mettelus

I tend to only associate them anymore for the references/usage in the movie "Role Models." They got used as an underlying theme many times in that movie, and since it was a comedy, they fit in rather well.

Many VSTis also have MIDI-through (or even MIDI-outs that pass things like arpeggios) capability so a virtual instrument can also pass MIDI as an output. This can lead to very complex routing schemes (and also potential confusion of what is going where with older projects). As you work with more complex routings, it will also be helpful to take notes on specifics because of this so that you can minimize the time it takes to get re-acquainted with older projects later on. There are also plugins that can assist with layering instruments to make things visually simpler, but a lot of the routing starts with the use of MIDI channels to keep MIDI information "in its own lane," so to speak. When you have an input set to "Omni" (the default) is what will often trip up new folks because that instrument will then play all MIDI it is receiving, and it is not always clear as to where the data is coming from.

When it goes on sale, yes. I last upgraded Samplitude Pro Suite on v5 because it was the same price as the SL Pro upgrade at that time and had all of the extra goodies. Unfortunately, in my case, the only thing that has changed between v5 and v8 is the version of Samplitude (although the GUI got a massive overhaul), newer version of SF Pro (and never the current one) and SL Pro... IIRC all of the other content is identical, and I do not use Samplitude. Again, this is different for each person on a case-by-case basis, but the Samplitude Pro Suite (when on sale) is often the cheapest alternative to onboarding into SpectraLayers Pro (current version).

Yes, Resolve is on v18 now. The free version does not allow for the use of hardware acceleration (only Studio will), but both support H.265. It is also worth noting to new users that the Studio version is a one-time $300 upgrade, rather than an upgrade each version. However, it is highly recommended that you know the free version well and will actually use the Studio features before ever considering that upgrade. The Studio version has all of the bells and whistles which go far beyond what a normal user would ever use, but is also a significant bang-for-the-buck deal over the Adobe Premiere Pro/Mocha combo ($300 once for DaVinci Resolve Studio versus roughly $600/year for Adobe Premiere Pro/Mocha).

+1, there are a lot of basic editors that have the DAW-like workflow to them. Even the Corel HumbleBundle is still alive (all current versions), which includes PaintShop Pro and AfterShot Pro that you may find useful for the picture work you want to do. All of the brushes in that bundle are for Particle Shop (plugin for PSP) or Painter (which is included for the top tier). Basically any editor with multiple tracks available will do what you are asking (which most have these days). If you do buy that one, spend the extra $0.51 to get Painter, since that is the most expensive software in that bundle. While DaVinci Resolve (free) will do just about anything, I am always hesitant to recommend that to anyone new. You will spend a lot of time just learning the GUI, but if you invest that time, it is an incredibly capable program. It even asks you on install what workspace layout you prefer, and "like Adobe Premiere Pro" is one of the options. For someone new that can be overwhelming.

I didn't even realize these existed, but saw a news article today that made me look this first one up. One reporter said they often get 30 or 60 second commercial snippets during the holidays, but tend to get more views from people digging for the full shorts. Apparently Chevy teamed up with the Alzheimer's Association this year, and it is rather impressive... even more so since they don't make anything deliberate regarding the vehicle, more the nostalgic triggers from it. Very, very well done. After I found that one, there were references to another from 2021 that I had never seen either (sheesh). I am not sure where they were running the snippets, but I actually had to go digging to find this one. I recognized the car right away because my dad used to drive us kids around in one 40 years ago (had to find the video by looking for the car!). Never underestimate the power of nostalgia and its effect on people. There have been other videos posted over the years on the triggers that help with memory (music being a huge one), but I found that first video to be on the mark as a "commercial" for the holidays.

Correct. The "One" version is the free version and has limited capabilities and no layer separation at all. The MAGIX Suite offers can certainly be the cheaper upgrade to SpectraLayers Pro (especially if you do not own any of the other goodies in that Suite). YMMV, but if you are not upgrading from the very last version (SL Pro 9), the other offers from MAGIX are worth looking at, especially if you are an outright "first-time buyer"... it will probably be the cheapest path.

