Tezza

I was excited about the M4, the specs on paper seemed fantastic but when I have seen the side by side comparisons on Youtube, I didn't like the sound, maybe it's just bad or rigged Youtube videos. I also noticed that many thought the M4 sounded the best, just not to me.

That's splitting the program on to 2 monitors. Not the same as having a full screen preview monitor, all you can get is a slightly bigger preview screen along with other stuff on the second monitor. You cannot get full screen preview on the free version.

Not in the free version, you cannot get a full screen preview, that option is greyed out. However, if you do manage to do this somehow, please let me know.

You also can't get a clean video out from the free version of Davinci Resolve, so you can't run a video monitor for full screen monitoring, also 8 bit video in the free version. These things are deal breakers for me. OK I guess if you don't mind looking at small windows. I use vegas pro (edit) 16 and it gives a really good clean video out to my 32 inch tv. I've loaded it up with ignite and newblue total FX etc It seems to run ok on windows 11 so cannot see reason for upgrade but will check it out. Thanks,

I don't use picks on the acoustic, never have, mostly claw plucking and if strumming I use nails. Once, when I was busking, some smart ar$e guy came up to me with his mates and said "hey, mate, have you ever tried using one of these?" he then handed me a guitar pick. I said "thanks mate, I'll give it a go". I then took the guitar pick and shoved it up my nose to pick out a boogie and then gave it back to him saying "yeh, that worked really well". On electric I use a pick, usually a 0.60 or thereabouts.

Because it contains some audio files that it uses to create sounds.

Also, most of the information you will find on the internet about recording vocals is from the perspective of engineers, studio owners or non vocalists. They will say things like use a studio condenser microphone and compression is not that important in a 24 bit recording environment etc. This might be true but is very often not practical or desirable from a vocalists perspective. If you don't have a decent "studio" to record in, you will get better results from dynamic/condenser handheld microphones rather than an expensive studio condenser. For moving vocal recording to a more professional level, to create a great sounding environment for the vocalist, access to an excellent monitoring solution that has options for compression/reverb/eq is essential, not optional. Also, being able to balance volumes between your vocals and the recorded music is essential. It's worth spending some time to set it up. If you can use shockmount, pop filter, mic distance, mic technique and audio interface input volume to prevent clipping on the audio interface, then there may be options in Cakewalk for setting up compression, reverb and eq for your headphones. I can do this in Cubase but I forget how to do it in Cakewalk so someone else might be able to help out there. I think you just set up an FX or AUX with the input from the main vocal track and then put the effects on the FX/AUX track and run it back out to your headphones either mixed in with the main vocal or without any main vocal.

That's a handheld condenser, it performs more like a dynamic stage microphone but with better, wider sound capture. Great choice if you want to record vocals in a space that is not soundproofed or acoustically treated because like dynamic stage mic's it's off axis sound rejection is pretty good. I do the same thing with a Shure SM86 or using a fethead with a dynamic mic. I get a much better recording of acoustic guitar and vocals than using a "studio" condenser. With the condenser, I just get appalling room reverb and 101 noises in the background. It sounds like you might be getting spiking from being too close to the microphone. The closer you get to the microphone the more variance you will get in the signal from hot to soft, which can result in spiking which presents as clipping. I don't know what your shock mount and pop filter solution is with that mic but sorting that out can also help. You can use a shock mount with handheld mic's if you need to. I use the type they sell on ebay for pencil mics, handheld mics will also slide into it, they are cheap and work as they should. Next thing is with the pop filter setup, as it is a handheld mic, the tendency is to sit on top of it with one of those thick pop filters on top of it, but you can treat it like a recording mic and put a clip on circular filter before it. I have different set ups for different dynamic mic's, see what sounds best. You probably want to be 2 or 3 inches away for vocal takes or if you have good mic technique and excellent monitoring capabilities, with headphones, you can sit on the mic more, depending if your a belter or more intimate singer. But generally, as you move back, the waveform will flatten more meaning less spikes (providing you can hear yourself in headphones). The other thing is to have some sort of compression applied to the signal before it hits the DAW. This can make a big difference both in balancing the recorded signal and also in how you hear your vocal through headphones. How you can do this with the scarlett, I don't know. I use a Steinberg UR44 which allows me to do it.

That's why I am upgrading. I had a 3rd gen i5 with 8gig of ram which seemed to work fine until I upgraded to KU13 and also got some better synths. Everything just got slow and clunky, even though it seemed the CPU was mostly coping, taskmanager said there was a serious RAM problem. I also found I still had a mechanical drive in there which I didn't realize, I thought I had upgraded all the drives to SSD. Also, the editing of video was ok at 1080p but adding efx etc made it a bit slow and clunky. So I am moving from: 3rd gen i5 8gig ram 2 x SSD's + 1 x 7500rpm HD To: 11th gen i7 32gig ram 2 x Nvme + 1 x SSD I think there can be a danger of putting up with slowness as it happens gradually over time, but it can eat away at inspiration, motivation and workflow. I am expecting things will get a bit faster with the new computer but won't know for sure until I try it.

