Magic Russ

"Disco Duck" was a joke, and obviously intended as such. "We Built This City" was by no means a good song. It didn't even rise to mediocre. I might be able to list a hundred worse songs that were popular. What really makes it so hated though, is the way that it embodies everything that was wrong with rock/pop in the 80s. You've got the artificial peppiness, the mechanical rhythms, cheesy horn stabs, awkward synth fills. You have anti-corporate lyrics in a song that was a symbol of corporate rock. And fewer things are more 80s than crappy sellout music from bands that used to be good in the 70s.

I gave in when I realized that the things I craved (TA-30 and Flanger/Doubler) would have cost as much to purchase individually as the discounted Fender 2. So I picked up Tracks Leslie, DBag, and MB as bonuses. Trying to decide what else I should get.

A huge part of his sound is in his guitar. Are they planning on releasing a Red Special emulator?

Artists used for general inspiration: Bruce Springsteen, Creedence, Dire Straits, The Killers, Kings of Leon and more I'm sure it's useful, but I don't see the common thread between those artists. I'm not finding the connection between those artists and the demos either.

Suppose I decided to order Fender2 at half off to get in on this deal because I wanted the Mesa. And that I decided to get the D-bag to round out all the Amplitube amps. That's a good deal right there. But what next? I suppose I could get the Leslie's. I feel like I have enough compressors and EQ. What else?

And now you don't have to.

This is kind of tough for me because I have most of the Amplitube stuff and don't actually feel the need for more compressors or EQ's? What else would you guys recommend?

For chorus, I prefer the MXR Chorus from the Slash package and the Wampler Nirvana. I'm totally with you on the OCD drive though. That and the Pinnacle would be my favorite drives. If they do an expanded Wampler collection, I'm in.

I do appreciate the things that they added. I even may have requested one or two. The lack of a manual a month out is a little silly, though. Likewise, the preset system isn't what you'd expect from an NI synth.

For those who did not pick up on this, the Behringer Model D is their clone of the classic minimoog. I just found it an odd offering.

Did anyone notice that they have a sample set based on the Behringer Model D?

I'd be impressed if someone were to throw a good "permanent press" pun in this thread.

It's a pretty fresh library, but I hear that load balancing can be a problem from time to time.

It was supposed to come out in October to boost sales of Komplete at regular price. Most of the unfinished feel is GUI elements. MX has been pretty stable otherwise. If history is any guide we will see a point release fairly soon to deal with these issues. As it stands, an unfinished MX is still far better than the final release of OG Massive. I don't know that it would be my goto synth, but I'll get some use out of it, and not just because "it was part of the bundle and I may as well at least try to use it once in a while". Using OGM was like doing homework. Using MX is much more fun for me.

I feel conflicted about MX. It feels unfinished in many ways. For example it doesn't have the tagged preset browser that NI is known for. The search bar doesn't do anything. The ADSR graphs are static. There's no manual either. Yet in the last two days I have made more better presets with this than I have in the last 10 years with OG Massive.

Supposedly there were a lot of presets from Beta that didn't make it to the final release because they "weren't ready".

https://sonicstate.com/news/2019/06/27/massive-x-is-out-we-take-a-look/

Pleased to see that Groove3 released "Massive Tips and Tricks".

Supposedly they had a lot of well known designers contribute presets (but not Rob Papen). It does seem like the original had a whole lot more presets. I've been looking under the hood and there seem to be a lot of interesting things you could not do in the original. You have 6 effects slots, some of which can be used as oscillators. You can completely change the routing. You have a few ways of reshaping the wavetables. There are more than a few things I just don't get, but the manual should be coming out soon.

I picked up a 1TB SSD from Micro Center the other day for $85.

You don't need any NI hardware to use this software (although it does have features that integrate with the hardware). Komplete Kontrol is a shell/preset browser which allows you to search for presets independently of the instrument they belong to. For example, if you wanted to find an airy pad you could use the browser to find one and it will load up whichever instrument the preset was created in. You don't have to switch instruments, KK will do it for you. So if you wanted to switch between a Kontakt Rhodes to one created in Lounge Lizard, you can do that fairly quickly.

Only 4 that I didn't have, but for $11 it was still hard to beat. I didn't have time to audition all of these yet but I liked a lot of what I heard.

Half of these are string machines. I'm covered there. The main selling point of the Crumar piano seems to be that it was used on a Radiohead song. That leaves the Minitmoog, Cheetah, and Farfisa. I just don't that those three are worth it.

New in Attic 2: ARP Omni 2 Cheetah MS800 Crumar DP80 Farfisa VIP 345 Moog MinitMoog Siel Orchestra 2 Solina String Ensemble Logan Vocalist

How do the new instruments compare to the old ones?