John Maar

Fabulous, JB! Made my morning. Here's my Chihuahua, Peanut, when he's pretending to be sane. 😋

Deleted. Quoted instead of edited.

Hats off to Hyundai (brand) for their success with the Kia brand. Kia was (and still is) the secondary brand to the Hyundai (car). Back in the '90s, before Hyundai's quality improvement efforts, the Hyundai cars were pretty awful, and Kias were terrible. To quickly improve product quality ahead of their international push, Hyundai did something brilliant. When Toyota released the 5th generation of the Camry, Hyundai bought the entire 4th gen manufacturing line and moved it to Korea. Their next generation of Sonatas were 4th gen Camrys with different sheet metal. They reverse-engineered the 4th gen Camry and adapted what they learned to their own design and manufacturing efforts. They still needed to offer that 10 year warranty to overcome existing buyer hesitation due to previous awful product quality. But...it took them several years before they applied those learnings to Kia. On a relative level, Kia was their Chevy to the Hyundai Oldsmobile (before GM corrupted it). Now, I've met several people who think that Hyundai cars are the second brand of Kia. THAT'S excellent marketing. I spent 9 months riding around Seoul in taxis when I worked there. The 'mobum' (deluxe) taxis were the new Camrys/Sonatas, while the regular taxis were Kias and similar. They were miserable. Hyundai has come a LONG way.

Love the image. Saved to my IMGUR account. 👍

Once bitten. Twice shy. Oops, make that trice shy. My sympathies. No schadenfreude today. Just the pure joy of knowing that Waves is no longer polluting my DAW. Some great plugins, but worse than woeful business strategy and execution.

Who cares. I happily divorced Waves after v12 after being WUP'd and shelled to death.

Glad that I bought a license for MDrummer the last time it was on a good sale. 🙃

I already owned MDrummer, so I had a lot less to download. Meldway turned out to be more than 40 GB. There were also 2 updates that were downloaded and installed (about 5 GB total).

And I already have AAS' Multiphonics 1 & 2. If I ever decide to build my own instrument, I already have a platform to do that. So, I've got all I need from Melda. And good tip on the instrument parameters. Meldway is still downloading. I'm on 500 mbit/sec fiber link, but Melda isn't delivering at that bandwidth (actually about 5% of that).

Yes, you can upgrade, but... I just purchased this and am downloading the Essentials and the two pianos (3 GB, 3.5 GB and 40 GB!). I did have an upgrade option to the full version, but Melda can tell what you paid for it, so my upgrade price was 269 €. I have ZERO need for the full version. So, this was the bargain for MSoundFactory that I've been waiting for.

One more thing about Reaper themes... Learning and using Reaper without Kenny Gioia is a much greater challenge, and ALL of Kenny's videos use the default theme. Some are harder to follow when using a non-default theme. I know. I've tried.

Martin Scorsese, left, and Robbie Robertson before they presented the film "Last Waltz," at the 31st Cannes International Film Festival.

We lost another icon, DJ Casper, from Chicago, creator of the Cha-Cha Slide. He was 58, taken by cancer. A sad day.

Fortunately for me, I bought a new license after my v4/v5 license expired when v6 was released. And when was that? Like 4 years ago? My current license is for v6/v7. If v7 is around as long as v6 has been, I'll have gotten about 8 years out of the last $60 I paid them. That's a true bargain for such a solid, complete DAW.

This is exactly the reason I stopped using Reaper and went back to Studio One after Sonar Platinum went splat. I was wasting WAY too much time playing with the UI, trying to get it where the look of it didn't bother me. If the themes were professionally created and curated against the default Reaper theme, I would be happy to pay for one that worked for me, knowing that it was complete and supported and that if there was an issue with it, it would be corrected. If you read the comments on the popular themes, one common thread is that something/some feature is missing vis-a-vis the default theme. If you don't need that missing feature, no problem. If you do, you're almost always SOL. What do I dislike most about Reaper (and I do like and respect it) is: 1) the menus, and 2) the window that plugin UIs open in. That said, Reaper is awfully good at a lot of tasks, and no other DAW has Kenny Gioia.

They also typically work best with the specific EZX or SDX drum kit they were created with, that is, they use specific kit pieces defined in a specific drum map.

Two 't's in Bennett, Bapu. 😉

One of my favorite concerts ever. He was in his late '60s or early '70s. The show was in a theater by O'Hare airport in Chicago. Fantastic acoustics. Tony was singing along with his combo. Short intermission. Tony and the combo returned, and as they started playing, the curtain behind them went up, revealing a full big band. Wowzers, that was great! Short intermission. Tony, the combo and the big band returned. As they started playing, the curtain behind the big band went up, revealing a full choir! Blown the "f" away! Superior live experience. Damn, but he was great. RIP, Tony. You will never be forgotten.

I just noticed the release of v7 of Captain Plugins Epic. The v7.0.0 installer was code signed on 27 June 2023. The update is free if you have v6, $39 if you're still on Captain Plugins v5. The VST versions load and run no problem, but I'm getting a blank GUI with the VST3 versions, so beware. I'll send a message to their support. To download the update, you'll need your original v6 email with the download link, or use the Download link in the web page footer. I did not have to reauthorize v7. Captain Plugins Epic EDIT: I am getting a blank VST3 GUI in Gig Performer. The VST version loads fine. In Studio One, the default only shows the VST3 version in the browser. The GUI opened OK, but I had to reauthorize it. Odd goings on. I think I'll clear the plugin list in Gig Performer and do a full rescan and see what happens. So my guess is that you'll have to reauthorize in Cakewalk. Can someone confirm?

That is a useful video. Thanks for sharing.

Minor update to Scaler 2. Fixes include eliminating a crash when changing the sample rate with Scaler active. Log in to your account on Plugin Boutique to update.

Saves you about $27 (more than 10% less) if buying a perpetual Pro X license directly from Antares 50% Summer Sale.

Also the Kontakt Factory Library 2 to v1.2.0.

MSaturator may be the rebranded old MLimiter, but it's not the same UI. MLimiter actually did have a limiting function. With the addition of MLimiterX (not part of the free bundle), I can see the business sense behind the move.