Pretty much. Once a key is selected you can select/deselect notes from the entire scale (with a mouse), but once the transport is in motion that is not an option, and changing the key itself is a no go at that point. While you could sort of get around this with chopping a song into sections and/or creating a custom controller linkage to it, it would still be incredibly clunky. There is a lot of functionality embedded in many DAWs that would allow more refinement that Scaler EQ cannot take advantage of (yet), so the advantage of it is not significant over other methods already available.

That is just amazingly small... nothing but respect for you! I have far less patience when working on tiny things, so have to take a break a come back often. I was doing auto work this summer and got into a couple situations where the access to things was an inch or less and just kept thinking "Seriously? You designed a clearance that only a toddler can access??"

There is a utility in this thread from the old forums called "Projectscope" that would be worth testing on your cwp files. I would verify your theory that all audio you are using is nested (in the Project/Audio subfolder). It is very possible that some of the referenced audio is not nested, so when you renamed that folder the pointers broke. If those pointers are truly absolute and not relative, then renaming the folder could break them (I have not seen this before), but @azslow3 would be a better person to answer this as he knows the cwp file structure better.

I forgot to follow up on this. PB came back saying that they weren't sure of dynamic keyswitches and referred me to their forum. This thread has basically what I had asked about: "As for scale switching, we are looking at solutions for this as a priority. We have conceived ‘link’ buttons you can assign keys and scales to and automate between but receiving midi input is also on the cards but may require further work." In addition to my request (to better follow chord progressions or melody lines), this one specifically asked about key changes, which is even more critical. Right now, Scaler EQ cannot address either dynamically on its own.

Unfortunately, once you publish something it enters the public domain, so rights diminish dramatically. If anyone can open something up to look at it, there is little control on what they are actually doing with it. Even just being in public means you can be photographed (paparazzi make a living off this), so the only real legal threshold that can be crossed is when it enters into the realm of "stalking." A lot of what you mention has actually been around for years, well before "AI" entered the picture, AI just made it easier to assemble and correlate data into information. One of the most surveilled locations on Earth went so far as to improve facial recognition to identify people "even wearing masks" during the pandemic. There are complex algorithms already in place that go far beyond just what someone looks like, and much of it centers on what people willing publish to social media. In the digital world, anything and everything published is permanent record and will survive long after we are all dead.

+1, why discipline in the Deals forum helps (good luck with that). Eventually there will come a time when you realize how few FX are really required to produce, then realize you have multiple FX that do the same things. Once focus shifts to production, you will gravitate to certain ones that you will learn in and out, then begin only looking for things to fill gaps you have.

A simple statistic is that roughly 7% of the world population is born/dies in 5 years, so the number of new users that onboarded with CbB has some "number" associated with it. I have worked with a few folks who fall into this exact category, so have advised them on how to safeguard their work going forward. I even went so far as to refer one to the original post I had made regarding this a few months ago and they came back with "I found some of those replies arrogant." I found the use of the word "arrogant" truly stunning from a new user, and even though I defended one of the people in question, that was a one-off situation out of courtesy and will not happen again. I have simply advised people not to get excited for now, safeguard your work, wait for what really happens, then adjust accordingly. Many people are also not jacked into the internet (i.e., pandemic onboardees), so there is another subset that won't even know about this until they think to re-open a project in a couple years. I hope when they do that they are not met with an unpleasant surprise.

+1, in other words, the "Save As..." trick only works for the cwp that is currently open... if the project folder has numerous cwp files in it, each cwp file would need a "Save As..." cycle done to preserve the audio required by all of them.

