mettelus

Cakewalk used to be almost across the street from there and the only course I ever saw offered for Cakewalk wasn't free. @jesse g The music theory course was pretty basic but did have some interesting content. The instructor looks the same, so not sure if is the same video files (I took that 10 years ago now). There was a similar one in name offered from a Scottish school that was rather hard core. I forget which company offered that one though (Coursera sounds familiar).

I have never been a fan of laptops, but they do serve a purpose for portability/field work. Getting too carried away on upgrading one can become cost-prohibitive to be sure. Since they are crammed so tight, the components are at a thermal disadvantage right away. As you do video work, a desktop even a couple or more gens out of "bleeding edge" is going to pack a lot more bang for the buck and be more useful longer. I am glad you were able to return the card without issues. Unless you "need" better graphics, it might be something to forget about on that HP and focus for its eventual replacement.

The blinks/beeps are codes that the BIOS is giving you. Need to check the manual to see what those mean for certain. It is possible that the new card is actually bad (don't rule this out since you swapped the old back in and it works), but also that it is not compatible with HP... probably what the BIOS codes are telling you. Some laptops have VERY proprietary architectures in them (HP, DELL, and that lot), so research that particular machine for more info. A guy at work wanted to upgrade RAM in an HP and it was a no dice venture because the original RAM was actually soldered in (no socket)... profile was so thin that the other "socket" couldn't take anything anyway. Same machine also had an epic fail from running Iobit's Driver Booster... the drivers on that machine were required to be HP or they didn't work.

Unfortunately, Overloud removed the free TH3 packs from there website (though THU has more free than TH3 ever had). You may try contacting Overloud and see if you can get the old TH3 ones (their support has always been good for me). This site has a TH3 archive, BUT it looks like most are custom presets... take those guys with a massive grain of salt, since they tend to be inundated with FX. A Google for TH3 preset sites may help, but if custom so much depends on who made them. However... If new, Byron's advice is spot on... more is often destructive. In any FX chain you want to KNOW what the signal is out of one FX/component that is feeding the next, and internal to a VSTi this may not always be obvious. Time-based FX (chorus, delays, reverbs) should almost always be at the end of the chain (simple reason is you do not want to apply FX to the tail, but a tail to the output). A basic approach is clean up signal, compress if needed, amplify and FX chain. Also, a great learning tool is to take a pre-made chain, then do extremes on controls (minimum/maximum) one at a time to see how they affect the sound. Some of the presets that came with TH3 are fine to start with, and is easy to swap out components to see the changes that result. Be judicious with use and know what each component is doing (to the next one)... simple chains are best to start with. Amp sims also have a tendency to create unrealistic harmonics, so a LPF on the signal set to 8KHz (+/-) before it goes into anything (the clean up the signal step) will keep you from passing that into the final output.

Don't usually see BETA's released, but maybe the massive numbers of MDrummer users on Bitwig played into it? I can hold off for an official release.

Yeah, that patch isn't a perfect match, and the tones gain gain frequency separation during the cressendo. I am not familiar with either synth, but looks like 3 oscillators with pronounced harmonics and a frequency delta between them. You can look at the mp3 with a spectral analyzer to see what I mean (posted a quick screenshot of that mp3 file below). The original looks very similar but is hard to isolate with everything going on.

I have mentioned this long ago, but the resources to do such are significantly less now. I have taken a new user, sat them down at my machine and watched/asked them what they were thinking or trying to do. Even simple things such as selecting a clip... what do they want (or most likely want) to do with it? Are right-clicks functional throughout the GUI, or a help pane that focuses on options specific to a selection when the user is moving around (and tracks any user-made keyboard shortcut changes)? Some things very much are intuitive, others are most definitely not. Even asking a new user (not us) is going to be hit or miss since you may get only the one thing they remember, but an experienced user watching a truly new user actually use something and struggle with it is an eye opener. The experienced user will know the how/why to things to interpret issues, but the new user will demonstrate what they are. Years ago I posted a "Hidden costs to owning a DAW" in another forum. The more obvious ones were computer, audio interface, hardware, VST(i)s and the like, but the one that stood out for some was the "time investment," where one may have to invest hundreds of hours to get proficient. Shaving 90% off that time investment would be HUGE for new users, especially when younger generations are going to gravitate to the simplest and cheapest solution that fits the bill for them.

