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Our Gift Certificates are now discounted 20% on both the SL Marketplace and at our in-world location at Mythos.  These certificates are the perfect gift for the holidays or other special events.  They are are instantly redeemable through our Hippo vendors.  The gift certificate buttons on the right side panel on the website have also been updated with direct links and now include the free affiliate vendor.

Affiliates – Please check your vendors to ensure the changes have been passed down to your machines.

Send me an IM if you have any questions or if there are any issues with the affiliate machines.

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All Dark Gothic and Halloween sound emitters are now 50% off until November 1st!

This includes all 175 looping AtmoSpheres, pre-packaged Super-Randomizers, and Build-Your-Own (empty) Randomizers.

Alchemy group members receive an additional 20% off at time of purchase.  Your group tag must be active to receive the additional discount!

The special sale items are located at this teleport link.

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My wife snapped this picture (click to enlarge)  during a recent camping trip in Big Sur, California.  The location is LimeKiln State Park.  A five minute walk takes you into the redwood forest trail that follows the stream up to the waterfalls.  I found a semi-dry location close to the bottom of the falls to setup my equipment to make a few field recordings.

So this is how many of our sounds are acquired! 

The complete set of audio recordings from this trip will be made available very soon!

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So there I was… Setting up my recording equipment at our campsite in Big Sur at 5:30am.  The waves of the Pacific Ocean crashing on the rocks at the beach below, a gentle creek flowing in the canyon, the early morning birds darting around the concrete columns of the bridge high above…  And then I realize….  One little #@%$*% adapter went missing!  It was a small setback but it forced me to change the recording setup entirely.  By the end of our camping trip, I was able to make about 25 new field recordings, which should be available in-world in the next week.  As for the curse of the disappearing adapters, I’ve found a few backups in my hardware bins so this shouldn’t happen again…  until the next time anyway. 

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The beautiful song of the Hermit Thrush is our latest release and is now available in-world and on the SL Marketplace.

There are two distinct variations of the Hermit Thrush soundtrack.  The first is a wide open field recording with a light breezy forest and a few other soft bird calls in the background.  This recording was encoded as a 1:30 long AtmoSphere loop.  It is available as a single item or a discounted package of five (for the price of three).

• Atmo-Bird – Hermit Thrush 1:30
• Atmo-Bird – Hermit Thrush 1:30 (Box of 5)

The second soundtrack is a closer perspective of just the Hermit Thrush song without the forest background.  This recording was also encoded as a 1:30 AtmoSphere loop, a discounted package of five, a pre-loaded Super-Randomizer with 12 sound clips, and a set of full perm unscripted sound clips for builders.

• Atmo-Bird – Hermit Thrush, Close 1:30
• Atmo-Bird – Hermit Thrush, Close 1:30 (Box of 5)
• Super-Randomizer – Hermit Thrush (12 sound clips)
• Full Perm Sounds – Bird – Hermit Thrush (12)

Sound previews can be played at our in-world location in our “New Releases” section.  Group members receive 20% discount at time of  purchase.  The Hermit Thrush AtmoSpheres are available for Landscapers (copyable) and Builders (copy/transfer) on request.

We have several new recordings in the works and will also be taking a short trip up the California coastline this month where I hope to get many new field recordings!  All new releases will be routed directly to the three main vendors in the New Releases section.

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50% off all sound emitters this Memorial Day Weekend!

From May 27th to June 1st, our entire 1,500+ inventory of AtmoSpheres (looping) and Super-Randomizers (pre-packaged and build-your-own) scripted sound emitters are 50% off!

Acoustic Alchemy group members receive an additional 20% off at time of purchase.  Group tag must be active.  Group invitation signs are available in the lobby for new members.

Special sale items are hosted in the HippoVend machines on the ground level (Aquatic, Nature, Randomizers, New Releases) and Level #1 (Gothic, Industrial, Steampunk, Scifi, Wind Chimes, and much more) above.

Teleport to Lobby

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Ahh memories.  What a great little program Sound Recorder was back in the day.

(click to enlarge)

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Three new Destinations have been added to our showcase of in-world venues that have been thoroughly soundscaped.   We have also added a new designer that is adding audible atmospheres to their products.  Be sure to visit each of them!

