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Greetings, visitor, and thanks for dropping by the Zelda Sounds Source. If this is your first time at the site, you might be wondering why our sound effect collection isn't quite caught up with all the available Legend of Zelda games. And if you're a regular visitor, you might also be wondering why our updates have been so infrequent and fruitless lately. Well, in the spirit of the holiday season, I'd like to announce that things should be kicking back into gear in the near future. I'd also like to share the latest news and happenings behind the scenes! As you hopefully (but may not) know, this site is a one-person operation. Yes, sometimes I refer to "Us" or "We", but that's simply because with the involvement of a few dedicated helpers, including my gracious web host Dayjo, as well as the fan community that keeps a site like this alive and relevent, I often feel like a part of a team. However, virtually all of the sound recording, ripping, editing, formatting, labeling, and manually entering into an old-school JavaScript database is done by me, AKA HelpTheWretched. It's tedious work but often quite fun. I've enjoyed the evolution of the "job" as I've tested and developed new ways of obtaining those instant-classic sound effects, and sharing them with the web is strangely fulfilling. I feel fortunate that we've reached #1 status in Google search results and never received anything remotely close to a Cease & Desist letter. And that's even considering that I've never asked for a penny in return! (On the subject, let's point out that several people have sent messages saying that they'd gladly make a donation. So at this point, we're considering setting up a little PayPal thing. No biggy, just letting you know!) However, sometimes the work is not all that fun. For instance, during almost all of this entire past year. I'll scrimp on the personal details, but explain a bit about what's been going on. After some tough situations with my family and finances, I made a rather quick but calculated decision to move to a new city, finding a cheap apartment with the only willing housemate I knew. November 5th, 2009 - an easy moving date to Remember. This felt like a promising new beginning for me. Of course, we had no Internet access, and "we'll get it soon" became an oft-spoken phrase. Getting the proper electrical outlets to plug in a computer seemed like a logical first step! What took place over the following 13+ months can be summed up as "HelpTheWretched's Series of Unfortunate Events". Immigration procedures hit a few snags that just kept snagging for months and months. Compounded by a language barrier that I'm still struggling to overcome, it was one mistake or miscommunication after another, each one making the last even harder to resolve. Another central issue was a back injury that I've coped with for about a decade. At first I didn't even know what had happened, but something was wrong and it's been causing more and more pain with each passing year. It's now reached the point of interfering with nearly all of my daily activity, yet it's also become so specific that I can actually sense the aggravated nerves and spinal compression and trace the damage back to the gymnastics training from my slightly younger days. We're seeking treatment in various forms but I'm being forewarned that it might be too late to cure. A lot of those snags with the government paperwork had to do with my medical condition, which was, in brief, agonizing and debilitating pain. Getting the proper reports and conveying them to unqualified individuals with limited to no knowledge of English, that was a trying adventure in itself. Let alone that there were days when I could barely walk! There's a lot more that's been bringing me down on an emotional level as well. Being concerned over my future and my goals, constantly questioning if my hobbies - such as working on this sound collection - are worth the time and effort, troubles with quite a few formerly close people in my life, these are all things that affect my drive to keep up the work. Things that I'd like you all to know about since they keep you waiting for the sounds that I truly do enjoy providing. So I hope you understand that there's no way I can get into any further detail without rambling in vain or disturbing anybody. But I would like to make one special mention. Over the past year, three of my four family pets died in rapid succession. These were three wonderful cats who I had since childhood, and I considered them all to be great friends. Stop your laughing, I know that the loss of a pet is a common thing and not something to get too worked up about. But their deaths were very sudden and rather shocking (the first one crashed the very day after I moved) even though they lived fairly long and full lives, and they had such unique and fun personalities that I wished everyone could have met them.
Back to business, you can probably imagine the frustration of going in circles with these problems, getting nowhere for months with nothing but bedriddance to show for it, and how it was taking away a lot of my motivation to go collecting sounds. Actually, getting to work on this site - in the few chances I could - was a nice release! But naturally, I always had trouble keeping my focus for very long. These days I'm mainly working on sounds from GameCube/Wii and DS Zelda games. Therein lies another problem. My desktop computer is not exactly state-of-the-art so the emulators for these systems run very slowly, and many of them don't have the features that commonly helped with recording from older games. I've been able to extract thousands of sound effects straight out of the games' data, but sorting through them, identifying, pitch-correcting, and labeling them is so much more monotonous and time-consuming than you might think, especially when you don't have Internet access to find reference material. Not to mention that many of the important sounds that people want are actually sequences and can't just be ripped, so I'm left having to rely on other tricks like using codes, hacking through the game data, experimenting with all kinds of scenarios in the games, and other stuff that just tires me out within minutes. Especially without Internet access the research and discuss these techniques. To help make some progress, I've made a list of ways that visitors like you can contribute if you so wish to. Please don't feel like there's any obligation, but check it out sometime, and know that I'd really appreciate any helping hands that people can lend! So... is that all? Didn't you say the site would be getting back in business? Why, that's right! Long story short, some of my ongoing issues have been resolved and some others are at least under better control. Saying everything is back to normal would be wishful thinking, but I'm finally making some progress. Most importantly for all of you, I plan on getting hooked back up to the 'net in January, and I've been having bursts of enthusiasm much more often. Now we only need to make sure this enthusiasm keeps going, because there are some big plans in the works! Myself and Dayjo have been discussing a total re-design of this website for a long time, and we're in the final planning and beginning construction phases. You'll see a nicer layout, custom downloading options, sound editing and music resources, and a blog-like update system which should include polls, gaming and development discussions, featured projects by visitors, and more.
Thank you for reading this, and all the best to you in the new decade!
If you wish to discuss any of the personal matters written here, please use e-mail and not the public chatbox. Home Page
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So please, if you have any suggestions, general comments, or if you want to show me something neat you're making with the sounds you've found here, send an e-mail to me at the address below. Remember, this site is not a factory, and if it were, I never would have written such a long and personal message. It's a labourous hobby that I hope some people find a use for, and I hope to be able to keep it going.
