Tim Smith

A new one.

Thaqnk You Jack!

I haven't posted one here in awhile. I have a couple of new ones. I'll post those. Both "religious" in nature.

If you pay rent you would be on an apartment subscription plan. Some rent for convenience so all of the upkeep is on the landlord, others can't afford a house and it sure beats living in a tent. Most only rent because they have to rent. Only exceptions are maybe power equipment we will only use for a day or two. Most of us own our computers, so it might seem odd to rent the software, especially for a software music tool we use all the time, and I'll admit the subscription model isn't the most appealing to me. A couple of exceptions may be- Only need to use a program for a week because client's files use it and they want me to mix it. In that case I might rent it for month so I have access to it. Maybe I want to try an expensive program without buying it. The attributes of software require that it needs updates periodically to keep up with OS and hardware updates. The computer world has never been static. Probably doesn't need monthly updates though, more realistically every 3-5 years. I see this as more of a "feed the software engineers" move. In some cases I believe it's necessary if we want to continue to see our favorite software products. Subscription ends up being company support and the price of admission. Was a little frustrating picking up my Tesla the other week. 9.99 a month to have live app streaming, but I was willing to pay it because it let me use many of my apps . Google maps is live. Spotify is another 9.99 a month if I want it. Free version doesn't work in the Tesla. Plenty of other free radio apps with that monthly streaming fee. I get it, if they charged a one time fee, with inflation, how could they be sure that fee would cover them for the life of the car? Same with software. If They charged me a one time fee, will it cover development on it until I no longer use the software? What if I live to 90 and use it until then? Either way we pay. Cakewalk once had yearly updates that were payed updates.Updating was optional, but a some point not updating would be compromising stability. If only 50% payed for updates that year, this was the revenue they made. I think around Christmas pretty much everyone updated though.

AI will be a choice. I think it degrades music in general. Not sure if you've ever seen those AI generated pics based on programmed suggestions. While sometimes fairly realistic, it isn't really art made by people. I guess I wouldn't feel very accomplished knowing I stuffed something AI together, even though it might sound better than what I can actually do.

I cut my teeth on Cakewalk and still love it as a great all around PC DAW. Never had issue with Cakewalk until I loaded like 4 other DAWS into my station which probably isn't the sharpest thing to do. I was attempting to find the best programs for different applications. As it turned out, loading those other DAWs must have had some sort of conflict with Cake because it hasn't really booted or worked right since. Takes like 25 minutes to attempt to boot. Almost boots and then freezes. I haven't had the time to mess with it lately. I have just used what works ( not CW). During the time these events were happening, I began to look at compatibility with local fellow musician's machines for projects. A lot has been happening these last few years with computers. Apple still apparently sells Intel based machines while they also sell M-1 and M-2 based computers. I admit I looked more than once at cross compatible solutions for that computer that would allow me to generate a project from one type of machine into another type of machine so files can be shared between studios. Nothing new here as we have had some level of compatibility for some time, but things have changed with respect to the efficiency of M-1, M-2. I'm not going to lie here. When I make my next computer purchase I will be looking at these options. Pros- Cakewalk is a very well developed and amazinly workable DAW solution for PC. Cons- in a dense studio environment across multiple engineers, Cakewalk probably should not be the first consideration. Lower impact cpu applications in lone studio environments, or in environments where everyone has and uses Cakewalk, it's great. Not saying Cakewalk isn't ok for those larger projects, but it personally makes me nervous. I have no intention to upset the apple cart for those who are using it in this capacity.

I'm a senior citizen entertainer.

I am moving stuff from a garage area to a temporary location so I can finally build my studio. It's all taking a long time.Sort of been in limbo musically. .........but I did buy a Tesla. Took about 4 months.

Sorry to hear of your loss. I haven't been back here for a long time and decided to pop in. This is a stark reminder of my own situation which I won't go into. I have lots of gear, probably nothing compared to what you have. I plan to sort it all and just keep the stuff I know I will use. Hopefully I'll still be around for awhile yet, but at this point there are no guarantees. I have found it really doesn't take huge piles of gear to make decent music. It's all mostly the musician. Recording tech is great if one knows how to use it, but that can be overkill as well.

