Jude had a few spare moments so he jotted down the highlights of his rig. It’s up on the Weapons page, and I’ll add some photos a little later.
It’s funny, but Jude and I have actually never used the same recording software. Jude’s used GarageBand 2 and 3 on various projects, and while I had access to that, I was more a SoundForge/Vegas guy, until I switched to Pro Tools LE. Now, I have a degree in this stuff — Bachelor of Science, TV/Radio, with an Audio Concentration — but I got that at the very end of analog’s glorious reign. My senior year, the music school (not the communications school) got its first digital audio workstation, and I never had the opportunity to use it. I was busy slicing up 1/4″ tape and learning how to make rock and roll on 1″ Ampex eight-tracks. All the sound theory and stuff about microphone placement still turned out to be very useful, but I taught myself how to use digital effects and whatnot. Even after several years of SoundForge, PT was a disaster for me — highly irritating interface, specialized hardware requirements, and ultimately, my setup wasn’t built specifically for it, so Pro Tools crapped all over it. I finally threw up my hands in disgust and fired up GarageBand, where Jude has been sitting and waiting for me all this time anyway.
None of that really matters, but it might make the next song a little easier to produce. We are hoping for a March release, and as usual, we want to keep it a surprise until a little closer to the time. We have some other plans in the works, too, and I’ll reveal them more when they become real.
At last, the contest has concluded, and TalkRadar has announced the winner. It’s a little past the two-hour mark (you read that right) but SamueltehG33k took the top prize by a narrow margin.
Now, I know he didn’t do the whole song, but he did do it in person, and the repeated takeaway shot was so silly it got me laughing. Jude actually liked my other favorite, 1CrazedPenguin1’s LittleBigPlanet entry, slightly more:
So I turned it over to Chris at Radar for the tiebreaker. He said he thought the guy who actually went out to Wal-Mart with a camcorder should get points for bravery. So there you go. Samuel gets the media player and Penguin gets the Sorry! board game. Chris has both prizes and will probably be sending them your way soon.
I know it was a tall order — video is not as easy to create as, say, a poem or even a Photoshop joke — so I appreciate that people even gave it a shot.
(As for the song ideas that the TDar guys pitch…I recommend they use their fine recording equipment and do ’em their damned selves.)
New contest TBA shortly. This one will be a little easier.
Tune in to TalkRadar — a victor has been chosen, and he or she will receive the spoils. I’ll post more here after TDar makes the big announcement on episode 33. Or 34. I guess it’s all about how you count the holiday special. But the next one, the one that comes out on January 9th? Listen to that.
Meanwhile, over on Dan’s regular podcast, KOXM, he sings this week. It’s not a Palette-Swap Ninja song. It’s a song you’ve never heard him sing. That’s show 148.
So Chris from TalkRadar didn’t actually tell me when the contest was officially over…and it appears he has gone home for the holidays.
I guess that means the deadline has been extended. If you’re still working on an entry or would like to polish your existing one, now’s the time. Just keep sending your entries to dojo@paletteswapninja.com and I’ll add them to our YouTube favorites.
Oh, and in case it hasn’t been mentioned, there is a second prize for the runner-up. Yes, really.
Time’s running out for the “Wii Christmastime” video contest, so if you plan to enter, send your links in to dojo@paletteswapninja.com. We also have a YouTube account and you can get us there, since we’re asking for YouTube submissions. And if you send it in to GamesRadar, that’s cool too — we’re working together and will pool all the submissions when it’s time to judge.
Episode 29 of TalkRadar is now available via GamesRadar.com or on iTunes right now. At the 32 minute mark, they talk about the contest and debut the song. But you should listen to the whole show, as Rob Smith is a guest, discussing his new book about Lucasarts, Rogue Leaders. Oh, and if you’re never listened to TalkRadar before, here’s your explcit content warning. As podcasts go, it’s vulgar, drunken, and rambling. In other words, it’s funny and quite popular.
So the contest is pretty straightforward: Make a YouTube video for “Wii Christmastime” — however you want to, animated, acting stuff out with friends, Flash, whatever you like — and post the link to your entry in the TalkRadar forums. You’ve got three weeks, and then the GR staff and Jude and I will pick our favorite (we’ll be judging on creativity, of course), and the creator of that video gets a 30GB Creative Zen Vision W, pre-loaded with all four Palette-Swap Ninja songs (and a surprise or two). I took care of that today, charged the thing up, loaded the MP3s onto it — it’s sweet. You’ll like it.
So, listen to TalkRadar, then come back here tomorrow and we’ll have the full song posted for download. Let the holidaze begin!
Okay, so we have details about the release of this week’s song. On Thursday, TalkRadar will release show #29 (because 28 is already out), including the first appearance of the new song “Wii Christmastime.” If you want to hear the track, download their podcast (there should be a link from the GamesRadar front page).
On Friday, you can come back here and download the song directly, then get to making a video for our make-a-video contest, so we can spread some viral holiday cheer. You’ll have a few weeks to put together a video, then we’ll pick our favorite and ship out the prize — a lovely 30GB Creative Zen Vision W media player, pre-loaded with our tracks — so you can take all of your Palette-Swap Ninja songs with you, including your award-winning video. See what we did there? Full contest details are on TalkRadar episode 29.
Meanwhile, we’d love you as a friend on MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter. We need all the virtual friends we can get.
So, this is it. After a year of thinking about it, we’ve finally got a website. WordPress was the best option; all we want to do here is chat, let you respond, and offer our stuff for download. A blog works well for that. Megaprops to Kat for the art elements and finding us a template that worked. Poke around, tell us what you think. Our email is dojo at paletteswapninja dot com.
We want to release songs more frequently than we have been, or else we wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble. We will have a new one to share later this week — Black Friday, if all goes well. It’s our first holiday song and we’ve worked out a deal with TalkRadar, the GamesRadar podcast, to debut it there exclusively. But it’ll be posted here shortly thereafter, if only to help facilitate the contest they’re running in conjunction with it. More on that in a little bit.
