Messages

You might want to take a listen to the music track in the gym. I'm getting a tick-tick-tick-tick sound when it loops, at least on my system. It might even be intentional, a part of the track. Music throughout the whole series has been really good.

Thanks for the kind words, Jwalt. None of the tracks on the soundtrack are supposed to loop. All looping tracks from the game have been edited to include two whole iterations on the soundtrack and then they're fading out. I know that there are a few minor cracks on a few of the songs on the soundtrack (not in the actual game), because I was in a slight hurry to compile the 34 original songs and made a some minor mistakes here and there. If Dave's up for it, I may re-edit those and submit a "patch". :-)

Thomas.

I thought Pete Gresser did Legacy?

Yes, he did.

Great soundtrack, that.

Nice trailer, and Woohooooo for the music guy!! Still wondering how you got him

LOL.. No hocus pocus there. Igor just happened to catch me at exactly the right time! :-)

Hope my music does the game justice.

Thomas

Hey guys,

Sorry for the late reply!

Hmm.. All great suggestions so far, but not the series I am looking for! I know that it's like finding a needle in a haystack when I don't remember more details from it.

It was brand new (like 2008-2009), was 100% animated. The funny thing was the narration combined with the slightly naïve animations.

Arghh, why is my memory so bad and why the heck didn't I bookmark it when I had the chance?? 

Thomas.

Hey guys,

I'm looking for an animated series (probably on YouTube) that humorously and intelligently explains every day stuff like, if I remember correctly, mathematics, computers and more. By the time I watched the series, probably a year ago or more, there were about 6-7 episodes of around 8-9 minutes each. The author/director promised there'd be more, but since then I forgot what they were called and what they were about. I just remember thinking they were hilarious and that I wanted to see more! :-)

So the reason I'm asking here is because something, somewhere in my twisted mind tells me that the guy who made this series MAY have had *some* kind of connection to the AGS community. I'm not totally sure about this, but it's worth a try!

Hope you can help me.

Thomas.

Okay, people!

Another major overhaul. Used many/most of Darth's ideas.

Also turned the news-archive into a dynamic RSS-feed (although that's not visible to the user).

Let me know if it's for the better! :-)

http://www.northbysound.com

Thomas

Dualnames,

You liked the old logo better? I think Darth's logo is pretty awesome!

Hueij,

Damn, you're right! Must have overlooked that when I sto... I mean created the style sheet file! Fixed now. All text is left-aligned now.

About Google Analytics. I think the code was supposed to go in the HEAD-tag, but by mistake I placed it in the Body-tag. Anyway.. Stats are working fine!

Thomas.

Okay people,

I've taken most of your comments into account and updated the site: http://www.northbysound.com.

Let me know what you think of it now. Better/worse?

It seems great to me but I personally don't think the text should be justified. Most people find it easier and more pleasant to read left-aligned text (even subconsciously).

Atelier, what browser are you using? All text is/should be left-aligned.

Thomas.

[pretty]

It's a bit unassuming and modest looking

Hey ProgZ, I agree! Being Scandinavian, I've never learned the art of selling myself.

Other than that I think it looks nice, and as usual, great music Thomas

Thank you!  

HEY! How do you know whose music it is?

I think that's pretty obvious!  

Hey Guys,

Okay, shoot me already!

I stol... eh, I mean designed that website and I am no designer - I'm a musician. Nor am I a native-English speaker - hence the bad grammar. Thanks for the corrections, Jenn. I am considered somewhat a grammar-policeman among my friends (in my native language of Danish).

Generally I think all your ideas are really good! Zyndikate - thank you for the mock-ups there. Definitely useful. Darth - excellent logo design! Could you PM me for further discussion?

Last but not least, thank you for liking our music - without doubt our strongest selling point now webdesign is out of the question! 

I will post back with the final result once it's done - and then we keep our fingers crossed that you'll tell all your friends about our brilliant little company, so we can get a successful start!

Thanks again, people!

Thomas.

Awww.. Thanks for sticking up for me, DN! ;-)

The truth is, of course, that I didn't find an overcrowded, generic thread to post this in, and being the arrogant bastard I am, I thought "ha, these people crave me here. It would be nothing short of a present for them to read a post from me."

And then I just posted with absolutely no concern to forum-cleanliness..

Thomas Regin
Forumwrecker

PS.: I am, obviously, just joking.

