John Maar

The world lost another great voice yesterday, 5 June. Astrud Gilberto passed away at 83. Here, with the great Stan Getz, who was instrumental in bringing Brazilian bossa nova to American jazz.

Here's my favorite version of the song.

I have been wanting a Moog Taurus VI for the longest time. Loved the sound since the first time I saw Geddy use one on stage. It really brings the low end. I snapped this deal up. Cherry Audio did an excellent job with their emulation. I love not having to deal with samples. Super easy to do a keyboard split and route the lowest octave to Lowdown. 👍🎸

NOTE: Plasmonic was developed by the dev who developed the beloved Absynth 5 from Native Instruments. This is his new product since NI stupidly dumped Absynth 5. It's an excellent synth.

I can't tell you which companies REQUIRE deactivation, but I would suggest deactivating ALL of them.

Some companies have a maximum number of authorizations. If you don't deactivate those first, you will use up another authorization (assuming that you have a spare one left).

I would deactivate ALL plugins that use iLok soft licensing (to the machine; an iLok dongle (never reliable for me) or iLok cloud (not me, ever) will just move to the new machine).

Most importantly,  make sure that you have ALL of the distribution files for your plugins.

I went through this recently when I switched from a desktop to a laptop before moving to France (230V) from the U.S. (120V). I got everything (DAWs and plugins) up and running before I dumped the desktop.

42 minutes ago, Greg said:

After watching Native Access hang on products loading for 2 minutes on launch. I did an uninstall/ reinstall of NA and NTKDaemon (which didn’t help) but then I added a windows defender firewall rule to allow it access to public networks and finally the delay is gone. 

Good tip! Thanks.

On 5/27/2023 at 3:15 PM, telecode 101 said:

yes. all true. but my point is, i never use 75% of what I paid for. But NI took the money. Will I ever use those orchestral sampled instruments? probably not. I dont do sound track or scores. i just make rock and country folk song demos with other guys i work with.

I bought v9 Ultimate many years ago, and haven't upgraded it since. I paid for Kontakt v6 and v7 upgrades and the Guitar Rig v6 upgrade. I haven't even installed a lot of the sampled instruments (like the drums) that came with v9, just the basses and the horns.

Lest we forget, she was also awesome as Aunty Entity!

On 5/22/2023 at 10:31 PM, PavlovsCat said:

It's surprising that they've kept making CDs for this long considering that the CD market greatly declined years ago. As someone noted, unless you're targeting your music to an audience that is 40+ years old CDs really aren't likely to move. There are a good deal of Gen Z'ers now  as old as their early 20s that have never even owned a music CD. I put myself through college playing drums and handling the printing of posters and CD inserts for indie record labels if I really want to age myself (one of those bands was named Nirvana)! 

When was the last time you saw a new laptop being sold with an optical drive? Most Gen Zers have no optical drive, therefore no CDs/DVDs/Blu-rays. Give a young'en a device with a non-touch screen and watch the fun begin! 🤣

12 hours ago, El Diablo said:

I wonder when is the "Upgrade from Acoustica Premium Edition 7.x" going on sale?

Maybe when v7.5 is released?

If you have Acon Digital's Acoustica Premium Edition, you have this already. The only A.D. plugin not included in the Premium Edition is DeVerberate.

12 hours ago, mibby said:

Check your account! $29 if you upgrade to the 5.4 bundle!

https://www.soundtoys.com/product/superplate/

It looks like complaining about the bundle upgrade price worked...

Glad I saw this! I especially appreciate the v5.4 fix for the VST3 window size bug in Studio One. And picking up Super Plate for $29 is a bargain.

My Account mentioned that the v5.4 bundle upgrade sale runs through 14 June.

51 minutes ago, telecode 101 said:

so let me confirm. if i upgrade to EZK2 , i lose the ability to install again EZK1?

If you purchased EZK2 as a upgrade to EZK1, then yes, you should expect that an EZK1 authorization is no longer available to you. If you paid full price for EZK2, then you should expect to still have rights to EZK1.

2 hours ago, Sander Verstraten said:

and already an update 😅

There was also a new update for EZBass.

Installed!

