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 The Precursor: November 21st, 1998. Konami, a well-respected and intrepid videogame developer, responsible for such memorable series’ as Contra, Castlevania, Mystical Ninja, and Metal Gear Solid, introduced their second entry into their rhythm-based music-heavy game division called Bemani. The first and most popular was called Beatmania; their second was called Dance Dance Revolution. It was a deceptively simple arcade game: music played through the cabinet’s speakers and subwoofers while arrows scrolled from the bottom of the screen to the top. When they reached the top, the player had to press on the corresponding arrow on the metal pad they were standing on. They were rewarded for their timing and accuracy, and at the end of the song, the player was given a letter grade: anywhere from an F (if they failed) to an AAA (if they stepped on every arrow with absolutely perfect accuracy). Dance Dance Revolution quickly became too popular for the island nation that berthed it, and it quickly spread to all corners of the globe. Critiques praised it for its intuitive, simplistic controls and its amazing stamina as a videogame – even today, while arcades lay dying and gasping before the dominant home console market, Dance Dance Revolution remains one of the few games to withstand the test of time. West Virginia used the game as part of their gym classes. It was that popular. Dance Dance Revolution received sequel and add-on after sequel – three times it got a same-year sequel: in 1999; in 2001; and in 2002. In 2002, they released the penultimate (at the time) version of their game, called Dance Dance Revolution: Extreme, which included every song from every previous version into one single, massive videogame. Extreme is the version most everyone is familiar with. Then, Dance Dance Revolution essentially vanished from the arcade scene. Extreme was released in a massively dumbed-down PS2 version, which itself received a sort of gimmicky sequel, but otherwise, the series was gone: perhaps because Extreme was doing so well, or because Konami knew the arcade scene was fading away. Either way, Dance Dance Revolution didn’t get any more sequels for years after that. The Challenger: That same year, a company called RoXoR Games popped out of someone’s garage in Austin, Texas. Staffed by 25 people and claiming to have experience in developing such games as Ultima Online 2 and South Park Max, the first game they developed was called Tux Racer, which took the Linux penguin mascot on an adventure sliding down mountains and collecting fish to boost their high score. The second game they developed was called In The Groove, in 2004. In The Groove was an American knock-off from Dance Dance Revolution, plain and simple. It was developed using the free open-source software program called StepMania, which was itself a sort of emulator for Dance Dance Revolution. By acquiring licensing deals with largely underground and/or European techno artists as well as a small cadre of in-house musicians, RoXoR released In The Groove to arcades. The biggest thing that separated In The Groove from DDR was the content: DDR mostly used J-Pop and mainstream artists and its level of difficulty, even on the hardest mode, was somewhat lacking after a little mastery. In The Groove catered to more American tastes by using more rave and dance music and absolutely nothing mainstream, and it pandered to every audience by including difficulties for both beginners and intense, competitive experts. It was a knock-off, but it was crafted with care by enthusiasts of Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution, and it really showed. On June 18th, 2005, RoXoR released a sequel, simply titled In The Groove 2. So, wait… you’re playing StepMania? Not at all. Well, yes, if you want to be pedantic about it. But no, I’m playing the real deal: an actual, legitimate In The Groove 2 arcade machine. With a real cabinet, and real metal pads. The computer part of the arcade machine is just a literal computer, using standard, generic parts. The monitor connects to the computer via VGA, so it’s possible to split that signal to a computer or laptop and record directly off the game that way. But, to further satisfy the ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ clause, I’ll have a camera pointed at my feet to show that I’m really moving my feet as quickly as the game implies. I’ll be playing every song in both In The Groove and In The Groove 2 (although I intend to focus more on ITG1 at the beginning) on the hardest difficulty, in both Singles and Doubles. I’ll generally just play on whichever order I feel like, but I’m open to requests. What is the goal of this LP? There are three:
I like StepMania too! Can I participate? Can you put the “let’s” in “let us play”? You absolutely can! In The Groove comes with a feature that lets any player play a custom-made stepfile for any of the songs included in their playlists. If you’d like me to play a chart you made for any ITG1 (or, later, any ITG2) song, you can download the song of your choosing here (scroll to the bottom and choose In The Groove or In The Groove 2 under the Pack Singles category) and edit the stepfile as you like (you cannot adjust the BPM or add/remove stops, just so you know, or else the edited chart will desync from the game). You don’t need anything special other than a free-to-download copy of StepMania and the song you’re editing. In The Groove runs on StepMania 3.95, which was never an “official” release. It’s considered far buggier than the two releases around it, 3.9 and 4.0, but it uses some features that 3.9 doesn’t have and it retains some compatibility that was lost with 4.0. I know StepMania is all the way up to 5.0 now, but if possible, please write your charts in StepMania 3.9 or in 3.95. Once you’ve made your chart, upload it to any file-sharing web service and I’ll handle it from there. What custom content a player can play goes far, far deeper than just some edited charts to pre-existing songs, however… but we’ll burn that bridge when we cross it. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves! Are you willing to freestyle? No. The purpose of this LP is to show off my skill at playing the game, and the game gets way too demanding at the higher tiers to risk throwing in some unnecessary moves. The game even says that “extreme motions can be dangerous” at the start of every session. Some of the songs are nonetheless boringly easy even on their hardest difficulty. I still don’t want to freestyle, so what I’ll do instead is cram those songs full of modifiers to give myself an extra bit of challenge. Update list: Video: Attract Screen, in-game beginner tutorial Video: Advanced Tutorial 1: Colours, Motions, and Reading Video: Gameplay 1: (Singles) DJ Party, Flying High, Remember December, Hardcore of the North Post: Artist spotlight: BB Hayes, Filo Bedo, Mind Reflection, Digital Explosion Video: Gameplay 2: (Doubles) Land of the Rising Sun, Torn, Euphoria, Kagami Post: Artist spotlight: Spacekats, Natalie Browne Video: Gameplay 3: (Singles) Boogie Down, I Think I Like That Sound, Da Roots (Folk Mix), My Favourite Game Post: Artist spotlight: Inurvise, Kid Whatever Video: Gameplay 4: (Doubles) The Game, No 1 Nation, ROM-eo & Juli8, Hip Hop Jam Video: Advanced Tutorial 2: Crossovers/Candlesteps, Hands/Bracketing, and Why Hip Hop Jam DX is So Difficult Post: Artist spotlight: Crispy, Anet, Nina, Indiggo Video: Gameplay 5: (Singles) While Tha Rekkid Spinz, Kiss Me Red, Driving Force Classical, Charlene Post: Artist spotlight: DJ Zombie, Missing Heart Video: Gameplay 6: (Doubles) Tough Enough, On a Day Like Today, Mouth, Hand of Time Post: Artist spotlight: Vanilla Ninja, Obsession, Rochelle, Reflection Theory Video: Gameplay 7: (Singles) Anubis, Disconnected, Oasis, Euphoria Post: Artist spotlight: Kyle Ward Video: Gameplay 8: (Doubles) Let My Love Go Blind, Hybrid, Lemmings on the Run, Bend Your Mind Video: Gameplay 9: (Singles) Fly Away, Solina, Turn It On, The Beginning Post: Artist spotlight: Machinae Supremacy, E-Rotic, Evolution, GeorgetowN, DJ Doo Video: Gameplay 10: (Doubles) Disconnected -Mobius-, Don't Promise Me, Mellow, Perfect Post: Artist spotlight: Sammi Morelli Video: Gameplay 11: (Singles) Why Me, Zodiac, PA Theme, Infection Post: Artist Spotlight: Desire, MC Frontalot Thanks to my friend Olive Branch for ripping (most of) the artist logos for the artist spotlights. Songlist: (click the left half of a song’s banner for Singles, and the right half for Doubles) (ITG1)             -banner.png) -banner2.png)                                                                                                    
Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Jun 3, 2014 06:09
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Artist spotlight: William Hayes originally began mixing his own music way back in 1985. His first regular gig was working at a male strip club in San Jose on Wednesdays and Fridays; they paid him in "exposure" enough for him to get noticed by a local radio station, and from there his career in mixing music absolutely took off. If you live in the San Francisco area, I'm told you can still catch some of his music today, on stations Alice Content 97.3, House Nation 94.9, and Thump Radio. But his career didn't truly reach its pinnacle until one day he happened to be filling in a gig for another DJ. While at this other gig, he ran into none other than Rob Schneider (the one and the same) - who, you may not have known, owns (or, at least, owned) a club in San Fran called the DNA Lounge. He liked Hayes' music so much that he offered him a permanent job there. He's since done private gigs for other big names, such as Prince and Robin Williams. It looks as though Hayes has calmed down a bit since then. I can't find many recent tracks by him, but he has a Facebook account that he keeps moderately up-to-date (he even posted a picture of him playing his own song on In The Groove recently), so it looks as though he's still keeping busy. Fun Fact: DJ Party was his first full original vocal track, released in 2001. Sources/Links: http://thedjlist.com/djs/BB_HAYES/bio/ - Biography. I'm not certain how up-to-date it is, though. http://www.reverbnation.com/bbhayes - You can find a small handful of his original mixes for free here, including DJ Party. https://myspace.com/bbhayes - His Myspace. It's pretty barren but it has a song there Reverbnation doesn't. https://www.facebook.com/pages/BB-Hayes/218844151463366 - His 'BB Hayes' Facebook account.  Filo Bedo is a UK techno group comprised of Daz Sampson, Ricardo Autobahn, and Jenny McLaren. If I understand my Internet correctly, Daz Sampson actually wanted to be a professional football player before he wanted to be a DJ, but a crippling injury at 17 years old stopped that dream before it began. Daz Sampson, or DJ Daz, is a member of various other formations when he's not working by himself, including Bus Stop, Rikki & Daz, Barndance Boys, and Uniting Nations. If the name "Bus Stop" sounds familiar, it's probably because they did Kung Fu Fighting. Daz has written, or been a part of, several other songs that made it into past iterations of Dance Dance Revolution. Ricardo Autobahn (real name John Matthews) was Rikki in the Rikki & Daz group, and he co-founded Barndance Boys. He was members of the bands Spray and the Cuban Boys - the Cuban Boys finding wild success in their song "Cognoscenti vs. Intelligentsia", which you would probably better recognize as "The Hamster Dance Song." Matthew's still producing and remixing music today - just last year he came out with his second Ricardo Autobahn record Rasterscan. In 2009, he made a Youtube-only single called "The Golden Age of Video", which was some western audience's first exposure to him, or at least, he was for me. Jenny McLaren is the other member of Matthew's band Spray. Far as I can tell, she doesn't produce any music herself, but she's done lots of vocals for Sampson and Matthew. Spray, according to its website, "predicted the current electropop boom, but unfortunately much too early to cash in." For reference, the song Flying High by Filo Bedo was released in 2003. Fun Facts: The vinyl release of Filo Bedo's Flying High was misspelled as "Fliying High" on the record's sleeve. Sources/Links: http://www.dazsampson.co.uk/ - Daz Sampson's personal website. I got a 'this website is not safe' warning when I tried to visit it, so exercise caution. http://www.ricardoautobahn.co.uk/ - Ricardo Autobahn's personal website. https://myspace.com/jennymclaren - Jenny McLaren's personal Myspace. https://myspace.com/filobedouk - Filo Bedo's Myspace. Contains two other songs for free listening. http://spray.get-ctrl.com/ - Spray's website. http://www.thecubanboys.co.uk/ - Cuban Boy's website. http://www.discogs.com/Filo-Bedo-Fliying-High/release/1278336 - The sleeve for Flying High.  Mind Reflection is a Swiss electronica music group that formed in 1994. Unfortunately, there isn't a ton of information on them on the internet... the only information I could find was on Wikipedia, telling me they released one album in 1998 called This World, which contains the song featured in the video, "Remember December." They started their own company, called "Audio Trade Laudan & Co.", so they could distribute their album how they wanted to. A search on iTunes, however, reveals that they've released several other albums as well, titled Your Way and A Few Dollars More, with a single titled In The Night. Their music is still available on the internet for purchase, and in some places for free, but if you're looking for a history lesson, I'm afraid I'm not of much use. Sources/Links: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=104346 - Aside from iTunes, this is the only known available source of Mind Reflection's music. https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/mind-reflection/id338211325 - The music available in iTunes.  