John Maar

Studio One has had a few paid add-ons for a long time. Don't need them? Don't buy them. I bought just the ones I would use, and none of the others.

I hope the new owners will finally add iLok soft (computer) authorization support. I bought a bunch of Slate's VMR plugins over 5 years ago, but have never been able to use them. I never could get the physical dongle to work reliably. They're not even installed on my new DAW laptop. Also, I hope the new owners are more responsive. Back when I was trying to get the dongle to work, I contacted SD numerous times through every channel I could find. Never got a single response, not even an automated "we received your message."

Good on you, @pwalpwal for quitting. @craigb offered a lot of really good advice. No need for me to duplicate it. I just want to add a couple of comments. 1) It took me about 3 weeks to get over the craving after a cold turkey quit. No real way around it, the next three weeks will be hard work, even following Craig's advice. But there's light at the end of the tunnel. Once you get past that, you'll be happier and proud of yourself. 2) So much is focused on smokers' lungs, but it's way worse than that. My brother taught anatomy for awhile, and took me through his cadaver dissection lab once. He said he could identify whether the corpse had been a smoker or not, by making an incision anywhere on the body, and proved it to me. The difference in tissue color between smokers and non-smokers is noticeable. Smokers' tissue was much grayer. So, there's more going on with nicotine than people think. This is why vaping tobacco is dangerous (cannabis is OK). Vapers think they're protecting their lungs from the gunk, but they're still screwing up their entire biological self. As Craig mentioned, tobacco is truly a poison and, in my not-so-humble opinion, should be banned. Sadly, that will never happen. 3) Apples and carrots are good snacks. Extra pizzas, not so much. 🤪 You'll get through it!

At least they permit soft (machine) licensing. No iLok dongle or iLok Cloud (internet) required. I gave up on Pace dongles back when they were 25 pin Centronics printer port dongles, one for each app. If you had more than one, they "said" you could chain them, but the only one that worked, only some of the time, was the one plugged into the PC, so I had to swap them depending on which app I needed to run. They were business apps, so I didn't have a choice. I DO NOT miss parallel printer ports or iLok dongles. I've got some Slate Digital plugins that require a dongle that I can't use, and wouldn't even if I could. Pace as a company SUCKS big time. They sucked in 1980 and they still suck. Fortunately, I've never had a problem with soft licensing. I've got about 80 plugins that use it.

Cable companies in Europe are no different than the ones in the U.S. I had an appointment for last Tuesday to be connected to the fiber network for internet. Early in the 4 hour tech arrival window, I got a call from their H.Q. that "No can do today. Next week." I now have two different "appointments," one for Sunday and one for Monday. Sheesh. I had to buy a data extension for my cell phone. My only internet access has been using it as a hot spot. And I have a smart TV that gets its programming via WiFi. So, the Amplitube v5.5 update with Tonex will have to wait until Bouygues eventually gets me connected. I haven't even been able to download the Syntronik 2 libraries I bought last June.

A couple of notes. SO6 installed in a new directory, leaving the SO5 install in place. The install properly migrated software settings, hardware configs and additional PreSonus purchases properly. The Softube Tape plugin "hung" the plugin manager the first time through. I had to click on the Skip button to get it going again. I recently upgraded to Win11 2022H2 and that may have borked the authorization for it. I deactivated it with the iLok manager and reactivated it. Scanned no problem. Successfully added it to a song.

I used Thomann for the upgrade since I already have an account with them and have bought a lot from them in the past. 145 €. I received my serial number immediately. Downloading the v6 installer now. Note to self in the future. Do NOT try to register the upgrade serial number. Click on the product I'm trying to upgrade (SO5 Pro) and then click on the Upgrade button in that window. Took me a few failures to figure that out. Sheesh. OK. The v6 installer download just finished. See ya later!

They do a lot of Chicago covers, but this one's a Chaka Khan & Rufus cover of "Ain't Nobody". Leonid as always lays down a great bass line, but it's really nice to hear Ksenia Buzina doing the lead vocals instead of backing vocals. She's got a terrific voice.

Cardiac arrest at 59. Dang. Cool dude. Rest In Paradise! I think this is the first video I've seen that goes over one BILLION views.

