas's many sweet tracks. I have a mix of his uncategorized trax with some of the game stuff. I use it when I am reviewing my lists/getting organized/brainstorming. It saved my life honestly.
[steering thread back]
Hmm, the people I listen to a lot from these parts include:
- Louigi Verona (mainly Window in the Sky)
- KrazyKatz
- aGp
- LP
- tvdude
- Psishock
In fact, most of what gets posted up here I'll listen to at least a couple of times. And then it goes on rotation -- because I queue up my entire library most of the time. :D
Bumped, as my playlist has expanded and changed. I found some older downloads on an old CD and brought them back into my rotation, with my newer faves. I forgot how good they were!
My Current Playlist
Cry Alone - Bvan: I find myself whistling this tune throughout the day.
Titanium - psishock: Classic EDM with his sound and sonics
Nullity - psishock: Compressor experiment that entrances the listener
Movement - Hellscion: The most bizarre quote cut up for dancing to! Can't get enough! And i'll never think of the thermostat the same way again!
Docking Maneuvres - Bvan: Dance music with bending bells, and all in an unusual scale!
Doop - Rakib: Basic beat with tripping reverb
Royal - psishock: Still my favorite of psishock's trance
Ganymedes - Callisto: At times driving, and then pensive. Good thematic composition.
Deep Down Below - Boot-Sector-Viruz: Rhythmic murder, percussive beatdown, samples spray-painted into nonsense (i especially love "Uppercut!" which i thought i heard on TV not too long ago), then an all-out sonic gangbang for a climax, then ending with a reminder of a reprise to the violence on your ears. What's not to love! A favorite of Tassel of Blue!
Child labor - uncloned: intriguing sonic mindmeld that can't be put in the bkgd
Lake Shock No. 1 - Sam_Zen: Unignorable basswork
For this who wish to assist with this bump, check out the first post to familiarize yourself with the intent. :wink:
I am honored to ave a piece in your rotation!
I spoke of Yuki Satellites earlier. This is still my absolutely favourite tune. And I've written a mail to radix some time ago and got the XM module of this beautiful tune! This is 15MB of awesomeness, noone should miss this:
http://modarchive.org/module.php?167157
Who needs VSTis if true beatuy like this can be made with samples? :)
BTW: I even wrote a blog post (http://sagamusix.de/blog/2009/06/14/yuki-satellites/) about this, if anyone's intersted to read random blurb. :P
Quote from: "Jojo"Who needs VSTis if true beatuy like this can be made with samples? :D
and where does those sample beauties coming from? ummm (virtual) synthesizers? :D It all goes back to the roots, if you want total control, you gotta learn to create your sounds. ;) Not to mention, it's lotsa easier to patch your synth with a few steps, if you have a sound in your head (even if approximately), than run through a (huge) sample bank, that maybe even don't have, what you're looking for.
virtual synths weren't THAT popular in 2000, you know... :P
sure, virtual stuff become recently popular (from about 2002-2003) since PC processors got really strong and able to handle multiple layers of (very) complex sounds. But we ain't living on the past, neither on the future, but in the present, so gotta catch up. :D
Not quite music from this forum, but another two keepers on my side:
1. Necros - Rebel Base 2 (from crusader game) can listen to it in looped mode :D
2. Alexander Brandon - Funky something forgot the title (from Jazz Jackrabbit 2) It's so funkin' good!
[EDIT] And Beyond Network (MO3) suite by Skaven. ~40 mins of one-track music.
[EDIT2]Ahh, it's called "Hippie Heaven", but the file named funkyg :oops:
Nahkranoth: great choice! <3 Rebel Base 2 was one of the first mods I've heard (outside a game), and it's still great. I also like M04.MOD (end.game) from the same game.
Quote from: "Jojo"Nahkranoth: great choice! <3 Rebel Base 2 was one of the first mods I've heard (outside a game), and it's still great. I also like M04.MOD (end.game) from the same game.
Oh yeah! At first I was confused, what are you talking about, but then I found it. In my case it's named "Necros-Crusader-End_Game.s3m".
So the soundtrack exists at least in 3 different formats:
1. MOD (your case)
2. s3m (my case)
3. AMF (original game files), played easily by MPT.
F'n LOL!
And as we touched the Necros topic, there is another great track by him -
"Mechanism Eight", this time from
Unreal Tournament.
Mech8 from Unreal Tournament is a remix, though. Original tune is here (http://modarchive.org/module.php?48333).
And yes, there might be several version of the crusader tunes out there, MirSoft (World of game mods) has mod conversions for example. Although S3M rips would be somehow more logical, as necros and basehead both were using screamtracker at that time.
Quote from: "Jojo"Mech8 from Unreal Tournament is a remix, though. Original tune is here (http://modarchive.org/module.php?48333).
I meant exactly this tune :D
It's from the very first UT, as I know. The remix you were talking about is from UT200x (don't remember) by Jesper Kyd if I'm not mistaken, right?
The original is way better IMO.
Sorry, I was confusing two tunes here. Another tune by necros has been used in Unreal, isotoxin.s3m - THIS one has been remixed / cut down.
Quote from: "Jojo"Sorry, I was confusing two tunes here. Another tune by necros has been used in Unreal, isotoxin.s3m - THIS one has been remixed / cut down.
Wow! How I missed isotoxin? Never heard of it :shock: Time to visit modland :D
*cough* *cough* you sure meant ModArchive (http://modarchive.org/), didn't you? :P
No, it's that other ftp archive :? I find it convenient to dig through ftp using my filemanager :oops:
Screw you! :P (J/K)
Btw: here's a WIP remake of the End Game tune:
http://sagagames.de/stuff/NoRemorse-EndGame.ogg
Yes, the patches are horrible.
Quote from: "Jojo"Screw you! :P (J/K)
mwahahahaha!!!1
Quote from: "Jojo"Btw: here's a WIP remake of the End Game tune:
http://sagagames.de/stuff/NoRemorse-EndGame.ogg
Yes, the patches are horrible.
Not horrible, but some could be better, it's WIP after all :P
I'd like to hear the finished version once it's ready, and what is the purpose of remake, if it's not a secret?
The purpose? I was out of ideas for a few weeks, then I rediscovered this tune and decided to make a remix of one of the first mods that I've ever heard. :P
I'll try not to miss your remix then!