Archives for January 2009
DS Music Games and Applications
I’ve fallen madly in love with this new trend of turning the Nintendo DS into a musical device. There are several retail and homebrew applications available, but discovering the good ones can be a laborious task, so I’ve outlined some of the better games as well as provided example songs. These songs are by no means the epitome of what can be done (except for Electroplankton; I really feel like I maxed it out). They’re included simply to give you an idea of the system’s potential.
I’m often asked how I transfer DS audio to the computer. Luckily for you, this is the easy part. All you need is a 1/8″ male-to-male audio cable (they go for only a few dollars on eBay). One end plugs into your DS’s headphone jack and the other into your computer’s Line In. Then use a program like Sound Recorder (or Garage Band for Mac users) to record to a .wav or .wma file. You just have to make sure your computer is set to record the Line In and not something else like the microphone. In Sound Recorder, go to Edit > Audio Properties > Sound Recording > Volume. It should look something like this:
Somebody once told me their equipment could “pwn” the little setup I have going. Really, now! Nobody expects a DS to compete with an actual guitar or synthesizer. People invest in DS music, because they either don’t have enough patience or talent to learn how to play multiple instruments, don’t have enough money or space to buy said instruments, or travel a lot and want some way to keep their musical interests alive while on the road. There’s your justification. Now let’s get cracking:
Retail Games —
— Electroplankton
In this cutesy Nintendo game, music is created by playing with little fish-like creatures, which ends up being a relaxing experience. The game is fun and charming but comes with two serious caveats. You can’t save the tunes you’ve created, and you can’t overlap electroplankton. If you want to do anything cool with this game, you have to record your sessions live to the computer and mix them together in something like Audacity or Vegas. And while Electroplankton is what started my love affair with experimental music, I really don’t have much use for it anymore. It’s a hard game to find, anyway, so don’t feel bad for missing out.
Examples: Raining on my Town, Left Open
— Korg DS-10 Synthesizer
I could write an entire article on this one alone (and probably should), because it is the absolute best tool available for the DS. Everything else is more like a novelty, a toy, a starting point. The Korg DS-10 Synthesizer, on the other hand, is very capable of pumping out some pretty sweet tunes. It’s so far removed from the restrictions placed on Electroplankton, Nintendo should be embarrassed the two exist on the same handheld. You can save up to 18 songs, 16 patterns in each song, and 24 custom-made instruments (which you can tweak the hell out of thanks to so many daunting knobs and cables). If you are at all interested in portable music, you need to buy this.
— Jam Sessions
I’ve always wanted to learn the guitar but lack the discipline to do it, so it’s nice to have a game that minimizes the trouble it takes figuring out the strings and goes straight into making music. That’s not to suggest Jam Sessions writes rockin’ solos for you. You still need to have a knack for creating songs. If you have no rhythm, don’t expect to find it here. The acoustic guitar sounds fantastic, though, and there are effects you can add to make it more electric. This electric guitar may sound a bit too compressed, but I love it all the same. (The example song below is a composite; the Jam Sessions guitar doesn’t come in until the second half.)
Example: Beware of Michael’s Guitar
— Hannah Montana Music Jam
No matter how I try to introduce this one, including it on the list knocks my credibility down a few notches. But hear me out! Aside from the lame adventure mode, Music Jam comes with a free play mode where you can toy around with a rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass guitar, and drums. Keep in mind that the instruments are really simple and have been outdone by other games. Jam Sessions, for example, is a far superior guitar. But Jam Sessions doesn’t come with three other instruments or let you pluck individual strings. So Music Jam, then, isn’t a bad choice for those who don’t take music seriously and just want one all-encompassing game cartridge.
Example: Chip Shake
If you’re too masculine to buy a Hannah Montana game, I, like, totally understand and everything! There are other ways to get a drum kit on your DS, but it requires using a flashcart (like the R4, which is being discontinued, or the DSTT). You can get a DSTT and a 4GB microSD card for as little as $15, though, and having access to the homebrew scene is definitely worth it. Unfortunately, a lot of the free, independent DS software out there is not very useful, doesn’t work, or is too confusing for lazy people like myself. Here are some favorites:
Homebrew Games —
— Drum Me
This is very similar to the drum kit in Hannah Montana Music Jam, just without all the girly fanfare. The drums sound great and don’t make popping noises like the other homebrew drum kit, DS Drummy. These drums are way too quiet, however. You’ll need to route the sound through something bigger to take advantage of it.