The .NKI file in my Kontakt Instruments folder (Singularis.nki, dated 2/29/16) worked with K5 and now with K6. It has no UI. I'd forgotten that. I like SampleTekk's Rain Piano Mk2 and Black Grand Mk2, and the INIL Choir just for fun. The deprecated PMI Börsendorfer 290 is pretty good, too. I had purchased the Rain Piano for Presence and SampleTekk was cool about giving me the Kontakt version for no additional charge when I asked about it. Good peeps!

I just checked my Singularis installation folder. The .EXS file is small (around 2MB, 68K zipped), so it must be using the same .WAV samples that the Kontakt .NKI file references.

I bought Singularis over 6 years ago. It was one of my first purchases after picking up Kontakt 5 in Komplete 9 Ultimate.

Maybe they finally changed. I have licenses for some of their (Slate Digital, from the same Steven Slate) Virtual Mix Rack plugins that I bought 5 years ago. I just checked their website and found this statement: The All Access Pass can be used with iLok Cloud and does not require an iLok USB dongle. You will just need an active internet connection to use iLok Cloud. Perpetual "Buy Now" individual plugin licenses require an iLok 2 or iLok 3 USB dongle.

Yet another reason to break the bank and buy a license for the full version of Kontakt. I got a license for v5 when I purchased Komplete 9 Ultimate years ago. I've never had a reason to buy the Komplete upgrades, but I bought a Kontakt v6 upgrade and will do the same when v7 is released next month. I have SampleTank, but hate the UI. Never use it. FWIW, I will never go near Slate. He's one arrogant mother, and his refusal to permit machine authorizations with iLok (dongle only and now Cloud, too) is a deal-breaker for me. I never got the dongle to worked reliably on any desktop or laptop that I owned and had to give up on all of the Slate plugins I'd purchased. I don't care how good his products are, I'm finished with him. I have been very happy with Superior Drummer, first v2 and now v3. Great libraries!

Glad to hear. Wouldn't be surprised if my path crossed his at some point. I started in Comm Sector (like police and fire radios), but did some work with Semi peeps. How about PMing me his name and I'll see if I can remember him from 20-25 years ago. I do remember that the semi plant in Austin was running down to 13% capacity. Moto got up to $9.5 billion annual capacity but dropped to $4.5 billion annual semi sales after screwing up cellular (semi's largest customer). Politically, Moto was only able to downsize to $5.5 billion annual capacity. Too many execs protecting THEIR plant. That overcapacity was one of the things that killed Moto. Spinning them off as Freescale couldn't prevent the inevitable. The vaunted corp HQ in Schaumburg, IL that I nominally reported to now has Ericsson signage. I was in Chicago the summer of '21 to get my French Long Stay visa, and it broke my heart when I drove by it and saw the new signs.

I'm on a 4K display, but running Win11 at 200% scaling, so I've turned an expensive laptop display into an old 1080p display. But some apps don't scale, and I'm stuck with fonts I can't read even with 3x reading glasses. I was looking at 32" 4K monitors, but they're stupid expensive, so I'm sticking with the 4K display built into my P17.

My experience in some of the major companies I consulted is that marketing's most important task was to obscure the primary company objectives...growth and the bottom line. Here's a classic example, from a 1998 article in the New York Times: And so the Ford Motor Company has decided it is time to jettison its tagline of the last 17 years, ''Quality is job one.'' In a $40-million-a-year corporate advertising campaign that begins today, Ford introduces its new theme: ''Better ideas. Driven by you.'' Ford did achieve some nice improvements in quality, but it was never Job One. Motorola provided semiconductors to all 3 of the Big Three, so I got a chance to look inside of each back in the mid-90s. Ford was the best to work with. Top down command and control. General Motors had dozens of fiefdoms, much more difficult to negotiate. And Chrysler? The less said, the better.

Good luck with the visit! You're a drummer and I'm a bassist, so I think you might appreciate the first audio I ran through my new Focal Shape 65's. My new studio is finally coming together after tearing down the one in the U.S. 18 months ago. Feels really good. Next to be connected is my NI S61 Mk2. Great keyboard controller.

