18 October 1998

Lots of stuff hapenning! So much i don't know where to start....

I have uploaded an old copy of the PhaseII.rbm that i found on a friends machine, it's not really complete, but most of it is there and works. One of the many things lost in the big HD crash :(

Working on the basic idea of the ReVerb mod. I've proceed with putting together a pallete of effected 808 rebirth samples. With some changes to the 909 sample set. A couple of gated 909 kicks and the snares are all the original rather than a single snare slightly detuned to 4 other pitches. These samples ive put in the the UV gui...well for now at least. The GUI isn't quite finished, however, the mod is available to download now.

The BIG knob archive is also available online now. 8.6 meg stuffit archive. The net has been really messed up this weekend for some resason. So unless you have a fast connection i don't recommend attempting to downloaded until next week. Or if you have an HL Client then you can get and resume. It's not binhqx'd so ftp protocols will not work quite the same if your connection is dropped. Use Stuffit Expander or Aladdin Expander for Windows to decompress the archive.

-==-cIRCLE's-==- Bladerunner mod is now has a link from the page. He used some of my samples for his custom mod, pretty nice drum work in the demo song.

I've also released some samples to other people online, and in exchange they have agreed to let me make their mods public...even if they are Sample Only Modifications. So I'm hoping to hear some really cool variations of the mods soon:) as well as have them available through here and niftywerks for everybody to use.

Concerning sample availability...well email me and we can figure something out. Previous mod makers are more than welcome to any of my rbm samples directly:)

=Peff

14 October 1998

I've been working on some Photoshop Actions for the knob kit, all you have to do is run it and it will do the resize calculation:) Another knob for the 808 instrument selector is also added, and some other images to help clarify the process of using these templates. The new archive is bigger now. Approximately 8.6 Megabytes - in a stuffit archive. I know these will work on a mac, but they have yet to be tested on a Windoze system yet. I will probably have them available on Hotline by the end of the week.

Added some new 1.5 Mods to the adaptor collection. VoxBox[a], Pitch White Edition[a], and FatBoy[a].

Some other cool things in the works: I have started on a new GUI "Ultra Violet" --no idea what its going to sound like just yet. I may use the UV GUI on the new version of dejenerate or toss it on ReVerb or something, but i'm still not certain. For the first time im acutally taking some preplanned steps and trying to automate a lot of the repetitive tasks of mod making. The only problem that I see the lack of diversity in this process--eh but who knows. Anyone can tell that i usually draw upon ideas from previous mods in creating new ones. Be it the knobs or the transport buttons or typeset, samples etc.

Speaking of which, cIRCLE has borrowed some of my samples for a mod, "Blade Runner", for a nice dnb type of sound. It's sample only! for now. But we shall see about that:-) It has also opened me up to the possibility of making the samples available.

Several people have asked me for specific samples from some of the mods--(probably more have already taken some!) But I am open to the idea with a bit of trade in consideration..I'd like to receive an original RB2.0 Mod in return - one that sounds good preferrably with a ReBirth Song demo file:) That will be made publicly available. I don't really care if it's sounds only... Or if you have some samples you want packed into a mod, send them my way and i'll pack it...(probably edit it too,hehe)

=Peff

P.S. Sorry about lagging connections, the host has been a mirror for the new Mac TV Commercial Advertisement, so at times the bandwidth gets spread thin. But hey...i can't complain since it's free space and a fast connection:)

9 October 1998

Moving the Website involved more work than i thought. Since I lost the original documents in a Hard Drive Crash, I downloaded the site from the geoshitty server. As it turns out each page was plagued with the geocities Java Script, so i basically had to reformat new pages for all of the HTML documents. What a pain... A problem with doing tedious stuff like that, i have a tendency to get bored and look for ways to make it more interesting, so I've been working on changing the pages around a bit.

Out of curiosity, i'm wondering if anyone is seeking knobs. I remember SLiCE or someone had mentioned that they were going to be creating some knob graphics for people to use on their mods. If anyone knows more about this please email me and let me know.

