Tezza

Thanks, what I was asking is if you are using a single drive for everything. So you have only one drive and no others? I was only asking as I was wondering how well a music system functions with one ssd.

I think it's an old debate now, SSD's are fine, I would never consider a mechanical hard disk for anything anymore. I was in the shops the other day looking for a cheap computer to set up as a media center, starting them up, the ones with mechanical drives reminded me of the reason I moved away from them 5 years ago. Just too slow. As long as you have a good backup and perhaps a mechanical might be alright for that, but I use a SSD even for that. Are you using a single drive? how does it go?

No subs or WUP.

If your using the piano roll to play midi instruments mainly then velocity and automation is probably more important than gain staging. VST instruments can sound very different at different velocities and it doesn't always match to the kind of song your playing ie, it may be a slow quiet ballad but upping the velocity of the bass and piano might sound better. Drum samplers need to be kept up high in the 110 to 127 range because all you are doing is triggering a sample and providing some headroom for volume changes but the bass drum and snare should always be kept up high to get the best sound, hihats etc can be lowered as needed if you really need to. Drum samples don't sound their best if you lower the velocity because your not really lowering the velocity your just lowering the volume. Unless you have loaded and set velocity layers for each cell. I generally like pianos to sit around 100 or so regardless of the genre, but this is personal preference. Instruments are usually ok to adjust velocity because they have velocity layers baked in. With midi, it's more about setting the volume of the instrument on the instrument and seeing how that feeds into the compressor and eq, then not changing that but adjusting the faders to suit, you don't need all faders on unity gain when working with midi instruments, that might not produce the best sound. I just juggle it a bit between the instrument volume and fader volume and try to get the faders to unity gain for ease of mixing but continually lowering or raising the volume on the instrument just to achieve unity gain can stuff up the sound unless you also check what is going on with the compressor when you do that. Also, people work in different ways I guess but generally, I don't bounce VST instruments to audio. Perhaps i Should be doing that, I don't know, sounds ok to me.

Yes, it's easy to fix by just checking windows and making sure that HDMI audio is not your default and the scarlett is, you should only have to do this once after you put the HDMI cable on. I had a similar problem because I've been using my DAW as a makeshift media streamer for Netflix. There is a HDMI cable that goes to the TV from the DAW. As Glenn say's HDMI carries both video and audio so there is a HDMI audio driver installed for that to happen. I used to not install that HDMI audio driver to prevent any conflicts with my audio interface but now I do so I can watch Netflix. I haven't run the TV while also using the audio interface on my DAW yet, that is turned off when using the TV. Could be interesting to see what happens. If you intend to use the HDMI just as a video cable, try resetting the windows default sound device to your scarlett after you put it on, it should be ok after that. Also, you may need to reset the audio device in Cakewalk. You should only need to do this once after you put the cable on. If it continues to cause problems you can always uninstall the HDMI driver.

I think this is also the problem I am seeing, there is a bump in resources required for KU13, mind you, I am still on a 3rd generation i5 with 8gig of ram. At last, I finally have a solid reason to upgrade the CPU, RAM and motherboard. The first time I ran Kontrol, it took nearly 25 minutes to load all the previews and scan the libraries etc before I was able to use it. I like Guitar Rig 6 and am converting all my projects over to it from GR5. The interface is a lot easier to use with bigger knobs and sliders, the presets and general sound sound better out of the box, especially the bass amp presets. I've never been a fan of Amplitube, I've tried it a number of times but don't like the interface and the shop business. I use S-gear mainly, I haven't done any direct comparisons with the GR6 amps against S-gear yet but I use GR5/6 FX with S-gear anyway so will look at that. It's good to have it, I spend less time fiddling than I did with GR5. The interface is more inspiring for me.

Christians idol, Love this guys work:

Mine takes too long to load and gets a white screen initially but works ok once loaded. As it is working, I might leave this update a bit to see what others experiences are with it.

