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Enquiring minds need to know ?

Feel free to vote for Cakewalk here!

Yeah give Bill some credit , if it's really him he will eventually apologize to the Alligator ? Kenny

I tried this out before when it was on offer, but didn't buy in the end. I was really keen to demo it, because I had read great reviews, notably from Paul White at Sound on Sound. I found I could get better results from Ozone 8 Advanced, which I already owned, without much more effort. Granted, I have invested time learning Ozone, although I am a long way from being any kind of expert. I would say that Zynaptic will give you good results, and it's very easy to use but if you have tools such as Ozone already, then it won't give you anything you don't already have at your disposal.

If the guitar wins it's going to the...pawn shop.

no details on the SB site as yet

Been getting some good tips from the What I'm Listening to Now thread, so I thought I'd invite folks to talk about what new gear/instruments/effects they're just getting their feet wet with. As you may know, I review music software as a hobby. It's a lot of work for zero compensation, the only perk being that I get to keep the software I've reviewed. And I sometimes get to talk to interesting people. Often, products just get dropped into my lap. That sounds great, no? Free stuff! Well, sometimes it gets awkward because said products aren't always good. Then I feel bad. But I refuse to write negative reviews, so if it's not something I'd actually use myself or recommend to a friend, then it doesn't get considered. This thread isn't about that. This is about things that fell out of the sky and were great. Here's what I'm playing with now. Stuff I'm not an expert on yet, but that I am digging so far... First there's Indiginus' electric lap steel guitar, which is a blast. Not a big surprise, because Tracy's stuff is always good. But I didn't know it was even in development until an email appeared saying "come get it". Granted, guitar players are not likely to swoon over this, but if your fingers are trained for keyboards but you like to throw guitars into a project, then it's pretty awesome. Slides that sound natural because they are sampled, not scripted. I've become immersed in a surprisingly deep Kontakt library from SampleLogic called Cinematic Guitars Motion. I had mixed feelings at first, because while I love Cinematic Guitars (and everything else from SampleLogic), I'm an old-school type who's not big on loops and sequencers. But underneath the fancy modulation and sequencing there are some really great sounds - all made by guitars, but often unrecognizable as such. I've just begun my deep dive into this one, but already it's way more fun than I thought it would be. But the biggest surprise this year was a product from IKM. Some of you might recall that I've had sour words for IKM over the years. As soon as a vendor starts putting "i" in front of their products' names, I'm outa there. No, I will never record music on my phone, sorry. I don't care how cute your rig-in-a-pocket is. Then this thing comes along. I approached it with skepticism, ready to hate it. Long story short: it's frickin' amazing. IKM, all is forgiven. I'm talking about B3-X, their Hammond emulator. Not kidding, it's the best I've heard yet - and I've got a diskfull of 'em to compare. Not only have they nailed the tonewheel sound and all its subtleties, they've put in features I didn't even know I wanted. Like the ability to replace the Leslie amp with a Marshall head, a la Jon Lord. (I believe it uses the same Leslie that you can buy as a separate plugin for Amplitube or T-Racks.) So what new stuff have you recently added to your toolbox? Stuff that you maybe haven't fully figured out yet, but are optimistic about.

A small aside: I once saw some lemon oil for fretboard cleaning on Amazon. One of the reviews must have been a joke: it rated it with one star; said it tasted really bad.

Run Softube Central to update

no big deal it's update for Fader 1 use , i never upate until i really need it

Seems holding Alt + single left click in empty area creates a new note. Right click a note is works as eraser.

Already positive on the first one, Invasors. Good sounding and I love it’s a Kontakr Player lib so I can hit it in the library pane. Now on to the next one, Chordscape, the one that lured me in.

Cool! A poll where you don't have to register for spam, ah, I mean, register.

You can use an internal drive as a USB external drive with a dock. The drives pop in and out like a toaster and you can use either size internal drive. The internal drives made for computers are rather dependable (more than those tiny USB things) and you can have a dozen drives and pop them in or out as needed (of course doing a USB eject first). Insights and incites by Notes

Category tags are VST3 feature. Most manufacturers provide category tags in their VST3 plug-ins although I end up overriding a few of them. When VST3 support was added to SONAR X3, Cakewalk built a database of tags for VST2 plug-ins. My guess is they do not have the staff at this time to keep the database current. I do all my initial category assignments in the Browser and use the plug-in manager to nest the folders. Hopefully nested folders will make it into the browser edit function sometime soon.

My apologies for getting off topic here. Personally I never “normalize”, but Craig Anderton (I think) talks about quite a bit. Gain is a great tool, but generally pre effects, so you have to be careful. If your tracks are peaking about-18db, you’ll have some headroom to work with. Generally, I find most VSTi come in peaking in the -6 range and I have to pull the faders down. Load EZD, (I think you mentioned you have it) start auditioning some of ezd midi, and I’m clipping; consequently my Toon templates pull the internal levels well down. As to matching “commercial” levels, I’m not a Masterlng engineer. You’re holding yourself to an impossible ideal. Ozone is popular, but there are numerous cheaper limiters that will get you close. Mixing is like playing guitar or keys, it’s something you have to “practice”. Wish I could tell you there’s a “Silver Bullet”. Tom

Er ... "smoking weed and swimming with dolphins".

