AndyB01

What a great site. My first ever digital piano was a Roland HP137, it was (comparatively) cheap with more than a few shortcomings, but I loved it. I later traded it for my current Roland A88 (Mk I) MIDI controller which, as a MIDI controller, leaves an awful lot to be desired but has a gorgeous weighted piano feel. Now superseded by the significantly improved Mk II.

Loved the trip down memory lane.

Andy

1 hour ago, Wookiee said:

Radical thought, a furry alien with clawed paws writing earth Prog 😂

Prog is full of furry aliens from faraway galaxies: Squonk and A Trick Of The Tail to quote just a couple of examples - it's a perfect coupling. 😂😂

25/8 😳 you'll be writing Prog tracks next! 😉

Really enjoyed this, the chops to produce and perform it are impressive indeed.

Nice work

Andy

Yep another 👎 for fast start, turn it off.

CCleaner is a piece of junk IMO (both professional and personal - I work in CyberSec) and a great way to cop a dose of uninvited malware; especially if you use the freeware version. If you're on Win10 or later it serves zero value.

16 seconds sounds short but it's an age in IT terms, if it's not the VST scan then something else is going on. 

The only variable that affects my startup time is whether or not my MIDI controller is connected. Mines' a right old lump of a thing so I only plug it in when I need to. When I start CbB without it, it takes a little longer to start up - as though CbB is searching for it - but it's barely long enough to register.

They only other thing I can think of is power settings - especially around USB ports. There's a thread somewhere that sets out all the things you should consider to optimise a DAW PC and the stuff on power settings is well worth a read and can make a difference.

It's a process of elimination, these oddities are rarely easy to nail down.

Hope some of that helps

Andy

Now that does sound good on the audio demos, it has to be said.

I'm waiting for the Steve Hackett pack - now if anyone can sell me an amp sim that models his solo sound - I'm definitely in! 🙂

I fear I could be waiting a very long time...

Andy

Yamaha Pacifica range - may be a touch over your price point - but well worth checking out. Back in the day I had a Yamaha AES620 (what a crime that they no longer make it) which was a cracking solid body guitar. Check out some reviews on YouTube - this is my fave UK guitar store and they review loads of guitars. Admittedly, some are the price of your average kidney or other major organ 😉 but they do cover a fair range.  

Good luck with your search and don't dismiss pre-loved guitars - often some real bargains to be had.

Andy

8 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Although I'm hesitant to turn my  vocals up. I suppose they're not as loud as they could be because I wanted to draw less attention to them. 

Rocks and glass houses where vocals are concerned - you won't get any crits from me in that department, so sing your heart out.

Some on here use Melodyne and others swear it is the Devil's work. Personally I only have three issues with Melodyne: (1) I probably use it too much, (2) I give it too much to do (i.e awful singing) and (3) I'm not very skilled with it.

Apart from that, what's not to like - so rock 'em up and let the talent shine. Double tracking, harmonies, reverb and delay can cover a multitude of sins. 😂😂

Andy

Really enjoyed this - brave song to cover with such a different style - well done.

Andy

I bought a purpose-built music laptop from Scan (UK) around four years ago (i7 with 32Gb RAM). It's a Clevo under the hood and has been pretty solid, apart from a spate of BSODs that were eventually resolved by a local computer shop rebuild.

I've upgraded the disks to SSDs, but everything else is as built. It cost nearly double your budget though. You do have to watch cooling - mine used to blow like a jet engine till I realised that putting it on an upturned wire mesh office tray massively improved the efficiency of the vents in the base - that was a revelation. 🙈

Annoyingly the i7 has no Win 11 support, so I will have to replace it at some point eventually. I'm pretty torn between desktop and laptop. I really like the versatility of a laptop, but they're a pain to upgrade, you get less compute overall for your $ and the fan/ noise issue is always a problem.

I'll probably go to the guy who fixed this laptop for me as he does custom builds and is not too expensive, otherwise I'm end up paying for stuff (like fancy graphics) that I don't need.

Andy

David that's a very nice arrangement - I detected a hint of distortion in places on my Sony MD-7506s but that may just be my ageing ears. One minor crit - I would have liked a little more variation in the volume between the instruments but goodness me, getting the articulations and subtle variations for classical instruments right is difficult enough (well in my experience it is anyway) so all credit to you - an excellent interpretation. Andy

Douglas - this has a great live, raw sixties vibe - you did a great job on this. Andy

The only problem I have with Mike's videos is remembering all the brilliant tips and techniques he puts across.

Without any question, the best music production channel on YouTube for me.

Andy

I don't think it needs quantizing - it's jazz, that's kind of the point (well in my head anyway). Great horns , keys and reeds - enjoyed the listen.

Andy

Nice work Steve - Norwegian Wood, a particular fave. Great work. Andy

I was educated in Blighty, by two wonderful music teachers: Eric Cliff and Bob Wysome - I never heard either utter such a term. 😂

Bob was a musical genius and his gift as a teacher was beyond compare. How he got an entire year of spotty, hormonal, cynical teenagers to form a choir, turn up to practise, sound good and perform successfully at a school concert still astounds me.

I can hear him yelling at us now:

"There is no 'R' in 'Hosanna in'" 😆😂

Andy 🎵🎶🎵🎶

I've had a Scarlett 2i4 Gen 1 for more years than I care to remember. Rock solid and still going strong.

You can do a lot worse

Andy

Very nicely played, I also got a slight degree of hiss but only noticed at the end when it completely disappeared. Don't edit out the finger slides and string squeaks, I love it when I can hear a guitarist showcasing their technique - especially on gut strings.

I preferred the arpeggio to the strummed/ string section (I found the strings a little too strong in the mix) but that's just my personal preference.

All round good job.

Andy

Very clever lyrics and impressive chops on that guitar walkdown.

Great Christmas tune.

Andy

NASA could most certainly use this to front some of the images they get from that new $10bn toy they just blasted into space.

The thing I really admire is how you blend the sounds so that they evolve and morph into each other.

(inter)Stellar stuff. 😉

Andy

All round superb - well done guys - take a bow 👏👏👏

Andy

Stunning visuals Tom, every inch a modern classic, a hint of Einaudi about it at the start.

Loved the change of pace at about 2:50, I guess part of me wanted the piano to come back in - if only because I am such a fan of your mastery in that department - but that hardly counts as a crit.

Peerless as always - have a great New Year.

Andy

Nice harmonies - I'm in awe of your vocal technique - dropping in and out of falsetto like that.

Awesome

Andy

So an update on this - after a regression install of Native Access (to version 1.5.1) and setting an environment variable in Windows to stop the application from updating in future), I now have the application back up and running. Clearly something about the latest version of NA and my system isn't playing nice so for now, this looks like the option for me.

I'm just happy to have it working once again.

Andy

Hmm don't hold your breath, I contacted support recently to ask that very question, here was the reply:

"Thanks for your email. We really appreciate your feedback. Right now Toontrack Support does not have any confirmation on a future version of EZkeys that will include an updated interface to match EZbass and Superior Drummer 3. Unfortunately, we are not able to provide any details for future plans on EZkeys."

Make of that what you will. Roughly translated I think it says:

'we're quite happy with the cash cow model thanks, and we'll just keep on shipping those expansion packs'

Andy

Shame they steadfastly refuse to update EzKeys - that old non-scalable GUI is looking very tired in comparison with EzBass.

I can never tell what most of these 'updates' do either.

Andy