Tezza

There's also the issue of monitoring. If you have a decent and clear level in well isolating headphones, it can make your microphone technique better because you can hear the levels that your singing at and then you will automatically adjust as you are recording. Biofeedback of this sort helps but it is much better if you have the ability to setup a decent monitoring situation to begin with, by adjusting eq and reverb in the headphones also with a bit of compression if you like. Otherwise, what you hear in the headphones can just be a boomy mess. If you don't have a decent monitoring situation to begin with then it's difficult to know what you are actually recording, just blasting into a microphone. I think it's good practice to record yourself singing without anything accompanying it and get something your happy with before introducing backing tracks. A home studio is not the best place to be recording vocals for many people because you are not in a studio environment with a deadened, treated room. If you use a condenser and stand back 12" to record your voice at loud volume, you will end up with a terrible room reverb slap on it, if you get in close, the proximity effect and spiking of your vocals will create boomy, spiky vocals. You have to find the happy medium somewhere. Deadening the room as much as possible is a good start. If your loud, you can use a dynamic microphone and get closer, that will take care of the room reverb mostly but then, unless you have a really decent monitoring system, you are going to get spiky waveform recordings.

Guitars can also abuse humans. I had a 1960's guild acoustic for about 30 years, got it when I was a kid, I played everywhere with that thing and it didn't like people who tried to break us up or who abused it. Once it was stolen and I gave the cops the serial number when I reported it, a couple of weeks later, the cops phoned me that they had found the guitar in a truckload of instruments that had been stolen in Adelaide on route to Melbourne. It had crashed and the driver was killed and the passenger was badly injured but the guitar in it's hard case was fine. Then I was playing at an open gig at a house, when I walked in, there was about 20 guitar cases in the hallway. Everyone took turns singing some songs. I let some guy play my guitar but he was a bit heavy handed with it so I took it off him. I went inside, came back, and he and my guitar were gone. I ran out the front and caught him. A scuffle ensued and I got my guitar back, I went back to the party and about 5 minutes later he was run down by a car while walking home, he was a bit drunk. He survived with a bit of brain damage. I would leave my guitar in it's stand in my bedroom and once when I was in a share house, a painter came in while I was at work and he must have knocked the guitar over because when I came home, the neck was broken, he denied it at first, I think what happened was that he opened the windows and the curtain blew in knocking the guitar on to the floor at an angle, headstock first. He relented eventually and agreed to pay for it to be fixed, it had to have a steel rod inserted in the neck and be glued and painted. 2 weeks later, he was bashed outside the casino, it was in the papers and he was in a coma for a while, with neck and head injuries. There were other instances. It seemed anyone who abused the guitar ended up in the shit.

Which laptop do you use? I had a dell precision that could have 3 hard drives in it, it was great but a bit old now, been looking at the MSI gaming laptops, don't seem to be many around that can do 3 hard drives.

+1 there is some decent Steinberg audio interfaces with onboard DSP and FX that only run off USB-C (bus power) and I guess others will be coming.

Yep, still ticking along in Ozland, you been quiet lately, been spending time in the Doom Room? Eb is definitely where it's at. Yeh the KU10 basses are pretty good, but double and upright bass selections only in "cuba" and the Kontakt factory library, I don't think KU13 delivers another double or upright bass instrument. I set myself a goal today to get all my music stuff that I don't use up on Gumtree and if that is achieved, I can reward myself by getting the KU13 update....woo hoo!

