Starship Krupa

Only if it appeared on an aptitude test where I had to fill in the next number in the sequence.

Thank heaven. My mixes have been lacking in "torque" lately and this might be just the thing.

18 hours ago, marled said:

As you said all very unprofessional! 👎

To add injury to insult: I was checking through Services, and it installed something called "Antares Central Services." When I disabled it, the plug-in still performed its single trick well enough, so it's apparently not even necessary. They just install it because they can.

I swear, audio plug-ins that install services. I think most of us dislike installer shells in the first place, and to have them also install their own little do nothing service whether it's needed or not is antagonistic. It's obnoxious, like an installer that puts a shortcut on your desktop without asking, or worse, after you tell it not to. I always feel like the CEO of the company just took a dump on my lawn to mark their territory. Like they can't even imagine someone not wanting a shortcut to their installer shell on their desktop.

There is one service I will tolerate, and that is the PACE Licensing Service, because I know that it does the job of a virtual iLok. And they aren't coy about it, they explain what they're doing and ask during the process whether you want to go ahead. It's not "surprise, now you have Waves Local Server installed just so we can do our kluged-together preset browser! How do you like your permanently-running Softube Install Helper, which is only used while you're installing one of our products?"

On 7/12/2022 at 6:08 PM, Brian Walton said:

Log into your account and add it to your cart, should auto add a code for you unless they changed it.

Super! Got it for $17 and change with the discount, AND it came with Antares' Choir and a month's access to Auto-Tune Unlimited, which I guess is Antares' "all access" subscription.

Warning: installing that silly little automatic multitracking plug-in was the biggest hassle I've had registering and installing a plug-in in years. First you have to find the installer on their site, which, as it turns out, Choir is part of a larger suite, so you have to get the installer for the whole suite and un-tick everything but Choir. That installer also installs their portal program, which, when you run it, get this: tells you that in order to register and run Antares software, you have to go to a third-party developer's site, and download and install a necessary runtime library. I am not making this up, the 3rd-party developer is called "Wibu," and apparently their game is software licensing. I can't remember the last time a commercial product required that I visit a third party's site to get a runtime library. And when it last happened, the runtime library was probably Microsoft C++. This gave it the feel of installing something on Ubuntu, and having to run around and find and install dependencies. Yeesh!

I never heard of this Wibu, how do I even know that I want their stuff on my 'puter? The installer indicated that you can install components that allow license sharing across networks, but I unchecked that. I don't need more than the two seats. Oddly, there was a graphic of an iLok-esque USB dongle on the install shield window for the Wibu CodeMeter runtime.

These people make Auto-Tune, for heaven's sake. It's practically a household word. It seems unprofessional to make users do this. If your product needs a runtime library, bundle it in the installer. Especially if it's one that nobody's heard of. Some people get really twitchy about installing unknown downloads.

Sweet. I got Sigmund Delay as a PB freebie a few years back and it kinda just sat around (because I already had Objeq Delay and Sphere Delay and a bunch of UfA and Glitchmachines FX for weird stuff and many other delays for "add a little slapback on that" tasks). Then I was poking around in the plug-in broswer and said "WTH is "Sigmund?"

I put it on a track and started going through the presets...holy mother of Unfiltered Audio, that thing is off the heezy. It does the usual things that delays do, but I guess their preset designers were instructed to go nuts. I think the skeumorphic 70's test equipment UI had me fooled into thinking that retro sounds were its forte, but no, no, no, It has some kind of weird sidechain-y feedback-y architecture where you can move the order of things around. I dunno, whenever I rack it up I find a preset that provides nice tempo-sync'd nutty ear candy.

In other words, yes, it's worth the price of two Burger King meals if you're into bizarre delay sounds.

Yeah, I thought I was going to read about how Plugin Alliance and/or iZotope had backed out of Soundwide.

I have to appreciate the cleverness of the name, for a soundpack that's trying to bring the sounds of 90's shoegaze and grunge guitar tones.

They've also updated the freebie Swatches assortment with 7 of the sounds from this pack, 3 articulations each, as well as 8 each from Tabby Dance and Caffeine.

The sounds they included are more Nirvana than Cocteau Twins. I want to learn the imitation guitar solo from "Digital Love" for the times that I get hold of new screaming guitar synth patches like these.

16 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

I went ahead and bought it from another retailer (AudioDeluxe) as they were the cheapest

When I check there it says $20. Is there a code or something I need?

