Matthew Sorrels

They sent me email saying I could "preview" the sale, but they didn't explain the rules or how that worked exactly. When I go there and login I do see libraries at 40% off (bundles too but the savings there aren't so fixed, it varies). I think the sale goes public later this week or something. Not exactly sure. Spitfire have become more marketing machine than audio library developer; twisted and evil. Also I really hate how they price everything in different currencies so I end up paying more in dollars than I would if I could pay in GBP without the 20% Vat.

PrecX is pretty nice though, if you need epic drums. I wish they would do something about MIDI drag and drop and perhaps rethink their approach for that. But other than that it's one of the few drum instruments I picked up last year that I thought was worth it.

Yes if you enable it. But it only sends MIDI from it's track/Groove browser/interface. It doesn't seem to pass through MIDI. So if I turn it's sound off and record on it's Cakewalk MIDI input track I don't get any MIDI out, If I play the track back I still get no MIDI out. But if I put the recorded MIDI onto EzBass's track it does send it out. I'm not sure that's a big deal really, but I did notice it when trying to play around with turning it's volume to 0 and replacing it with MODO bass.

Spitfire is also having a sale, if you have an account you can see a early preview (not sure what the rules on the preview are exactly but this URL works for me) https://www.spitfireaudio.com/spring-sale It's 40% off libraries (though not the ultra cheap $29 ones).

They have already shipped one update to the Windows version. It was there right after the initial install.

From the FAQ https://www.toontrack.com/faq/ezbass-faq/

The plugins actually seem to hard code the c:\Newfangled Audio path too. It doesn't seem to get it from a file or the registry. Kind of disappointed with Eventide on this. I dropped them a note but this installer was dated the 7th, so clearly they had time to fix it but haven't.

I think their installers for Windows Newfangled bundle are kind of borked. It doesn't seem to install the documentation and presets correctly. Looks like they tried to move the Newfangled stuff out of the Eventide directories but didn't actually do it right.

The free player will get you all the functionality they showed off in all the videos. They didn't once use anything in Kontakt that is not part of the Player version.

But it is just presets. Same with the three add-ons for Haunted Space. I'd like to get all four sure, but at $29 each it's a bit much. So I guess I'm waiting for a sale. I'd go all 4 for $49...

For most Kontakt player libraries having the full version of Kontakt doesn't really help you all that much. With the full version of Kontakt you can open the instrument up and alter some of how it works. But since most professional Kontakt Player libraries use locked scripts, you're limited to some effect chains and some mapping things. You can't even edit the compressed sample waveforms, though you can see them and tweak the loop points. There is power in having the full version of Kontakt but it's not a huge advantage for Player instruments. Given NI gives away a bunch of nice Kontakt Player stuff for free (with Komplete Start) I think it's silly not to get it/install it/try it out/learn it. https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/bundles/komplete-start/ That way if something like this does come along, you are already to go and can buy the Kontakt Player library and add it in.

I picked up their Solo Trumpet 2 a while ago and was kind of disappointed. On paper/by the stats it should have been awesome but it just didn't work out that way. I'd be curious if anyone has found Cmusic's instruments good and why. Perhaps I'm just missing it.

In the VST3 version of Concerto if you open the advanced option and change the number of channels to 8 and then delete it from the synth rack and re-add it it seems to come in with the extra channels.

My Native Access serial number for Ark I worked just fine. But some user's have reported that the App shows a different number than the NI website. The only problem with using the number from the app is you can't copy it. I had to type it by hand. Looks like from now on if you buy the Kontakt you have to pay a fee to get the Sine version also, but purchases before May 13 it's included.

Your right! That helps a ton. Don't know why I didn't go looking at all the buttons. 175% works pretty well for my 4096x2160 monitor. If they would sell lifetime for the whole collection for $400ish I'd consider it. But the subscription kind of kills it for me. I think if I'm going to do subscription instruments again I'll reactivate my Composer Cloud before I'd sign up for Roland's offering. It will be interesting to see if they ever do sales/discounts on the lifetime prices going forward. At the right price I might be willing to pick up a few of these.

I signed up for the trial. I have to admit I'm kind of underwhelmed. Perhaps if I owned some of the hardware of the Roland synths I'd feel differently. But of the collection only Zenology seems to be a "modern" software synth. Almost all the classic synths have really tiny UI (not scalable) and awful preset management. I could see picking up the Sound Canvas just because of the General MIDI support but I think the Arturia collection is a much better package. This shouldn't be a subscription, and the lifetime prices are way too high considering. Even the Korg collection I think is a better deal and doesn't require $200/year.

You're right. I ran some tests. A Type 0 file with multiple channels does auto-split. But a Type 1 file with multiple channels on a single track doesn't and as a result needs something to split it. I guess you could also create something like this naturally in Cakewalk where a single track has notes on multiple channels. When you get that mixed channels on a single MIDI track the only way I've ever seen to split it is with a CAL script.

You can use a CAL script to split the MIDI into tracks. A Type 0 MIDI file with the channels all combined will always come in as one track. I have two CAL scripts for doing the spliting, but I'm not sure where I got them "Split Channel to Tracks.cal" and "Split Channel to Tracks-Choices.cal" Google found this: https://bobbyprincemusic.blogspot.com/2011/06/sonar-x1-using-cal.html

Single notes seemed to work for me, but I'll admit I didn't look at it very closely. I quickly hacked together a small command line EXE to convert Type 1 MIDI files into single track Type 0 files and that seemed to work for making Ripchord happy. Though I'm pretty sure tossing track 0 and any tracks above 1 and setting the file to Type 0 might not exactly be the best "convert to Type 0" system. I wonder if I could have found an already made solution faster than my hack? I'd bet you could load the MIDI into Cakewalk and then save it out as Type 0.

EW can fail to play correctly in realtime/normal play mode as well. It seems to skip release tails if it can't get the data to the buffer fast enough. It's not just fast bounce that is broken. Loading everything into RAM seems to help this the most though.

Seems to be some issues with SONAR at the bottom on this page: https://www.rolandcloud.com/catalog/legendary/sound-canvas-va and Are these big issues? I'll admit Sound Canvas has been on my list for a while but the price was always a bit too much for an instant buy. But $69 isn't unreasonable. Not sure about the $200/year subscription though. If they were still offering one free lifetime product per year, maybe. But $200/year and nothing left to show for it after a year is a bit high.

Tutti Vox also has an update to 1.2 showing

If you start with the New Preset option, then import the MIDI file. It will assign each white key to a note in the file, in order. You can then switch to edit mode and use the arrows to move the blue keys to where you want them and maybe edit them by selecting the step. But I'm not sure what kind of MIDI files it will import. All my successful tests were simple, single track MIDI 0 files, when I tried to do a more complex MIDI file I got nothing on the import. I think it's a bit picky about what track it will take? The files it failed on were Type 1 MIDI files with two tracks, a tempo track (with only one setting) and a note track. It wouldn't import them (though I'd think it should have) all I got was a blank keyboard, but no errors either.

You don't put it anywhere. Extract it from the Zip and in the plugin use the import option, you can multi-select. It then copies the files into the right place (on Windows I believe it puts them in %APPDATA%\Trackbout\Ripchord\Presets) After you have imported any presets you can delete them. I would say you could just copy them over yourself, but I'm not sure if there isn't more to it than that, so I'd stick with the import option in the plugin.