Specs:
BPM: 150
Bars/part: 16
Time/part: approx 25.6 secs
Transition period: 1 to 2 bars at the beginning, nothing too intense, it's fairly flexible, a bit of common sense to fit your part tastefully into the part before (you may get straight into it, even), just keep it fairly short and easy to work with, you can go nuts when you're not in with another part!
Parts: 10-11 (depends on how many apply)
Overall time: 4:30-5:00
Key signature: D-minor/F-Major (key change will be set for a specific part, tasteful accidentals are encouraged)
Time signature: 4/4 (may get mixed up to 3/4 6/8 or something like that...)

Team Lollasaurus is:
WritersBlock (captain lol)
meneldil (anything but electronica)
Blackhole12 (Classical, New age, trance, videogame)
oscillist (D'n'B)
Father-of-Death (ANUS!)
zacko555000 (Drum'n'Bass, trance)
preffertobedead (Drum'n'Bass)
Joowna (Dance/Trance)
MJTTOMB (Classical)

Order:
1-[X]-MJTTOMB
2-[X]-Joowna
3-[X]-prefertobedead
4-[]-zacko555000
5-[]-oscillist
6-[]-Father-of-Death
7-[]-meneldil
8-[]-Blackhole12
9-[]-WritersBlock

Good luck guys, I think this is going to turn out great!

Submitting your part:
I probably should've mentioned this a bit earlier... but anyways, here goes...
Once you've done your part, upload it to mediafire.com (or something to that effect) as a .wav
Like the CTSG2, just upload your part. Maybe keep things fairly low down and PM me the link and I'll forward it to the other members, instead of just linking it here, I think it'll be better as a surprise.

Here's a stylish sig for SBB to match with his mod aura. <3
Here's a loveblimp sig for chris-the-stick2
Here's a loveblimp sig for Meneldil
Here's a loveblimp sig for Kviesgaard. It's GREEN!
Here's a loveblimp sig for New-Milkman. He has a milk mustache lol

Enjoi!
Link fix'd it.

LOVEBLIMP!!!
Iz in ur local Valentine's Day collection naow.

kthxbai
XD

Also, LOL sig requests. <3

Updatin' mah newz:
I'm working on new tunes for the MAC8 Pillars of Pico theme. I had started on a giant robots theme, but everyone seems to be doing robots, so I'm going for a song based on one of my favourite artists on newgrounds, Dan Paladin (aka Synj). Dad'n'Me is probably the least familiar of the sections open for the MAC, and I had no idea what to do at first, but then I played the game to rediscover the feel of the game, and once I started composing for that style, I just thought, yep, this has Dad'n'Me and Dan Paladin written all over it. What I've got so far is a very short piano riff, with a vamping bass, it's cheeky, it's simple, it's perfect for what I'm aiming for. It's called "I Like to Hit Things". The great thing about doing a fun tune like this is that most of my stuff I try to sound serious, and so this is just a breath of fresh air.

BTW, that Dad'n'Me win is mine! >:(

Here's the deal. My music in 2008 so far has been a pleasant turn for the better from my works last year. I've got quite a few big things happening already this year, I have no idea if I'll be able to keep up with it all.

First things first, my relaunch of my "Colour of Music" series is going great. The first track is up, and I've got another one finished, but it still needs proper mixing and other details, but I'll be posting it up on the 29th of February. It's called "The Last Days of Summer", look out for it. It's a light happy techno song. It's not overly technical, and a tad repetitive at 6 minutes, but I want it to be something you can just chill to, without much thought. I've got a bit of time on my hands now that I've finished that early, so I've continued with the introductory piece to the series, Fantasia No. 1, a full orchestral piece. It's still got a long way to go, but it's pretty easy going at the moment.

Aside from that, I've got a lot of other things I've got in the works. I'm running the music collab: The Biggest Video Game Collab (BVGC) alongside Knuxrouge. I've got a few songs I'm going to add there, Rainbow Road, from Mario Kart 64, and a Chemical Plant Zone collaboration with Knuxrouge from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I've also got "His World" to finish from last year.