A half decent audio interface with a dedicated ASIO driver would be a good decision, the internal realtek cards on laptops are great for playing music but not so good for setting up recording/playing as you need in a music workstation.

That sounds plenty enough in terms of ram and cpu to function as a DAW and to get "low" latency for using guitar amp sims or to plug in a midi keyboard. Some Dell laptops have problems with low latency for some reason, best to check yours out by doing a google search for latency and ASIO driver compatibility of your laptop. It sounds like a newer model, would it have a USB-C port. If it does, there are a new bunch of excellent interfaces that can pair with that. The one limitation you may be up against if you end up using samples, loops and for greater multitrack recording stability is the single hard drive which is a common limitation of laptops. This is unlikely to affect the performance that you will get from the amp sim. You should be able to record ok but it is recommended that you have at least one other hard drive to hold your projects and to record to. Best to give it a go as is, see how it goes, You can download guitar rig player for free to test it all out. I am a fan of audio interfaces that have a DSP chip and FX chip, you don't need to worry about latency if you are recording vocals or any audio source and there is also a cab sim to use a guitar with no latency. Generally, you have to plug in these sorts of interfaces to the wall but that has changed now with the Steinberg USB-C interfaces which provide you with this functionality running off bus power. I would take a while to look at all the options available, You don't really know how your computer will perform latency wise until you try it. Latency is the time it takes from when you play the guitar to when you hear it, there can be a delay which might be not an issue, tolerable or really annoying. I personally don't like it, but my computer is not that powerful, it's not an issue for me because i have a UR44 which has the DSP and FX chip.

How weak is it, what is CPU and ram and how many hardrives does it have. Is it a Dell or HP? what is the model number some are better than others. If your looking to use it as a guitar amplifier and also for a midi keyboard as well as a mic then there are some interfaces I would recommend depending on what the specifications of your laptop are.

I'm on the search for one of those, thanks for posting.

Scarbees A200 has 16 velocity layers. What I've found with velocity layers is that when your playing the instrument, velocity layers are so important for feel. I use the Modart one for playing direct as that utilizes the full 127 midi levels due to modelling. It's very expressive to play. However, when your playing back in the mix, velocity layers are less important because in a busy mix, you don't need all the different expressions which will be crushed by compression anyway. My favorite for sound at the moment is "The Gentleman" in Komplete. I'm finding it gives me the dryness that I like, without overdoing the artifacts or resonance that you get in some pianos that I don't like. I also enjoy playing it. It also only has 16 velocity layers. It fits into typical bass, guitar, piano and drums type songs really nicely. If it's the piano by itself and your a very expressive player then velocity levels make a big difference, but in a dance or rock piano it's not so important, at least to me. The pianos in Komplete which are 12-18 velocity layers are fine for that.

Yes I think it would work, I can hear it coming in in your song in my imagination, that's why it stuck out to me with it's absence, I was waiting for it. It is present in the video I posted, not all the way through every song from start to finish but typically that kick is the resolution of the buildup and it is what people are expecting. It's not all the way through but always drops in as the foundation at some point in EDM. Sometimes it may be slightly varied in the beat but always present. Your song sounds good, that was the main thing that stuck out to me which is why I posted, but if that is not what you want your music to sound like, that is up to you.

There's some good tutorials for Battery 4 around the place, I think Udemy and Lynda, now Linkedin have some, also some on Youtube. It's got a lot of stuff on it but you wont use all of it, nevertheless, it's nice to know what everything does. You don't have to use Battery to process each cell, you can also use it as a dumb sampler and link each cell or group of cells to a track in your DAW and do the processing there. I do a bit of each.

It needs the dominant kick sub every quarter beat for that genre.

