http://soundcloud.com/stepw

Will be uploading more tracks to it later.

EDIT: I broke SoundCloud. Apparently I'm now following myself.

A Metroid Marathon for charity (Big Brothers Big Sisters) has just finished and they're trying to ideally rack up $4,000 before 8th June. They're at over $2,500 right now, so if you're up for it, donate!

Just got my English essay title... Now who can tell me how to write a 500-word formal letter to an electricity company stating that they made a mistake in my electricity bill?

EDIT: Submitted. Hoping to get a good mark!

EDIT 2: 28/30, highest mark in the class. Looks like I'm a born complainer :3.

I was part of this obligatory and demanding school project which ended yesterday. Basically the point of the project is to split the lower year of the school (144 students) into 10 teams of 15 (it ended up being 8 teams of 15, 1 team of 14 and 1 team of 10, me being in the unlucky team of 10) and represent a Mediterranean or European country in a unique and original way.

For the project, each team would have to prepare three things; a performance showcasing the country's culture in some way, a decorated stall with the traditional food of the country and some sort of souvenir.

Our performance was probably one of the most ambitious despite the fact that we were 5 less than almost all the other teams. We combined a dance performance, music performance, animation, and play all into one. Basically the storyline is about six travellers being shown around a souk (like a marketplace) in Morocco by a guide, and they end up getting bored of it so they sneak away to take on the challenge of climbing a nearby mountain which happens to be the largest in North Africa, the Jebel Toubkal.

They wanted to reach the top of the mountain before sunset, and on their way a spirit guardian called the Jinn stops them. Jnun (plural of Jinn) are sort of a Moroccan folk belief - they're spirit beings predating humans by 2000 years and are often said to live among humans - some are well-meaning but some are malevolent. This particular Jinn was the latter, and challenged them to entertain him or else he wouldn't let them pass and would torture them. The entertainment was a dance by the three female travellers and a music performance (bongos, guitar and violin) by the male travellers playing to my dance music in the background. They just about manage to entertain the Jinn sufficiently, pass, reach the top of the mountain and enjoy an amazing view with a beautiful sunset.

That's pretty much the outline of the story. My job was, of course, the music, and you can find all the music here:
Morocco
Dance of the Jnun
Jinn's Calling
Feast
Peak of the Mountain

Tell me what you think of them! And now I seriously have to go do Maths homework :3.

...and guess what I'm going to spend the whole day doing.

Yeeesssssss.

HERE you can find probably the last Moroccan-influenced track I'll be making for the obligatory school project I'm part of. I'd love a review or at least a comment in this newspost telling me what you think!

Aaaaaaand... screenshot. This screenshot has a few instruments which I didn't actually use like the didgeridoo. Don't mind those!

I took a shot at making a Moroccan-styled loop for a school project. I thought it'd be useful for flash animators; I don't usually do loops so I'm worried it might not be the best way to loop it or anything. Whatever the case, praise/criticism is always well-received, so please give it a listen and perhaps tell me what you think!

As per tradition, project file screenshot...

Yeah I know it's really early to do yet another newspost but whatever. I finished a new Moroccan-themed track for my school project. CHECK IT OUT and give me feedback on what I can improve on please!

Oh and... project file screenshot :3.

Here's what I've been up to. I know most of you will be like TL;DR but frankly I don't care :3.

First off I got a name change. I used to be 'Supersteph54' but now I decided anything with a Super at the beginning and a number at the end makes an incredibly bad username so I'm changing it to Step. Basically I chose Step because of a particular game called Patapon. If you haven't played it (I recommend it), it's a game where you control this army of cute eyeball creatures called Patapons by beating your godly drum.

At the beginning of the game you're asked to enter your name, but they only allow four characters. My actual name is Stephan, but I was only able to write till the 'p', so I ended up being called 'Step'. Now in this game the Patapons regard you as their god, and often called me stuff like 'Almighty Step' and 'Lord Step' and whatnot. I suppose all of those titles got to my head because Step caught on and since then I've nearly always made my game/forum alias 'Step'.