Digital Explosion was a Finnish techno band that was highly popular on MP3.com, back when that meant something, I'm sure. The "group" was founded by two brothers, inspired by the works of Kraftwerk, Human League and Depeche Mode. Their first tracks were recorded one synth and with a double deck tape recorder. They were pretty basic, but they had since expanded their gear and their reportoire until they were one of MP3.com's most valued artists. As of this writing, their main website is out of commission, but it was working when I had visited it maybe half a year ago. They had never truly vanished from the scene, they had simply "taken a break", according to them. They celebrated their supposed return by re-releasing their tracks onto iTunes in 2012. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find them there anymore, even if I change my country to Finland. Which is a drat shame; I liked their music enough to snag a handful while I could. EDIT: sulovilen posted:I found some of their tracks (for free!) in http://www.mikseri.net/artists/digitalexplosion.51764.php. Mikseri.net is like the Finnish electronic music equivalent of Soundcloud (actually it was founded in 2001, so maybe vice versa). I think that the website is not country restricted. This is a great find! Thanks, sulovilen! Sources/Links: http://www.digitalexplosion.fi/ - Their homepage, which was alive and well as late as 2012, but is apparently completely gone now. http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=129084 - They have a Soundclick account that looks like it hasn't been updated in a decade. It contains two songs and a short interview done by the brothers. http://www.mikseri.net/artists/digitalexplosion.51764.php - Forums user silovilen did my job better than me and found a Finnish Soundcloud-like website that has a handful of Digital Explosion songs for free. Thanks, sulovilen! Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jun 7, 2014 |
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Jun 3, 2014 06:10
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Olive Branch posted:Let's hope this LP of the game lasts longer than one or two updates! Usually I kept to something of a schedule with my other LPs, but this time I'm going to try and be a little more casual about it. Once a week is the goal, maybe more, maybe less. That said, I already have a pretty substantial backlog of videos to work with, so if I disappear, it'll probably be for some other reason.
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Jun 4, 2014 20:51
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Fusbolito McGiggola posted:1) I can't see your upper body in the video, but I'm assuming based on the body position that you bar hump (I don't like this term, but I can't think of a suitable alternative that isn't worse). Horrible lexical connotations aside, what do you think of the practice? I use the bar, yeah. I honestly don't see what the big deal is about using the bar or not. I mean, it's there, why not just play the game how you like? That said, some charts in ITG are so intensely difficult that I'd have a huge amount of trouble trying to beat them without it. I like to go barless for some easier charts but there's no way I'm beating Hardcore of the North without it. quote:2) What's your feeling on the recent Konami releases? Assuming you've kept up-to-date, have they done enough to actually innovate in terms of stepcharts or is it still the same stuff it used to be? I haven't kept up with DDR, so I have no real knowledge of this on my own, just curious to ask someone who's obviously very good, as it used to be a real issue. I played a bit of the X series, and it felt like Konami just... forgot, or, like, didn't know how to make a decent chart that was also hard. Arrows would go to nothing and have patterns that didn't make sense; they were hard for the sake of being hard. I played DDR 2013, though, and that felt really well polished, especially coming from X. They don't really try to push the envelope with new ideas, but they take old ideas and refine them, I think. quote:3) What do you think of the copyright/IP issue between the two companies, and, more broadly, about open-source or alternative versions of popular games using identical formats, e.g. Lunatic Rave, Stepmania, OSU!, etc.? God, that was almost a decade ago. I've practically forgotten how I feel about it. I guess, at this point, my opinion is that it's over with and the dust has long since settled; no use dwelling on it. We're not going to get any more In The Grooves, but ITG2 was an absolutely amazing game and I'm really glad we got to see it at all. As for open-source emulation, I never really thought about it. They keep happening and nobody's shutting them down, so I guess there's nothing to worry about. If you want to play some custom songs in DDR or Osu, you can have your cake and eat it, too. quote:Good luck on the LP otherwise, and good luck on Vertex and Vertex^2 Those are stupid charts. Vertex is just a big ole' softy when you take the time to learn it. Vertex2 is going to be a bitch, though.
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Jun 4, 2014 22:51
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Aishlinn posted:Playing barefoot, you madman. If i ever tried to do that on a metal pad, I'd lose a toe. I wanted to put off custom songs until I got started on ITG2's songlist, which wouldn't be for a while. But yeah, I'd love to play some custom junk when I'm ready for them! Like I said in the OP, if you want to make edits to any ITG1 songs, I can do those sooner.
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Jun 5, 2014 04:12
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BlackFrost posted:I'm jealous that you have your own, that's pretty rad. How much does an entire arcade machine cost you? Mine ran me $1380 CAD. Plus I had to rent a U-Haul, make a two hour drive both ways, pay for its gas... it rounded out to roughly $2k. And even then it's costing me a small chunk of change for the upkeep - it's a very picky game when it comes to parts. I've gotten a lot of flak for spending that much money on an arcade machine, but I love this game so much that it was honestly a dream of mine to own it, and I don't regret the purchase at all. For comparison, when the game came out in 2005, dedicated cabinets (or "dedicabs") cost $10k USD before shipping. Dedicabs are also very rare today and on the off chance you find one on eBay, they sell for ~$2k. Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Jun 5, 2014 |
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Jun 5, 2014 07:30
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Mazo Panku posted:And I suppose I'll just re-fit whatever the gently caress I said two minutes ago into a question for both you and the remainder of the thread: did you have a proper dance game community in your neck of the woods? If so, what was it like? (I refuse to say 'is' because I refuse to believe such communities still exist) I think we might have, actually. I remember attending a tournament long, long ago, where there was maybe a dozen of us. I came in first place by a hair; the grand prize was an apple pie. I shared it with the guy that lost to me. I wasn't a part of Facebook or anything at the time, so I didn't keep in touch with any of them. Then, my arcade distributor moved all the machines to other provinces, so that was the end of that... until I bought one of them off the company.