If the vocal performance is bad, no amount of editing or effects is really going to fix things. The question to ask is if you were ever a good singer in the first place. I've seen a number of people on this forum say that because they are older, they have a bad voice and I've listened to some of their songs and their bad voice has nothing to do with their age but rather that they can't sing and probably never could because they never undertook the training. Their voice is unprofessional. If you never were a good singer then it won't magically get better in your 60's. You have to start lessons and practice now to get better, there are plenty of lessons available online through Udemy and other sources but a professional tutor is better in my view. Everyone can take up singing at any age and improve their vocals. Don't be self conscious or equate singing with being a pop star, no-one expects to see you in tight jeans and leather on MTV. Singing is just an instrument, like a piano or guitar and plenty of people take it up in their 60's and 70's and in the local choir around here in their 80's and 90's. Have you thought of joining a quartet, they are fantastic for keeping your voice warm. If you used to be a good singer, then there is no reason why you cannot call that back up, but, if you were a good singer, you would know it takes practice, and loud practice to get your voice back into the zone. Again, no reason to be self conscious that because you are 65 your suddenly not allowed to belt out a tune. As we age, it can be easy to fall into an "oldness" mindset, where everything is blamed on age, rather than diet, inactivity and lack of motivation. Usually as you get older, you may lose the highs a little but you will gain in the lows. If you getting older, singing is also a great therapy for addressing things like sleep apnoea and snoring etc. Most of the famous singers who got famous in their 20's still sound fabulous and in some cases better than they used to now in their 70's. Tom Jones, Gladys Knight, Mick Jagger, have a listen to some of these, Gladys Knight, now in her 70's sounds better than she did in her 20's. Have a listen to this live performance, in her 70's: Having said that, there are some singers whose voice does deteriorate a bit when they get older and they don't sound as good in their 70's. If that;s yoiu, then get another singer in but make sure that really is you before you do or you might miss out on some fun.

Yep, Eb is massive for me as well, my acoustic tuned to Eb is easier and awesome to play and sounds great as well. Can use slightly heavier strings, and finger squeak doesn't seem as bad for some reason, perhaps the lower tension of the strings means not so much pressure required. I tried the Ample Basses and was initially blown away, on their own, they sound great but putting them into a mix was a bit more of a challenge. I couldn't understand why they sounded so much better than my KU10 Scarbee basses. Then I realized that unlike the Scarbee basses, they come with a lot of effects already added in the presets, EQ, compression, reverb and some chorusy effects etc. When you turn all that stuff off, they sound no better or worse than the Scarbee basses, just different. I opted to just keep and use the Scarbee basses that I already had, I didn't need to buy more but the Amplesound experience taught me about the importance of effects on the bass, to really go wild with the EQ and compression etc. If you don't have any bass guitar VST's at all, then the Amplesound stuff might be a good buy but to put them in a mix, you may need to fiddle with the effects side of things or they can be a bit overpowering. Probably best to start with all that stuff off and then add as necessary. I would love a good upright though, I don't have a really decent one of those.

I would quote the minimum hard drive number as 3 internal and one external for backupin a Desktop PC home computer music DAW, new build. This covers all the bases that you can use the DAW for and guarantees the best performance. The number of hard drives and how you use them is more important than CPU size or RAM in today's computers. Yet it seems every post for advice on computer setups seems to start with CPU power and RAM amount, with hard drive setup not seen as important. 1. OS and applications (500g - 1Tb) 2. Recorded material/projects (500g - 1Tb) 3. Samples/loops (1Tb - 2Tb) That would achieve what you are trying to do, if you are resurrecting old projects and you already have some sounds. I don't know how those old sonar platinum sounds stack up to modern stuff, you might want to upgrade those or not, plenty of room for expansion. The number of times where I see threads on forums of people complaining about problems and in the end it boils down to their hard drive setup. People start doing small music stuff on their computer that it might be able to handle but then as the number of tracks, recordings and the number of libraries used increases (it usually does), their performance suffers. Not to mention that some synths can tax the CPU a bit which can add to the bottleneck. It's also good housekeeping. Why bother, get 3 internal SSD's and an external hard drive for back up and then your done. I use a 3rd generation i5 and 8gig of ram but 3 hard drives and it works well enough for me not to be able to justify upgrading regardless of what I throw at it. I know that if I tried those same projects on the same computer with one hard drive, there would be no end of problems. I know because I've tried it. You may get away with 2 ssd's, I don't know. If you do a search on hard drive setup's for music DAW's, you will see that the recommended setup today is the 3 hard drive set up. Ever since I switched to a 3 drive setup I have never had any problems with any of the DAW's. It's also good for when you might need to do some video editing or putting music to video. My only reason for upgrading the computer now appears to be to get a smaller case that I can smuggle into the Library to use their internet to download things like KU13 because where I live the internet is terrible. But I will only be using a ninth gen i5 with 16g of RAM in the new build. I might upgrade my sample disc from 1Tb to 2Tb. I stick with i5's because I find them more than powerful enough and they run quieter and cooler. I want the case to be sealed with a stock CPU fan and one rear case fan, that's it. Nice and quiet with no surprises. My new business laptop, I went against my convention and got an i7 because it was at a good price and while for the most part it is quiet, sometimes it sounds like a harrier jet taking off from the table. My old i5 Dell precision with 3 hard drives editing video was quieter. In Australia, I want the computer to function when it is an ambient temperature of 47 degrees celsius and to do that all day if necessary, my computer doesn't let me down. Although my Mackie monitors blew up and so did my Presonus mobilepre interface. But the rokits and the UR44 are fine with it. Also, electricity is expensive here so every little bit helps. You may want a more powerful CPU if you intend to use very CPU heavy synths, or you are chasing super low latency on an amp sim or for some other purpose, or more ram for Libraries that may require it. Or if you are setting up a 32 track simultaneous recording studio or something, but that is moving into different territory, a professional studio. You might want to get extra external SSD's if your samples and libraries increase. Depending on your budget constraints, you don't want to spend heaps on things that might not benefit your project intentions and then find yourself short to buy other things that might benefit you more, like good sounds, plugins and external equipment like mics and an audio interface etc. Depends what you've got.

