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Winter NAMM is up and running and Ableton is working hard at making me go broke. I just picked up Ableton Live 7 and only a month and a half later they drop the Ableton Live 8 annoucement. If that isn’t enough they have teamed up with Akai to create the APC40, a MIDI controller built specifically for Live. Oh, but there is more. They are also releasing an instrument called MaxForLive. Integrating Max/MSP into Ableton. They are saying second quarter 2009, so at least I have some time.

When considering which application to invest in there were about four real contenders out there. Ableton Live, Reason, Reaktor, and Max/MSP.

Reason was ruled out pretty quickly for several reasons. In many ways I see it as just as much of a toy as FL Studio. While you can do amazing things with FL Studio and Reason they just don’t fit my style of music creation.

Reaktor came pretty high on the list because I could build my own instruments. Of course that appeals to me a great deal. Reaktor really only came into the picture because I saw it as a simpler and more user friendly version of Max/MSP. Then again, I decided that if I’m going to drop that kind of money, it might as well be on the real deal.

Max/MSP and Live being the last two left to decide from made things a little difficult. Max/MSP really caters to the whole experimental aspect of things while Live falls into the perform by instinct aspect. The problem with Max/MSP is the complexity. It would be months before I could really be up and running with it. Every time I’ve played with it in the past I’ve just been overwhelmed. Ableton was never that way. Several tracks on my last two albums were already made with versions of Live LE so I already knew the program and could get results from it. At the time I was also unaware of the built in synths and drum machines in Live, the LE I was using was a rather older version…perhaps 4?.

My choice for Ableton Live has certainly paid off. I’m am continuously amazed by what the program can do and how it just feels like home for me. While building up samples for my next album I even found that it eliminated the need for my Roland JP8080. Instead of spending time learning a piece of hardware that can’t go everywhere with me I can invest it in Live and a nice little VST called SuperWave P8.

I believe I have finally killed the age of hardware. Even considering the cost of upgrading and these new tools it no where near matches the incredible amount of money I spent over the years on hardware. Of course, MIDI controllers and a good Piano are always desirable. However, when it come to the core of things the computer finally does feel right.

later,
-junc

Looking back on the 6 topics covered I can’t really say that any of them will fail to keep me occupied over the next few months. Each of them provides plenty of fuel for the blog. I think that being a self-aware blogger kind of hurts the genuine nature of a personal blog. This certainly is no where near becoming one of those professional blogs which are very self aware. I believe I have attempted to balance between the two types for too long. In the end I think the point is that the blog will focus more on my personal ramblings and stop attempting to achieve cohesion which I always fail at reaching.

A while back a made a post about the presidential election that leaned in the pro-McCain direction. Quickly after “getting to know” Sarah Palin, this all changed. It was sad to see the only republican worth liking, John McCain, become so unlikable. Needless to say, I’m very happy with Obama’s victory. I think this will make politics very interesting other the next eight years. The past eight years have been way to frustrating to bother with. Slowly watching your country get ripped to shreds by an incompetent president was not fun. Hopefully Obama can put some America back into America.

So far the Obama Administration seems to be keeping an open policy about how it is proceeding. The site change.gov is very promising, offering a good source to find out what the president-elect is up to. This may allow me to follow events a little more closely. The rest of the world also seems to have finally fully discovered the web so I can watch world news videos on the web and get a quick update as to where the world is at.

I may attempt to go to the inauguration in January, but money is tight right now and I have a feeling there might be a very large amount of people attending this inauguration.

later,
-junc

Web Development has moved from being a simple hobby of mine into my profession. At work, I am a professional ColdFusion developer. At home I still play, albeit, not as much as I once did. I believe in many ways I have plateaued with ColdFusion. At least as far as my job is concerned I have definitely plateaued. There is no up, no growth from here.

As a result I find myself looking in other directions. After attending a Microsoft Firestarter event on November 8th I have decided to pursue .NET as my next programming platform. Yesterday I purchased a book of ASP.NET with C# and am hoping to put together at least a “Hello World” site today. If all goes well I will slowly begin to move all of my sites over to ASP.NET.

At the center of my personal projects is a new web game. The game takes a lot from Sundog and Freelancer but brings it to the web. Basically, the idea is to have a fully fledged space trading game online. Hopefully, I will be able to implement some more exciting elements of the game like combat with something like Silverlight. I think I will avoid Flash for this since I can program a Silverlight application in C# instead of having to learn ActionScript.

