abacab

Making an image of a drive is usually considered to be copying all active partitions on the source drive to a backup image file container on another drive. The image is a snapshot of all contents in all of those drive partitions. When the image is restored to a physical drive it will recreate the exact same image of that drive at the time the image was made, including any boot and recovery partitions. When using disk image backups, there is no need to select individual folders, as the entire drive contents are copied to the image. Since free space is usually not copied, the image file can be smaller than the actual total capacity of the physical source drive. Imaging works very well to backup your internal drives. It is a similar process to cloning, but the image is stored in a file container on the target drive, and doesn't take up an entire physical drive as the target. Cloning is more useful when you just need to swap out to a new drive. You can usually fit several images on a target drive, depending on the capacity. The images can be restored to the original source drive, or to a replacement drive that is at least as big as the source drive.

I have personally been using the policy successfully in Win 10 Pro since 2016, and have never had an update downloaded where I did not first click on "Check for updates". And to repeat what you quoted me about earlier, I am not referring to the deferral settings. It is in the group policy. You keep bringing up deferral settings, but that is not what I am talking about. And the policy still works.

Cakewalk Sound Center is a 32-bit VST plugin that will work with Cakewalk by BandLab. On my system it is located at" c:\program files\cakewalk\vstplugins\cakewalk sound center\CakewalkSoundCenter.dll'. You may need to re-install the version of Sonar that included the plugin. Some of the Sound Center sound libraries are also dependent on installs for Dimension Pro and the classic Rapture. Everything needs to be in place before you install Cakewalk by BandLab, because it is dependent on previous Sonar installs for the bundled content.

The Artist instrument collection requires Sonar. The best plan is to first install Sonar Platinum completely, with all of the add-ons,. Then install the new Cakewalk. That way Cakewalk should scan and pick up the plugins from the Platinum collection. Then just leave Platinum installed (do not uninstall it) and run Cakewalk.

TAL Vocoder v2 is free and 64-bit. https://tal-software.com/products/tal-vocoder

I got my code hidden in an email from Waves titled, "Watch: Vocal De-Essing Techniques". Had to read the email to find the hidden code for the Arturia deal, LOL!

I just checked the Magix site and the upgrade to Acid Pro 8 is $99 in the cart (which is $50 off the full list price).

I am a fan of Udemy for online classes. One suggestion I will make is to watch the preview videos for any course that you are considering, and maybe read the reviews and the instructor bio. There are a wide rage of instructors at Udemy, and some are excellent teachers, and very qualified, including some college professors and PhDs. Others, maybe not so much. There are a few self made, self proclaimed experts getting access to the platform. Some of them are good instructors as well. So all in all, a very diverse range of teaching qualifications. I'm not sure what screening standards are used by Udemy. But it is a notch above YouTube, LOL. Maybe even head and shoulders above!

I still have the 32-bit version of Acid Pro 6 installed. Every time I think about upgrading, I open up v6 and ask myself if still I really need this. Time marches on...

You have a different issue than the OP. Suggest starting your own thread with the proper title if you want it to be seen.

Basically, it means to copy your critical stuff, and store it safely. Today, that probably means making disk image backups of your PC hard drives and storing them in at least two locations. Keep one copy offline locally, and a store a second copy offsite at the office, or a friend or family members home, or even at a safe deposit box. A few free backup disk image solutions are available, so the only investment needed is external USB drives. My choice is Macrium Reflect Free. https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree For Cakewalk, if you open "Preferences > Folder Locations" you will see where your stuff is located. You can set up paths to an alternate secondary hard drive, so that your stuff is not disturbed if you wipe and reinstall Windows on your primary system drive. I also archive all downloaded installer files onto a separate drive, in case the company servers ever go away. The media file content, once installed, will be in folders of wav files typically. So if you have those folders backed up you will not need those installers again. But for plugins (and their DLL files and preset folders), the original installers will be handy.

That is a nice song, and those instruments are a lot better than the GM sound sets available back in the day! I have a collection of old GM songs that I occasionally like to re orchestrate with modern virtual instruments. I agree that it is good DAW practice, and lots of fun!

I have over 20,000 presets for various synths stashed away in Akai VIP. Using one VIP browser I can search for certain types of sounds among that entire collection. I have another 15,000 presets for Synth1 organized in the Synth1 Librarian. Also searchable by tags. And then when the SampleTank 4 releases later this month, I will have a total of 6,000 sounds searchable in that. On second thought, I should probably break that down to my 500 favorites!

Check out this post:

A good plan for downloaded content is to create a folder on a secondary drive for it. That way when you reinstall Windows on your system drive it is a simple matter of pointing your freshly installed apps to those content folders. And it doesn't hurt to back up that secondary drive occasionally. I have content on my secondary drive that goes back a couple of decades, and through several clean installs of various versions of Windows on the system drive, and even a few PC hardware upgrades.

This month's update: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4487017/windows-10-update-kb4487017

That happens automatically when you reboot Windows, correct?

I think Mark may be on to something here. I just updated to the latest BandLab Assistant yesterday without issue. One other thing to check could be the DNS server that your ISP is routing to. You might try temporarily switching to a free alternate DNS server, like Google DNS or OpenDNS. Your ISP automatically assigns DNS servers when your smartphone or router connects to the internet but you don't have to use those. https://www.lifewire.com/free-and-public-dns-servers-2626062 DNS servers are like the telephone books of the internet, providing the necessary translation between the domain name and the actual IP address that you need to connect to. If the DNS server that you are using is having issues, it could prevent you from connecting to a specific web site or service, without being completely down.

Cakewalk Command Center. Same as it ever was...

I don't have a handy link to that specific info, as that appears it is always a moving target. There are a few blogs that cover that info as it becomes available. But here is some related info. I believe you can set Windows 10 Pro to defer until the semi-annual channel (broad release) is available. Windows lifecycle fact sheet https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifecycle-fact-sheet Search product lifecycle https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/search?alpha=windows 10 Quick guide to Windows as a service https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-quick-start

The Matrix is a workaround for looping a clip along with your project as you have described. But a couple of other methods just popped into my head. 1. You didn't mention what instrument you were using for the ambient synth sound. But if it is actually a synthesizer maybe you could adjust the ADSR envelope for a continuous sustain, until a note off message is received by MIDI. You had mentioned it was fading by bar 4, and that is most likely due to the envelope in the synth. Now if it is a sample based synth, you are limited by the real length of the sample used, and it cannot be extended indefinitely on playback with only an envelope. 2. Otherwise, you could record a sample of the ambient synth playback into an audio track. Then you could import that audio clip into a sampler. In the sampler, set the loop point and use that to repeat the part you want as long as the note is held. Use the sampler plugin in place of the synth with the ambient patch. If you are careful with the zero crossing at the loop point, you should be able to eliminate glitching as it loops. https://www.tx16wx.com/

You could always spend your life forever tweaking Linux hoping to get a stable functioning DAW out of that instead!

That's a big +1 for my iLok License Manager protected plugins. Same for Waves! They take a Windows update in stride, and keep on rockin!

Or maybe MS just doesn't know how to upgrade Windows without changing the PC hardware ID?

I just launched Command Center and these loop libraries are still showing up for me: Big Fish Loopmasters Sample Magix X-Mix However the Big Fish libraries are the only ones that will download and re-install OK. Just tested a re-install with Big Fish Urban Loop Collection. I just get a "did not complete" error for Loopmasters, etc. when I try to install them.