Starship Krupa

On 7/23/2022 at 7:45 AM, petemus said:

There might not be a lot the Bakers can do about it - or it's not worth the work that it would require.

I suspect that with Cakewalk the formers is seldom true, but the latter, often. I rarely run with multiple projects, and when I do, it doesn't exactly ruin the experience for me to see the old Aero look. I liked the Aero look, I like rounded corners.

But I do understand that it contributes to the impression that there are many areas of Cakewalk that continue to party like it's 1999.

A workhorse freeware, cross platform  audio format converter. I've been using it for years to convert for distribution formats. Simple and effective. The biggest visible change is that there's now a "dark" theme available.

https://www.mediahuman.com/audio-converter/welcome.html

I'm in the same state as probably 1.000.000 other producers of electronic music: sitting here trying to find a path to releasing another actual song from one of the several dozen of (really good, IMO) song ideas I have on my computer that are 50-75% "there."

One of the problems with the genre, and it's the reason that multiple books and articles on this subject have been written, is that it has no fixed set of instruments and sounds. The forms are loose, the sky's the limit.

It's easier to know when a 4-piece indie rock song is ready for final mixing. All parts have been nailed, takes have been recorded. But with electronica, there's always some little bit of ear candy that can be dropped in.

It's a hobby, I consider my songs messages in bottles. I wrap 'em up, toss 'em out there, and maybe 100 years from now some hipster will be digging deeply into early 21st century bedroom chillout and thrill their friends with the totally obscure stuff they found. That's the level of success I aspire to. But....no deadlines except my own death, which should be upcoming in 3 or 4 decades (although I'm rooting for being a brain floating in a jar on a shelf who can control soft synths with my thoughts).

The depression and anxiety that have been my emotional wallpaper for almost as long as I can remember don't help at all. But one of the things that can put me in a rare state of giddy joy these days is coming up with a great new set of changes, sounds, and rhythm. Making it into a 2-minute snippet I can listen to on repeat while I drift off to sleep. "I made that! It sounds awesome!"

I'd like to be able to share more of it, though. The thought of helping someone to feel happy, get closer to an emotion, relax, or however they connect with music seems to me to be part of my answer to "what's it all about."

9 hours ago, Terry Kelley said:

Browser?

That list-y pane that should pop up on the right side of the Cakewalk UI when you hit "B" on your keyboard. You didn't recognize it from the screenshot? Among other things it does, it provides you with a list of installed/recognized plug-ins. Which may be organized in 3 official ways and one undocumented way.

Cakewalk doesn't require any "uploading," nor does it have any feature called "Mix Editor."

Cakewalk is the name for the latest version of the software that was once called SONAR. If you want to work with old SONAR files, you need to download and install Cakewalk, or as it's known by its full name, Cakewalk by BandLab.

The relationship between Cakewalk and BandLab is that BandLab is the parent company. They have an online DAW, also named BandLab. The online DAW can't directly open Cakewalk/SONAR CWB files. If you want to work with those you need to download and install Cakewalk, which is free.

Cakewalk is able to export files in a format that the online BandLab DAW can open if you later wish to work with the online DAW, but Cakewalk is a standalone program. You don't have to do anything with the online DAW unless you want to.

"Please note that while most Sequencers / DAWs are VST 2, VST 3, AU and AAX plug-in format compatible, only those listed in the chart below are officially supported." Cakewalk is not on the list, but it would be very unusual for a plug-in to function perfectly in those 13 other programs but not in Cakewalk. Not impossible, just unusual.

I suggest asking Soundsonline. BandLab will just tell you that Cakewalk is very compliant with the VST specification (which it is). Before you buy, get their word that you can return the license for a refund if it doesn't play nice with Cakewalk. It's easy enough (free) for them to get a copy of Cakewalk to test their products with.

Not to worry, Justin, this issue comes up often and is one that I struggled with for a while.

By default, Cakewalk takes the export from whatever hardware outputs you have enabled in its settings. That's what "entire mix" means in Caketalk.

So what this means in effect is that you can have a nice, hot level at the Master bus, but if you have your Cakewalk "Hardware outs" set at 50%, your exported mix will be at only half the level as you're metering.

