Starship Krupa

Suggestion for future inquiries: put a taste of the issue you want help with in the title of your post. It's a better way to attract people with knowledge about it. Everybody who posts in this section wants answers. Depends on how hard you're willing to work.😄There's nothing about that package that would prevent you from it, and if your budget for mic and interface was $50, you're not going to find better. I'm not one to tell people who've already invested in gear that they should have spent more money and gotten something better. If you had asked before buying the package, you may have gotten a different opinion from me. The better the quality of the gear, the easier it gets to get good results because you're not fighting its limitations. In this case, fidelity of the mic, and possible noise floor of it and the interface. But that's not to say you can't get good-sounding results with what you have, it'll just take more effort and learning your mixing tools. As others have mentioned, entry-level Chinese condenser mics tend to have a presence peak, but in my view it's better to capture the information and subtract some of the highs with EQ than it is to try to add highs where they're not. Noise can be gated or edited out, especially if you're only using the mic for voice. When you record, if you stick the pop filter in front of it and move in close it will help emphasize the body of your voice. Who knows, maybe you have a voice that the BM800 will flatter. If you stay with making music, as your listening skills develop you'll surely outgrow the mic and interface, but by that time you'll know if you want to stick with it. The next level up for vocal recording would be an AT2020 and Scarlett Solo (or Studio 2|4), the pair of which would cost $200-ish new (but are available on the used market). And you'll still be able to use the pop filter, stand and mic clips from your $50 bundle with the better quality gear. Win.

I know that, of course. I was throwing a bit of Socratic Irony at Mister Troll. So much more fun (and effective, if you want them to shut up and go away) than attempting to refute them directly. When I suggested that CbB was based on SONAR X code, well, isn't it, at least to the extent that SONAR Platinum was? 😉

Distribution in the States was a WAY different story in the physical media era due to the geographical enormity and population size. Touring still is of course. I get a smile whenever I see the phrase "UK Tour." Geographically, that's about equivalent to touring the state of California. If for whatever reason your label ran into a snag getting your records on the shelves, it could blow your whole career. There's this band from the '70's, Crack The Sky, who were attracting album-of-the-year reviews for their first record, being compared to a heavier Steely Dan, etc., but their label got the radio station copies around before they were in the shops. They wound up very obscure except for in one major urban center, Baltimore, Maryland, where somehow a dj liked them AND the label got records in the stores. So in one single city they were like Styx, and everywhere else like....I dunno, Hatfield and the North or Mogul Thrash were in the US. A few cognoscenti might have known, but that's it. #3 on the bill everywhere but Baltimore, where you better have a big enough venue for their headlining appearance. To this day, if you're an underground-ish act doing a van tour, if you make just a little extra effort to stop and play the college towns between the bigger cities, or book shows an hour or two's drive from whatever larger city where you're part of the "scene," you can make the kids deliriously happy, because they're starved for live music. There's less to do in those smaller towns. If a band from (gasp) San Francisco takes the trouble to play there, you'll sell out of merch and get treated like rock stars. Really quite wonderful if you're used to comparatively jaded big city crowds. Kids will come out whether they even like your style of music or not because it's where everyone's going to be that night. And they're so much less "cool" and standoffish than city punters.

I've never heard President Zelenskyy's speaking voice, but it would surprise me to find out that he speaks English with a Southern accent. Nice, performance, though, whoever it is, and the guy does kinda look like him. After these troubles subside (as soon as possible) I want to hear his new standup routine.

I was surprised at first at the lack of moaning, but then I thought about it and considering the....audience....for Meldaproduction's products, we're not usually of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it/I just want it to work" attitude. We're more toward the "wow, this thing's great, what can I do to customize it?" attitude. Would you rather buy something with too many features or too few? 😄 I hope for the sake of the "32-bit Windows 7 that never connects to the net" crew that he allows the old 32-bit versions to coexist with the new 64-bit versions, but as a customer with "lifetime" licenses, I say it's about time. Dropping 32-bit eliminates extra debugging and QA.

