Pulse Wave

While we're already at ponifying the Rocky Horror Picture Show:

I guess it's the over-the-top costumes. I mean, of 10 main characters, 8 will be seen in suspenders at some point in the film. 3 of them are women. And surprisingly many men cosplay as Tim Curry's character, Dr. Frank N. Furter, the Sweet Transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania. He wears suspenders and high-heels all the time. I have the 20th anniversary VHS tape with a recording of the anniversary special at the end. Tim Curry said something like he would never have thought that there are so many crazy people out there, and that he feels like he's the only one who isn't dressed as him (there were dozens of Frank N. Furters in the front rows). By the way, even if you go watch the movie, you can count on one thing except for more cosplayers than not: audience partici — — — pation. Water pistols ("Over At The Frankenstein Place"), toast bread (for bringing out a toast), toilet paper (for when Rocky is unwrapped), rice (for Frank and Rocky's wedding), not to mention everyone singing along, doing the Time Warp etc. Don't dream it, watch it! Nice character choice. Twilight as Riff Raff, Rainbow as Magenta, and who else could be Columbia than Pinkie?

That's it. There are many black & white movies that will probably never be remade and that simply cannot be remade in a way that appeals to today's audiences. Apart from a cool and dramatic dark backstory for the protagonist, it has to be a $300,000,000 block-buster with huge explosions and absurd camera movements which are only possible because the entire set is CGI (even the Matrix trilogy is boring by today's standards), of course produced in 3-D 4K ultra high definition with at least 11.3 surround sound. And once 8K is available, 4K will be low-tech from yesteryear that nobody wants to see anymore. However, the stories told in black & white days have no need for over-the-top special effects. Guess that's what makes b&w movies unappealing to young people, too, if they've been brought up on block-busters based on DC and Marvel comics. Besides, many stories from back then wouldn't even work anymore today. A remake of It's a Wonderful Life might still work today, as would a remake of Hitchcock's The Birds which would also give the CGI SFX department something to do because you don't need real birds anymore today (even if some would criticise the lack of gore). Casablanca is trickier, not only because it will forever be associated with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, but because I don't think that today's Hollywood can produce something with the same feeling anymore. You can't update it either, because what'd happen if you did is Barb Wire with Pamela Anderson. Or Metropolis. Futuristic as it may have been in the late 1920s, I can't see it being transferred to almost 90 years later. You cannot make this story work in 2015, nor can you modernise it while taking care that it's still clearly Metropolis. Or take the German cult classic Die Feuerzangenbowle from 1944 (which is a remake of a 10-year-older film already, also starring Heinz Rühmann). Try to remake it so that it appeals to Fack Ju Göhte's audience. The truth is that you cannot make a film about prankster pupils anymore. A couple decades ago, school pranks were considered good fun. Today they tend to involve police investigations and court cases, and if they don't, today's pupils will consider them old-fashioned and boring. By the way, this film did get yet another remake in the 1950s, but nobody cares, and everyone sticks to the 1944 black & white version. For many classics, the entire setting is important for their overall feel, and that includes the era in which they take place. This is why you cannot remake those old Edgar Wallace flicks and upgrade them to 2015's England (or better yet, 2015's USA so that the huge US audience can relate to them and understand what the actors say). In fact, all this also applies to many colour movies from decades ago which I guess are unwatchable for a younger audience today because they're so grainy and noisy and low-res. But even then you have settings and stories that won't translate to 2015.

