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I just downloaded, installed and tried out the free version of the DS Drum RCS Essentials acoustic drum kit (yeah, don't blame me for it's long-winded name that really doesn't communicate anything of value) from a new developer called Red Pack Drums. It's a KONTAKT library that, I believe, requires the full version of KONTAKT and this is an excellent quality acoustic drum kit for free. It's a sophisticated, detailed/deep sampled drum kit. love that you can swap snares and tune the snares in the free version. It features a wide variety of mapping options, including for popular drum plugins like Superior Drums as well as V-Drums and GM. They call the free library a DEMO, but it's one full drum kit with two snares, a wood (mahogany) snare and a brass snare. As a former semi-pro drummer, I'm very picky about drum libraries and this is easily one of the best free drum libraries I know of (the competition, off hand, for a very high quality free detailed, multisampled drum kit libraries include Steven Slate Drums and the Sennheiser Kit for KONTAKT -- both are are worth having. I don't love the toms on this kit, but for a freebie, they're still nice. While many KONTAKT drum libraries are a disappointment when it comes to the GUI, while this one isn't my version of ideal, it's not bad. Everything you need it there and once you figure everything it out, which doesn't take long, it's easy to understand. It doesn't look like the standard KONTAKT GUI -- and for a drum library, I think this is much better than the standard KONTAKT GUI. You can easily figure out how to do drum mapping, use the mixer, tune the drums, swap out snares and find pre-made MIDI drum grooves. That's superb for a freebie. I highly recommend downloading it. I don't know if I am ready to buy another drum library for its current sale price of €139, but I definitely think this developer has done a very good job. Don't sleep on this freebie. The ones this good don't always last. https://www.redpackdrums.com/product-page/the-official-ds-drum-library You can find an audio demo of the Mahagony Kit they use for the freebie on this page (and no, they didn't do a great job of putting the site together and organizing the freebie page (there's no audio files on that page), but you can hear it on this page. https://www.redpackdrums.com/dsdrum-kontakt

Yes the pace has slowed down, a little. I am kinda of glad they are not interested in introducing new features just for the sake of adding new features (that would attract different/new customers). Get and keep the core program going strong. You never know. Maybe they did, but I doubt it. They guys that stuck with CW have been around a while. If they wanted to go somewhere else, they had that opportunity when Gibson bailed. But they came along with Bandlab (Noel & Morten). I think this is probably the best answer right here. CW for many years was the leader in DAW development. They were the first and only DAW to embrace and implement true 64bit. They had audio stretching long ago with Radius. They had the Pro Channel. They had Take Lanes and Comping long before others did. Some of the features that CW had for years are just now being introduced into the industry standard DAW!! I just can't see the DAW going anywhere from here except to become more stable and bug free. Almost all DAW's do everything as it is!! That! ^^^^^ I loaded up Z3ta the other day and got lost in the presets!! That thing still sounds great.

I'd like cool new stuff to come at a faster rate, but I don't think Cakewalk is falling behind. The first couple of years were a "target-rich" environment, where they had a many-years-long list of deferred bug fixes, code optimizations, and feature additions that had already been put into the pipeline. I'll go with "working on something big." For instance, it's been made pretty clear to the devs that the best feature they could add to give the program better uptake with the dance music segment is a built-in sampler. That's a pretty big job. Or maybe it's something else like the vaunted "chord track," or one of the existing areas of the program known to need some love like Staff or Matrix. Or better UI scaling. Anyway, I think they harvested a lot of low-hanging fruit, and now it's going to be something with a longer initial development cycle.

The guy to the immediate left of the guy in the middle in the green windbreaker.. I'm gonna blame him when XLN goes out of business. I mean look at this guy.. he won't even look at the camera.. he's over it already, I can tell. Yeah, I'm gonna blame him whoever he is.

It's very cool that Cakewalk gets these incremental updates on a regular basis, for free! By contrast, Studio One 6 is dropping soon, meaning that the current Studio One 5 will be forever stuck where it is, with no more bug fixes. 😢

Not at all, just curious about where development is going. I hope they integrate a sampler BTW, one of my most wanted additions.

Genesis - The Fountain of Salmacis

Uh oh...... I've only got 334 days to spend my 89p or all those made up ratings will have been for nothing.

