Doug Steinschneider

I use Velvet which I originally bought for $9.99

Needed more licenses for Velvet so jumped on a bundle for same price that also include Hybrid 3 and MiniGrand:

AIR - The Sounds of Summer Sale

Here's my Axiom with knobs from Ocean Beach Digital (Dave Chesavage ) who used to make a drawbar add on for Nord keyboards. 

13 hours ago, bitflipper said:

It's the best Hammond/Leslie emulation available, imo.

I wrote a review of it a couple years ago. Scroll down for a little demo I made using it.

Great review, I'm surprised I never came across it - the demo you made for it is great!

BTW, some people swear by inserting a saturator in between the organ and the Leslie to improve the growl.

20 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Otherwise,  the Hammond B-3X has always interested me. I really don't have a great B-3 and that one seems really nice. Anyone who has it want to share their thoughts? 

I closely follow the Hammond emulation "market". Recently UAD Waterfall has won praise for being very good for 70's style rock. I still use the original VB3 for some songs, I bought VB3-II and like it for jazz organ. I also bought Acousticsamples B-5, I've only used it for recording, it has a very realistic, "big" sound. 

B-3X seems to be the overall favorite. Like other IK products it can be CPU intensive, especially if you use the stomp pedals included with it. 

Done - thanks!

On the other hand, a while back I bought VIP for $9 and it's come in handy for some voice over work. 

I donated for this one for the Cherry Audio CA2600, PS-20, Memorymode and Galactic Reverb:

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/level-up-music-creators-power-pack-software

CA2600 Synthesizer

Voltage Modular Ignite

Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio

Galactic Reverb

Memorymode Synthesizer

PS-20 Synthesizer

Maybe someday I'll use some loops 

14 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

While the product manager is useful for keeping track of and managing your authorizations, the fact you have to be present to click on the installation buttons for each of the things you install defeats the purpose of it. Even Waves with its convoluted Waves Central thing only requires you to choose what you want to install and does the whole thing by itself.

I'm mostly satisfied with the IK Product Manager app. I have a storage server (old Dell Vostro) with JBOD redundancy (great product called DrivePool) so I immediately download each new sample set (what they call "Sounds) to a designated folder. But...it's a little confusing when there are product updates. You have to know to go into Sounds and click the "Installed" drop down and choose Updates to see there are updates and run them. I wonder if people pay the fee to allow downloads again just to get updates to the sample sets (Sounds). 

EDIT - it looks like you need to pay $9.99 if it indicates there are updates but you're expired 😬

I've done unexpectedly well with crossgrades, jam points and group buys. Somehow I now have -5 Jam Points. 😀 

11 minutes ago, jackson white said:

...weren't they the innovative market leaders of price point inflection with $29 pricing and never ending sales?I

We all knew this wasn't going to end well. 😬

29 minutes ago, smallstonefan said:

All software companies over time that want to have a big exit and not stay a life-style business will move to subscription. The only question is how will they do it - and I think Waves has shown a great example of how NOT to do it.

Waves may have correctly analyzed their sales trends and determined that hobbyist support costs were higher than sales of perpetual licenses could cover. Maybe their OEM business with hardware manufacturers and subscriptions to commercial users are their future. 

We've seen our small clients now paying disproportionate annual subscriptions for software with unwanted upgrades that become a cost center themselves. 

10 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

A few years later I asked a friend who was still there whatever became of the big flagship project, and he told me that while it did go online, nobody ever actually started using it. 

That sounds like a Siebel story.

 Hi Erik,

Thanks for the links. Right now, we're hooking up the analog gear to do analog to digital transfers from a 1/2" Fostex. I've installed Cakewalk and feel right at home in it after watching the tutorials. I like the hotkeys to hide/unhide GUI elements. 

I've been around a while and haven't yet run into a troll here which is impressive. Number one rule is don't feed them 😁

I've been meaning to try it on a laptop - I'll report back how it looks. I think it will work. They now have separate scaling for mixer strips and the entire GUI plus settings to removing mixer strip components you don't need in the strip at all times.  Agree with Ed above that it might be an issue - the whole reason I got a 4k screen was for Mixbus.

