The TriumphantBass Productions News and Announcement Thread

[TubaDude49]

Not until someone records a play through.

As far as the vox, I finally went with Coach Z's argument and made most of the song talkie. The last few lines are pitched.

[TubaDude49]

Codes #1 and #2: Twitter giveaway.
Simple. Just follow @TriumphantBass and tweet the message
"I like toast. So much that I want to win the #TBassTst contest to get a voucher for Heywood Banks' "Toast (Live)", available on the #RBN"
As soon as the followers hit 50, or I have 25 entries from unique followers, I will randomly select two winners to send the codes to.

[TubaDude49]

Looks like someone did a FPFBFC, alone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6MqstEEyY0
Doesn't seem to enthusiastic about it, but hey.
Looking at that, it seems that two random words in the middle got pitched, but it shouldn't be a major issue. Sorry about that

[TubaDude49]

"Toast" just tied the record for most nominations for the HMX highlights post with a whopping 4 recomendations

Heywood Banks - "Toast (Live)"
I was really fortunate to have such strong musical influences in my family while I was growing up. My parents, aunts, uncles and cousins all lent me records or made me mix tapes of everything from early alternative / college rock, to hip hop, to folk. But none of it was really my music, just music that had been passed down to me. "Toast" is the first song that I can recall "discovering" on my own, in the early hours before school, listening to morning radio while sitting in my dad’s truck in the driveway. It’s a silly song (spoilers: it’s about toast), but it hooked me right off the bat and it really felt like I had found something. All these years later it still holds up. Those shrieks! The French! It may be a simple song, but the best ones always are. Strongly recommended for anyone that likes fun! - HMXHenry, Community Manager

Yes, there are only two instruments in this song, but the vocals are definitely worth the price of admission. Some fast talking, a little bit of French, and... "YEAH TOAST!" It definitely makes for a fun song to surprise your friends with and will make you truly laugh along with the built-in laugh track. - OzoneEntertainment, RBN Community

Those of you who've seen the Team Fortress 2 video with this song or listen to The Bob & Tom Show will recognize this song. Armed with nothing more than a toaster and wit, Heywood Banks has created a silly song about... well, toast. Yeah, toast. It totally works too. This song is perfect for parties; despite only having two instruments ("toaster" drums and vocals), the sheer hilarity of the vocalist yelling "YEAH TOAST" will be sure to light up a few faces at your next Rock Band party. Heck, if you want the audience to be part of the action, put up a mic in the center of the room; the harmonies are made of pure laughter, literally, making it a unique experience. - Arcanon, RBN Community

As a fan of The Bob & Tom Show for many years now, I've long loved screaming "YEAH TOAST" and babbling broken French at the radio on the mornings when Heywood Banks shows up as a guest. Now, thanks to the wonder of Rock Band, I can earn points for doing just that, or for jamming along on the drums, or even for laughing along on harmonies. If that's not worth a dollar, I don't know what is. - Xenigma, RBN Community

[MegaIronDragonDeth]

The Guitar on the song Genuine Penguin actually looks less interesting than the Bass. Which is odd because usually I find Guitar more interesting. But I'm still going to get it because I like the Bass chart and love the Keys on it.

[TubaDude49]

The Guitar on the song Genuine Penguin actually looks less interesting than the Bass. Which is odd because usually I find Guitar more interesting. But I'm still going to get it because I like the Bass chart and love the Keys on it.

What's the name of my studio?
Even though it refers to Tuba, I still love basslines

[TubaDude49]

Oh, right.
I'm doing another Askari Nari song, "Radio Song", not to be confused with the REM song of the same name. It will have a 2x Bass Version
http://askarinari.bandcamp.com/track/radio-song

[TubaDude49]

I'll keep an eye out.

Is there going to be a new preview video for Toast now that it's out? I'm curious about the final vocal chart. Also wondering if the venue animation has changed at all.

Here, I found someone doing a run of it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BMBL...&feature=feedu

[LuigiHann]

Here, I found someone doing a run of it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BMBL...&feature=feedu

Yeah, I actually bought it already, so I got to see for myself.

Not too bad. Kind of funny to see the drummer squirming around as he sings, but I wonder if more could have been done with the venue animation. I was a bit surprised to see the drummer sing the whole song without ever doing that drumstick point animation that tends to pop up in DLC whenever the drummer sings for a bit.

Also, I was really hoping you'd go through and pick out the more sing-songy lines that made sense as pitched vocals on a line-by-line basis, not just the couple of actual sung parts near the end. Making the majority of it all-talkie for all of every line is I guess an acceptable choice, but the fact that a few random words slipped by without anybody noticing is frankly really disappointing. Not trying to make you feel bad about it, I mean, what's done is done, but this is the sort of thing that I'm sure you would have caught if you had the ability to playtest your own songs.

If you still don't have an xbox to playtest on I would strongly suggest that you make that investment if you want to keep doing this, since I imagine you'd pick up on a lot of little details and get more ideas for venue animations and such. Other playtesters are presumably only going to look at the instrument charts and not put much thought into the little details. Similarly, with the lip sync on the laughter harmonies, that looks really broken, and I think that's the sort of thing you can fix by recording an extra stem for it.

I'm probably just nitpicking because this is a pretty minimalist song so there's not much else to do besides stare at the vocal tracks and watch the character animations. On a more complicated song these little things wouldn't be a big deal at all, but with one-instrument or two-instrument tracks I think the presentation becomes a more important part of the package. If you really can't justify getting an xbox just for testing purposes, maybe appoint a specific detail-oriented tester to go through and look at this polish-level stuff for you. It seems like at least a few of the RBN charters really enjoy experimenting with the venue triggers, so you should be able to find somebody who wouldn't mind doing that and making suggestions.

I rearranged the order of the paragraphs in this post a couple times while I was writing, so I apologize if my thoughts turned out disjointed. I also don't want this to come across as harsh or rude so I'm sorry if that's how it sounds. I'm just trying to suggest stuff to look out for in future songs, since your sense of humor seems similar to mine and I expect to see more fun songs coming from you.

Edit: wow hugepost. Sorry again

[TubaDude49]

It's cool. Thanks a ton for the feedback and your support. I was really surprised that no-one caught those few stray words, but it happens. He originally did a lot of spinning and pointing, but when that was working, the animations for him hitting the drum weren't.
Will definitely see about getting a dedicated venue guy. What I usually do for venues is make the best first pass I can(anticipating what each text event will do) have a video recorded, and make changes based off that.
I occasionally have access to an XBox so that I can review songs, but not often enough. Will consider picking up one.

As far as the pitching of lines, I did cut it down to the more sing-songy lines(about 40% of the song), and it still didn't satisfy Coach. What we were going to do then was chart the French, but with multiple attempts by multiple testers, we discovered that charting it accurately would be rather jumpy and broken