My experience has been that the use of guitar libraries depends on what you want to do. If you have an original song that you wrote with a guitar rhythm, then trying to get a midi driven equivalent on a library will probably be a waste of time, you may as well record your guitar. Acoustic strumming can also still sound artificial. But if you want to supplement a project with electric guitar bits like some finger picking, some heavy single notes or a strummed chord here and there or you are prepared to mould the project to suit the rhythm patterns of the VST then they can be very useful and very convincing. Or you might get lucky and find a strum pattern that suits your song. You can program lead bits and so forth A keyboard and a guitar are different instruments, a keyboard has one note per key but a guitar can produce 4 different timbre notes using the same note in the same octave. You can play that same note on different strings, creating a different timbre or sound although it is the same note. This is not much of a concern for keyboard players looking to emulate guitar but it can be annoying for example, jazz players looking to emulate the sound of chords up and down the fretboard. Different VSTi's address this in different ways and some don't bother at all. They usually have a fretboard indicator that you can fix with a key modifier so it forces the VST to play only the notes within the range of about 3 frets anywhere on the fretboard, I've found this works well in most cases. Of course it will only work if the VSTi has sampled the entire fretboard and not just mapped one note per key. I forget how the Orange Tree VST's address this. I've used them to also transcribe pieces of what I play on acoustic and that taught me straight away that my playing was more amazing than I thought. I never realized how many different things my fingers and hand were doing to produce the sound and these are not really possible to transcribe in a convincing way but you can get a convincing enough performance transcribed, just not the same. The big benefit for me is having control over finger squeak, which I can eliminate using a VST, however be warned that some libraries come with finger squeak embedded in the sample and there have been complaints about that.

I'll probably stick with a 1tb ssd for my sample drive despite the heaviness of KU13. What I've learned is that I only use certain applications/instruments out of Komplete Ultimate, things like Drum Lab (which i could never get working properly anyway) and the Abbey road drum sets, I will never use, for drums all I need is Studio Drummer, Battery and a great selection of samples/loops and I'm done. Also, a couple of the upright piano's I don't use, they make some really ugly resonant noises that I don't like, others might. Although "The Gentleman" is a keeper for me. The bottom line is, you don't need to install all of it but people do have different needs, so will install whatever they want but if someone is installing for the first time, they may want to install all of it until they work out what it is they are going to actually use. To do that, you are going to need a 2tb drive because there will probably be other non-NI sample libraries you will want to use.

I think that is only in standalone mode, should run through a daw without ASIO.

Works for halion sonic se as well....interesting site. Wow! lots of instruments for halion sonic SE, all free, so if you've got Cubase (which comes with Halion Sonic SE) then your good to go. I think they may work with the free version of Halion Sonic SE also. Just checked, yes they do. So you can download the free Halion Sonic SE and stock it with these instruments, all for free! I wonder what they sound like.....

