bitflipper

Only part of that suspicion is true. Yes, if you are a keyboard player, a pro synth will feel better under the fingers than most low-priced MIDI controllers. There are, however, MIDI controllers out there that mechanically feel like a real piano. But if you're a hunt-and-peck kind of keyboard player, e.g. a guitarist who dabbles with keys, then there is no reason to spend more than a couple hundred bucks on a MIDI keyboard controller. Sound-wise, what you have on your computer's hard drive is likely to be as good as, or in many cases, far better. It's about storage limitations. The NS3 has just 2 GB, the Kronos has 60 GB, upgradable to 120 GB. I have individual Kontakt libraries that wouldn't fit into the Nord's entire memory. Some people actually do transfer things like Omnisphere patches into their stage synths, but when you do you only get between one and three velocity layers. Not everyone will agree with this, but IMO the only reason to invest in hardware synths of any kind is for live performance. And, being too old to attract groupies, the only reason to do live performance is to get out of the house once in a while.

Just ordered a 2-tier stand, so that I can continue to use the Kronos until I've had time to master the NS3. When I had a 2-tier stand in the past, I didn't like it because the top keyboard covered up the controls of the bottom keyboard. This new stand's supposed to be more flexible. Fingers crossed. If it sucks, Sweetwater will take it back. I don't know how keyboard players can stand floor wedges for monitoring. Most of the time, they're out in front and nearly inaudible due to being completely blocked by the keyboards. My (powered) monitor sits atop a speaker stand, just below ear level and off to one side. It's small but mighty, purportedly pushing 1KW. Hey, if you're gonna go deaf, you might as well enjoy pristine audio quality while you do it.

That's why I will never have a tattoo. Heck, I agonize over what shoes to buy. I can't imagine buying a pair of shoes that I'd have to wear for life.

Log in to celemony.com. Version 5.2 includes minor enhancements and fixes. If you're using iLok you'll require a new activation, which should already be in your iLok account. For the rest of us, it's a simple install.

Nah, Rick didn't have key splits. And, I have a wizard cape. Well, it's more of a Samurai cloak, but it has a sequin dragon on the back, so that says "wizard cape" to me. Coincidentally, Wakeman's primary instrument nowadays is the exact one I'm getting rid of. Could he know something I don't know? Probably, yes.

That was the first thing I thought of, too. However, if one of the vst3 paths was missing , that would affect vst3 effects, too. Not just instruments. The OP says vst3 fx work. That's what makes it a mystery.

First I had to cut out sugar to cure my diabetes. That worked and I've adapted to a low-sugar life. But now I have gallstones and have to cut out fat as well. That leaves just one macronutrient (protein) that I can eat. And AFAIK there's just one food that's nearly 100% protein: no-fat cottage cheese. Yum. I'll stir in some laxatives for when my guts turn to cement.

Well, that can't quite be accurate if he can't get ANY VST3 instruments to work. However, the best course of action is still to send Toontrack the dump. They will probably be able to diagnose the problem even if it isn't SD3's fault. Bad Mac, I hope you post back here after you've figured it out, as I'd be curious to know what the problem turned out to be. I checked dependencies for a handful of VST3 instruments and found none that weren't also dependencies of VST2 instruments. IOW, I couldn't find a single point of failure that would apply to ALL VST3 instruments and ONLY VST3 instruments. If you want a specific VST3 instrument that's known to work, but won't cost you anything to acquire, I'd suggest Spitfire LABS.

No joints needed 'round these parts. Just walking around while breathing will suffice.

Yeh, I could probably fly to Sweden and buy it there for the same money. Just like I could fly to Mexico for dental work and save money. I was actually lucky to find it in stock at Sweetwater. The case is on back order, though. Anything that arrives here by boat is a challenge. Supply chain something something. I try not to think about that. I am heavily invested in the color black. The last red thing I owned was a Vox Continental in 1967. Oh, and there was that red VW bus a decade later. Even my hair isn't red anymore.

I think the main perk we're getting is we don't have to pay for parking.

Just found out we've been booked to play the main stage at the Evergreen State Fair in August. And get this: we nailed down the coveted 11:00 AM slot - on a weekday!

Well, friends, today I took the plunge and ordered a Nord Stage 3 Compact. Five frickin' grand. To justify that I'm gonna have to keep gigging for the rest of my life. But I reckon $5k is still cheaper than another back surgery. While it doesn't have all the bells 'n whistles of my Kronos, it weighs a mere 25 lbs. in the bag, versus the Korg's 83 lbs. in the road case. This will allow me to attend the many jam sessions around town and thus help keep my chops up between gigs. I do in fact plan to "chuck the synth into the car, show up with a cable and plug into the PA", and thus prove Tezza's premise for this thread.

The only way to prevent this headache when building a new DAW is to save plugin presets in your old computer and copy them over. If your old computer is still up and running, whenever you have to finagle a plugin substitution just save presets on the old computer on a case-by-case basis. With very rare exceptions, the new version of a plugin will almost always be able to read presets from the previous version. The good news is that it's rarely a case of the new version being incompatible. I've only seen that happen a couple times. More likely, the new version has been installed in a different path, or (less likely, but not unheard of) the new plugin has a different name than the old one. Using VST3 won't completely eliminate such problems, but it can mitigate them due to enforced consistency for install locations.

