mettelus

https://soundtips.net/piano-vst/ Has a nice list and descriptions/sizes of the more popular ones. Post-processing is needed to tweak the character of most since they are free.

It is easiest to set tempo maps so that MIDI is firing in sync with the grid (simpler and just visually easier to track). TAB-ing through transients, and using Set Measure/Beat at Now (Shift-M) is a manual process, but can be quicker/more accurate than their automated counterparts, especially on material without easily detected transients. This is also how you can touch up where Melodyne drops the ball. Although you "can" fire off AD2 (MIDI) to some detection trigger, it can get convoluted and also prone to errors. Setting a tempo map (by beat if tempo roams a lot) makes things a lot simpler down the road.

Eesh... Extended version of Mortal Kombat? Once I hear a riff twice, I get it... listening to it incessently is beyond my patience.

^^^^ Did you give this a try? It seems like this is what you are looking for... Auto Track Zoom basically remembers two track heights (selected and non-selected). With ATZ enabled, you can use the mouse to collapse ALL non-selected tracks to a height you prefer, and when you select a track, it expands to the "selected" height (also adjustable). When you select another track, it will shrink back to the non-selected track height automatically.

FYI - It only took two cycles for MStereoSpread to show up on Melda's Eternal Madness (50% off 4 plugins each week). One thing to always bear in mind is that there is no right or wrong for anything artistic, so always take things with a grain of salt and pick and choose things as they apply (or don't apply) to your situation. Regarding collapsing to mono... cell phones speakers can be a brutal test bed for music, but a good reality check. They lack in both low and high frequency playback, and collapse things to mono. They do serve a purpose to check mid-range frequencies, crossover band (and slope) selections, mono compatability, and hear the song in a less-than-optimal enviornment. A lot of music is listened to on mobile devices these days, so I often use the cell phone speaker as a litmus test with the assumption that ear buds (and mp3 formats) will be the most common playback medium (and ear buds really aren't a massive improvement).

I ended up ordering one of these since K12U is eating a massive chunk of my NVMe and not sure which libraries I will actually be using yet. I never thought I would see the day where a 1TB sample drive was too small, yet here it is. The drive prices are funny to remember... it was a HUGE deal when they broke the $1/MB mark, now they are significantly faster at $0.10/GB. A year and a half ago I got a phone which sported "support for a 2TB MicroSD card"... they weren't even available then, but are now.

I finally had a chance to listen to this on a real system (it does not collapse well to mono on a cell). With EQ specifically, mirror EQ (boosts with complimentary cuts) is often done statically (fire and forget) and in a linear fashion (not making use of the stereo field). The lick at 3:04 is an example where the guitar is 100% focused (no competition whatsoever), but carries the same box it had previously. After a lick has been heard a few times, compressing and lowering the volume will let it carry forward as new content is introduced, but again should not be static... as instruments regain focus they very much should dominate their time in the limelight (such as the 3:04 example). Dynamic compression on the output can be helpful to give the entire "eq box" initially created room to breathe, since you can set a dynamic compressor not to dig into things until the combined sum gets out of hand - taming the 200Hz, 1KHz, and 5KHz areas a smidge helped out. Moving "focus" snippets to other tracks, then copying/modifying the FX bin is another method (or duplicating a track and modifying one for "focused" and the other for "sunk in the mix") - automation is another great tool for moving things around dynamically (when two signals get more than 2dB apart, the louder starts to dominate). From a stereo standpoint, you could also try the spectral generator from MStereoSpread, which would allow you to also get things out of each other's way (and sometimes simpler). That does collapse to mono (so would need some mirror EQ), but would give you a little more freedom not to over-EQ mix components (roughly the 2 minute mark in their teaser shows a similar example for a vocal). If you like that, bake it into a bounce before the trial expires, and Melda has a weekly 50% off sale of 4 FX each week (and all of them roughly twice per year), so it will rotate through at some point if you like what it does. I personally wouldn't get caught up in a hardware upgrade loop for this... once in the box, you can do a lot with an audio signal.

https://www.jrrshop.com/izotope-iris is the link on JRRshop.

Unfortunately no, and even with one common offender (ARIA Player), it is actually not the player itself, but defined into the instrument loaded into it. Since CbB will look backwards down the track prior to playing, it is almost always better to leave that setting unchecked and use/record automation lanes for parameters.

Thanks Bob. A huge chunk of this is my ignorance of Kontakt. I opened that project last night only long enough to know the blip is on the disk meter. Is zero, blips after a second, then zero again after dropping the A4 note. Since the chord is already being played, I am not sure why, but will be interesting to troubleshoot. I was tooling around on the setting screens for AK a little before that happened so could easily have tweaked something improperly. I am also not sure how buffer-sensitive Kontakt is (been running at 128 samples so far).

Did you try a Google search? That has some results in it, but not sure if they meet what you are seeking. https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=349745 Is one of them.

