Dungeon Master Forum

I realize lots of people have been discussing their favourite booze, how about discussing the music and artists/bands you like ?

Well, I like rock'n'roll !

I remember long nights of DM party training listening to some awesome records ! One of which is still my personnal all time favourite :
Faith No More's Angel Dust

I guess that makes me a "headbanger" or "metalhead" ? Partly true... Slayer, Metallica, Prong, Machine Head, among others, have been a loud background to the thundering of Mon fireballs hitting the Dungeon's walls.

But there were also Nirvana, Sonic Youth, The Cure, Depeche Mode, New Order...

In 1997 I fell in love with a band called Chokebore after seeing them play a song on French TV (a show called "Nulle Part Ailleurs")... The next year I built them a shrine on the internet, which has grown to become, well : http://www.chokebore.net.

Recently, I've been listening to amazing music by The Paper Chase from Texas, the 90 Day Men, Isis...

And for you Brits out there, yes I like Radiohead ! As well as Portishead, The Streets, Arab Strap, Mogwai...

I'm a big Greenday fan... I also like some fantasy music, like Blackmoore's Night and Blind Guardian. Unfortunately, I'm not very musical, so aside from pointing and says "me likes dem", I don't have much ability to discuss bands and music.

Lots of metal too, such as Machine Head, Nine Inch Nail, Tool, A Perfect Circle, etc
But really anything good, not usually much chart stuff - blues/soul is good too

Lessie, a 'what do i have on my mp3 player/CD player just now' might also be an idea...

For me, currently: the above mentioned bands, some blink 182, american head charge, K's Choice, Ministry, the Adageo for strings from platoon, soulfly, sarah mclaughlin, seal, snake river conspiracy, sunna, carmina burana (you know, the old spice song/excaliber theme) *cough some transformers: the ,movie soundtrack cough* *cough limp bizkit, dunno i was in that mood cough* crystal method, talking heads, foo fighters, and a couple of single songs from moloko, system of a down, chemical bothers, corey taylor, and johnny cash

so there you go!

I have quite a diverse musical taste. I was heavily into the Indie scene when I was a teenager, many eons ago, and have a vast collection of Oasis, Blur, Manics, Supergrass, Stone Roses and the like. I also like Queen and a lot of 60s stuff including the Stones, Beatles, Kinks, Who and many others.

Deep Purple is another group I listen to a lot, and Bowie and U2.

Modern chart music I find to be pretty dire apart from the occaisonal tune: currently in my CD player (not MP3, I am a HiFi enthusiast!) is a compilation of classical music, my favourite piece being Pachelbel's Canon

My winamp is playing a live Mister Bungle show...

I listen to all sorts of stuff but my fave band is Porcupine Tree.

I've never heard of half these bands listed!

That's ok, the only important ones are the ones I posted!

Wow. Beowuuf covered about half my choices. I've been swooning to Tool and APC for the last couple months, especially after discoving Thirteenth Step rather accidentally and devouring it front to back. (I'd been a huge fan of Mers de Noms until this point, but I didn't know they'd release another smash album so soon.) Other than that, I'm with Paul: my taste bounces all over the place.

I was into mods for a little while, and I still play the occasional bit by Andrew Sega (aka, Necros), Alex Brandon, Michiel van den Bos, and a Skaven or two. Elliot Goldenthal, Brian Luzietti, Thomas Newman, Bill Brown, and Christophe Heral are among my favorite composers. I've got MP3 folders dedicated to them. Yes, I listen to gangsta rap. I like it, and I don't know why. Yes, I'm white. I'm a redhead, so I'm about as white as it gets.

Let's see. . . Nirvana used to be a big fave when I was in high school a decade ago. I'm a fan of Hed's only decent album, their first one (P.E., 1997). Insane Clown Posse cracks me up. Ice Cube and Geto Boyz make me want to groove. Yoko Kanno makes me want to cry; some of her music is amazing, and she has a fantastic voice. Origa.

When I was a kid, I thought Van Halen was the coolest thing in the world. Growing up, my taste shifted to U2. Completely different sounds, but somehow reminiscent. I can't explain it.

Most of the stuff I listen to (besides Tool and APC, of course) is video game music. I've got MIDI collections including the complete Stonekeep, Daggerfall, and DM2-PC soundtracks. I'm not into jazz except Marble Gallery (Castlevania: SotN) and Dirty Walk (Necros), but I think I could turn quite easily if I went to a club.

Bah. It would take hours to list my collection. Needless to say, I suspect everyone is about like me and Beowuuf and Paul: we like what we like, and there's no excuse for taste.

