There are many artists recently, on both Newgrounds and off that have been leaving behind their sanctuaries to brave the cold winds of the world, armed with nothing but their music, and the desire to make it. I watch them and listen as they tell me time and time again.

"I just want to be able to do this my whole life... if I can do that, I can die happy".

And I sit back, and I wish them the best. I really do, I wish and I pray with all my heart that they reach that end goal.

It is a shame, it is a truth my friends, music is an art.

And art, is a luxury.

I see them take their songs off Newgrounds, I see them erase their tracks from others, because the time to grow up is here. The time to make friends and foes alike is upon them. The spine chilling first steps are being taken.

Not me. And they tell me I will one day have to. One day I will be forced to stop sharing my songs with everybody, that I will be lost forever in this place, a tapestry to a tiny corner of the internet.

And you know what? I agree.

I agree, and I don't care. I've been making music for 3 years now, and many still consider me a greenhorn to the industry. Fine, but I am still devoted to producing for free. I am still striving to show people a new world, a new hope, a new idea, ANYTHING that makes them stop and enjoy themselves. A story, thats all I want to do, tell and read stories of worlds that will never be.

How do I survive then? How will Chuck continue to exist once the time beckons? I have no real idea. I will keep doing what i'm doing, and hopefully my site, like Newgrounds, will be able to sustain the dreams woven into it. In time, it's possible. I have no intention of hiding any of my work, that is the bottom line. The ears of those who want to listen, will be given the opportunity to do so. Period.

Does that make me a failure? A doomed artist to wither and vanish?

Well, I figure, how poetic is that? Become part of the worlds and stories that will one day disappear with me.

So stick around my friends, only time will let me tell you how this story ends ;D

SoS is currently preparing a new "go-to" center for aspiring and experienced musicians alike! Great and very powerful free VST/VSTi software that even the big expensive libraries do not have! Exotic and strange new sounds sure to help inspire! Both electronica and orchestral based.

Not just that, we're talking huge collections of samples, percussion, sfx, you name it!

We're also talking host/sequencer programs for those who like to stand out and have the rest of the people look at you like a moron when you say "I use Genaginar's Impulse Tracker!" or something equally messed up and obscure to put it all together.

We are looking for help too, if you know of any great sites you'd like to recommend, or any secret gems you might have you want to share, let me know!

Free Software Page!

Regarding the "Radio", it will be up very very shortly. It is not so much a "radio" right now, but we are working on getting all functionality as we desired together. For now, we're just happy to have a content management system that works, and works well.

Stay tuned!

PS: If you'd like, please click this link to sign up for our newsletter so we can email you about future projects and features we release as well as updates on current ones like this. Not to mention new songs of course ;D

Symphony of Specters has released a new NG radio station, and we're looking to put some good quality unsigned artists up there! Read the thread for more info

Thread!

You can also go to the site for more information Symphony of Specters!

Some high lights for this radio!

1: The radio will feature high quality Newgrounds material. You know how the portal is filled with so much... stuff? The radio will feature hand picked and manually downloaded/uploaded songs to ensure a consistently high quality stream.

2: Chat with fellow listeners in the channel at any time. Insult the mothers of many if you'd like.

3: Broadcasting important news concerning the audio portal. The NG podcast for example will have it's own spot.

4: Anybody who wants to do a live show regarding anything, can do so! I will give them the password, how to set things up, and off they go to do their show. Weekly top 5 maybe, whatever!

5: If the radio gets big enough, we can sell ad air time, and generate revenue for the artists who contribute! Though this is really not an expected point, just a possibility.

all of this of course, for free!

Hey guys! We've put on an interesting new tool bar for SoS website and I must say it's pretty damn neat! You can see all of it's nifty features by going TO our website, but seeing what it can do there!

Symphony of Specters

It also supports SoS, the more you use it, the more it gets installed, the more cash it generates. I've recently located the most awesome PC for only $1,600 so i'm saving up everything for that! We appreciate all the help we can get!

You can also directly download the tool bar here

Leaving that behind, some other news.

