Starship Krupa

What finally got everything usable was to register the Syntronik 2 serial via the old Authorization Manager and then check and rescan all the ST4/Syntronik 2 paths. On my second system, the Syntronik instruments still show up as not authorized in ST4, but no matter, they show up in the Syntronik 2 interface. Browsing the presets, I have to admit that Syntronik 2 was worth the hassle, but if Sampletank 4 had been something that was in my current critical path, the process would have been a disaster. All I can say at this point is that I hope that IK can use the information gathered from this to improve their install process.

True for every "sure fire" method that's been posted so far, unfortunately: it seems to work for the person who posted it, and any number of others, but there will always be at least one person who can't get it to work at all. Who knows, it may stop working for me as well. Until someone can tell us for sure how Cakewalk decides what file to either associate or embed, we won't be completely confident.

Being a HUGE fan of Exponential Phoenix (and R2 as well), I'm drooling.

Going to snag Tactic, had my eye on it since it came out.

Good lord, I checked PB this morning and they have Exponential Nimbus and R4 on sale for $9.99 each. When I got Exponential Phoenix a couple of years ago, it laid waste to any other reverb I had heard. I sort of hate to admit this, but the default preset is so good that I mostly just use that. Nimbus is supposed to be the same algo with extended features like tempo sync'd predelay and more comprehensive EQ. R4 is the same story for the also excellent R2, which I have and is the only reverb other than Phoenix that I use regularly (when I want that Cocteau Twins early 80's Lexicon wash). I'll be demoing both of them, and won't be surprised if I wind up with a couple of licenses for Nimbus. There's no reason to get a "throwaway" plug-in just to qualify for the freebies. You can get one worthy of using on every project.

I've tried using the AudioSnap palette several times over the years. I've never been able to do anything useful with it. About half of the time I can't get any of the buttons to do anything at all. This is one of those times. What I would like to be able to do is set the project tempo from previously recorded audio. This is for when I want to match the project to a recording that someone has brought me or when I have a sample I would like to build another piece around. Normally I just give up and listen to the audio and figure it out with a tempo tapping program, then entering what I find into Cakewalk, but this time I want to see if I can get the feature to work, or at least to do something. I have a clip that's about 7 measures long and consists of guitar chords strummed in a straight quarter note pattern 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4. This would seem like the easiest kind of audio to feed it, there's no complex rhythm or division at all. Per the documentation, I clicked on the clip, then hit Alt-A to bring up the AudioSnap palette, At this point the Reference Guide says "Click the Set Project Tempo From Clip button on the AudioSnap palette." I did that and nothing happened. What's supposed to happen, according to the Ref. Guide, is "The clip tempo map is copied to the project tempo map so the tempo maps are identical." But it doesn't. My project tempo remains set to 120, same as before. I normalized the audio file before importing it, so there's plenty of level. It's not noisy or particularly effected, just a couple of guitar players going "doink doink doink doink" X7.

Hmm. This time around they're only showing me the other 3 as being available. Ah well, however it goes there's plenty of great stuff for $10 and under. Are you going to snag Tactic while it's $5?

This is my favorite anti-hoarding tactic. For instance: I said earlier in this thread that I was going to buy Chromaphone, but I'm messing with the demo and several of the preset patches (which are my primary motivation, it's like getting 10 soundpacks for $89) are unusable on my laptop. True, it comes with over 1000 patches and very few of them cause trouble, but I don't like buying things that stretch the limits of my systems that far. It pushes me into the idea that I need to upgrade my computers, etc. I may try String Studio and see what's up with it. The attacks on many of the Chromaphone presets have hard attacks, which of course shows off the technology, but I'm trying to do ambient ear candy, and have less use for sounds that poke out like that. So due to the demo, I went from drooling 100% sure on Chromaphone to....well, I dunno, maybe, but let's check out the other one.

