Sunday, May 19, 2013

The Flight

The Flight. A new album from juncmodule ...maybe?

Let me start by saying this might not work out.

Tomorrow morning, at 6AM, I leave on a flight to Portland, Oregon. During the flight I am going to attempt to record as many songs as possible and upload them to my SoundCloud account under the play list "The Flight". I already did a test track, "Pre Flight Jitters", to make sure I have a workflow that will allow me to upload from my phone over 3G.

Any number of things can go wrong of course. So, no promises.

I will be using a Gameboy DMG-01 with Nanoloop. I will record songs created on the Gameboy directly into Ableton Live, where I will do some clean up. Then I will export them via iTunes to FL Studio Mobile. From there I will upload them to SoundCloud over 3G if I can. Everything I upload will be composed either at the airport or in the air. I shouldn't have any issues with composition. So, worst case scenario, I might have to upload everything after I arrive. However, the fun and challenge for me is to actually be uploading them as I finish them and basically have a short album completed and available by the time I land in Portland. I should note that I have a small cheat in the form of a 2 hour layover in Chicago, so that should be a good chunk of composition time. This will essentially be me slamming through as many tracks as possible. So, if you are expecting amazing compositions or something...well, you have probably never listened to my music in that case anyway. If this works out I will repeat the process on the return flight (another layover in New Jersey!)

You can listen to my other music for free on Spotify. (WARNING: Spotify artist links automatically start playing music, sorry.)

If you like what you hear, my music is available for sale through Amazon and iTunes.



Posted by Unknown at 9:02 PM 0 comments

Saturday, January 26, 2013

NAMM 2013 Roundup


So NAMM (http://www.namm.org/) is where a lot of new music gear is announced. There is a summer and winter show, usually the winter show is the bigger one, but in recent years some big announcements have hit the summer show too. I think Music Radar has the best breakdown of NAMM stuff I could find. Obviously if you find a piece of gear and want to know more about it, YouTube is the place to go. Most manufacturers have a launch website detailing the new gear. 

DJ Tech Tools highlights the DJ specific tools.

DJ Tech Tools also review some of the updated Numark controllers (http://www.djtechtools.com/2013/01/25/namm-2013-numark-mixtrack-pro-ii-and-ns7-ii/). Specifically the NS7 II, no price or release date announced. I was initially very excited about the NS7, but the price point never allowed me to travel down that path. We will see if they attempt to soften this with the NS7 II.

DJ Tech Tools also has a page discussing the new Behringer line:

I have to say, as an entry level line, these look pretty great. Behringer has a reputation for producing crap gear. They have answered this reputation with a 3 year warranty, which is pretty amazing. If anything these can make for great quick and cheap addons to an already existing digital DJ setup. I really like the modular concept.

http://www.djtechtools.com/2012/01/20/behringers-cmd-line-modular-dj-controllers-on-a-budget/

Music Radar has a nice slideshow highlighting some gear:

Here are a few of the gems I ran across:

Wow...analog MS-20. I will absolutely own one of these (http://www.musiciansfriend.com/keyboards-midi/korg-ms20-mini-analog-monophonic-synth). $599 available in April.
http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/namm-2013-korg-ms-20-mini-analogue-synth-announced-570028

Arturia has launched a mini version of their Spark controller. I will probably buy this because the price is awesome ($299). Would probably be a decent controller. I like the 8 pads across because it emulates the 808/909 style of drumming and 303 style of synth programming. They just released a dubstep addon, so I expect to see all of the kiddies with one of these soon. Note: Arturia makes the worst promotional videos EVER. However, the second walkthrough video is awesome (but long).

-Some highlights:
-- The first minute is a quick tour, from that point until about 15 minutes in he covers the core features, for the remainder of the video he is just playing with the gear
-- Fits flush against a macbook pro
-- Comes with a little bag (this seems trivial, but if you are going to make a piece of laptop gear, it just makes sense and no one else does it)
-- subtractive, physical modeling, and sampling
-- "if you are on stage and have your laptop visible, you won't be using it" - YES! This hardware only mentality that NI Maschine started is fantastic. 
-- Really fluid jumping between traditional sequencing and 808 style sequencing
-- Pressure/Velocity sensitive pads

I must say, after watching the walkthrough video, I'm much more sold on this piece of gear. It is the first video I've seen of the Spark line that really impressed me (what he does at about 21 minutes in is right up my alley style-wise). 

http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/namm-2013-arturia-offers-sparkle-hardware-software-drum-machine-570127

Moog Sub Phatty: 

