John Bradley

No, because the FX bin can occur either before or after the ProChannel (and vice-versa) in the signal flow. The gain knob is higher up on the strip because it always first in the chain, adjusting the level of the input signal (either a soft synth or a recorded audio clip) before the signal hits the PC, the FX, or anything else in the chain. Important if the PC/FX have a 'sweet spot' that you need to hit, level-wise.

Don't know VLC or Dopamine, but they aren't playing back in mono, are they? (Or, alternatively, are you sure your export isn't inadvertently being done in mono?) Because it's not too difficult to accidentally produce a mix that sounds like crap - or at least shockingly different - in mono due to phasing, cancellation, or what-have-you. Especially if you didn't test your mix out in mono within Cakewalk.

Agree about Iris. It's not an everyday workhorse by any stretch of the imagination, but if you're into sound design or just need something weird that doesn't sound like the normal subtractive-analog, fm, or wavetable synths, it's in the no-brainer category (for me) at $10.

Success depends greatly on what you throw at it. Sparse mixes (also stems or 'isolated' tracks if you can get them) or complete mixes with a very prominent beat work well. Dense "wall of sound" tracks (e.g. Springsteen's Born To Run), not so much.

Pretty sure that relies on Melodyne (seem to recall it was introduced when SPLAT started bundling in Melodyne Essential or whatever). As such, it's almost certainly hit or miss. I mean, it'll generate a tempo map of some sort, but not necessarily one that you'd want! I generally give Melodyne a shot at it, by loading up the wav in Melodyne 4 Studio (standalone), trying the various tempo detection algorithms and seeing if it can grok the song reasonably. It manages to do so about 75% of the time, I'd say. If so, I Export a Tempo Map (as a MIDI file) and load that into CW. When it fails, I manually generate a tempo map by turning on the vertical lines at quarter note intervals in Track View, aligning a good solid '1' somewhere, and inserting tempo changes every couple of bars as necessary to correct for drift. Fun, it ain't. Never tried @marled's AudioSnap method. Have to give that a shot next time Melodyne fails me.

Yeah, I'm familiar with the concept of a USB flash drive. That's the thing that most of the major companies don't require you to carry around with you wherever you go. It's also the thing that can easily get lost, wander off, or simply die of its own accord (being made of the finest Chinesium), potentially taking your licenses with it. The good companies let you install and run their crap on 2, 5, or more computers. Yes, you're only licensed to run their software on a single machine at any given moment -- which is fine, most of us are rarely ever in two places simultaneously -- but wherever you go it's there, ready to be used. I mean, I suppose I should be thankful for small favors. It's probably only a matter of time until Waves goes to an irritating two-factor-authentication system like everything else. (Heavily 'encouraged' by Apple & Google, no doubt. Remember when you could use a website or your email without needing to own and carry a freakin' smartphone wherever you go? All part and parcel of the grand Make All The Things Suck strategy so beloved by our tech overlords.)

Indeed. I bought my first (and last) Wave plugins a few months ago. I was shocked that I could only install them on one of the two computers I use. I've got collections from Arturia, iZotope, IK, and lots of one-offs from various vendors large and small and had never run into a "you can install this on a single computer, and that's it" situation.

QuickFontCache.dll is a Windows system library that lots of things allegedly depend upon. This site has a variety of solutions, several of them terrible. (You couldn't pay me enough to download a Windows system file from any place but Microsoft! To say that's asking for trouble is an understatement.) However, their method #3 ("Fix QuickFontCache.dll missing error with System File Checker (SFC)") suggestion is perfectly safe, as that will redownload any missing or corrupted system files from Microsoft. Too long to copy/paste here, go read about it at the link. Before you do any of that, it might be worthwhile to run a full system scan with Windows Security, as well as a Windows Defender Offline scan. VSTs and DLLs just disappearing from your system could be a sign of some virus activity. It's certainly not a good thing! It also wouldn't hurt to check the Windows 'System' log (in Computer Management, under Event Viewer) and look for signs of a failing harddrive/ssd. And it might also be worth doing a chkdsk /f /r on the C drive to find and fix any errors that might be present. Have fun. 😬

Thanks for the heads-up on that. Had downloaded the demos a while ago, but never got around to playing with them. Watched "Multiplier's" walkthru of SM2 and instantly pulled the trigger on the set. Been looking for the One True 'Analog' Synth that can do it all, and this is what, 1/7th the price of UVI Falcon? (Sure Falcon does more, but it's a more I don't especially need/want, certainly not at that price.) Love the Arturia Collection (at least the older, more useful entries: Jupiter, Mini, Prophet, etc.) and use them all the time, but it's annoying getting halfway into building a patch only to remember "oh right, this synth can't do that thing..."

