<![CDATA[SquareSound Community Forums - Blogs - Nicol Armarfi's Blog by Nicol Armarfi]]> http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/ A forum for discussion about the SquareSound site, store, and fan-arrangement archive. en Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:13:02 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.squaresound.com/forums/images/bluesaint/misc/rss.jpg <![CDATA[SquareSound Community Forums - Blogs - Nicol Armarfi's Blog by Nicol Armarfi]]> http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/ Concerning my lack of Activity http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/52-concerning-my-lack-activity.html Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:41:36 GMT Recently, I haven't been posting much on the board, nor have I made even one new arrangement in the past few months. The reason for this is simply a lack of motivation. I've been concerned mainly with my studies and with classical music, so video game music has been way in the back of my mind, and I haven't bothered to do anything about it. I'm hoping to change that following the end of the Yoko Shimomura arrangement competition, however I'll need to find something to arrange. I'm very much open to suggestions, if anyone has any.

-Nicol ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/52-concerning-my-lack-activity.html On the Progress of My Uploads http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/50-progress-my-uploads.html Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:38:18 GMT I've been uploading my arrangements to the new arrangement system recently. Fourty-four of them are currently online.

I've edited a few of them to cut out significant errors that were present in their original editions. Revised pieces are:

-Bloody Tears (Castlevania II)
-Battle Scene B (Final Fantasy II)
-Max 300 (DDR)
-B4u (DDR)
-Brink of Death (Chrono Cross)
-Floating Castle (Final Fantasy I)
-Eternal Wind (Final Fantasy III)

I will continue editing and uploading the bulk of arrangements I have remaining, although it may take a while. ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/50-progress-my-uploads.html DRAGON WARRIORrrrrrrrr http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/48-dragon-warriorrrrrrrrr.html Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:55:56 GMT Uploaded five new Dragon Quest arrangements to the archive. The arrangements are all for viola with a piano for accompanyment (with the exception... Uploaded five new Dragon Quest arrangements to the archive.

The arrangements are all for viola with a piano for accompanyment (with the exception of the Menu theme, which is for two violas and piano). They are all also very easy, with the exception of To A Vast World, which contains some difficult passages, but is also for the most part relatively simple. ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/48-dragon-warriorrrrrrrrr.html On the Subject of My Absence http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/47-subject-my-absence.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:30:57 GMT Recently I've not been particularly active with SquareSound in any way, shape or form. The reason for this is simply that I hadn't any reason to do so in the past few months. Furthermore, I had installed Linux again, and through some mundane errors which I made, again, ended up killing my Windows installation, which also helped my disinterest in activity.

Excuses aside, I'm glad to inform you that I will be returning to the fray relatively soon, though I must first reinstall my Windows partition and get everything ready for music making. I've been sketching out a few new arrangements and compositions on paper, so it won't be too long after I've finished fixing everything that you'll see some new material out. ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/47-subject-my-absence.html Progress (or the lack thereof) http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/35-progress-lack-thereof.html Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:41:38 GMT I've been a little busy with some other things lately, so I've not really had time to pull out any new arrangements. I did start a few, but generally wasn't very happy with what was coming out, so I scrapped them.

I am, however, starting on a few new arrangements which are coming out nicely. One I'm having the most fun with is an arrangement of the Dragon Quest main theme for solo Viola with piano accompaniment. I'm also working on an arrangement of the gumi ship music from Kingdom Hearts for string quartet, and an arrangement of Calling to the Night from Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops. There are a few others I'd like to do as well, but I'll be waiting to start those until I'm finished with these.

-Nicol ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/35-progress-lack-thereof.html Easy Mode http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/34-easy-mode.html Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:09:55 GMT It has come to my attention in recent days that many of my arrangements are quite difficult in nature, so I've decided to make my next few quite a ways simpler. I'm going into exams on the twenty-second of this month, so I will have a week to spare, and, within the course of this week, I will do my best to present a few simpler arrangements. Of what I have not yet decided, but I am always open to suggestions. ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/34-easy-mode.html Derp http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/30-derp.html Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:20:05 GMT Long story short, I'm back on Windows for the time being, so I'll be able to pull out my regular .mus arrangements.

Also, a word of advice to people who want to let everyone read their properly formatted sheet music but only have one notation program: music XML is your friend.

