It's nothing new, and it's something that not I alone face.

I mentioned on my Newgrounds some time back that Seán’s mother has cancer. Well… We all knew it’s terminal, but a consultant’s letter we received recently says that the amount of time she has left is likely to be counted in months. And he didn’t (or couldn’t, I don’t know) tell her or Seán face to face.

Please pray for us now, or send good thoughts or vibes their way if you’re not the praying kind. Seán feels like he is sinking beneath the waves right about now, and I feel equally powerless. I cannot help but think that Seán's mother is feeling even more powerless in these circumstances.

So for them, and all who are suffering directly or indirectly as a result of cancer, I would be grateful if you could do this. I bet Seán and his mother would too. Thank you.

P.S.: Thinking also of @SoundChris and @dem0lecule.

Those of you whom I've added as friends on NG and have Steam accounts, or who would otherwise simply like to be friends with me on Steam, I'd like to hear from you.

I have been left absolutely seething with my last experience with FL 12. Newer doesn't always mean better, and it's especially true here.

Before anyone turns round and tell me it's the way of the future, let me just say that I download and installed FL 12 today and got horribly reminded of the reasons why I stayed away from FL 12 in the first place. Back when it was released, I had fears that it would be bad when they took away Fruity Soundfont Player for the 64-bit iteration. Now I've seen it for myself and I've seen enough:

• As I said above, Fruity Soundfont Player doesn't work in the 64-bit iteration. It does keep my data, of course, but it's not good enough now, is it? It tells you to open the 32-bit edition instead -- which, if you have been running an X64 system, is not readily available unless you burrow through drive C:/. It's almost like that person at the till in Tesco's or something who has been left waiting for 15 minutes, only to be told later that the till has problems. It's simply not good enough. Previous iterations of the software have supplied both the 32- and 64- bit versions in the Start menu, this one doesn't. But this is the least of my woes...

• Just because there is the option of downloading a free soundfont player, e.g. DSK SF2, doesn't mean that the sound quality is guaranteed to be spot-on. Compare the same piano in Threnody in C Minor versus this sample I recently exported. YES, IT'S. THE. SAME. PIANO. When I go for an Akai Steinway soundfont, I expect it to render well. If an external soundfont player cannot give me the kind of quality that supposedly worse first-party soundfont players can give, then what's the point of getting one?!
  • My composing habits are such that I make cracking stuff out of soundfonts, at least the vast majority of the time. About a smidgeon of my inventory consists of external plugins, and maybe Sytrus, one of the few other first-party generators I use regularly. While it may be a challenge to do something apart from using soundfonts (and the Fruity Soundfont Player), the fact still remains that I have a recognisable sound and composing style, one which people can tell is mine from several miles away. Take soundfont rendering away and you take away my sound.

• FL 12 decided to completely ignore those of us who work in more time signatures than just 4/4 and took off the beats-per-bar selector completely. Now you could turn round and tell me that this problem can be circumvented with the use of time markers, but TIME MARKERS ARE FOR FUCKING PLAYLISTS, NOT PIANO ROLLS. I do not want to be disconcerted throughout my experience of laying down patterns and selecting various instruments. I DO NOT WANT TO TAKE 20 MINUTES TO DO WHAT SHOULD HAVE TAKEN ONE SECOND TO COMPLETE.
  • ​Various pieces of mine are going to be in 3/4, 5/4, 6/8 or 9/8 and it seems that every other composer is neglected for the most common user who uses, pardon the pun, common time. What's worse is that any project of mine that runs in 3/4 or 6/8 time, for example, is going to be thrown completely out of wack when I run it on FL 12 -- as is to be expected!

• FL 12 has its own brightness setting. It may be useful to most people, but isn't to me because I have a habit of keeping my brightness at minimum. For those of us who are trying to save power, this feature isn't really welcome.

To its credit, FL 12 does do some good things:

• The Browser bar, which was just a mere hindrance in FL 11 and previous, is now an absolute doddle to use in FL 12 because you now drag and drop plugins from the Browser. Now technically, you could select plugins in the same manner as you did in previous versions of FL, i.e. by right-clicking a channel on your step sequencer, but the drag-and-drop option might be more convenient to some of us.
• The mixer, while significantly narrowed down, allows for TEN effects at a time. Ten! Not eight.
• I do not have experience with this, but apparently it's a lot easier to record and handle recordings on this version as well. Ask @Lich for more info -- I think he has the patience of several saints to be able to deal with this and I respect him very much for that.

