Freewave

Man i just ADORE genres (in fact i started the RYM Box Set to explore just how many and how awesome each genre and their history is). Besides indie/alternative rock i still love EDM amd House probably the most out of that although Trance, Electro, Breakbeat, Drum & Bass I love as well. I might not like modern dubstep that much but then again I'm not that young anymore.

I applaud that effort but while i welcome pony.fm coming into the ring i'm not sure how much it's really going to change things from a musician's POV as many musicians HAVE avenues where they upload mp3's and they use soundcloud first, eqbeats second, and likely mediaifire and bandcamp third. I just don't know if it will be truly an avenue where people will come to it rather than just be a place for mlpforums users to upload their tracks. Most people base everything off youtube and the place where they have their mp3 download is a lesser concern. Not trying to be negative but that's just how it currently works. Regardless I wasn't saying mix brony music to be "popular", i would say you should do it because there's a real gap in good dj's for it, because it may help you get more noticed (popular and noticed are very different things mind you), and because there are a lot of good tracks for it in all kinds of genres including ones you will like. If that is of interest then that's great and there's real opportunity there and also loads of music. But yeah if that's not something that sounds like pursuing or if you'd rather focus on non-pony music by all means do what you love.

PRE-PRODUCTION Do I have a theme to my music, a concept? Is this a fresh concept or a tired retread? Will this fit into my style or the rest of my catalog? Is this a good idea that people will like? Would it have a very small audience? Am i catering to ANY audience? Do I have a genre in mind or a creative hybid of several? Be familar with the sounds of those genres before production. If a remix; do I have permission, a midi file, stems, or an flp to do the work? Is this track Pony enough!? Can I justify sending this to EQD by the end? Do I have the time to pull this track off from start to completion (is there an event deadline)? I write down all good concepts i have in a concept queue so if i can't do them immediately i could do them later if they still sound like a good idea. PRODUCTION A reminder to rename your project with a new name or number every time you make a significant change to it so you can revert back from any mistakes. Assign a mixer channel for every instrument you have. Rename and add colors to differentitiate between patterns and instruments. Are my synths or libraries good enough? Have I avoided recognizable defaults presets and made my own? Is my track too repetitive? Do I have enough different melodies and sections? Is my track to minimal? Is there enough elements going on throughout? Is my track to short or long? Is it interesting throughout? Do i have mix in /mix out points? Is it dj friendly if it's edm? How are my drums? Too simple, strong enough, eq'd right? Does each instrument stand out? Loud enough, panned, and eq'd? Does it need vocals? Samples? Are they compressed and eq'd right? Do I have drops, risers, sidechaining, filters, glitch, or noise sweeps? Do I have enough automation and effects on the track? Is my track completely in key? Any fades outs needed? Is my track infringing on any prior piece of music uncredited (especially important if you plan to sell it)? Have I listened to my track multiple times on different equiptment? Have I had several friends listen to my WIP to recommend changes? Is my final track eq'd or mixed effectively? Are there no remaining flaws? Is there enough reverb on the final track? Is it too clean? Is it organic enough? Is there any clipping? Am I relying on a limiter to mask poor mixing? (Don't do that) Is my track loud and full enough (across all EQ freq)? (ie had a final Mastering phase) If I am absolutely stuck at this point, take a break and come back in a week or two and repeat going through the checklist. RELEASE Has the original artist heard the remix and given a thumbs up before it's release? (for remixes). Not required but might be nice for their input or to make them be aware it's coming out and to look for it. Have I let them know about the video upload when it's completed so they can check it out? Have I named it appropriately? Check splelling!! Is that title in the video for the track? Does it look good? Is the mp3 tagged correctly before the upload? Do I have artwork to go with the track? Is it credited, linked, and approved? Does it look good? Have I let them know about the video upload so they can check it out? Is there animation or just a boring static image? Is my youtube 720p or above (HD) for better quality music? Is the art/pmv good? Is the thumbnail worth clicking on after the upload? Does it look good on youtube or do i need to re-up for better thumb choices(3)? Does this compete with what other brony musicians are doiing? Does it look and sound ok? (in stereo, no glitches or bad encoding) Have I credited and linked to any original artist and track? (for a remix) Have I linked back to the original via a youtube video response so it will show as a link from the original track? Have I explained the concept behind the track in the description? (Very important with EQD) Have I linked back to a working mp3 link? Have I uploaded this to all the places I upload my music to? (soundcloud, eqbeats, etc) Have I submitted this track to EqD, EqR, or any other periodical or website? Tumblr post? Linked ouot to friends? If Eqd features my track have I given a secondary link if my download maxes out? (ie only 100 downloads for a free soundcloud account) Have I posted it on my own tumblr? On my own youtube playlist? As a featured video? Have i looked to friends to help promote, alt bronysites, or reddit? POST-RELEASE Did my friends/other musicians like it? Did people comment, favorite, or download? What was the positive and negative feedback? Justified? Did I gain subscriptions from this track? What would I have done differently? (add it to the checklist!) If feedback is poor and based on production failure should I re-do / VIP a new / better version? Listen to your track a month later, do you still like it? Are you proud of it? Should you VIP remix, drop it, or feel good. Learn and improve. I wanted to post (and update) a music list I made awhile back based on all my experiences with making music and things I've learned often from mistakes. With so many steps involved in making a track (pre-production,production,release, and reflection) it's very easy to make mistakes, skip steps, or forget to do things but I am hoping this may help whoever has looked into making music, or makes it currently, and just how involved it is and how important are some of the marketing steps (if you want to be even seen these days). Hopefully this will help someone as i don't see too many music making threads in creative resources. Any questions, thoughts,or anything you think I may be missing please let me know.