I have the opposite situation, I prefer electronic drums because they are drier and raw, whereas my acoustic options are swimming in reverb. I actually cannot stand using acoustic drums anymore (in Ni's Studio Drummer) because no matter what I do, they are swimming in reverb and sound clashy/trebley and thin (at least to me). I also have little control over some of the individual instruments as well. Superior drummer is probably different but I don't like the sound of acoustic drums on professional commercial recorded music either so my tastes might be different. I guess it depends on what VST drum programs you use or in the case of electronic drums what samples/VST you use. I use Battery for everything now because I can control the sound of all the drums and layer drums within Battery and output every instrument to a separate track. Some samples are over processed but I generally don't use those or if I do, I knock the high end off with a filter and reduce the release time (both done in Battery) which tones them down and dries them up quite a bit. Then I output the cells to individual tracks and do any further processing/mixing in the DAW. "Electronic drums" sounds like one is referring to some cheap Casio beat box but they don't have to sound like that. If you take an acoustic kick sample, remove the ugly reverb by reducing the release time and remove the bottom end a bit with a filter to get rid of that hideous rumble and then mix that with another sample of say a 909 kick where you keep the short reverb and remove it's high end a bit, but use it's cleaner low end, the result can sound great, at least to me. You can do the same with snares, just layer a number of snares that might be acoustic or electronic and then do whatever to suit your taste. Every drum sound you hear in modern music these days is a mishmash of layered options anyway, combining acoustic sounds with electronic sounds and synths etc. It's easy to either not know where to start to create a sound or just get completely lost because of option overload with drum samples. Having a reference track that is close to the sound you want and then try to recreate it bearing in mind what the unprocessed sound might sound like underneath the FX. I like the drum sound of this song by Benee. Lots of layering of the snare with different instruments at different times, tamborines, claps, synth, acoustic and electric etc, all create impact and then going to dry drums, and the kick with the synth and bass etc. And the use of the various percussions. Getting rid of those loud rock drums opens up the musical space for bass, instruments and vocals. The vocals really stand out nicely. Nice use of drums for this indie/pop genre in my view, original sound. There's a lot going on if you listen but it's all subtle and contributes to the catchyness of the tune.

I think "we just want more money" would be the clarification.

or...if your a bit OCD and can't do that, grab it cheaper and use it straight away! $143.00 AUD for me, from 10 to 11. hmmmm......not bad. Will have to investigate. Sale ends August the 1st. I wonder if Presonus are planning any upgrade deals for Studio One.

SALE NOW OVER!!! I just got notification that mine has been posted, just before the cutoff ....he he! It's a bit of a no brainer for me, given what extras I get for the paltry upgrade price. Would cost me a lot more buying separate equivalents. I think that's the deal with the komplete bundles, once you pay the initial hefty slug, then upgrading every so often can be excellent value, especially if your upgrading from a much earlier version. Coming from KU10 and moving to KU13 is good value.

3 hours 25 minutes to go!

No, a local dealer here in Oz.

I ended up relenting and ordering the K13U because it was a bit of an upgrade over my K10U, a couple of piano's, a few synths, all of the guitars plus Kontakt 6, guitar rig 6 and reaktor 6 and some other stuff. I'm pretty sure I will use the new instruments and synths etc. Although I can't actually use it at the moment because of internet problems at my place of residence, but I have possibly a fix for that. However, the fact that I ordered the hard drive doesn't mean I will get it. Apparently, on the eve of the sale offer, they have run low on them, so I will only know when I receive notice it has been posted.

I always have the individual drums going to a bus or group fader so when I am tracking my vocals or laying down piano or guitar or writing in stuff, I can just turn down all the drums at once. I find that drums can be an annoyance when I'm writing parts and I want to hear if the individual instruments like piano and synth sound good together, all I need is to hear the beat. I don't track live drums but if you use a drum VST of any kind, it ends up the same if you can output each drum part to an individual track.

Which Kontakt library is it? Also, I know that you probably already know this but it's worth checking out, Is the first midi note lined up properly with the grid line or after it, if it's even a bit before the grid line, then unpredictable results may occur. I have sometimes deleted the first note, if it's lined up right at the start and I've had this problem and then drawn another in making sure snap is on or putting it a bit after. It seems sometimes DAW's can not read the first note properly if you overlapped the line, too far forward of the clip, when played or written in, and then moved it back.