Vernon Barnes

Not sure how much use any of this will be to me but I am in and I made a donation. I will install later. Hopefully one can be selective on the install, things like the Ableton kits will be of no use to me.

I particularly like the ones from Waves and Neo Soul keys, which have replaced Scarbee as my current goto. I also have Lounge Lizard but I tend to overlook it.

Bookends of a long career.

Sad news this morning, Judy Dyble had a long career starting in Fairport Convention, a wonderful voice and creative musician. https://www.bigbigtrain.com/ She will live on in her music and I look forward to the new album with David Longdon.

I like it, the sibilance tools are very good if, you are prepared to use them in a targeted manner they are better than a de-esser. Note leveling is excellent and should reduce the amount of automation and compression needed. I have not tried the chord feature yet but it looks useful, now if Cakewalk had a chord track that linked to it? Well that's a different story.

With my Orange slices it will come down to around $100. (Be sure to sign up for their Surveys for Slices and answer a few questions to get discounts) Undoubtedly this will be good, but will it be $100 better than my current Rhodes options? It's a crowded market.

I think this sale has been on for a while and finishes on the 13th July. I have some of the drum MIDI, and they are very good but I have never tried the bass. They may be something one could use in EZBass to improve transposition and chord change options. I thinking I may pick up the Rock Songs pack and try. https://groovemonkee.com/collections/bass-loops They have been pro-active and producing versions and updates for Drum software, I wonder if they will consider EZBass?

I have upgraded Melodyne (studio) to version 5 and I have been using it extensively this past week an I have not encountered a problem. I have been using it as a region effect via ARA.

Watching reviews and intro videos I am beginning to find the idea of subscribing to Sphere appealing. I have found MuseScore 2 useful recently for making rough scores for a session singer and found it really useful when writing lyrics but its a bit on the clunky side (it is free so I can't complain.) Having something better that Cakewalk's staff view integrated in the DAW, plus the full stand alone version of Notion available could be very useful. The other standout for me is the keyswitch lanes which look very useful. I am not sure how much the collaboration tools will bring to the party, dropbox seems to be working well enough for me but 30GB of online storage sounds useful and they say it can be accessed by non-Sphere users using other DAWs. I recently upgraded Melodyne and while watching the Groove 3 instruction video I noticed it should communicate with S1's chord track which could be handy. Beyond that I was taken by the fact that some of the new features have been in Cakewalk for a while.

And this inexplicably appeared in the YouTube sidebar of related content. 😱

VST support in Artist? - That is interesting indeed. I remember that being a bugbare when I looked at S1 a while back. I would like to see a versions chart with features side by side. If, and its a big if I do decide to add Studio One to my tools it will probably be the Sphere subscription, it will take two years of subscriptions to reach the crossgrade purchase price of Pro with the option to cancel if I am really not getting on with it. Artist may be tempting if it now supports VSTs, its around the same price as the Cubase 9.5 to 10.5 upgrade

I have been faffing about wondering if I should update Cubase fro 9.5 to 10.5 on the current deal (or possibly 11 if delaying the activation works the way people say it does). I tried Studio One at the time of the Gibson debacle but did not care for it, particularly the MIDI functions (I use MIDI the most). I am sure its come on leaps and bounds since then. I seldom use Cubase and much of it remains a mystery and I have kept using Cakewalk almost exclusively but I have the feeling I should learn another DAW in case there is a Bandlab debacle in the future, now I am wondering if I should look at Studio One again before deciding on a Cubase upgrade.

That are back - The latest incarnation of Karnataka. The new singer, Sertari is sounding good and very different to Hayley Griffiths so it looks like a big change in direction. There is a free download here http://karnataka.org.uk/?album=forever

mmmm - this is nice, sound much better than I expected it to.

For sound design, both as a synth and as effects Cherry Audio's voltage modular can really take you in different directions, lots for options and add on but start with the free Nucleus version. https://cherryaudio.com/voltage-modular And for getting compositions going Orange Tree Samples Evolution series of guitars is good. Use a preset strumming pattern or create your own and feed it with chords. https://www.orangetreesamples.com/products You just missed the group buy but if you do the "Surveys for slices" you can get a discount.

Doh! - I have just realised it was the Version 10 update i skipped and I am still on 9.5 (shows how much I use it). The upgrade is £ 82. Think I will sleep on it.

I hardly ever use Cubase. I am wondering if I should upgrade and work at learning it a bit harder. I am very happy with Cakewalk and the way it's going at the moment, but Cubase has some nice features.

I just grabbed my Mind Control, as Orange slices are a % discount there was little point in using them on this purchase. While I was there I did joined the surveys for slices program and got over a hundred slices for answering some simple questions, worth doing!

It does look similar. Bandcamp is well established I don't know how that would affect the likelihood of sales. In any case it will be down to how well you can promote and publicize. I would be inclined to be on both unless terms and conditions dictate otherwise. I was considering putting my current project (E.P.) on Bandcamp when its finished for the hell of it and the remote possibility I may recover something towards the costs. That is a few months off yet so i will be watching this closely.

I have been using Google's Play Music as a player on my Android phone. It's only saving grace being an easy sync with iTunes on my PC. Now they are discontinuing it and moving to YouTube music who's main objective seems to be getting you to sign up for their streaming service and advertising random things I might like. (But probably won't) I hate the way Amazon, Apple, Google etc. try to push their streaming services on you. So I bit the bullet yesterday and solved the cryptic puzzle of how to delete the downloaded Play content, installed VLC player and spent a few hours dragging music across from the PC. It seems to be a lot better, if less seamless solution. Next step will be to add an SD card so I take advantage of the lossless formats for albums downloaded from Bandcamp.

Mmm - I may have spoken too soon in saying its easy to resolve, this time its proving more tricky to sort out. I may be doing something daft. I will try tomorrow and if that fails contact support.

The only issue I have with Addictive Drums is the periodic loss of authorization and the subsequent "wrong computer" error message. This is I believe triggered by window updates. Its not a big job to go into online installer and rectify it but I should really not be happening and it does not inspire confidence. I am not sure of the frequency of the problem these days as I usually use Superior Drummer of BFD3 both of which I prefer. Addictive drums is a good solution however if you like you drums a little more "mix ready".

The pro for using 5 is you have a potentially bigger market. People still on 5 will not be able to use a library developed in 6. The downside is you will not be able to use any new features, so I would say it a matter of how important those new features are to the library. If they are not needed I would say go with 5. I have purchased libraries where the developer has provided NKIs for two versions, effectively giving the buyer a less featured library if they only had the earlier version.

Pretty hard to pick the funniest answer here. On a serious note Red Over Red has been suggested elsewhere and I rather like it, so it's the current leading contender.

This video has proved very useful as I attempt vocal comping for the first time.