A Perfect Circle released another album with covers called..oh, emotive..soemthign like that to co-incide with the US elections. It's a mixed bag really, some thigns like their imagine (takes a bit of gettign used to) or when the levee breaks are good, others aren't as good. Worth a look though, but maybe if you can borrow it from soemone else first to see! Saw them live...very, very cool...and yup, devoured mer de noms, but really got into thirtheenth step, especially if you listen to it at night...the albums have that night/day heavy/light feel to themn really....

And yeah, i'm never sure if i like insane clown posse or not, but them of their songs are just so great...jakob sayz and boogie woogie woo come to mind

and lol, yes, when you get right down to it good music is good, bad music is bad, and to limit to one genre or a few bands is usually un-possibly </ralf>

I've never really been a great fan of particular bands/singers, really. I like the Beatles, and a few songs by Queen (though I haven't heard that many really). Of modern...erm..."music", I like the occasional song here and there, but most of it is shyte (imo anyway). The stuff I like is mainly in soundtracks to various films (usually fantasy/animanted/Disney/Dreamworks), also from some TV programs and computer games. Oh, and I have the soundtracks to two stage musicals, but I'm not an avid follower of stage stuff, and besides, my favourite musical is based on a film anyway . TLK rules .

Does anybody listen to music on a dedicated set up anymore? CD player/amp/speakers and dare I say it, vinyl?!

apart from the vinyl, a friend of mine is still into the whole dedicated set up

i guess the rest of us can put up with a slight deterioration in music quality to have it all at our fingertips on the good old computer?

Hahahahah.... No... Winamp all the way.

While the computer I suppose is good for background listening and getting a feel of a tune, and mp3 players for portability, you can't beat a dedicated set up. 'Slight' is a bit of an understatement when listening through most computer speakers. However the ear and the brain gets used to it, but once you go and spin the same tune through a seperates system, the difference is astonishing: bass sounds like the instrument that played it rather than just a 'whump' (if at all), the nasty tinny top end smooths out and soundstaging and rhythm are easily noticable.

Don't believe me?! I invite anyone to come round and listen to my (fairly inexpensive) system and you'll be blown away! ipod? No chance!

Actually I wish I couldn't tell much of a difference: then I'd stop bloody upgrading all the time lol!

Like i said, a friend is heavily in to that...at university to hear somehting like 'velvet morning' play at full volume was amazing...and she by no means had anything liek a fancy set up.

Still, i really love my current ryca mp3 player, it has this 'rock' setting that has the treble and bass perfectly set, and compbined with some nice sony in ear headphones...let's jsut say the whumps are satisfying enough : )

I think as media storage technology expands, we will all be listening to music in PCM rather than having to compress in the near future. One of the major letdowns of MP3 players are the headphones: a decent pair can make a big difference.

Also I have seen a lot of so called 'docking' stations and peripherals for mp3 players that cost quite a lot of money for what they are: a small sub, weedy amp and a couple of plastic speakers for upwards of 200 pounds. A 50 quid argos 'boom-box' with CD drive would sound better IMO. (if you are looking for a semi-portable solution: you may be able to link the MP3 player to said box if you are lucky and save a lot of money and have more flexibility). But I suppose style is a major factor too.

In the end, if you like the sound you have then thats cool. I would be contradicting myself otherwise, as some people believe 'hifi' is about being satisfied with the sound you've got. Least I thought I was satisfied until someone lent me their Cyrus amplifier a few years ago...

Finally, to reinforce an earlier point, anyone currently wishing to invest in portable media may be worth hanging on a little while: I hear there is some great new technology on the way and prices are dropping all the time.

Hmm. Sounds like a call to arms.



When it comes to sound, I don't mess around. The angle is weird because I had to rest the camera on a chair to keep it from wobbling. If you look real close, you can see the sleave for The Downward Spiral beside the stereo. Normally I play MP3's from my computer, but I still spin CD's on occasion — especially when I need the stereo's alarm to wake me out of a coma. No subwoofer, but the speakers have 70 watt superwoofers that kick pretty hard. That's good enough for me.

Cool! Proper bass!

My system at the moment comprises of a Marantz CD4000 cd player, Cyrus 2 mk3 amp and Cyrus 2 mk2 PSX power supply unit, Eltax Monitor III speakers with Acoustic Solutions AV105II as back up (105cm tall! And gouge through the lower bass cone when my Claymore sword fell over and skewered the speaker)

I also own a Burnstar DVD player with onboard Dolby digital processor, Alchemist LA5000 5 channel amp, Eltax DX speaker system, and JVC TV.

And unfortunatley not much room to house all this! I particularly like the Cyrus amp combo which houses a monstrous 500VA toroidal transformer which can output 80amps instantaneous current per channel. Old but nice.