You just HAD to bring that up, didn't you? 😄 Happy to hear that you're happy. Getting to the right place in life is usually difficult to impossible. This thread has gotten WAY off topic, but that's OK, because XLN haven't done doodlely squat new in forever. It's off-topic threads like this that keep them in the light. Back off-topic. I am SO glad I moved on from marketing to engineering, but I have to add one important caveat. What I did learn through my 1st semester junior year, especially the three semesters of accounting, really helped me later in my engineering career. Not many engineers can talk to the C-suite and be taken seriously. I could talk their talk. What I consider my best-ever moment happened in Korea in 1999. I had a partnership with PWC Consulting at the time. They had a lead for a major consulting gig at LG-Caltex (the petroleum group of LG). They wanted a white-face to present the program to the board and they specifically wanted one from Motorola, the inventor of Six Sigma. Well, that turned out to be me. LG brought three rows of aluminum stadium seating into the boardroom for the unit presidents and senior VPs. Along the opposite wall were seated the local PWC staff trying to get the contract. There were 10 guys on the board, very old. Each was stone-faced enough to be on Mt. Rushmore. The chair at the opposite end for the CEO was empty. His personal assistant, one of the most lovely women I've ever seen, dressed in a formal ancient Korean gown, came in through a private door and set a glass of pink juice on a doily and left the room. That was the signal that the CEO was arriving. He came in and the entire LG group stood and bowed for precisely the same amount of time without looking at each other and sat back down. The angle of their bows was also so precise, I could have shot a laser across their backs. They all stared straight ahead and never looked at me. I thought I was in real trouble. The CEO sat down and very casually crossed his legs and looked off to my right, also not looking at me. I'd done my research and found out that he'd been at U.W.-M. at the same time I was, studying for his PhD, so I greeted him as a fellow Badger and gave my 45 minute presentation that no one appeared to be paying attention to. I felt like a comedian who'd gotten zero applause during his entire routine. When I finished, I asked for questions. The closest board member to me on my left turned and asked "who else in our business is doing this?" After a moment of contemplation, I responded "what's wrong with going first?" No more questions. I thanked them for their "attention". The CEO got up to leave the room (so I and everyone else in the room thought), but he walked around the board and came up to me, already a breach of protocol. I held out my right hand with my left hand, palm up, slightly leading my right hand in a position of #1 respect. He grabbed my hand and put his other arm around my shoulder. Now EVERYONE was looking. He whispered to me "that was exactly what I wanted to hear" and turned and left the room, which was full of stunned faces, which I read as "he's going to make us do this." That one answer was worth several million dollars of revenue. I spent the next 9 months there, helping them get the program going. I was able to bill them over $5K a day, just for my time. I smoked my partner in the U.S. who had responsibility for the Americas. He was a real buttwipe, so I enjoyed every moment of our annual business review with the Moto C-suite that year.

I don't know NI's policy on upgrades for purchases made very close to a new major version's release. Try asking them directly. I was able to delay upgrading to v6 until the upgrade went on sale because I hadn't purchased any libraries that required v6. I'll do the same with v7 unless they offer an upgrade sale upon release.

Perfect timing. I'm being connected to the fiber network for internet on the 27th. I still haven't downloaded the Syntronik 2 libraries from a purchase months ago. ('ve been using my cell phone as a hotspot and have very limited monthly data. Going over that limit is stupid expensive (36 cents per MB, not GB!). The only other major upgrade for me will be Kontakt 7 when Komplete 14 is released. I bought Komplete 9 Ultimate and have never felt the need to upgrade it. I paid for the Kontakt v5 to v6 upgrade. The only other major version update that would have required an upgrade purchase was Guitar Rig v5 to v6...and I don't use Guitar Rig. Absynth is still v5 (and dropped from K14!). FM is still v8. Battery is still v4. So, no need for Komplete 14.

I, too, started in Marketing at the U.W.-Madison School of Business. I only made it through the 1st semester, junior year. I reached a point where I couldn't stand the students I was in class with, and their attitudes toward other people and their money. I did not want to be like them, and I certainly didn't want to work with them. I had a dream one night that after graduation, the only job I could get was in northern Wisconsin, working for a paper company and having to create a marketing program for a brand of toilet paper that I absolutely wouldn't use myself. So, after a lengthy internal heart-to-heart, I switched to the U.W. engineering school. Had to go back and take some freshman math courses. Took me seven years to finish. Turned out to be the perfect choice for me (all the student loans after I maxed out the GI Bill notwithstanding).

I'm not buying any more 8DIO libraries. I'll wait for the Soundpaint version.

Fascinating little ditty, Mr. Screed. My only question is: In hex, octal or decimal?

One thing I should have added: those multiple, violent stab wounds were from my bosses. My clients loved me. I may have been the only consultant they ever worked with who cared more about their success than his/her bottom line. More than once, I walked away from business when the board and the C-suite wouldn't walk the talk. Each of those times resulted in multiple stab wounds. 😋