Doug Rintoul

19 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

This group -- me included -- is terrible about staying on topic! Hahaha. For someone who actually cares, I'm sure it's very frustrating. 

You mean there is a topic? That's just your opinion.

4 hours ago, cclarry said:

We, being only flesh, form our opinions mostly by our "indoctrination" and "experience" and those "opinions" may, or may not, actually be "factual"!
We fail to grasp the concept that facts don't require us to believe in them...they exist outside of "opinion and belief"! 
The big problem is that most people don't want "facts"!  They want what THEY PERCEIVE as
facts to be reinforced by "external sources"!  Hence why most, even when provided with UNQUESTIONABLE FACTS, will 
reject those facts - because that information doesn't "reinforce" their own "perception of the facts"!
 

A man is convinced he is dead. His wife and kids are exasperated. They keep telling him he's not dead. But he continues to insist he's dead.

They try telling him, "Look, you're not dead; you're walking and talking and breathing; how can you be dead?" But he continues to insist he is dead.

The family finally takes him to a doctor. The doctor pulls out some medical books to demonstrate to the man that dead men do not bleed. After some time, the man admits that dead men do not bleed.

The doctor then takes the man's hand and a needle and pokes the end of his finger. The man starts bleeding. He looks at his finger and says, "What do you know? DEAD MEN DO BLEED!"

1 hour ago, RSMcGuitar said:

I don't need this right?

And you call yourself a deal monger???

3 hours ago, JoeGBradford said:

My current PC doesn't meet the GPU specs for some of the games so I'm saving those for when I have a new PC in a year or so time!

Re GPU - I have a NVIDIA Ge Force GTX 560 Ti but a few  of the games I see have a GTX660  stated as a minimum requirement. Is that card a step up from the 560 or just a newer model so my card may work with games that require the 660 spec? 

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare/GeForce-GTX-560-Ti-vs-GeForce-GTX-660/18vs2152

The 660 is a bit faster than the 560 TI. Perhaps more memory too.

Check your Arturia account. I only had the Arturia freebies, yet for some reason, Pigments was $69 for me. That puts in in pretty much no brainer territory.

On 12/26/2021 at 1:37 PM, cclarry said:

The Talos Principle is on sale for $7.99 and I HIGHLY recommend it!  I had it on the
PS4....one of the few games I've ever played, as I'm not a "gamer" per se...

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/the-talos-principle

The Talos Principle is an incredible game. I couldn't believe it was created by the same people that did the Serious Sam series. It seems to be even cheaper now, $4.19 Canuck dollars.

5 hours ago, Marc Cormier said:

My family is from Boucherville...we loved winter in Montreal!!!!!!

We lived in Laval, specifically Ste. Rose. I still remember skating on the Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.

1 hour ago, RSMcGuitar said:

Was -42C yesterday I'm Edmonton. That's where celcius and Fahrenheit kinda meet (-43F)

I was born in Edmonton. So glad my parents moved away when I was four...to Montreal. Maybe not as cold but certainly way more snow.

Here on the Canadian west coast it has been -10 C (14 F for those temperature challenged people) with a wind chill factor of -10 C. Now I know everyone out there thinks Canada is the land of snow and ice, and that we ride around on dog sleds and live in igloos so this should be no big deal. But things are a bit different around here. Vancouver has had a white Christmas only three times in the last 20 years. When we had the winter Olympics in 2010, we actually had to manufacture snow for the local ski hills. The biggest problem with all this is not the cold; it is those idiots who don't know how to drive in snow.

1 hour ago, Fleer said:

Fact!

That's just your opinion.

Happy birthday Larry. I can't believe the number of old farts around here. I realized I had hit that golden age when I bought something in a second hand store on seniors day and as I was walking out the store, realized I had been given the 20% discount. Full disclosure, I am 63.

6 hours ago, cclarry said:

EHhhhhhhhhhhh....I was wrong...it will be reset in 24 hrs...the email was an alert to
use it before it's reset

You were sort of right. You can now use the current voucher 2 times. 

