I get emails from people asking me what I use or recommend as far as equipment so I figured I'd break it down for you who are interested.
Computer: ZT Affinity Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4GHz 4GB DDR2 500GB HDD
I got the computer from Costco online for $579. They don't sell that model anymore but it is similar to this one. My only complaints are it's Vista (which I'm not a big fan of) and it's got a pretty noisy fan. If you're doing recording with a microphone near the computer it will be an iss (read more)

Man.
Somedays it just plain sucks to be responsible for this site.
Don't get me wrong, I love the site to death and the community too.
The problem is that the site is getting to a tipping point and there are many days I just can't keep up.
I havent made a beat in weeks, maybe months. I sure havent touched my MIDI controller or FLStudio for anything but doing a tutorial in over a month.
Every little tweak I make to the site has the potential to break it. And that could  mean hours or d (read more)

...would be the name of this topic if I wanted to trick you into reading it.



Really what I wanted to say is going to piss off a few of you but bear with me. I'm writing this because I want the best for you guys.



A lot of people think that using commercial software they haven't paid for (warez) is somehow justified because they don't have money or are too young to work, etc.



A lot of people who do this also say that when they can afford it, they will purchase all their sof (read more)

It seems like a lot of people spend time trying to portay an image of what they're not.
 
I consider myself part of the hip hop culture because I love a lot of things in and around it. Music, grafitti, dance etc, are all things about hip hop that I am a fan and/or participant in.
 
But let me tell you what I'm not... I'm not a playa, a pimp or a a hustler. I'm not a thug, a soldier or a gangsta. I'm not iced out, ridin on dubs or rockin the trendy gear. If you saw me on the street (read more)

I have a book somehwere that talks about mixing in 3 dimiensions. I wish I could find it so I could more accurately paraphrase it but whatever...



The premise of the book is basically to say that music happens in three dimension. Visually speaking the 3 dimensions are left/right, up/down, and forward/back.  Musically speaking they are similar:



left/right = panning or balance
you can control the position of a sound from left to right using the balance or panning controls on you (read more)

Sometimes I wonder why music is so important to human beings.



Just about every culture has some form of music that is unique to themselves and helps us to understand them a little bit. But why is this so?



Victor Hugo once said "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. " Is this true?



Does music create a culture or do culture create music? I would guess that the culture creates the music, but they are so closely born th (read more)