Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Shows in Los Angeles! May 2nd and June 22nd!

Tuesday, April 30th, 2013

I’ll be playing some shows with the new “Rhythm Core Alpha 2″ soon!

First I am headlining a show at The Social Bar Lounge in Hacienda Heights, California on May 2nd, 2013.
See https://www.facebook.com/events/564668860230353/

I’ll be playing as “Timon Marmex” alongside other great chiptune bands including:
SYNTH CIRCUIT,
BURIED FOR A DAY,
WIZWARS,
TECHNOCRAT,
CYCLOPS ROCK,
and
HERE BETWEEN YOU ME (who wrote the Rhythm Core Alpha 2 demo track “Starshapes”).

Doors open at 8pm and there is a $5 cover. It is a bar, so you have to be 21 or over to attend this show.

SOCIAL BAR LOUNGE
THURSDAY, MAY 2ND 2013
15355 GALE AVE. HACIENDA HEIGHTS,CA
8:00PM 5 BUCKS 21+

The 2nd show is a fundraiser for the Frequency 3.0 Chiptune Festival. The show will take place at “The Smell” in Downtown Los Angeles on June 22nd.

See https://www.facebook.com/events/581210128580495/

At this show I am doing the “DJ” slot which means I play before the bands go on, and inbetween the sets. This is one of those rare shows where I basically get to jam out and create original stuff on the fly, which is what “Rhythm Core Alpha” and “Rhythm Core Alpha 2″ were built for! So if you want to see how to compose and build songs from scratch, come out to the show. And if not, come out anyway because the lineup is killer:
SONIC DEATH RABBIT (the band of Wet Mango and Baseck),
EVILWEZIL,
WIZWARS,
KOOL SKULL,
and DACID.

The show starts at 8pm and there is a $5 cover. This is an all ages show… anybody can come!

All proceeds go towards making Frequency 3.0 (taking place in January 2014) even more awesome than the second edition.

There are two more shows coming up as well, so watch this space for more info!

Show! Timon Marmex plays Rhythm Core Alpha at the Continental Room in Fullerton, CA Sunday April 7th!

Saturday, April 6th, 2013

SoftEgg’s own Timon Marmex, creator of many of the demo songs in the upcoming “Rhythm Core Alpha 2″ will be performing with RCa2 live at the Continental Room in Fullerton, California at 9:30pm this Sunday, April 7th!
Also appearing are Here Between You Me (who did the RCa2 demo song “Starshapes”) and Dasid. All artists will be performing using videogame equipment to make their music!
This is a 21+ show, but it is completely free!

The Continental Room is at 115 W Santa Fe Ave Fullerton, CA 92832

Here is the Facebook event

Here is the Google+ event.

Rhythm Core Alpha 2 has been re-sent to Nintendo Lotcheck…

Thursday, March 14th, 2013

I had to resend the submission package because Nintendo had changed their PGP key and I had used the old one, and because even though E rating says “All Ages” somehow if I click “All Ages” on Nintendo’s form it is wrong even though the form says “E” is 6 and up. Whatever.
So I took the opportunity to clean up a few things in the manuals, and to fix a very small display bug. The callout letters are now properly anti-aliased, and the product code was inserted in the proper place in all the manuals (I forgot about that one!). There was a small chance of the screen being dimmed during a file save that I have now corrected.
Since they didn’t get a chance to evaluate anything, I got to resubmit version 0.0 and so did not have to go to the back of the line again.
Meanwhile, work on the German manuals continues. Page 4 (The Block Screen) tends to go on forever, since that is where most of the action is, but it will be much quicker after that.

Rhythm Core Alpha 2 has been sent to Nintendo LotCheck!

Wednesday, March 13th, 2013

I just sent the first version of “Rhythm Core Alpha 2″ (for the Americas) off to Nintendo for Lotcheck testing! This is the last stage before it finally gets released. How long this takes depends how bug-free the software is, and whether Nintendo has any issues with the translations.

Pillaging loops for sounds

Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

So, we are up to 16 beats, and 74 loops of music for you to make your own songs with, and 13 demo songs. I’m now pillaging the loops and songs for extra sound definitions to add to the library… even without adding extra samples you can make a lot of different sounds just by adjusting the parameters.

More loops!

Monday, February 25th, 2013

Distilling the last 3 years of shows with Rhythm Core Alpha 2 into a set of demo loops that you can make your own music with. Some of these are really good, but even then they often need some work to stretch them out into 64 beat patterns with fills and extra muted tracks for customization. Work on these for too long and you start to get a little “loopy”… ;)

Eins zwei drei vier

Monday, February 25th, 2013

The secret to making melodies like Kraftwerk’s “Computer World” album is to take an organ sound and extend the release so that it is more like a ringing bell. You will be able to hear this technique in a few of the example loops in Rhythm Core Alpha 2.

New Beats and Loops!

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

Rhythm Core Alpha 2 is going to ship with a good selection of beats, loops, and songs for folks to mess with. We have five songs each from Lucky Button Pusher and Timon Marmex, a new song by Here Between You Me’s Terence James, and two songs by Tina Belmont. We have at least 31 music loops you can build songs out of, and about a dozen raw beats in popular styles. Yeah, I know your average portable keyboard has 100 beats, but are you folks really going to miss “Jazz Waltz”, “March”, or “Bossa Nova”?
Actually, totally let me know if there is a beat that you want in there. I might be able to cram a few in before next week…

Added Atari 800 Pokey chip sounds!

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

I just added a bunch of Atari 800 Pokey chip noise / distortion sounds to Rhythm Core Alpha 2. Why? Well, they are really small, and I realized that we need some brash, barely musical sounds for sound effects, aggressive “brostep” bass, chiptune, and “noise”.
I think I’m going to have to cut off the new sounds here, though. Tomorrow I’m going to work to create extra sounds with the existing samples, and hopefully into ESRB next week.

Wub Wub Wub

Wednesday, February 20th, 2013

Just added dubstep wobble bass sounds to Rhythm Core Alpha 2. Because people have already asked me if you can do dubstep with it. Well, the answer is now yes. Yes, you can.

Fixing Bugs

Wednesday, February 13th, 2013

Fixing bugs in Rhythm Core Alpha 2… I’m amazed at how many there are left! Perils of having a very small number of people testing, I suppose.