— Bliptracker
You can also download Bliptracker, which is a little more robust than Drum Me but also a little less user-friendly. I guess that comes with the territory. This is actually a drum machine that allows you store up to four short loops and cycle between them with the D-pad. It’s better than Drum Me, for sure, but doesn’t have quite the same charm.
— cellsDS
This sequencer is my favorite homebrew application and is so easy to use, people who have no previous experience in making music can crank out the beginnings of something cool in just a few minutes. cellsDS allows you to play six layers at once and comes with a whole bunch of different instruments. Unfortunately, it wasn’t designed for left-handed users, but if you download this edited step_sequencer.lua file, it will move the D-pad functionality over to the right side.
Examples: Potato Slam, Versus Viper Dog
— DS Sampling Keyboard
Another easy, fun music tool is this sampling keyboard. You can record an audio clip through the DS’s microphone and play around with it on a small keyboard. If you’re at a party and need a quick laugh, you can always burp into the microphone and play back “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” But other than that, you probably won’t get much professional use out of it.
— Mario Paint Composer
And you probably won’t be making any mega hits with Mario Paint Composer, either, but the fond memories it’s likely to induce makes it worth a look. This is more than just a faithful recreation of the classic SNES game, though. Several improvements have been made, such as allowing you to place sharps or flats, create longer songs than before, and save them to your card.
— Nitro Tracker
I’m also obligated to mention Nitro Tracker, which is one of the most powerful homebrew music tools but one of the most confusing. I honestly have no intention of investing the time necessary to master this program when there are better games out there. It’s nice to have on hand, though, because it can do what the DS Sampling Keyboard does, except here you’re able save the sounds you recorded and mix them together.
Where the Money Goes
I have a friend. The end. Well, okay, so I have a friend who is going back to America for a week in hopes of restoring some of the sanity one loses after being in a foreign country for too long. Lucky punk. Before he left, he wanted to exchange money, but most of the banks in Changzhou were (and still are) closed. They’ve been closed the whole week for Chinese New Year while the employees do nothing but let off firecrackers. This goes on all day and all night. Sometimes, I forget it’s a holiday, and I think maybe Changzhou is under attack.
There was still one major bank open, but the teller who had the unfortunate task of wrangling the Americans told my friend he could only take out $500, because it was a holiday. Because it was a holiday! They had more money than that available—I saw the wad of $100 bills—but she was only allowed to give him $500. She did say, though, that, if I had brought my passport, I could have taken out the rest of the money for him. Okay. Whatever. And it still took an hour to go through all the paperwork, red stamps, photocopying, etc. etc. that’s typical of any Chinese bank transaction. Now do you see why some people feel the need to go back to their home country for a week?
From Maoshan to Maoshan
Maybe Chinese New Year isn’t necessarily a quiet holiday. Maybe most people just have enough sense not to stick around Changzhou when they finally get a few days off. So what the heck am I doing here?!
In addition to Dinosaur Park, I’ve also been wanting to check out a nearby mountain called Maoshan, though I was never able to find any specific details about this supposed AAAA tourist attraction (I’m beginning to think the AAAA status is regional, because Harbin’s ice sculptures were also AAAA but were much, much better). All I could find about Maoshan is that you can take a bus from Changzhou to Jintan, and then shuttle to the mountain. Alas, when my “friend” and I tried to go, we ended up having to take a taxi to an alternate bus station in Changzhou, then a bus to Jintan, then another bus to another city, then a taxi to the mountain. What a mess!
Maoshan isn’t a natural wonder like Huangshan or Guilin. Rather, its draw is all of the temples sprinkled across the mountain like they came from the Great Taoist Pepper Shaker in the Sky. The most interesting thing I saw, though, was an abandoned, run-down pagoda with broken windows and garbage everywhere. It was a ghost pagoda! Say that a couple times. It’s funny.