What to do? Well, you can crank your hardware output sliders up to zero, but depending on your setup, that can be hard on the speakers, headphones, or ears. Also, if you have two sets of hardware outs, let's say for headphones and monitors, all of what's coming from those outputs during playback goes to your exported file.

What I do is just create an extra bus called Export and route my Master bus to that, then route the Export bus to the Hardware outs. That lets me still be able to control playback volume with the Hardware out sliders without interfering with my export levels. Then in the Export dialog, I choose to export my mix only from that bus. This Export bus also has my preferred loudness meter plug-in on it.

This may seem like an extra, unnecessary step, and it probably is for some, but it's what finally let me get all the level I wanted in my Cakewalk exports.

Thanks, Larry, for alerting me to the Cyan bundle in this forum.

One point I want to clarify: MYST Online: Uru Live doesn't share any content or puzzles from the other 5 MYST titles, except for supposedly at the finish of one of the ages, you put your hand on the book and are transported to good ol' MYST Island. I don't know if the puzzles that were on the island can be played in this one, but you can walk around using the newer 3-D engine. Also, I played realMYST: Masterpiece Edition, which came in the Humble Bundle. That is the original game remastered to use newer graphics and their 3-D engine and it looks great. Still fun 27 years later. Still made me reflexively want to "click" on things in the real world to see if they had hot spots.

"Sorry, I was tapping on the refrigerator to see if it had a hidden panel that would slide out."

https://mystonline.com/en/

Kinda like Cakewalk, you need a valid email to register, that's it.

tl/dr:

I snagged a Steam Humble Bundle collection several months back with every game Cyan Worlds has ever released (including the early young persons' games like Cosmic Osmo).

I played through all of the MYST titles and Obduction. I enjoyed Obduction so much that I played right through it a second time. Their worldbuilding and art direction are so amazing.(Obduction, though, like MYST, again left me with the question of where all these people had slept)

Anyway, I wasn't so sure about the Uru: Complete Chronicles part of the collection, I had read that it was the retooled remnants of an aborted attempt in 2003 to make an online multiplayer MYST game and that the production (and subsequent weak ROI) of it nearly caused Cyan to go broke. Not the most promising, but I wanted more Cyan-style entertainment.

I started working my way through the Steam version, was liking it, and got curious about its commercial history/fate. Turns out that in 2010, Cyan took all of the content ever produced for the game, set up servers for free, and released a bunch of the underlying code (not the MYST franchise IP) under GNU GPL. And then I found out that the servers are still up and running. Hmm.

So I created an account and hopped in. Didn't know what to expect although I was familiar with the gameplay. The first thing I noticed is that the graphics of the current online version are visibly better than the standalone version that Steam has. They've clearly done some good work on it. The next thing I noticed is that there didn't seem to be many players on the server with me at any given time, often down to single digits, and sometimes I'm the only one. Makes me wonder how long Cyan is going to bother with it, but the people who play it still have regular virtual events (including "live music," not sure how that works).

The open source factor has so far resulted in some very nice-looking "Ages" and two, released a year ago, that genuinely rival the Cyan stuff as far as art/sound design and gameplay. One of them is done in a slightly different, more modern style than the usual MYST steampunk-y aesthetic, and it looks great. The other one includes two actual bedrooms AND bathrooms (with working toilets).

You have control over whether your gameplay is going to be solo or cooperative, and at the start, and by default, it's solo. I've been playing it for a few days and have met a couple of people who are really helpful and fun to play the game with. Some of the puzzles are more fun with another player's help, but I also like being able to do it by myself at my own pace if I want, and that is well-accommodated: the areas where the puzzles and exploration take place are private to each player unless the player invites someone else to join them. You can start working them by yourself and then if you get stuck, go into the public areas and get someone more experienced to help, or just never go into the public areas at all (things are less frustrating if you get some guidance and orientation, but there are plenty of websites with hint guides and full walkthroughs).

It can be social, but it doesn't have to be, which is how I prefer it. I'm an introvert/extrovert switch and I want to be able to flip that switch whichever way I feel like. Due to the nature of MYST gameplay (nothing to kill or be killed by) the userbase skews older than most online games, and that works for me too. Unlike MYST, you can sometimes have uncontrolled falls from lethal heights, but the game whisks you safely back to your private island lodge before you hit the deck,

Each player sets up an avatar whose dress and appearance they can choose, and at least in my case, I think I was able to put together one with a fair resemblance (at least to what I looked like 15 years ago). The avatars look human without going into the uncanny valley.