Tried that. That was the reason for my post. I thought there was a sale but it must be over. I don't have the time unfortunately, as I'm going into hospital tomorrow for surgery and will be out of action for the next month or so. Wanted to get it done before all that. If I really think about it I'm sure that nothing I'm doing musically will suffer by using my current software versions. Fancy having GAS and not taking anything for it. lol

Wow, Xpand!2 is a 1.3 GB download in compressed format. That's a lot of multi-timbrel sounds. I just couldn't resist at $8.39 US. Thanks @Starship Krupa and @filo. Appreciate it guys.

filo, that's a great deal. Anyone who picks up Xpand!2 for that price (or even the $14.99 price) will be amazed at the sheer number and quality of sounds. I think the list is 2500 or so and don't know if I've made it all the way through auditioning them. Now that would be a nice thing for synth plug-in manufacturers to supply, a file that contains short auditions of each factory preset so that we don't have to go through the process of increment/noodle/increment/noodle to find our favorite sounds.

Bigger than Black Friday, Cyber Monday or Xmas, our annual, deepest-discounts-of-the-year sale has begun. The following Kontakt Player libraries are 40-50% off: Riff Generation: Outside In Edition (save $105) Taiko Creator with the Expansion (save $80) Shimmer Shake Strike with the Expansion (save $60) Fluid Harmonics (save $90) Fluid Strike: Tuned Percussion (save $125) All loop titles 50% off (save $40-$125 per collection). The sale ends Sunday, November 3. https://insessionaudio.com/

I'm also interested in this. Would love to hear your thoughts on this. ?

I've had mixed results with those (I have a few). Including one that managed to corrupt two SOURCE hard drives that I was trying to clone because I didn't have them backed up anywhere! I lost some good data forever... This is another alternative that has been working well for me: USB 3.0 to SATA III Hard Drive Adapter Cable

you snooze, you lose larry ?

$5 CINEMATRIX delivers truly unique and inspiring sounds right out of the box. It is a state-of-the-art cinematic loop module for KONTAKT containing 350 different kits that can be played in tandem across four categories (Bass, Melody, Ambience and Groove). These kits are built using the included 1.300 (unencrypted) 24-bit WAV files. All loops can be played polyphonically timestretched within a range of two octaves (24 semitones). Click here to learn more!

And thank you for asking the question which elicited such a nice array of tips, suggestions, and detailed advice!!

You likely are running a very old version of CbB if it prompted you. Periodic online activation is a requirement to use the software (as is the case with most other products). Its a small price to pay to get a full blown DAW with no restrictions. The newest update will give you advance notice when activation is required and won't block you ever while you are in a session, in the unlikely event that the rime rolls over. You also need to periodically update BandLab assistant which is the delivery mechanism. Its also in most users best interests to update the software periodically since we are constantly making the software better.

You should just install the latest Cakewalk by BandLab. Do not uninstall your sonar X1 studio and installed plugins (handle alike sonar platinum) to use plugins came with old sonar on Cakewalk by BandLab. If I remember correctly, Cakewalk by BandLab installer can take over most settings of old sonar while installing. and some sonar shared folder will be overwrote.

MeldaProduction has announced the 42nd round of the Eternal Madness Discount 2019! 50% OFF some of the most powerful audio plugins on the market until October 20th (23:59:59 UTC). MTurboReverbLE - the most powerful algorithmic reverb ever made. 100 reverbs in one and more... MWaveFolderMB - powerful distortion module, inspired by analogue, taken to a new level using digital processing. MEqualizerLP - a linear-phase equalizer that sounds as good as you have always dreamt! MTransient - bring some attack and punch to any rhythmic track!

And there's also this https://vstbuzz.com/the-vault/shimmer-shake/ and with my reward points I can have it for less than half it's price! Maybe not as awesome as the SSS but if you cannot stress out hundreds for a shaker, there is an alternative .

Here's what probably happened...when you booted Windows for some reason the interface didn't respond and therefore never made it onto the list of known devices. It may have been the interface's fault or a USB port that didn't initialize. Then when you tried to restart SONAR, it was probably still running as a zombie process, waiting for the nonexistent interface to respond. Whenever SONAR refuses to start, go to your Task Manager, see if it's already running, and kill the process if it is. Most of the time, the interface will come back after you reboot your computer. Make sure you turn it on first, before the computer, so that it's had time to boot itself and therefore be ready to respond when Windows comes calling. I'll bet once you've rebooted you'll be able to go back to ASIO with no problems. If not, look for a hardware answer, hopefully something easy like an unplugged USB cable.