Another collab I've been contributing to is the "Continue the Song Game", where each musician adds 8 bars to the song and it's all compiled end to end to get the final track. The first one had 12 parts, 3 minutes and a large range of styles. I've done a part for the second game, which is shaping out quite well. The CTSG is run by SolidElectro and Rig.

In addition with the BVGC, I've been working with a couple of its members, Knuxrouge and Mizox (together, we're the Sonic Flash Crew), with the Chaos Sonic sprite series. I've done most of the music for episode 1, but I think I might try with an original sound track just for the Chaos Sonic music, I'll have to check with Knux first...

Even more stuff with original flash sound tracks, my brother, BigBazz, is working on a zelda type game revolving around his own characters, and he's asked me to make some music for the game. I'm going to try and create a soundtrack that revolves around a core of about 5-10 instruments, and fit them to the game. Hopefully, I should be able to create some slick professional compositions.

So, yeah, a ton of stuff happening over here at the moment. I've made comments required approval, just for the hell of it. No spamming, pl0x! Feel free to comment, though, I'd like to know what people think about all my stuff.

Also, remember February 29th... Keep an eye out for the Last Days of Summer.

Cheers,

WritersBlock.

I thought that I needed to write this out, to get some sort of official plan out there. Basically, "The Colour of Music" is an album type thing I'm working on, that I'm going to upload to newgrounds and bandamp.
I'm going to release the songs as I complete them, although I'm not completing them in the proper album order.
As it stands currently, here is the track listing:
1) Introduction
2) Fantasia No. 1
3) Winter Division
4) Man In the Smoking Mirror
5) Type O-Negative
6) Interlude
7) Oriental Sunrise
8) Last Days of Summer
9) A Faun's Dream
10) The River
11) Twilight
12) Aurora Australis
13) Aurora Borealis

The songs will vary in the electronica genres, but a couple of songs are classical. I need to find a voice actor/singer for three songs, Introduction, Type O-Negative and Twilight. Introduction only requires some spoken word, and I will add a little bit of instrumental to that. A similar thing, spoken word, for Type O-Negative, but the emphasis is more on the music. But Twilight just requires one sample of middle-C sung as "La", and I'll create a song around a manipulation of that sample.
The first two songs, the last two songs and "Interlude", are just filler songs, introducing the album, closing the album and having a break in the middle of the album. The main songs will have thick technical aspects and a well thought out construction. Each of the main songs are loosely named around colours, but the titles themselves are representative of the music. In order, skipping the fillers, the colours are: White, grey, black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

I've spent a fair while plotting this out, and the first song released, "Man In the Smoking Mirror" has been received quite well. It's my most popular song, in terms of most votes, highest score and most reviews. It's number 8 in the DnB section, and in the top 1000, on a score of 4.51 from 51 votes, so I hope that if it keeps this up, I hope I might be rewarded with it featuring on the top 30 for a week (fingers crossed). I just hope the others are received with this much enthusiasm. My demo of Fantasia No. 1 also had a good response, despite being far from finished.

Thanks for all the support, I feel like I'm achieving something, here on Newgrounds.

UPDATE
I've finished composing "Last Days of Summer" I scratched it over and over again, and I ended up writing it in 2 days! So I'm stoked, but now I'm going to go through it and add effects and mastering and get the mix spot on, and add a couple of extra ambient things here and there, right now it has no polish, but it's sounding mighty fine. I've got a basic synth harmony, a sidechained saw bass, basic techno drums and a chinese flute lead, and the piano comes in every now and then. The mood is kind of uplifting with a bit of nostalgia. I think you'll like it. But you have to wait until the end of the month to hear it, haha! I'm really happy that I finished it this early, I'll have more time to do some other songs. I was a little worried that I'd get stuck in a rut, and I'd miss the deadline, but it was pretty cruisey. I had a few days where I only spent 20 minutes/half an hour with fruity loops, and the rest was just chilling, so that when I had something, I was able to cruise through with it.

Cheers.