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Prim Perfect

The home office of Second Life’s first magazine dedicated to homes and gardens located in the Costa Rica Sims estates.

Owner/Editor – Saffia Widdershins
Website – http://primperfect.net/
SLURL – http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/San%20Jose%20East1/139/215/23
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Dysphoria

Tip-toe around the spellbinding beauty of Dysphoria – the most detailed and realistic Wonderland sim in Second Life.  A true labor of love inspired by the dark fantasy movies of Tim Burton.

Owner/Contact - Muse Muliaina
SLURL – http://slurl.com/secondlife/kahuna/160/178/293

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Fantasy Faire, Exotic Worlds Sim

The Exotic Worlds Sim has been soundscaped and is part of the nine separate themed Fantasy Faire, including unique destinations as: Dark Mirage, Enchanted Mysts, Fantastical and Magical, Forest of Light, Forest of Shadow, Nemo Revisited, and the Sea of Mer.

Landscaper – Elicio Ember
Venue Website – http://www.FantasyFaireSL.wordpress.com
SLURL – http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Exotic%20Worlds/127/191/23

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KIDD Grass Garden

Light and beautiful are the key words that best describe KIDD Creation’s work.  Light prim cost, light prices, and beautiful landscaping items, ground cover, grasses for greening your second earth.

Owner – doP Kidd
Products – Realistic Reed Cattails
SLURL -http://slurl.com/secondlife/KIDD%20Grass%20Garden/222/30/22

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Do you have a soundscaped destination or design your own products that incorporates our sound systems?  Would you like to showcase your venue or products here?

Please let us know!

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I thought it was about time to re-visit an area of unresolved frustration that I had been (intentionally) avoiding for a while.  The Second Life JIRA.

There are many unresolved product issues that have been reported by residents over the years.  Shortly after Acoustic Alchemy was launched, we began to encounter various problems with the SL viewer client sound system.  A few of these “quirks” could not be avoided, were identified as product bugs, and documented in the SL JIRA.  Group members were called upon for assistance to add their votes to the JIRA tickets and to voice their desires to have permanent fixes resolve the problems.  A separate page on this website was added to track sound related JIRAs for visitors.

Now begins the exercise of frustration.  One of the oldest sound bugs still remains unresolved to this day.  In fact, this bug has remained unresolved for FOUR years as of today.  For your consideration, I present JIRA ticket VWR-291.  Here is a brief rundown of the issue.

• Description: Sound Files Often Not Downloaded
• Sound file downloads can be aborted when SL asset severs become lagged.  If the download is aborted, the SL client inserts a period of “silence” for that queued sound clip.  This can be observed in the SL client debug view (CTRL+SHIFT+4) as the “BOOM — Abort Transfer” error message.  Whenever that sound clip is triggered, only silence will play.  This is significantly damaging listening to a long multi-file sound loop.
• Workaround: The only way to re-download the proper sound asset is to dump cache and have the sound asset re-queued.

This issue has been around for four years, which means that it was first encountered even before the 1.20 client was released.  The ticket has garnered over 250 resident votes.  Since the last several product releases, the rate at which this bug surfaces has been less frequent but the problem still exists and affects many residents.  We have attended the Linden bug triage meetings more than once asking for escalated attention but the ticket has never moved beyond “WorkingOnIt Linden”.   A second issue was then discovered (VWR-8147) where the SL viewer client would delete all cached sound data at every shutdown.  This appeared to be a band-aid measure to obscure the main VWR-291 issue.  This by itself induces a huge amount of unnecessary asset server downloads and performance.

Esbee Linden closed the JIRA ticket VWR-291 in November 2010 with the paltry comment of “This ticket hasn’t been updated with any repros for recent Viewers. Closing as unactionable.”   We were able to get the ticket immediately reopened and (politely) asked that the ticket be given further consideration and at the bare minimum that the developers should at least verify that the viewer 2.x code base does NOT insert the “10 seconds of silence” when a sound clip is aborted.  The issues remain unresolved and we continue to receive reports from other residents that the issue persists in Viewer 2.x.

Soundscapes are a vital element to virtual environments and we will continue to lobby Linden Labs to address these issues more proactively.