1 minute ago, Brian Walton said:

didn't make a big stink about it

I cut them slack due to the smoking deals I've gotten on upgrades with my referral credits. Upgrades are IMO, the best bang for the referral credit when they do something like the 60% off everything or 50% off all bundles sales. The key is to let 'em ride until a big sale rolls around.

With my combination of eligible past purchases and referral credits, I leveraged up to the MMixingFX bundle last time out for a cash outlay of $30. At this point, though, with Cakewalk counting off 78 of their plug-ins, I'm past the point of much but a "collect 'em all" motivation for getting more of their products. 🙄

On 6/21/2022 at 8:17 AM, Brian Walton said:

I'm waiting on Direct from Melda to see if they will lift the exclusion on this from referal credits redemption.

I don't know how on earth a Meldamoonie such as myself missed this, but I'm going to snag it from somewhere.

When you say "exclusion from referral credits," do you mean that you're not able to use the credits that you've gotten from other people's purchases?

Shoot, great deal for first time Meldaproduction buyers if you can use a referral code (such as MELDA1923165 😉) to get 20% off, coupled with the 10€ credit for signing up for their newsletter. By my reckoning, that would put it down under $10.

For everyone else, I think buying it from a reseller is the best idea due to how Meldaproduction's upgrade credits work. They assume that you got the plug-in for 50% of list if you bought it from a reseller. In this case, you'd be credited for 50€ toward any bundle that includes MTurboAmp, such as the MCreativeFX bundle.

1 minute ago, abacab said:

Bounce your projects to audio and you will have them virtually forever

I really need to get into the habit of doing this. My idea is to do bounces with and without FX. I mean, once the synth is dialed in, it's less likely that I'll want to futz with it.

22 minutes ago, abacab said:

I think that AIR is probably next up for the software "reckoning". AIR are skating on thin ice by still selling that stuff. It's good, and I also own most of it, but with the realization that it doesn't come with a lifetime warranty! 🤪

No software does, really. The end to Cakewalk, Inc. was a hard lesson in how a company. And you can't "buy" licenses for the mighty Photoshop and Pro Tools any more (yes, I know you can still get a "perpetual" license for PT that will end your updates after a year). If you kept your old licenses for those, well, that means that your software is effectively orphaned.

I understand the desire/need for big software companies to go to subscription models, but I think that it should be optional. Subscriptions for bundles, perpetual licenses for individual products. Incentives for pros who can afford/justify monthly payments for the whole enchilada. But companies can change their licensing models whenever they decide to, leaving hobbyists like me stranded.

The only company where I've spent what I consider "serious" money (as opposed to onesie-twosie $10 Plugin Boutique or Alliance sales) is Meldaproduction, and part of why is their licensing policies. Lifetime updates (SONAR Platinum license holders shudder here). Free new ones if they decide to add them to a bundle you already have. I have 3 bundle licenses (including the "pro" upgrade of the FreeFX bundle), and all of them have received amazing feature updates just in the time I've had the licenses. But the whole empire rests on one genius, and if, heaven forbid, anything happens to Vojtech (or he just decides to do something else), there goes the whole show.

Moral of the story: finish projects before my plug-ins stop working! 🤣

On 7/7/2022 at 7:57 PM, abacab said:

you may not have all of the older Microsoft Visual C++ redistributables installed on your machine

Good point I need to remember when older software stops working. Newer versions of .NET frameworks may not be as backward compatible as advertised either.

Every time someone posts something like this, that they're having trouble with older plug-ins, my first thought is "yikes, why mess with such antique software?" If I think about it in terms of the hardware instruments and processors they emulate, though, it makes more sense.

I still own and use hardware synths that are over 20 years old, I have multiple hardware processors that are older even than that. I have a couple of guitars that were, like me, made in the early 60's. So having grown up with the mentality that my music-making tools can last, if not a lifetime, then at least a very long time, I tend to acquire plug-ins using the same mentality.

I need to remember that they are software, and as such, more ephemeral than the hardware they emulate/replace. At some point, I'm going to have to being okay with the idea of someday letting them go, no matter how good I've become at getting results with them (although I do hope that Vojtech Meldaproduction at least keeps his code usable until I'm gone from this earthly plane 😁).

Continuing to use 32-bit plug-ins, using older 64-bit plug-ins that have started to be problematic (and are no longer under development), that require wrappers or whatever, that's when they become only for use in legacy projects, in my book. An inducement to actually finish projects from 5 years ago and then consign them to the archives!

This business/hobby of making music on my computer with a shoestring budget will require me to keep learning new tools. If I were a pro, maybe I'd be investing in things like UAD plugins. It's a gamble: which developers do I think will be sticking around long enough to keep me in updates?