6 hours ago, Brian Lawler said:

 M E R R Y     C H R I S T M A S   Everyone!

I just took this photo in my front yard 5 minutes ago.  This is what it's like to live in a Christmas card 😁 

@Doug Rintoul  I deduce from your post that you live on the North side of my neighborhood!  (I am in Whatcom County)

Meet you at the border ditch for a snowball fight.  ❄️❄️

 

Yup. I live just north of you in Abbotsford. It started snowing early this morning and has been going since then.  This is our back deck and yard...

1 hour ago, DeeringAmps said:

The Seattle area is due for a dose of snow and cold. Please don’t take this wrong Doug, but I wish they’d close the border again. 

Canada always gets blamed for the cold weather. I am not sure, but I don't think closing the borders are going to help.

7 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Okay @Doug Rintoul

I wrote this song in 15 minutes. A long time ago I was a working musician (a drummer, whose first instrument is piano) for 12 years and had a seriously bad repetitive stress injury that caused lifelong  tendinitis that stopped me from playing. I can only play for a short time before I get pain. But early this year, after 21 years of not playing, I decided to start playing again (of course, as a hobbyist). I know extremely little about mixing, so keep the expectations low.  And of course, my playing, after years of not practicing and not being able to spend much time playing, isn't very good and I was never a lead vocalist. Okay, those are the caveats. Here's my Christmas song written on Monday -- actually following a FB post by a friend of a friend whose father just died from COVID-19. 

Thanks for sharing. It is a touching song and a great sentiment. My dad passed away on October 31st after a long battle with Parkinsons so I relate to it well. This will be the first Christmas without him. Christmas and family were an important part of his life and I know it will be hard without him this year. Christmas is a good time to celebrate family and friends and I am thankful for those still here.

7 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

and heck, I wrote a Christmas song this week. 

Please share!

6 minutes ago, bdickens said:

Ever considered that maybe God isn't the one who allows that? At some point one has to let go of one's children and let them do whatever they will do - good, bad or indifferent.

What kind of life for us would it be if all our behavior was controlled by someone (thing) else?

 

Anyway, season's greetings to all!

@bdickensWhile I agree with you, I think we may be straying into the religious discussion territory. Maybe it is best to leave it at that.

1 minute ago, ZokZTM said:

Doug, that is vey alarming! Trying to stay positive anyhow you can in this kind of situation... a hard job indeed!

Well, the volcano is not really ready to erupt...but it will some day.

It is pretty amazing how disasters can bring out the best in people. When our neighourhood was flooded last month, we all came together and stacked sandbags, and made meals and help clean out sewage soaked carpets and appliances and drywall. You get the picture. I met neighbours I had not talked to since we moved in here 20 years ago.

Merry Christmas to all from a snowy west coast of Canada. We haven't had a white Christmas in years. First we had fires and a heat wave with record breaking temperatures in the summer. Then major floods about a month ago. And now snowpocolypse has hit. I am waiting for the volcano I can I see from my window to erupt.  That would be the perfect end to an absolutely mind boggling year.

2 hours ago, Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann said:

Dec 18: Endless Space, Ambient Song Collection $49.99 unlimited commercial use ($24.99 for standard commercial, $1.24 for non-commercial)

https://producerplanet.com/us/article/endless-space-487/?license=commercial_unlimited

I am curious. What is the difference between Commercial (Standard) and Commercial (Royalty Free)?

1 hour ago, marled said:

I worked as software engineer for several decades, so I know what I am talking about. During that time I had seen the change of development. First there were cracks that really understood what they told the computer to do, down to the machine code! Then more and more came those development tools that blurred the insight into the machine. The newer developers did not understand the depth anymore, they struggled only on the surface. Instead of understanding what they really coded, they began to run endless testing. But I can assure you that if you don't understand the code 100%, than you cannot really do complete tests! ...