I am glad this popped up again, since I had never reloaded the "AProEditor" on this machine. Bottom line, MIDI learn is a fail, but with the AProEditor, you can map the Mod Wheel (CC1) to a secondary source (I used slider 1). If not installed on your machine, for the A800, scroll down on this page till you see "A-PRO Series Editor for Windows v1.01" Download and install that (I used compatability mode (right click prior to running) for Win7). Next, in this video at the 3:00-3:26 point, follow what he does to turn on the USB ADV DRIVER. Then, at the 5:00 in the same video (keep that open), follow his connection setup (Input Port: A-PRO 2, Output Port: A-PRO). I would then recommend "Receiving" the data from your A800, then saving it as a file on your computer. Next, I clicked Slider 1, and in the pop-up I put this (you can use any control, but a slider makes the most sense for me): A Pro Editor should now look like this for Slider 1: Finally, I "Transmitted" this back to the A300. I used Control Map 3 for my ARIA, but unless you change that you will be on Control Map 1 by default. Since I only changed that one slider, I again saved the map to my computer and overwrote the existing. You can scroll through control maps in the A800 by hitting the white left arrow key next to the "ACT" button till you see "CTRL MAP" and scroll through them with the "Value" knob (and save up to 19). The video mentioned above walks through some other things, but I hit upon all the steps needed here. When finished, I left my MIDI input to "A-PRO 1" and now slider 1 acts as a secondary Mod Wheel. They both work, and ARIA responds to the last one touched. Only caveat is that you need to get used to adjusting the slider after changing patches but prior to playing, since the slider will suddenly "jump" to the slider value as soon as you touch it (and might be way off from where the patch loads it). I am glad you asked this question, since my A300 causes me the same grief and I will need the "mod wheel" messing around with Kontakt 6.

AFAICT there are under the hood options in the ARIA instruments defining what they do and not editable by the user. Instant Orchestra is another example where the mod wheel is used to meld A/B instruments (for the "mood" patches). They are obviously designed for controllers without a spring-loaded mod wheel (the real issue). The RTZ part makes the mod wheel unusable in many cases. When I get a minute, I am curious if a slider can be MIDI learned to the "mod wheel" in ARIA.

After messing with multi-outs last night, this was the one take away that stood out. The issue I saw last night was two instruments, Alicia's Keys and a Cello Ensemble (first two stereo outs). Suddenly the A note would trip off on a D triad after about a second. CPU at 4% but the meter below that blinked red once (at 0%). I forget the name of that meter, but repeatable, and only cut out the A note from AK. Saved the project in that state and closed it. No clue what I did, but was enough to think "Maybe single-instrument instances aren't a bad thing..."

There are a few threads on the old forum regarding this. Google "site:forum.cakewalk.com [search terms]" and you will see them. Basically the ARIA player does not take that mod input until the user changes it, then when returning to zero, ARIA follows. The best counter is to insert an automation lane, but the details are in those threads. I agree it is rather annoying, since many instruments in ARIA also link that to volume. I have never researched if a MIDI learn to another control (like the sliders on the A PROs) will override the ARIA settings. A slider corresponds better with the intent.

The K means that over clocking can be configured. The non-K variants have the clock speed locked.

Hey Bob, I stumbled upon this tonight and got lucky that the guy spent time trying to figure out Kontakt 5's internal routing (he is using Studio One). It is at the 10:14ish mark in this video and is essentially that Kontakt 5 will do 5 stereo outs (10 channels), then a big number of monos. If you try inserting mono outs on the first 10 channels (the 5 stereos), they show up as L or R. Similarly, stereos on the mono outs get separated. Not sure how applicable this is to Kontakt 6 yet, but using 6, I am already discovering a few weird things (no clue if they occur in 5 full, since I just got 6). Setups are more convoluted than they should be IMO, and not sure yet if I am seeing a host issue, Kontakt issue, or instrument issue... but too burned out for the night to really care at this point. I am debating pushing the envelope on single K6 instances and only looking at the multi-out option if I hit a wall.

Kontakt 6 only has one DLL, not the three from version 5. John's assessment is my understanding as well. You can tailor how it is used then save as a preset.

If you disconnect the secondary monitor, does the primary work with HDMI? Some older cards could only run one monitor as HDMI, and the other had to be DVI (or less). I ran my secondary as DVI back then because of this limitation.

I do not play bass that often, so assume this is from corrosion? Without changing your choice of strings, one option to try is to keep baking soda handy to dust your fingers with prior to touching strings. It will not only neutralize acid in finger oil, but steel corrodes significantly less slowly when exposed to higher pHs. You could also wipe strings down with a cloth dusted with baking soda before/after playing. Elixir strings are coated, but I didn't like the sound of them on guitar strings. They are another option, but an expensive gamble. If corrosion is your enemy, I would recommend sticking with what you prefer and trying the above. Baking soda isn't high enough pH to cause issues, but will remove an acidic environment for your playing.

Just caught this one, but more fodder why forcing out updates isn't necessarily the best thing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2019/06/08/microsoft-windows-10-upgrade-update-security-problem-warning-cost-windows-10-home/amp/

I agree. I may have misunderstood the OP. I thought he was trying to track down a rogue plugin.

It captured a crash dump, so I would suggest submitting that the the bakers. That dump file has info we can only speculate on here.

Doesn't the plugin manager in CbB list out all versions for you and the paths to them?

I am pretty neutral to it all as well. One of the bigger complaints by new users has been curb appeal, and it is definitely getting attention now. I expect this to evolve similar to how the theme editor in CbB did. I am pretty tolerant of growing pains; the stagnant issues are what tend to bother me. Melda has been pumping out updates in rapid succession in the past couple of years, and they are pretty receptive to user feedback IMO.