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Jun 5, 2014 09:05
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Can Of Worms posted:I'm excited to see the future doubles video, there are a lot of excellent charts, and watching people use both pads is always fun to watch. I'm guessing the chart you never passed was Disconnected Disco? Vertex² doubles. Disconnected Disco is peanuts in comparison.
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Jun 7, 2014 04:33
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sulovilen posted:I found some of their tracks (for free!) in http://www.mikseri.net/artists/digitalexplosion.51764.php. Mikseri.net is like the Finnish electronic music equivalent of Soundcloud (actually it was founded in 2001, so maybe vice versa). I think that the website is not country restricted. This is a great find and I'm putting it into the links for DE. Thanks, sulovilen!
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Jun 7, 2014 16:23
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HenryEx posted:Are you going to play WinDEU Hates You? Not for a while, but yes. I was going to do insomnia instead but DJ Alligator trips Youtube's copyright thing.
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Jun 7, 2014 17:37
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 Doubles: Land of the Rising Sun, Torn, Euphoria, KagamiArtist Spotlight:  See: Daz Sampson  Natalie Browne is actually a project name, not a person, owned by Almighty Records, which is a dance label based in London. The most popular person to record as Browne is a woman named Julitette Jaimes, who already had experience with lots of Hi-NRG covers of non-dance songs and 1980s classics. 'Natalie' has done lots of gigs within the UK, mainly within the gay scene. Her first single was in 1996 and was a cover of Celine Dion's It's All Coming Back To Me Now. Browne's first appearance in the west caused some confusion because people thought the single of her version of the song Torn was by Natalie Imbruglia, who was popular at the time. Imbruglia's version was never released as a single. Natalie Browne only ever released singles, except for a single album, containing all her singles and some remixes, called Justified: The Best of Natalie Browne. It was released in 2005. Her most recent tracks are Once and That Sounds Good To Me, both released in 2010. Sources/Links: http://www.almightyrecords.com/ - Almighty Record's homepage. http://www.discogs.com/artist/80796-Natalie-Browne - Natalie Browne's discography.   I'm actually going to talk about this guy some other time. He's really integral to almost everything involved in ITG, and I intend to talk about him in deeper detail later. Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 14:34
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Glazius posted:So how does competitive ITG work? Everybody does the same song, or is it more diving-style where it's a combination of difficulty and performance? You just choose 2 Player mode. You both agree on a song; you both choose the same difficulty (generally it's whatever the hardest difficulty available is, but there are some exceptions); you both choose your modifiers; and then whoever has the higher score at the end is the winner. Best two out of three per match. Aside from that one local tournament, which was best of 1 and the song choice was essentially a coin flip, I've never actually gone to a tournament, so I'm not especially well versed in how they go. Doubles tournaments are a thing too, but since two players can't play at the same time, they just take turns. Obviously that's going to take a little longer than singles.
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Jun 17, 2014 17:03
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Singles: Boogie Down, I Think I Like That Sound, Da Roots (Folk Mix), My Favourite Game Artist spotlight:  I can't find a single thing about Inurvise. No websites; no discographies; no additional music. Whenever I do a search for Inurvise, I'm always led back to In The Groove, or some ITG-related article (when Google doesn't ask me if I mean the word "universe"). The only discography of Inurvise I found listed Boogie Down as part of In The Groove's songlist. Which leads me to believe that either Inurvise is an in-house musician for RoXoR (which is highly unlikely), or he/she was so underground that they only released one or two tracks on some obscure website, which later failed. Or maybe they're a friend of one of the developers for ITG? This happened once before, when I did another search for a different ITG musician, so expect my bewilderment at least a second time in the near future.  On the other end of the spectrum, there is no shortage of info on this guy. Real name Pete Ellison, based in Portland. He has a very carefree attitude when it comes to music and applies anything to anything, experimenting a lot with different genres and methods to create unique, identifiable tunes. He notably doesn't use big, specialized, expensive equipment, and prefers to use his standardized home PC for his music. Other than that, he refuses to talk about his production methods. Despite his experimental nature, he does nonetheless have a number of pseudonyms for his more preferred styles, each of them having full albums and numerous singles, but only one is more prolific than Kid Whatever. One of them, called Diskowarp, had a very strong showing recently, lasting all the way from 2005 before retiring in 2013. Diskowarp was mostly all about remixes of popular songs, many of them involved in later rhythm games like Andamiro's Pump It Up, but Diskowarp was more than just one name: it was more of an umbrella, using more names like Kick+Punch and Fright Ranger. I haven't found why Ellison retired Diskowarp recently, however. Kid Whatever's most recent activity was an EP called Earn While You Learn, released in 2011. Links/Sources http://www.discogs.com/artist/19890-Kid-Whatever - Kid Whatever's Discography http://www.last.fm/music/kid+whatever - Kid Whatever's last.fm account. Aside from one song, every song there is from ITG. I was never a fan of last.fm. https://soundcloud.com/kid-whatever - Kid Whatever's soundcloud, updated as late as 2012. https://soundcloud.com/diskowarp - Diskowarp's soundcloud; much larger and with far more content than Kid Whatever's. http://kidwhatever.bandcamp.com/ - I believe this album, Radical Ninja, is Kid Whatever's most recent album. In it is a song called Go *60* Go, which was featured in ITG2 in 2005, and was not released until five years later. Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Jun 23, 2014 |
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Jun 23, 2014 00:31
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I have never once played a 5 panel game and I am very jealous of everyone that has. The chances of finding one near me are slim to none, especially now that arcades are as "vintage" as they are today. No doubt I'd be terrible at them, but I hope I'll get the chance someday.