It's not a competitive game (although there are games-within-the-game that can be competitive), so there's no tactical advantage to having a super-duper computer system, the underlying code and graphics are 20 years old. A Core 2 Quad with 4G of RAM and comparable graphics unit should be able to run it in full resolution just fine, abut it still looks great. I've watched people play the latest shooters, and as far as graphics, they don't seem behind the technical curve at all.

If you drop in, I'm Superabbit. I'm probably about 1/3 to 1/2 through the various puzzles and whatnots, so I'll at least be around long enough to finish those. I wish I'd heard about it earlier: a MYST title where you can ask other players for help in real time? And invite your friends? At my favorite price point?

15 hours ago, fret_man said:

What do you consider the "must have" Exponential Audio reverbs? They're all on sale until July 31

Depends on what you do. For stereo mixing where you want a "natural" reverb sound, wait (usually 2 months between sales) for Phoenix or Nimbus to be on sale for $10 a seat. Nimbus is pretty similar to Phoenix (it can load Phoenix' presets), with modulation you can add to the tails. R2/4 if you like something closer to the classic hardware algo reverbs, best Lexicon or Eventide you ever heard.. Sames with R2 and R4. R4 is R2 with the ability to wiggle the tails. I'd be happy to use nothing but Phoenix until the unlikely event I heard something better. Phoenix and Nimbus sound so good it feels like cheating to use them. They ruined me for anything else I'd heard, I just deleted my reverb plug-ins and no longer paid much attention to deals on reverbs.

The only reverb I've heard that can touch them is MTurboReverble, which costs $75 if you wait for it roll around in their 50% off sales (I got it in a bundle after I got the Exponentials).

I so hate to say it, but as much as I love magazines, and have had so much enjoyment from them over the years, it's probably a format that won't survive in its current form.

For hobbyist and professional topics, there's just so much information on the web, it's like drinking from a firehose. As far as current events....big can o'worms.

That is one awesome fscking shirt. John Aaron's immortal command that saved Apollo 12.

I first heard the phrase in Apollo 13, the bit where they figure out how to adapt the Grumman Lunar Module's CO2 scrubbers for use in the North American-built Command Module. I don't think the character is named, but he has the classic NASA look of the era. I do remember talking with my computer BBS science nerd buddies about how that guy was at least as much of a mission hero as Jim Lovell.

I learned later about "set SCE to AUX" and its sheer awesomeness.

John Aaron did also flash his steely peepers for Apollo 13, Wikipedia says he was the one who devised the soft power-up sequence that we see Gary Sinise's "Ken Mattingly" repeat multiple times in the film. Wearing his short sleeve button down shirt and tie of course.

If there's ever a movie where John Aaron appears as a character (and there really should be), he could be played by geek icon Rami Malek:

He'd have to lose that laconic Elliot Alderson drawl. "Set....SCE. To....AUX."

One of my favorite geek culture (mid 90's, when it was a culture, before we pwnd the world and it became the culture) artifacts was a Valentine's Day t-shirt that read "Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, All My Base Are Belong To You." I thought that was the sweetest thing. Also, if you consider multiple definitions of the word "base," pretty good geek smut.

13 minutes ago, husker said:

You, sir, are my hero.  Respect! 

This guy is the real steely-eyed computer man. He was the one who figured it out and then posted it for the Dell world to enjoy:

I found out that Dell Optiplexes are kind of a cult item. There are so many of them out there that, like mine, were given early retirement from a corporate environment when the guy in the next cubicle got a newer system.  Hey, why would you go to all this trouble just to get a decade-old tower to boot from an NVMe if you weren't expecting to keep it for a while?

The Optiplex 7010 was a top of the line office box in 2012, and I was given mine in 2016. It's been a flawless workhorse DAW and NLE rig for 6 years.

You can get them very cheaply, as low as $100 with the i7-3770 and maybe a little more with 4G and a spinner. Toss in a hand-me-down graphics card, an SSD, a 500W power supply, and voila, it'll run any game prior to about 2016, and later ones if you drop resolution. Depends on the GPU. Total build price would be in the range of $200 depending on how much RAM you want. If your friend's parents won't buy them a swoopy gaming rig, they can save their lawn mowing money for a month or two and they're ready to go.

