John Maar

Gotta agree with you. I bought Strum for completeness many years ago. Chromaphone is excellent. Lounge Lizard has many good uses. String Studio and Ultra Analog have some totally usable sounds, but I have never once in 5+ years found a use for Strum.

RiP Gary Rossington, guitarist and sole surviving founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Play Free Bird!

Another related plugin y'all might want to consider is Connector by Blue Cat Audio. This is one sophisticated plugin for connecting audio and MIDI in app, between apps and between computers on the same network. Check out this short video narrated by Eli Krantzberg. A whole lot of functionality for $49/49 €. Blue Cat Audio's Connector

Neil Young and his wife, Darryl Hannah, make an unannounced appearance at the United for Old Growth rally. This is his first public performance since the start of the COVID pandemic.

I really feel for the BlueARP dev. Here's his blog post on BlueARP DM. I hope he is able to continue development and build a successful sales channel. BlueARP DM blog post, copied below for your convenience ================================ Updates on BlueARP DM sales (July 2022) By admin July 27, 2022 Sorry for long silence on BlueARP DM project. Due to political and economical turbulence I was waiting for the situation to settle down a bit, and honestly I was (and still am) quite low-spirited and de-motivated because all of this happening. But at least I can see that for the last 3 months the logistics/economical restrictions stay more or less the same and I can plan some actions. Shipping / Logistics: I can ship to most of the countries, except those few who suspended postal connections with Russia from their side: Finland, Australia, Denmark, Sweden. Also there are some countries where Russian Post doesn’t send officially due to missing logistics (like Yemen, Botswana, etc.), but I never got orders from these counties and unlikely ever will. The main issue is with 4 countries stated before – I can’t ship there right now and I don’t have a partner in a proxy country nearby yet, but there is a chance it will be sorted out in a few months. Payments: PayPal is not an option since March 2022 and this is unlikely to change anytime soon, so the only working option right now is direct wire transfer / SWIFT. There is a chance I will have a partner with PayPal account who will collect PayPal payments for me in a few months, but for now I can offer only SWIFT payment. It should work with any bank, the difference is that it is not instant (may take 1-2 days) and there is some transaction fee like 20-30$. Parts procurement: Most of the parts are from China and this logistics channel still works. I order about half of the parts from Chinese retailers directly and other half from the local retailers. Only the enclosures are the problem (blue and white ones) cause I was ordering them from USA. It is still possible for me to order from USA, but it is much trickier now, so likely I will switch to local alternatives. Still I have a few enclosures in stock. Chip shortage is still there and the price is a bit higher, but they are still available. So parts wise it is not bad overall (comparing to other areas). USD/RUB Exchange Rate: This is a real PITA, cause before Feb 2022 it was around 80 RUB per 1 USD, now it is about 60 RUB, due to heavy currency regulations imposed by Russian government. With this exchange rate, selling them in USD at current price (730$ for the blue and 790$ for the white) leaves me with no margin at all , since the parts price didn’t drop that much and this eats up all my margin. There is a hope the exchange rate will grow back a bit after Sept 2022, when some regulations should be weakened, but I can’t rely on that. So at least for those who are in the waiting list already, I will sell at the same USD price, later I may consider revising the prices. Production rates / Scaling up: Before Feb 2022 I was planning to outsource the production, cause I got more orders that I could fulfill with my limited production capacity. Now I expect 50%-90% of the customers will be put off by the obstacles like missing PayPal, delays and other stuff. So scaling up plans are suspended for now and I will build the units myself. Further actions: First I’m going to send mails to all the people from my current waiting list and ask if they are still in the game. So the few units I have now will be re-arranged cause I think that at least half of the people will cancel or already forgot about it. Next, I will plan further production.

