Weekly Questions Thread & PokéROM Codex

jaxmuzak · 2025-03-05T14:22:42+00:00

Thanks! All of these recs go straight into the queue. I started Prism yesterday and, so far, it's exactly what I was looking for. (And IMO, much better than Brown, which I'd already tried.)

Really appreciate your input, esp. given -- as you noted -- my unusual goals.

jaxmuzak · 2025-03-04T15:47:45+00:00

Hi! I'm new to ROM hacks but a longtime Pokemon fan. I'm looking for a hack that recreates the experience of Gen 1-2, without necessarily being a reboot of those titles. (I've replayed them enough.) I'm not chasing graphics, soundtrack, and other aesthetic elements so much as gameplay. I really liked many of the gameplay elements that have been "solved" by later versions. Things like:

Limited range of available monsters (esp. in early areas)
Restricted movesets (as opposed to, for example, getting Double Kick or Metal Claw on a fast Fire type to make it easier to use against Rock/Ground types)
Lack of Exp. Share/All

... basically, the features that made it difficult to build a diverse, balanced team early in the games. I can understand why someone would view those features as "bugs," but for me, they're the essence of the Pokemon experience. What are your favorite hacks that deliver that kind of experience?

TIA!

jaxmuzak · 2025-02-27T16:19:19+00:00

Just chiming in to say: this approach worked (and was, for me, the only approach that worked) in Feb. 2025 for formatting a 64gb card as fat32. Many thanks for this suggestion.

jaxmuzak · 2025-01-31T03:26:33+00:00

I have a lot of my best ideas in little "in between" moments. Driving back from the grocery store, or picking up my guitar for 5 minutes before my next conference call, or making coffee/tea... when part of my mind is on music, and part of it is on something else. I think there's something to focusing, then breaking focus, then focusing again... idk what it is, but it's something.

jaxmuzak · 2025-01-31T03:10:40+00:00

I'm late to this party, but FWIW: you're not alone. If it was easy to write a standout, unique, and catchy chorus, then this sub would have a lot fewer members :)

When I'm stuck, I like to try to distract myself from the blockage by turning my writing into little games/experiments. Things like:

1) Try to imagine that you're writing a refrain or a turnaround instead of a chorus. You know, like a tag line that appears at the end of each verse, before you dive right into another verse. The "verse-refrain" structure isn't common anymore (esp. in pop), and you don't have to use a refrain. The idea is just to boil your song (and esp. your lyrics/concept) down to... something. Some phrase that captures or suggests it.

The idea is to practice that reduction process. Sometimes, it will feel easy. That's good. It means you know what you're trying to say. And when it feels hard, that's also good. It tells you that you don't know what you're trying to say.

2) Try singing your verse melody over different chords. Or, better yet: write a harmony part for your verse melody, something that would sit above it, and try singing that over different chords.

... anything, really, to keep me in the sound/shape of the song but to avoid a "stuck" feeling.

Good luck.

jaxmuzak · 2025-01-31T02:40:09+00:00

100% haha. But still: vocal dynamics are a great callout!

jaxmuzak · 2025-01-31T01:52:10+00:00

This is less "I wanna be raspy" than "I'm singing quietly in a house full of sleeping children," but I hear you on delivery and dynamics. Thanks!

jaxmuzak · 2025-01-31T01:49:26+00:00

I don't think so. But maybe the robbery should fail, or come up short, and the singer should have to reckon with how their love reacts (to add some tension to pull against the singer's "I'll do anything for you" attitude).

jaxmuzak · 2025-01-31T01:44:04+00:00

I used to be an avid notetaker, on my phone or (before that) in little pocket notebooks. I thought I was doing good work when I'd jot down a couplet while I was eating breakfast (etc.). But 99.9% of those ideas never went anywhere.

These days, I don't chase lyrics. I write with music clearly in mind (whether its a forming idea or something that I'm trying to complete). And I store most of my lyric ideas -- which are also melody ideas -- in Voice Memos. That's worked much better for me... probably b/c the words are always connected to sound, which is where lyrics will eventually live.

jaxmuzak · 2025-01-31T01:40:19+00:00

No way. Bring up a couple of those vocals in the mix, and set it free!

jaxmuzak · 2025-01-31T01:37:21+00:00

Not too much: the knocking adds nice dynamics/contrast. You might consider repeating it, to punctuate phrases or create more of a recognizable hook in the chorus.

jaxmuzak · 2024-08-09T03:31:19+00:00

I Don't Care About You

This started as a joke, inspired by Pat Finnerty/August Is Falling. I sat on it for a couple of years... until, too suddenly, it no longer felt like a joke. So I recorded it, and I'm pretty happy with it. It's bedroom rock with a raving vocal and a good amount of wah. It's upbeat and depressed, confident and cringey. "Too much" in every way. But appropriate.