At the top of the mountain, people were burning incense and throwing the sticks into a huge furnace. Some of the incense bundles these people had were almost as big as they were, and that was one hot furnace.
It was nice to get away from the city for a day, but my advice to future travelers is: if you can’t find much information about a place, it probably means there’s not much to see there.
Dinosaurs on Parade
Changzhou isn’t exactly a tourist’s dream come true. The biggest attraction here is Dinosaur Park, an amusement park with a dinosaur theme. I’ve lived here for almost seven months now, so it was probably time for me to visit this place. When the ticket that day was half price, though, I should have known something was up. For the few weeks prior to Chinese New Year, half of the park was closed. Half price. Half closed. Yeah, that makes sense.
Well, even if it makes sense, I can’t believe they would still open the park and charge people 60 RMB when the rides aren’t even turned on. No rides! All looking and no touching. And yet the whole point of going to an amusement park is to try out the roller coasters and swinging pendulums of doom. Essentially, you are paying to see how much fun you could have had if you had come on a regular day. But you do get to see some fake dinosaurs along the way.
It’s okay to think that a holiday would be an amusement park’s time to shine, right? Because that’s what I thought. But Chinese New Year is not the huge celebration I had pictured. It seems like more was going on in Changzhou for Christmas! Chinese New Year, as I’m beginning to understand, is a very family-oriented holiday. People stay home and eat for the first day, then go visit relatives for the next several days. If you want a big celebration, I guess your only option is to tune into CCTV-1 at 8:00 for an annual four-hour special. See you there.
Papa John’s Pizza Breach
Suddenly, like slipping on your way out of the shower and hitting your head on the tile, I got this huge craving for American food. Believe me, it’s a big one. I guess this was bound to happen, but it’s also a little sad. I mean, I was on such a roll for the past few months! I was eating everything! And now a hot dog sounds really, really good. Yeah, a hot dog. Considering the state I’m in, it was only natural for me to jump all over this new restaurant:
Pizza is no stranger to China (and Changzhou), though it’s been disappointing up to this point. Chinese restaurants just don’t like to use tomato sauce, which is strange, because tomato sauce is what makes pizza pizza. Not even Pizza Hut can get it right. I wish I could say Papa John’s is a gift from the gods, then, because they actually use tomato sauce, but they’re still way too conservative. Come on, guys. Pile it on. Don’t be shy!
Still, it’s the best pizza I’ve had here and totally trumps Pizza Hut. Papa John’s is obviously betting a lot on this, too; they’ve opened two restaurants in Changzhou to combat the three Pizza Hut already has. Now if only Little Caesars would get in on the action.
Five Tips for Teaching in China
Now that it’s winter holiday, I can take the time to reflect on my first semester and make a few suggestions for those of you preparing for an EFL job of your own. Obviously, these tips are based on going to China but are probably applicable to other foreign countries, as well:
1. Secure a good location
Ask how close the school is to the main shopping area. This is where all the action happens, after all, and the last thing you want is to get stuck in a place where it takes an hour to get to anything of interest. If finding a school downtown just isn’t an option, at the very least, make sure there is a major bus stop or supermarket next to where you will be living. For me, it takes so long to go anywhere, I don’t even like going out much at all.
2. Come with a friend
This isn’t really a problem if you’re downtown and can meet up with other foreigners easily, but if you’re going to be teaching out in the middle of nowhere (and it’s possible no other foreign teachers will be at the school), bring a friend. Bring anybody. They will keep you sane. It’s important to have people close by who you can be yourself around and who you can share your adventures with. Otherwise, life is going to get very lonely very quickly.
3. Be wary of training schools
Training schools usually have a pretty easy teaching methodology, pay more, and are a great way to meet people, but these extras come at the expense of having to work evenings and weekends. Just so you know. There is an abundance of training schools in China, too, with new ones cropping up every few months. However, many of them don’t have a good rapport with foreign teachers. Unless it’s for a short period of time, avoid signing with a training school before talking to someone who’s already worked for that company.
4. Pack lots of 3×5 cards
Most of the teaching supplies you’ll need will either be provided by the school or available at a nearby supermarket. I know, China always sounds like it lacks modern commodities, but that’s not necessarily true. One thing the stores don’t have, however, are 3×5 cards. Hey, I’m as surprised as you are! These are such a valuable teaching tool, and I’ve always appreciated having them on hand.
