bitflipper

I am truly in awe of your ability to navigate the DAW this way. The elaborate mental constructs it must require has got to translate into almost supernatural compositional skills. I'll bet your kitchen is very well-organized, too. I'm sorry but I have no experience with Speakerphone and can offer no useful advice here. I assume those sample packs are listed in a scrolling tree list, which would make them discoverable via keypress in most Windows applications. However, plugin makers usually ignore Windows conventions and draw everything themselves using a library specifically made for plugin interfaces. If there is a way to work around the limitation outside the plugin, meaning via the Windows file system, that might be your best option.

This has apparently been a problem for a couple years, but I just started noticing it about a week ago. When I'd do a warm boot (the normal shutdown/start procedure, not a restart) it would take two or more minutes before the task bar populated and the hourglass pointer went away. Not surprisingly, yelling at the screen had no effect whatsoever. Fortunately, even though Windows refused to do anything else during this time, Task Manager would still come up on command. That's where I found the culprit, a process called Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser. This is a process that kicks off with every boot, and every day at 3:00 AM and every hour after if your computer's running at that time of day. There are also two mysterious "custom triggers" that the Task Scheduler won't explain nor let you customize (trigger editor says "This type of trigger cannot be edited in this tool"). Although you're limited in how you can customize this scheduled task, you can disable it completely. When I did so, my computer went back to its expected behavior and now comes up very quickly. I'm always cautious when disabling Windows processes, lest there be unexpected consequences. According to Microsoft, this one "sends data to Microsoft on a regular basis in order to improve the system and improve the user experience." Whatever the frick that means. Sounds like spying. Most important, though, is that Microsoft says it's OK to kill it. So what does it actually do? Again, going back to Technet for answers, all they say about it is that it collects performance data that gets stuffed into a database over at Microsoft. It also checks for Windows 11 compatibility. Not something you need for music production, nor anything else. It's supposedly a "voluntary" opt-in program, although it's enabled by default and you have to opt out. If you're not familiar with the Windows Task Scheduler, just google "Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser". The vast majority of results are instructions on how to kill it.

Holy crap, the conspiracy theorists might be onto something...I just got a YouTube recommendation for a video titled "How to Use Trash". I haven't watched any videos on the subject in 10 years. My only possible keyword leak occurred just now, when I called Trash "trash" in this thread. The eyes are everywhere! Yes, I watched the video. Even in the hands of an iZotope product specialist it still sounds like trash. But now and forever, YouTube will be sending me similar recommendations. Guess I'll have to pull up a Flat Earth vid just to keep the algorithm on its toes.

I, too, was cool to it at first. Try the tube models, both broken and clean. This is where I usually land when I want to add just a little edge. What makes Saturn shine over other similar products is a) it's truly multi-band, and b) its envelope-follower modulation. The latter can work magic on a dull bass to make it pop. I'll have to give Thermal a try. Like I said, more tools in the kit is usually a good thing.

That's a clever workaround. Now that I have re-read your initial post, I see that what you're actually hoping for is a new feature in a future version of Speakerphone, but it will be VST3 only. Hence the Catch-22: you need VST3 support for a particular plugin, but you're stuck at 8.5 due to dependence on your screen reader software. Got it. I know that Speakerphone has a LOT of IR files, but could there be a manageable short list of the ones you use most? I'm wondering if there might be a way to save them as separate presets, perhaps as track templates. Just thinking out loud.

I think most here would say the same thing. But most don't consider saturators, exciters, tape sims, tube emulators, console/transformer emulators, fast-attack compression and clippers as "distortion", when that is exactly what they are. That's what I mean when I say I use distortion often. Sometimes, it is "real" distortion (one of my favorites is Redopter by D16, which can get truly nasty) but mixed under the dry signal, e.g. to bring out the crack of a snare drum. More often, it's FabFilter Saturn, which can also do nasty but really shines at more subtle algorithms. If iZotope Trash had comparable versatility, I wouldn't trash it the way I do.

I use distortion often, so when I got Trash as part of a bundle I figured one more flavor in the toolbox had to be a good thing. But try as I might, everything it did to audio just turned out sounding unpleasant. Even when I tried to use it subtly. Well, they did name it "trash", so I should have known what to expect.

Cakewalk has an option to hide the VST2 version if there is a VST3 version installed. As a general rule, there should be no audible difference between VST2 and VST3 versions of any plugin. The difference between the two standards is merely how they communicate with the host, not in how they process data.

In my ok-not-so-humble opinion, Trash was the most aptly named product ever.

Well, at least if Samplitude users get orphaned, they can always come over to Sonar. Back during the Gibson Troubles, I bought Samplitude and used it for 2 months as a potential Plan B should Sonar unexpectedly come to some horrible end. Of all the DAWs I experimented with during that time, I liked Samplitude best. Mainly because it was the most like Sonar. But their insistence on re-installing that bogus ASIO driver with every update put me off and I said "fudge it, I'll keep using Sonar until it stops working". A couple weeks later the BandLab deal was announced.

I wish I still had at least one of them to show the grandkids. But after I folded them in half to stuff into a shoebox with the 3.5 inchers, I reckon they wouldn't be readable anyway, even if I still had an 8" drive.

Mark's memory is correct. X3 was the first version to support VST3. Annabelle, is there a compelling reason to update Speakerphone that makes it impractical to just keep using the current version?