The cases are solid, good metalwork, they have front panel USB3, they'll take generic power supplies, what's not to love? Mine is still a fine DAW/NLE rig. Runs Obduction (2016) lickety-split in high resolution. The Radeon 5770 is getting to be kind of a hound (I so much prefer nVidia), but it will get the GTX 550 Ti when that gets upgraded on the ASUS. I may even buy one of those retired Pro licenses you can get for $25, because I'm really getting used to Remote Desktop. Remote Desktop has been GREAT for checking what plug-ins I've been using on the laptop (which runs Pro).

Maybe I'll start a thread for my fellow "low end hardware" users.

I built the newer box kind of out of fun. I hadn't partsed up a PC in 20 years. Turns out I still have it. 😎😄

5 hours ago, Jim Fogle said:

I looked at pages 729 & 730 of the Cakewalk Reference manual and did not see any information about this fourth view.

I think it's the very definition of "undocumented feature." 😊 I have some other corrections/addenda, so I will mention it.

6 hours ago, bitflipper said:

the Juno just had just one feature that made it likeable, a pleasant chorus effect that made even the most basic patches sound good. Today, you can get that chorus effect as a free plugin

You are referring to Magic Switch?

I built a new DAW system (from used parts), and in reinstalling all my audio software, came to some realizations and conclusions. It's the other side of the post I wrote about giving ourselves a break about those small purchases adding up. If you're interested in what might await someone who upgrades to a new(er) system, check it out:

I suspect that all V14 has going for it is native M1 support. True? Whatever, I updated the ones that were still within the support window and saw no differences whatsoever.

Oof, good price on that i7-12700K. 3 hours in the car and the fuel would kinda nullify it.

My Dell i7-3770 with 16G is still able to handle anything I throw at it. I've never felt held back by it in any way. One of the Cakewalk bakers' main DAW system is an i7-3770. There was really no compelling reason for building the new system other than that it could be done cheaply and make use of good parts I had sitting around. I'm not expecting to see any practical benefit other than that the system will feel perkier, load things more quickly, and be quieter. My secondary desktop system, which was my primary one 2 weeks ago, can now handle any level of project.

The i7-6700 doesn't meet Microsoft's requirements for Windows 11. That's unfortunate, but I wouldn't have gotten the deal I did otherwise. Windows 10 will be around and well-supported for a long time.

I'm a music (and video) hobbyist, not a pro, and I'm usually toward the rear middle of the pack when it comes to PC hardware. Whatever version of Windows I've run, I've always learned how to tune the software and hardware to wring the last drop of performance from them. I also tend to hold the attitude that if there's some plug-in or other that bogs my system down, it's the plug-in that needs to be replaced, not the computer. 😄

As can be seen from my last post, I have a deep bench when it comes to mixing plug-ins. 🙄 One of the reasons that I'm so fond of Meldaproduction processors is that despite having so many features that they frighten people, they run very efficiently.

Audio software has matured to the point where plug-ins that sounded fantastic half a dozen years ago (when my new system would have been top of the line spec) still sound fantastic. The Plugin Alliance (elysia, brainworks, SPL, Lindell, Shadow Hills) mixing FX I have usually date back half a dozen years and remain some of the most highly-regarded in their categories.

The system that's going out, a Core 2 Quad Q6600 with 8G, can cruise right along running Cakewalk. I did the Windows "refresh" on it and loaded up every bit of good freeware music software I know of and am giving it to a musician friend who wants to get started with recording and mixing low track count stuff. He doesn't own enough mics to tax it! It was my main DAW (and video) rig 6 years ago and it worked fine then. I know he'll love the ProChannel FX, and those were coded back when a system of that spec was a powerhouse.

The things that bog Cakewalk down are plug-ins and extremely large numbers of audio takes. Cakewalk reads every audio file in a project that's referenced by a clip, whether that clip (or track) is muted or active. The exception is if the file is only referenced by a clip in an archived track. Good hygiene with this, that is, deleting or archiving unused ones as soon as I decide on the good ones, takes care of it.

Korg M50:

http://i.korg.com/uploads/Support/M50_VNL_EFGJ2_633668554563210000.pdf

This is question-begging.