If you find value in soundscapes and sound effects for your products or projects, please continue to add your votes and comments to the JIRA tickets.

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An important privacy issue in Second Life is getting more attention concerning a device known as RedZone.  This device was created by resident named zFire Xue and touted as a security system to prevent copybot theft.  However, this system takes advantage of a weakness in the SL client’s media protocols to identify and record your IP address and cross-reference primary and alt accounts.

Avril Korman has written a fantastic article titled: “Spies, Lies and Cold Hard Cash” that explains in detail how RedZone invades resident’s privacy and violates Linden Labs Terms of Service.

Additional Resources

• Linden Labs JIRA VWR-24746
• How to Avoid RedZone at no2redzone
• Ongoing discussion thread at SLUniverse forums.

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2/28/11 - Avril Korman has written a lengthy and very informative update on the RedZone situation, “A Bitter Harvest“.

3/2/11 – Soft Linden added a note on the JIRA providing the following details that essentially puts the final nail in RedZone’s coffin.  *updated* zfRedZone is back on the Marketplace once again around 3/10.

3/13/11 – The RZ site was apparently hacked by unknown individuals that zFire Xue taunted into breaching his wildly insecure systems.  The results are fairly alarming to say the least.  The links below detail the latest disturbing discoveries. 

• The Alphaville Herald – zf Redzone Security Breached – SL Passwords Compromised?
• No2Redzone – Hack or Cover-Up, zFire Xue admits to hacking SL accounts, followup article.
• The SecondLife Technologist – Redzone more than just ALTS
• SLU post by Samantha Poindexter provides a great summary update from Saturday.  And a second update here.
• SLU epic thread ‘RedZone 2: Electric Boogaloo’ continues here.

** If you made an account with RedZone on isellsl, change your passwords everywhere! **

3/14/11 – More disturbing information is being reported on multiple sites today that zFire Xue is apparently a convicted criminal.

“…. multiple criminal convictions, including convictions for eBay fraud. This is an article about Mike Prime – zFire Xue. A longer PDF court record is here, and a New York Times article is here. Note from the court record that he had a string of previous convictions for first and second degree theft, two counts of possession of stolen property in the second degree, and forgery….”

• Read the full article at No2Redzone here.
• SLU thread revelations and further criminal discoveries begin here on page 193.

3/15/11 – More updates being appended to the page as new information becomes available.

• Samantha Poindexter provides yet another (insanely) detailed summary update at SLU with the latest discoveries.
• “Second Life Privacy. Stand Up and Be Counted” community created on Facebook.
• The Alphaville Herald – zFire Xue Slams Redzone Enemies

3/16/11 – Linden Labs has dropped the ban hammer on zFire Xue and RedZone!

• zFire Xue’s profile showed as ‘disabled’ and disappeared from search (including many of his known alts) around 4:45pm SLT/PST yesterday.
• Soft Linden began the purge of zFire Xue’s land and objects a few minutes later.snapshot1, snapshot2
• Several sims reported to be using RedZone suddenly stopped triggering RZ URLs.
• Samantha Poindexter posted her highly detailed summary update at SLU late Tuesday evening.
• RedZone was removed from the SL Marketplace around 7:25am SLT/PST today.
• zFire Xue’s land was also reclaimed by Linden Labs today. The ‘Mad Scientists Inc.’ group no longer appears in Search and Vasilisa Shilova also appears to be banned.

Many thanks to everyone who voted on the JIRAs, posted at SLU, blogged, tweeted, and filed Abuse Reports on these issues.

Massive props to Linden Labs (and Soft Linden!) for taking action to defend resident privacy!

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3/18/11 – Final update to this post. The removal of RedZone and zFire Xue by Linden Labs is only a small part of the ongoing issues involving online privacy.  New security updates to the official SL and third party viewers are essential to remove vulnerabilities that unsavory individuals will use for illegal purposes, even under the guise of helping the community.  Many dedicated residents remain vigilant to ensure that these opportunists are identified and reported if they attempt to return.  We will also publish an additional primer on using Media Filters on our help pages.

• Avril Korman published another fantastic article – Mars, Unmasked: RedZone Zapped from Second Life Grid

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