I would like to know how much they actually put on the drive, you might find the drive is 500gig and you have to download the remaining 340gig direct from them via Native Access. I have KU10 and all of that came on the hard drive which was great as my home internet connection is bad, I just put it on, authorized it and was good to go. The updates and any extras I could download manually on another computer and then transfer to my home DAW. I thought it would be the same deal with KU12 when I got that but there was another 120gig or so of stuff to download in addition to what was on the hard drive. That led to me arguing with NI over what is the point of the hard drive then? I had to return it because it wasn't possible for me to download it and you have to download it to your DAW, you can't download it to a separate computer and then transfer it. I should imagine it's the same with KU13, whatever you get on the drive will only be part of the whole thing. If they had the whole thing on there, I would get it straight away. Native Access is a good idea for those who have strong internet but if you don't, the fact that they don't offer alternative ways of downloading or put the whole thing on the hard drive is a deal killer for me at the moment.

By frozen audio tracks, you mean that they were originally audio tracks ie recorded audio that you bounced or rendered "froze". Not that they were originally midi or instrument tracks that you froze to audio, is that right? Also, I'm trying to find out about your hard drives and what's on them. What is your "C" drive, is this a hard disk or an SSD, if it is a hard disk, what is it's speed. So if you are not using samples then I guess your setup would be: Drive 1: Operating system and programs Drive 2: (external): Recorded audio and projects Would this be right? Or are you doing everything on the "C" drive and just using the external drive to back up projects. Either way, it's not ideal for music production, typically what can happen is people use a single hard drive to begin with and then as their track count goes up, they get problems and need to buy another hard drive that is dedicated to recording the audio. At a minimum, you need 2 internal sata hard drives, preferably SSD's, but standard HDD's will get the job done, although buying a new drive, I don't know why anyone would buy an HDD over an SSD today, unless for archiving. Something like Pro Tools won't even work unless you have 2 hard drives, a separate one for recording audio on to. If your recording to the USB drive, that might work but brings an unnecessary element into the equation of USB connections when you have a desktop and could put an internal drive in.

Still not sure what your hard drive set up is, this is the single most important thing in a music or video production environment. It looks as though you have 2 hard drives, is that correct? One is your "C" drive, is this a hard disk or an SSD, if it is a hard disk, what is it's speed and what do you have on it? ie Operating system, samples, projects. The other one is an external drive that is a 7200rpm hard disk, is that correct? how are you connecting this to the computer? usb 1.0, 2.0 OR 3.0 USB C or firewire or whatever etc What is on it? Are you using it as a recording drive or does it contain samples/loops or both etc. Also, is this a laptop or a desktop PC? Really need to know your hard drive set up details before looking at software solutions. The ideal hard drive setup on a standard PC is: 3 internal SSD's 1 for operating system/programs 1 for recordings/projects 1 for Samples/loops And also 1 more internal or external for archiving. This doesn't mean that music production isn't possible on a single or double hard drive set up, it just depends on what you are trying to do. Right, so no midi or instrument tracks of any kind, so you are not using synths or virtual instruments of any kind, you only have 32 tracks of audio that you are editing. Is that correct?

When I had the space, I used to use the Par cans on a tree, same as what I used on stage when doing acoustic material, you can stick whatever gel over them and run a wall wart dimmer for subtle effects. I had 3 of them, looks pretty cool if your studio is big enough. I had a separate "performer" area with a rug and the lighting cans and also a big old wooden Keg which served as a table that had a small lamp on it for reading the music/lyrics of what I had written. This mimicked the actual environment I would play in live. I would even have a glass of red wine sometimes on the Keg table together with whatever song I was practicing/recording. A couple of sips here and there was fine, but it was mainly to set the scene. At the moment, I am in a smaller place and have one of those LED panel video lights that has an onboard dimmer and barn doors that I can gel for a similar effect. There is something about a light on a stand with barn doors and a gel. This is for more acoustic guitar based music. I have a mate who is more into EDM and he has a disco ball in his studio that he turns on when he feels like it, it spins continuously and when you shine a light on it, it sends spinning light all around the room. He also has stage lights, again, he does stage performances and it mimicks that.