A new plugin format. It's currently just supported in Bitwig Studio https://u-he.com/community/clap/

As far as I am concerned, Cakewalk is still the best in the biz at opening or previewing MIDI files, especially GM...

I hear ya, because my last PC had trouble running newer synth plugins. It definitely requires some resource management. I finally just stayed with older synths that were more CPU friendly until I could upgrade. One thing I have noticed with newer synths that use animated graphics for anything like waveforms, modulators, envelopes, etc. is that they tend to eat a lot more CPU when playing while the plugin GUI is open. When the GUI is closed, the graphics aren't constantly consuming CPU cycles. So try that out for resource management!

We're pleased to announce Early Access for 2022.09! This is primarily a maintenance release that includes fixes for a few user reported issues. If you have encountered any of these issues, please check out this release and and confirm that your issue is resolved before we release the official public version. Please note that Early Access installers are update installers, which only update from a specific version. To install the 2022.09 Early Access build, you must be on the latest public release of 2022.06 or later. Download Cakewalk 2022.09 EA installer Should you need to revert to the 2022.06 release, you can download the Cakewalk 2022.06 Rollback installer. If you haven't already done so, please read about the Early Access Program before participating. Please keep responses specific to problems or comments on this release. Unrelated bugs or feature requests should be posted in other threads or the feature request channel. Thanks again for your participation! The Bakers Updated to 28.09.0.027 This build contains the following additional improvements: Integrated zplane élastique Pro audio stretching and pitch shifting has been updated to version 3.4.0 with bug fixes and performance enhancements Some ProChannel modules cause the UI to get unresponsive on stopping transport when using high track counts Don't send 'all notes off' on stop - just silence any active managed notes Tracks sourced from aux track L/R/S always behave as S during playback Note: Existing projects that utilize aux track or patch point mono inputs will sound different because previously these would render as stereo only. Issues Resolved in Build 28.09.0.023: The minimum project loop length has been reduced to 1/128th note (30 ticks) Application UI is not shown after "Almost done..." message when opening projects containing certain plugins Occasional heap corruption on deleting synth tracks "Nudge by snap" uses Landmarks even with Snap to Landmarks button disabled Regression - unable to use automation shelf tool after making time ruler selection Set Measure/Beat As Now creates duplicate nodes at the end of the tempo envelope Export presets do not recall custom sample rate The ampersand character (&) behaves incorrectly in the track inspector's Description text box Simple Instrument Tracks cause incorrect track numbers when exporting audio Export module shows inaccurate elapsed time for selection

Don't understand how this turned out 5 minutes. Made with the usual thingies. Enjoy! https://www.soundclick.com/music/songInfo.cfm?songID=14494873 🙂John B.

greetings!!!!....latest creation is called Rocket the Dog (ambient pop music)....critiques, comments, questions all welcomed....here we go: link: https://larryterrano.bandcamp.com/track/rocket-the-dog-ambient-pop-music DAW: Cakewalk by Bandlab pc: windows 10, i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz, 8GB ram, acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, focusrite scarlett solo, arturia minilab mkII, arturia analog lab 5 lite, CbB effects, harmonica reference speakers: M-Audio BX3 Special Thanks to Mike Enjo at #creativesauce on You Tube whose incredible videos on how to use CbB made this possible

Ample Sound has updated Acoustic Guitar to v3.6 with GP7 GP8 supports. New Features: Tab module added support for GP7 and GP8 formats. Optimized UI with improved efficiency, including Strummer, Riffer and Tab modules. Updated parameter system. BPM Sync function added to FX Echo. Improved accessibility support for pop-up windows such as CPC and Preset Manager. Issues Fixed: Fixed timing issue related to BPM sync functions. Fixed a number of bugs in Strummer, Riffer, and the conversion between Strummer pattern and riff Ample Sound users can update for free through the MyAmpleSound: https://www.amplesound.net/en/account.asp

^^^ It is indeed a great, solid synth. IMHO it more than holds its own when compared with most soft synths. I think the main reason it doesn't get more love is that they stopped selling it. If they ever brought it back to market and added MPE** support that would great but not holding my breathe. **maybe I could do that with Unify.

I think Cakewalk would attract a lot more buzz by integrating a sampler than by reviving a dinosaur like Z3TA+2. An integrated sampler is one of the essential features these days of the leading DAWs. 😉

especially with the Muz3um preset pack. It still holds up after all these years

Read Urs Heckman's (u-he) comments about CLAP in that u-he link https://u-he.com/community/clap/. It's essentially an effort to unseat VST3 with an open plugin standard. With the possibility of a few other goodies in the implementation. There is more, so the quote below is just what is most relevant to musicians...