@Scott Kendrick As you can see there are many different approaches and methods. If making a set of songs that are all basically the same in style, then templates make complete sense. I seldom use templates because I don't create for only one genre and I like to experiment with many plug ins. There are both pros and cons to this. Keeping the process simple using only a handful of known good plugins means you get mixes faster and more efficiently, but part of the fun for me is throwing in various plugins of the same thing to get the best result for any mix I'm working on. Even without templets that load plugins, if you know your way around a DAW, it really isn't that time consuming to experement with various plugins. If something worked well before I will often try to revisit it or at least the concept that made it sound better. A big difference between large scale orchestral mixes for movie houses and lil old us at home in our home studios running minimal numbers of tracks. In their case, using buses, templates and subfeeds simplify the process and should be templated. Otherwise you could spend all day simply getting a project ready. In a smaller mix too much routing tends to mud things up for me. In some circles, there are engineers who say things "should" be done a certain way. The whole idea of routing all tracks to a reverb bus came from hardware mixers. Not saying it's a bad thing, but most likely came about to maximize limited hardware in the studio. We are free to use different methods in a DAW. Descriptions for what most will want in a mix would be clean, dynamic, punchy, uncluttered, and either sharp or smooth all depending on the mix vision. The biggest problems are often EQ, reverb and routing. Here are questions I constantly ask myself. Do I use the space in my drum vst or do I feed to a reverb bus? Do I side chain my bass? What freq. will I roll off my bass and what character do I want it to have? Am I driving my channels too much in the gain stage? Do I really need reverb at all, and if so what space do I want? Do I want this to sound like it's played in a hall or a stadium? If my bass drum isn't popping should I boost EQ in some ranges or go to my bass dum vst and try different drums and tunings? Am I happy with the solo for each track? If not, why? Drums and bass are generally dryer in my mixes than instruments and voice in the mids. Bass often has zero reverb. Drums only enough to add sparkle. How is my cumulative mix before master? What isn't forward enough? What is too forward? If you're ok with the basic mix, What do you hope to achieve at the mastering stage? How do you intend to achieve it? Noone can really tell you what you like but you. All we can do is tell you how we get any given result. You might not like my mixes and I might not like yours.

Thanks @Bajan Blue , I haven't decided whether to leave that in since it did seem to blend. Once I move on it's hard to go back for me because my focus is then on the next song. To my discredit, I have moved on from some pretty crappy work that should have been revisited. It's something I am trying to change. Thanks @Larry T.

My latest.

I have a few of their plugins. Had not been privy to any of the company politics. I had the feeling PA would prefer a subscription, but offer paid plug ins because apparently, there either isn't enough revenue coming from subs or they figure they will try to get a little extra $$ from those of us who don't want to catch subitus. PA isn't the only one. Businesses diversify as many income streams as they can get, even is they are small. Small is better than nothing.(we are striclty on the subject of plugins here ).....anyways, moving on.....I don't stay in one fish bowl and PA is a fish bowl, so on principle I won't ever become lifetime all in patron. I usually buy my plugins one at a time unless I buy a package that includes a whole bunch. Waves was an exception for me, but I haven't been wupped much.

Life goes on and people don't generally change based on a principle. They change of necessity, if it somehow improves them or their life or for something better. I have a lot of software. It all mostly works. I like new things, so I might buy something else additional or upgrade if I like a product improvement. If I NEED an update to keep my software working correctly, then that's what I'll do. I wasn't thinking of support for developers when I bought my software, not that I don't wish them all the best and appreciate what they do.

I am not connecting to the magic theme, but I thought the track was nice. The main instrument became a little repetitive to me after awhile. Good mix and arrangement. Thanks for sharing!

I didn't pick up on any timing issues as major. I probably would have missed it completely if not for above comments. Nothing overt I can hear. The guitar and vocal parts were excellent as was the lyrics which I feel relayed a very good sense of the place, although I fear maybe a somewhat rose colored view, but that's good it focuses on the positive and people generally don't want to hear songs with bad things about where they live. They say there are more tourists in London than regular citizens. I don't know if this is true because I've never been there. Maybe similar to New York which I have been to, when I look at someone there I don't know if they are from 'there' or a far flug country lol. The dreamy style lends itself to a nice reflective feel almost as if I were reliving someone else's childhood. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for giving this one a listen. I hate to say this but I made it as loud as almost every other track on SC. My LUFS looked inline but probably pushing limits, maybe I could stand to dial it back a tad. SC does not allow any track above established thresholds because they limit to a ceiling at upload. I tried to hear the 'distortion' others mentioned and I must be going deaf because the only thing close to it I can hear is a little crisp hype? I did mostly mix this on cans, so maybe that played a part? If you thought this one was loud, you might want to dial the volume back on my last upload here " Muloo" 😵 * ducks and runs*. I will say I will ALWAYS appreciate honesty , so a HUGE thanks to all who listened and commented. I got some new tools which have changed the way I work in some cases. Have been getting my feet wet on some of it, so yeah, the days of mellow guitar tunes are a little less now lol. I had to find a better way to work because the old way was taking far to long for a working man to have enough time to do it all alone.

I used UNIFY and Omnisphere in this. Mastered in TRacks.

I don't think I would want to sit in the front row of the show.

Hmmmm. Ok I appreciate the advice. I will go back to this and see what might have happened. Thanks guys!

Hey Dean, Nice classic rock vibe to this. Not sure what signal chain you used but the mix is clean and clear. Nice separation of instruments. Great job on it all around IMO.

My latest.

Great low end on this. Vocals sit perfect in this. Nice mix of synths.

Really cool synths! Nice mix all round!

Lots of interesting space in this mix. Very nice!