Quick follow up... that nut is actually in a slot (glued on 3 edges) versus mine which can just be knocked off the end of the fret board. This guy does a quick walk through of knocking that out in the first 40 seconds, but be SURE to score the edges of where the glue and nut meet first (he does mention this after he knocks it out!). Superglue sheers very easily, and will default to the weakest point (why scoring the glue is important). You may get lucky with a replacement nut like he did, but check that slot to see if the lower edge is square or curved (why the replacement nut he got has a tab on the bottom middle, for a square groove). You might want to verify that groove before ordering a new one. Verifying the nut height is a series of checking the nut (unglued) versus the two E strings under tension to the first fret until it is verified, then glue it in (not sure why he glued it in before checking height... the height at the first fret is most critical here). Tusq nuts are also good alternatives for replacement as they are graphite and self-lubricating.

Hey @Grem, The final action setup requires several iterations of loosening/tightening the strings (to get access to the nut/frets), so be gentle with cycling them on the tuners. Mine came with cheap 9s and the high E finally gave out just as I was finishing things up, then I put a real set of 10s on it to finish the job. Start with the neck perfectly straight (no relief for the first setup parts), this will allow you to adjust the nut, then bridge, and also allow you to see if any touchup fret dressing is required as you go. With the neck straight (before you strung it), if that nut is slotted improperly, too low, or the wrong radius, you will need to replace it. Mine was plastic and too high but slotted properly, so I actually kept it and adjusted the height on it. A pre-slotted bone replacement nut would be the ideal choice to fix that if you have no confidence in the nut on it now (be sure the radius matches the board). You will still need to adjust height on a new nut (and I would also check the distance from the first fret the the nut edge when out just to make sure). You want the height of each string at the bridge to be "close" to final before replacing the nut and setting height. I put a quick write up how to file down the new nut in my other thread (is actually shaving off the bottom edge of the nut), but can walk you through this in a Zoom call as well if you want (is actually easier than typing). Any removal of superglue from the old nut, be sure to put protective tape on the side you are not addressing (either the head stock, or fret board end) so that you just make it smooth without gouging the other while working. Once the nut issue is addressed, that gives you the proper "pivot point" for all of the strings at the nut to address the bridge. I am not sure what is specifically wrong with yours(?), but mine was pot metal, and I only needed to adjust it a few times before the stress started showing (plus I wanted rollers versus knife edges on the bridge). As long as you can adjust each string for height and intonation (and the springs are good), yours may be usable but is definitely your call. During this phase you want to do height/intonation, then play the board to find fret buzzes (every note on every string). I ended up doing a final fret dress during this phase (very gently with a block and 600 grit sandpaper), unstrung (well, no tension), and with the neck still perfectly straight unstrung. That will never be quite perfect, but you want as little as possible fret buzz and are particularly keen on if a fret above where you are playing actually frets above where your finger is. Final tension can test with roughly 1/4 turn relief on the truss rod for 10s (or about 1/2 turn for 9s)... from there you should have zero buzz at all and can make final height/intonation corrections. In my case this is where my high E said, "I am not playing your game anymore," and quit, so I put a set of 10s on it. Before addressing the bridge, definitely resolve the nut issue first (and this will also let you properly assess the bridge). Again, if that nut is slotted improperly, too low, or the wrong radius, I would start with ordering a replacement bone nut and can walk you through that step when you get it if you want. Even with mine, the nut was way wrong (but usable), and my bridge was pot metal, so I find neither of those issues with yours surprising.

Pretty awesome! I tend to get antsy to play things, so my main has about 20 coats on the face, but only 6 on the back and 2 on the edges! That was over a decade ago and I was thinking, "Meh, I can always add more to those areas easily later" but never felt a need to. I have noticed that kits are cheaper in different places, but I would highly recommend StewMac for a couple reasons if anyone tries out a kit... 1) they inspect it and rate the vendors they use accordingly, and 2) if there is a flawed part they replace it for free. StewMac has a reputation to uphold, the vendors often do not. I have to admit the kit was a surprisingly fun buy for me. "Tigger" tends to be the guitar I grab first... I never cared about having a LP, but figured the kit would give me one, and since I made it from scratch it is easily the second most favorite for me now. Even after stints of playing it and thinking, "I REALLY like this a LOT," I pick up my main that I did all of the mechanical/electrical work on (has also been PLEK'd) and suddenly feel like I am playing the epitome of what a guitar should be. Now with the laser I am starting to get those thoughts of engraving my main, although I swore I would never tear it apart again (all of the solder connections are actually shrink wrapped in it)... can wait on that one anyway... it is like getting a tattoo... can only do it once, so it better be GOOD. People also tend to swipe things that are pretty/shiny, and no one would think to steal it "as is" because it looks as mundane as you can get.