Sounds awesome, that apollo pretty much occupies the top tier of audio interfaces as I understand it and is priced accordingly. Sounds like a souped up UR44. I'm not sure I want to invest that much at the moment and the form factor isn't right for me, due to my space, I have to go for the rack/half rack, square box type of audio interfaces. Also, I'm in the process of upgrading the computer (just waiting for parts) and have upgraded Cubase to 12 and also have been buying microphones. I have been buying them just to see which suit my voice and AC guitar and also in a less than stellar room. I tend to pick up secondhand gear being sold locally around me, if I don't like it I just move it on, usually for the same price as I bought it or more. Just a way to try different options without breaking the bank. That's the theory anyway but in reality, I tend to hold on to stuff I don't really need too long, resulting in a build up of gear. For some reason, I've been buying a bit of stuff lately, probably just need to spruce up the sound a bit. At the moment I'm circling around a Black Lion Audio Auteur mkii, simply because it's available near me so I might grab it tomorrow and see what it does. I'm preferring dynamic mics and handheld condensers at the moment, simply because they kill the horrid room reverb where I am at the moment. They tend to be low output mics and the UR44 struggles a bit to provide the necessary gain. Something like a half rack mic pre would sit nicely next to the ur44 and I have the dedicated line inputs on the back to receive from the mic pre so it seems like an obvious upgrade path. I got a fethead and it did work well in terms of gain for the dynamic mics, I found it added a little bit of lower midrange honk which could be eq'ed out easy enough and then it sounded like the mic without the fethead. I hear you about the zero latency, that's what ties me to the UR44, the fact that I can have reverb, compression and eq on the vocals coming back to my cans with zero latency and processed before the DAW. I put it on the guitars as well.

So i decided on a pcie 3.0 nvme because that's fast enough for me and will keep the temp down. I was going for something cheaper with good read speeds but I don't care about write speeds because it's only going to hold sample libraries, there are plenty of cheaper alternatives like this, it seems the write speeds are what drive up the costs. Then I thought what if I decide to swap stuff around as I am doing with one of the drives in my old PC. So I played it safe and got a 1tb Samsung 970 evo plus. Don't need the blistering speeds (and heat) of the pcie 4.0, they also seem to use more electricity, even at idle, but wanted reasonable read and write speeds with Samsung reliability (they've not let me down yet) while not breaking the bank.

So that's what it was.....

Thanks, I got caught with the old "Gigabyte B560m Aorus elite motherboards don't support the primary nvme pcie 4.0 drive when used with a 10th gen intel processor". Who would have thought? Nobody tells you that, you have to search the tech forums to find out. But of course you only search the forums...after.... you make the mistake, only to find that the techs themselves have also made that mistake because the manufacturer says they do support both 10th and 11th gen processors. Not to worry, an 11th gen is on it's way and that will unlock both nvme ports. I was going to use just one nvme and 2 ssd drives (one from my old computer) but given there will now be 2 nvme ports on the motherboard i intended to use the pcie 4.0 one (closest to the CPU) for sample libraries only and the secondary pcie 3.0 one for the operating system/applications and then an ssd for recording/projects. Nice to know about the heatsinks and also perhaps even using a pcie 3.0 in the 4.0 port to reduce heat. I don't know whether there would be any real world speed impact from doing this. Or I could use a pcie 4.0 nvme there with a heatsink and see how it goes. It doesn't feel right to me to put hardrives so close to other components but I guess if nobody is having a problem with that then it should be ok.

I am on the fence about this, the UR44 I use does not have very good specs, dynamic range for example. Not sure whether to get a different interface or get a dedicated preamp to feed into the line in of the UR44. Out of interest, what did you end up getting and what difference was it that you noticed?

I've got a choice between putting my sample libraries on a 2.5 SSD or putting them on a Nvme. Most might say well Nvme drives are faster so do that, except.... My SSD drives can be put on their own in the hard drive cage whereas the Nvme drives are on the motherboard right next to the CPU and the other one right next to the GPU, literally millimeters clearance, and it is covered completely by my GTX1060 turbo card. I worry that the one next to the graphics card will get too hot.