Well I got an Aiwa mini-stereo the size of Tom's, with decent speakers and little vinyl record player. I collect rare vinyl records too.

Regarding what you said on the expansion of media storage and listening to PCM audio, well, it's on the way. Right now audio fans are turning away from mp3 and other "lossy" (loss in sound quality due to compression) formats, using lossless formats instead such as FLAC, Monkey's Audio, WAVpack etc. These have the sound quality of WAV sound with 40-60 % compression rate.

PaulH wrote:I have quite a diverse musical taste. I was heavily into the Indie scene when I was a teenager, many eons ago, and have a vast collection of Oasis, Blur, Manics, Supergrass, Stone Roses and the like. I also like Queen and a lot of 60s stuff including the Stones, Beatles, Kinks, Who and many others.

Deep Purple is another group I listen to a lot, and Bowie and U2.

Ah, regarding the early stuff I'm into the Stones and the Beatles, and let's not forget about Pink Floyd. Never really listened to Deep Purple, sorry. I like Smoke on the Water though !
Classic metal favourites are Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Rock on !

Paul - you may be interested to know that the "Blackmore" in Blackmore's Night is Ritchie Blackmore, the guitarist from Deep Purple. Bit of trivia. He decided he wanted to do something new so he's gone into fantasy music. You should check it out; it's probably softer than you usually listen to, but the guitar is fabulous and the singer has a lovely voice.

What do I listen to? Lots and lots of video game music. I like 80s music. I like ballads by heavy bands - "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica is an example - because I prefer "guitar music" to "percussive music." I have a very high tolerance for classical music. I even like some musicals. But my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE BAND is Simon & Garfunkel. I have actually had the priveledge of hearing them live. One of the greatest experiences in my life. My sister and I went and I think we both cried because we were so moved by the music. I love them. Don't get me started or I won't stop talking about them.

I may have something else to contribute.

I have a stereo. I don't know anything about it except that it's awesome. Does this mean I am a terrible person?

I have many happy memories from university of being 'educated' in good music with a good sound system and such music and pink floyd, led zepplin, etc : )

@selie - i only think someone can be a terrible person if they claim to like music yet butcher it with the tiiny tinny speakers i have on my computer : )

Two words:

Marty O'Donell

Is that not a double 'n'?

After reading up on the new HDV alliance, it looks like this new data storage is just around the corner. A cd sized disk that can store 1TB of data and transfer info 40x the speed of dvd. The 'holographic' versatile disc. Nice. If this can be made quickly RW, wow.

I also read an article in a daily paper saying that people who own mp3 players don't really want to be carrying around thousands upon thousands of songs so the storage space (on say 5 and 20gb are wasted). So one company in their infinite wisdom have brought out a 'new simple to use mp3 player with 256mb of memory, enough for all your tracks'. Hmmm. This costs 149 quid. I'd rather buy the 20gb player for an extra few quid and listen to the tracks in uncompressed format.

If that guest sounds suspiciously like me, its because it is!!! Went on a major cookie/spyware purge again and deleted the DMforum cookie! Bloody browser hijackers...

I've stayed away from this thread because I have such a broad taste in music, if I were to list it all you'd be here forever; and if I were to only list some of the things I'm listening to at the moment, you'd get the wrong impression as it wouldn't be representative... it's easier to say the music I don't like: Extremely heavy metal, hardcore rap and hip-hop, and that strange nu-rock/metal stuff whatever it's called from bands like Slipknot and Limp Bizkit. having said that, I guess my taste is fairly mainstream though. Some of the music that's been listed by you lot I've never heard of.

Oh, what the hell: Here's some of the stuff I'm listening to at the moment:

A girl called Eddy, Scissor Sisters, The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Goldfrapp, Peter Gabriel, Snow Patrol, Broadcast (who I really love), St. Etienne, Kasabian, Emiliana Torrini (who was a susrprise discovery on a Hed Kandi compilation a few years ago -- the most haunting voice), David Bowie, Norah Jones, Depeche Mode, Morrissey, The Smiths.... and various classical works, especially Mahler and Mozart. Oh, and a bit of Kylie.

Broad taste is good taste in my opinion. Glueing yourself to one 'style' seems very shortsighted and narrowminded to me. I used to be like that. Then I listened to Bach, Mozart, Queen, Deep Purple, whatever and I realised I liked music for being music, rather than than its 'style'.

Nobody has listed their favourite piece. I don't think I can say outright what my favourite track/single/piece is, but 'Motorcycle Emptiness' by the Manics is close to the top. And 'Canon' by Pachelbel.

Hmm yes indeed Gambit you're right, I haven't heard of most of them...though Emiliana Torrini I believe is the one who sings "Gollum's Song" from the Two Towers film..love that song .