Same here. BREVERB (CW) is the only reverb I use. I have a few others (the convolution verb that came with SPLAT at some point, maybe there's a verb in the Melda free bundle, there may or may not be reverbs in the Sonitus and BlueTube stuff). Don't know; I only use the one. Would love to get the full version just for completeness, but not at their normal prices, and not even at $99. Ultimately, I don't think there's anything I'm really missing, reverb-wise, that I'd use. Infinite space reverbs ala Zynaptic Wormhole might be fun to dick around with, but not something that'd ever be used in the tracks I make. Besides, I've already got the freebies from Valhalla (Space Modulator, Freq Echo, and Super Massive) which do that kind of thing. Might eventually pick up Valhalla VintageVerb, Room and/or Plate. At $50 each, they're in the "I'm bored, let's buy a new toy" category. A $179 VST is not. Also, the BREVERB UI (at least in the slightly lobotomized CW edition) leaves something to be desired to my mind. Lot of wasted space, would prefer to have all the controls visible at once, rather than buried in tabs, etc.

Ashes to Ashes Very early '80s (September 1980). Not as 'fun' as some of my previous offerings, but definitely one of those "songs nobody covers". Possibly for good reason. Recorded this one 4 years ago in SPLAT, with fewer toys than I have now. Went back in and gave it a bit of a once-over with my current 'stuff'. --- Drums: Session Drummer 3. Running 5 outputs (kick, snare, hat, toms, cymbals). Added a common "drum verb" on each, as well as a "drum comp" send on the kick/snare/toms with a BOZ Manic Compressor sitting on that aux to do the NYC big drum sound thing. An Ozone 8 Maximizer on the drum bus. Bass: Rapture Pro using some preset I built. Running into ProChannel EQ/Comp/Tube and then into a Blue Cat Axiom for bass amp/cab emulation, and a BREVERB for a bit of room verb ("Drums up Front") Percussion: Two instances of Rapture Pro. One does the shaker that runs through most of the song, the other adds a variety of random percussion sounds during the two verses. ("Do you remember a guy that's been...") Synths: Opening hook is an Arturia Piano running through a Cakewalk Multivoice Chorus/Flanger (told you this was an old recording - I can barely read the UI on the thing at this point!) and a long BREVERB plate (based on "Wide Open Chords"). When the verse comes in an Arturia Wurly provides a quarter-note chord rhythm. It's very quiet, but if you look for it you can hear it peek out in between lines. An Arturia Solina enters at the prechorus ("The shrieking of nothing is killing...") for some period-correct stringage. During the outro, 3 additional synths join in, along with the intro Piano. There's an Arturia SEM doing a low brass drone, an Arturia Jup-8 doing the same 3-note thing as the SEM, but up a couple of octaves. Finally, there's an Arturia Prophet (probably my favorite of their recreations) doing the high outro lead. The chorus & delay is done in-synth, with a BREVERB added afterwards. Guitars: Two of them, panned l/r. On the left is a moderately crunchy thing doing the weenie-weenie-weenie things during the intro. On the right is a mostly-clean chorused sound doing answering stabs. Both done using BIAS FX. Soloed, don't care for either's sound, but in the mix they're fine. Both done on the Strat I've had since I was 21... I've got 20+ guitars hanging around the house and I only ever play one of them. Sound familiar? Just as an aside, I love love love the Ab - Adim transition that ends the verse and leads into the prechorus. ("Sordid details following.") That's just super tasty. There's also a 'sitar' that comes in during the choruses, played on this first-gen Line 6 Variax I got in either the late '90s or the early 2000s. I almost never use the thing: can get any guitar sound I need from the strat, and I have a real acoustic for acousticy things, but it does do a passable sitar. Vocals: The lead vocal is single tracked, with some ProChannel stuff (comp, eq, tube) running into a BT DeEsser, a VX-64 doing some more de-essing and a bit of doubling, and a BREVERB plate ("Neutral Vox Space"). Backing Vocals: There's a second voice that doubles part of the verse ("They got a message from the action man") and diverges for some 2-part harmony in the chorus ("strung out in heaven's high..."). A third voice comes in for the lo-fi spoken bits in the prechoruses ("The shrieking of nothing"). Most of the effect is just the ProChannel EQ (HP filter 18db/oct at 300Hz, LP filter 12db/oct at 2.8kHz) plus some Tube distortion, a BT Tempo Delay and some BREVERB. A fourth voice comes in to do the low note in the outro repeat ("My mama said, to get things done...") Melodyne Studio 4 to at least partially make up for the severe lack of a iconic British pop stars hanging around in my bedroom. Added a GW MixCentric and Ozone 8 on the master to add a little bit of 'magic' and loud, respectively. I don't know exactly what the MixCentric is doing, but I like it in small amounts (3-4 leds lit on the big knob).