5. Remove all preconceptions
No matter how much you research ESL and EFL teaching, the job you end up in is not going to be at all what you thought it was. Really. It’s not. So don’t waste your time putting together a huge book of lessons plans before coming over, because there’s a very good chance you’ll have to scrap everything and start fresh once you see what your students are like, how many you have in a class, and just how little they actually know.
China is a Smoker’s Paradise
This picture is amusing. They labeled the entrance to the mens’ restroom with a picture of a pipe. Inside, there is a no-smoking sign. But nobody in China ever pays attention to those things. I think businesses just hang them up, because they like the look of the little cigarette with a red line through it. They don’t really want people to stop smoking. And who has enough decency to put out their cigarette, anyway? In China, the non-smoker is the outcast who has to accommodate to everyone else. So what if you’re at the arcade, surrounded by kids, or at the hospital, surrounded by sick people, or on a stuffy train where fresh air is already dangerously low. People don’t give a second thought about lighting up.
And it drives me absolutely crazy.
I hate smoking. I can’t stand it. And so it’s very hard for me to get used to this country where it’s more socially acceptable to have a cigarette in your mouth than a toothpick. I mean, I’ve been told that 60% of Chinese men smoke (while only 3% of women do). Read some of these statistics; it’ll make you never want to come here. Honestly, the smoking issue is reason enough why I couldn’t live in China forever. Chinese cigarettes simply stink too damn much. They smell sooooo bad, far worse than American cigarettes. It makes me gag every time.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like much is being done to fix the problem. Very few places enforce no-smoking rules, regardless if signs are posted. Young people continue to pick up the habit. There’s no push to inform the masses how unhealthy it is. In fact, a lot of them think there are benefits to smoking. And since you can buy a pack of cigarettes for as little as 5 RMB (though nicer ones run into the hundreds), it doesn’t really set you back much. What have you got to lose? Besides 1.2 million Chinese people a year, that is.
Snowboarding in Yabuli
Snowboarding is one of the few sports I like, and it’s one of the few sports I like that I’m actually good at. I was a little depressed, then, to leave Utah’s ski resorts and move to China where skiing isn’t very popular (and snowboarding even less). That’s not to say skiing doesn’t exist. There are several ski resorts in Northern China. Yabuli is considered the biggest and best.
Yeah, and we all know what that means.
Expensive, sub-par slopes notwithstanding, I needed to go snowboarding. Yabuli is a three-hour train ride away from Harbin, though, and the ticket office sold me a standing ticket. I bought that ticket well in advance, for a weekday, and they still gave me standing! What were they thinking?! Couldn’t they tell I’m a pretentious American who needs to sit down? Or maybe that was the problem. What really gets me, though, is how I was able to get a seat on the way back, but that ticket was only 17 yuan while the standing ticket was 30. Seriously, guys, you need to work on this.
When I got to Yabuli, I was immediately confronted by a woman who wanted to shuttle me to the ski resort and help me rent my equipment and buy a lift ticket, etc. etc. She didn’t know any English but insisted I couldn’t do this without her help. Not that I cared having her tag along. I found her company kind of amusing. Surprisingly, I understood about 80% of everything she said, and I think I had my best Chinese conversation with her. Situations like this—where you absolutely have to speak Chinese—help you realize you really do know more than you give yourself credit for.
I ran into one problem, though: it was very difficult explaining that I wanted to snowboard and not ski. I was under the impression that the word for snowboarding was “huaxueban,” since “huaxue” means skiing and “ban” means board (as in “huaban” for skateboard), but I guess this just refers to the ski itself and not the act of skiing. So this poor woman could not figure out why I kept saying, “I don’t like skiing. I like the skis!” The lesson to be learned here is… there is no word for snowboarding. Rather, you have to specifically say “one ski.” This reminds me of how there is only one word for both escalator and elevator: dianti (which is easy to remember; it literally means “electric ladder”). Still, you’d think they would just invent new words so people wouldn’t have to unnecessarily elaborate.
Loading ...