Michael A.D.

Hey John, Thanks for your suggestions. You have always been a kind contributor on this forum and I really appreciate your input! I’ve only had the demo EZD3 program for a week and had not tried the tap-tempo feature, so hopefully I am not doing something wrong. But I found that the tap-tempo input gave TOO MANY results and they were all over the place with result tempos shown hundreds of BPM apart, but I presume they matched in some manner to my taps. The interesting part was that some of the results showed 100% match, but there were lots of other matches that showed a percentage of a groove that matched. Which leaves me to believe that Toontrack may have the necessary code to interpret a BPM and show it, even if it does not exactly match. But overall, thanks for the suggestion, but tap-tempo is too much work compared to just typing in a BPM. I will send Toontrack a note suggesting that they input a feature that will qualify (tempo range, etc) matches of a searched BPM.

John, I had tried that. If EZD3 has no loops at 132, then it says NO MATCHES FOUND (or something to that effect). Apparently the program will only match the exact BPM that you search. It needs to have a range feature in the search engine. (For example, I tried searching 120-144 but that doesn't work either.) I tried using a wildcard (*), but nope.

I downloaded the EZD3 demo last Sunday and am looking for a feature (that it may not have). I've looked through the manual and looked at some YouTube videos for a way to choose a groove based on it's tempo. For instance, I am working on a tune that is 132 BPM, so I would like to see the grooves that match 132BPM. I can see how you can sort grooves based on tempo, but nothing that would allow me to specifically find the BPM that I want. Am I missing something? Or perhaps it just does not have that feature? (I am used to AD2 where you can say exactly what you want as well as specify closely matching BPMs that are within either 10% or 20% of the requested BPM.)

I could not agree more! I would go so far as to say it's the most amazing music program I have found in the last few years and it's just in it's infancy. The SynthV voices are already realistic enough to fool most casual listeners, but the voices are going to get more sophisticated, more stylized, and I think they will slowly infiltrate modern music production as a standard tool.

Here's my favorite FM synth. Yeah it costs $50, but it's absolutely fantastic! https://www.plogue.com/products/chipsynth-ops7.html

Chord Potion is great! Especially for bad keyboard players like me! Another way you can change the patterns is to assign the keyswitches to pads on your keyboard controller. This is useful if you don't have a full keyboard that can allow you to reach the lower keyswitches while playing in your preferred range.

I got the SR-88 as a freebie just a few days ago. I was not impressed - rather boring, with mediocre samples. Will probably never use it. (Good thing it was free!) Looks like Latin Percussion is the same program with different samples. I'll pass.

Besides the cool interface (a great way to interpret/create beats!), Beat Scholar comes with GREAT sounds and grooves. If you like percussion that can border at times on being melodic, then Beat Scholar is highly recommended!

I got an email from Toontrack offering a 20% discount on everything in my cart. They gave me a personalized discount code and said it must be used by December 31st. I thought to myself that it's time to get EZDrummer3 ! Then I read the rest of the mail and realized that their offer is basically a joke: All items available in the webshop for the duration of the promotion apply, except for: • EZdrummer 3, the EZdrummer 3 Upgrade, EZdrummer 3 Bundle, EZdrummer 3 MIDI Edition and the EZX Value Pack • EZbass, the EZbass Bundle, EZbass MIDI Edition and the EBX Value Pack • The Superior Drummer 3 Bundle, Superior Drummer 3 Orchestral Edition, Superior Drummer 3 MIDI Edition and the SDX Value Pack • The EZ Line Software Collection bundle • All single-title SDX expansions currently not on sale • All single-title EZX expansions currently not on sale Thanks for the meaningless offer Toontrack! They should have listed only the items that you could actually use the code with.

I was not impressed with Vogue - I thought it was too expensive for what it offered. And at that price I would expect MIDI out. So I was a bit reluctant when they announced Vibe, but what the heck - it's a 30 day demo, so I decided to try it. Well, Vibe surprised me - I like this very much - perhaps because it's a more percussive instrument. It seems to create much better results than Vogue, but I still feel it's a bit pricey and the lack of MIDI out is terrible. (Maybe they are saving MIDI out for V2 when they can charge everyone for an upgrade?) I'll play with this a bit more tonight, but I am leaning towards purchasing it. (And yeah, I feel I should get a discounted price as I own at least 15 Ujam products, but it appears they only want to give a discount to Vogue owners.)

I'm confused. I have the latest version of Loopcloud and it allows my content to be indexed by their search engine. (And I have about 600,000 files that it indexes.) I get a 50% off deal to buy the annual studio plan which is $60 for the year ($5 per month). That plan also gives me 3500 points to buy clips, so with most clips costing 2 points, that gives me more than 1700 clips that I can purchase with the points. It also gives me 25 free clips every day. I think it's a great deal, especially considering how good their search engine is.

