Matthew Sorrels

If you have V8P access you should have gotten the custom coupon also (yes, they sent both emails).

The whole choir thing is a big forum topic over on VI. Early buyers got the free choir on "before the coupon" totals above $598, but they fixed the web shop. So you have all these people saying it's based on before the coupon where the email and their online chat agents all claim it's after. I was more than willing to meet the before the coupon total. But to get to $598 with the coupon would require I buy so many 8dio products it would be insane. Then I looked at the storage size of the new Century Strings 2.0 (287 gb) and decided I was glad getting Insolidus was after the coupon and skipped the whole thing.

The V8P code I suspect is customer unique (mine has a crazy number on it). It gives a 65% discount.

Seems to be reproducible (at least for me). New Empty Project. Add Audio Track (right click in trackview, add audio track) Drag in Acided Drum Loop (didn't seem to matter what, not sure the ACIDized part matters either) Right Click on loop, Region FX->Drum Replacer->Create Region FX Enable the snare and toms Drum Replacer tracks (kick comes auto-enabled). Exit Cakewalk no need to play any sounds just File->Exit

Using/testing the preview build for update 1 when exiting I got a crash in Drum Replacer. Crash dump is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SswFLAXVSxx9dlprux9pCeYWzXnd-4hZ/view?usp=sharing Top of the call stack: > GdiPlus.dll!00007ff88474140a() Unknown GdiPlus.dll!00007ff884752544() Unknown DrumReplacer.vst3!0000000054d663a7() Unknown DrumReplacer.vst3!0000000054d6216a() Unknown DrumReplacer.vst3!0000000054d62333() Unknown Some sort of GDI cleanup crash maybe? I don't remember all I did (mostly just loaded new samples in drum replacer and played with it a bit).

I just loaded your crash dumps into Visual Studio and read the call stack to see what crashed. You definitely don't need to send me anything, I think I spent less than 5 mins total. Just glad it was helpful.

Usually they price one, sometimes two, products for 50% off for Black Friday. Last year it was Indie. Year before was Mixamo and Grosso. Then in Dec the 12 days sale starts, but it hasn't ever overlapped with the black Friday selection in any of the announcement emails I could find. They also do a 50% off single products deal for The Solstice Sale. And another 33% off sale a few other times during the year. They are pretty consistent with the sales. I think it's safe to say the Black Friday selection is a safe purchase. Though this year may very well change things for a lot of companies. Anytime they go above 50% it is a good deal (you'll most likely see a few 12 day products break 50%).

The way they setup Kontakt for this, the instruments have fixed MIDI channels. This is because the instrument only lets you setup a certain number of switchable articulations. So they load it 3 times, each with different articulations. So when you pick an articulation it has a specific destination instrument. You'd have to know which channel/instrument each articulation was on in order to hand set it. Which kind of ruins the usefulness of the articulations. The map needs to direct the keyswitch MIDI event and the notes and the CC events to the correct instrument. Follow doesn't do that, I don't think. This is also true when setting up any multi-instrument articulation map, the map needs to know the MIDI channel destination.

Both your crashes are a plugin, AR-1.dll Not sure what that is, this maybe? https://thehouseofkush.com/products/ar-1

https://www.vocaloid.com/en/support/download/update_v5e/ VOCALOID5 Ver.5.6.0 Updater - Improved playback processing, and made it possible to gradually listen to parts from the beginning while rendering. - Made it so that the current vertical alignment of the Musical Editor will be saved along with the track. - General improvements to stability. Released : Nov. 18, 2020

It is a pretty impressive collection though. I think perhaps this whole snapshots and multi approach is a great idea, but getting it to work right may require a bit more work. For the EW Hollywood Orchestra though I think just mapping the keymapped instruments isn't what most users are going to want. But to do it requires picking which instruments to include and making a bunch of .ewi files for each instrument/articulation set. It kind of crosses over into building a full on template, since you can't really load everything.

Looks like the snapshot based presets aren't quite right. In a nutshell they have you setup a specific kind of Kontakt multi for say, Ark 3's High String Artics. So you load in three instances with the snapshots they provide and then you use a combined (they call them CB) articulation map that lets you pick from all the articulations (which is more than you can map in a single Kontakt instrument instance). But when they setup the Cakewalk articulation map they didn't include the parts to direct the MIDI to channels 1, 2, 3 depending on which of the three instruments the articulation you are using is located. So everything goes to the first instrument and only the articulations on it work. Here's how it looks when you load the Repetition 1/16 articulation: But that doesn't direct the keyswitches to MIDI 3 and it doesn't redirect the notes to MIDI 3 either. Like this: The articulation map most likely should redirect the CC stuff as well. I think the Multi Script they include for Kontakt is supposed to do, though I'm not really sure, the documentation is kind of weak on what it does and the script is locked so I can't actually look at it. It looks like all it does is echo the CC on every (maybe only 3) MIDI channel. Rather than send it to the "right" instrument. I think Cakewalk can direct the CCs to the right MIDI channel to start with and thus doesn't need the multi-script. Maybe like this: I've sent them an email. The day I'm having I'm sure they will tell me I'm wrong or something.