Doesn't have to be a "throwaway," you can get some very useful, even essential stuff for even as low as $5. I don't know what your genre is, but I do electronica and one of my favorite developers is Glitchmachines. They are having one of their periodic five and dime sales. Most of the FX are $5 and the samplers $10. I have all but a couple of their products, getting Tactic this time around. If you do experimental music, I consider these essential, but they're also good for sprinkling a bit of "whoa, what was that sound?" seasoning on an electronic track. WA Production's stuff is about the most underrated I can think of, maybe because they deep discount it so often. They make no junk. Which brings us to.... Soundspot has wildly varying quality. Cyclone compressor is great at $5. It helped introduce me to the charms of mid-side compression. Somewhere in this forum I have more detailed reviews of their line. Don't rule them out, but be careful. I demo'd Union and it had an audio engine hit higher than Chromaphone, which it has no right to given the "meh" sounds it produced. Glitch is great for....glitch, if that's one of your things. One rule they have is that the item you buy can't be the same item that you're getting as a gift, so if you want the A|A|S soundpack, you can't use that to qualify.

Click on the link in the post just above yours and you'll be in for a nice surprise. @John Nelson released it to the public back in September, there have been a couple of artwork updates since then. It's ready for anyone to enjoy.

That's why I download any creative/sound design freebie. I am a hoarder of physical objects, too, my other interests/professions include audio electronics repair and woodworking, so I have the requisite collection of tools, parts, and scraps. With me at least, the "use I'll have for it that I just don't realize at this moment" comes true often enough to reinforce my behavior. This is, of course, both good and bad. Good because hey, I have a useful tool or I happened to have something a friend needed, or I spent some time puttering around with a plug-in and it opened new possibilities. Bad because it reinforces hoarding behavior. I suspect that if you're into sound design (as I am), you check out every oddball that comes along. I have almost every product in Glitchmachines', Freakshow's and Unfiltered Audio's lines due to this. These companies' FX are ones where I don't think people read the descriptions and think "yes, this is precisely what I need." They're too weird and deep to describe verbally (other than "you can use this to warp sounds past all recognition"). I just snag everything they come out with when it drops it to $10 or less. My musical goals and interests and skills are always changing and evolving. Every so often I hit the plug-in browser and go through the forgotten oddballs to see if they might be of current interest. I also get rid of the ones that have sat too long without finding a use. As for strategies, I have so much stuff already that just browsing through it satisfies my desires to mess with something novel. I've defined categories where I'm already satisfied (compressors, EQ's, delays, basic modulators, limiters, ROMplers, synthesizers). Patch collections for synths I already own are most useful. The things I'm going to buy this year are (at long last) Chromaphone 3 for $89, which is probably the most money I've ever paid for a single plug-in, Glitchmachines Tactic (seems to be the Glitchmachines' Breaktweaker, a sample sequencer with special processing) for $5, and a set of new patches for Vacuum Pro for $5.99. Coming in at just a penny under $100.

For the benefit of my comrades, and, I hope, @Peter - IK Multimedia, this is my "out of box" experience with trying to install Syntronik 2. Once I get the issues sorted, I'll post what worked. Background: I have a license for Syntronik, including Bully, OXa, and Memory-V. I've also gone through the painstaking process of importing the SampleTank 2.5 sounds into Sampletank 3 and then again importing them into SampleTank 4. This is the first version of SampleTank that was usable on my system (ST 2.5 Free had the tiny UI and ST 3 crashed whatever host I tried after 20 or so minutes of operation but the sounds are still great). I also have the excellent Orchestools One library, successfully installed after a certain amount of fuss. All were working just fine. I also have Orchestral Percussion, Art Deco Piano, and Hitmaker Synthwave. First, I followed the instructions on the website, which say to use Product Manager to install/authorize the new product. When I opened PM, it said that there were updates to SampleTank 4 and T-Racks, so I figured I'd let it do those first. In retrospect, I should have checked right after that to make sure that process had gone okay but I didn't. It appeared to complete with no errors, though. Second, time to get Syntronik 2, so I clicked to download and install, which again, it did with no complaint, except that it popped a message saying that I needed to download new content. I clicked okay thinking that, being an installer shell, it would then download the new content. It didn't seem to do anything, but when I opened Cakewalk, I saw a new entry for Syntronik 2. Okay, but then I opened it and only saw the presets for Syntronik, plus Bully, Oxa, and Memory-V. Third, and WAY more troubling, I opened SampleTank 4 and the only libraries that appear to function and be available are Syntronik Free (sic) and Orchestools One. Being a veteran of the IK process, I went to the My Products section of the website and found the sounds for Syntronik 2 and am downloading them "manually." I hope that when I'm done I can get them into Syntronik 2 with little fuss. One issue that I have is that I like to keep the downloads on my spinner and the actual samples/patches on my SSD and the IK installers can be kinda vague about which is which. I don't want any download leftovers on my SSD, as space is limited on there, and of course, I don't want my sample libes on my spinner. Even if that goes okay, though, I'm going to have to figure out WTH happened with SampleTank. Maybe it's a simple as rebuilding the databases or whatever? Maybe reauthorizing, although PM says I'm cool with all of that. I will post again once I either get it sorted or hit a dead end. I am grateful that my favorite forum has a thread about this.