Funny how Underground 2 is already nostalgic when my favourite NFS game is High Stakes. Might not be too spectacular by itself by today's standards, but probably hundreds, if not thousands of third-party vehicles have been made for it. There are even fan-made tracks and converted NFS2SE tracks available for NFS4:HS. It's similar to the original Hot Pursuit in this regard and based on Hot Pursuit, but it has nifty extra features like new tracks (along with the classic NFS3:HP tracks; gotta love to barrel through Lost Canyons with a muscle car) and damage. The one NFS part I regret having missed because it was killed off too early is Motor City Online. Think MMO racing game with way more detailed tuning than any Underground part and 100% classic Detroit Iron. It was an entirely online game and ended when EA shut down the servers. Funniest thing to do in UG1 and UG2: Rice out your car to ridiculous levels and keep the tech specs stock (except for the suspensions because you have to slam yo ride). Funniest thing to do in Carbon: Get a classic muscle car, soup up the engine (don't forget the blower sticking out), tear off all stickers if it has any, paint it matte black and keep tyres, suspensions and brakes stock. Then put on some early Ramones and floor it. Alternatively, paint it some 70s metallic tone, slap on flames or something similarly tacky, everything else stays the same (pity you can't chrome-plate the blower), and pretend you're driving a Matchbox or Hot Wheels toy. Second-funniest thing to do in UG2 and Carbon: Shiny black gangsta-mobile on the largest gold-plated spinnaz (UG2) or spoke wheels (Carbon) you can get. Don't forget the air-ride. Third-funniest thing to do in UG2: Take a muscle car (Mustang works best), turn it into a veritable streetmachine (pity you don't have scallops), install hydraulics, misuse them as hi-jackers for the rear axle. Third-funniest thing to do in Carbon: Eleanor. Complete with NOS GO BABY GO. Or if you've got way too much time, General Lee.

My musical taste is at least older than my mother's. She'd listen to a lot of more modern music when it comes on the radio whereas most of what I like is from the 60s through the 70s and 80s a bit into the early 90s, if at all — sometimes even 50s music. Once she said that I'm too young for my taste in music, and I'll turn 40 this year.

Careful. While the SM58 is certainly better than some gaming headset or USB mic, it doesn't fit everypony's voices. I know from personal experience (we have one of these at the band) that it doesn't fit mine. The SM58 is a bit tricky in that regard. Besides, you'll need a decent interface with an XLR input for the mic.

This, and a whole lot of it. Especially nowadays. There have been countless bronies already who jumped into the music-making scene just for the purpose of becoming #HorseFamous quickly and easily. Their plan was to do what the #HorseFamous artists had done so far. Dubstep seemed to be something that'd be popular with bronies while being easy to make for somepony who had never in his life made music, next to no budget and next to no time, what with the abundance of "0 to Skrillex in 5 minutes with FL Studio, no previous knowledge required" video tutorials on YouTube. The outcome was a torrent of brostep of often questionable quality in which individual artists got washed away. Several big names have already advised against making music just for fame. Silva Hound did so at every other musicians panel. And that was not so that n00bs stop trying to mimick them, and they have their sound for themselves again. Now let's look at what happens when somepony doesn't care for piling up fame and simply makes whatever music they please — and ends up making music that nopony else has made before. That's how "Mother Changeling" was made. Stylistically based on the "Habanera" from Carmen. Okay, that one was a bit more of an effort with multiple singers and whatnot, and it required quite some musical knowledge. But while it didn't make Sand Josieph Mando-grade #HorseFamous, it did make its mark because it stood out. So if you want to make music that's far from what's considered popular among bronies, go for it. I've read somewhere that you have to churn out two tracks per week to be and stay noticed. I don't buy that. Also, it's quite difficult to do if you don't have that much time (working week etc.), and if you don't simply click together your tracks in FL Studio from loops of up to four bars. It takes considerably longer to a) apply actual songwriting and sing and/or use any kinds of hardware instruments. Some of the #HorseFamous brony musicians do both. Even some time later, there were cases of musicians who rose to fame because they collaborated with a big name who was generous enough to collab with a nopony. Add to that that our first-tier musicians don't hang around on pony sites anymore. They meet on Skype and release their music on Bandcamp (okay, plus the usual promotional video on YouTube). And if they show up at a convention (never mind smaller events), it's as a VIP with their plane tickets and hotel paid by the con. Oftentimes, you never even see them anywhere unless they do their gig, host a panel or give a signing session. Yep, as I said: Be yourself. Don't try to be "another [insert #HorseFamous musician here]". I think this is often one of the most difficult things in making pony music: not to make it PINO (that's Pony In Name Only for those who don't know yet). Each method has its downside:Sing so that it's clear from the lyrics that this is pony music. Downside: That's hard to get right if you simply cannot sing, and/or if you only have that €20 gaming headset plugged into your laptop's mic and headphone sockets as your only mic. Get someone else to sing. Collaborate with a singer. Well, good luck finding someone willing and able to sing for you that's known for being good if you aren't because you don't have any releases under your belly. Dialogue samples from the show. Getting old. And certain samples are old by now. May be pulled off as a stylistic element if justified, but not as a replacement for all vocals. That's what's getting old. Cover something that's known to be pony music. As in remake everything from scratch as opposed to a remix. If the bronies know from the melody that this is pony music, you can get away with an instrumental. But this has to be the case. Also, quite often well-known pony songs are just that, songs, with songwriting, with verses and choruses so you can't get away with loops. Furthermore, you have to find a way to make your cover creative instead of trying to mimick the original artist. Remix pony music. If you can do that, it's a sure-fire way. However, if you don't do anything but remixes, bronies will ask themselves whether you can't make original stuff, and you'll seem like trying to piggyback on the #HorseFame of those whom you remix.