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Jul 3, 2014 01:44
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Doubles: The Game, No 1 Nation, ROM-eo & Juli8, Hip Hop Jam Advanced Tutorial 2: Crossovers/Candlesteps, Hands/Bracketing, and Why Hip Hop Jam DX is So Difficult. Artist Spotlight:  Copied and pasted from Wikipedia: "Crispy was a Danish bubblegum group consisting of Mads B.B. Krog, Christian Møller and lead vocalist Mette Christensen. Mette passed away in 2000, and was replaced with vocalist Gry Bay. The project was renamed, and it was called XPY. The group officially disbanded in 2001." They produced only one album, called The Game, when they first formed way back in the sepia-toned times of 1997. They were a pretty upbeat yet perhaps childish group, making songs about beaches and dinosaurs and videogames. Their best-known singles are called Licky Licky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cURnpjT4Z-M) and another single in 1999 called In & Out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaLXyAS_wt0). They reproduced their album for some other languages, and the Japanese version even had a pair of otherwide unreleased songs called Bad Girls and Happy King. They had plans to release a second album, and in fact they had half of the thing finished and ready to go, but Mette's loss against cancer caused them to scrap the whole thing. Demos of songs for their unreleased second album were recorded, but to this day remain unreleased and likely never will be. Sources/Links: http://www.bubblegumdancer.com/project.php?id=1 - I'm not certain if this is their actual homepage, or a detailed fanpage, but most of their biography can be found here, including the names of the demos for their rumoured second album. http://www.discogs.com/artist/36425-Crispy - Their discography. Note that this includes songs by XPY. http://grooveshark.com/#!/search/song?q=xpy - You can listen to a handle of XPY's songs on this website.  This was the other artist, besides Inurvise, that gave me so much trouble last time I searched for her. But apparently I just wasn't trying hard enough. Full name Annette Ducharme. Born in Windsor, Ontario, one of thirteen(!!) children, and left home at an early age towards the Canadian west coast, attracted to the seas and mountains. She saw some success as a performer, but is best known as a songwriter for other performers, including acts like Tom Cochrane. Her song Nicotine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFOk19BLRH8), written in her first album Talented Girl, was used in a handful of television shows and movies, including the Oscar-nominateed film "Thirteen" at the Sundance Film Festival. She's even done some live shows in Africa. Anet has two songs in In The Groove, and interestingly enough, No 1 Nation doesn't pop up in any discography, but Normal shows up in her album Tortured. More than that, In The Groove had a release on the PS2 and the PC - the PS2 version had both of the songs in it, but the PC version did not. I don't want to assume anything, but my best guess would be that RoXoR's contract with Anet's label expired before the PC version released. Sources/Links: http://www.anetmusic.com/main.php - Her homepage. It has one of those front-door pages with a flash player that plays music automatically, but this link should take you past that. It contains everything about her, from biographies to discographies and pictures of her live events. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/annette-ducharme-mn0000488569 - More information and a second biography.  Nina Anderson makes it a little difficult to search for her due to her common name. She's also pretty elusive - the best I could find was a Soundclick profile that had quite possibly all of her tracks, available for free to listen and download. Written there is a biography that says: "Nina makes dance music for the happy dance crowds of the world. Enticing melodies and cool grooves unite in her unique neo-synthpop dance techno music." And then a link leading to the page you're already on. Luckily enough, it turns out that archive.org actually has a bit of a page on her, but all it really says is that she learned to play the piano at ten years old; she took piano classes for thirteen; and her husband was her producer. She enjoyed some pretty stellar success at mp3.com, but, like Digital Explosion, she floundered once that site lost its lustre and was never able (or didn't make the effort) to return to her glory. Sources/Links: http://www.ninagoddess.com/ - her Soundlick profile. https://archive.org/details/iuma-nina__goddess_of_dance - Internet Archive to the rescue! In it is a single song of hers that is not on Soundlick.  Indiggo consists of Romanian-American twin sisters Gabriela and Mihaela Modorcea. They're professional actresses, reality television show personalities, writers, and composers. Mihaela is older than Gabriela by five minutes. As a duo, they've been active since 2000, and are in fact still in the game: they (including their mother and father) became American citizens in October 2013, and they performed The Star-Spangled Banner at their own ceremony. They released a single called La La La (http://youtu.be/a7Wb43kjAZ8) in December 2011, which is notable because it was sampled in Jay-Z and Kanye West's 2011 album Watch The Throne. In 2008, they qualified for the top 40 semifinals on season 3 of America's Got Talent. They got booed on the stage, and judge Piers Morgan called them "the worst dancers and worst singers in the entire competition," and the New York Times called them "[the competition's] punching bag." Tough crowd! Gabreila acted in the movie National Lampoon's Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj (2006), as "Taj's sister"; she also appeared in the episode "Hothouse" of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit". Mihaela published the volume of poetry called, after translation, "Rage and Love", which was translated by her sister. They are currently in production for their Broadway musical "Wicked Clone", based on Mihaela's to-be-released "magic realism" novel of the same name. The musical is written, composed, choreographed and performed by the twins. The first version of the play was presented in June 2012 at Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City. Look, there's a shitload of information on these gals, and I could probably fill this post twice over with nothing but them. They're a talented, dedicated pair, and if you're interested in learning about them, here are some links: Sources/Links: http://www.indiggotwins.com/ - their official website. Plays music automatically, so turn down your speakers. https://myspace.com/twinsindiggo - their Myspace. https://www.facebook.com/TwinsIndiggo - They have a Facebook too! https://twitter.com/IndiggoTwins - Whoa, hit 'em up on Twitter! http://www.discogs.com/artist/1301606-Indiggo - Some of their discographies, but I'm pretty sure this list is incomplete. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiggo - Have a Wikipedia article, I heard that's a reputable source.