Someone posted an nsmp (Nord Sample Editor) file and mp3 of it on this forum (only post with a file attached). What he did is 3-octave sweep (C3-C6) with a healthy (+/- half-step) vibrato on the end. What is interesting about that mp3 is there are very discrete harmonics (15 tones total) in his oscillator setup. The Arturia V may be the best bet to replicate with, but I do not own that (Arturia gets mentioned a lot for Minimoog sounds). NI Reaktor's Monark is also one mentioned in this list, but I just opened that for the first time and editing is not quite intuitive to me.

You almost need to take a step back and look at things from a wider perspective. When the original code writers for any software are available, updates are smoother. It takes some time to complete development on any product, but the passage of time and shifts in developers makes updates/revisions more complex. Some of the code has decades under its belt, so updates are almost tethered to the original design/vision without significant rewrites in some cases. From a cost perspective, those decisions have to be made often, and the more complex the code gets or has become, it is more probable to see things carried forward.

I have RX 9 Advanced and RX 10 Standard installed. I simply like SpectraLayers GUI better, but there was also a thread with a CbB bug to be aware of that I responded to. I use Studio One now, and one feature is to tear apart files and drag/drop resulting tracks into a DAW for further work. This is an ARA feature and works fine with Studio One, but when that bug was reported I verified it did not work in CbB. I am not sure if that was fixed. IIRC, both RX and SpectaLayers have fully functional demos, so testing them on a something you know well will let you get a pretty good feel of things. The DAW integration I took for granted, so be sure to check that too. Overall it seems they are monitoring/mimicking each other, so workflow seems to separate the two.

SpectraLayers Pro is probably best described as an alternative to RX Standard/Advanced; some features are slightly different but overall are comparable. @Grem had asked about that a while back, and the unmix stems/components feature is most used by me. RX Standard has that feature to the stems level and I posted about that in Grem's thread. I have a friend who has a lot of old 4-track work, so most of my use has been to tear those apart for retracking/remixing, or to simply expedite creation of covers of commercial tracks. The repair features get used off and on, but that is more dependent on what I am doing at the time.

If you are keeping Alicia's Keys, then you probably have all you need as is. Another thing to consider is your download speed and data limits if applicable. Not everyone has stupid fast/unlimited internet, so trying and deleting massive libraries can be more painful than updating a drive. An external (or even internal if have space) HDD can help in those situations as well.

I never thought about this before, but it seems that only the text is counting as far as a unique identifier. Internal to the DAW, it needs to differentiate clips, so automatically adds a number to things that are identical. Even though there are numbers in yours which should fit this requirement, it seems that only "talk" is being seen (maybe the _ (rather than a space) has something to do with this, but not sure). As John mentioned, a very good practice to get in the habit of is using descriptive track/buss names (and even the note field) immediately on creating tracks/busses. Whenever you open something you have long forgotten about what was in it, this will help you navigate the project without needing to decrypt your own work to understand what is going on. In the moment this doesn't seem critical, but for anything complex that you may touch again "one day," you will appreciate it.

I was commenting on the no A/C in Bit's car, more to keep him from getting raped by a mechanic there.

I clicked on unread posts and had to check the thread title! I'll bite... almost all A/C issues are seal leakage, and if not an R-12 system you can charge them yourself. The 20oz cans with a gauge are preferred and follow the instructions. Check the system specs (most likely R-134) before purchase to make sure it matches. Takes 10 minutes. That said... IF it loses pressure in a few days, then take it in (a seal is truly bad); but more often than not, this is not the case.

Damn, I am in the boonies here in MD, so had to look this up. New ordinance (2021) stipulates if "'household noise' can be heard by another residential property more than 50' from source" between 10PM and 6AM. No dB spec and is up to law enforcement to interpret. The funny part is no restriction outside those hours... so if someone complains about me grunting while taking a dump at midnight, I can PROMPTLY wake them up at 6:01AM

LOL... when I pulled up the forum on my phone earlier today I went immediately into display settings to try to see what was wrong! Lowering contrast isn't good for readability. I didn't know what was up till I spotted this thread.

Unfortunately, they don't... The 6-month activation is embedded, so with the new SONAR release they can either force purchase or let CbB shift to DEMO mode on you. Not sure about features new to CbB that would prevent opening in older SONAR versions (AUX tracks/patch points was one but was in later X3 versions). Without an "official" path forward, I would recommend preparing accordingly (stem offloads at a minimum, just in case).

