Yesterday I added a new musical instrument to the arsenal at Xiotex Studios HQ - the Akai XR20:

At first I thought it was just a really good drum machine but the synth section is rather good too - in fact within minutes of setting it up I had composed a little piece using just a preset synth.

Audio is a big problem for me - it’s the one area I am weakest at in game development and I decided to conquer this shortfall by throwing money at it and getting the best equipment I could manage to make the process easier. The music in the flash games was mostly done on a Korg Karma but recently I added a Korg Radias, Korg Electribe and an Access Virus Ti Polar to the list. It may sound extreme to do this but each of theses pieces of equipment makes the process of designing sound a lot easier. One day I may actually learn to play the keyboard beyond my hap-hazzard chord progressions. I know people who would have said to just buy pre-made music from the web but when I have a design in mind its hard to locate something that matches it so I may just as well make it myself.

My ultimate plan is to build up a library of samples that I will make available from this site for other game developers to use - so if you have a need for something specific then let me know - chances are I have it here somewhere.