John Maar

No, not really. Good enough for making a backing track to practice to? Yes. You'll need a DAW and the appropriate virtual instruments or Band in a Box (BiaB) for that. BiaB isn't cheap. List for the Ultra Pak (which can be upgraded to from lesser Paks, but where you'll want to wind up anyway) is $469, with annual upgrades with a bunch of new content at $129. Black Friday is coming. BiaB is a really good tool. It has been around a LONG time and shows its DOS roots in some places (like the menus), but their forum is excellent. Company reps and even Dr. Peter Gannon (BiaB founder) respond to questions. If you're not a current DAW user and know your way around a tool like that, BiaB is great. RealTracks played by real musicians and and tons of Styles for songs. Band in a Box Check out Henry Clarke's YT channel for songs he's recorded using BiaB and for his BiaB tutorials. Henry Clarke on YouTube (BiaB songs and tutorials) Here's a tutorial video example.

Guitar Pro is one heck of an app. Tons of features developed over the years. The UI is lovely. Soloing/muting instruments for practice/learning purposes is a breeze. Its use as a notation/tab editor is also well executed. Superb piece of software for $29. I've been using Guitar Pro since v4 at least (that's all the further back this geezer's mind can go). I have two "GP" apps, Guitar Pro and Gig Performer. I always think "Guitar Pro" for Guitar Pro and "GP" for Gig Performer since I'm on their forum daily. Gig Performer isn't cheap, but it is a superb VST/VI host for live performance and studio work. Too many great features to get into here. Forte is no more, and GP blows Cantabile, which I was using way back, out of the water. Mainstage, too. And I've never even tried the live performance feature of Studio One Pro since it was added. No need. Worth a check-out, IMO. Gig Performer

I mentioned above that I haven't used UG in a long time, but they haven't forgotten about me. I just received an email from them announcing the coming end of their 80% discount for a subscription. Talk about timing! 😅

Also responding to @daveiv I never had a subscription to UG, or to MSB for that matter. I purchase individual tabs for the songs I want (not enough on a monthly basis to justify a subscription). I purchased individual UG tabs way back, so I assume they were the same tabs I'd have gotten if I'd had a sub. The MSB tabs I've purchased don't disappear; they're always available. They are normal GP files, but I suspect that Dave is right that any you've been working with disappear if you had a sub and dropped it (another reason to buy the few you really want directly).

MySongBook tabs feature (usually) very good transcriptions. A lot of UG tabs have lesser quality transcriptions. I stopped using UG a long time ago. MSB is not too expensive, and they do have a free tab per day (that they choose), which is a nice way to try out a song you may not be familiar with or weren't actively looking for. I'm a bass player, and have been happy with the bass transcriptions in MSB tabs. You can gat to MSB directly from the home page in GP. Worked fine in v7. Even easier in v8.

I first heard of the demise of NI's version of Absynth 5 from PluginGuru. Hopefully, Brian will update it to v6 and release it himself. Skippy has updated his Absynth 5 Power Pack for Unify (which is WONDERFUL). I didn't install Absynth 5 (from Komplete 9 Ultimate; haven't updated since; just purchased a Kontakt 6 update separately), but I'm going to install it now and purchase the updated Power Pack ($20 vs. $39 October 1st). Here's Skippy's statement on the update: Special $20 Price for this library until October 1st! Library now includes all 149 Patches in Unify format. NOTE: for some reason pitch bend down causes Absynth 5 volume to go away. I’ve confirmed both the plug-in in Logic Pro X and in Unify do this. We can’t fix this because it’s an issue in Absynth 5. Please be aware of this problem and don’t use the Pitch Bend wheel (ironically a few patches DON’T have this problem, but the majority do). Absynth Mind Melt – a bonus library by John Lehmkuhl and Brian Clevenger also included (this library has not been Unified). If you have played thru the patches in Absynth 5, you will quickly notice it was voiced very heavily as an “out there” synth with spacey patches that are more useful as added sprinkles on top of a production. My goal was to re-invent Absynth 5 into a thundering virtual synth capable of epic bassline wobbles, ferocious synth leads, wild FX, twisted vocalisers, incredible pads and more. So in this library, I worked hard at turning Absynth 5 into an unstoppable main-room monster! This is still one of my favorite libraries ever because of how it transforms Absynth into a powerful synthesizer for ALL SORTS of musical jobs in many different genres. Listen to the audio demos, watch the patch walkthru video (and the MANY other support videos including an interview with Absynth creator, Brian Clevenger!) and you will see that Absynth 5 is no slouch for any type of music production. Absynth 5 Power Pack from PluginGuru

Kind of like every release after the K9U license I bought. I purchased the upgrade to Kontakt 6, but never purchased a Komplete update, and have no plans to this time either. I will buy the upgrade to Kontakt 7. The VIs from K9U that I use, except for Kontakt 6, are still on the same major version number and update via Native Access no problem. No Komplete update required.