I agree about the price. I only upgraded to 5 because it was the same price to upgrade SpectraLayers at that time ($199). After the rigmarole if relinking Independence libraries, I have never used anything but SpectraLayers since that purchase. Convology XT Complete seemed nice, but that got no real use either. Sort of baffled with the features in a way, since a good chunk of them have been present in SONAR/CbB.

In reality, RX is geared toward post-production/repair "as is." Ozone Advanced would be more suitable for music production (the advanced version allows for each module to be used separately as a plugin). I never realized till I looked at the above RX comparison, but EQ match is an "RX Advanced" feature... but is included in Ozone 10 Standard. The issue with Ozone Standard is the the entire suite IS the "plugin," so too many instances of that can tear up your CPU. https://www.izotope.com/en/products/ozone/features.html#comp RX is more post-production/repair focused, Ozone is more mastering focused (but modules can be used individually with Ozone Advanced), and Neutron is more track-based focused. Neutron 4 is just Neutron 4 now: https://www.izotope.com/en/products/neutron/features.html#comp

+1 to the wave editor. It is a bit unclear what you are trying to do and why transients are so hard to spot. For long tape pulls I have done, a wave editor trumps a DAW for a few reasons. I will often normalize the entire track to -3dB (note this will also bump up the noise floor) and do a noise reduction pass (destructive edit... be sure to keep the original file intact just in case). That should make transients much more obvious, but also allows wave editors that are script capable (e.g., Adobe Audition or similar) to be set to volume thresholds (with lead/lag times included) to do any combination of splits, silence removal (dead track), and even save split clips as their own files. I pulled a friend's TD-9 kit years ago and it took me 10 times longer to rename the samples than for Audition to chum up the track (there is some trial and error with running such scripts to be sure it is delivering what you actually want out of it... take any pre-coded scripts with a grain of salt).

+1, the "struggling with mixing" part slipped by, so John's comments are definitely good ones. I didn't check out what the Fruity Limiter is until now and that is not strictly a limiter and has other functionality to it. Any "compressor" that goes to a ratio of 10:1 or more is technically a limiter, but the one to protect your (g)ear(s) is strictly set to limit with a threshold high enough not to engage during normal mixing (i.e., it shouldn't function at all unless for protection). Compression is almost its own topic and a bit more complex, but definitely something to learn the ins and outs of. EQ is another topic to understand, and this video I tend to recommend most just because of the information/explanation crammed into 10 minutes (mirror EQ, audio microscope, frequency masking, etc.). Each of those is its own topic, but he briefly explains them and demonstrates the "why." There are a truckload of tutorials out there, so very specific keywords in your searching will help you find things. If not sure what those keywords are, don't be afraid to ask... even a lot of DAW functionality people struggle with until they know the term for what they are asking about.

iZotope has the option to pair with iLok, which I also have never used, but once paired I am not sure how much effort it takes to unpair them. From that post it seems quite a bit unfortunately. I do have a few VSTs that forced iLok to use, but only use one of them as a result. The "phone home" feature is outrageous for some programs (Adobe is notable for this, as it has dozens of DLLs with that embedded to ping numerous servers).

Action Strings 2 is a huge improvement over the original. Basically a low and high ensemble that you can drill into and edit pretty easily (via the "editor" at the bottom when clicking an ensemble. Double-clicking a note/pattern in that editor then pulls up various note/phrase options with previews enabled. That said, it really comes down to if you are going to use it. I have only used it briefly to check it out, but it has good potential for quickly creating "moods" in orchestration.

Is interesting that searching for "audio editors with noise cancellation for PC" pops off apps specific to video conferencing. Audacity is on all of those lists and sometimes #1. For the OP, external editors can be launched from within CbB, and this thread drills down into a utility posted by scook if you want that functionality (this allows you to highlight a clip and launch an external editor for destructive editing). At the high end (also cost-wise) of the spectrum are iZotope RX, Adobe Audition, and Steinberg SpectraLayers (IIRC they all have fully functional demos if this is a one-off situation for you). Audacity is probably the most potent on the free-end of the spectrum, has been around for years, and can do some things more elegantly than some of its paid-for counterparts. Sound Forge has been a popular editor amongst this forum as well.