Starship Krupa

It was an important way for "freaks" to connect and bond back in what was a dark time for being unusual. For my generation (that would be Jones, 1955-65), it was one of the last vestiges of 70's-style liberation when the buttoned-down 80's crept in. Nowadays it's so much easier for like-minded people to connect, which is great.

It was my choice when I got back into DAW use a dozen years ago. The lower system requirements, the price, and the company's motto is "Software Should Be Easy To Use." I had a Pentium D system at the time and SONAR's requirements were at the edge of my system specs, although I still had a SONAR license from the early 2000's that would have been upgradeable. When DAW shopping, one of my tactics was to look at the support forum to see what people are complaining about and how the company responds, and at the time, Mixcraft won that one hands down. And it was correct, it was some of the most stable, bomb-proof software I'd ever seen. I was so impressed that I joined their beta team and even got my name in the credits for the next release. I happily stuck with it until BandLab released Cakewalk as freeware. My first experiment was importing stems from a Mixcraft project to do a new mixdown, using as many native Cakewalk plug-ins as possible. I fell in love with the Console View and the flexible routing. As well as Cakewalk's silky-sounding playback engine. Mixcraft does gapless playback better, but I suspect that it comes at the price of this difference in playback sound. I'm not sure that everyone would notice it, but it was immediately audible to me. Mixcraft's recording and mixdown engines are the equal to any. For the "all DAW's sound the same" crew, I have found that to be mostly true when it comes to recording and mixdown, but not playback. It's great for getting ideas down quickly, but has some drawbacks. The aforementioned MIDI routing, the wasted real estate by not being able to collapse lanes. However, the way they handle folders is brilliant. Folder=submix. Clip grouping only affects moves, not other editing, so that's a pain in the editor. It includes some nice features that CbB lacks, such as a pair of integrated samplers, and some interesting internal routing for modulation. They have a Matrix-like feature called Performance Panel that includes the features that Matrix users wish it included, such as the ability to record directly to cells. This is said to make it a better compositional tool, although I've not used it as such. I love the markers, which have "tails" that extend all the way down the track view. Makes it so much easier to line things up using markers. At $20, it's a heckuva deal. As previously mentioned, upgrades to the next version are usually very inexpensive, and they are working on version 10. The Pro Audio version only differs in that it comes with more plug-ins, so if you're reading this, you're already covered in that regard.😄 The bundled plug-ins are a selling point, but it's a mixed bag. Too many of them are old 32-bit versions of plug-ins that are now available in 64-bit. The A|A|S Journeys/Entangled Species soundpack that comes with it is what got me hooked on A|A|S' products, but they're the original single-layer String Studio 1 versions. It's very much influenced by SONAR, so getting up to speed is....a cakewalk (sorry).

Getting Mixcraft 9 at the $20 level is pretty sweet.

Quern is on sale right now for $7.49. I suggest picking it up now at that price. https://store.steampowered.com/app/512790/Quern__Undying_Thoughts/

I've seen it said that "people die from 'exposure'." I'll license all day long, with the fees dependent on the licensee. Sometimes that could be zero, like music for fan-created ages in MYST Online: Uru Live. But for commercial use, gotta get commercial fees.

Cakewalk by BandLab has at least one feature that someone doing a game soundtrack would find very useful: Arranger Track. In addition to the smaller take-it-for-granted ones like Ripple Edit Indicator. Moreover, for something so mission-critical, why use abandonware when a newer, better, supported version (that is 100% workflow compatible) is available for free? It's not as if installing CbB breaks SONAR. I know there are still SONAR holdouts for whatever reason (some people still think that it requires you to participate in BandLab), but I don't know that I've seen a SONAR user try CbB and reject it. Cool summer job! I once worked as rides and shows supervisor at a theme park in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

These days geography is hardly a stumbling block....no need to give yourself reasons not to try. 😎 What games other than MYST pique your interest? I dug the MYST series in a big way and my interest was rekindled in a big way a year ago December when I snagged a Humble Bundle of every Cyan title ever for $10. Played through all of the MYST series and then Obduction. Since then I've been exploring how many games MYST influenced in one way or another. Probably the closest non-Cyan title I've played was Quern-Undying Thoughts. then Zof (demo), Pneuma, Dream, Firewatch, and Eastshade. I also discovered puzzle/platform games like Portal, Lightmatter, The Turing Test, and The Talos Principle, all of which also have interesting storylines. Now finishing up Outer WIlds, an amazing space exploration game.

His name is Aaron Gwynaire, his company is Defy Reality Entertainment, the game is called Neyyah, and he's using Cakewalk SONAR (I'll have a talk with him about that😄) to do the soundtrack: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1289720/Neyyah/

Yes. @Dave G, can you say exactly what it is about your templates that you would like to apply to your existing projects? If it is the layout rather than routing, FX or other nuts-and-bolts audio things, Screensets can be applied from one project to another, as can Workspaces (using the window layout feature). I use Workspaces to quickly switch themes but not for anything else.

Here is proof that just about any random thing you can think of is already available on the Internet:

Your best bet might be to get familiar with Track Templates. They're meant for use with existing projects. You can save the tracks as you've set them up in your new project template and then use them in your existing projects.