Here's an example of a poorly-designed plugin. It's a screenshot I made for my 2018 review of DDMF's Plugin Doctor. Two points: 1. You won't see this kind of result from a quality fx plugin. This is a particularly awful one. 2. Even though visually there is obvious aliasing, it's debatable whether reducing it via oversampling would make an audible difference, because the aliased frequencies are 70dB below the main signal. Even in this extreme example, you might not even notice it. In fact, this dreadful plugin is widely used and has fans who swear by it.

I don't want to seem argumentative, Craig, as you've done a fine job of illustrating a case where oversampling offers a clearly audible difference. However, it's an edge case. We have to be careful generalizing from edge cases, lest beginners read more into them than is justified. This, I think, is the hole many users step into: that because oversampling can make a difference in unusual circumstances, it must therefore be useful or even necessary much of the time. This fundamental misunderstanding, I believe, is the genesis of hyperbolic phrases such as "game changing". In the few instances where I have encountered aliasing from internal processes, it's been a poorly-designed processor or synth. Find me a patch in Omnisphere that benefits from oversampling, and I will immediately concede your point without reservation.

CTL-Z works fine for me.

So I could have been watching Futurama and King of the Hill in Ultra High Definition?!? Damn. Maybe they wouldn't look so cartoony.

Well, we ended up having to cancel last night's gig anyway. Our singer came down with a 103.5 fever on Saturday. It wasn't COVID though. She's a farmer, so it was probably some exotic bug you can only get from goats or something.

Yes, I do. My strategy is to not explicitly use it, not Cakewalk's feature nor any plugin's built-in oversampling option. An exception could occur someday, but it hasn't yet. Granted, this strategy works for me because I rarely put myself into a situation where oversampling would be necessary. I realize that's not the case for everyone. Some people like hard clippers, for example. I don't. Some use a fast-attack compressor on bass for distortion. I don't. Some like extreme limiting and brick-shaped waveforms. I don't. But that's just me. Everyone's entitled to their own preferences. As for EQ cramping, I do not have any EQs that are subject to cramping, because it's not 2003 anymore.

5 out of 6 Russian Roulette players think that game is perfectly safe. Almost everyone I know who's had it merely experienced an unpleasant few days and then got over it. That is the case with my granddaughter, who's returned to high school today. But I also know people who have died from it. I have a relative currently in the hospital with it, who has no immune system due to chemotherapy. For him, 5 of the 6 slots have live bullets in them.

Paul Allen is a musician, and $65M is pocket change to him. It could be as simple as that. Wouldn't you donate some pocket change to help a developer you appreciated? I happily paid for SONAR for years. I'd happily pay for CbB, too, although I think Craig's analysis is correct. Then again, I'd probably have been content to keep using SONAR 8.5 forever. IMO everything that's come along since has been frosting on the cake.

So my granddaughter, who lives with me, has COVID and has been symptomatic since Friday. No one else in the house has symptoms, and we all tested negative with home tests. We're all taking precautions, with my granddaughter pretty much staying in her room. And of course I'm in my usual state of isolation out in the garage - all I need is a couch here and I'd almost never have to leave (but I can't have a couch because it'd be too tight for band rehearsals). Now the band is arguing over whether or not to cancel Saturday's gig. We've cancelled two this year, but in those cases band members were positive for COVID so it was an easy call. So far 3 of the 6 of us have had COVID. We decided that if I test negative again Thursday and Friday that we'll go ahead with the date. I can't get proper lab test results before the weekend, so we have to trust the home test kits. I don't want to cancel because this is a frequent venue for us, audiences are great, and it's my kind of hours: 8:00 - 10:00. I've heard that the home tests are unreliable, but I don't know if that's because they suck or that many users just can't follow instructions. What's been your experience with them?

So, so true. I feel disconnected from the keys, as if I'm miming a performance in a bad movie. OTOH, playing organ on piano keys is literally painful. That's why I used two instruments for years: one with weighted "hammer action", one with waterfall keys. The Kronos attempts a compromise between the two, with progressive weighting to feel more piano-like but rounded edges for organ glissandos.

I actually tried that for a while. Mainly, I wanted a lighter-touch keyboard for organ so the plan was to run VB3 on a laptop and use my 49-key Axiom controller. Once I got that set up, I thought it would be super cool to also have Omnisphere, Keyscape and Kontakt available. And it was, sonically-speaking. Ergonomically, not so much. Then one night I bumped the laptop and sent it crashing to the floor. It was OK, but I realized that depending on a laptop had its own perils, as Mark noted above. One thing I love about the Kronos is the 8" color touchscreen. Nobody else has that. I can create thousands of programs, e.g. a set list for a specific gig, or put my favorite pianos on one screen, or group programs for songs that use multiple patches. The Kronos is incredibly full-featured. It's 9 synths in 1. Got its own drum machine. Dozens of effects. Heck, it's a frickin' DAW, if you want it to be. Oh well, maybe it's true that you can't have it all. Or if you insist on having it all, you'd better have a strong back. Or a road crew.