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Artist comes bundled with select PreSonus hardware, such as every audio interface and controller they make.

If you are into vintage synth, I would start with anything by Nori Ubukata, especially the "Synth Giants 1-4" series. Followed by Big Tone's "Analog Basics Series 1 & 2". If you want to explore the wavetable capability of SM 2, don't miss "Tableworks 1 & 2" from Big Tone. There are also many banks aimed at Pop and EDM genres, if you are into that.

Corporate Latitude model, E5450/ 5th Gen Intel i5-5300U. Mainstream business laptop. Got it to use as a mobile office. 8GB RAM + SSD. Runs Win 10 Pro great! Built like a tank, and very user serviceable.

Anything could happen, but a big difference with the former Gibson/Cakewalk is that Cakewalk was a software company. PreSonus was exclusively a hardware electronics company from its founding in 1995 until they released the Studio One DAW in 2009. https://www.presonus.com/about/history Plus PreSonus still continue to design and produce audio hardware, so that is sure to add plenty to their financial bottom line. Unfortunately, Cakewalk could not contribute hardware sales to Gibson, so when they hit hard times... 😢

Seriously doubt that!

I built a new DAW computer last year and I'm glad that I chose to use Intel Core i5-9600K, a 6 core 9th Gen. That future proofs that one for a while, anyway. But not so much for my i5 Dell laptop, which is going to have to stay on Win 10 forever, as it's a few generations behind the curve. So what's the take on enabling Windows VBS (Virtualization Based Security) with Core Isolation and Memory Integrity? https://www.thewindowsclub.com/virtualization-based-security-not-enabled-windows-11 VBS appears to also be available in Windows 10. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-activate-virtualization-based-security-and-core-isolation-in-windows-10/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-11-has-advanced-hardware-security-heres-how-to-get-it-in-windows-10-today/

OK, you are correct. The latest list shows 8th gen and higher only. I saw an article a while back that seemed to indicate Microsoft was doing a flip-flop on some 7th gen.

For Intel, you need at least 7th 8th Gen.

Halloween surprise! 🤣

Try the demo.

Well on the up-side, the Delta Blues is selling for $30. https://www.indiginus.com/delta-blues-acoustic-slide-guitar

I'm not going to bother with Roland Cloud until they change their activation scheme for perpetual licenses. I have some old Roland hardware that should get me through the wait!

It's amazing what Tracy Collins of Indiginus has accomplished! My first library of his that I experienced was his collaboration with Sonic Scores on Amadeus Symphonic Orchestra for Kontakt Player. The full orchestra patch in there is tons of fun to jam on! I heard thatTracy requested that preset personally.

Roland Cloud still requires you to sign on once a month for your products to remain activated, even if you have purchased a perpetual license. Ugh! It was originally a weekly requirement, but Roland apparently yielded to member feedback, and changed it to monthly. 🤣

If you prefer a sampled Jupiter 8, then IK Multimedia has a very nice version called the Syntronik J-8 for $49.99. I have both the Arturia and IK versions, and I like both of them!

Regarding Arturia's emulations, I think that was the general opinion back when they were all on v1. But the Jup-8 is up to v4 now. IMO, Arturia synths are now decently comparable to the best virtual analogs available. Very nice, in fact!

The Arturia Jup-8 V is a great Jupiter emulation. If you want a Jupiter that you can fully control, a sampled version will not compare. But then there is the price difference...

Well I have crossed over to the full Kontakt 6 this year, so I'm halfway over the fence, LOL!!! 🤣 Added some instruments from Indiginus to Kontakt and they are sweet! The Resonator, The Steel, and The Fiddle. Plus Luftrum Bioscape for atmospheres. And in addition, I have the entire IK Multimedia collection, Arturia V Collection 8, and the Korg Collection 3. Also u-he Repro, AAS Chromaphone with all the add-on banks, Spitfire BBCSO Core, a nice Cherry Audio collection, including Voltage Modular Core, and the SynthMaster Everything bundle. Plus too many others to mention!

This was posted on KVR 10 years ago >>> Cakewalk Z3ta+ v1 free with Computer Music Mag CM Nov 2011 https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=331159

IMHO since they haven't released it by now, I seriously doubt they ever will. But if you really are interested in Z3TA, drop a thread in the Feedback Loop and see if you get a response.

Yep! The only thing that really worries me about Unify is that it may nudge me closer to splurging on Omnisphere. 🤪 So far my investment in Unify has been minimal, even with the cost of the core Unify program and a few additional PluginGuru libraries for it. They have provided many free "Unified" patch libraries for synths that I already owned. So it has been a very fruitful adventure with Skippy! I have held out for years by resisteing an Omnisphere purchase, mostly on principle that I don't want to spend $500 on a virtual instrument that I cannot test drive first! So in the meantime, I have spent over $500 on some other very fine virtual instruments. No regrets! Don't really feel like I'm missing out on anything. But the available Omnisphere libraries for Unify keep expanding, dang-it!

For a very old virtual synth, z3ta+ has had remarkable staying power! For example, z3ta+ v1.0 was released in 2002 by RGC Audio. https://www.kvraudio.com/news/rgc_audio_z3taand_v1_0_released_684 Cakewalk bought RGC in 2005, rebranded it, then released v1.5 in 2007. http://www.cakewalk.com/Press/Release/1092/03-28-07-Z3TA15 Cakewalk later released Z3TA+ 2 about 10 years ago in 2011. Mostly just a facelift. https://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/cakewalk-announces-z3ta-2-synth-469287 The other Xenos Soundworks 80's presets (Synthwave, Retrowave, Cyberpunk, Analog Dreams, RetroScapes, Pure 80's) for the virtual analog emulations from u-he [Repro 1/5], Cherry Audio [MemoryMode, PolyMode, EightVoice, and CA2600], and Arturia [CS-80V - killer Blade Runner lead!] are worth checking out as well! Especially the Repros (Prophet 1/5), PolyMode (Poly Moog), and EightVoice (Oberheim). Very, very nice!

Some DAWs allow you to automatically hide VST2 plugins if both versions are available. I continue to use VST2 if that's all there is from a developer. Otherwise, it's VST3 all the way!

I have ST4 MAX fully installed on my DAW desktop PC, and thought about trying a partial ST4 MAX install onto my laptop due to its limited internal drive space. As far as I can tell, IK has never addressed that question with a selective installer. The ST4 main instruments installer places presets for all instruments in your ST4 edition, by default. So even if you choose not to install some sample libraries in your account, you will end up with some presets in the browser that don't have samples available [resulting in error if you try to load them]. The only workaround that I think may work is that you would have to hack the ST4 preset folders to delete the instrument presets that you do not desire. But in the end I decided it would be too much work to slice and dice, and ended up putting everything on an external USB drive for my laptop. Just copied the entire ST4 sample library path from my DAW onto a spare USB drive, and hooked that up to my laptop. My laptop is actually just a mobile office, and the music software on there is really just a toy that I like to mess with when I travel.

Spitfire Audio LABS Unified with 4 NEW LIBRARIES Added: Siren Songs, Synth Strings, Ondes Musicales, Electric Guitars https://www.dropbox.com/s/rx6xbi8cvxk4aw8/Spitfire LABS Unified_10_29.zip?dl=0&mc_cid=5b4a55bb05&mc_eid=b768373adc