As a side note, I'm currently looking into getting a (very) small project of mine animated. If a good artist/animator was looking for music, we might be able to do a "I scratch your back, you scratch mine"-type deal!

I offer you peanuts and beer!

That takes care of feeding me and my family! We have a deal!

Thanks for recommending me!

Thomas.

Great work on Blackwell, as I recall.

Anyway, since a fairly high proportion of this community's output is non-commercial in nature and since you didn't mention anything about this in the original post, it seems relevant to ask: Are you primarily interested in paid work or would you consider going pro bono on a freeware project if you found one particularly worthy of your time? 

No value judgment, here--obviously a guy's gotta eat.  Just curious.

Hey Lyaer,

Thanks for the nice words on Blackwell!

My goal is to make long-term relationships (work - not romantic ) with the people I work with. If I feel that my music will help take a project to the next level and potentially open new doors later on for both the developer and me, I may work for very little. I very rarely work for free, if ever, since I have a family to feed and bills to pay. That's the downside of doing this full time.

When that's said, there's no harm in asking me! If you're dedicated and passionate about your project, you may convince me! The worst that can happen is that I say no!

Thomas

[really]

Thank you for the nice words, guys!

You've been busy, Thomas

ProgZ, yes I have been really busy.. I scored around 25 commercial games last year which has given me a lot of invaluable experience. Now I feel it's time to concentrate on some nice indie-games for a while!

Thomas.

Hey guys,

If you're looking for great music for your game or project, please don't hesitate to contact me. I have scored a number of best-selling adventure -and casual games including:

Blackwell Unbound (AGS Award for best music)
The Blackwell Convergence
Emerald City Confidential
Wedding Dash: Ready, Aim, Love
Jewel Quest: Trail of the midnight heart
Altitude
The Dream Voyagers
Love & Death: Bitten
Aurora Feint 3

And a truckload more.

I'm dedicated, take great pride in my work and will do my utmost to ensure that your projects get the best possible audio-track.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Thomas Regin.

[When Worlds Unite]

Hey guys,

I guess this contest-theme calls for an old "classic" of mine (freely inspired by Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D):

When Worlds Unite

Merry Christmas!

Thomas.

[could]

Hey Musicman,

When you're writing/recording orchestral music, you need to imagine how each instrument would play their parts. This piece is clearly the result of a piano/keyboard-player playing each instrument like he would play the piano. And the result is a rather static, synthetically sounding bowl of  musical "spaghetti". There are several ways to make this a better performance. First of all you could get some better sounding samples, but more importantly you need to learn how to work with Expression, Velocity and Dynamics. Expression can be added either by changing the master volume of a track by automation or through designated MIDI controller parameters like CC#11 (the standard for most professional sample libraries). What expression does is that it gives you the possibility to control the attack and volume of an instrument. Most humanly played instruments don't start playing at max-volume, because usually the instruments want to blend in and not take center stage all the time. Changing the velocities of individual notes ensures that it gets a "human touch", since no player in the world can play at the exact same velocity throughout a tune. Take your harp for example, that is a fine example of something that is almost impossible for a harpist to play. Those very fast staccatos without much change in velocity would make any player's fingers bleed in no time! And your violins sound like they've been recorded using a sustain pedal which is totally impossible in the real world! For violins in particular velocity and expression are of utmost importance.

Consider these two quick examples I've made here:

18 violins - no expression

18 violins - expressive

This is the exact same melody line. For the latter version I've added expression and adjusted the individual velocities. Although not perfect it sounds a lot less synthesized than the first one.

Changing the dynamics of the orchestra keeps the listener interested. Some parts should be played lower and some parts louder, so that it doesn't become a "wall of sound".

Sorry for using my own music as an example, but listen to this: An adventurous piece using dynamics

It starts pretty low key and builds up continuously. That's changing dynamics. It's a loop - and mp3 doesn't handle that very well, so it'll have a small gap at the end. Sorry about that.

Anyway, your piece is not bad as such. Nice melodies and nice thematic development!

Take my advice with a grain of salt - I'm simply just trying to give you a few pointers on how to improve your work! :-)

Thomas.

Well that was another great game in the series, Dave! Nice voicework and music, it sucked me right back in. My only real complaint is that I have to wait for the next chapter haha :'(

Hi Buddha,

Glad you enjoyed the game and the music!

Thomas.

Happy birthday Thomas Regin 

LOL, thank you Ben!

Thomas.