User talk:Scruffy

Welcome

Hello, Scruffy, and welcome to Pikipedia, a wiki with information regarding Pikmin. We thank you for registering, and would like to point you to the Helping out page so you can get started right away. If you need a guide for beginners on how to edit pages, check the Quick start guide. Finally, if you need to talk to one of us, there's the Chatroom. We hope you enjoy your stay!

I'm sure your music theory expertise will be very useful on the wiki! — {Espyo^T} 11:49, 27 May 2015 (EDT)

A warm thanks

Thank you so much for your contributions over the past few weeks. The music articles ended up being excellent! Throughout the whole thing, I was always a bit hesitant, because the wiki is meant to cover aspects of the series (real-world or in-world) in an objective way, and the way the music is analyzed for the articles is quite abstract in nature. But looking at the final result, I can say that it doesn't matter. The articles are still very rich, they cover a lot of deep information, and they're very interesting. While we've had a lot of contributors cover a lot of important articles over the years, you're one of the latest to undergo the task of starting a new project, detached from what everybody else is working on. And because this task requires a certain type of knowledge – music theory – your contributions were all the more important. Once again, thanks for your help. I'd like to remind you that we have an active chatroom, so if you ever feel the need to drop by and talk about stuff, go right for it. Just... keep in mind that we might not be online at all times (work, school, timezones, etc.). Once again, thank you for your help on the wiki. Take care! — {Espyo^T} 08:30, 19 July 2015 (EDT)

That really means a lot to me; thank you for all your help and support! I do agree that the articles are subjective, but I'm so glad to hear they're interesting. It was a lot of fun to write them, and truly, they grew more than I could have imagined. I'll keep tweaking them to improve upon them, but I'd also like to get in to helping edit more objective content; the Pikmin series never ceases to amaze me. And I will check out the chatroom sometime, thanks for the invite!

Also, I was wondering if I could be of service to the users on this site and the Pikmin Fanon site. I have capable software to compose music and render images (like the Groink on my userpage); if anyone has any Pikmin-related music or perhaps user images they would like composed/arranged, I was thinking they could request it here on my talk page. Would that be okay, or too cluttered? Also, I'm worried that posting arrangements or works derivative of Pikmin music on a site like YouTube or SoundCloud would violate Nintendo's copyright law (it's very strict). I just wanted to know what you think of that. Thank you again! Scruffy (talk) 09:38, 19 July 2015 (EDT)

Fanon would absolutely love that! If you could contribute with that and create some tutorials for misc. things, I think the community would go berserk. Fanon's currently undergoing a period of new policies, plus I'm working on an engine to create real fan-games. If you want to help with your own things too, I'd say this will be a pretty awesome period for the fanon community. As for copyrights, as long as we don't go crazy, I think we might be in the clear. I have yet to see any Pikmin or Nintendo remix get taken down. Even if Nintendo cuts off some of our content, what we're doing is not related to Pikipedia in the slightest, so no worries there. — {Espyo^T} 09:57, 19 July 2015 (EDT)

Great! I'll make an account there as well. Thank you for all your help Espyo! Scruffy (talk) 15:10, 19 July 2015 (EDT)

Congratulations!

Just wanted to congratulate you on getting the Music in Pikmin 2 article featured! (Some of the votes aren't on the nomination page, but the Skype folk showed a lot of support.) Excellent work, once again. — {Espyo^T} 18:53, 1 August 2015 (EDT)

Thank you so much! I'm both very surprised and very appreciative, it's really an honor to have a music article on the main page! Thank you again, Espyo, for all your help with the articles, and a big thank you to this whole community for being so kind and interested in music! I'm so glad to be a part of it! Scruffy (talk) 10:01, 2 August 2015 (EDT)

I'm really happy with how the music articles ended up. If more wikis had things like these, a lot more people would spend a lot more time wiki-surfing. — {Espyo^T} 10:29, 2 August 2015 (EDT)

Personal Request

Today, this isn't a request for a model. There's something I need help with that I would like to ask you in private about. When are you available? Now doesn't work for me, unfortunately. --En Passant 18:34, 13 September 2015 (EDT)

I'm sorry for not getting back to you sooner! Today has been and tomorrow will be very busy for me. I expect to be available beginning around 5 in the evening EDT, or if you're still awake I'm free until 8 in the morning. Tuesdays and Thursdays are really my freest, but since you've asked I can try to make time to respond whenever you wish. I'm happy to help! Scruffy (talk) 22:11, 13 September 2015 (EDT)

I'll be available shortly after 4 MDT (6 your time) today. How should we communicate? We can do private messaging through the chatroom we have, or Skype, or whatever works for you. --En Passant 11:01, 14 September 2015 (EDT)

Let's head on the chatroom; I'll sign on at 6. Talk to you then! Scruffy (talk) 12:48, 14 September 2015 (EDT)

What software do you use to make music? There are a lot of options and I'm having trouble finding one that fits my desires. We talked about this a little in chat but we never discussed any actual choices. --En Passant 11:04, 18 September 2015 (EDT)

I'm not much of a composer, but I can add my two cents: LMMS is surprisingly wonderful for free software. — {Espyo^T} 11:07, 18 September 2015 (EDT)

Also, I think I need an e-mail that plainly says that you agree to be an adviser. --En Passant 11:13, 18 September 2015 (EDT)

I use Notion (with some plug-ins from Kontakt), Studio One, Sibelius, Garageband, and Audacity. Notion is a sequencing software in which you create notes on a score (although not really of professional quality) and it plays back the sound with samples from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It is not free, but you can get it on the Presonus website for around 100 US dollars. Presonus also made Studio One (I have the version Studio One Artist 2), which allows for layering of recorded tracks and a collection of synthesized instruments and audio effects. I believe it is also 100 US dollars. I really recommend Notion for making test tracks; its samples can work very nicely together.

Kontakt is a company dedicated to replicating real instrument sounds in computer programs. They have very little that is free that can be used without software like Notion or Studio One.

For this project, I wouldn't recommend Sibelius; it's top-of-the-line notation software designed to build scores for live performances, not computer playback. Plus it's quite expensive, even the student discount version.

Now we get to the free stuff. If you have access to a Mac, Garageband is actually a powerful tool; they've recently added some great synthesizer programs and plenty of loops to make music fast. Outside of a Mac, I have heard good things about and from FruityLoops, a free open-source music production software: I think you should definitely look that up, although I need to get some more experience with it. I also used to use MuseScore, which is a free scoring program that plays back through your computer's MIDI (all modern computers have MIDI, which is essentially very simple instrument sounds used for the playback of music data). Lastly, there's Audacity for raw recording and sound editing. If you play an instrument or know someone who plays an instrument (or sings), Audacity can record that (or really any video service, like QuickTime).

You can look up all sorts of free music software (LMMS is also a good one, I just haven't used it), but they do get pretty complicated and some are not available for every system. I'm just letting you know the programs with which I have experience. If you can teach me how to use a particular program I can learn it quickly and help out. Thanks for asking, and I'm happy to go into detail about any of these! Scruffy (talk) 12:43, 18 September 2015 (EDT)