Fingers crossed that my beloved AIR synths don't stop working until something else comes along. They are my most-used, and they are some olde code.

2 hours ago, Sven said:

I thought the interface was easier to use many, many years ago.

I'm sure it was. Telephones and televisions were easier to use 15 years ago, too!

There's a tendency with me to rely too much on the Smart Tool, because I can accomplish so much with it without having to switch to other tools. If I treat Cakewalk a little more like a paint program where there's no "Smart Tool," it works better.

I find that I can perform most tasks using the Smart Tool, allowing for modifier keys and (especially) right mouse button marquee select. But for some things, the specialized tools are, as you say, more predictable, less dependent on hitting a hotspot. If I'm working on editing, maybe one of the Edit tools is better.

I used to switch back and forth between Smart and Select (F6) a LOT, but that was because I hadn't learned about using the right mouse button to select when using the Smart Tool. For my uses, Smart Tool+right button makes it so I never switch to the Select Tool. Editing can be easier (surely more consistent) with the Edit Tool variations, and drawing automation is definitely easier (for me) using the Draw Tool.

Draw Tool is the easiest way to program drums, every click of the mouse drops a note of the currently selected value, no double-clicking or dragging needed. Right click still deletes, so there's rudimentary editing available. It also works well for some other MIDI note drawing tasks like bass lines where there's not so much variation in note length.

It's a lot of fun, in that Glitchmachines way. I also ignored it after I first bought it. They call it a "sampler," so I figured, hey, I don't have a sampler, and this is only $10....well, that didn't work out so great.

Then a couple of years later I got into more glitchy electronica and YEAH.

I wonder if this works on upgrades. I have Cataract and would like to do the upgrade to Cataract 2.

I went ahead and tried it, and yes, it works on the Cataract upgrade. My total with virtual cash is $5.

Sitala is a free sampler plug-in that is popular with Cakewalkers: https://decomposer.de/sitala/

You can load your samples into it and trigger them with MIDI notes in the Piano Roll.

If you need more, TX16Wx has a lot more features, but along with that comes greater complexity: https://www.tx16wx.com/

6 hours ago, antler said:

I don't understand: if it's possible to reset a license from another system, why was Erik having trouble with iLok

Still a few kinks in the system. Some of the resets worked from within iLok Manager, some I needed to contact the manufacturers directly. I had most things back within 24 hours, and everything else back within 48 hours. Part of the delay was that I wanted to see how well the reset process worked.

This was all on a secondary system, my laptop. I do machine registrations on it because I don't want to risk breaking an iLok dongle.

I like the UHS hint system better than full walkthroughs. For any given area or puzzle, it starts out by asking you simple questions that nudge you in the direction of being able to solve it yourself. It doesn't spoil the fun and sense of accomplishment as much as watching someone play who already knows the answers. Sometimes I just get stuck and need a nudge in the right direction. Myst Journey is good too. I like my hints in the form of questions. Obduction came with a hint guide from Cyan, which is available online here: https://obduction.fandom.com/wiki/Obduction_Exploration_Guide.

To put this back on topic for the forum somewhat, I think MYST was also the first time a music soundtrack for a game was released as an album, which went platinum. The way they used music and sound design as hints (when you explore an important new area for the first time, the soundtrack kicks in to let you know you've found something). It really complements the sense of wonder. I suspect that the ability to have careers doing game soundtrack music got kickstarted by the success of MYST. As with many cultural innovations, it would have happened anyway, but someone had to get there first.

Props to Robyn Miller for that. He came back to do the soundtrack for Obduction and it shows.

6 hours ago, abacab said:

Obduction is an amazing game! Still need to finish it. I got deep into it, but had a turn of life events that pulled me away long enough to lose the momentum. When I find time, will start at the beginning again.

I can't think of another game that got my attention like that one!

And did you pick up Myst 2021 with that Cyan bundle? The re-imagined Myst version produced in real-time 3D and VR.

Obduction got under my skin the same way MYST did, I dreamt about it. A couple of nights ago I had a dream that conflated Cakewalk and Obduction. I had to solve Obduction-like puzzles in Cakewalk or something like that. It wasn't the Drum Map, though.

The bundle doesn't have MYST 2021. It has some really early pre-MYST games from Cyan, like Cosmic Osmo. It has 2 versions of MYST. I played realMYST Masterpiece Edition, which is the one I recommend for anyone wanting to go back and try it. It uses new art and a 3-D engine, so you can free roam instead of click and move slideshow style. It also has an extra "Age" called Rime, which was fun. It was still just as fun and engaging as it was when it first came out.

