mettelus

12 hours ago, Max Arwood said:

Do you have RX also? Is spectral layers better in any aspect as compared to RX?

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.

3 hours ago, Max Arwood said:

What do you like about spectral layers? What do you do with it?

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.

On 6/5/2023 at 12:38 AM, kitekrazy said:

I practically have all of Sampletekk pianos and thinking no need for the  Giant, Maverick. Granduer. and Gemtlemen.   I'm not really into pianos other than sketching for synths. 

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.

6 hours ago, msmcleod said:

The thing is, that those "coolers" are not real A/C's... you fill them up with ice & water, which gets pumped around the fan and the fan blows air through 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.

15 hours ago, Shane_B. said:

In NJ it's 65 dB from 7am to 10pm and 50db 10pm to 7am. I would guess it varies state to state.

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 

2 hours ago, Christian Jones said:

But I don't care about nunna that.. this new orange shade is bu11$#!t

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.

4 hours ago, dubdisciple said:

Cakewalk would have to do something revolutionary to convince anyone to pay for it at this point.

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.

1 hour ago, Pollux said:

Is RX10 Advanced worth over RX10 Standard for music production?

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

3 hours ago, TH said:

Also transients are often impossible to visually spot - so visually marking locations in the clip based on a waveform is not possible.

+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).

On 6/2/2023 at 2:01 PM, kitekrazy said:

Action Strings 2 worth installing?  

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.

+1 to the free VST idea. Main reason is they are not dependent on which DAW you are using, so when you find something you like you are not bound to a DAW. You can also Google "free limiter VST" or whatever you are searching for. Limiter No6 has been around for years and is a CPU-friendly limiter (many of TokyoDawn's stuff is that way). Limiters are really very aggressive compressors, but you definitely want to get into the habit of dropping one on your main outs before it hits your gear or ears... preserve them both.

The only thing you would need to worry about is heat dissipation. Rack components can handle a fair amount of "pretty hot," and are designed to be stacked (a middle unit gets the brunt of things anyway). Worst case, a small fan could force air through (especially if a pass through with outer open), but keeping the face flush with the opening (max air room behind the unit) may well be enough to satisfy cooling needs. If that rack is enclosed except for the front, it is no different than laying it flat.

However, if you get the idea of doing similar with a turntable, it is not advised

Something also to bear in mind with some Kontakt instruments is that volume is bound to the MOD wheel (to give a breath and bow effect). As long as you do not touch the MOD wheel, volume will not adjust, but if you touch it once, then you have to either use it for every note played or insert a value for it at the beginning of the track (to reset it).

What you want is something that can both capture and remove a "noise print." Wav editors are best to do this (often stand-alone apps), but IIRC both Audacity and ReaFIR both have some capacity for this and are free. 

The "time investment" required for learning is often overlooked, but always something to keep in mind especially when the product is complex. I hope the OP took a step back to focus on this.

Does remind me of a really old joke though... a man storms into a hardware store with his new saw and demands to see the manager because it is garbage. The manager calms him down and offers to take a look at it for him to see what is the matter. The manager picks it up, starts the motor, and the man asks, "What's that??"

+1, something to consider is that the drives will noticeably slow (but they can just go belly up, so back up data regularly). Samsung Magician can benchmark to see the loss (10% or more is worth noting when the time comes). The only SSD I considered "dead" was an NVMe used as the C drive and that took 4+ years to occur. The C drive is also the most abused drive in the system (temp files galore, indexing default, pagefile,  etc. will all default to it).... the C drive I image monthly, or after massive software changes, and is also riddled with junctions to keep those images small. That drive is the most likely to degrade sooner due to the excessive writes it sees over time, but again the only one that bothered me took over 4 years (so far).

5 hours ago, TheSteven said:

Yup, NI I changed their logo so I deleted all my NI libraries, gave away my car, burned my house down and...
then woke up and realized I didn't really give a crap about their logo and went and made myself a cup of coffee.

But... you had the foresight to save the coffee pot!

I suspect that is the same instrument from listening to it. One can achieve massive variations to sound from FX alone, and that section is well within the range of the Cuatro as well.

I didn't realize there were so many variations of small guitars. This site has a nice description of many, and seems the scale range is very similar between most of them.

52 minutes ago, TheSteven said:

Going from 12 to 14 CE adds Kontakt 7 full, Noir piano, Stadivari Cello & Violin, Action Strings2, etc.  to my collection.

I made the same jump. The main difference between KU and KCE are the orchestral instruments and expansions. Not sure if I will ever use those expansions, but the orchestral libraries are nice (and HUGE). Even with this sale that price difference covered only a couple as singles so I grabbed CE instead. Lores has been getting the most play time so far for me. There is validity in the posts about possibly never really using them, but they are fun to play.