News

April 2008 Hi! I posted some new sound clips / demos.  These were recorded (mostly) with the MOTU Symphonic Instrument.  If you are thinking of getting this VSTi, maybe these will give you an idea of some of the sounds.  Not that this is an expert example by any means, but I am having fun with it!                   Still working on the original musical I mentioned a while back (this is great fun, but pretty intense).  I also completed several demo-ish tracks for a proposed film- sorry I can’t post those until the deal actually happens.  I think I have another short film to score lined up for the near future as well!  I did another track for Ken Axmaker’s documentary about the Memphis Belle: The Final Chapter.  You can watch the film here!                   I recently bought a new keyboard (thank you tax return $$).  It’s sort of a replacement for my old “real” piano, with the Yamaha P-85.  The best things about the P-85 are the great key hammer-weighted action.  It’s a little stiff than my old real piano, but it is worlds away from the regular old synth non-weighted action.  The other things I like are the headphone outputs (I can practice and not bother anyone) and it’s portable.  It only has a few on-board sounds which are….ok.  The two grand piano sounds and Electric Piano sounds are workable, but that is about it.  For practice and composing it is just fine.  If I want to use it for recording I will probably use it as a midi controller (because of the great key action) and use my STEINBERG : THE GRAND as the sound source.                   Also thanks to the tax return $$ for allowing me to expand my Sample Library!  I was able to get several older Akai CD-Roms for a good price.  To use them in my soft sampler, Halion 2, I bought the Chicken System Translator, a very easy program to read Akai disks and convert the files to the Soundfont 2 format.  I decided to convert them to soundfont instead of directly to Halion banks in case I wanted to import them into another sampler later.  This was not the best idea I have ever had though, because I then had to “import of the soundfonts into Halion and save them as Halion instruments.  This took up so much disk space, that I had to go back and delete the soundfonts to have room!  Oh well, I can always go back and convert them again if I need too, blah.                   I am still waiting to upgrade my PC to a Intel quad-core- it seems like the prices might go down, especially if something new comes out!  Besides, what’s more fun, a faster CPU or a new keyboard and new samples?  I choose the latter.  Todd Sims It’s been a busy summer!  But I finally got around to updated the Studio page (with some pictures too!) to include my new digital audio workstation set-up, etc. I also updated the Credits page to reflect what I have been up to this summer!  This includes new soundtrack / scores to Zombies!, All Hallows Eve and Sunday Best by Jessica Powers (Slacker Central Productions), Bad People and a Memphis Belle documentary by Last Train to Memphis.  I’ve added links where available so you can view the films on-line.        I will try to get some audio sample of these up after they have been officially released, etc.

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