Something related; I decided to go through all of the 100+ submissions I have submitted to this account and checking each one to see if I didn't respond to any reviews and deleting the 'Supersteph54' signature I had in each review response since my username is Step now. I also took it as an opportunity to count how many reviews I actually have and (probably with a few mistakes) I managed to count 834 which is much larger than I ever expected; I mean it's nearly 1,000. So yes, I deleted the signature in roughly 834 review responses, and before you ask, I also suspect I have OCD, don't worry!

Anyway, going through all those reviews inevitably made me hear some of my really old submissions again. I've noticed three things; first off, I used an incredulous amount of emoticons back then. Literally, there was an emoticon at the end of at least three quarters of the sentences I wrote... Secondly, my old songs are seriously headache-inducing, and a lot of them have very little dynamic variation at all. I know they're my early tracks but they start to make me wonder how I actually had the nerve to submit such crap.

Lastly, I've realised that some of my older tracks don't have such bad melodies/ideas after all. Morning Horizon has a great, majestic melody which I'm very tempted to remix. Cobra will sound BADASS with better structure and better mixing. Spacewalk has a surprisingly solid main melody which is quite catchy. Night in the Forest, despite being headache-inducing and lacking any humanisation/feeling/dynamics whatsoever, has a cool melodic idea. Jungle Run is way above all my other 2008/2009 submissions in terms of quality - the percussion there is actually pretty decent. Well, my point is that perhaps revisiting an old track sometime when I'm not packed with stuff to do might not be a bad idea at all.

Unfortunately, I AM packed with stuff to do. Currently busy with a remix album called Harmony of a Hunter: 101% Run which is a tribute to the Metroid series and expands on the original Harmony of a Hunter album. I've never played Metroid in my life but I've really been hooked into Metroid music and I've remixed a total of 9 Metroid tracks (three of them are in this track alone). I've made three tracks for the album but they won't be released publicly for a while! That said, I really can't wait for its release. You can check out the first preview of it here.

Other than that, I've got a lot of school stuff to do. The subjects I've chosen in sixth form are Pure Maths and Computing at Advanced Level and Physics, Philosophy and English at Intermediate Level, with Systems of Knowledge as a compulsory Intermediate subject. As you can imagine, the workload is massive. I get an average of 5 hours of Maths homework alone per day, and it's not new for me to stay up till early hours of the next morning doing my Maths homework and being incredibly sleep-deprived. That's not counting the Philosophy and English essays I get, along with various tests and the odd Computing homework.

A big bulk of work right now is going into an obligatory school project, however. This is called the Euro-Med. Simply put, the whole lower year of the school (144 students in all) is split into 10 groups of 15. If you haven't noticed, 15 doesn't fit into 144 so it ended up being 8 teams of 15, 1 team of 14 and 1 team of 10. Yep, you guessed it, I'm in the team of 10, but MEH. After the teams and team leaders are chosen, each team is given its own Mediterranean and/or European country.

In the space of about 2 months, each team must prepare three things. One: a stall with the country's traditional food and decorations which will be showcased on the day of the deadline. Two: a souvenir to commemorate a cultural aspect of the country the team is representing. Three: a performance/show relating to the country's culture (a dance, presentation, etc...).

Thankfully I know a thing or two about making music and the team leader knows a thing or two about art/animation, so we'll be making a hybrid of animation supporting a play with a dance and band performance, and my music in the background. I've already made one track for the activity and another is well under way, but I've still got quite a bit more to do and the deadline (mid-May) is approaching.

Other than all that, I've been doing a number of other things, mainly audio moderating, piano practising (I'm in Grade 6 now so the workload over there is way more demanding), etc... but that basically summarises my current situation; plenty of work, deadlines, and a username change for good measure!