Perhaps it's good I had that screen wipe, installed FL 12 and got this rude awakening. Now don't EVER ask me 10,000 times why I'm still sticking with FL 11. If later versions of FL actually deal with the problems I mentioned above, I would be most grateful -- but I've had enough of nightmarish composing experiences for a lifetime. It feels just as bad to me as watching something that has scarred me for life.

Just had an OS reinstall and a PC wipe, and while I backed up all my files, I'm taking time out to reinstall my programs and stuff. FL Studio and Sketchbook, in particular. Well, this'll take a while. Any restoration of music files, drawings, etc. will have to wait.

I've got to say though, this computer is running a lot faster now. Thanks for the help, Seán.

Fifteen years of what, I wonder. We'll all know in due course.

Two months or thereabouts, what a ride it has been! <3

When I first got the message from the dev team of Ley Lines, requesting my music in this game, my initial apprehension shone (more like a feeling of uh, what am I getting myself into ._.). Then after some back-and-forth conversation I was shown one pre-alpha gameplay run, and I fell in love with the visuals. Yes, I can do this, I thought and said.

Fast-forward to today and this soundtrack is now 100% complete. In fact, it was 100% complete about ten minutes ago. *dances in excitement*

All that's left now is to announce when the game is going to be out. Ley Lines is going to be out for free on Steam, and the soundtrack will be distributed for free as well.

I'm just..... wow. I can't even. Oh...

It's finally happened. Ley Lines has finally been Greenlit!

Now to be honest, it had been Greenlit a little more than a week ago, but I was waiting for the right moment to put up this post.

I just want to say a big, BIG thank you to all who came and voted, and expressed interest and all sorts. <3

The game will be released towards the end of Summer 2016 for free, and the soundtrack for the game will also be released for free on Bandcamp around the same time of the game's release.

And speaking of the game's soundtrack, the main theme of Ley Lines -- Light, Shine Down -- has been frontpaged. If you haven't already given it a listen, I would be glad if you do. ^_^

The game is at the end stages of being developed, as far as I am aware. In the way of music, I'm on the last track of the OST for it -- and I've got to say, what a ride it has been!

Throughout the month of June, Yasunori Mitsuda and Procyon Studio held a vocal audition, looking for an English-speaking vocalist to work with them. @Phyrnna told me about this audition and encouraged me to take part, and I mulled over the idea for a bit before finally deciding to do something. Then the second and third week of June passed without me doing anything due to sickness.

Then finally, on 27 June, I decided that enough was enough. I pushed through sickness and a wavering voice to record this audition entry.

This is actually a remake of Asperges Me, a track submitted against @Bosa for the 2012 NG Audio Deathmatch. I picked this song because I felt it covered my main range pretty well.

Knowing Mitsuda, he wouldn't care about how well-established someone is -- he is looking for the voice that works best with what he's doing at this point in time. With that in mind, I would be glad with whomever he chooses. The video is always there for posterity. It's the first music video I've done in recent times. My first proper one! I'm still overwhelmed with joy over having recorded it.

(Thanks to you, Chris, Jason and Seán, for helping me on that day.)

I have been enabled for livestreaming on YouTube. Now comes my big question: what would you like to see me livestream?

Please give me some ideas in the comments below, and I might do them.

Presenting the new Asperges Me. This is my face when I sing. The video was recorded as a voice audition for Yasunori Mitsuda. Regardless of whether or not I get in, I am glad to have this video for posterity. <3

This is actually a revisiting of a song that was written for the 2012 NG Audio Deathmatch. I never thought the day would come when a video like this would be done. I never even dreamed of it.........

Thanks to Chris, Jason and Seán for helping me out with this. I need to credit you folks properly on the YouTube video soon...

I am proud to announce that Asperges Me, one of my 2012 Audio Deathmatch pieces, is being remade and will have a video recorded at Soundskills this afternoon (tomorrow for some of you).

Many of you have listened to the original, and some of you may remember reviewing it.

I look forward to sharing the end result of the video session with all of you soon.