The software that comes with the laser is pretty rudimentary, and although it will use layers, it is incredibly clunky so cannot edit well in it at all. I used Corel's PaintShop Pro 2023 (from the recent HumbleBundle) to do the layers. The base layer was actually a scan of a template I made of the head stock itself and scanned it in. This allowed the apples to apples scan size/print size to be accurate. I actually mounted that base template to the head stock (was just a manila folder) so I could trace the washers as well. Then each layer I added in PaintShop was adjusted to use the available space. The laser wants to swing the entire area (whether there is content or not) for framing, so I had to crop the entire project in PaintShop so the laser head wouldn't hit the nut (the head is about 1.5" square), then exported each layer as its own png file. The laser itself uses relative reference to the initial placement on the workspace, so is simple to import all png files perfectly aligned to the upper left corner of the workspace so that they all mate perfectly. I actually made 7 passes on the picture. I first had to get through the original finish; but then using low power didn't get the contrast I wanted, so I edited that png to get a high contrast version and ran that to get the black (was so high contrast that only the black was done in that pass). As long as the piece is never moved, this will get exact placement on repeats. I considered that the most important feature of the laser, the 100% repeatability on passes. The real funny thing for me is that I had been working on that logo a while (over months) to get it as good as possible (and kept making it bigger and increasing dpi as I did), but when I looked at the actual print size it was 10" wide!! I was trying to get it "pixel perfect" but once I resized it to actual print size it was more than fine. I have been noodling initial placement options for the laser, and it seems the best path may be to use a thinner paper (tracing paper) on the piece and use a layer with the laser that has only 4 dots at the corners to check alignment. The power can be set low enough to just score the paper to check the alignment to the piece. Unfortunately the head stock has no corners, but a 6 dot reference to the center points of the tuning peg holes might have done the trick. The "Framing" option with the laser uses a crosshair which can be off by a couple mils just due to its width, and when it cycles the work area, it goes so fast through the other three corners that you cannot really determine placement. If it actually prints dots as it goes, that makes the task easier. While this unto itself may not be earth-shattering, it would create a "shadow copy" effect of +/- a few mils.

The fastest way to clean up an audio folder is to open a cwp, then "Save As..." to a new folder and check the "copy audio files with project option." That will copy only the audio in use (necessary) for that specific cwp. Bear in mind that it also only works on that specific cwp file, so if you have multiple cwp files in the same folder, you will need to repeat that for each cwp you intend to keep. You can try that out and compare the new folder versus the old one. There are a lot of processes which create bounces, so intense editing can fill up the project audio folder quickly. I had someone send me a 100MB wave file with a bounce (319) on the end, and just though to myself, "Damn, I wonder if that project audio folder is 30GB??"

AFAIK, the pointer is relative to where the audio is located in relation to the cwp file location, so if the audio is in the project folder itself (nested), renaming that project folder will not affect them. However, if you rename any part of the audio folder's location if it is not nested under the cwp file (i.e., the audio is actually on another drive), that pointer is no longer valid since the path no longer exists when you rename any portion of the audio path. Two ways to rectify this: (Highly preferred) Do a "Save As..." of a project you want to move (or rename) and copy audio files with the project. This is also a nice cleanup technique since only audio in use by that cwp will be copied to the the new Project/Audio folder. There was a default search engine when opening projects missing audio to "locate the missing files" but I forget it it can be launched manually. That will re-assign the pointers, but again, if you rename that audio path, you can easily break them again.