As a one-time document writer, I can tell you that documentation is always playing catch-up with development, especially early on. Changes are just happening too fast for the documentation to keep up with, even if they're only changes to the visual presentation. And a big part of the work being done now is graphical in nature. Fortunately, a great deal of previous information remains applicable to the new product. This is especially helpful for beginners who are just trying figure out the difference between a track and a bus or the relationship between latency and buffer size. I would not hesitate to recommend reading the existing documentation to new users looking for a quick start. Still, old hands like John (and me) still have to do a double take when anything familiar changes or new features are encountered. The first time I saw the new start screen I had to stop what I was doing and figure out what was supposed to be happening. I am still taken aback when a previous graphical component changes, like the little toast messages (e.g. that tell you when there's a new version available) suddenly conform to the new color scheme. When I first saw that, my kneejerk presumption was that my antivirus was issuing a warning. But no, it had just changed from a blue background to black. Having preview files has not been an issue for me, because I don't hear them. The reason? I normally export projects as FLAC, and the preview player does not yet support FLAC files as previews. The files are there, but don't play back. So you might consider that as a temporary workaround, exporting as FLAC rather than WAV. Being lossless, it can be used even if you're exporting to a mastering service or submitting a track to an online collaboration. I have checked aud.ini, cakewalk.ini and the registry, and there does not appear to be a setting to disable previews, although I expect that to come along later.

Yeh, what was this about again? Oh yeh, France. My Focals say thank you.

When I worked in the tech industry, one of the aspects that appealed to me was its meritocratic nature. Status and respect was not a product of political maneuvering, but rather based purely on whether or not you knew your sh*t. But in any meritocracy, strata do naturally form. There was always that one field engineer who didn't know squat and couldn't seem to ever fix anything without assistance. In my office we had a software support analyst whose sole qualification appeared to be that she was cute and flirty. Sure, we all flirted with her, but never gave her anything resembling respect. At the top of the food chain were the ubergeeks, who almost never got stumped, and whenever they did get a tough problem to crack they leaped on it like a kid attacking a piñata. Below them were the frontline troops who kept customers happy. Perhaps not coincidentally, a great many of them were also musicians. Below that were the middle managers, who kept the rest of us happy by providing a buffer between us and Corporate. Most of them were ex-geeks themselves who understood our tribulations. But the absolute bottom tier was Marketing. Even coming in below Sales. At least the sales guys were entertaining. Heck, I even had good relationships with those sourpusses in Legal. But the marketing folks were looked down upon by everyone in the hierarchy, including customers. Part of the resentment was due to the fact that they were some of the highest-paid people in the whole organization, despite not knowing their sh*t. If flew in the face of nerd culture. Whenever they came to me for technical support, I made them pay me $20. Which, to my surprise, they happily did. But those were my corporate cubicle days. Cakewalk isn't like that. Sure Noel's top dog, and not because of his sparkling personality or impressive guitar chops. No, this ubergeek knows his sh*t. Paulo, when you say "rudderless", what you're really describing is an organization ruled by geeks, not marketing weenies. I'll take that model any day.

I have heard no discussion of pricing, but fully expect a deeply discounted initial release. That's just SOP in the industry. I could be surprised, though. What if the price is based on your Coffee House post count? Bapu had better start saving up now.

I've heard that. Always assumed it was a neighbor a couple blocks over, learning to play drop-C bass.

"Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." - Bob Seger "Reality is what it is, not what you wish it was." - Frank Zappa "Beware of the fish people" - Also Frank

And one notorious a-hole. It's a revolving title, though, so you'll have to figure out on your own who it is this week.

Now, now...it smells much better nowadays! (Context for those who don't know: Tacoma used to have a lot of pulp mills, and the sulfur smell would waft all the way to Seattle and beyond. My home town of Everett had the same problem, but the pulp mills went away here, too - although it does remain the toilet paper capital of the US. We prefer to talk about airplanes.)

Well, of course you bought a Grunge pedal in Seattle, home of Grunge. Whenever I visit Tacoma, my tradition is to spend a reflective hour or so sitting in traffic whilst slowly creeping toward the other side of town. Tacoma, home of the perpetual traffic jam. And yeh, consider it an open invitation to stop by and visit next time you're up my way.

Someday, NASA will find human bodies mysteriously floating in space on the other side of the sun. The logical conclusion: time travel will be invented sometime in the future, but they won't take into account that the planet won't be in the same place at any given time.

Byron's probably right about this not being a bug, based on the lack of reports of what would have been a showstopper. If it's user error, though, I have no idea what a user might accidentally do that would cause such behavior. The effect you're describing is the result of a sample rate mismatch, but this is a very rare occurrence and almost always involves imported audio. It is unlikely that a SR conversion would happen on an internally-generated file such as a bounced track. (Current versions do support per-plugin upsampling, but X1 did not have this feature.) I'd first eliminate the possibility of a misbehaving plugin. Try deleting (not just bypassing) all plugins on the track before converting to mono or stereo and see if that makes a difference. If the problem goes away, try the experiment again with each deleted plugin reinstated until you've isolated the problem plugin.

Oh, it's already a thing.

The story I read was that the library started out as a personal project to solve a real-world problem, rather than as a commercial enterprise. Her piano was a key (!) component of her recorded sound, but impractical to take on tour. It was probably her engineer or producer who suggested sampling it for that reason. It was sampled by her own crew at her own studio. Nowadays for gigs she often plays "her piano" via a MIDI keyboard. My guess is that some marketer heard the story and figured the pun was just too good to pass up. I remember thinking it was a lame gimmick when the product was first announced, and was as surprised as everyone else when it turned out to be pretty good.