I find this to be true for me as well, despite all the internet posts scattered everywhere saying they are all exactly the same, the null police. VST instruments sound different to me in different DAW's. I've just upgraded to Cubase 12 and will probably stick with that now, since the dongles gone, it means I can use it on the laptop as well. I think there is something for specializing in one DAW that suits you and really learning how to use it rather than jumping between DAW's but different workflows suit different people. I've sort of got used to Cubase now, despite some of it's weirdness. Also, since I still use the UR44, that integrates well with Cubase and provides me with compression and eq through the UR44 before it hits the DAW with zero latency and also a nice reverb to monitor with, from the hardware with no latency. This is really important to me for vocals, but it might not be as important to others. I also just upgraded the computer finally, so maybe I can experiment with through the DAW monitoring a bit. Not quite finished yet but preparing the projects and software etc to transfer over. The only thing I can see coming is a preamp that would run into the UR44 line inputs, so then I would have a dedicated decent preamp but still running into the UR44 so I keep all the goodies that provides as well. So many things in the chain, what is going to provide the best bang for buck? That's an idea for another thread.

I smoked a bit in my 20's but gave it up, I couldn't stand the smell on everything and it made my voice hoarse, constant coughing, had a bit of trouble giving it up but one thing I did that nailed it for me, I had this ashtray that I had butts in with some water and it stank like anything. When I felt like a cig, I shoved my face in the ashtray really hard and the stink made me feel like vomiting. It made a mess on my face and I ran to the bathroom to get it off. Sort of classical conditioning I think, I replaced the craving - > cigarette - > satisfaction pattern with craving - > sniff ashtray - > feel like vomiting pattern. Very soon, the feeling of wanting a cigarette was associated with the feeling of wanting to vomit.

Yep, don't put up with bad eyes, glasses, contact lenses or laser them.

I've found those mic screens with long goose necks start sagging. You attach them to the mic stand, bend them into position maybe 2" from the mic and then next thing you notice it's 3" from the mic, then 4".

Thanks Reid, looks like a great resource for Premiere, what are they going to do, give it away free until your reliant on it and then charge for it? interesting, but I just use Vegas. Been cramming FX on an internal drive but it's getting full.

Same here, this ones not for me though, more games oriented, but with the growth of the SFX stuff I have, I'm finally able to justify an external hard drive devoted only to SFX and ambiences etc. Will also put the Video FX on it as well. I only use internal drives normally, so attaching a portable external with project elements is a new venture.

Can't find it on the home page. Coming up as $99.00

Modelled pianos like Pianoteq also have better velocity response, Pianoteq responds to all 127 velocities, sampled pianos have usually up to about 16 velocity layers, also sampled instruments sometimes tend to knock off that all important first part of the note, really noticeable on guitar sampled libraries but also noticeable on piano libraries, some do better than others.

Horses for courses. There are no rules about how or not you should get your computer built. Some like to do it themselves, others like to get others to do it. There are pros and cons for each but people have different needs. I'm waiting to do a guts upgrade, a Mobo with an 8th to 10th gen i7 intel with 16gig of ram or more. I don't want the latest because it is too powerful for my needs and I live in a country with the 2nd highest electricity bills in the world, in a state in that country that has the highest bills of all the other states. I don't need all the heat either. I could do it myself but there is a local guy who is going to do it for me, with warranty, so that's good for peace of mind. If anything does go wrong hardware wise. I've swapped out and maintained computers for years, for video editing and music the reality is, they are incredibly reliable. Back in the day, there were problems but today, not so much. For the average Home muso doing audio recording and using VST's like kontakt or komplete etc with a midi controller all you need is: i7 7th to 10th gen 16gig ram (all the same) 3 SSD hard drives (minimum) Separate graphics card Separate reputable audio interface 4 - 6 USB ports Windows 10 or 11 No Wifi or lan No Antivirus Reputable DAW Done and dusted. This will do everything you need without problems. The only hardware problems seem to come from mismatched or not properly seated ram or lack of hard drives. That's about it really. Any modern computer is pretty reliable. Any other problems are going to be software related which is why I disable any wifi or lan and on board audio and also have no antivirus (just what comes with windows). DAW related problems, if they occur, can be sorted by googling or on a forum. Windows related problems, if they occur, can be sorted the same way. The reality is though, you shouldn't get any problems. If you've got modern third party hardware devices, like a particular keyboard or mixer etc then there may be some stuffing about setting it up but once set up, shouldn't give any problems. If your using old gear then there may be workarounds or you may need to get more modern gear. People who have mission critical projects though, it helps to have a phone number of a local tech should something unusual pop up but most home musos don't need that. I had a video editing business many years ago, in the days of XP and Vista, that was a dodgy period for windows and video editing, it was great then having access to a Tech on the phone. If I were running a business today, I would want access to a Tech on the phone or someone to come around, if for nothing else so I could be doing something else while they fix the problem. I am amazed at how reliable computers are today, compared to yesteryear.

I also think about this, I wonder what being "played" actually means, same with youtube (number of views). Does the listener have to listen or watch for a certain period of time before it is counted as "played" or "viewed" or do they just need to click on it and listen/watch for a few seconds? Then that behavior is counted as a played or viewed.