And by the pre-release of Reaper. https://forum.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?f=37

Fountains Of Wayne, Too Cool For School

the smiths 🙄 Reel Around the Fountain

Sforzando - Soundfont 2.0 VST Plugin A SoundFont 2.0 designed to simulate the classic MIDI sound of the Sound Blaster 16 and other YM262 enabled hardware.

Just a heads-up: I just logged into my PB account. It might be that I've not been very observant in the past, but I've just noticed that Virtual Cash now has a one-year expiry timeout. According to the help page, buying something will add to your virtual cash (as before) and reset the timer back to 365 days.

MIDI? Definitely CbB!

Me neither. We have good taste! 🤣

Cypress Hill - Insane In The Brain

Budgie - Crash Course in Brain Surgery

David Bowie - Always Crashing in the Same Car

Stan Ridgway - Drive, She Said

This actually drops on my birthday (present idea right there) - and it's the big 60 - I love it when a plan comes together 😂 Andy

Butthole Surfers always struck me as a crappy moniker.

Just FYI, but the BandLab CEO committed to keeping the Cakewalk DAW free forever. It's posted on the legacy Cakewalk forum if you are interested...

Because Cakewalk is subscription-based, costing $0/month for now. PreSonus Sphere is also getting constant updates for a few bucks more.

Best place to ask that question and get answers is in the Q&A subforum. It can be done.

Sure to give @SteveStrummerUK palpitations ... Suzi Quatro - Devil Gate Drive

Real talk: depending on how girly she is, one way to help her understand might be to gently offer that musical tools are similar to a woman's wardrobe: in need of updating from time to time. And just as difficult for the other gender to understand; I've been rocking plaid shirts and jeans for 45 years. When I started, it was "Laurel Canyon hippie rocker," then 10 years later it was punk (you get to keep the jeans longer because huge rips in them are part of the look), then 5 years after that the pinnacle of the Seattle look. If I want to switch to business casual, I grab the least faded jeans, switch to a button down and press it before I put it on. As Joe Jackson famously said "it's different for girls." The age old reply to "why do you need so many guitars?" "Same reason you need so many pairs of shoes, each one is different and used for different occasions." Just don't be a dick about it like you're throwing it back in her face. If she gets that it's a tool that you use in your (ahem, second) favorite pastime, well, the new version will let you do more and explore new things.

Mutt Lange!

Sorry to break it to you, but unfortunately just by thinking that you automatically made it uncool. Degrees of one's coolness can only be decided by other people. That's just the way it is.

Toontrack EZdrummer 3 does that really well.

Pretty much the way it is now. All the cool kids want fancy eye candy to inspire them. They don't want their Dad's plugins... Blame it on Smartphones!!! 🤣

I do not know about limiting popularity but here are a few stupid ones: Hoobastank Cherry Poppin Daddies Limp Bizkit Nashville P***y The String Cheese Incident Squirrel Nut Zippers Sleeze Beez Kajagoogoo Killer Dwarfs Skunk Anansie Death Cab for Cutie Bowling for Soup Jimmy Eat World Dead Milkmen Cage the Elephant

Pages... I had big trouble finding their three albums (1978-1981) in the early webshops in the 90s. 😵

Hi Larry - agree with what Tom said - I really enjoyed this Cool Stuff Nigel

I agree! I use a combination of many of the UJAM virtual drummers and EZDrummer 3. The sound from the UJAM drums, whichever one I pick for a song, always works and sounds great.

And me. I seem to mostly Studio One these days but I think MIDI is better in Cakewalk as is syncing with things like OTS Kontakt guitars. And S1 can't handle dragging MIDI and audio into Toontrack VSTis

Sonar !

I had an 10 year old GPU from Nvidia and noticed, that it needs more graphics power. Then i bought a used GT 1030 and it runs much better now on my old PC.

Unfortunately, for me, I lost all my knowledge of speaking Spanish when my parents moved back to Canada. Fortunately, that did not stop me from enjoying this song. Your vocals and harmonies are very good! I also can appreciate the guitar work. This song was very well done and a listening pleasure.