2GB download, oy. Good thing I have a TV for when I get T-Racks.

Regarding both of those mags, I have seen the wonder of libbyapp.com and my cup runneth over.

Yeah, it started doing that with me, too. Before I posted the message, though, I did manage to snag half a dozen plug-ins. They may have just had a stampede to their server due to the word getting out. I'll be checking back in every so often to see if they get it working again.

Big news, BlueLab have made their entire line of plug-ins freeware. Lots of spectrum visualizers/editors, spatial effects, bass and air enhancement, and more. Sad that they're throwing in the towel, but a boon for we frugal people. Their (always free) BL Gain plug-ins have been a staple in my studio for plug-in level matching and gain staging. It's unknown how long they'll keep their server up, so act quickly.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I consider this one essential for processing dialog samples (of which I am fond). My captures from movies and TV shows are way too clean and full-range. Add a high-pass to roll off the bass, put on Origin, and they sound great, gets that "I held the mic up to my TV speaker" sound.

I use Brave, which is another Chrome derivative. I've never had an issue seeing images in the online documentation (although I typically stick with the Reference Guide), but Steve's image shows as broken. I tried allowing insecure content from www.cakewalk.com and it didn't help. What finally started working for me is that whatever program I'm in to edit the picture, or even straight from the screen grabber, I just copy it from there and paste it directly into my post.

During comping, both. During (and after) mixing, the latter. 😁 I also turn on waveform preview to reassure me that I'm actually recording sound. Bitter experience suggests that this is a good idea. 😏

I so agree. I've requested this feature in the past. It's up there with "replace effect" and "open UI on replace synth" on my list of ways to eliminate needless clicks.

Anyone may request any feature. This one....I just accept it as a good incentive to remember to set Group All Clips before I start my sessions! 😄

Once you set up your templates with Group all clips it will happen transparently and automatically. After you get used to selecting takes with the Control key, grouping and ungrouping clips will go a lot faster. It's going to take some time, no doubt, but I do think you'll be able to get very close to that Logic comping workflow. Who knows, you might find other tricks that only Cakewalk can do. Another hint: if you find yourself getting unexpected results while comping, right click on the Smart Tool icon and turn off "Comp." That makes the Smart Tool behave closer to comping methods used in other programs. With it turned on, Cakewalk assumes you want the Speed Comping workflow, which to me, was like trying to ride a MotoGP bike after riding nothing but street bikes. Also experiment with switching the Edit Tool to the Comping Tool (hit F8 a few times).

Simplest way: From the Browser (over at the right edge of the main UI) with the list of VSTi plug-ins, Double-click on the instrument you want to use. A dialog will come up, make sure that "MIDI Source" (this creates the MIDI track) and "First Synth Audio Output" are checked. Also check Open These Windows/Synth Property Page if you want to see the synth UI right away. (the next time you open this dialog, your choices will be checked) Click OK That's it. When you want to open the synth's UI, click on either the synth track's or the MIDI track's icon. As John mentions, there are at least 8 other ways to accomplish this, and no, I don't think that's a good thing. Some of those methods are needlessly complicated/clumsy, and it's possible to learn one of those first and keep doing it that way when simpler ones are available.

Don't have. Won't buy, based on how unintuitive I find the Essentials version. So far, if I were to buy more software, a license for FL Studio seems like the most direct route. Not so great for the detection part of the task, unfortunately. And with the latter, I don't have the facilities to press a disc. 😄

RFK.