The Pro Audio Star video is cool, but will be misleading for some. This is a synth only, no sequencing here. The Future Music video above is a much more honest look at the synth. Most Moog Synths are in the 3-5k range. This one sits at $1000, which is incredible (http://www.musiciansfriend.com/keyboards-midi/moog-sub-phatty-25-key-analog-synthesizer). The Little Fatty Stage II is $1375 and it doesn't look half as fun as the Sub Phatty. This may very well be my first Moog. It wil be a hard fight between this and the MS-20 (only which one I buy first, they are both must haves)

http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/namm-2013-moog-sub-phatty-revealed-569856

The Novation Launchkey has some iPad integration that looks pretty amazing. Otherwise it would just be another keyboard controller entry. The prices listed on the article are obviously a little confused (they give the same price for the 49 and 61 key versions, I'm sure this will be updated later)

From Musician's Friend:
Launchkey 25 (http://www.musiciansfriend.com/keyboards-midi/novation-launchkey-25-keyboard-control): MSRP - $200/Retail - $150
Launchkey 49 (http://www.musiciansfriend.com/keyboards-midi/novation-launchkey-49-keyboard-control): MSRP - $250/Retail - $200
Launchkey 61 (http://www.musiciansfriend.com/keyboards-midi/novation-launchkey-61-keyboard-control): MSRP - $300/Retail - $250

Even as just "another" controller keyboard, the price beats a lot of less feature full keyboards out there. 

http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/namm-2013-novation-unveils-the-launchkey-range-of-midi-controllers-569708

The Numark Orbit, with no price or release date info, looks like a nice little gimicky performance controller. Looks very versatile and I'm sure some exciting things will be done with it. I imagine this thing being "hacked" to do things beyond music.

http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/namm-2013-numark-launches-orbit-wireless-handheld-dj-controller-569957

Here are few other things that I didn't go into much more, but may be of interest to many:
Posted by Unknown at 10:54 AM 0 comments

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Keptosh Media

Keptosh Media logo
I am very proud to announce the name of my game development company:

Keptosh Media

Keptosh is a brand that I already control on the web. The original game is an enormous source of pride for me. This tribute to my beloved game and character just feels right.

I'm on vacation for the next few days and today I spent from 7AM until about 7:30PM designing and rebuilding Keptosh.com. So please take a look, it has been completely rebranded for Keptosh Media. You can also still find the original Keptosh game under projects.

Keep an eye on the Keptosh Twitter and Facebook accounts for possible updates. I will be spending some time cleaning them up and properly rebranding them over the course of the next few days.
Posted by Unknown at 7:48 PM 0 comments

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Portfolio


One of the biggest signs that a person is a web developer is that their site is either constantly changing or completely neglected. Rarely is it a stable or reliable place. I used to fall into the constantly changing category, but now I seem to have slipped into the neglected category. I find more and more that I need service and not a fully functional site. I get more out of twitter and blogger than I ever would have out of a custom site. I don’t need to worry about security updates or any type of general maintenance. The one area that I have been lacking in lately has been a portfolio section. I want a simple professional portfolio, but I don’t want to build or maintain one. Most of the web applications I have found are very focused on photographers and don’t seem to work for my purposes. Today I found carbonmade, a simple and effective portfolio hosting site. I have placed my portfolio on the site and I’m very happy with it. I have not dug deep yet, but the one glaring problem I see is no way to share the portfolio. I need a widget. I will make something custom and static, but it is unfortunate that they don’t offer anything. Considering the amount of time they are saving me though, I won’t complain too much.
Posted by Unknown at 9:05 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Naming Things

I think I have found a name for the company. I'm going to let it settle for a few days to make sure it is what I want. I will probably try to get it registered next week, depending on how difficult the actual process is. It has been surprising difficult to come up with something. Considering that I name fake companies, people, planets, and various things in stories all of the time, I felt like this should have been an easy process. I had considered a contest or asking friends but in the end I decided it was much too personal for that. This is something that is going to be with me for the rest of my life.
Posted by Unknown at 6:30 AM 0 comments

Monday, May 7, 2012

The Cross Platform Problem


One of those problems I have struggled with desperately over the last several years is the platform problem. When I made Keptosh, I built it with AGS. This made sense at the time. AGS is a Windows only Adventure Game engine. Work is currently underway to change this and over the years many different versions have surfaced that allow users to play under Linux or OSX. However, this support has not kept pace very well with the main engine and it has left behind things like plugins. Back in 2003 though, it didn’t matter. No one played games on anything but consoles and Windows PCs. The idea of an amateur game on a console at that time was a bit of joke, as there was hardware involved and fees that ranged into the tens of thousands of dollars. The big three didn’t really want anything to do with having amateur gaming on their consoles. 

