Roflcopter

Success is a smoking chimney, and a smile on the face of the people you work with.

Yeah well it's pretty amazing to see what it takes to get a #1 hit - this kind of money just to produce it, and then for the clip you need to buy the cooperation of a couple of huge other names, a few Hollywood stars, shot by a moonlighting director and his team, and *still* your topics should include domestic violence/raunchy sex, or it will fail to appeal on an 'emotional' (=sensational) level. Yeah, then you will get guaranteed returns, and several *hundreds of millions* of views on YouTube. And hey, *maybe* I will use that track for my next game. Maybe. (love that YT comment: This porn has some nice music.)

Gotta dig deep, it seems http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/01/137530847/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-hit-song

Yep, that was done using Trapcode Form. What we could do is set up a subforum with the best tuts for those plugins. I downloaded just about every one worth while, on the basis that they don't remain online forever - quite a few are, tho - and without tutorials most of those plugins are pretty useless, since some of them have a stupefyingly steep learning curve - you really need to get your head around some of them.

Billy Currington - I Shall Return

Hi John http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/ my favourites - different suites for different needs, tho. I use Trapcode myself, not the Magic Bullet - those are more for Quick and Dirty edits in post, I think - and quite frankly some of the tools supplied with AE are less accessible than MB, but they are technically superior. (e.g. Colorista vs. Color Finesse - just check the final output, Colorista is a lot more intuitive to use, but doesn't come close to the cleanliness of the output of CF). Then again, what you can do with Trapcode isn't even remotely present in vanilla AE.

Matrix lobby scene with hilarious acappella soundtrack

Hi, android and audio recording is still somewhat in its infancy I fear. I sincerely hope this will be remedied soon. Here are some pointers: http://www.mobware4u.com/tutorials/android-audio-recording The main problem is that it's either easy to use, but compressed (not exactly optimal for further processing) or pretty technical, as in still needs programming skills. I suggest you go the simple route first, and see what works and works not, preferably in the shop *before* you spend any cash. I think USB interfaced hardware should be your best option. If that all works as it should, you are safe on the hardware front, and then you can then proceed to use more advanced apps that may still need a bit of tweaking, for the more serious quality stuff and higher sample rates. If you need any assistance at that point, just holler

Mine is not a Technics but I use it every other week still - I digitize a lot of stuff for people...

New HTML 5 app prototype video - DJ in your browser...

@Coises Well, sometimes things have been tried earlier in a more primitive form, but their time just hadn't come yet (I believe there have been a few iPad predecessors in the past, that all came to zip, since they were too bulky, or expensive, or simply too weird). And sometimes it's a matter of doing the same old same (think AOL and Facebook) but on a far grander scale, or more immediately interactive. Talking about which - I think they haven't really thought the 'interactive' part thru yet - they mostly have silly ideas about advertising going interactive on your case - yeah people will line up for *that*, sure thang. But you could do the same old same of all the stuff that *used* to work well in old-fashioned radio, and give those a new twist (interactive playlist voting, skype-ins etc). Nothing really 'new' but old-fashioned radio would get a nice boost up the behind from doing the old things in a new way that you just *could not* have done it back in the old days.

The Cars - Drive

Godley and Creme - Wedding Bells

On the contrary - I think people who are too stupid to understand that message, *should* not buckle up, and get a nice big Darwin Award.

Yeah, it's quite a spoiler - people with a scroll mouse should force themselves not to check the title, and scroll down one notch - it scrolls the title out-of-view effectively.

Jerry Lee Lewis - Great Balls of Fire

Producer here too - older version, but I never fell for the yearly update spiel. If it aint broke etc. But I did get the more complete package, and if you aim for serious use at one point, you might as well dig a bit deeper and save on the inevitable upscale costs later - my hunch is that quite a few people regret not going for the full package right away

Dream Theater -

I would just get started using only Sonar for a while, and record/mix/finalize with that. That should really keep you occupied for a while, and no real need for any external programs. It may even take you 6 months daily study, and by that time you would appreciate more what certain other programs like Reason or BiaB or external VST's can do that this basic package does not cover, or does not do as well as you *can* get it, depending on your budget. But trust me, 6 months of dedicated Sonar (only) use is maybe the best starting point, and should cover a lot of ground already.

I chose Sonar as a cheaper alternative to Cubase (also because my first experience with the creator of Cubase was very disappointing when they *downgraded* a version I got for free with a soundcard I bought, at the first opportunity to 'upgrade' it.) This sort of covered my bases as a generic VST-loading program with some midi capability and multi-track engine. Then I got Reason because it will let me do things VST's normally won't (under the hood nitty-gritty) yet I can just plug it into Sonar, and has a truckload of tools and sounds pretty unique to Reason. Finally I got BiaB because it lets me do things with midi I can do nowhere else, plus a couple of other tricks that I would need very expensive software for, separately - some of which only became available much later - I don't use it like a lot of people do, like a background accompanying band-in-a-box, but more of a transposition engine. All in all, not a cheap combo - and you still have to get a couple of add-ons in the sense of high-grade VST's - but then again, buying the top version of Cubase alone, was more expensive than this combo, so sod that

Debbie Harry - French Kissin' in the USA

A Little Time - Beautiful South