I made some basic knobs for others to use as templates in creating customized ReBirth V2.0 knob graphics. The archive has the 3Dmodels, Quicktime Animations, and the fullsize Photoshop Documents with layers, so that you don't have to go through all the stuff I did, and you will get some pretty descent knobs with smooth, motion. I will probably include all the relevant files so anyone who is interested in learning about the techniques involved, and try them out for your self:-)

So if anyone is interested in getting ahold of these files, please contact me, and i'll make them available for download, or email them or something, but please note that it's a bit of a hefty file. 5 megabytes compressed which expands to 22 megabytes. The Big files are the 4 Photoshop 5.0 documents which have the different parts masked and layered--before they have been reduced. I will post up a small Jpeg only version soon for anyone else to use.

P.S. Get TRANSIT, i'm not getting an edorsement or anything, it's just the best MacOS FTP Client Application that i've ever used--for any Mac Users out there who still use an FTP client to access info-mac hyperarchives or your web site host, (yeah, i know, Hotline is has made life so much easier, but it still doesnt do everything yet). Accessing my new web site is a piece of cake with this sucker, and the file transfer is quite quick too:-)

7 October 1998

YAY!!! NO MORE FRIGGEN GEOCRAPPYS FRIGGEN SPAM BANNER BULLS**T!!! Thanks WiSK, I took your advice! I hope this wont crash anyones browser, and I know that this sure will make things easier to navigate through without the stupid pop up consoles and crazy java scripts floating through my pages.

I just had a crazy idea of a something that would probably be really handy. I suppose that i'm not the first person to think of it, but i have yet to see any other mods out there quite like the concept that i have. The New Mod is called "ReVerb" 

ReVerb uses the standard components of ReBirth but i've added some dsp effects and changed some of the tunings on the percussion sounds. It's pretty cool to hear some of your old favorite RBS Tracks with drums with a bit of the old reverb on it.

I will probably make the samples themselves available too, so if you want to customize your own RBM file

I'm having some problems with the snare drums, so the version that is available is not final...as usual. And there are no big graphics changes...it's like the Peffedit.rbm 

=Peff
 

5 October 1998

Wow, seems like it's been a long time since i've updated! A lot has happened in the last week, and i've been going crazy with all sorts of new stuff! 

I was listening to something on TV when i heard this song which had a little cheezy electronic drum loop mixed in. Every time i hear those distictive percussive sounds, it reminds me of my very first electronic keyboard--A Casio VL-1. It has a small white plastic keyboard with a built in speaker and the chiklet piano keys with numbers and rhythm pattern names labeled on it--the numbers are there when you need to switch it to calculator mode ;-)

So I sampled It, and I programmed the demo RBS with the same rhythm patterns preset in the VL-1. There are only 3 sounds used for these rhythms combined with the monophonic lead sound. It's more a less a novelty, but one never knows when they need some cheeze. It seems like people use it occasionally on their tracks:-) 

The CHEZIO VL-1 rbm only modifies the 808 section. There is also an "adaptor" version, which will be available soon.

As far as the mod "adaptors" go, i've done a whole bunch of them. I really liked LoopTech 1.5, so i started to fool around with mixing and matching the 909 sections from 2.0 mods with it. Orbit 2.0 really complements LoopTech well.

There were a few very cool "unofficial" 1.5 mods that i liked, "Blackfish" and "Binary" and "Fatboy" to name a few. Through all this i've noticed one thing. All the mods sound better with the new RB2 909. The combination of sound pallettes is really fantastic. 

If you haven't already tried this, I recommend converting some of the old 1.5 mods over to RBM's. Use ReNovator or whatever, and drop the samples into a MOD folder and for the 808 graphics, make sure to get 12520.jpg - 12525.jpg and include them in the mod folder. I've been reducing the 1.5 splash and have incorporated it as well into the adaptor mods.

Since there are already about 10 of these that i've packed, i'll put a list of links on the adaptor page for download.

PhaseII mod is put on hold indefinitely since the components for it were lost during my HD Crash. This is unfortunate since it seemed to be quite promising as a "useful" type of mod, too.

Dejenerate MOD has had some sample updates, however i've been having problems with the demo song. Something happened while i was cutting and pasting loops in song mode which made the file grow to about 230K in size. The synth samples have been compressed and equalized a bit so that they aren't so loud and bassy. The loops have been adjusted a little and they sync better now. I will post it as soon as i can retrack the demo song.

=Peff