Today though, it is a different story. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony have all built platforms for amateur game distribution into their consoles. More and more games are being released for OSX and since then Macs are in nearly four times as many homes. Not to mention the mobile revolution. So, we now need to target between up to seven platforms right out the gate when building a game. Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, Wii, Xbox 360, and the PS3 all dominate the gaming market simultaneously right now. Those seven even make up a conservative estimate. Many amateur games are releasing with Linux versions and some developers are beginning to target Nintendo and Sony handheld systems early on. For the amateur developer this is a massive undertaking if you build natively. It is generally impractical for a single developer to tackle this alone. 

This is where engines like Unity 3D come in. Unity supports multiple platforms right from the start. It is an amazing piece of software. The editor is available on both Windows and OSX and the learning curve for the doing basics in the editor is not incredibly steep. A large community is available to help you through the more complex aspects of the engine. The one glaring problem for Unity 3D for me though is that pesky 3D part. I like my pixel art. I have been on the lookout for a 2D editor that accomplishes the same tasks. So far all I have found is Stencyl Works. Unfortunately, all they target are iOS and Flash. Android and HTML5 are still in the works for the engine. There are several alternatives ways to use Unity, a 2D Toolkit exists. I have also created a AGI styled 3D model in Blender which shows some promise. There is also the Minecraft approach to graphics in an engine like Unity. It seems that this is the most likely road for me to travel down for the time being. In the future I am hopeful that new engines will arrive that allow cross platform 2D development. I think the real challenge here for the engine developers is continuing to support all of those different platforms. The fact that Unity is such a performance champ on all platforms it runs on says a lot about the engine too. Plenty of tools exists to create simplistic apps on Android and iOS, but they sacrifice performance for their cross platform abilities. Not to mention that these platforms rarely tackle anything but mobile and flash. For now, it seems that Unity 3D is my primary engine of choice. It’s not so bad to be in a position where you are faced with an engine that is overpowered for your tasks. 
Posted by Unknown at 6:30 AM 0 comments

Sunday, June 19, 2011

The Combat RPG - iPhone project - Dice class


I started working on my first Objective-C project this weekend. I spent most of the week watching videos on Lynda.com by Simon Allardice covering the basics of iPhone development. The goal is to eventually build VoidTrader on the iPhone/iPad. For now though, I'm going to build a small RPG fighting game. I have a few iterations planned, which I may put up in a different post. Below is an example of the Dice class I created. This initial iteration served a couple of goals. First, I built a main screen, about screen, and combat screen. This allowed me to get comfortable with adding different views. Next the Dice class itself allowed me to practice building and using a custom class.


Obviously, I intend on adding a lot more to that screen. I would like to do some custom graphics and perhaps animations. However, that will have to wait for several iterations.

The Dice class:

//
//  Dice.m
//  CombatRPG
//
//  Created by Mitchell Shelton on 6/18/11.
//  Copyright 2011 MitchellShelton.com. All rights reserved.
//
#import "Dice.h"

@implementation Dice

/*
 * A Dice simulator method
 * @numDie
 * The number of dice being rolled
 * @sides
 * The number of sides on the dice
 */
- (int)roll :(int)numDie d:(int)sides {
  
 // Handle incorrect dice or sides
 if (numDie == 0) { // Is the quantity zero?
  // There must be at least one die
  numDie = 1;
 } 
 if (sides == 0 || sides == 1) { // Are the sides zero or one?
  // Any die must have at least two sides
  sides = 2;
 }
 
 // Initialize our return value
 int result = 0;
 
 // Loop over the die rolls
 for (int i=0; i < numDie; i++) {  
  // Roll the die  
  int rollResult = (arc4random() % sides) + 1;
  
  // Add the die roll to our total result
  result = result + rollResult;  
 }
 
 // Return the result of our roll
 return result; 
}

@end

Calling the method:
Dice *die = [[Dice alloc]init];
int result = [die roll:2 d:8];
[die release];

So, why a dice class?

I'm basing the RPG "engine" on some modified Dungeons and Dragons rules for combat, encounters, and general mechanics. So there will be initiative rolls, weapons will do damage based on rolls, etc. I already wrote classes for the dice, players, armor, and weapons in PHP. I also have all of the stats for experience points, a few default weapons types, and miscellaneous other data that will be kept in a database.

So what is next?

I'm going to get that data from a remote MySQL database into my iPhone app. This will come via a web service eventually, but for now it will most likely come from flat xml files. That will allow me to focus on the iPhone end of programming, and not on figuring out the web service part. Eventually, I will need the web service to be writable though so I can allow users to upload profiles to a connected web site.

-Mitchell
Posted by Unknown at 8:43 AM 1 comments
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