I am, at 61, still trying to become "excellent" at anything musical. 😂 Still trying is good, though, I think on good days. I'm not without my own injury stories. When I first started playing drums, because I took no lessons I was holding my sticks so that they went right across the second knuckle joint on my middle finger, and the rest of my middle finger started getting numb and tingly. Even though I'm Starship Krupa, not Starship Bonham if you get my drift. I tried tape, I tried laminated bamboo sticks, then finally I remembered that I had had a similar issue when I started playing league softball 25 years earlier, but with my thumb joints. I changed up my grip so that I was gripping the sticks at a pad, between joints, and the problem went away. A teacher would have spotted that before it started to injure my nerves, I think. One drummer friend of mine uses those sticks where they drill out the core and replace it with rubber, and dang, those things do absorb shock. They feel odd to play with at first because so much less vibration goes up the shaft. I'm sure you've tried them. For programming beats, not even playing them on a controller, I am sure I'm better at it for having learned to play drums. There's a skill to listening to music and knowing, as a drummer, what will work. Even in hip hop and EDM, one of the guidelines is to try to avoid programming things that would be impossible for a human drummer to play, given our finite number of limbs. That rule is broken all the time, of course, and that's an integral part of some genres, but it's a valuable one to know. Moreover, you have to be able to imagine a beat before you program it (even it that's done as you go along). I'd always been a guitar and bass player until about 20 years ago I started taking piano/theory lessons, which stopped when I cut the end of my left index finger off with a jointer. Fortunately a good hand surgeon was on duty that day, so while my left index finger is about 1/4" shorter, it still works. It didn't exactly improve my guitar playing. Tony Iommi'd. 🙄

You haven't heard my drumming! 🤣In the 10 years since I took up that instrument, I consider it am achievement that more people have invited me to play than have asked me not to play. As a guitarist, well, I'm probably a good guy to jam with because I'm unlikely to try to take a solo on unfamiliar material (although I can do that well enough on keys, where I've learned my scales). I understand theory better than most underground rockers of my acquaintance, but that's because so few of them understand any at all. I think I'm getting fairly okay at understanding and executing mixing concepts, but I wouldn't have asked you for stems if I didn't think I needed the practice myself. 😄

Sure, why not? As one who has a dedicated switch box so that I can try my mixes out on all 4 of my sets of monitors, I say the more the merrier. The more speakers/systems you listen on, the more likely you'll flush out EQ issues.

IME, as long as you have a receipt from an official retailer hardware companies will honor the bundling deal. Open box or not. But here's hoping the the previous buyer didn't get around to registering it.

Did they? I was unaware of that. Completely different? I never used SONAR X3, but my understanding is that Cakewalk by BandLab was originally based on the SONAR X series code. Of course, I was never aware of anything called "CbB Sonar Platinum," is that something that BandLab did before the Cakewalk by BandLab that was based on the SONAR code and has been under active development for 4 years came out?

And in this case, "great" means "one that people want to listen to over and over." So true. Chart numbers only pique interest; you can get all the exposure in the world, but if people hear what you do and don't want more of it, you're sunk.

I can't imagine why you would be embarrassed about sending stems of your dry vocals for a relative stranger to listen to solo'd up on a very revealing monitor playback system. 😂 (Just upgraded my interface and then spent a couple of days restoring a vintage Crown D-150 to use as my studio amp and I can suddenly hear all manner of reverb tails, transients and trippy little stereo effects in records I thought I was familiar with) I've told you before that I think your vocals have character and they will sound even better with judicious application of psychedelic era Beatle-y processing. Whenever you're ready, buddy.

I don't understand precisely what you mean. On my system, with both Track and Console open, the buttons on the FX racks follow each other no matter the state. They dim when the rack is bypassed and turn grey when the individual effect is bypassed. Are you using a custom theme, by any chance?

I just upgraded to an interface with more flexible routing, and yes, I'm ready to try patching in some outboard gear. However deeply it's baked into the code, there is some demand here. Friendly bump.