Looking REAL good! How many coats of Tru Oil did you end up using? I am eager to see the end result! I remember when you were worrying about all of the hurdles with a kit build, but you got passed that! 😁It is amazing how much more valuable/precious things are when you put work into them. Yeah, I have to remind myself of that reality fairly often. We are always our own worst critics, usually because we know all of the details no one else would even notice half the time.

Thank you! The issue is rather slight, but it was a lesson learned. Another reason epoxy is a bad choice is that the carbon from the laser work chemically reacts with it (dramatically accelerating cure time and creating bubbles as it does)... unfortunately the only way to pop those bubbles are to apply heat (not good for this situation), or spray (isopropyl) alcohol on it (which I didn't even think to prepare). There are very minute pits on the left edge of the image from this (the bright dots in the picture), which even new epoxy won't stick to. After realizing that was going to be baked into the product, I just went ahead and refinished the wood face. You have to either nose in or catch the reflection to notice the pits, but they are there nonetheless.

Also, depending how deep you are into a project (or if you just want to noodle around tempos to find what you like best), doing a mix down of the project to a single audio track will let you play with that track willy nilly using Mark's Method 1 to determine what you like best for your final product. You can just delete/mute that track later on but gives you a playgound to test out tempo variations without affecting the project at all until you decide on the result you want.

This is really a followup to the last post on this thread, but that is in the Deals section and I don't want to bump that up since it isn't an applicable deal. I took what @Max Arwood said to heart after my last post in this thread, so researched laser engravers and saw a few that were suitable, then blew them off for the time being. Ironically, during the first Amazon Prime Day in July I got some screwy pop-up with 3 hours left in the sale (that some of those engravers went on sale) so I grabbed an xTool D1 Pro 10W (was less than $400 then, so I grabbed the middle model). I was restoring two vehicles this summer so left it set on a table I walked by every day, but still blew it off. The return on that long since expired when I opened it (glad it was actually a new one when I did!), then set about the task at hand... finishing that head stock on that guitar... First, things that I like and don't about the laser engraver itself: Repeatable precision is perfect (for multiple passes), but the initial alignment sucks (so I backed off the idea of redoing anything once removed until I noodle that one out). The repeatable precision I could leverage, but the alignment required some trickery and doing things "by eye" in a few cases. Is Wi-Fi capable, so can leave it in another room. Absolute HATE.... NO MANUAL (of any use) for it! WTF?? Fortunately I have worked with a lot of lasers, so I just went to town dry running my thoughts and leveraged ideas with what the machine can actually do. Even videos for the machine were often by people who came across as unknowledgeable. The power, speed, and resolution are independent for each object. With repeatable precision, this was totally usable, but after I watched numerous people burn the crap out of things, I realized few know how to generate any art. Control of those settings with repeatability will allow for very detailed pictures (greyscale) to be done. The engraver itself accepts png files, and works with layers, so can add a guide object of the piece to work too (I was dealing with both the edge of the head stock as well as making the picture miss the tuner washers). Lessons learned for this specifically: The epoxy idea itself was a fail, since epoxy is translucent and the depths are so shallow (thinner than a layer of paint in some cases). Paint is by far a better choice (although I did not go this route), because it is opaque and you can put a protective layer on the surface of the entire piece, overfill the engraving, then sand it back smooth. I was meticulous on doing both the logo and picture to work to the actual head stock, then looked up head stock veneer (perfectly square!) and can get 5 for $10. I laughed when I saw those... in hind sight that would have made the job far easier (and less stressful!). I never liked the grain on the head stock anyway, but did a little more trickery to get around that as I worked. Regardless, I worked to the actual head stock and this is the final result. Even though I "could" redo this to perfection with a veneer blank in the future, I tend to appreciate the flaws in things that make them truly unique. I think @DeeringAmps mentioned the high top/low bottom strings late last year. I had bought a 10-pack back then, so this job also let me put a 1/4 turn relief on the truss rod and install a set (rather nice bottom end to them, I must say!). Also, @Grem... we need an update on your guitar project!