I think Xpand!2 is the bang for the buck virtual ROMpler! I got it for a buck a few years ago. It's great for quick song sketching, and the sounds are surprisingly good for the size of the sample ROM. Yup, loaded with a couple thousand+ sounds and 4-part multi-timbral. Quite a broad range of sound samples. So you can load multiple instances of the plugin with 4 MIDI channels and 4 instrument parts, and a single stereo audio out for each instance. So you can create sub-mixes of related sounds in each instance of Xpand!2. It loads fast and is light on resources, so multiple instances shouldn't be an issue.

Ok i updated Taupe is now 20 % , but lazer gone , latency increased ///lol what an update !!!

Good tune, ready for the next level.. I could imagine this being worked up using real musicians. (bass, drums, keys, keeping the strings & midi various parts.) You might consider trying it sometime, you might be surprised how it could turn out.

MME is the "tast resort" mode in case nothing works - for the reasons that you have discovered. ASIO still remains the most favoured driver mode. When you say "Then I updated Sonar" I am assuming that is to the latest Cakewalk by Bandlab (2019.9 Build 70). If not then I recommend you do so. Note Sonar can run side by side - you shouldn't uninstall Sonar to when you install Cakewalk by Bandlab. Then try reinstalling the driver for the Roland Octa-Capture. Maybe head to the Roland website and grab the latest drivers if you have not done so already.

Re testing for fun and same conclusion , Ik rules but 34 % cpu hit versus 17 taupe versus 4% Tape and 6% VTM

Groove Clips have rounded edges like the upper clip in this image. The lower clip is a regular wav

I think that's a great price for shimmer shake strike + expansion, which I think is one of the best percussion library's I have used - this gets used on most tracks we do Nigel

The MIDI notes in the PRV will inherit the track colour they have been given in Track View. Using default track colours, the first three tracks will in the PRV have black text on green, mustard and blue respectively. So I must assume that you are talking about the colour of unselected tracks when displayed ghosted alongside the selected track in the PRV. They will indeed be rendered using black text on a dark gray background, as seen at the bottom of the example below. There are 16 different colours exposed in the Theme Editor making up the different graphical elements possible to modify in the PRV. As none of these colours relate to ghosted MIDI notes, nothing can be done to change their appearance in the Theme Editor as far as I can see. And if I'm wrong, I'm sure someone soon will correct me.

Nothing to fret about

The company called BandLab makes 2 DAWs. One is called BandLab, it is an app that runs in the Chrome web browser. The other is a Windows program called Cakewalk by BandLab. The main page for this DAW is https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk I believe this is the page referred to in the OP. The instruments mentioned on this page are for the DAW called BandLab NOT Cakewalk by BandLab.

Dealio

You can pick this up for $70 here on KVR https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=514719

Mebbe you should try JRR Shop instead. I think the JRR Ship people could be pirates.......... Add to cart for discounted price.?

Thanks for the report, Michael. I've managed to reproduce the problem here, so we'll take a look. No promises, but I'll try to fix for the next release if time allows.

I have found Xpand!2 for $8.39 at JRR with GROUP discount code. https://www.jrrshop.com/air-music-tech-xpand-2 And I'm joining with "thank you!" to @Starship Krupa

After reading post from Marco about D8b, I have just googled... There is a preset for Platform M+ http://www.azslow.com/index.php?topic=386.0 "ACT" (Dynamic Mapping) mode allows control plug-ins (including synth and ProChannel). I do not see controls to select the plug-in, you will need to do this by mouse or extend the preset with selection controls. I have no idea how good the preset is working, Hermu has made the preset without me ? In the comments he writes D2 shows something. So yes, that is possible.

Make no mistake, this movie is all about true super heroes on a quest to create the ultimate DAW. Thanks for your dedicated work.

This is easily accomplished using Fit to Time from the Process Menu. I like to start with the tempo map view opened to verify the changes or to select specific range of times. Select ALL tracks. There must be midi or audio data in the selected area. ( you can put dummy data here if needed) (Also, after Selecting All Tracks, if you wish to just proportionally change only certain measures, you can use the time range in the track view or tempo view to select say measure 2 to 12 for eg. ) Go to Process, Fit to Time and Select Modify by changing Tempo map. For faster tempo, enter an earlier New Thru Time. For Slower tempos, enter a later New Thru Time. (for example if you have a 3 minute selection that you want 10% faster proportionally (while keeping your tempo map of course), 3 minutes = 180 secs. 10% faster would end at 90% of the original Thru Time. So, 180 x 0.90 = 162 secs OR 2 min and 42 secs. So a New Thru Time of 2'42" would proportionally increase your Map by 10% for a 3 minute song. I do this often and get great results! I'll leave a GIF of doing this procedure over a specific range. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wt4y8xu1mdrcsq8/Speed up tempo map maintaing tempo proportions.gif?dl=0 Hope that helps! ✌️