bitflipper

I don't know if this has already been posted, but if you're a new Kontakt user and don't know about Loot Audio yet, you should. There is no cheaper way to load up on tons of sounds. We're talking libraries starting at $3 with the current sale (through year's end). Just about every category you can imagine, from unusual percussion to human voices. There are sample songs and/or videos for nearly all of them, so you can spend an hour just browsing. Note that all of these require full Kontakt, not the Player. A great many of them are compatible with Kontakt 4 and 5, so if you're one of those people who haven't continuously fed money to NI every couple of years for updates these libs will breathe new life into your older versions of Kontakt. https://www.lootaudio.com/current-deals/kontakt-instruments These libraries are cheap, but don't sound cheap at all. Here's an example, Liminal Winds ($42): Here's a shaker sequencer called AP Shakers ($6.50):

Hope you studied that flowchart, dwf2008, as there will be a quiz later. Short(er) answer: Adjust the output of your mixer as needed to get recorded tracks at reasonable levels, ideally somewhere around -24dB to -12dB. Digital recording is very forgiving with levels as long as you stay well below clipping. Leave Cakewalk's gain sliders and volume faders at unity until after you're done tracking.

I started with a version of Melodyne called Cre8, which was sort of "Studio Lite" in that it was limited to 8 tracks at a time. Because I used it only for tuning and tightening multipart vocal harmonies, 8 tracks was more than enough. But when Celemony discontinued Cre8 they made me a can't-refuse offer to upgrade to Studio, although to date I've still never edited more than 4-6 tracks at a time. I haven't used 90% of Studio's features, so given that I've paid Celemony perhaps a thousand dollars over the years for multiple upgrades it's hard to say it was a cost-effective investment. Still, I wouldn't want to give it up. If you're into tight and/or complex vocal harmonies it's just too good a cheat. As for Cakewalk compatibility, there have been some issues in the past with Melodyne getting out of sync with the DAW (pre-ARA) but those problems appear to have all been resolved. Today it runs seamlessly with CW. So yes, Timbo, as long as Santa's picking up the bill go for it!

Reverb: ValhallaRoom, for versatility Track Compressor: FETPresser Bus Compressor: Fabfilter Pro-C Precision EQ: Fabfilter Pro-Q Character EQ: I don't use them Delay: Tritik tkdelay for versatility Chorus: Valhalla Ubermod, because it does other things too Pitch Shifter: Don't use 'em. Basic Filter: Fabfilter Volcano Glitcher/Stutterer: Don't use 'em Multiband Compressor: Ozone Limiter: Ozone Stereo Imager: Ozone Amp sim: Scuffam S-Gear Vocoder: Don't use 'em. Saturation: Fabfilter Saturn Restoration: Prefer a standalone app, e.g. Adobe Audition or RX Clipper: I don't use clippers except on my nails.

I picked up the Dobro. I really don't know why, as I already have two others in my collection. Hopefully, it'll be different enough to add a little variety. Plus it was $15, so why not?

This is a weird one. It's a pretty standard delay but with pitch-shifting and distortion in the echoes. I had the best results on non-pitched percussion. If you like this kind of weirdness, check out his even stranger Darvaza plugin. It's also a delay, one that does even more bizarre things to the echoes. It's also a freebie.

Yep, I recall that the old fX:Chorus was pretty good. Fortunately, the plugin world abounds with cheap and free chorus effects. Here are a few alternatives: The bundled Sonitus Modulator can do chorus effects. The mode is labeled "Ensemble" rather than "chorus". Acon Digital Multiply is a free chorus effect, although it, too, is more of an ensemble effect. Vapor from Audio Damage has been superseded by a fancier version, but Vapor can still be downloaded - for free. Blue Cat Audio has a free chorus that may be the closest to the old fx:chorus in terms of controls. D16 Group's Syntorus isn't free but goes on sale periodically. It is a particularly deep and configurable chorus. Meldaproduction has a nice multiband chorus called MChorusMB, that's currently on sale for $29 SONAR came with an effects suite from Nomad Factory than included a useful chorus called BT Analog Chorus. This will only be available if you have a previous version of SONAR installed. Overloud has a basic chorus plugin called VKFX Chorus, which, iirc, was a freebie. If you've got fifty bucks, the ultimate chorus effect is UberMod from ValhallaDSP. Voxengo has a nice chorus that's currently on sale for $30. TAL-Chorus-LX from TAL Software is a freebie, an emulation of the chorus unit from the Roland Juno-60 synth.

My wife was also 9 years older than me (I've always preferred experienced women) and we lasted 40 years. I concur with your hypothesis.

Guilty, too. Mine is from when I was a young man of 63. All I'd have to do to bring it up to date is use Photoshop to turn the rest of my hair the same color as my beard in that photo.

I vaguely recall a long conversation about this, way back when. It had to do with compatibility with the largest number of synths, some of which specifically expect a note-on message with a velocity of zero. I know my Kurzweil works like that, and ignores note-off messages altogether. Dnote, does your piano let you adjust the volume of release samples? That might be the simplest workaround. I have several sampled instruments that offer that feature. However, I don't have any (software or hardware) that provide multiple velocity layers for release samples.