Played around with the EastWest Hollywood articulation maps. I don't think I'd use the word extensive to describe it. Looks like just maps for the keyswitched instruments, which for Hollywood Strings is kind of weak: Long, Detache, Detache Ub, Long Ub, Tremolo, Trill 2Maj, Trill HT. To do the EW libraries right you need to setup multis and route notes to the right MIDI channel. Maybe Cubase/Logic version are better?

If you subscribe to the mailing list you will get a 5% off coupon. Still kind of pricey after adding in PayPal (or credit card) fees and sales tax. Plus they don't seem to offer both the Cubase and Cakewalk versions together.

Loops, from Hans Zimmer's sample library! I was just saying to myself what this track needs is some more Hans Zimmer loops. Like more cowbell, but with strings.

Track templates are certainly an option. Having no experience with them, I decided to give it a try. I made templates out of 3 Brass and 3 Woodwind instruments. Then I made a empty project and inserted the track templates. Saving the templates was very slow. Loading the first one was pretty slow but after that the load time wasn't so bad. But the real problem is the track template doesn't keep the organization. Here's what 2 brass and 2 woodwind instruments look like when brought in from templates: The same named group folders don't collect together. Those folders also don't keep their colors (but do keep their icons). I also didn't get any aux or stem tracks (but some of the routing was put in) like in the template (you might be able to design around that). The insert template drop down did seem to handle my folder structured version though. I'd say it's not a very good solution without Cakewalk doing some more work to make track templates and aux tracks/patch points work better. But I wouldn't rule it out completely either. My patch point oriented template might not be a good candidate for this. Using buses might be better for track templates.

It's pretty simple really. Load up the synth (GPO, EW Play, whatever) load the instrument/preset inside it you want to use. Get everything setup the way you want it (Name the track, name the synth, load icons, etc). Then go to the synth rack. Select the instrument and up at the top of the Synth Rack use the drop down and uncheck Synth Connected. Assuming you have "unload synth on disconnect "checked (option further down the Synth Rack drop down) it will unload your synth and change it to disconnected (will add parentheses around the name). Now go to the file menu and choose Save As. In the Save As dialog change the "Save as type" to Template. And just below use the "Go To Folder" drop down to go to the templates folder. Then save your template. This is exactly how I built the BBC template. I loaded the BBC synth 56 times. Each time I chose a different instrument. I named the tracks and synth instances, I loaded icons. I put things into folders and color coded them. Then I disconnected them and saved the whole thing as a template. You can also load templates (to edit them). Start with something simple and see how it works, then work up to a larger template. There really isn't any limit to what you can setup in advance. What ever will make you the most productive really. Now that Cakewalk supports articulations I guess I need to go back and add them to the BBC templates. Might be able to convert Cubase articulation maps over but it's still a lot of work to organize all of that. But those maps will save with the template so you can just load and start.

I was thinking something from https://cinematicstudioseries.com/ But 25% and it doesn't start till Nov 23rd? I think I'm already far beyond picking up anything that isn't hitting at least 50% off at this point.

I would like to get Dominus Choir Pro and the Spaghetti Western libraries but 23% and 28% off just isn't going to cut it. Which is sad. While it's not nearly as "pro" as Fluffy's I do think Big Fish Audio's Grindhouse is actually a ton of fun. If you buy it on sale (which happens a lot).

V4 has a slightly better UI (though the icons are now kind of plain I guess). It has a much better plugin approach. Before it launched the stand alone version and now it actually runs as a plugin, no separate exe window. That seems much better. Though I'll admit I rarely used the VST interface. This change might push me more that way. To be honest I've pretty much ignored V4, I installed the beta but haven't really given it much time at all. Haven't been making much music at all lately. For me the real appeal is all the crazy generators and the massive options and ways you can control them. But to get them you do need to get the full version. In fact I'd recommend you not get the lite version at all. Rapid Composer is a hard sell for new users though. I wish I could tell people it's great and they should get it, but getting something out of it requires a fair bit of heavy learning. And it doesn't make it very easy either. V4 doesn't seem to have changed that all that much really. One thing I do think that makes Rapid Composer slightly more interesting than some of it's competitors (which I also have) is that while it does generate things, you are really completely in control. It's not just a random note generator. It is all about composing and tools to do that.

Rapid Composer isn't for everyone, I do recommend you try the demo version. If you want to see some videos I'd recommend looking at the posts at KvR in the Tips & Tricks sub group https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=285 If you are more of a EDM/Pop/Rock composer I think the Captain Chords plugins are a bit easier to use and get started with. Rapid Composer is really more of a whole new DAW.

I first bought mine in in Dec 2014. Was pretty happy to pay the upgrade fee for V4 (till now upgrades have been free!). Would have bought it again at full price even. It's still pretty cryptic but nothing else in all these years has help me actually work with music theory and understand some small bit of how it's supposed to work as this.

But it was a "special coupon" with a whole extra 1% discount.

Got an email from them this morning (and a 16% off coupon only good on non-sales stuff excluding every manufacturer you'd buy from) More on the deal: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-13/guitar-center-is-said-to-prep-bankruptcy-with-creditor-support

Cubase licenses are always good for all previous versions. So a C10.5 license will run Cubase 10, 9 etc.