Somewhere tied up in my game is my tired old Blog/Wiki/Forum project that never seems to get off the ground. Perhaps .NET will make that a slightly less horrible project to take on. At this point however my game itself is going to take precedence. I have started thinking about breaking it up into several smaller parts so it will be easier to handle.

later,
-junc

A while back I posted about entering the next generation of gaming. The PS3 has proven to be an amazing machine with an excellent library of games to chose from. I have had the great joy of being conflicted about what games to buy over the last month. Fallout was the big winner this month, pulling a lot of interest from coworkers and really just being a solid and fun game. Fallout of course, is available for the PC. I am becoming increasingly aware of my near disdain for PC games. I don’t want to upgrade my machine once every six months. The video game console eliminates this problem. The games for it always meet the system requirements. In the meantime on the PC I am sticking with World of Warcraft and recently purchased both Knights of the Old Republic games for my PC. With all of those time consuming games at my disposal I also ran out and bought guitar hero.

Guitar Hero brings the video game back to it’s roots. You can play it for one or two songs and the more you play it the better you get. But, if you don’t get better, it can still be a lot of fun. This is why the Wii was such a success. It was a pick up and play console, much like the original 8 bit Nintendo was. While I love the open world take 40+ hours to complete games there really need to be more pick up and play games out there for all consoles.

At the end of the day however, I always come back to the game which require a huge time investment. I have spent an enormous amount of money and time on World of Warcraft. On November 13th the Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack comes out. I am somewhat sad to say that I believe this is the beginning of the end for my WoW days. Since the 3.0 patch hit a few weeks ago that game has done nothing but frustrate me. I don’t find it fun to fight those “elite” monsters that tear me to shreds even though they are my “level”, same goes for over geared PVPers. I’m tired of doing that same quest over and over again. I thought that achievements would renew my interest in the game but unfortunately they all turned out to be intertwined with achievements that require a 5 man group to complete. The ones that don’t require that you actually like people do require you to participate in drop rate hellfests. The holiday achievements being the best example of this screw up. With all of that said I will of course be waiting in line at midnight to pick up my copy. I will play the game all weekend with much excitement. My deathknight will be amazing and my Warlock may even gain a level for the first time in many months. But, I’m sure that after a few weeks, or maybe even days, I will lose interest again. This time, I will cancel my account and leave World of Warcraft behind me forever. In the past few months I have held onto it because my girlfriend plays more than anything. Even that can’t keep me playing forever. Besides, now we have Guitar Hero to play together.

later,
-junc

Brataccas is one of those games that you either loved or hated. A few people have written me and while seeming like a fan have complained about the impossible controls. Others have written me and shared the common experience of picking up that mouse and becoming Kyne once again. Brataccas had an open world with a straight forward goal. It was perfect in nearly every aspect.

Over the years I have built up a website and pursued the extraction of all of the graphics from the game. Unfortunately, I always fall short of achieving this goal. Several times people have written me with a great deal of interest in the game and claimed that they had the skill to disassemble the game and extract the graphics. Even with my offering people money to take on the task it always ends the same way. That energized and interested person always asks, why not just screenshot it. Anyone that knows Brataccas would know that this is a silly suggestion. There are too many characters and not enough hours in the day. With that said however, I have realized that it is very unlikely that I will ever find someone to hire that can actually handle the disassembly project. So, I have landed upon the screenshot solution.

My goal, over the next few years, is to attempt to collect enough screenshots to reassemble the game. At first I will most likely assemble a walk through version in AGS. I think the AGS engine is more than capable of handling the sword fights and AI. With my improved programming skills over the years I don’t even feel that the real challenge is creating the game. The real challenge is ripping those sprites. Once I have created a 1:1 copy of the game in AGS I will start to assemble a sequel to the game. Of all the games ever created, I truly believe that Brataccas deserves a fan sequel.

The biggest part of that project, once again, is getting the graphics. Of course, once I have done so I will share them with the rest of the world. Hopefully, many others will beat me to the first Brataccas fan game.

later,
-junc

My first gaming experience was on an Atari 2600 that my dad bought for my sister and I. My dad was always on top of the latest technology while I was growing up. I remember playing a game called Asylum on the TRS-80 and then, several years later graduating to Miner 2049er on the Atari 400 and 800.

It seemed that Atari had treated him well so he moved into the Atari ST line instead of the Amiga line during the late 80s. The competition between the two systems proved to create a tiny pocket golden era for early computer users. The IBM machines were not quite there yet, requiring add on video cards with astronomical costs to play the same games that were available on the ST and Amiga.