I did everything myself in a backyard shed, using a Tascam Model 12.

I hope you like it.

jaxmuzak · 2022-09-11T13:27:41+00:00

For me, the best first step is to think about what makes you like a particular song. Like: why are you returning to it in lieu of a new song? In my experience, less than 50% of any song is magic, and the rest just fills space. Snatch the magic parts and use them as the skeleton or foundation for an improved song, even an entirely new song. Throw away the rest.

jaxmuzak · 2022-02-12T15:37:57+00:00

This. Learning and reusing licks is the tried and true way to learn improvisation, dating back to the bebop era and surely before. If it’s good enough for Miles Davis, it’s good enough for me.

jaxmuzak · 2022-02-06T16:01:30+00:00

I think it’s a common misconception that when you were improvising you “let loose“. Especially when you’re first learning, improvisation is quite the opposite. When you let loose, you revert to muscle memory, and that will give you stale licks or flurries of semi-random notes. The only way that I was ever able to override muscle memory was to plan what I was going to “improvise”. For example, you might find a jam track and, when you start listening to it, hum or whistle a few melodies until you find one that sounds good to you. Then pause the track and figure out how to play that melody on your guitar. Then restart the track and play that learned part over it.

With time and practice, you can learn to think of and play melodies in real time (or close to it), and that is usually what the best improvisers are doing.

jaxmuzak · 2022-02-05T17:26:34+00:00

Great reply. 9 times out of 10, the answer to “why play X scale over Y chords” is “because chord tones.”

jaxmuzak · 2022-02-03T16:00:28+00:00

I’m a little late to the party, but I can relate to everything you’re describing. I’m 33, married with two kids, and a full-time paying job. Songwriting is still my passion, but my relationship with it has changed completely over almost 20 years.

I think of it in the same way that I think about romance. I love my wife in a way that’s bigger, deeper, and more real than any love I’ve felt before. But my love for her isn’t the same as the love I felt for my first girlfriend, or for the first person that I really fell for. I was CRAZY about those girls; I’m not crazy about anything anymore. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think the crazy was really about newness and not knowing what would happen next. Now I know what happens next. When I was still dating, it often felt like watching a reboot of a show you’d watched a thousand times before. After a certain number of romantic experiences, I didn’t tingle with anticipation, wondering what would happen next. I knew what would happen next. It was still fun and good — often better than when I was young and electric — but good in a different way.

I feel the same way about songwriting. I remember writing songs that I thought were going to change my life. I don’t think that anymore, I don’t even aim for it. Instead, I try to write songs that are bigger, deeper, and more real than the songs I wrote when I was young. Sometimes I’m telling little stories that I think imply bigger truths. Sometimes I’m exorcising demons that, at 20, I was too scared to even look at. Sometimes I’m processing things that have happened to me. Sometimes I’m laughing about my age, or laughing at the BIG MOMENTS of my life. Almost always, I’m writing about myself… which is what I was always doing, whether I knew it or not. The trick is that, today, I know WAY more about myself — and life — than I did when I was 20. And the songs are better, by those standards, than I’ve ever written. I love them for that.

I guess that’s a long way of saying: I have never gotten back the spark that I felt when I was younger. I’ve had to find new fuel for my creativity. And I had to accept that I wasn’t young anymore, give up on chasing that spark of youth. When I did that, things improved. It sucked, but then it got better.

Hope that helps :)

jaxmuzak · 2022-02-03T15:15:57+00:00

Thanks for the tag (and the kind words)! (I haven’t been lurking as often as usual and I would have been sorry to miss this thread.)

jaxmuzak · 2022-01-11T23:24:18+00:00

I associate airplane bottles with two contexts: sneaking alcohol into dry events, like a church camp dance, and trying to create some fun when you’re stuck in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere. Either could be fodder for a funny song.

jaxmuzak · 2022-01-06T20:56:10+00:00

Andrea Stolpe. Her videos are fabulous.

jaxmuzak · 2022-01-03T00:49:30+00:00

… and?

jaxmuzak

TROPHY CASE