Did I "care about" the Juno in the first place, and if I did, do I still? 😁

I think back in the days when I lusted after a polysynth, I was into Sequential Circuits. I thought the Prophet 600 was pretty cool. It had a built-in latchable arpeggiator (arps are still pretty central for me). Then I got into playing bass and guitar and didn't think about owning a synth for another 15 years. When I finally got one, it was the Yamaha CS6x that currently sits before me as my main controller.

As far as sampled instruments and synths go, I know of none that adjust the rate/depth of their internal samples and waveforms based on the ones the DAW is using.

Cakewalk has built-in plug-in upsampling, which can be turned on and off for each individual plug-in (the setting is available from the menu in the far upper left corner of the plug-in properties UI, and then enabled and disabled globally in the Mix Module. I usually mix at 44, then render at 88, which has the same effect as 2X oversampling on all the plug-ins, both FX and synths.

This is based on multiple experiments I did using various combinations of Cakewalk's upsampling and render rates. The point of steeply diminishing returns (to my ears) is just 2X. So 88 covers that handily. Then for distribution, I use a converter program to generate the lower rate/depth formats.

Do some close listening tests, then go with what your ears like best. Remember: few to no listeners are going to listen as critically as you (and any mix engineer buddies). I definitely like to get the highest quality my ears can detect, but I also try to remember that I've spent most of my life training my ears to hear tiny nuances and I might be the only one who can notice them (consciously, at least).

As for the "64-bit floating point engine" option in Preferences....Cakewalk were supposedly first with that, and it is widely speculated that it had more to do with a marketing hype point than practical sound considerations. All other DAW's had to follow suit, of course, but notice how in most of them (including Cakewalk), it's turned off by default.

I've not had the experience where they sound different, but I have had it happen that the honeymoon wears off.

Stone Voices started making new stuff while I wasn't looking.

Their newest freebie is a reverb, DReverb. I gave it a short test run and my first impression is favorable. It's a contender for Orilriver's "best all-around freeware reverb" title.

They've upped the game in the freeware reverbs arena, which for whatever reason, still lags far behind the payware reverbs arena. If you're getting started, short on funds, this is a good one to start with. But keep an eye open for one of the regular sales of iZotope Phoenix at $10. 😉

Part 3: The Winnowing

Okay, so I needed another part before I got to what I think is the most interesting part, which is: how is the software installation going and what am I learning from it.

There are some pains in the neck (and other areas) regarding moving presets over. Basically, I need to figure out where they are on the Optiplex and copy them to a similar location on the new system. One plug-in so far is a failure in this regard: Sitala. It won't let me save custom kits on the new system (yes, I tried running CbB as Administrator, checked permissions on the folder, yada yada), and since it links to sample locations rather than copying them, I needed to rebuild some custom kits. No go with their preset system, so I kludged it together using Cakewalk's internal preset system and will be creating all new kits with Speedrum Lite. What this means is that any existing projects that use Sitala for drums are going to need to be somewhat retooled in that department. Pain.

I'm going to need to figure out how to export/import Cakewalk's native presets. Fortunately, existing projects store the plug-in settings, so I can get back up and running immediately with those.

Installing all the software, especially of course plug-ins, is an ongoing CHORE, and I'm still not done. A lot of the time I don't realize something isn't installed until I need it and don't find it.

With the wisdom from past reinstalls, I have all of my iLok licenses on an iLok dongle and all of my Waves licenses on an SD card. No issues at all there. Some plug-ins, notably ones from W.A. Production, had reached their install limit, and when that happens, it's necessary to contact their support to get more activations added. I don't like that, but they make some really cool sound design plug-ins like Venom that I'm not going to eschew just because of the licensing system. Fingers crossed that they're still around when I want to do this in the future. Although iZotope have a similar system, apparently I hadn't reached my limits, so no issues there.

Other licensing systems with installation limits such as MAGIX and Plugin Alliance allowed me to decommission the older system I was retiring right from their websites. Nice.

A big thing about this build is that when installing plug-ins, I wanted to restrict it to the favorite individual plug-ins and manufacturers I've finally settled on. I no longer have any need for any iZotope Elements except for RX7, so none of those. The zillion free compressors that I tucked away because "I might want to poke around with them someday?" Not in this dojo. Same for the myriad EQ's. For mixing plug-ins, keeping everything from Meldaproduction, Kilohearts, IK Multimedia, Exponential Audio, and most things from Plugin Alliance, and going forward, I'll be doing what I do using those.