WB

UPDATE 2:
After ditching "Last Days of Summer" again and again, I started looking around for inspiration, and I think I've started to come up with something just right. I've got a piano with lots of echo, the drums are loaded with effects, and they're sounding good. I've got some kick ass synths. It's a slow-ish techno track, 145 BPM, but I've just added a quck running synth lead that sounds really cool, it's very catchy, I can mess with it heaps, to pull the piece together, drop the drums out, it's going to be great. I'm now confident that I can finish it in well under a month.

UPDATE:
Ok, so I've started remaking Last Days of Summer, and I've got cornandbeans, Daft Punk, and some other techno stuff to inspire me. I've got plenty of time and plenty of inspiration, yet I'm still hesitant about how I should bring the song together.
Also, I've basically done 1 minute of the violins violas and cello for Fantasia, and it sounds pretty cool. Once I get the rest of the orchestra up, and develop the theme, it's going to kick ass. I find working on this much easier than working on the techno stuff, more compositionally intricate, and less technical effects-wise. I'm thinking I could pour a ton of time and effort into a BVG contribution of equal epic juiciness, but I'll think about that later. Right now, I'm in a composing mood, so I won't hang around too long...

ORIGINAL POST:
Just a short news post saying that I've started working on a classical remake of Chemical Plant zone as a collab with knuxrouge.
This collab will be a contribution for the Biggest Video Game Collab, so it's a collab within a collab, lol.
Also, I haven't done much original composing over the last couple of days, because I'm taking the time to think carefully about what I do in the future. Where my latest project was, it was not the right mood I wanted. It was still pretty good, but I'm going to find another use for it and try the song again. Also, just lately, I've had a longing to create an epic orchestral piece, but the issue is that I haven't got the professional orchestral VSTs, of the likes of DavidOrr and MaestroRage. As much as I'd love to get something like Edirol Orchestral or one of the other professional orchestral VSTs, I can't afford it right now, so I'm going to attempt an orchestral piece with a bunch of free VSTs and samples from my keyboard. I think I'll be able to pull it off. So, in the near future, look out for "Fantasia No. 1". It'll just be a free-range orchestral piece, and I can continue more in a "Fantasia series" if it gets a good response and I feel up to it.

Cheers,

WB

______________________________________
______________
Music:
Music is too absolute to begin to describe in completion. Music is silence. Music is noise. Music is the organisation of noise and silence. But music is more than sound. Music is the universal language. Music speaks to everyone, and is understood by everyone. Music can represent physical objects, and it can represent emotions, and it can represent actions. Music can tell stories without words, it creates feelings in you that you didn't have before you listened. Music is everywhere, yet we cannot physically see or feel it. We sense it, and we hear it, so ultimately, it must exist. It exists even without the sense of hearing. It is air vibrations, it is composers creating art, it is performers conveying their emotions. Music is something that we take for granted. Music is something we use to our advantage, we try to get the most out of music. And we return the favour by cherishing the music, enjoying its company, looking after our instruments, so that this relationship can continue to grow. We would be lost without our music.

I'm thinking I should PM a voice actor to read something like this out for me, so I could edit it into a song. I think it'd be fun to do, I think it'd make a pretty meaningful song.