Thanks to the efforts of WritersBlock and TheNossinator, SoS will have some great tutorials for musicians who are interested in learning the craft in greater detail, or even for brand new starters. WritersBlock's program especially looks like it's going to kick enough ass to kill small animals, so we're looking forward to that!

Thats it for now, more to come soon :D!

Since my last emo post many of you may have noticed of my absence. I apologize I didn't meant to just vanish, but I did so for a reason :D!

Over the past week i've been busily working beside one Draqo whom offered me free webhosting AND set up assistance *like seriously 95% of the site is still functional because of this man people... He's kept me from destroying the site thus far, but i'm working on it!*

I realized that it was time to move on trying to make money from sites like reverbnation, last.fm etc. I won't close off those venues, because heck, $1.08 a month is STILL better then $0.00 a month. So here we are, proudly unveiling the site we're pinning our dreams and energies to!

www.symphonyofspecters.com

I hope you will all take a look around! There's a LOT to this site. I've thrown in pretty much everything i've written and done on my newsposts up there and because I have more HTML control, was able to pull off much neater tricks!

The site is largely oriented towards aspiring musicians I won't lie. A lot of info which people not in the field will find dry and boring, but all the songs of mine and a few more I haven't released yet are up there so listeners can still come on down and enjoy the tunes!

I don't want to say much more, come see it yourself, i'm pretty proud of whats been done with it already :D!

:'(

well I can see this grand plan of mine REALLY working out... At least I can get a soda every month?

It's always a bummer for me around this time of the month. In fact, it's always a bummer for me whenever I wake up during this time of month. Yes, lo and behold it is time for midterms and exams again! As if I did not have enough work to do, now it's time to add more onto the plate, and even further alienate myself from my music computer. It's been off for 4 days straight now, which is a new record for all time. Not a record i'm particularly proud of breaking either mind you...

In any case I know there are a LOT of reviews I have yet to respond to. I WILL get to them. I swore I would not be one of those artists that say nothing to the people who spend time out of their day to write me so i'm going to work on that the second this week is over and my midterms take a little cool off.

Also if you havn't done so already, and are interested in being emailed when a new song is out please click on this link and sign up for the newsletter. It's not a Newgrounds feature but every new song added up there, will by extension be added on here so for now i'm just going to use this tool to let interested members know!

Thanks for your time, take care Newgroundians!

PS: The epic metal colab is still in progress, LEAVE ME ALONE, IT'S GETTING THERE >:(!

During one of my random strolls through the portal, because I do that kind of thing often. I fell upon a good friends page. Why our own Rig. I went to his site because it was down for a while and I figured, hey, why not? Maybe i'll find stuff to make fun of about to him and crush his spirits and leave his broken mind behind.

Going to his songs page he redirected me to his page over at Reverbnation - Rig. Why that bastard I said. Dare to shove me into a new page WILL HE >:(?!

I began angrily clicking the play buttons on his page in dire hopes i'd break something. He'd log back in and go "WUT HAPPEN TO MAI PLAYED CLICK THING!?" and nobody would hear his tracks, and I would lol in the shadows.

After breaking my OWN mouse, I went on over to him and I said to him I said. "Rig, J00 R NOT CAPABLE OF HOSTING YUR OWN SUNGS?!"

and said to me he said
"WHY MUST YOU TALK TO ME AT 4 IN THE MORNING?! I MEAN EVERY DAY RAGE?! EVERY MOTHER LOVING DAY!?"

Forgetting WHY he was online at 4 in the morning for me to pester him in the first place I asked him about this Reverbnation. And it seemed like a pretty slick site. The great thing is this though.

I will be able to generate funds for page views! Just page views! For so long i've wanted to find some kind of magical way to keep making music for free, yet still being able to afford getting new libraries, and upgrading the computer! At long last this dream can be realized!

