Hear ye hear ye, come one come all and get beat down! I'm just playing... But here's something that has been going for several months now that you should know about.

Every Monday at 7pm Pacific Time ( 10PM Eastern ), you can participate in a live beat battle in the Warbeats Chat Room. You'll get 30 minutes to make a beat from scratch and see how you stack up.

The Warbeats Chat Room offers live audio, video and text chat.

Come by anytime to chat and learn the ropes, but Mondays are when the battle is poppin'. Get there early if it's your first time to ask questions.

You can still just watch the action if you don't want to enter the battle. Everyone is welcome.

Big shot out to Peaches, Monir, Jamar, Hatchet, Saitek, Filthy and all the other chat room regulars!

OK.. When I started the beat feedback system it was supposed to be this awesome tool people could use to get feedback like never before. And it was.

Then we started getting so many people using it and only leaving the minimum feedbacks, it started to slowly get overloaded.

Early on, you would get at least 10 feeds and it slowly shrunk down to an average of 2.

It's no coincidence that I had a minimum of two feeds per upload and it settled into an average of 2. Simple math right?

Well, I smartened up and raised the limit to 6 feeds per upload. problem is that we have so many backlogged items, we are in a deep pit and need to dig our way out of it.

I could erase all the data and start from scratch but then many people would lose that karma and points they've built up for so long.

Instead I choose to turn off the uploads and call for help from the Warbeats community.

All you need to do is concentrate on leaving feedback until we get out of the mess we are in.

To leave feedback, make sure you are logged in and go to the Charts Page. On the right side should be a list of 5 beats that need feedback. Just go through that list.

The list will always have the 5 beats that need feedback the most. So you can knock off 1, 2, 3, 10, 20 feeds in a day.

The benefit to you is that your karma will go up and that means more download points for you. You will be listening to many beats with a criticial ear so you will also be hearing good and bad things that you can learn from.

In order to maximize your karma potential please read the article "How to Leave Constructive Feedback" for tips and techniques to make your feedback high quality and useful.

An idea so crazy it just might work. Image-Line have announced a new synth called Harmless.

Unique in design and described as "an additive synthesizer doing subtractive synthesis. Or if you prefer, a subtractive synthesizer powered by an additive synthesis engine." WTF???

Of course we know it's all quality and performance since it's from IL. But to add to a even more strangeness (cue twilight zone music), IL has decided to let you pay what you think it's worth (plus handling fees). O.M.G.

This is a time limited offer expiring on December 31, 2009 so if you want a great synth at a great price, hurry before the drugs wear off and Image-Line pull the plug on this deal!

More information: Harmless Synth

If you want to maximize your Karma, I suggest you read this article that I wrote, inspired by a series of posts made by B.A.S.E.

Read: How to give constructive feedback.

Hugo's back with the third and final installment in one of my my all-time favorite drum kit series. Goldbaby announces the MPC60 Volume 3 (The Finale) Kit.

This is the last in the MPC60 series of sample packs. It includes: Layered Drums, Vinyl Drums, Various Drum Machines, FX and even some synth sounds. All sampled on the MPC60. Then captured as 24 bit wavs. These super solid samples are dripping with the MPC60's legendary sonic character.

The $24 kit comes with over 1000 samples. All these formats are included with purchase: Battery 3, Refill, iDrum,Guru and Wav Pack

You will not find a more value packed (and legal) kit out on the market as the GoldBaby kits. And if thats not enough, to brighten your holiday hugo has released a free 'Christmas gift' sample pack. The MPC60 Free.  It contains samples not in the MPC60 vol 3.  So it's worth downloading. 

In the new VIP video I explain why chord inversion is useful and use the "epic" chord progression to demonstrate. The progression is called "epic" because it's used in many soundtracks/movies where something epic happens.

VIP users can check it out in the VIP video forum.

A former VIP video was moved to the public area. The video is below, but this link has the channel preset and a demo song for you to download and hear: Improved Wah Effect using only FL Studio effects

I purchased RG sometime around the time of Warbeats Beatdown 2009 event and have been enjoying it ever since.

In this video I do an overview and review of the rhythm guitar plug-in RG from robpapen.com  

I think Warbeats can get better and I want you to tell me how.

I've posted a survey. It's quick and easy and will help to shape the direction of Warbeats.

Right now you should see the link on every page, below the Beat Feedback Menu or go here:

http://www.warbeats.com/Survey.aspx

There are many good responses so far and I take them all seriously. Thanks to those who have already taken it.

You can be anonymous if you want and all I ask is that you are 100% honest.

I know there are good and bad experiences here. Let me know about them.

Thanks,

NFX

P.S.> did you know that if you have 0 posts you lose a daily download point? So why not go introduce yourself in the forums and get that point back?

A nice little article over on the Make Beats Online blog about the music business. In particular, the author describes a scenario and helps you decide why it's good or bad and how to approach your way of perceiveing it.

Read it now: The business of music for Beat makers

The 3xOsc is a great little synth to learn the basics of synthesis in this series of videos, Julian takes us through the different parts of using the 3xOsc. basic sound creation using the wav types, envelopes, LFO modulation, filters, delay, arpeggiator and portamento are all covered.

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