Re: James Hargreaves video. The "UK Chart" that he says his song got on was "Physical Singles." I can't imagine that it represents a huge market. Was it bracing for this plug-in 'ho to watch this guy demonstrate getting his sounds using the ugly-***** DXi stock Vegas FX? Anyone here use Vegas ExpressFX on their master bus? Good lord. Re: The Troll. Yeah, it was. Obviously, with the hit-and-run, he's not interested in an actual discussion. Bonus, though, and one of the things about this forum that continues to amaze me, is that a troll post didn't wreck the thread, rather it was fertilizer for a pretty interesting discussion. Are we all enough veterans of online forums that we know better than to get wound up and launch ad hominem attacks at trolls? I used one of my favorite anti-troll tactics, which was to ask them to elaborate. In my long experience, that's a troll kryptonite. Stay reasonably polite, keep asking them reasonable questions. Re: @Philip G Hunt's excellent points, #7 is especially important. Once you get the attention/success you think you want, will you be able to embrace it and live with it? As Spock wisely put it, it is often better to want a thing than to get it. I'll add that it's best to figure out as much as possible what you want from a music career. "To earn a decent living" is NOT enough. There are many avenues for musicians to take toward this goal. Member of live touring band, sessions, teaching, casuals. One thing I know about myself is that my creative process takes a long time. If I were in a situation where I had to cough up new gems every few months, that would be hell on earth. So I have to pull back. What is success for me at this point in my life? First I want to make music that pleases me. Next I want to put music out that people enjoy and I would also in some way like to connect with the people who enjoy it. The pie-in-the-blue-sky goal would be to be able to take the stage in front of an enthusiastic audience (this is the least realistic goal, but I would love to make it happen). If I make any money at all from the process, that's gravy. That's why Bandcamp plus a YouTube video for each song suits me. With Bandcamp and YouTube, it's easy to know what reach you have with each song. You know how many times it's been played and/or purchased. When I was putting together hobby bands, I took my goals one at a time. If we managed to get a club to book us so we can play in front of people, that was success. If we got more shows, success. Get a following, success. Record a decent-sounding demo, success, get it played on the radio, success. With my last band, those were the boxes I ticked before Philip's point #7 seized the other members and they wandered off. And I'm happy with that. How many people dream of doing those things and never get to do them? I've played on stages in San Francisco! I've heard myself on the radio! I put together a cool band, wrote songs and played lead guitar! When I watch other musicians playing, I've felt the strange autopilot in-the-moment bubble they're inside, a feeling like no other. That zone which is outside of normal perception of time and space. How many people get to feel what that's like?

Ah, so it seems to be that they decided to put up the bundle installer so that those of us with anything from it could access it, and stripped the serial requirement out of everything. That would imply that I still only technically have licenses for the two PB freebies in the package, and the other ones just happen to work. Ah well, I'll use the other things in the bundle, and if the software police come and knock on my door I'll plead confusion and point to this thread as proof of my attempt at diligence. The owners of the products are probably too busy bathing in Dom Perignon while lighting cigars with $100 bills to assemble a legal team to come and get me.

Odd, it's showing up over here. Maybe rescan all?

Okay, I see. If you scroll allllllll the way to the bottom of the product page they say that it comes in VST and AU, but it doesn't say how to get the plug-in version. The button makes the cursor change to the hand, but clicking does nothing. However: when installing it on my laptop I watched the installer shell closely and saw that at the very end, it installs a VST3. It just doesn't allow you the options that installer shells usually do. I rarely install standalones. Anyway, this is an amazing-sounding plug-in, quite worthy of being payware. A set of pianos and strings that sound this good and the download is only about 210MB. And it did its job well, too: I bought a Studiologic SL880 20 years ago, best action ev-ar from a weighted controller, so I was interested to see what Fatar/Studiologic were up to. Turns out they've been busy. Keyboard controllers still, of course, but now they have many more really good-looking synths, pianos, and a compact drawbar-equipped clonewheel organ. Brian "Oblivion" Auger is the star endorser. If I were gigging on keys, I'd surely look closer. They obviously have some talent coding their sound generators.

Dang, this is sounding like the best piano I've heard, taking that spot away from Monastery Grand. If only it were available as a VSTi.

I already had an account due to a couple of freebies they gave out a while back and clicking on the link went right to a sign-in and the download page, does anyone know the exact legal status here? Are they granting licenses only to people already registered at their site, or are they casting them to the wind? I don't know if it's within the terms for me to have the ZIP file on my computer and give it to a friend with a thumb drive or whatever. I never received or read anything that would even indicate that I now have licenses for the whole bundle. All I know is that the installer was there for the downloading and it seemed to install the whole kaboodle with no requests for serial number or email address. I want to avoid engaging in SOFTWARE PIRACY.