Several games were on the Atari ST that changed my life forever. The classic adventure games from Sierra like King’s Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and Goldrush filled a good chunk of my video game youth. These were the family games though. The ones that everyone loved. Three games have stood out on the Atari ST beyond the Sierra classics however. Black Lamp, Sundog, and Brattacas have stuck with me over the years.

Sundog has driven my interest in open world space trading simulation games over the years. With only one true modern successor in my eyes, Freelancer, it has been an lonely search. EVE Online attempts to file these voids but fails on some level at the foundation. While I keep on renewing my subscription to that game I always lose interest at some level that I just can’t quite understand yet.

Black Lamp was a very obscure game. While it hasn’t fueled any new interests, it has always remained with me. I am not sure why as it was a typical hodge podge game with a very abstract theme. I never did manage to beat that game but always intended on going back and doing so on an emulator.

I should mention the Sierra games one more time. Their impact on what I feel a game should be goes hand in hand with Sundog in many ways. An open world with the freedom to explore and yet a strong solid goal. The Sierra games drove me into exploring the AGI and SCI communities centered around tools created by fans of those games so that they could create their own classic style adventure games. These communities eventually led me to the AGS Community. Adventure Game Studio was where the Keptosh game was born and how my novel began to take shape.

Finally, there is Brattacas.

later,
-junc

Most of my focus over the past few months has been on Novel Writing. Unfortunately, that has received much less activity than I would like it to. While my goals have been to move further ahead with Keptosh, things have kind of fallen flat most of the time.

I managed to finish an outline and start the storyboard. The storyboard is where I am currently hung up. I have attempted a few different strategies for moving the novel along but most of them just end up wasting time. My inability to focus on one project at a time is a major weakness. I always feel that I have so much to do. So while I put the focus on the Novel I get distracted with the other projects and generally end up getting no where with any of it.

My hope is to combat this writers block by setting some public deadlines here in my blog. Obligations to reach certain milestones within the process which I will feel guilty about if I fail to reach them. I recently attempted this strategy with a co-worker. Telling him about a goal I had set myself in October. While I missed the overall goal I did get a large amount of work accomplished during that time. So it is obviously a decent motivational tool to share deadlines with others. At least, so long as they aren’t depending on that deadline.

Writing a novel has not been an easy goal to achieve. I feel that there is a difference between a writer and a novelist. I think a lot of people have what it takes to be a great writer, but not a novelist. For me, I fear that it is the opposite. I am by no means a great, or even good, writer, but I feel that I have a decent shot at putting out an adequate novel. I attribute this to the Hero’s Journey model and many others like it. Basically, the key is to learn the elements of good story telling, not necessarily story writing. In the end you can plug certain things into the story to make it take a shape. From there, flesh out enough scenes that cover those core mythological struggles. Once you are down to the scenes, trying to understand how rhythm plays a part in both single scenes and strings of scenes is key. The result of using the toolset is the construction of a novel. I see it more as a step by step assembly process. With that view of novel writing it certainly boosts my confidence and helps me believe that I can finish my Keptosh novel.

later,
-junc

It has now been well over a year since I composed any music. I recently sold some music equipment and have plans to turn back towards the computer since I now own a laptop. The Korg nanoSeries is of great interest to me. I think they will serve as an excellent portable performance setup.

To help with my push back into music I would like to revisit the piano. In a few weeks I intend on purchasing a digital piano. My hope is begin composing completely on the piano and then pursuing MusicXML as a means to render composed works in a format ready for live performance via the laptop with midi controllers. The point of MusicXML is to create an open platform for my music. With the idea being that the music notation would be shared in a digital format with instructions for how to perform the piece. With the samples being the “unique” factor. The hope would then be to build up a community which performs works by other community members.

I feel that MusicXML can be extended to handle the specific exception which electronic music brings to composed music which MIDI and simple notation cannot handle. Very similar to the way that special notations have had to be invented to handle Scratch Notation by Turntablists. Of course MusicXML can easily be converted to MIDI and notation allowing potential performers to ignore recommendations by the original composer and interpret the piece as they wish.

This is all currently in the concept stage and not much has been done regarding the application of it. I’m honestly not even positive that MusicXML can handle what I want, which may require me to make some sort of derivative form of MusicXML along with a web driven converter.

later,
-junc