1 hour ago, Fleer said:

I’m getting the worst ever support from Waves. Obviously different support guys jumping in and out, sometimes suggesting something, other times not even looking at the problem. Dang, this is a hell of a company. And I’m not being positive. Wish I could WOOP their arses. 

Spelling error - it's WUP their arses 🤪

I think this is a good place to ask a question I've wondered for years. I've never WUP'd my Abbey Road Collection (v12) and some older classic waves plugins I bought more recently like Rennaissance Bass (v14).  What scenarios would cause me to need to update?

Thanks,

Doug

10 hours ago, John Vere said:

If you want to get up to speed quickly with out any drama and intros that take 5 minutes I have a very basic series designed to get to the point about Cakewalks interface and how to understand and take advantage of them. The link to the playlist is in my signature

The first 2 are about audio and midi set up so you can skip those if you’re up to speed already. Then the first 10 walk you through the skylight interface and features. Etc. 

Thanks John, these will be great for getting us started. Thanks for making these. 

12 hours ago, Eric S. said:

Along with what bitflipper says, another great reason to install TTS-1 is that as a multitibral General MIDI synth, it will let your friend easily preview GM files from Cakewalk's file browser.  I've got it installed, and use it pretty much exclusively for that.

As for the other instruments, I personally really like the sound of the bass and the epiano, and I've found them useful in final mixes.  But that's down to taste.

Ok, thanks to everyone for quick answers - Eric's advice hits home, its always good to have General Midi on hand!

I'm helping a band mate move from analog to DAW. We decided to use Cakewalk and I'm going to guide him so I'm about to download and install to get up to speed on it.

Cakewalk was my first MIDI recorder/editor starting in the early 90's. I used it for drum and keyboard parts and had it syncing with my Tascam 238S. 

When I made this move in 2018 I chose Reaper but have heard good things about Cakewalk.

Should I install the instruments? I'm not looking for more VST instruments but if something in there is worth it I will. 

Any advice or links to threads on getting up to speed on Cakewalk are appreciated. 

Thanks in advance

The version 8 upgrade fixed a major problem I had where changes to the audio interface settings for my Axe IO Solo made in 32C didn't communicate to the device's driver and, believe it or not, I ended up using the new Cue feature for randomizing drum parts. 

I use Mixbus 32C when I want to lay down bass, guitar, keyboard and drum tracks for a quick, good sounding rock mix. 

This update has added a lot of attractive features. 

@Bapu what is "Plugged-In"?

I'm a happy owner of WLPS 2.5 even though version 3 is overdue. Here's why:

Pedal Steel is a complicated instrument that requires good knowledge of music theory to play well. I had thought about buying an E9 three pedal / two lever unit but decided against it for the following reasons:

1.  Even though I'm reasonably good at finger picking on a six string there would be many, many hours of practice, especially internalizing the string groupings. 
2. I would only be using it for myself or jam sessions where many songs might not be appropriate for it
3. I'm after the vibe it brings to blues, rock and acoustic rock which I think WLPS can provide.

So, in the end I decided to listen to a lot of pedal steel, watch many hours of YouTube lessons and spend a lot of time on the tutorials Mark provided.

Over time I realized that his tutorials are a goldmine of guidance on how to translate pedal steel to keyboard. I feel just being able to go through those using WLPS was well worth the price. It didn't hurt that he threw in American Zither to 😀

On 3/1/2023 at 12:17 AM, Craig Fowler said:

I've seen it down to $80-ish I think, but that may have been by stacking a coupon or something.

I've got my 10 percent off coupon for the newsletter I can stack. I'll be keeping an eye on it. Last year there was a sale around the 4th of July and at the end of the year. I'll wait.

Did the Impact Soundworks Pedal Steel ever go on sale? I'm interested if the price is under $100.

I used Waterfall B3 at a blues jam - I've got most of the B3 emulations so still not sure if I will spring for it but I liked the way it sounded in a live music setting.  Had to be online so the stupid UA Connect could connect. Would probably look into USB iLok dongle if I started using it.