This is kinda blowing me away. The ERA Voice Bundle was something I used to fantasize about having, like if I worked in a well-funded production studio. Years ago I had some audio that was clipped for some reason and went looking for a de-clipping solution and happened on their site, it was like looking in the window of a fancy car dealership. I'll get out the crowbar and open my wallet for something I know I'll use on almost every project, like mpressor or Nimbus Reverb, but I can't justify specialized tools that I might use twice in a year. This giveaway, along with those from ToneBoosters and BlueLab....why would anyone need to buy fancy plug-ins except to collect the set and fondle the shiny GUI's (which is an urge that I get)? What's next, Gullfoss for free? Sonarworks?

It's poo. Check my review on KVR. Freebie or not, how do they come off calling this thing a "beta" that's "using the latest modelling technology?" Nothing wrong with .SF2, but it's not even the latest sampling technology. Most of the controls in the UI either don't move or don't have any effect on the sound, which....sounds like a drum kit, I'll give it that. One with the kick level way out of balance with the snare, and other elements panned too far with no way to change it. Most of the labels on the controls don't match what's in the brief manual. Worst, it uses a non-standard drum mapping, so you can't just drop it on a GM'd track to check out how it sounds. I'd call it somewhere between "mockup" and "alpha" using the dev phase naming I'm familiar with. It's the first time I've seen a password protected .ZIP since I was doing in-house QA. Maybe the password is there to protect you from wasting time with this. Avoid avoid avoid.

With the release of the ERA 6 suite as freeware, I don't believe I'll be checking this out. I do like W.A. Production's UI's though.

Ah jeez, it IS a Jag....and looking again, Rick from Underworld has all of his hair. I think I'm losing it. Guys, am I losing it? 😂 Well-spotted, Kenny, as I would expect from someone with your handle. Let's put 'er under the guitar geek microscope. Let's set this record really straight, because looking closer, this is actually a very interesting guitar in the world of vintage Fenders. Put a big "as you know" in front of what I'm typing below. I'm not a vintage guitar dude myself, but I think they're cool, especially the weirder Fenders. I have in my collection a silver sparkle mother-of-bass-boat Squier Jagmaster from when they were making them with full-scale necks. I used to have a 70's Musicmaster and the scale just never feel right. I was trying to emulate Adrian Belew, but his "Mustangs" were customs with Strat scale necks and Kahler whammies. Go figure. About our specimen. First, "pickup" not plural. Closer paused video inspection suggests he's got it in the 'Halen kustom konfig: bridge pickup is from another guitar wired directly to vol pot via mismatched knob (from a Fender amp, pre-CBS we hope). Neck pickup and all other electronics, pickup selector, thumbwheel tone pots, etc. have been yanked, leaving the chrome plates as you pointed out with empty holes in them and an empty cavity at the base of the neck. Interestingly, there seems to be a second 1/4" jack on the lower rear control plate, so maybe that missing neck pickup had its own output before it was removed, for, uh, stereo. The direct-wired lipsticker would account for the full, chunky tone he's getting. 🙄 The neck and body are what make it very interesting, rare even, if original. The neck's dot inlays with binding suggest 1965-66, and that particular configuration was only around for about a year before Fender switched to block inlays. It's a transitional guitar. The neck and headstock look to be in fairly okay shape. As for the body, danged if it doesn't look like Olympic White over a sunburst. Maybe someone was a Beach Boys fan, Carl's Jag and Al's matching Strat being Olympic White. Unless someone attacked it with a white spray can at some point in its history, a factory spray-over (often done when someone ordered a custom color, as any white finish would have been in 1966) raises the level of collectability. This "roached-out" axe could actually be a '66 factory custom worth some decent change today, even in its beat-to-hell state. Yikes! (You can order a brand new guitar from the Fender Custom Shop that would look very similar to this one (minus the deletion of the electronics, although they'd probably do that for you, too). People pay more to have Fender first make it a sunburst (nitro!)and then spray over the sunburst with white paint (more nitro!) and then attack it with abrasives and bits of metal to make it look like a road-worn veteran that someone else ordered custom in 1966. I have held such instruments in my hands at the NAMM Show and they are uncanny. In more ways than one.) Here's a shot where you can see "Jag" on the headstock, the amp knob, and the sunburst finish showing through on the lower left bout:

Holy carp! I'm able to zoom in on this image! From the start with this forum, clicking on embedded images has frustrated me, because they just opened in the same size. Now when I click on an embedded image I can actually zoom in on it. There's a secret to it, though, you must initially click near the edge of the image. If you click the center, it does the useless behavior I'm used to. Long nightmare over.