Their tour in '77 of Even In The Quietest Moments (recorded at Caribou Ranch in Nederland, CO, home of the Frozen Dead Guy festival (fun times!)) was spectacular. Loved the video they played behind the closing song, Crime of the Century. I was on the floor, about 30 rows back, right in front of the FOH riser. Missed, or more likely, forgot about the triangle. Those were some smokey days. 😉

I know you asked about MIDI grooves, and this is a Kontakt VI by InSession Audio, but I thought you might find it interesting and informative. There are links to a couple of videos that showcase what makes this VI different, and a lot more like the real thing. I have SD3 and AD2, but use this exclusively for shakers. Shimmer Shake Strike 2

The UltraPak also comes with the Real Tracks. Tons of them. The difference is MP3 vs WAV files. The Audiophile Edition provides both.

If you're not going to publish the track composed via BiaB (just using it flesh out ideas), then save your money and go with the UltraPak. Besides, the audiophile edition takes up WAY more drive space. I have BiaB installed on an external 2TB Thunderbird 3 drive, along with all of my other sample libraries (like for Kontakt). Take the money you save by buying the UltrPak, and buy a 2TB external SSD. I have 2 Samsung T7 2TB USB3.2 drives in addition to the Samsung X5 2TB TB3 drive. The T7s are excellent and very fast, if you have a USB3.2 port to plug them into. They're still plenty fast on a USB3 port.

OK. I just added these two preset packs. I then went to the Audio/MIDI Settings to check my config in the standalone version of AL5. This is the first time that I noticed that the Settings dialog DOES NOT SCALE, even though I have AL5 set to scale to 160% on my 4K display. Sheesh.

Oops. Didn't see that. My first name's John, so this is appropriate.

Modalics (two musicians and professional coders) has released a new app, the EON Arp. It is currently free, but will be $29 after the intro period. This is their second app. The first, Beat Scholar, is very cool. Currently $79, down from $99. Modalics Audio

Same here. Still waiting for EZKeys v2 with a scalable GUI.

In your request, you might add that they allow a BPM range in the search bar. I just checked Toontrack's forum to look for any mention of "Feature Request". Sadly, the search box at the top only searches for different Toontrack products. I didn't find a search option for looking for a specific topic within a subforum. A new forum member is supposed to scroll through hundreds of pages looking for existing threads on the topic s/he's interested in? Lame. Another "Feature Request"?

Have you tried Tap2Find? If so, how did it not meet your needs? Inquiring minds...

Click on the Grooves tab and enter 132 (or whatever tempo you're looking for) in the search box and hit Enter. That will set a filter for the tempo and display matches. Easy peasy.

I just tried the AD2 VST3 in latest versions of Studio One Pro, Reaper and Gig Performer. It loaded and ran just fine in all three. So, it seems like the issue is unique either to Cakewalk or your Win11 installation. I'm running the latest version of Win11 Pro.

If you have the full version of Kontakt, Red Room Audio's "free" (with a fee of 4,69 € ($5 in the U.S.?) to help cover the bandwidth costs for the download) Snaps, Claps, Slaps, Stomps & Shouts library is excellent. Snaps, Claps, Slaps, Stomps & Shouts

I saw that review on KVR, but not the video. I also have InstaComposer, so that quick 6 minute video might be interesting. Thanks for sharing.

And we know how that turned out. 😄

Pepper Pot indeed! I first saw this Boston-area band at the Ace of Clubs in Nashville almost 30 years ago. They're still kickin' patootie.

The Orb Producer 3 Suite is 50% in the Orb Plugins store at the moment (49 € vs. 99 €). Orb Producer 3 I'm interested to see how these compare to Captain Plugins Epic.

Now that I see the naming convention for the MIDI files, it's not even a $24.95 value for me. 🙄

When I buy MIDI, I don't want WAV files. Pass.

I have been seeing EZD MIDI pack updates for the last couple of weeks. Today, it was just two: Basic Rock and Basic Rock Fills. Whatever they're doing, it looks like they're releasing them as the work through the entire catalog of packs.