I realized that at this point, I don't need to explore mixing FX any more. I've learned which ones I like and want to get better at using those.

That doesn't include the sound design-y FX, I'm still a 'ho for those, although plenty of them haven't make the cut either. One telling criterion is if I don't recognize the name. 🤣 Kinda means it ain't a go-to. The hardest ones to dump are the ones from "big time" manufacturers with really nice GUI's. How can I dump a Pluginboutique freebie from company X that normally sells for $75? Well, simply, if I'm not using it it's just in the way, and this isn't a museum.

Big issue with this strategy: existing projects. A compelling reason for getting rid of those freebie and cheapie plug-ins as soon as you realize that you already have a dozen compressors/delays/EQ's/channel strips/limiters/reverbs/gates/etc. is that you might, while fooling around with them, put them in some project or other. They sit there, then one day "oh, what's that, let me throw it on this one instrument to see how it works," and you have one single project that needs this one plug-in that you tried and forgot about because it wasn't compelling, then deleted from your system weeks or months later. Try them if you must, but get rid of them quickly.

Same goes for ones that came in a bundle with other plug-ins I do use, like ReaPlugs. I don't need ReEq or ReaComp sitting in my plug-in list. Most of the ToneBoosters legacy BusTools freebie pack are redundant to other FX I already use. I'm not going to try to get into them just because Jeroen Briebaart is a genius, bla bla. Keep the unique psychoacoustic ones, the rest: poof. I'll never miss 'em. Same with the Blue Labs freebie pack. Plenty of unique ones, but also some redundant ones.

My aging, medicated head doesn't easily remember things as well as it used to, so of course when reinstalling my plug-ins, I have forgotten a few. As I call up old projects, they tell me which ones are missing and I either install them or replace them in the project. Tedious, perhaps, and I wind up with more cruft on the hard drive but it beats just installing every shiny toy in my plugin downloads folder. At least Cakewalk will allow me to hide it from the Browser while still using it in existing projects.

So whereas CbB counts off over 700 plug-ins on the Optiplex, on the new system it's under 500. Just looking at that number seems astonishing, but I do electronic music and have a LOT of sound design-y instruments and FX. Browser shows 73 instruments and (gulp) 320 FX. The extra ones when scanning are DXi ones I've excluded. Vegas ships with a lot of those and I disable them in Cakewalk. I kept the Sonitus collection active but disable the other tiny GUI Cakewalk FX because they are just in the way.

There are interesting ramifications to all this.

It's already had the effect (no pun) of helping me focus on mixing and not getting distracted by a list of never-used plug-ins, pondering whether I should try them this one time, because maybe they'll really help the mix shine. No, no, for heaven's sake if I can't make a mix "shine" with 80 Meldaproduction FX, a pile of Plugin Alliance compressors and EQ's, a dozen of IK Multimedia's finest, kHs Slice and Carve, and Exponential Nimbus and R4, then I need to acquire skills rather than toys!

I had a dozen amp sim plug-ins. Now I have bx_rockrack, MTurboAmp, and the TH3 that comes with Cakewalk (and is actually really great). 

Although I really liked the Analog Delay, the Presonus-to-VST3 wrappered ones had to go just because of the years they would take off my life at every plug-in scan. Cakewalk starts in a second or two, especially on the new system, but the Presonus loader sits there picking its nose for about 5 seconds. Gone. I have other analog delay emulations, like McDSP's excellent one.

Buying a license for Plugin Doctor last time it was on sale has really helped with being able to let go of compressors and EQ's, because it reveals the similarities and differences (which usually ain't all that). It's kind of Shiva the Destroyer of Illusions of compressors and EQ's.

I'm down to 10 compressors, and that includes both bus/mastering ones and track ones. More EQ's than that, because I kind of rediscovered Carve and Slice and want to give them a trial. If they don't make my motor run, out, out. Sure, Slice and Carve are highly respected precision EQ's, but do they do anything that T-Racks Equal can't do? (Maybe they do). Carve's sidechain analysis is nice, but MAutoDynamic EQ has that covered. If the functionality is duplicated, then they're just underfoot.

iZotope DDLY, your head finally rolled after all these years. Waves SuperTap, you had your chance. TrueVerb, you were the best I could do until Phoenix went on sale for $10, rendering all of my existing reverbs superfluous. MTurboReverble might have done that, but Phoenix got there first.

