interview

[animebro(gabe)]

hey mods, can you answer these questions for me? 
Q1. What can you tell me about yourself? eg. introduce yourself, like ur name, how long you have been on os, and how long you have been a mod. pls dont give me ur os name, you can dm me your real name if you want too.
Q2. what do you do as a mod on os?
Q3. What is reputation, and what is it used for?
Q4. how are the instruments made on online sequencer? and how long does it usually take to make them?
Q5. for those who don't know what a "sample" is, how would you describe it?
Q6. do you know anything about how online sequencer was made and what inspired jacob to make it?
Q7. How do you think OS inspires others?
Q8. for those who dont know what a "DAW" is, how would you explain it?
Q9. how do daws work?
Q10. what was the first instrument added to OS? was it made any differently than the others?
Q11. is there anything you would like to tell people interested in making websites?  eg. tips, pointers, what software to use, what knowledge they should have to do it.
Q12. how are websites made?
thank you for your time!

[LucentTear]

1. I'm Lucent. I've been on OS for about 5 years and a mod for 4.

2. Moderating OS has no specific tasks, but personally I try to -aggressively- keep chat at a neutral state. This is especially important to prevent politics from appearing on the site and social problems that may pull the chat into unnecessary debate.

I also write and update an extensive guide on how to use OS, which can be found here. Other mods contribute in other ways for the site, such as Fox managing Robo, Alex hosting the merch shop and Kirbyderp keeping track of the contests held every month. These are completely voluntary—Jacob doesn't force us to do these things for the site but I like that he's very supportive of our projects nonetheless.

3. Reputation is just a forum function that allows you to rate users. In a community aspect, it's not actually all that important. Respect from other users comes from frequently interacting with those on the site (and that people don't find you irritating) and posting music often. I think a lot of OS does fine in that regard, but I preferably tend to stay away from a lot of the discussion.

4. Most instruments are made from pre-recorded samples from VSTs (professional software plugins), while 8-bit instruments are based from a web resource that loads the sound directly onto your soundcard. I'm not too informed of the technical jargon so you might want to ask another mod that's more informed than I am.

5. A sample is just a small recording of a sound that can be reused in making music. Since computers aren't instruments themselves, piano rolls just use pre-recorded sounds to play what we want to hear.

6. Jacob was inspired by some posts under the r/tipofmytongue subreddit. He quickly programmed Online Sequencer just to help people jot down notes of the music that were literally at the tip of their tongues. He's updated the site drastically since then, considering how many people use this platform to create some impressive sequences.

7. Everyone has different things that they've been inspired from the site, but I think OS is a key component towards how I think and act today. I was fairly young when I started using OS and some of my thought processes were really naïve back then. I think over the years—from interacting with a wide audience of people who use the site—my personality kept shaping and I was always learning from my previous mistakes on the site. People often say that they are friends with a huge variety of people, but in reality they only stick around the people they're comfortable with. Because OS is a one of it's kind, it's difficult to pick and choose which people you want to talk to, and it's especially difficult to quit because of the site's functions. Over the years I had to deal with a lot of people I didn't like and I still do today. Nowadays I'm really comfortable with my personal identity on this site, so for those of you who aren't, good luck trying to convince me to change it. 

8. DAWs are Digital Audio Workstations. In layman's terms, they're just professional music making programs that have more options than OS.

9. DAWs work similarly to OS. I can't be bothered to explain everything that happens in one, but you can write or record notes on a digital piano roll, choose from a variety of instruments, and use audio inserts (things like reverb, compressors, limiters, etc.) to optimize the mixing of your song. Because there are a lot of confusing options in a DAW, many people stay on OS for user friendliness. The lack of options also tends to inspire creativity.

10. The first instrument made on OS was probably Electric Piano. Jacob rerecorded the samples for OS a several times, so it might have been lower quality back then.

11. I'm not sure what kind of website you want to make, since I'm only knowledgeable in making informational sites. My best advice however is to use proper spacing and be straight to the point with your content! You can prolong attention span if you format your website in a way that's comfortable to read.

How your English teachers tell you to format an essay doesn't have to carry over to making a website. With how the human brain works, our mind likes to take things in two sentence chunks. People get turned off at the sight of word walls!

In general, you want to 1.) identify which ideas you would like to explain, 2.) word them in a way that is very clear to understand and 3.) organize them logically. It helps to read your content aloud to identify "knots" in your sentences and promote sentence clarity.

12. Websites are made by rocket science. IDK.

I hope that helps.

[dinapool]

Hey, for what do you need all this information? Are you writing an analytical report? I am just curious to know if you follow a structure. For example, I had to write an illustration essay, it seems easy but there are many things that you should take into consideration, and this article https://studybay.com/blog/how-to-write-a...ion-essay/ helped me a lot as it explains the structure step by step in order to not miss anything.

[wevalie]

I think he is writing an analytical report, which to be honest I hate a lot. Writing has always gave me headaches, but writing an analytical report gave me more. Besides this, I make many grammar mistakes and I always use an editing college essay service which corrects it and change some sentences if it is necessary. I really hope that one day I will able to write a perfect essay from the first try. Wish me good luck!

[Instantly Meatified]

Dear Gabe,

I am glad to answer your questions!

A1. Instantly Meatified here, i have been using the site since early 2016 without an account until i made one in 2019, I hope you enjoy the other members here and the sequences they make
A2. Examine the chat everyday, I am a mod on a few discord servers in the ones that i am in and the ones i run
A3. Comments about other users, like saying that they have good music or something, people don't really use it anymore
A4. So we choose like a soundfont that we like and we pick an instrument in there and edit it to work with os, takes a while but people are happy when new instruments get added
A5. So like you open a wav file or a mp3 file or a ogg or something in your music editor? that's a sample, you just gotta adjust it so it's like c5 or something and then you can mess around with it
A6. No, unfortunately, i do not have much information about it
A7. Someone finds the website on google and sees another person's sequences and they might like them so they make their own music
A8. A daw is a "Digital Audio Workspace", you know like FL Studio and programs like that? those are daws, you make cool music in them
A9. Magic, you use your ears and some soundfonts and stuff to make music with it
A10. The light blue piano (it's called classic electric piano nowadays)
A11. i don't make websites but i did enjoy the look of the website in the early days of online sequencer
A12. Coding and maths and html and various other things

Thank you for asking these questions and i hope you have a nice day.

Sincerely, YOUR QUEEN