Do you have any interest in making dedicated brony music mixes? Wasn't sure if you're perfectly happy with playing what you're playing or were interested in expanding. Have you explored much of the brony music, or are you just not that happy with what you've found, or it's so hard to find good stuff you like from all mounds of youtube links? Sorry just looking at this from a marketing perspective and whether you've wanted to look into that or not (as we need good dj's).

You got to ride El Toro? That sounds like a fantastic coaster! Luckily there's a lot of shows now highlightlighting coasters on the Discovery or Travel channel and i get to hear about some of the amazing new and classic ones around the states. All we have in Denver these days is Elitches Six Flags which is a shell of it's former self. The original park was so much fun (closed in 94) but once they moved it downtown it's been cramped, expensive, and missing any truly great rides. The remodeled Mister Twister is weak compared to it's awesome original design when it used to be the #3 coaster in the 80's. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh4Iyh38t_w Sadly our weather keeps any parks from being open more than through mostly just the summer so thats limits what we gets. We do have decent water parks though (Water World and Elitches has one too).

Well you did some great transitions here and the hardstyle was fierce. My biggest issue i guess would be that i'd love to see more brony music being mixed in sets if its called "Equestrian" anything. Tei the Pony and H Mage are really the only dj's i know that has any success with mixing pony music and for EDM to be so central to our community but for us not to have prominant dj's really saddens me. You definitely have the skills though and picked out some great tracks regardless. Is Hardstyle your favorite genre? You definitely featured a lot of it. Glad to see a fellow dj on here and I wish you luck on whatever you choose but i'd love to see you conquer brony music if you go the full route. Especially since there's so much good music out there that you can highlight that's likely being overlooked by the sheer volume of it.

Actually I have a question in that there have always been LOTS of adult mods for Sims 2 and now 3. Since Sims 3 was recently on sale through and uses Steam does that mean they disallow modded content (which really is the POINT of getting something like the sims) for a vanilla game or do they allow customization like the normal pc version?

Oh I agree and I admit i try not to dwell on these unsuccessful conversations or occasional disappointing occurrences. I like to think of the brony comunity as a bunch of people who look out for each other, who collab, and feed off each other rather than as people who are in competition (as also is somewhat true). But to me the key is how we treat each other as that's what keeps it all working together. PLUR, Peace Love Unity and Respect. To me that's key. That positivity in how we treat each other can negate those occasional lapses when people are more careless with other's feelings as always seems to happen between people. .

Man i loved Roller Coaster Tycoon 1+2 but just couldnt get on board with #3. It just seemed like a completely different game. I built som many great coasters through those. Biggest issues with coasters is that too many parks make them just too intense these days, either i won't want to ride them or they may end up hurting some one eventually. I still think the best ideas are trying to get them partially underground or coming perilously close. The Disneyland coasters are pretty great even if a little tame (ok not the Ca Adventure ones which was spot on) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08VwtYdoBhM This does look pretty awesome and certainly thinks outside of the box. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US3Px2sePWk

Mt. Dew is an amazing drink delivered by Zeus himself from Mountain Olympus!!! But Coke and Dr. Pepper is also quite nice and Coke Zero and Diet Dr Pepper aren't half-bad. Diet Mt Dew IS an abomination though.

I agree on the comments you said regarding shamelessly promoting videos i find that very obnoxious and people should flag those for spam so they get erased quickly. I used to get a lot of those "hey nice track, can you listen to mine" from non-bronies all the time on soundlcoud and i just hit ignore as they fall under the same category to me (bronies go to my little remix forum if you want constructive feedback on tracks from other musicians). I also get a ton of "persons who have added you to their list of contacts" on youtube from spammers who add you email to their contact lists in gmail which is annoying as they are always non brony strangers. I do want to share a bad story where i feel i was slighted AS a spammer by someone i respected though just to show there's sides to every story. I played with Foozogz on L4d2 several times on steam and he's always been someone i really enjoyed his music (he's in my top 5 favorites) and he also happened to be really good at the game. When i put out a track that was MLP AND L4D2 themed I sent him a link on his steam profile so he would get a chance to see it or be aware of it. He later sent me a skype in the middle of night right before i logged off asking me not to promote my track on his steam at which point i said it wan't promotion that it was something that i thought HE might want to check out as it was something on topic with both of our interests (and that we were on good enough terms that he might want to see it). Anyway while he wasn't angry and i wasn't too upset over the thing i don't think we've tried to reconnect since and that frankly put a damper on wanting to try to be ongoing friends after that. So it's always a difficult area between promoting your track to where people (generally your friends) can be aware it even exists and the pushy guy who spams their music everywhere that people try to avoid. What's my point? Well at the end of the day what makes the brony community work IS that respect for each other. Whether you're big or small if you make music you have something in common but way too often status does seem to play a part in how people treat each other with people who are more well known consciously ignoring communication or not looking out to assist their fellow musicians. That really does bug me when that community vibe that i love about brony music is more about when you started, who you know, and how big you are. I guess to people who started the music scene the rest of us came along and tried to jump on their train, with less talent, and ruined a good thing...There's been plenty of times I've sent pm's to fellow brony musicians and never gotten replies back and it seems odd to me to operate that way. I understand that respect may mean " i really like your music" but it also means that we treat each other like how we'd like to be treated and sometimes i just don't see that in our own community which just saddens me. It feels like sometimes we've gotten too big for our britches and people who are now "famous" are just too busy to be nice or to want to be. And that makes me and Fluttershy sad.

Yay, nice job!

I work in an credit,debit,gift card processing company. It's very self-managed and light technical work and I've been doing it for awhile. Big perk is i get to surf a lot (what I'm doing right this moment) between calls and issues and its good pay/health care. Might be a little boring after so many years but i like routine, the freedoms involved, and having half the week off due to long shifts.