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It'd be really nice if T&S sold the download version as well. It can be nice to have install media, but it kind of becomes redundant as soon as the next version comes out.

The Audio Modeling (SWAM) Saxophones are modelled (rather than sampled), so you should be able to get a more realistic performance if programmed/played correctly.

It's interesting you mention that. At the moment, the only (full) orchestral libraries I have are GPO5 and Miroslav (the first one). I've been wanting to upgrade my sound for a while, and was tempted by both this offer, and the recent ProjectSAM Easter sale. I only do this as a hobby, but I was worried about combined sections (despite sounding beautiful) being limiting in some way. In looking around a bit I thought the Chris Hein libraries looked interesting, but are a little to pricey for me at the moment; maybe Best Service will do a BOGOF offer towards the end of the year.

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Are there any snare ensembles in this, or would you have to 'build' them (maybe with multiple instances?) yourself?

I remember reading something similar to that too. As I remember, it was a case of the drummer hitting slightly before the beat to increase a sense of urgency and drive; hitting slightly after the beat would give a more relaxed groove. I tried it in one of my more recent pieces, where I delayed the drums a little during the verse, and pushed it slightly before the beat in the chorus.

Thanks Bjorn. Glad you liked it! The strings are CSS. I tried to make them sound bigger towards the end of the second section by subtly layering additional string ensemble patches from GPO 5, though I'm not sure the layering had much of an effect; any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks Daryl. I'm happy you enjoyed the listen!

I bought a korg nanopad a while back, thinking it might be nice to play my drum tracks to get a more human feel/happy accidents to make things sound more exciting. Finding the pads quite stiff, I ended up just continuing to program my drum tracks with a mouse. Fast forward a few years and I'm revisiting the idea of playing in my drum parts, and thought I might get either a Presonus ATOM, or an NI Maschine Mikro 3 for the quality of their pads (can't justify anything more expensive, and I don't have that much desk space). Having looked at some YouTube videos, it looks like these controllers only output a static range of MIDI notes that can't be configured; it looks like it would be problematic for Superior Drummer 3 (which I'm using), though I found a plugin called NoteMapper that looks like it might be able to help by mapping MIDI notes from one to another. Does anyone have any experience with using either of these controllers with third party drum libraries?

… can't say two thirds of that sentence?

As illustrated on the cover of that book! Also, I clearly have been learning my instruments in the wrong way: I don't ever remember having such a huge smile on my face during the learning phase.

Also, if anyone has experience with these libraries, how does using a library with 'baked in' sections (e.g. a single combined flutes and clarinets section) compare with something where you can play the e.g. flutes section and clarinets section separately? I can hear that the overall sound is very impressive, but does it also mean that the overall scope is more limited?

Is it a broken stairway? It doesn't lead to anywhere.

Nice tune, kakku. It reminds me of some of the Hooked on Classics albums. Well done!

Thanks for listening Douglas. Glad you liked it!

Thanks for listening Tom. The inspiration for it was something vaguely in the direction of your first two suggestions for applicable projects. I've never had the idea it might be associated with blood pressure medication, though I'm glad it gives a wide scope for imagination/interpretation I did think to bring in some bass/percussion a little earlier. The 'problem' is that in the bare sections, the piano is a little more rubato so I thought it might make rhythm sections feel a little 'unstable' sounding. It didn't occur to me to drown the strings more in reverb, but I can see it might be ok for situations like this; thanks for the suggestion. Glad you liked it, and that it's been medically beneficial too!

It's been a while since I did an orchestral that includes woodwinds, but for some reason it felt like the right thing to do on this one (at least to me) [and hopefully it's more original than my last song]. ...or SoundCloud Hope you enjoy! (Comments and critique welcome)

The rising of your nearest star will bring about a new light to your surroundings at dawn tomorrow. When this happens, make the most of the opportunity; obstacles will likely become more difficult to detect after a few hours.

Hi Michael This is a really good song. It's a good mix too, though I might be tempted to bring the bass down a little. If I were doing the mix, I might apply slightly more compression to the tracks, so some parts e.g. the piano have a bit more sustain; and so the bass feels a little 'fatter'. It depends though on what overall sound you're after, and I think I personally might have a tendency to veer slightly towards a 'wall of sound' with my stuff (which leads to a lessened dynamic range).

I'm not sure I understand the question; do you mean the PC architecture? or desktop operating systems?

Microsoft seems to have taken a different direction lately, embracing Linux and open source: .NET core is open source, they've recently open sourced their calculator app, news suggests they're replacing the Edge browser's engine with Chromium (and contributing to Chromium as well). The problem with Windows server/IIS compared to Linux for servers is probably license costs and size of server images. The advantage of Linux is that it's free (and so server/hosting costs are less), which probably relates to why desktop adoption isn't so great: it's not built in the same way to the same timescale that a commercial company with multiple teams, each with their own discipline, would work together full time on a product. I'm not being dismissive of open source projects: I think e.g. Linux, GIMP, Blender, Inkscape are all very sophisticated and feature-rich pieces of software; I'm just saying they also have their learning curves.

Are they allowed to do that? It's false advertising.

Linux has its advantages, but usability isn't one of them. Yes, there are 'easy' distributions like ubuntu but they become more difficult once you try to do anything system related. I was using ubuntu 16 LTS at work previously, and it was ok until I needed to update some apps or configure system permissions: yes the app is in the software store, but it was often an old version; you had to add the app creator's repository to your list of repositories, update them all, check them for updates, and install all through the command line. Web sites would often show you which commands to use so I could copy/paste, but the whole process just felt difficult for what it was (or at least to me).

Nice tune, and great playing! You might want to try some parallel compression on your drums: the idea is to have two 'copies' of your drums playing at the same time; one is the original, one a highly compressed version but with the volume set at a much lower level. Some plugins have a wet/dry control and you can achieve parallel compression using this; otherwise it's also possible to send your drums to a bus, and compress the bus. The advantage of PC is that you get the punchiness of the original untouched drum transients, but also the power and sustain of the compressed version. It's also sometimes helpful to EQ the snare a little around 7k, and cymbals around 15-16k, to help make them 'shine' a little. Overall though, it's a very nice instrumental!

I've so far been shying away from ilok libraries, but have lately found myself thinking a few Eastwest products look quite interesting. Could someone explain to me what happens if I opt for a machine-based license, and forget to deactivate it before formatting my computer or something else drastic? Do I lose my license forever (that seems to be the response for losing an ilok dongle)? Also, is PACE in any way intrusive towards system/network resources? Thanks in advance