That'd be a pity if both pony music hosting services that allow user uploads stopped being developed. And I have my doubt that any new ones will appear, seeing as nopony was willing to take over EqBeats. Even the MLP Music Archive spent a few years in limbo and abandonment. That's good to read. So what few pieces of music I've checked actually came from the MLPMA, I guess. Unfortunately, now that the MLPMA has been integrated into Pony.fm, it's impossible to see what genre tags are available unless you've uploaded music. (Or did you actually add all the MLPMA genres to the official Pony.fm list?) And I know the MLPMA. It gave you "incredibly specific genres" aplenty, however, mostly not actually existing genres, but typos, misspellings, ponifications and completely unrelated stuff, not to mention mis-taggings — as far as I know, nothing in the MLPMA that's tagged "blues" is actually a blues. (By the way, are there any plans on fixing the MLPMA's still existing issues, maybe even "crowdsourcing" that by allowing other bronies to report obvious bugs and/or suggest improvements? I still have a whole list of MLPMA errors.) Now that'd be great if you could pull that off. I mean, last time I checked, to give you a few examples, there were lots and lots of subgenres of modern electronic dance music, but ska was thrown in with punk (ska isn't necessarily punk, but I guess many believe that ska is punk rock + horns), and reggae was absent altogether. Also, I think that several pretty much unrelated "black" genres (at least jazz and funk) were thrown together. I'm not quite sure whether synthpop was available. In a sense, this might seem justified, seeing as by far most brony musicians cannot make music with anything else than their computer, so they're bound to electronic music. But you never know when what kinds of exceptions might pop up. While it's understandable, it's a pity for someone who likes to put a lot of effort into detailed tagging. The tags (Vorbis comments) that I need or might need are (not quite sure about the exact tag names):ARTIST (obvious, but it would be great to not have this hardwired to my Pony.fm display name and be able to change it; that'd allow for collabs to be correctly tagged instead of shoving the "feat." part into the title and for having multiple projects, each with their own ARTIST tag, under one and the same account) TITLE (obvious, too) GENRE (preferably without having to pick from a drop-down list and wait for an indefinite amount of time to have the genre this new piece of music belongs to added to the list, also supporting multiple entries within the same tag, separated by semicolons) DATE (YYYY-MM-DD – yes, that's standard for Vorbis comments) COMPOSER (again, multiple entries, separated by semicolons) PERFORMER (not mandatory, but I myself use this tag for listing up the musicians involved in the making of a song, including their respective instruments) VERSION (can be used for both different versions of the same song and remixes) COMMENT LYRICIST (see COMPOSER) ORIGINALARTIST and ORIGINALTITLE (non-standard, for covers and parodies) of course ALBUM, ALBUMARTIST, TRACKNUMBER and TRACKTOTAL for the albums, ideally also DISCNUMBER and DISCTOTAL for those who want to simulate or have actually published a multi-disc album; the numbers should always be two-digit unless exceeding 99 ReplayGain tags — REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN, REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK, REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN and REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK — should never be removed altogether. And if they absolutely have to be wiped, the audio file should be ReplayGain analyzed anew after upload, and the ReplayGain tags should be renewed

