My MIDI keyboard (Korg microKEY) just arrived last Friday, and dear God it's amazing. Wonderfully simple, just how I wanted it - 3 octaves, pitch/modulation knob, up/down octave transpose tool (giving me access to the full range of notes) and it even has 2 USB ports at the side in case I'm out of USB ports and want to add more USB devices (which already came in handy because I'm now using one of those ports for my iLok key).

I was planning on getting controllers with it too, but thought against it because the modulation knob does the job fine and I'll usually be automating one parameter at a time anyway. It's really fun to just go to one of your project files, mute the lead instrument and play it with the keyboard instead. It's also fun to doodle melodies with my left hand while browsing the internet with my right hand on the mouse. It's not the first time I absentmindedly let my left hand play random melodies while I'm on the Internet and I suddenly come up with an awesome melody, and I've only had this keyboard for three days.

Best 80 euros I've spent in a long while.

I remember that a few months after I joined the Review Request Club, I challenged myself to write to the character limit of almost every review I did of a song more than one minute long, and I easily managed to keep it up for around 2 years (hell, 99% of the time I have even more to say even after I finish a review that reaches the character limit). However, now that I've become more critical at analysing songs, mentioning so many details of my analysis in a review is taking longer and longer, and in turn it makes me review less and less.

Therefore, I've decided to stop following this personal challenge and shorten my reviews. They'll still be helpful, but they simply won't be as detailed. I'll still be writing character-limit-reaching reviews, especially for songs which I have a lot to say about or which I particularly enjoyed, and when someone requests that I write a review on one of their tracks, chances are that it will be a character-limit-reaching review too, but when casually reviewing or reviewing in bulk (like when reviewing for the Review Request Club) I'll have to shorten my reviews if I want to be more active.

Basically, the good news is that I'll probably be more active in reviewing but the bad news is that not all my reviews will be the massive, detailed walls of text you all know and *cough* love.

I hate it so much.

New song out. It's my first ever Video Game song, and now that you've stumbled upon my profile, you may as well click the link :3.

Hope you enjoy it. Here's a screenshot of it:

This newspost will be a reference whenever someone asks me to link to my best songs. I've got the first songs I ever made on this account so you'll notice a striking difference between my submissions in 2008/2009 and the ones in 2010/2011 :P.

This list still has some kinda-bad songs in it, so choose the ones with the asterisks!

Orchestral/Soundtrack:
Anything making extensive use of the orchestra or inspired by soundtrack.
01.) Primoris **
02.) Crimson Night *
03.) Trinity **
04.) Sanctuary **
05.) Plains Theme *
06.) Morning Horizon 2
07.) Journey to the Afterlife *
08.) Town Theme (EQ)
09.) -Legend- *
10.) Land of Kings
11.) Cobra

Trance/Techno/Dance:
Anything using electronic synths/effects and falling under Techno, Trance or Dance.
01.) Polargeist Menu Theme **
02.) Alluring Darkness *
03.) Pixelated World *
04.) -Against the Clock- *
05.) RD2010 - I'm a Robot
06.) Racing Through Eternity *
07.) New Divide Dance Remix
08.) -Spacewalk- *

Rock:
Anything with, but not necessarily limited to, an electric guitar and rock drums.
01.) Unwavering Assault **
02.) Chaoz Fantasy Rock/Orch. Remix
03.) MD2010 - War Theme #2
04.) MD2010 - War Theme

Pop:
Anything written in a pop style, sometimes with vocals and other influences like orchestral/jazz/techno.
01.) Yuletide Groove **
02.) Reset **
03.) A New Leaf
04.) -A New World- **
05.) -A New Leaf- [old version]

Drum'n'Bass
High energy, high BPMs, drums, bass, etc...
01.) Polargeist **

Hip-Hop:
Anything with a Hip-Hop beat.
01.) School-Leaving Beat

Jazz:
Anything with Jazz or Latin influences.
01.) -Dancing Flame-

Ethnic:
Anything making particular use of ethnic/world instruments.
01.) Guardians of Old **
02.) Ecosystem **
03.) Feast
04.) Dance of the Jnun *
05.) Morocco **

Other:
I can't be bothered to decide what category these fall under.
01.) H2011 - The Forgotten
02.) Midnight Shadows
03.) H2011 - Eclipse (Edit)

* Recommended
** Really Recommended.

--

Enjoy!

My old newspost was getting really old with 119 comments so I thought I should make a new one, and shamefully advertise what I think is one of my best songs if not my best. I made it with Echo, and you can find it HERE. It's got a really weird mix of instrumentation, but we're still very proud of it.

Enjoy!

Edit: After seeing all of the response I got upon submitting this new song, I just wanted to say thanks to all of the people who added me to their favourite artists list and who reviewed my songs. As cheesy as this may sound; it really means a lot!

So apparently my hard disk is dying. 3/4 of my programs aren't working (among those being Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Winamp), a system restore attempt tells me that the disk drive seems to be corrupt, windows is telling me it's not genuine all of a sudden (which is untrue since I bought it with the proper registration and everything) and windows isn't letting me do all sorts of things like pin programs to the task bar, make shortcuts, etc...

So excuse my inactivity.

BY THE WAY MSN isn't working either so I won't be able to sign in until I get this fixed. Well it's not like I was online much anyway...

EDIT: After almost three weeks it's finally fixed. I r happy.

...at least for now. I've been finding less and less free time with exams coming up, so I've decided to block any music ideas that come to me and dedicate all my time that I'm not studying to doing more useful things than making music.

So no music for a long while, I'm afraid.

EDIT: Oh hey look my whistle status is suddenly bronze.

And decided, why not make a song about it?

So I made a collaboration with camoshark called... Stroll on Tenth Avenue! Who would've guessed?

Here's the story...

Ever since camoshark started requesting reviews in the Review Request Club, I began listening to his songs, and maybe reviewing one or two of them.

Despite the fact that he makes his songs entirely out of MIDI sounds, his songs are really enjoyable and are melodically awesome, so I thought that his songs could reach their potential with much better sounds, and I have some pretty high quality sample libraries. Since I had the samples and he had the composition, we thought it'd be a good idea to let them get acquainted.

He sent me the MIDI file of his song 'Stroll on Tenth Avenue' and I got to work. I changed all of the instruments, took away some instruments, added some others, EQ'd, added reverb and a few more sounds and samples here and there, and after six different versions, the new version of Stroll on Tenth Avenue was finally finished.

So yeah, we'd really appreciate it if you give it a listen and tell us what you think. It's jazz but has some instrumentation that isn't really used in jazz such as a Shiva flute.

Hope you enjoy it!

I've just realised I can do this.

This is awesome.