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Jul 8, 2014 11:16
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Singles: While Tha Rekkid Spinz, Kiss Me Red, Driving Force Classical, Charlene Artist Spotlight:  See: Kid Whatever  Missing Heart is a much older group than I could have realized: it began with a vocalist named Lyane Leigh all the way back in 1994. Missing Heart would be 20 years old this year, except they disbanded in 2002. They sound American or maybe British, but they're actually German. They debuted with the single Wild Angels but they only started getting attention with their 1996 single Charlene. Their face of the group (and I think she's the same woman in the background image for Charlene) is Miss Manu - on top of the group being German, she was actually born in Hong Kong. Despite being part of Missing Heart's image, she was never actually a singer. The project name "Missing Heart" was inspired by the movie Missing, starring Jack Reynolds, followed with some gobbledygook about how the word "missing" goes hand-in-hand with their album Mystery, and how the word "miss" can also mean "I miss you" in a romantic sense. Their only album released was Mystery back in 2000, and it was only released in Japan. In 2001, they released a single called Tears In May, then they did nothing until 2002 when they disbanded. You can still find Mystery on eBay if you're lucky, but it costs hundreds of dollars today. Sources/Links: http://www.eurodancehits.com/missingheart/index.html - Their official homepage, made in 2000 and last updated in 2007. It certainly looks its age. Contains their biography, discography, and some descriptions on their songs and why they're named what they're named, etc. It has a page full of samples but it requires a "realPlayer" browser player and offers .ram files instead of .mp3s or whatever. http://www.technodisco.net/missing-heart/ - This page looks kind of fishy, but their links lead to Youtube videos of Missing Heart songs, including some remixes. It's a pretty decent resource of Missing Heart stuff. Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Jul 18, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2014 08:30
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Fedule posted:Charlene was the first 11 I ever passed, and went on to be the only 11 I have ever passed or will ever, since I kinda fell out of the DDR life shortly thereafter. Was it the original Max 300 chart, or was it the X-Special? Because Max 300's X-Special is loving garbage. Nothing makes sense; it's like they wrote it by slapping at the keyboard with a pair of wet socks. Doubles: Tough Enough, On a Day Like Today, Mouth, Hand of TimeArtist Spotlight:  Vanilla Ninja originally started as a four-piece Estonian girl band that originally formed in 2002. In 2004, Maarja Kivi, their singer/songwriter, left and was replaced by Triinu Kivilaan, who in turn left the band in 2005. Vanilla Ninja continued as a three-piece band until disbanding in 2008. Their first album, self-titled Vanilla Ninja, was released in both English and Estonian. They were popular all throughout Europe, but they had considerable noteriety in their homeland Estonia. They have a brand of ice cream and "kohuke" (a type of bite-sized candy made of curd cheese) named after them specifically because of their celebrity status. They were so popular that a German video channel named VIVA, notorious for their bias for artists signed under Universal Records, played their music often despite being signed under rival distributor Sony BMG Music. The band once caught some flak for their music video for Cool Vibes because it supposedly plagiarised material from Deine Lakaien's video for their single Mindmachine. The band, however, had no say or input on the music video's production. Links/Sources: https://web.archive.org/web/20120624000641/http://vanillaninja.ee/ - Their official website is down, probably forever, but the Wayback Machine is always there to lend a hand. Everything is in Estonian, though. http://www.discogs.com/artist/564272-Vanilla-Ninja - Discography. http://www.reverbnation.com/vanillaninja - Some free music (not for download) and a bit of a biography.   Obsession and Rochelle are both associated acts of Natalie Browne and are signed under the same record label.  Reflection Theory consistes of members Chris Brickler (founder, singer, synths, and more), Jay Miller (guitars) and "Persida" (female singer). The group was founded while Brickler was moving between London and Dallas. There is very little information on Reflection Theory - I only managed to find that last paragraph by Googling Brickler's name. They came out with one album, titled Reflection Theory back in 2003 under the label Maximedia. You can still find it on iTunes if you're down for that. Sources/Links: http://www.broadjam.com/artists/bio.php?artistID=9808 - This is the only thing approaching a biography I could find. Somebody described them as being "[the] best bar in Dallas." http://www.allmusic.com/artist/reflection-theory-mn0000467765/discography - Their discography. https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/reflection-theory/id49605982 - Their stuff on iTunes. I wonder if the sales still go to Brickler.
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Jul 28, 2014 14:30
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Lets Pickle posted:These videos are pretty entertaining, especially since I've never seen most of the doubles arrows for anything, but the sound in the videos doesn't match up with the arrows hitting the top of the screen and it makes it very difficult to watch. Could you elaborate? I'm not doing anything to change the timing of the video other than converting the raws from 60 FPS to 30. Are they too late or too early? Not to pass the blame or anything, but ITG's sync in their own game isn't exactly stellar throughout the board - some of the songs in the game are just a little late or a little early themselves. The community's gone and fixed them sync themselves, but I'm using the untouched versions for my videos.