OPS7 has been a favorite of mine since it was released. HIGHLY recommended!

I own quite a few of Rigid Audio's instruments and they are an excellent value. If I didn't have so many of their titles already I would grab this new offer. I do have one big complaint about most of their titles in that they number their patches instead of naming them. Many of their titles are blending two or more sources and when you get a pull-down menu for source A that shows 300 numbers and source B shows 300 numbers... well it's pretty tough to remember what those sounds are. Yeah, I'm sure you can save your favorite patches, but it would make more sense to see a source named BELLS22 rather than just 22. Other than that I would recommend their products - they sound good and are interesting to play with.

I've had the Miroslav orchestra for years and rarely use it. If you are looking for a low cost orchestral library, I would suggest Amadeus. I think you can get it for about $100 when it's on sale: https://sonicscores.com/amadeus/

The Sordino Strings sound really nice. I gotta get this tonight! Not too many opportunities to get a Sonokinetic library for $39 (unless it's their annual Xmas sale when it might be free or a BIG sale).

Kenny said "Before Charlie everyone was just playing banjo's and arch-top guitars non amplified on the band stand ..." A little correction on the history. Eddie Durham predated and inspired Christian. In 1935, he was the first to record an electrically amplified guitar with Jimmie Lunceford in "Hittin' the Bottle" that was recorded in New York for Decca. In 1938, Durham recorded single string electric guitar solos with the Kansas City Five (or Six), which were both smallish groups that included members of Count Basie's rhythm section along with the tenor saxophone playing of Lester Young. Durham inspired Christian to start using an amplified instrument in 1937.

These "computer" voices are getting better and better. Check this out made with Synthesizer V using the Solaria voice:

Acoustic Samples is the same company that constantly has specials on their guitars - usually a package of 3 or 4 instruments. I (and others here) have commented many times about how those guitars sound nice but are very difficult to use. As a matter of fact, I never use them because of their difficulty. I have never heard of these Acoustic Samples basses, but when I go the Acoustic Samples website they are not even listed, which makes me wonder if these basses are VERY old and may exhibit all the problems that the guitars have.

I grabbed this as soon as I saw it. Excellent string library for $25 - it's certainly a great deal. It's easy to use and sounds nice. First tests blended well with Sonokinetic's Ostinato Strings and NI's Action Strings 2.

Anyone know how this compares to Scaler?

I have used most of the singing VSTs and have found SYNTH-V to be light-years ahead of all the others. I have never tried just using it as just speech, but as Mark suggested (for Alter-Ego), it can probably be done. https://dreamtonics.com/en/synthesizerv/ (And yes, there is a free version so you can can check it out.)

I like all of Ben's stuff, but if you are just starting with his instruments, I highly recommend Sospiro Strings which is slow, textured stuff that's really gorgeous.

Before Spitfire came up with their Labs engine, many of their current Labs instruments had been previously released as Kontakt instruments. And I kinda wished they would still be Kontakt instruments because, as many have mentioned, the Labs engine seems to have problems with keeping the instruments installed.

So after playing with the 30-day "no strings attached" demo of Vogue, I have the following observations: 1) WAAAAAAY overpriced! (As Brian Lawler pointed out, where is the discount for those of us who own many Ujam products?) I think this should have a regular price of $79 with a loyalty/intro pricing of about $59.) 2) It sounds interesting/pretty, but frequently the fills don't seem to match the preset style. Maybe it's a matter of personal taste, but the fills seem to be pretty useless. 3) I am struggling to figure out the chord voicing AI. You can play with just one finger, but when you start using real chords I find the results can be haphazard. Sometimes it sounds real nice, and other times not so good. The manual has a guide to the chord voicings, so I guess I need to examine it more closely. 4) When you record, you only are recording your keypresses, so you don't get a MIDI editable performance. Yes, you can play back those keypresses and Vogue will play back the performance you heard when you made it, but a MIDI recording of the performance would be much more useful. It also means you are stuck using the UJAM piano sound as opposed to using your own piano VST. I suggest everyone try the demo and see if it fits their needs. I haven't decided yet - if it was around $59 I would have bought it. A very good alternative (if you can play basic chords on a keyboard) is Chord Potion. It comes with hundreds of musical styles (all of which can be edited), creates MIDI performances which you can edit, but it does not include a piano, so you'll need to supply a VST instrument. Of course, that means you can use piano, organ, strings, whatever instrument you want. And it costs about $50. You can check out Chord Potion here: https://feelyoursound.com/chordpotion/

The Ample Sound upright is one of my favorite instruments - I use it a lot and recommend it highly.