Anyway, I decided yesterday that I was going to install a Windows partition on my harddrive so I could do some gaming and use Finale, though I screwed up in the installation process and made my Linux partition unbootable. I'll get to fixing that some time in the future, but at the moment I have a few other things to take care of, including making up for the ridiculously long run of only submitting 1-2 arrangements to Squaresound. ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/30-derp.html MuseScore and WiNE http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/28-musescore-wine.html Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:27:21 GMT ...As you may know, I switched over to linux about a month ago, and it's been a little difficult figuring out how to get these programs to run. I've started working with one called MuseScore, which is more or less a Sibelius and Finale hybrid for linux. I'm not too great with it yet, so I've decided to atleast try to get in MIDI arrangements by running Noteworthy Composer through WiNE. I've tested how it runs by making a small arrangement of the Baccano!! opening for piano (attatched).

Now that I can get to work with this, I'll probably start doing some arrangements from Live a Live or Secret of Evermore, which I've been playing recently :).
Attached Files
File Type: mid guns'n'roses.mid (7.6 KB, 58 views)
]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/28-musescore-wine.html Uhh.... http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/26-uhh.html Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:42:00 GMT Well, I decided to install Kubuntu, and in doing so I somehow managed to make my Vista installation unbootable, though I must admit this makes me... Well, I decided to install Kubuntu, and in doing so I somehow managed to make my Vista installation unbootable, though I must admit this makes me feel somewhat liberated. Anyway, I won't be able to get any arrangements out the door for a while, as I need to set up Wine/find Linux versions of the programs I use. ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/26-uhh.html <![CDATA[[untitled]]]> http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/22-untitled.html Wed, 21 May 2008 21:09:10 GMT I had to do a fresh install of Vista, AGAIN, so I lost everything, AGAIN. But, it wasn't as bad this time, because that last wipe taught me a lesson: backing up important files is good. So this time, I had most of my work backed up, so not everything was actually lost.

With the technical difficulties aside, my arranging is going well. I've been spending the better part of this week working on my arrangement for the competition. I lost some of my sound samples due to the Vista install, though I still have enough left to finish the arrangement with passable quality. It's around 3 minutes long now (the arrangement), and I plan to wrap it up in another minute or two. I really don't feel like making another 10 minute arrangement this time <_<.

In arranging outside of the competition, I haven't really gotten much done lately. I have final exams for this semester coming up in some 30 days, so I've been a bit busy preparing for that. I have managed to complete a few arrangements, though, just no where near the amount I would usually have completed in this amount of time. ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/22-untitled.html F************************ *********ck http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/19-f-ck.html Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:08:18 GMT tl;dr: see title

This morning, I went to turn on my computer like usual. But I ran into a little problem that I couldn't seem to fix, after about an hour of trying to fix it. So instead I had to do a complete system restore, and I've lost everything on my C: drive. So now, I've lost all my in progress arrangements, meaning I won't have any new ones out for atleast a week or two. ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/19-f-ck.html <![CDATA[[untitled]]]> http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/18-untitled.html Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:40:35 GMT tl;dr: woot.

Recently, I haven't been arranging as much as I would have liked to. I've been assailed by multiple inconveniences one after the other, including (but not limited to) illness, Internet connection problems, hardware malfunctions, and homework. This has been extremely aggravating, however I believe I'll be able to pick up my normal pace once again soon. I do not forsee any impending illnesses, March Break is coming up soon (meaning no more homework for a week), I bought a new headset and soundcard (no more hardware problems (for now)), and I've phoned my ISP about my connection problems, and I'll be getting their new modem, which should fix things up a bit. ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/18-untitled.html <![CDATA[[untitled]]]> http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/16-untitled.html Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:51:20 GMT Well guys, I have a bit of a problem here. I'm at a bit of a stand-still as to what I should arrange: it's not that I have nothing in mind, but rather, I have far too much in mind to choose from. I've been thinking of arranging something from Final Fantasy X, as I've realized I have only one FFX arrangement on the site. On the other hand, I have a mountain of choices from other games, such as Touhou, Kanon, Air, Muv-Luv, Castlevania... the list goes on forever. I'm sure some of the arrangers out there know what kind of a problem this is.

So, do you guys have any suggestions? Anything I could use to narrow down the list would be a great help, thanks! ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/16-untitled.html <![CDATA[[untitled]]]> http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/13-untitled.html Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:08:59 GMT After going around my computer earlier, I realized that I had a huge folder full of incomplete arrangements. There were about 20-30 in total; I plan... After going around my computer earlier, I realized that I had a huge folder full of incomplete arrangements. There were about 20-30 in total; I plan to finish these sometime soon. But... 30 incomplete arrangements? I give up on arrangements too easily D: ]]> Nicol Armarfi http://www.squaresound.com/forums/blogs/nicol-armarfi/13-untitled.html