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Jul 30, 2014 19:05
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Glazius posted:Uptempo arrows are a pretty neat effect, but what was the differential in that video? Like twice as fast? More? I'm not certain what you mean? The BPM in Tough Enough and Hand of Time were doubled/halved, rather than some other integer. Technically they were unnecessary but they go with the song. Singles: Anubis, Disconnected, Oasis, EuphoriaArtist spotlight:   Kyle Andrew Ward is RoXoR's in-house musician. He has a large amount of pseudonyms he uses for all sorts of different styles and genres. Of ITG1's 74 songs, Ward has composed between 15 and 17 of them (do I not know for sure? That's actually a murky question that I'll address later). He has an Associate of Applied Arts degree (with honors) for Video Production; his music composition career was just a hobby until RoXoR found him. On top of doing so much music for the game, he's also written a massive amount of the charts for many of the songs. He was one of the project's lead designers and managers. ITG2, when it was released in 2005, was called the highest-earning arcade dance title ever produced, with hardware and software spreading the globe at record paces and earning RoXoR a gross amount of money. Konami wasn't too fond of that, and, to make a long story short, RoXoR lost the rights to the ITG name and series, and Ward was out of a job. However, RoXoR had made a relationship with the Korean-based arcade company Andamiro as a sort of fallback, and Andamiro owned the unalienable rights to Pump It Up, which is like DDR and ITG but with five arrows in a cross instead of four arrows in a square. In 2008, Ward left Andamiro to work with a Swedish-based company Positive Gaming to make their "innovative exergame product" iDance 2. iDance was unique in that it could connect up to 32 players simultaneously on wireless dance platforms. It was basically DDR but it exploited some loophole in the ITG case so Konami couldn't touch them (specifically, instead of four target arrows at the top of the gameplay screen, there was just a line. That's it, that was the clincher in the 2005 lawsuit.). iDance 2 was targeted towards schools, gyms, and fitness centers; it was sort of an exclusive game and because of that, there's no competitive scene for it. Ward recently started a company called Step Evolution LLC specifically to make an iOS, Android, and Arcade game called ReRave. It's basically Osu!/Elite Beat Agents (but don't say that to him, he'll get mad) but different enough and using more of the music he made in 2005. Other than his duet thing with his longtime friend John Mendenhall, Oscillator X, I don't think he actually still produces music. I haven't heard any new music from him in a while. Links/Sources: http://www.kyleaward.com/ - His homepage. Includes a blog, portfolio, biography, testimonials, and like six songs. According to this blog, the last song he publically released is four years old. https://www.facebook.com/kyleaward - His Facebook. Fella doesn't shut up so if you say hi, he'll probably respond. http://www.cduniverse.com/sresult.asp?HT_Search=XARTIST&HT_Search_Info=Kaw - Some, uh, discographies? I know Urban Comatose and Synthsations are his, but I've never heard of the singles Stacked or P3 before now, and they don't really sound like him. http://www.oscillatorx.com/ - Oscillator X's homepage. Their most recent song, Every Moment, is a year old.
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Aug 8, 2014 03:37
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They force the BPM to be whatever the number is, regardless of actual changes or stops. For instance, in Euphoria, the arrows wouldn't slow down halfway through, and would continue at their 300/450 speed. Using these mods on any song that has BPM changes or stops invalidates your score, though, so they're not the most useful or popular.
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Aug 8, 2014 17:53
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To make up for the lack of updates last week, here are two of them at once:Doubles: Let My Love Go Blind, Hybrid, Lemmings on the Run, Bend Your Mind Singles: Fly Away, Solina, Turn It On, The Beginning Artist spotlight:  Try imagining a band that uses heavy metal, alternative rock, and chiptunes. Does that sound like a winning combination to you? It did to Swedish musicians Robert Stjärnström, Jonas Rörling, and Kahl Hellmer. Machinae Supremacy (pronounced "machine") was formed in 2000. They've labelled their unique sound as "SID metal", because it uses the SID chip of the Commodore 64 for their chiptunes. Their first commercial album was called Dues Ex Machinae, released in 2004. The band is currently signed to Spinefarm Records. Their other albums include Redeemer in 2006; Overworld in 2008; A View from the End of the World in 2010; and Rise of a Digital Nation in 2012. They released their latest album (digitally), Phantom Shadow, just four days from this writing, on August 22nd, 2014. On top of their own albums, they also did the official soundtrack for at least two games: a 2D shoot-em-up for the PC called Jets'n'Guns, and a platformer for all modern platforms called Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams. They wanted to do the OST for a Kickstarter game called For My Brother, but it unfortunately did not make its minimum goal. They've done a number of promotional singles, including a SID metal version of Melanie C's I Turn To You and Britney Spears' Gimme More. Stjärnström has a very... liberal stance when it comes to piracy and distribution of his own work. In an interview with The Gaming Vault, it was noted that Machinae Supremacy sided with world-renowned torrent site The Pirate Bay when they started to have legal troubles, and that it was odd that a musician would choose to stand by the very people that, according to some, are robbing them:
This stance got them into some trouble with their own publisher when they themselves uploaded a torrent of a 720p recording of their live performance at Assembly 2011. You can watch the video here. There's also a video of Stjärnström explaining his stance elsewhere on Youtube, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. Links/Sources: http://www.machinaesupremacy.com/ - Their official site. Includes a biography and free downloads for most of their webography and the entirety of their first album, Dues Ex Machinae. It also includes playlists of every other album, available if you have Spotify. http://forum.machinaesupremacy.com/ - Their forums, if you're down for that. https://www.facebook.com/machinaesupremacy - They have a Facebook page that they update pretty frequently.  E-Rotic is an associated act of Missing Heart. They were a German Eurodance project that went from the forgotten sepia-toned times of 1994 until 2003. Their music was largely considered a drop in the bucket at the time, except, as their name implies, E-Rotic used a ton of sexual topics and innuendo in their songs. For crying out loud, one of their songs was called Max Don't Have Sex with Your Ex. Sound advice, though. The group went through female singers and male rappers like they were money, including four singers and four rappers. The only one to survive all nine years was David Brandes, the group's producer. E-Rotic was his brainchild, and he was actually the group's original studio rapper, though he never performed on stage. E-Rotic was featured several times in Dance Dance Revolution. Links/Sources: http://www.sexualmadness.de/ - Their official website, miraculously still alive and online. Includes a biography and a discography, but everything is in German. It's NSFW and their opening page actually includes a cartoon picture of eight women having a fun time with an octopus. (Click bait if you've ever seen it, eh?) http://forum.sexualmadness.de/ - Their official forum. It requires an account to view anything, but assuming that it's not overrun with bots by now, the last man-made post there was made June 13th, 2014. Their newest member registered in 2011. http://www.eurokdj.com/search/eurodb.php?name=E-Rotic - A Eurodance Wiki entry on E-Rotic, including an English biography and discography.  Barry Jamieson worked for two decades in the UK as a sound engineer and music producer, racking up several Top 40s hits and at least one Grammy nomination. He and his buddy Jon Sutton formed Evolution and they tried to be one of the forerunners to the dance sensations that were, at the time, sweeping the nations with their own brand of digital sounds. More recently, he's done work cowriting music for the CSI television series, and Evolution even did the score for an entire episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation called "4 x 4". If I understand his biography correctly, he also did the trailer music for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. He's been a part of maybe a dozen other groups, including Apparition, Coma Pirates, Rapscallions, and more. There is no information that I can find on Jon Sutton. In fact, most searches for Evolution came up blank; only one website got back to me on Jamieson. It seems they've been out of the limelight for some time now. Sources/Links: http://www.discogs.com/artist/5402-Evolution - Their discography, and... http://www.discogs.com/artist/200324-Barry-Jamieson - Jamieson's biography. There was very little else I could find about Evolution; not so much as a Wikipedia article.  Like Evolution, and some other underground artists so far, there is very little about GeorgetowN on the internet. It's frustrating to even search for this guy at all: Google keeps thinking I mean Georgetown University, and which past American presidents attended it. The only match I found for GeorgetowN is this discography. I'm tempted to believe that it's really the same artist featured in ITG because all references to this page refer to GeorgetowN with the capitalized N. ITG graphic artists tend to use official logos if they're available, and GeorgetowN uses the capitalized N logo on their second album, Echo Park. None of their three albums (their latest one released in 2011) include the song Turn It On.  Like GeorgetowN, and some other underground artists so far, there is very little about DJ Doo on the internet. It's frustrating to even search for this guy at all: Google keeps thinking I mean someone else. Apparently "DJ Scooby Doo" is a thing and he's released two whole albums. The only match I found for a "DJ Doo" was this guy: some sort of French rapper suffering from rampant narcisism. This "website" doesn't have anything of a discography, and everything is in French. I sort of doubt this is the same DJ Doo, though, because DJ Doo has another song in ITG called Do U Love Me, which is all in English and uses a female vocalist.