Guy like that has songwriters, engineers, producers and musicians lined up around the block begging to work with him. Many with way more musical (and pruduction and engineering) talent than I have been refused, not a doubt in my mind. As for the terms in popular use these days...."content creator" seems to fit as a description for someone using software to make music and video and games. A marketing term that describes the people being marketed to, who do have similar needs: powerful, stable computers with specialized peripherals like audio interfaces and powerful graphics cards (not always the case with music creators), as many plug-ins as they can get their hands on. I might find "multimedia creator" to be more accurate, but it sounds a little archaic, like they're making learning CD-ROM's with animated slides. "My latest title, Ranger Rick's Reading Ranch earned a Gold CD award from the Academy of Electronic Courseware." Maybe I'll start referring to myself as a "contentment creator." "Producer" sounds weird and pretentious to those of us of a certain age who grew up hearing Phil Spector and Bob Ezrin and Tony Visconti and George Martin being called that, but that one itself had a pretty flexible definition by the time the 70's rolled around (it could include arranging, engineering, playing, any number of roles). But is there an alternate term for someone who (as I do now) uses their computer as their primary composition tool and instrument? "Computerist?" "Laptopper?" "Computer musician" sounds old-fashioned to me, like it evokes CANYON.MID playing on a Sound Canvas being driven by an MPU-401 when someone uses the term. "It sure is easier now for us computer musicians than when we had to encode every note on a punched card and set up patches with 1/4" cables."

The ones I would check out if I were seeking to do this would be Decent and Soundpaint. This isn't due to any experience on my part as a creator of libraries, but from a user viewpoint.

What I meant (and it's already been explained to my understanding) was exactly what I said. The DAW's I have the most extensive experience with, Cakewalk and Mixcraft don't have it. I've also had some time with Ableton Live and Studio One. They may have it but since I was not familiar with it, I wouldn't have known. Now I know, and I agree that it would be a handy feature. We're forever pointing out to fellow users that Cakewalk already has some feature or other, but since there's not a big front-facing button labeled with the name of the function, they missed it. Still happens to me from time to time.

"....I thought that was out of business!" got an actuaLOL out of me.

I've been noticing some uptake amongst indie developers, if you mean CLAP. I guess one wouldn't hear much about it until they went to acquire a plug-in and noticed that the developer offered it in that format. What else is there to hear? Which was part of my skepticism about its eventual success: it doesn't really mean anything to me as a consumer. There aren't going to be any hosts or plug-ins that are going to be CLAP-only. It only (possibly) benefits developers, with mayyyyybe a slight benefit to consumers in the form of letting Steinberg know that there is a viable format ready to take VST's place if they ever decide to wield their power in a crappy way (again, like they did with VST3 by essentially forcing plug-in developers to code in features that were missing or broken from Cubendo like sidechaining support).

It might have been. IIRC, I compared the offerings in the MPS vs. Everything and either saw that I already had licenses for the difference. Stutter Edit, etc. I think I even have more iZotope products than there are in the Everything collection due to their discontinuing stuff like Trash, Iris, Breaktweaker. and various flavors of Exponential reverbs. I re-posted it over on VI-Control and people went nuts. I like iZotope's stuff, especially the UI's, but they seem to pay little attention to getting their code to run efficiently. Maybe not using enough GPU and the CPU has to draw all of the pretty faces? Neoverb, which supposedly uses the algos from the Exponential line, uses way more audio engine than the Exponential Reverbs, even after it's finished its analysis.

Did they use it? I thought that Mackie was the hardware company associated with Tracktion.

I'm reminded of the iZotope "glitch" several months ago when I picked up the upgrade MPS 5 Advanced for $150 despite not technically having qualifying licenses. It went on for some time, iZotope had to have been aware of it. Then IIRC, it went on sale at PB for a similar price with a much smaller requirement, maybe it was any iZotope product? 🙄Something else that these "glitches" do is create a sense of urgency: I better take advantage of it before they figure out what's going on! Then it strangely goes on for a week even though they must be aware of it.... I jumped on it quickly during the glitch because shoot, just Neoverb, Stratus, and RX10 are worth at least that, but I have to admit that the only thing I've used so far is RX10, on one project. Not that I won't eventually use the rest of the goodies, it's just that it's a lot of software to figure out.

Heh. Anyone else remember the free DAW that Behringer teased a few years ago? Wonder whatever became of that....

Okay, I think I get it, it's having some deadspace before "zero" on the timeline? Part of me wants to be like Marty DiBergi in This Is Spinal Tap and ask "why don't you just make 1 your new 0," but I do get it. I'm forever inserting measures at the start of a project.

Could you explain in greater detail what "pre roll" is when applied to a DAW? I know what the term traditionally means, but not in this context. None of the DAW's I've used have the feature.

DeOxit in its various forms was the lifeblood of my amp repair business. Caveat, though, DeOxit's FaderLube is the better stuff for cleaning pots because it adds a bit of lubricant for the pot shaft. A pot won't ever be as smooth as it was when it was new after it's been cleaned, but it sure can become as quiet again.

What, no love for the REmatrix Solo found in Cakewalk's ProChannel? I have no idea myself how it stacks up as an IR loader, but hey, it has handy and free going for it.