Thanks for clarifying this. I agree that we have lost touch with the underlying hardware in the attempt to make things easier to developed. I myself started out in the age before personal computers. My first programs were written using punched cards on IBM 360/370s. I programmed not only machine code but did microprogramming back in the day. Not sure I would want to go back to those days but I will admit that my degree in Electrical Engineering has made me a better programmer. I am not trying to brag or anything, basically agreeing with you.

1 hour ago, marled said:

Maybe this is a philosophical question: Is this really necessary? Isn't it enough if they do their job?

1 hour ago, marled said:

6 hours ago, Doug Rintoul said:

They also do not try to use new features that can be found in modern day processors.

Maybe this is a philosophical question: Is this really necessary? Isn't it enough if they do their job?

Of  course it is not necessary if the plugins already do their jobs. But new features or new plugins may require the new features on processors such as AVX extensions so they do not become CPU hogs. Some plugins try to provide a fallback if AVX extensions are not available and this can lead to issues.

4 hours ago, abacab said:

I am a PC person, but do have an old Mac Mini that used to be strictly for family  secure online banking. Until the bank refused to support the old Safari browser, and Apple refused to update Safari, and Google and Mozilla stopped support for their browsers on the old MacOS. 🤪

I might get curious and drag the old Mini out just to play around with! But without current browser support, it's probably near useless...

I am a PC person as well. I have a MAC mini because I need to support it in my job. Your scenario is exactly what frustrates me about the Mac world.

8 hours ago, marled said:

Sorry, but I don't agree to that! 😄

E.g. "moving the libraries to any location": It is naive to believe that handling this is a big thing! Yes, some developers make you believe it! But without kidding this is very easy for any competent developer and already included in proper development! On the contrary it is a "sin" to hardcode such things (like I had even detected in an IK product 1-2 years ago)! And there is much more such trouble that can be introduced by poor dev teams!

The hardest thing, the audio interface, is mostly handled by the DAW. Therefore the plugins do not have the same complexity.

If those things that you have listed are so problematic for plugins, then how do you explain why e.g. the old Sonar plugins still run so smooth?

I don't know your background @marled. Have you actually done any software development? It is a complex process. Just because a plugin works in your environment does not mean it will for everyone everywhere. When a bug is reported and fixed, an update is released for everyone whether you need it or not.

Moving libraries around was only one example of things that can cause problems. You are correct in that it should be relatively easy to support. But the miriad of DAWS available is another issue and to test for all DAWs is a momumental task that takes time and resources, even for a simple plugin. 

There is an axiom that the only bug free piece of software is one that does not do anything useful. 

The old Sonar plugins still run so smooth because they are Windows only and Microsoft has tried to maintain backward compatibility. They also do not try to use new features that can be found in modern day processors. They are also not nearly as complex as something like SampleTank. 

I am not trying to justify shoddy coding. There are lazy software developers out there who provide poor support. But I think we are quick to complain sometimes not understanding the complexities involved in trying to support even simple tools. 

1 hour ago, abacab said:

Yep, but Dexed workflow is not very user friendly. It's patch management is a throwback to 80's patch carts. It really needs a dedicated patch librarian. If you own, or have owned a real DX7, you might love it. I downloaded an astronomical number of free patches for Dexed, but found in unmanageable to organize them.

Myself, I prefer the Casio CZ phase distortion synth. It was my first synth and I still have it. And I have two working emulations of it.

True. My comment was supposed to be a bit cheeky. 

37 minutes ago, abacab said:

Hence one reason that Apple is so successful. They control their standards and do not have to support everything. Walled garden.

The policy is good for Apple, but not so good for developers and end users. And it works well in the phone space. However Apple's PC market share is still only 15%.

I have a perfectly good Mac Mini that would run the current OS X if Apple would let it. In fact, I shoed horned it in and it run with absolutely no problems. But Apple support policy won't allow me to officially upgrade. And unfortunately, current versions of some Apple programs won't run on older OS Xs. So I either throw the hardware out or go the non-official route.