There were also updates to the the small EZK1 MIDI library and the 9 EZK1 pianos that I have licenses for. For me, it was about 6 GB of total downloads.

EZK2 scales nicely on my 4K display, but I had to switch it to full screen, since the scaling is slightly off (the bottom of the window was just below the top of the taskbar. Full screen? It's SO nice! I'll check the VST versions later. Time to walk my dogs before their lunch.

It's 7h20 here in France. Same time zone as Sweden. Not up yet. Maybe after I get back from walking my dogs.

3 hours ago, craigb said:

Although I had to take some breaks, I'm STILL going through his discography that I started last weekend (or was it the weekend before??? 🤔).

At least I'm now into the 1990's! 😁

If you have a VPN, try selecting a server in Canada. CBC released a Gordon Lightfoot documentary on 22 March, that's now available for streaming in Canada only.

CBC's Gordon Lightfoot documentary

Minor update.

- Quick edit amount icons are now properly displayed

- Sample is no more played after saving as a preset [their French to English translation, not mine 😉]

19 hours ago, MusicMan said:

I had been wondering the exact same thing as John! I asked them ages ago before buying it and just dug out the old email from them 🙂

"The sound is the same with individual plugins and Heritage Pro version.

The advantage of individual version is workflow ease and CPU performance. For example when you need only mid freq arrangement you can use EQ5M only. Or if you need to use hp filters, mid range arrangement and broad band arrangement, you can use Heritage Pro just in one fx slot."

Seems like the Heritage Pro is the way to go. No need to throw away 30 bucks/euros. I've got plenty of CPU capacity, so that's not a concern of mine. I've got too many plugins the way it is. Over 700, I think. I need to do some Spring cleaning on my plugins. 😄

13 hours ago, Fleer said:

Okay, checked this out. Already had the NEED 73 Console EQ and the Pultecs. This bundle has six EQs and four preamps. Dang!

Is there any reason to buy the Rule Tec bundle (on sale for $99 at NoiseAsh), when the Heritage Pro plugin (on sale for $69) includes all three Pultecs ?

I have licenses for Waves 660/670, EQP-1A and MEQ-5 Pultec clones. I just refuse to install them on my new DAW. Doing without at the moment.

Also, I don't find this offer compelling. Nothing in it I need/want.

Same here. Updated yesterday. I agree with your hypothesis. From this size of the updates, it looked like MIDI pack updates do. 2MB to 3MB. Same UI. So, maybe it's MIDI pack format updates for EZK2. We'll see if the separate MIDI packs get updated, as well.

3 hours ago, John Speth said:

I've spent a few hours on the new TAL Vocoder. The new version (3.0) is certainly a great improvement in usability over the old (2.X) versions!! I think any sonic differences are nil. The user manual warns about a periodic noise sound from the vocoder output every minute for unregistered/unpaid versions. I never heard that sound in my testing. The free version seems to be 100% operational.

The user manual leaves me with nothing but questions about the improved signal routing capability (a MAJOR improvement, IMO). It makes a mention with a few simple definitions and nothing more. That seems like the wrong way to explain a major new feature. It would be great if Bandlab could be added to the "Routing examples" section.

Does anyone know the center frequency of each of the 11 bandpass filters? It would be nice to be able to manipulate those parameters like the "other" vocoder plug-in. I would call that a nice-to-have feature. (Perhaps that level of adjustability is not useful in practice?)

Since there is no paid version of the Vocoder, my guess is that text is copied over from a user guide for a different (paid) plugin, that they used as a starting point for the Vocoder guide.

FWIW, the Mastering Suite is included as part of Acon Digital's Acoustica Premium Edition, which, IMO, is the best audio editor out there. I switched to it from SpetraLayers a long time ago, and never looked back. The Premium Edition also includes the excellent Restoration Suite. I don't know if there's a discount available for Mastering Suite owners to Acoustica P. E. (199 euros). If not, I would consider holding off on the Mastering Suite until a sale on P. E. comes along (doesn't happen often).

Acoustica Digital Audio Editor Premium Edition by Acon Digital

I bought a lifetime license for SPlat before it went splat. I never installed Cakewalk by Bandlab when I bought a new laptop. Are the SONAR Platinum downloads still available somewhere, including the Anderton IRs?