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Aug 27, 2014 07:35
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Doubles: Disconnected -Mobius-, Don't Promise Me, Mellow, Perfect Artist spotlight:  Born in Vancouver, BC. Like the Indiggo sisters, Sammi got into a lot of creative arts at a young age, including singing, dancing, musical theatre, jazz, and classical. Her desire to get into more and different genres led her to pop, rock, and blues. At 13, she completed her first album, called "Unlimited", and at 16, a 5-song EP. When she was 20, she joined a local band to form "The New Colors", recording another 5 songs for another EP. She's done live performances for MTV Live; an opening spot for Black Eyed Peas in Vancouver; and several others. She landed a spot on Canada's most popular Top 40 stations, Virgin 953, just as she became a certified professional swing announcer. She's been hard at work on a second album since then, with a rough release date of Summer 2014. Morelli performed in a short, 12-minute film called Kayla in early 2014 as "Sarah". Links/Sources: http://sammimorellimusic.com/ - Her official site, which contains four songs for free, and... https://twitter.com/sammimorelli - her Twitter, and... https://www.facebook.com/sammileemorelli - her Facebook, and... https://www.youtube.com/user/SammiMorelli - her Youtube. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/sammi-morelli-mn0002103092/discography - I had some trouble finding any discography of hers; this was the best I could do, which isn't good enough because the song Perfect must have been made in or before 2005 (because that's when ITG came out). Although, at least one other website suggested that Perfect was a collaboration between Morelli and DJ Doo, which might explain its absence.
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Sep 9, 2014 08:19
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Singles: Why Me, Zodiac, PA Theme, Infection Artist Spotlight:  It's near impossible to find any decent information on Desire. An electronic music band called Desire formed in 2009 based in Montreal and Portland, but it's not the same band because the timing is off by at least four years. The fact that their name is a plain English word helps nothing. That said! Desire was comprised of David Brandes, John O'Flynn, "D. Labarile", and Thea Austin as the face/singer/lyracist. They came into the world with the single "When I Lose Control" on August 2nd, 1997. It reached #20 in the local sales chart in Finland. They came out with a CD full of remixes for their single the following April. Why Me came out as another single in December, 2003. Thea Austin is still producing music and writing lyrics to this day. Sources/Links: http://www.eurokdj.com/search/eurodb.php?name=Desire - This told me who the band members were for Desire, which got me rolling. It's very bare bones and the page is pretty messy. http://swedishcharts.com/showperson.asp?name=Thea+Austin&order=title - Austin's record, in Sweden anyway. Includes songs from all the way back in 1991, to more modern songs from 2014. http://razzledazzledallas.net/index.php/entertainment/thea-austin/ - Austin's biography. http://www.discogs.com/artist/58616-Desire - Desire's discography.  Actual name Damian Hess. MC Frontalot is the self-proclaimed "world's 579th best rapper". He's best known for performing annually at Penny Arcade Expo (up until 2013). He's been active from 1999 to today. Not bad for a forty year old. He was first noticed in something called Song Fight!, which was an online songwriting and recording competition. He entered as MC Frontalot seven times, and he won every single time, usually in a landslide, beating the runners up by over 600 votes. Many of his fans consider him to be the father of "nerdcore", although he attributes that to several other artists. He came out with his first studio-produced album in 2005, called "Nerdcore Rising", which featured six unique songs and ten remixes of his Song Fight! tracks. He was mostly an underground artist until Penny Arcade creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik named him their favourite rapper and directed fans to his website. In response, he recorded the song "Penny Arcade Theme", mostly in an effort to cash in on his newfound popularity and PA's massive fanbase. He's been king of the geeks ever since. Nerdcore Rising was made into a documentary film in 2013. Sources/Links: http://frontalot.com/index.php/ - His homepage. Keeps it pretty up to date, especially considering he came out with a new album earlier this year. Has everything from free music to music videos to images and info on his upcoming live appearance. Has a FAQ instead of a biography, where, among other things, he lists his favourite webcomics. https://www.facebook.com/frontalot - His Facebook, and... https://twitter.com/mc_frontalot - his Twitter. http://www.discogs.com/artist/372033-MC-Frontalot - His discography. It doesn't include the album "Question Bedtime", released August 26th, 2014. The song "Much Chubbier" from his latest album is available for free on his website.
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Sep 24, 2014 04:36
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Beats me, but if I had to guess, it'd be Kyle Ward. I've seen him openly petition some artists on Facebook for permissions and negotiations for his Re-Rave project.
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Sep 30, 2014 04:19
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