The (way underrated) sound design stuff from W.A. stays, the (nice for hyped quick results that I don't need) mixing stuff I got in $10 bundles with the sound design stuff, nuh-uh. So I paid $5 for something or other. I don't keep every unfinished $5 order of fries around thinking I might eat it someday. It was $5 to satisfy curiosity. Curiosity satisfied, no need to keep it forever.

"Enhancers" in general were overrepresented, due to the "maybe it will really make a certain track sparkle" factor. My experience with enhancers in general is "if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is."

As far as virtual instruments, there has also been some attrition. Synths that I always thought I should be able to get good sounds from because so many people love them, like the free UVI Digital Synsations bundle of 90's synth sounds that I realized I never liked in their original form. Also Surge and Synth1. I have Hybrid 3, Vacuum Pro, Iris 2 (watch your butt, Iris 2) and Vital. I have numerous Sampletank and KONTAKT retro synth sounds. I have 2 versions of Arturia Analog Lab Lite and 20-some A|A|S soundpacks. I have XPand!2 with its over 2000 patches. That is a LOT of instrument power. If I can't find or create a sound with those....I dunno.

It really feels like a load off my back to thin these out. I can get better with the ones I'm keeping rather than putzing around with ones that might have some promise.

Venus Theory has a great video about this.

Part 2: The Sword Reforged Cuts Pretty Well

Okay, so the build was a success. I swapped my GTX 550 Ti and a new EVGA 500W (with allegedly quiet speed controlled fan) in and proceeded to start loading my music and video creation software. The BIOS setup is crazy, after getting used to the "party like it's 1994" Windows 3.1 look of the Dells, the ASUS Extreme BIOS, with all of its settings is like playing MYST or something. I have no idea what most of it does and there's page after page of options. Someday I'll read the manual and tune it all up, but for now it had a button for "tune system" so I went with that, and was also delighted to see that it has a fan control program.

Total outlay for all of the new (used) components came to $260, which I think is okay for a quietized i7 6700 with 32G of RAM, and GTX 550 Ti, 500G NVMe and 1TB SATA. The graphics card will be updated as soon as the graphics card boom goes bust and the gamerz start dumping their old stuff in greater quantities. As soon as 1030's get below $50, I pull the trigger. I don't do much gaming, no FPS, only explorer games like Obduction and MYST Online Uru Live. Those are from when the specs on my system were beyond top of the line, and I can run them in ultra graphics quality with no problem, even with the aging graphics card. Even though it's old, it does still have GDDR5 and ample CUDA cores. And regarding having a swoopy graphics card on a system that is mostly doing DAW and NLE work, I find that it does make a difference. I could notice it even between the Radeon and the GTX, and the Radeon isn't that much lower spec than the GTX. You don't need a super duper gamer card, but it still does some time to draw stuff on a second monitor, as well as plug-in UI's that use OpenGL (how I wish ALL of them did). My fantasy card at this point is a fanless 1030.

The system is quiet, not that I hadn't gotten the Optiplex pretty quiet, replacing the power supply fan with a Noctua and putting in some of that roofing tape. If I hold my iPhone next to it running the NIOSH sound meter app, it's running at about 32dB, and if I pull back to my monitoring position, ambient sound is about the same, so by my standards, I think I've achieved Quiet PC. As good as it's going to get without a silencing enclosure and/or fancy case. Not bad for a budget build in a flimsy-a55 cheapo case.

My strategy as far as disk configuration is to use the lightning-fast NVMe for programs, plug-ins and sample libraries (anything I want to load FAST) and the not exactly slow either 1TB SATA SSD for project files.

Software wise, it's been over a week since I built the system, and I'm still installing programs and plug-ins. My workhorses are Cakewalk and Vegas Pro Edit 15. I also dabble with Studio One Artist 4 and Ableton Live! Lite 11, and occasionally fire up the DAW I used prior to Cakewalk, Mixcraft Pro Studio 9. Cakewalk at the moment counts off 484 plug-ins, and that is after thinning them out considerably. More about that later.