The Last Days of Summer has lost it's sizzle for the moment. I'm thinking of ditching it and using the scraps for something else and starting again. Right from the start I knew it wasn't the right mood for what I wanted. Eh, maybe I'll uplaod it later if I decide to finish it, but it'll be under a different name. I want the song to be good, but it's hard to get that polished and professional feel on a song, considering I've only done this high quality once before. I guess I'm just being super-optimistic that I can recapture that sound, and I'm sure it's not a one off thing. I'm not as sure, so I'm going to plug away at my music anyway, and try to live up to my own expectations, and I guess that's all I can really do. Composing and producing good music is hard. I have a lot of respect for people who can do it consistently. I look up to people like cornandbeans and Waterflame, MaestroRage, ParagonX9, rig, SBB and other top quality musicians. And looking at Waterflame's last news post, how he missed a deadline he made himself for his fans, I have even more respect for these artists, as Waterflame has given proof that even the top guns have their rough patches, I think ParagonX9 had one too. It's all to do with personal standards and perspectives, and your willingness to create. I respect that despite their rough patches they pull through and come out the other side as if they never went through that rough patch, they keep working, and they rebuild their confidence and keep their music sounding brilliant. So just lately, I've come to an understanding, and I've been able to piece together my music now, like I had wanted to from when I started. But it's still as hard as if I were just learning, it's confusing, it's tough to get inspired. I've got tons of ideas and they're waiting to come to life. I have no idea how to piece them together, I try logic, but it gets messed up and fails horribly.
Despite how it sounds like I'm in a rut, I'm not, I'm doing great. My last song raised the bar higher than I had thought possible from 2007, but I'm here, and I'm willing to work through the tiny little issues, get past the tough stuff, and hope that it's all smooth sailing by the end of it. I'm excited about the future, and I hope that my music will be seen at a level that it can be compared with the great composers of newgrounds, and I hope that I can prove to myself that I can stick through with my commitments, no matter how rough a patch I may go through. Right now I want to compose classical, but I'm not sure what exactly, I want to start fresh on Last Days of Summer, but I think it's most important for me to take it all just one step at a time, and that way I know that I'll reach my goal at the end.

Cheers.

WB

New blog cause I feel like it.

UPDATE 4
Song is up!
Man In the Smoking Mirror
Check it out, rate and review, all is appreciated. Enjoy!

UPDATE 3
I spent a large portion of today trying to finish "Man in the Smoking Mirror", I touched it up with a bit of almost avant garde style guitar, for ambience, I fixed up all major issues of volume, added some effects, panning, some more variation, to give the piece some more character. I've got it right now almost exactly how I want it, except that in one particular section, the reece is too quiet. I've spent the last 2 hours trying to get the mix just right, and this one thing is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it means I am one step away from completion, and bad because all these small issues here and there have piled up and it's starting to get to me. I'll leave the update there and fix the issue before I convince myself that I am insane. I'll have the song up tomorrow, definitely.

UPDATE 2
I haven't done any more on "Smoking Mirror" yet, but I'll probably get a fair bit done on it today. Also, there's another project that I'm working on, called "A Faun's Dream", which is a sort of Classical mythological type song. I've got it planned out into 3, maybe 4 parts. The first is a slow and steady melody that kind of sets the mood. Then the pace kicks up with a solid, fast paced beat, the melody is more varied, and it mixes up a lot more. Then It's going to settle down into a slightly slower 12/8 (4/3) rhythm, but still fast, and the triplets will add a jaunty swing to the piece that will blend well with the theme, with the wood flute sounding synth, as well as some legato strings, maybe a lute/harp type synth, and a powerful timpani like orchestral percussion. I'm also thinking of adding in a quiet snare on parts 2 and 3, for the pace. I'm thinking I could leave it there, but it might sound better if I finish the song with the same melody that started, but even slower, and with more instruments, to make it sound more grand and epic. I've also got the concepts of some other songs, but not started yet, so I'm thinking of reviving my album idea, "The Colour of Music", as now, I think I'm much more ready than when I tried it before, I feel more professional.

~~[UPDATE]~~
The new song will take a few more days than I told you, but I knw that all along XD But still, probably a little longer than I had expected. The first minute and a half is like zomglollypops with roflchops (?) and the rest is like your 2 year old child eating spaghetti bolognaise. All over the place. And it's onl at around 3 1/2 mins now, but I'm expecting it to run longer than 5 mins. So that needs work. Also, I'm going to chick it on another site first, gauge the response, and fix up any issues, repost there, until it's all ironed out, and then post it here. So that process may take a few days, getting from here to there will probably take a few days, or one day of solid music making. So, to be safe, let's say it will take 1 week. Then if I get it up before, you'll get a pleasant surprise.
Also, I'm thinking of posting in the review request club, audio advertisments, and PM my fans. Does this seem like too much self promotion?

