antler

Looks like a bargain! Here's a video for Pearl, which is only one part of this bundle: (Hope you don't mind me posting one of your videos Simeon)

You poor thing... 😜

A valid point. However, W7 was released in 2009; mainstream support ended 2015; and extended support ended in 2020*. Office 2003 was release in 2003; mainstream support ended 2009; and extended support ended in 2014^. In my experience, physical product warranties typically last 1-2 years. Even if we're only considering mainstream support periods of the above, 6 years is a bit longer. * https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-7 ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Office#:~:text=Office versions Release date ,only%2C no software. 12 more rows

If you buy a Toontrack MIDI 6 Pack, you get 6 generic serial numbers which an unscrupulous person could theoretically sell on to make a profit. If you buy a book of 6 short stories, you could theoretically rip up the book into 6 parts and sell each of them on. However that's probably less likely to work out. Thing is, whether you rip up the book or not, it's likely to deteriorate with use and eventually, someone's probably going to buy it again if they really like it. With a serial, your software isn't* going to deteriorate until you can't use it, so you (or whoever you sell it to) is unlikely to buy another license. Also, there's a point of support and its cost. If you buy software, you'd usually expect the developer company to provide support no matter how old it is. If you phone up a company e.g. to tell them that a washing machine no longer works, but it's out of warranty, they'd most likely either decline to help or ask for a maintenance fee. A software parallel to this would be WUP, and I get the feeling that people here don't like it that much. * Yes, software can become incompatible with an OS, but that usually happens at a slower rate. Also, this doesn't apply to e.g. MIDI packs

I don't think it's completely unreasonable - why would someone buy some software and then sell it on to someone else in <30 days? As for MIDI packs, what's to stop someone from buying one, copying the MIDI out of it, and then selling it on? Not much before this fee came in. As pointed out above, some libraries don't even allow an end user to resell.

What's a partial license? Where I'm only allowed to use half the drums in a kit?

Thanks for the advice everyone. @Tezza I had been using XLN's XO along with some samples from a 10,000 Kicks/Snare/Hats pack that went cheap a little while ago. Picked up Battery along with Komplete a little while ago, and so I started playing around with that. I really like it - it's quite complex though, so still getting my head around some things.

Depends if it's a one-off single track and ready to go. Mastering can also be tweaking multiple tracks so they sound like they belong to the same album as a whole. Around -14LUfs is a good level in general for online platforms. If you want to be more specific, there is documentation available as to platforms' target levels. Alternatively, you could get something like Mastering the Mix's LEVELS* and EXPOSE* plugins (MTM are currently having a 25% off sale when you buy 2+ plugins). * MTM's plugins are apparently spelled in upper case according to their website - I didn't accidentally leave caps lock on.

Especially with Action Strings 2 and Spotlight Collection: East Asia; they sounds really good too.

Looks very nice... I think I will try to hold out until Komplete 14 though.

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Sometimes I wish I could just put some VSTs on my Windows audio; I would love to put a limiter on my Teams calls so I don't have to turn up the system volume and brace myself for the times when someone's mic inexplicably has a +20dB gain.

They might relax some CPU requirements, but I don't think they will relax the security aspect. As much as some people dislike 'forced' Windows updates, it's probably been a good thing for computing in general. Yes, things can go wrong after an update, but it also means that millions of computers around the world are relatively up to date; not everyone is as computer literate as people here, and leaving their OS unpatched would just potentially result in a mass bot-net army that could potentially affect everyone else (e.g. spam-bots, DDoS bots). Another example of MS trying to do their bit: on XP, an unactivated computer would be unusable; on W10 you get a watermark and customisations are disabled, but the OS is otherwise usable: nowadays MS would rather people use an unlicensed copy of Windows and get updates, than a dodgy pirate copy that doesn't get updates and gets infected with malware.

Personally I tend to put Ozone Maximizer (i.e. limiter) last in the chain. If you put it before the master bus compressor, it will affect the dynamics going into the compressor, which will result in a less lively output (unless that's the sound you're going for). Putting it last means that you can get the glueyness that you want on the mix using MBC, before upping the loudness as the final stage. Also, it's generally a good idea to have a limiter as the last thing on the master bus as it will help you to catch any rogue peaks that might occur as a result of any sound processing before it.

There's a theory going round that those minimum specs are actually for OEM PC builders. As with everything, time will tell...

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That would be misplaced - in larger organisations like Microsoft, the developers are not the people who make decisions like these. They will make decisions on how to code their product (e.g. Windows), but they are not the ones who set minimum requirements/marketing; people in product management and marketing do this.

Hey @Peter - IK Multimedia - are there any plans for brushes? Maybe I misunderstand, but as a modelled drum kit, wouldn't brushes be relatively easy to add?

Hmm... Looks like a cross between XP and Windows 10 to me. At least they finally have a dark mode where the active Explorer window still has the 1px border around it. One of the things that have slightly annoyed me with UIs is that they've become bigger and bigger. Yes they're friendlier because there's more spacing and so things look less cramped. However, I remember one of the joys of getting a widescreen monitor when they were new was that you could run multiple windowed apps on one screen and use them fairly comfortably. More often now, the UI of one app takes up the entire 1920x1200 screen.

In your opinion, do you think it's worth getting the OTS acoustics (and/or the electrics for that matter) if you have the Ample Sound ones? e.g. do they sound slightly different, or have anything that stands out in terms of playability, etc?

That's the thing though - NI have customers worldwide, so which culture is "one's own"?. From the perspective of some cultures, there's nothing to discover as those instruments are already mainstream. Imagine NI released a new line of electric guitar libraries sampling Strats, Teles, etc. and called the series Discover Six-Stringed Instruments.

One of the best things about this is that it's a snapin, just like most of their other plugins - you can actually plug this into one of the effects lanes in Phase Plant, and then plug other snapins into Multipass to get multiband processing in Phase Plant!

Up until recently, I've made most of my music using acoustic drum samples from Superior Drummer. I've managed to get a good feel for how to mix them, using parallel compression, and a bit of post compression EQ. Lately, I've been experimenting more with electronic music, and using drum samples that are closer to that genre. The thing I'm finding is that electronic drum samples generally seem more processed/ready out-of-the-box, rather than the somewhat raw drum recordings of SD's acoustic kits. If I apply a similar workflow, I'm finding that I usually get quite an unnaturally hyped high end. Could anyone offer any tips on how to approach mixing electronic drum samples? e.g. would it be better to lay off the parallel compression/skip it altogether, or should I just approach it in a different way?

S.M.A.R.T. is something that's built into the disks themselves. I suspect the app you mentioned reads and displays that data. For Windows users, try CrystalDiskInfo https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

Still worth looking around though. Some online shops have loyalty schemes, or special coupons for a small discount.