Thanks, glad you liked it. I'm always interested in learning what particular collection of tools people used on their creations, given the myriad choices available. Least I can do to offer up same. Also, I consider the 'liner notes' the equivalent of the back of the cereal box. Something to read while waiting for "the next bit" to roll around in the songs. Given that I'm shooting for near-identical covers as an engineering exercise, as opposed to doing my own personal interepretations, there shouldn't be anything terribly unexpected or attention-grabbing in any of my tracks. Certainly not the intention, at any rate!

"It's not good enough that you're giving it away for free. Give it away for free the way I demand it be done!" I say this as someone who wrote a (free) thing forever ago that remains pointedly not Open Source. There's lots of things that are free that aren't Open Source, and only some of them are overtly evil and up to no good. * Use it or don't. * As with all human endeavors, there's no shortage of evil among the Open Source community, as well.

YouTube has made it painfully clear that neither the viewers nor the content creators are the customers, as they go out of their way to make the user experience worse for both. * I'm still annoyed that they removed the ability to organize your subscribed channels into groups (e.g. videogames, music stuff, woodworking, etc.) which is (and was) vital when you have 200+ subscriptions. * Then again, as they've never turned a profit, and reliably lose $1B/year perhaps customers aren't exactly their goal.

Thanks guys, glad you liked it! FWIW, after posting it on Sunday it racked up a whopping 20 listens in the first 4 days, and then suddenly another 44 listens so far today. Inexplicable. Clearly I should post tracks on Thursdays! I have never heard that song (or even the name of the band) before, so unlikely. Are you in the UK? I'm in the States and we definitely got a different subset of '80s pop pushed at us via movies and MTV. For example, I believe "Blue Monday" was a hit over there; I never heard it (nor did anybody I know) until I saw a YouTube video of Orkestra Obsolete doing a cover of the song on '30s instruments. And I think I only saw that because Sonic State mentioned it.

In the top-level menu: Edit | Select | From=Now and Edit | Select | Thru=End There are also keyboard shortcuts for those (and two others: From=Start and Thru=Now), but good luck remembering them unless you use them frequently.

Same thing somewhat applies (minus the feedback issues) when playing through headphones. Put the guitar louder than you'd want in the phones and then play with a lighter touch. You'll get more careful about unwanted strings sounding, as you're more likely to hear them while you're playing, rather than noticing them after the fact when you listen to the most recent take. Maybe. It's worth a shot, at any rate.

Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) has awesome tone, and he plays .007 - .038 strings. Obviously, he has a very light touch.