Lighting is also not necessarily a gimmick, it can contribute to the atmosphere for the performer, this is another way of looking at it. If I'm singing a slow romantic Jazz song, I like to have the lighting a sort of dim purple color. All performers work best with the correct setting and lighting while they are performing. If you can set that up in your own studio then why not? It adds to the fun but also serves as a signal that recording has commenced, that you have now stepped into different shoes. If you are used to performing on stage as a musician in a band then it's a lot more than just playing the instrument, you have to give a show which requires dress, a set (as in what's on the stage), lighting, a good fold back system, bodily movement and some choreography etc It all adds to that marvelous feeling of transforming from an ordinary citizen into a rock star! And also gives the audience what they want to see, creates an atmosphere for them. In comparison, sitting at a computer screen and inputting notes via piano roll or midi keyboard or dragging loops around can seem a bit lifeless and demotivating. I find scheduling a specific time, getting dressed appropriately, having a great monitoring system with a bit of reverb, standing up and changing the lighting can add a bit to the performance if I am doing song stuff.

Are you using the latest drivers and have you tried a different USB cable.

Hard drive setup? What hard drives/SSD's are you using, what is their speed and whats on each one? ie Operating system, samples, projects. 32 audio tracks, You say no midi tracks, all frozen, does that mean you have midi tracks but they are frozen.

I'm a big believer in video courses for software, If I am learning a new software and cannot find a video course for it then I will use different software that does have a video course for it. For me, getting a video course for education of the software is more important than the software itself. No sense in having software on your computer that you don't know how to use. Some read the manual etc but it's video courses that do it for me. It's great to sit down and run the course on the TV while I am at the computer using the software. I learn quick from that. A proper education from video courses will cost money unless you have some other way. As a member of my local Library I have access to all the Lynda.com courses (now Linkdin) for free, although they must be done at the Library because they are on-line only (can't download). For me, Youtube content is not sufficient, I prefer a fully structured course from beginning to end by the same person for consistency with the topic matter and sound/video quality. Youtube is good for those times when you want to learn a specific thing and then can search for it on Youtube and usually find something. I don't find it efficient to learn new software from the start using Youtube. It's a bitty process of locating different bits and putting up with poor audio or video quality or bad instruction and ... the number of ads now on Youtube has put me off it anyway. If you are new to the software then nothing beats a decent full course to begin with. You might need to pay for it but it's worth it in my view. I have no problem with paying for video courses to learn software if I have to. They are pretty cheap. My recommendation is do a search, see what you can find in relation to a full course on Cakewalk, pick one, buy it and get going.

The mouse only has one velocity which is full on. I'm not sure how you intend to record output from the VSTi by triggering it with a mouse. Midi keyboards can have a number of velocities that they send from the keyboard so if you press softly it triggers a soft response, if you press the key hard, you get a louder sound. That is the way it is supposed to be. How your keyboard sends velocity messages to the VSTi or soft synth is determined by what are called "velocity curves" not all midi keyboards have these built in but some do. I think the impulse has 4 velocity curves you can select from to suit your playing style. There is also sometimes a velocity adjustment on the VSTi itself depending on which instrument you are playing. I used to have an impulse some time ago. They wouldn't be my first choice today for a midi keyboard, i didn't like the automap software. They are also getting on in age and I think their compatibility with DAW's is not the best anymore. Some may have other views. I just use a M-Audio Keystation mkiii which is not a controller keyboard, just a keybed with some midi functionalities. Someone else might be able to help you with setup of the impulse in Cakewalk. You might want to download the manual for your keyboard and have a look at that if you haven't already done so.

Upgrade to KUCE13 from KU is $449.00 Aus, Upgrade KU to KU is $299.00 Aus. So $150.00 difference for me in Australia.

That soft e-licencer from Steinberg is terrible. I put my Steinberg authorizations on the Dongle to avoid that. Don't really like the Dongle either but it is the only option out of 2 bad options. Yes, there will be three options, choose key, choose style, press "Make Song" button.

This is an old keyboard now, I had one some time ago, it was nice to play and use compared to others around at the time and even today. I ended up moving it on because I didn't like the automap software and there were various issues.

I just checked with the local stores here in Australia and the upgrade to Komplete Ultimate 13 from KU10 (which I have) is now $299.00 AUD which is pretty good and tempting. It's got the electric and acoustic guitars which I don't have and if I bought another 2 of those alone it's going to be up there for the same cost. Plus there are the other goodies. If it all came on the hard drive, I would probably buy it tomorrow but even with the hard drive it comes on there is another 130gig or so that has to be downloaded which is not possible on my terrible internet connection. Until I can find a solution to that, I will have to wait.