So my good viewers, I ask you all please drop by my and Rig's page and help us both out! I don't expect to be rolling in cash but i'm hoping with this boost I will be finally able to give you all what I truly want to make with as much power as I can possibly get. Feel free to click an advert here and there as that apparently helps ;)

But wait, thats not all! Me and LadyArsenic will be teaming up to really try and push our limits to bring some of our best work out! We were going to make an album anyways, so we figured why not just go ahead and make an account that we can put things together?!

Don't forget to sign up for the Newsletter too if you'd like! I've always wanted Newgrounds to get a system like this, so until they do I hope interested listeners will sign up to let me tell them a little bit about each new song so they can make a better choice about whether they'd like to listen to it.

Thanks for your time!

Useful Links:
My "Secrets" Revealed
All songs catagorized for easy listening
Glossary of Terms
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

In order to help serious composers who are looking for some products and to better help those who are wondering if getting what the big guys have would help them, I have decided to write detailed explanations of each product I use as well explain basic terms and definitions to help them do research better and understand the power of these products better. Anybody else is welcome to add to the list however I must ask that they give a very detailed explanation and explore the product to leave no question in the readers mind.

On each review you'll notice a number beside the "Has" Catagories. Like
"Has: Key Switches (6)"

The number tells you how diverse and powerful the component is, out of 10 of course. I've also used old newsposts which have no relevance or interest anymore, so don't be thrown off by the fact some seem to be posted back last year.

Products done thus far:
EW Orchestra Gold XP PRO (3.8/5)
EW Orchestra Silver (W/O XP) (2.8/5)
EW Voices of Passion (1/5)
EW Symphonic choirs(4.3/5)
Tsaiko Taiko Drums(4.8/5)
Hans Zimmer's Guitar 2 (4.4/5)

Products to Put up:
East West RA
East West Ministry of Rock
East West Voices of the Apocalypse

WestSound Oboe
WestSound Flute

True Strike 1
Further Expansions to Tutorial:
Unmodified examples of each instrument to let the reader hear what they sound like WITHOUT a professional messing around with it.

Spectrasonics Hans Zimmer Guitar 2
Size: 1.3 gigs
Price: $199
Rating: 4.4/5
Has: Velocity Layers (7), Key Switches (0), RAM efficiency (8), Mic Positioning (0)

Acoustic guitars are often a difficult instrument to capture. Many have them as a simple collection of tings and twangs and various styles of play which for the most part does a decent job with what you want. However all of them that I had tried to date (admittingly none of the ones i've tried were recent VST productions) just lacked something. It was useful as support, but I would never dare try to use them as a focus point in a song. Spectrasonics HZG2, is however, changing that.

There are 4 patches per guitar. Nylon Acoustic A, Nylon Acoustic B, Nylon Acoustic C, Nylon Acoustic D. Of course they're not called Nylon Acoustic but you get the idea. Whats up with this variations? Well see thats whats got me all excited about this library. Each letter has a different set of recordings of the instrument! For example Patch A might have excellent strumming, B might be focused on the upper levels, C might have really great vibrato and so forth. Putting each patch through the exact same notes and melodies I have creates an almost completely different sounding segment! The hours i've spent just switching things back and forth is remarkable in of itself.

Additionaly this library does not just come with western guitars. There is a decent selection of ethnical instruments like the Koto and the Oud guitar. Not every one of them will have the four variations model in place but they too are pretty damn decent.

Nearly all the patches are really light and don't take up much resources, and yet I find it has enough power to be used as an instrument to focus on. A rare combination let me tell you, most of the time if a patch is heavy and eats up a lot of RAM that is because it has so many layers, so many velocity switches on it. Despite it's small size to have the kind of power it pulls in is something worthy of tipping our hats to. Good stuff.

There is however no mic positionings. And really I felt that this was unnecessary. Not only because it would triple the size of the library to include all those mic positionings and still package the same power but because it's so easy to control what reverb you need without concern.

Recap:
Strengths
- Mad flexibility in styles of play
- Light on the CPU and RAM
- Has several other ethnic guitars packaged rather well
- Fast and sustained both handled well

Weaknesses
- There's no third one... yet?
- No keyswitches, everything is scattered and must program things individually.