So here we are, 2008 - almost halfway through lol.

Well, I’ve upgraded the look of the site (seems like an annual event), I’ve gone with a narrow light version - but I really don’t know how design stuff so it really is “throw stuff at the wall” until something sticks.

I’m sure a lot of old URLs are busted and may continue to be for a while while I get around to fixing things up. If you find something odd though, please don’t assume that I know about it and tell me about it.

For techies I’ve upgraded the whole site to the alpha of ccHost 5 and I’ll be posting the steps involved to the developers mailing list. Basically it tooks me three days with the vast majority of the time going to creating the css for the new skin (which I’ll probably be rolling into the ccHost release as well). I only had to one little set of hacks to the code itself to get the remix browser to fit into the narrow space and also remove needless filter fields (like, er, who the artist is).

I’ve re-enabled comments, including anonymous, here on VT using a groovy post validation plugin called Challenge. The default challenge is a math question (e.g. 6 + 2 * 4) but, er, I’m trying encourage comments, not preparing you for a GED. I replaced it with a simple English question and so far I haven’t gotten a single spam post to the whole site. This is somewhat remarkable considering I used to have 100s of spam comments a week and all kinds of crazy plug-in contraptions that only worked some of the time.

We used to have some cool discussions here, I’m hoping this is all it takes to get that going again.

Having migrated to WordPress and FeedBurner a few days ago blew me out of Blogines caches and now they aren’t even showing older feeds, which means if you can read this post you’re not using Bloglines as a feedreeder or you’re one of the last people on the Web who actually goes to web sites.

It seems like FeedBurner and Bloglines have a history. I really like both services and really hope this thing clears up soon. I’d hate to have to redirect to yet another location for feeds…

[UPDATE: Since this stuff came up I’m told by many folks that Bloglines has been acting flaky for a while. Far be it for me to besmurch a previously invaluable service to me in the past, but if my experiences for the past week are any indication there’s a chance I’ve missed a lot of posts on a lot of feeds…]

[FINAL (?) UPDATE:] All issues seems have been resolved. The correct feed URL is:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/VirtualTurntable

I’ve moved this weblog under the fourstones umbrella. This means a change in server, an export from MoveableType to WordPress, integration with ccHost, a change in URL(s) and a chance to debug a whole new world of bugs.

I’m still in the process of redirecting url and shutting down the old site.

Definitely update your feedreaders to

http://feeds.feedburner.com/VirtualTurntable

to keep track of things.

If you find any broken links on the new site or completely stupid looking pages, I’d ask, as a favor to me, to let me know.

(ignore all previous transmissions, the above url is in fact the correct feed.)

I just changed email client to Thunderbird (holy smokes how brilliant is that!) at the same time my server decided to go off line for no reason with no warning so if you sent mail to me in the last 16 hours or so there’s every chance it was gobbled by the great bit bucket. victor — fourstones.net (replace — with ‘@’) should be fine now. While I’m on the subject I’m experimenting with turning off my Knowspam filter because (ironically enough) having them on my inbox for a year seems to have greatly reduced my spam intake and I’m going to try TB’s system for a while.

Sorry about everybody getting “Error 500″ screens on this site. It should be fixed now, but I had to do a fair amount of hand spelunking so I might have missed a thing or two. If that’s the case, please let me know. If you tried to leave a comment in the last day or two and got that error then go ahead and try again.

This was my pilot error, but if you use Moveable Type to generate PHP files, read on…

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We are now back up and online, sorry about the breakup in reception.

(Me vs. my father-in-law’s dialup modem connection: I lost.)

To be “virtual turntablist” means your goals are generally the same as a turntablist who uses several turntables, a mixer and a sampler… excepting that you don’t use a turntable, mixer or sampler. Those functions are all subsumed by a computer.

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Welcome to Virtual Turntable where we hope to bring you useful information about music composition software: what’s out there and getting the best use out of it.

I started this site in order to document and share discoveries about a quickly expanding, very confusing and (potentially) very expensive commodity: the music creation software that is fueling the final phase of evolution from analog musical instruments to the digital medium.

The opinions and reviews here are the result of countless hours put into using and creating audio software and sounds. Hopefully these opinions are based on experience and real-world usage of these tools, but in the end, they are just opinions. Your mileage may vary.

The following is a list of the most productive ways to learn about music creation software, in order from most productive to least:

• Get your hands on a demo or trial version of the software. Try it. Try it a lot. Try it bunch more. (You should let your conscience be your guide with regards to using illegal software. Even as an act of civil disobedience you should give some thought about eventually getting the software engineer some kind of compensation.)
• Get someone who knows how to use the software to show you how they use it. If they are any good on the software then their actions will become a blur to you. You will have no idea how they do it, but you will get a sense of what kind of work flow the software was designed to accommodate.
• Last and least is to visit and read this web site. By learning what our experience-based prejudices are, you can compare them with your own data and determine whether it is best to follow our advice or ignore it.

So while this site is no substitute for live nose-to-screen experience with the software in question, Virtual Turntable can hopefully act as a noise filter to reduce your efforts in finding the right solution for you — or at the very least, save you hours of the frustrating install/uninstall/reformat cycle because a DirectX plug-in turned out to be worse for your system than a sledgehammer and a blowtorch.

Peace,
Victor