And on another note, Chaos Armageddon has passed 1 000 listens, so that's a nice little milestone for me. If a song of that quality can succeed to that extent, that makes me even more pumped to see how "Man in the Smoking Mirror" will be recieved.
~~[End UPDATE]~~

I have a gigantor track in the works that will hopefully bust through my writer's block for good. I've done roughly 2 1/2 minutes of kickass dark breakbeat, and there's much more to come. Also, this song as it is, desperately unfinished, lords itself over all of my other tracks making them look like terrible noobs, as it is just in a completely different league. So I'll be ultimately pissed if it gets a bad overall response when I post it.

I have a little issue in that my VSTs are starting to feel too restrictive, and I need to get my hands on some more good free ones that will expand my range. But at the stage the song's at now, it's ok with the instruments that I've got, 3X osc, detuned FL keys piano, basic drum samples, a couple of VSTs from tweakbench, a few sound effects recorded in from my keyboard (helicopter, I'll probably put in some ocean and rain from my keyboard later on, just for the ambience). I'll probably add DSK strings to the mix and maybe a couple of sytrus presets, but if they're no good, I'll have a hunt for a good synth VST that works for the higher frequencies.

Anyways, if all goes well, then I might have this finished tomorrow, or the day after, but I want to do a proper job of it, I see this track as a turning point in my musical life.

Cheers.

WB

Tell me how great my new song is!
Review it here: S3&K Act 1 Boss (Orchestral)
If you can't tell, it's an orchestral remake of the act 1 boss from sonic 3 and knuckles.

That's all. A news page dedicated to this song.

I'm on a writer's block, get used to it. I'm having troubles getting my act together and pulling a masterpiece together. But for now, you've got this song that turned out pretty decent. I'm proud of it anyway.

Update: I have begun work on a new project. Most of my stuff is just videogame stuff, covers, small stuff, nothing too ambitious. So I'm hoping this new track I'm working on can break that. I've got an idea that's kind of similar to Waterflame's "Hospital", it's called "Man in the Smoking Mirror". I'm thinking of a detuned piano, some low strings, a bit of break beat drums, some gritty basses and a lot of ambient sounds. While I'm working on this, I'll have other smaller things going, like the tracks for the BVG collab. I just feel like I need to go more out on a limb and strive for more remarkable stuff to get me some more exposure, and to increase my musician skills.

Hey, a little update on the BVG collab. I think the way the flash file will run will allow for maximum quality and length for all songs contributed. That would mean that the number of songs that can go into the collab would also benefit from this. I find that I work better on original songs rather than on covers, so my primary focus is coming up with an original set of songs that bares resemblence to the layout of Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles.

I've come up with concepts for 10 zones (one is a subzone, really) and 3 boss songs, act 1, act 2 and the final boss. So, all up, 13 tracks. It sounds like alot, but each track is a loop. I've completed one (Desert Run Zone) and I'm most of the way through another, and I think I'll keep each loop to under a minute. Small filesize, short, loopable, catchy, mostly preset instruments (although I think the blend sounds good now).

I had other ideas for this whole collab, but I think this sonic sound pack could come out nicely, it's not really epic, but the music will be useful for flash games and maybe even movies.

Hi, happy new years in approx 12 hrs.
I've had ideas to start a videogame collab based around the old sonic and mario tunes.
The final product will consist of probably over a dozen tracks, of which flash artists can take either the original mario pack or the original sonic pack, should they create an associated flash.

The sonic pack would require:
Green Hill type theme,
Metropolis/Flying Battery type Mechatronic theme,
Labyrinth/Aquatic ruins type underwater theme,
Carnival/Casino-OR-Scrap Brain type novelty theme,
Ice Cap type theme,
Doomsday type Fortress of the boss theme,
Main Boss theme,
Final Boss theme.
A few of these are subject to change, but this would cover most styles of sonic music comfortably.

The mario pack would require:
Super mario world overworld type main music,
Underwater remake of the original overworld,
Castle remake,
Underground remake,
Star tune,
Boss tune.
More research on the mario style is required but most tunes will be built off the main theme.

Post interest here please, and I'll notify, via PM or other such means, when a proper thread is started and the collab is underway.

Please note: I intend to approach this collab with proffesionalism, poor work will not be accepted, but if you are willing, I, and hopefully, others, will help lift your part up to scratch by advice, and you may rework it as much as you like, until it meets my standards.

Cheers.