I banged my way through Exile, which I had started 20 years ago and not finished, Revelation, and End of Ages. Revelation has some amazing art direction and also a few puzzles that I would consider almost sadistic in their difficulty level. There were two that even using a complete step-by-step walkthrough guide I still had difficulty completing. Not my idea of fun, but the scenery and world-building make it worth it. End of Ages dropped the misery level of the puzzles, but I still had to hit the hint guides a couple of times. The world-building was superb. Obduction is the true return to form (although there is a maze puzzle toward the end that is full-on brutal).

I haven't finished Uru, which is the one that was originally designed to be multiplayer, with humanoid avatars. It's weird to watch mini-me climbing around on things. I think you can "die" in Uru, so kinda not MYST-y in that way.

The thing about MYST that some people, and I think this includes the developers that did a few of them after Riven, don't get is that it's not about solving puzzles, it's about exploring landscapes that you have to figure out how to get around in and what you're even supposed to do. And putting together the story of what the heck happened there. Some of that figuring involves solving things that are puzzle-like, but it's more about visiting those fantastic worlds. Obduction has 4 "worlds," and the tonal shift between them is really great. The first one, where you start out, is the dusty Western mining town, which you get used to, then the next one is a damp, cold gothic steampunk world. The contrast between the sort of cozy warm familiarity of the one and the cold ancient alienness of the other made it even creepier and cooler. I couldn't wait to get out of the cold and miserable place and back to the dusty Western place.

Just like MYST inspired me to get a CD-ROM drive 27 years ago, Obduction has me thinking about some kind of VR rig. I'd love to cruise around those landscapes in VR.

The nagging question for me regarding Obduction is where did everyone other than Farley, Cecil and Josef sleep? There were supposedly dozens of people inhabiting the town but only enough living quarters for a population of about 10.

4 hours ago, antler said:

Probably to stop us from loading something up from Steam instead (which would most likely be an even bigger time-sink) 😁

Yer tellin' me. According to Steam, Last week I spent 40 hours playing Obduction. Which, BTW, was really amazing. I loved it. Haven't dug a game like that since MYST. I scored the entire Cyan catalog for $25 in a Humble Bundle thanks to this forum. Obduction was a true return to form.

1 minute ago, abacab said:

I say, I say, hey son whatcha doin playing games? Yer sposed to be making music!

I know, right? My first thought was "why are they embedding a distraction into the plug-in??"

52 minutes ago, antler said:

is it just SnapHeap? I remember v1 had a Space Invaders type game in all/most of their plugins

I dunno, after I read this I looked for something in SliceEQ and CarveEQ and couldn't find any game.

Did you know that the Bandcamp Artists site has a vintage arcade game in the menu? I think it's based on Defender.

On 7/4/2022 at 3:09 AM, Mark MoreThan-Shaw said:

Cakewalk will never regain it's place among the top DAWs until they cater for modern producers with a proper sample workflow

I agree that adoption will have a huge uptake once this happens. For me, doing my 90's ambient stuff, I really look forward to being able to more easily load and trigger dialog samples and glitch accents. Little Fluffy Clouds, bay-bee. The way I do it now is by using clips in an audio track, but that has its drawbacks. A real sampler with editing, looping, and reversing would be sweet.

I'm sure that an integrated sampler is in the pipeline. Big new features like that take time, and we want it done right, right?

13 hours ago, John Bradley said:

You have to drag to the right slightly to get a note to appear

With the Smart Tool, yes. You can also double-click, which is also fraught with possibilities to mess it up. 😄

However, I discovered that if I switch to the Draw Tool (F9), all it takes is a single click with no dragging.

I'm not saying that it shouldn't work better with the Smart Tool, but you might like the Draw Tool for drawing notes in the PRV. It has fewer options than the Smart Tool, but it does let you right click to delete notes. You can't drag to make notes longer, what you get instead is a series of notes of the selected duration. But that makes it great for drum programming, where you usually want a 1/16 duration for every hit.

Speaking of which, let's say you're bashing in a 1/8 note hi hat pattern, doing the usual copy and paste dance. Instead you can use the Pattern Tool. Ctrl-swipe across whatever set of notes you want to copy, then left click and drag and it will paint those notes in. Draw Tool (only Freehand and Pattern modes work) is very handy for drum programming. 

Since the Smart Tool works well for so many things, I can sometimes forget about the other, dedicated tools, which come with fewer quirks since they don't have to "guess" what operation I'm trying to do. And in the case of the Pattern Tool, you can do some fancy things that you can't do with the Smart Tool.