The trick to great tone (and out of necessity, great control) is to play with the amp set to the 'sweet spot' (where it stops getting louder, and just gets dirtier and more compressed, and not in a good way). This is almost certainly going to be louder than you'd want to be hearing; play with a very light touch. Gives you an opportunity to work on dynamics, dig in for more crunch on certain notes, etc. When the beast is constantly on the edge of feeding back or running away from you, you learn quickly to mute everything that you don't want sounding. You don't even need to think about it, as self-preservation is a powerful motivator. Play at lower (amp) volumes and having the guitar fully under control becomes less of an issue, as it's not going to start feeding back etc. Also, when playing at quieter (amp) volumes, you're not going to learrn dynamic control nearly as much. The tendancy is to just bash the thing as hard as you want at all times. Can't do that when the amp is threatening to kill you with sound pressure.

Lies Very '80s, I think you'll agree. Recorded this one 4 years ago, using whatever version of SPLAT we had at the time, and a different (and minimal) set of toys compared to what I have now. (Thanks Larry!) Could have remixed/mastered it using current tech, but I don't think it needs it. Gets the job done. BTW, if I could interest a few more of you to take a gander at last week's upload Enter Sandman, please do. You know how "a mix is never finished, it's surrendered"? That's one that I think I nailed, and can't think of a thing I'd change. Opinions may vary, obviously. --- Drums: Session Drummer 3, as always (more or less). Running 5 outputs (kick, snare, hat, toms, cymbals) with different ProChannel-foo on each, and individual BREVERBs on the kick, snare, and toms. No NYC Parallel Compression, no common reverb send... shameful! Bass: OP-X Pro II which I bought forever ago and still use in productions today. Great set of '80s presets and it sounds lovely. Cryptic-as-hell. I can never remember how to use the thing. Lots of more-than-2-state buttons labelled with obtuse three-letter-acronyms. No tooltips. Percussion: Rapture Pro doing the loud timbale sounds, a cowbell that runs through most of the song, and some congas that enter on verse 3, after the intro refrain. Synths: A pair of OP-X Pro IIs playing the same 2-note harmonies during the intro, the intro refrain, and the outro choruses, but with different patches. One's warmer, the other's brighter. An Arturia Juno plays the stabby synth that enters at verse1 and continues through most of the song. Native Instruments FM8 doing the chimey 'Japan' riff. And finally, another Rapture Pro doing something sitar-y for the 'Egypt' riff. Not that sitars are a stereotypical 'Egyptian' instrument, but there you go. Guitars: none. '80s Status: exceedingly. Vocals: The lead vocal is single tracked, with some ProChannel stuff (comp, eq, tube) running into a VX-64 doing de-essing, a bit of doubling, and an 8th-triplet delay. A BREVERB follows, for some soggy hall-osity. Backing Vocals: A single voice doubles the third line of each verse, an octave up. Three voice harmony occurs doing the choruses: one doubling the lead, one an octave up, and doing a parallel 6th (funky!) relative to the other two. A fourth voice comes in to double the "They gonna get you" bits during the a'capella chorus. No FX to speak of beyond ProChannel stuff (comp, tube, eq) on each, and a BREVERB on the bvox bus. Melodyne Studio 4 beating the vocal into some semblance of keyness. No Ozone for me back then, so there's an FX Chain "A Bit Louder" doing a couple db of limiting on the master.

<enthusiastic agreement intensifies>

Neat. I don't usually have the freeze button visible, so I never would have tried that. Odd that I can't select multiple tracks and freeze more than one at a time via the right-click menu. Then again, no one's every accused Cakewalk of being the Most Consistent Thing Ever.

Is there a way to Freeze more than one track/instrument at a time? Haven't found one. As it can take a while to freeze each track, it'd be nice to be able to select several, hit 'freeze track(s)' and wander off to get more coffee.

Let us know how it goes!

Yeah, I'm leaning towards Audient as well. Though I wish they'd make version of the ID4 with two XLRs. Even though I'm just going to set it and forget it - I connect all my inputs to a Mackie 1202 (great metering) and connect its outputs to the 1st gen Scarlett 2i2 I'm currently using - I'm not a fan of the EVO's single knob with many different 'modes' design. That said, I'll probably just get the EVO. It's $70 cheaper ($129 vs $199), has that right connectivity, and has the great advantage of actually existing, compared to some theoretical ID4-with-two-XLRs.