As EqBeats' days are counted, the next best place to publish pony music seems to be Pony.fm. However, I do have a couple of questions about it: So music has to be uploaded in a lossless format. I'm perfectly okay with this, but I have yet to find a song that can be downloaded in a lossless format, preferably FLAC. I know that that used to be possible. Has this feature been removed, and does Pony.fm only offer lossy downloads, or is there simply a setting on the musician's side whether or not to offer lossless downloads? Because that'd be pretty critical for me. Also, it seems like Pony.fm has moved away from the pre-defined genres (the main reason why I originally didn't want to publish there) and adds anything that's in the tags of the uploaded audio files to the list. Am I right? Is this feature here to stay? And what happens if there are multiple genres in the Genre tag which is perfectly standard for Vorbis comments, for example Synthpop; Italo Disco? Does Pony.fm alter tags, and if yes, in which ways? Is it okay with all standard Vorbis comments, maybe even the proposed additional tags (such as Lyricist, Arranger or Original Artist), or does it delete anything it doesn't know (and be it month and day in Time which are standard for Vorbis comments, too)? I mean, I could go look for myself since I should technically have a Pony.fm account now, but I'd like to hear some answers from those who know for sure.

Oh, I think I get along with people from just about everywhere. We don't have any halfway recent recordings; besides, we're a 100% cover band, and I'm actually the youngest member. Eeeyup. No problem with that. As long as I'm not expected to act like I were a teen... Oh, there's quite a number including four German pony forums (two for bronies and collectors each; I tried to become a kind of brony ambassador in the collectors scene). But I'm registered at even more English-speaking pony forums.

My Favourite Mane 6 Pony: Rarity How did you find MLP Forums?: Came across them a couple times on the Web, but most recently because they're joined with Pony.fm in the Poniverse. How you became a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: May 2011: At an entirely different animation fan forum, pony avatars and sigs kept popping up, and people began to talk about pony. So I decided that show can't be all bad, and I needed to watch it. Took me a week (actually, only five days of that week) to go through the entire first season because I was hooked from the very first day on ("one more episode before I hit the hay", wash, rinse, repeat). After that, I decided there was no way back anymore, I was now a brony. So, what to say about myself — apart from what I've already filled my profile with... I'm one of the earliest German bronies from when the German branch of bronydom was still small. (Don't worry, I don't really talk like Photo Finish unless I want to.) Also, I'm among the older ones of our kind, turning 40 late this year. That's right, one more Generation X brony. If something frequently catches my attention, it's background ponies. I dare say I know most of them, and I know them by their old fandom names which I stick to until they're rendered obsolete by the show itself. Other than pony, my biggest and most expensive hobby has to be music. I'm a keyboardist/synthesiser player, I'm in a band, and I've also got a setup of hardware machines (unfortunately, no analogue synth — yet) at home which I'm going to use to make the song ideas real that have been coming up in my mind since 2011. As soon as I'm done procrastinating, that is. But that rig has to finally be put to good use, and those ideas want out of my head. Fair warning ahead: My musical preferences are even more old school than my way of making music, even a bit too old school for my own age. So if I ever get something done, expect it to sound older than you are.