An outstanding audio editor, with a bunch of very useful audio restoration plugins. Supports ARA2. The Premium Edition has an excellent spectral editor and supports up to 7.1 audio. Loads and runs super fast and has an excellent GUI. I love it. Highly recommended. Now on version 7.4.7, which is a free upgrade for any v7 license. Free trial version available at the Acon Digital website. Acoustica Audio Editor

Agreed. Others do too. Waves is one obvious one. All of the plugin resellers. Another one that does, but whose approach makes sense to me is Melda Production. They have have a sale every week, but each week features 4 different plugins. If I'm waiting for a specific one to go on sale, I may have to wait a long time. I bought a license for their Free Bundle (which is excellent), and I've bought licenses for around 10 other MP plugins. All good stuff. The thing about IKM's sales is the confusion I feel. I have almost no clue as to whether I'm getting the best deal or not. Things get bundled and unbundled. BOGOs. BOGFs (buy one, get four), group sales. And on and on. Back when I had to work for a living, I regularly dealt with the Sales and Marketing staffs of my clients, and know that confusing customers can be a conscious decision. One of the worst offenders is car sales in the U.S. After I got laid off from my Motorola consulting job when they went to s**t in '04, I sold new Hondas for about 6 months before I walked off the job in the middle of a shift. What I saw, and what I was trained to do was (in my mind) unethical and in some cases downright illegal. Confusing customers was a core concept. That was just not me, and I hated it. And that's why I have trouble with the sales approaches of so many vendors in so many different product spaces. For what it's worth, I'm still buying IKM software products but did not install a single one of my many Waves licenses when I bought a new DAW. AmpliTube 5 Max does rock. I never bothered to upgrade Guitar Rig when v6 was released. I have a number of amp sims, but AT5 gets almost all of the work. Syntronik 2 rocks, but I just can't wrap my head around SampleTank 4, partly because the UI just doesn't work for me. I much prefer Kontakt 6.

I'm still waiting for this IKM announcement: "Today, NOTHING is on sale!" That day will never come. 🤣

I turned 71 last Friday. Quit dating 6 years ago. I've not been hit on once since then. Younger women think they can change you. Older women know better. I can't change the PTSD, but at least I don't have to deal with being left anymore. My 3 dogs handle my bad moments beautifully. They hide. When I get through one, they come back out best buddies, still with all the love in the world. My 3 sons! What's a "gig"? 🎸😄

How would she do here in France, where topless happens? Or some of the French islands were bottomless also happens? Hopefully, she's like the wife of one of my friends. They returned from a trip to Tahiti, and all she could complain about was that nude men lay on their stomachs and nude women lay on their backs. 🤣

I haven't yet received the update email that MP always sends, so that's why I asked. Downloading now. Thanks.

Thanks. Downloading and installing now.

Not sure why this was posted now. The v16 update was released back in early June. I installed it on 8 June. Is there something I missed?

Good question. Hope the answer is "resizable". I'm on a scaled 4K display and would love a resizable GUI. If they do that, I hope they do it right (dragging the lower right-hand corner), and not with a boatload of image files for different specific sizes.

Does the beta site have a separate login from the main site? I can login to my account on the main site, but get the "invalid user name/email or password" error message. I don't feel like creating a new account just to get to the beta. I have a license for the full Soundtoys 5 bundle, but will wait for the real release.

Small and light, and only $59, but not a rival to Pianoteq. Add a little chorus and it sounds a bit like the Yamaha CP80 electric grand. Still happy with my purchase.

I wonder what's going on here. Justin Frankel, the original Winamp developer, stopped working on it and founded Cockos (Reaper). Is he going back to Winamp, or is it a whole new set of peeps, and Justin has nothing to do with it? He sold Nullsoft to AOL in '99, who then closed the San Francisco office of Nullsoft in December 2003, laying off 450 people. Justin resigned a month later, so my guess is he has nothing to do with the new incarnation, whatever and whenever that might be.

I have AT Max, so I already have this pedal. Which I didn't know anything about. But it looks useful for my basses, with its Low Pass and High Pass filters. Might save me the cost of buying the Broughton pedal I have been considering.

Good to know. I'll try it driving the new free Heavyocity Foundations Nylon Guitar. Maybe I'll actually get my money's worth! 🎸👍

Being a keyboard and bass player, I never tried that feature. Gonna have to play with it.

Not even close. If you're only going to buy one, go with Scaler. I upgraded Instachord to v2, but I was actually thinking of Instacomposer, and thought I was upgrading it. I wasn't really paying very close attention. I never used Instachord after getting Scaler. Instacomposer is worth having, but I'll have to play with Instachord v2 now that I have it to see if it offers anything I can use.

InstaChord 2 installation follow-up InstaChord 2 does not replace InstaChord 1 (different VST file names). It has its own Presets folder. If you purchased and installed any of the v1 preset packs (I have 3), you need to copy (if you're keeping v1 installed for existing projects) or move the preset folders to the v2 Presets folder. That folder, for me, is: C:\Users\johna\AppData\Roaming\WAProduction\Instachord 2\Presets Replace "johna" with your user name.

A bit convoluted, but it worked. I purchased InstaChord from Plugin Boutique, so I had to buy the IC2 upgrade from them and was immediately issued a serial number. Clicking on the PB download button bounced me to the W.A. Productions page for IC2. But...I had to register the serial number with them first before the download link appeared on the product page...which I had to go searching for after being on the product registration page. Sheesh. Anyway, downloaded. Installing now.