Tim, if that piece is indicative of your normal style, you're gonna definitely want to take a few days off from the world to explore Omnisphere. Check this ditty out. Two instances of Omnisphere with 8 patches in each. Most of the guitars and percussion are Kontakt, but Omnisphere's providing the human voices and one of the guitars ("Glorious Steel"). The sort of xylophone-sounding arp-ish bit near the end are lightbulbs ("Bass Buzz Lightbulbs") from Omnisphere. https://soundclick.com/r/s8joxc

90% of my projects over the past 10 years have at least one Omnisphere track in them. You're gonna have fun.

I genuinely thought the company was defunct, just keeping old products up for old times' sake. There was a time when their plugins were highly regarded, if a bit pricey. Their multiband compressor was ahead of its time and used to be a favorite. But then years went by without any new products or updates to the old ones. The fresh new look of this plugin suggests somebody has finally taken the reins to revive the brand. It looks like a fun effect, too. I won't be buying it, but it does look fun.

Here's Ian c. 2005, all grown up but still screaming, albeit an octave lower. Jon still frustrates the hell outa me to this day; even in my most caffeinated frenzy I cannot match his speed.

Here's probably the best live version, from the BBC in 1970. Epic. Not that you'd know from the bored expressions of the studio audience.

My favorite DP tune. Saw DP do this live in 1970, in Frankfurt, when they were promoting Deep Purple in Rock. We'd gotten pulled over by the Politzei for a broken taillight, and in a panic I ate 2.5 grams of Turkish plate. The night before we'd been to see a brand-new supergroup called Emerson Lake and Palmer, where I also got my first look at a Moog modular synth. It was a most memorable weekend.

If you rename Kontakt 6.2 to "Kontakt62.dll" and Kontakt 6.7 to "Kontakt67.dll" then Cakewalk should see them as separate things. However, they are both going to be identified as just "Kontakt" in the Insert Synth menu, making it impossible to tell one from the other when selecting within Cakewalk. However, the displayed name can be changed easily if you're comfortable using regedit. Just out of curiosity, what is it you need to do with two different minor revisions?

Neither here nor there, but my grandfather was a drummer in a silent movie theater. He did the sound fx in real time as the film played. They also had a piano player. Film scoring at its most rudimentary and seat-of-the-pants. I'd love to do something like that with modern synths, jamming along with a film. I'd guess that film scoring actually has its roots in live music performed along with stage plays, going back to ancient Greece. The first time I experienced that was at an avant-garde interpretation of Othello with a live band, in London in 1969. It was frickin' awesome. Since then, I've seen a number of shows in Las Vegas with live music or a mix of live and prerecorded tracks, and just love that stuff. Union rules in Vegas require that a certain percentage of the music be live. One of our forum members, Rain, would know something about that (his wife was a performer with Circe d'Soleil) and I'd love to hear his thoughts on it.

She just posted this background video today. Now, you may wonder "who cares about the (probably silly) plot line of The Claus Family 3?" Well, the composer does, of course. Each scene has a particular feel that the music has to support, and some characters have their own motif. This video also explains why you didn't see the choir in the first post - vocals were indeed recorded separately. In different studios in different countries (Macedonia and The Netherlands). It's common to use eastern European orchestras nowadays rather than their ultra-expensive counterparts in LA or London.

FabFilter Pro-Q3 and one (occasionally both) of these: Unfortunately, neither of these are available anymore. Yes, you can still buy FETpresser, but the version I use was the last rev that did not require a Pace driver.

You may also want to edit the vst inventory in the registry to rename some of the Kontakt entries to prevent confusion. Btw, I did not have to rename or move any DLLs to get them both to show up, because K7's file is named "Kontakt 7.dll" while K6 is named "Kontakt.dll". In all previous versions, the major version number has been part of the DLL filename, e.g. "Kontakt 4.dll". I actually have versions 4,5,6 and 7 all installed and happily coexisting. (The pre-K6 versions are under "Native Instruments GmbH", which is why they don't appear in the above screenshot.)

That's a symptom of an orphaned process, when a program hangs around in memory not doing anything because a previous instance didn't shut down properly. If you see an instance of Cakewalk in Task Manager but you're not actually running Cakewalk, kill that process and all should be well. If that doesn't work, a cold boot (Restart) will fix it. The reason for Cakewalk getting stuck like that usually comes down to a hang, and it'll often be the audio driver that's not responding, although it can also indicate a hardware problem such as a failing disk drive or bad RAM.

And has only been a full-time composer for about a decade. Now she has a staff of composers working for her. Before that she was a sample library developer at Cinesamples and interned for Hans Zimmer. Based on brief views of her upscale home and neighborhood in LA, she seems to be doing all right for herself. No, I am not a stalker. I've just watched all her videos.

Your comment made me think back on expensive purchases I've made that turned out to be good investments. Omnisphere definitely makes that list, but I'd have to place Kontakt above it. I'd include Zebra2 on the list because it was more expensive than most other non-sampled synths but ended up making the others unnecessary. Superior Drummer, Trillian and Keyscape have all earned their keep. But the top spot on that list would have to be SONAR. I chose it only because I'd used Cakewalk in the past when it was a DOS-based MIDI sequencer, and hoped that I might leverage that familiarity with SONAR.

I picked up the Luftrum 13 batch of Zebra2 libraries for $17.50. More arps in there than I'll ever want or need, but the pads are good. Omnisphere-class good. I intend to dissect them in detail to learn Zebra a little better.