Michael A.D.

I'd never heard of this company (ProMidiFiles) and was excited to try some of their freebies to evaluate purchasing their products. I started with the piano jazz freebies... and I would not call them jazz. They were all HEAVILY quantized and perhaps someone might call them pleasant, but they had NOTHING to do with jazz. I then tried their free Cinematic scores. And like Matt, my first reaction was "What instrument(s) was this designed for?" They had program changes at the beginning of every track, so clearly the author had some VST in mind. And, as Matt mentioned, they did have tempo changes. Maybe when I have time in the next day or two I will see if I can put some of my instruments onto the tracks and see if there is anything worthwhile there. But so far I am not impressed with ProMidiFiles. I do recommend "Smash Up the Studio" for good Midi files: http://www.smashupthestudio.com/

The big print is UP to 80% off. The fine print is MOST much less off.

I like it too. One minor complaint is that it can only locate MIDI files located on the C drive. Seems like this should be easily fixed...

Gotta agree with Reid - Loot Audio is nowhere near as navigable as Kontakt Hub was. I used to visit Kontakt Hub frequently, but rarely bother with Loot Audio. And my visits to Loop Audio are in hope that they have fixed their site. Guess I will be waiting awhile longer...

Went to Modartt to get the upgrade... and what do you know... they were giving it to me for free! I had upgraded to their standard version a few months ago and that must have made me eligible for the free upgrade. Can't say I could hear any difference, but I did not have time to play with the new features where you could blend 2 instruments. I'm sure that will have uses. I use Pianoteq more than any other piano not just because of the sound (which I think is excellent), but because of the responsiveness. (I also love the fact that it loads in a couple of seconds!)

I have the Straight Ahead bass, Ujam's Mellow, ArtVista's Back Beat... but none of them compare to Ample Sound's Upright Jazz Bass. I know it's a different price point, but wait for a sale and then get what I consider the best acoustic jazz bass.

Your post nailed it perfectly. I am done with having to re-authorize their stuff because I changed something in my system.

Phrasebox sale started mid-August and and ended on August 31st. I played with the demo and it was interesting enough that I bought it on the last day of the sale. It's a nice companion piece to Scaler 2.

Worst feature is it's file browser. It can only see the C drive.

There's some good 'David Byrne'-esque type vocals in that Barbershop. A good deal for $12!

At 66 my hearing is probably not keen enough to discern any differences between DAWs. To me, they all sound good (or at least good for what I am trying to achieve.) The more significant (and harder to measure) difference is in the psycho-acoustic realm. I can listen to something I did last night and think it was great and tomorrow it just sounds so-so. I guess that would apply not to just my creations, but to any music - my state of mind has more to do with my reaction than any purely technical aspect.

Here's a nice freebie arpeggiator (and it offers randomization too): https://www.codefn42.com/randarp/index.html

Yep I have both. And I STRONGLY suggest that if you know anything about music, then do not spend $10 for InstaScale. And Scaler2 is great and I recommend it to everyone. CORRECTION: I have InstaChord (which is on sale at VST Buzz) , not InstaScale. And InstaChord (with all it's expansions) is still not worth $10.

Actually all Western music is purposely slightly out of tune to accommodate our 12 key system of music. Google "well tempered clavier" for historical background.

Monk (original theme - not the later Randy Newman theme)

Reaper is an exceptional DAW, but it requires a certain kind of person to use it. If you enjoy customizing your DAW, then Reaper will let you set up menus and interfaces that are unique to your workflow. And yes, it's extremely CPU efficient, and I don't think I have ever had it crash. Highly recommended!

OMG... there's only 18 copies left at the special sale price (of more than $200). I have no time to lose... where is my credit card... must have UltraViral Snake Oil... I wonder if it's infused with Copper and Cannabis hemp fibers... can it be washed and used again and again? Will they charge an additional handling fee if I want 2 copies? So many questions and so little time... cannot miss this life-changing deal...

Chord Potion Try taking the chord output of some of the programs named above (Scaler 2, Obelisk, etc) and feed it into Chord Potion. Ripchord This is a freebie that is similar to Cthulhu, but is in many ways better. It does not have Cthulhu's arpeggio function, but it's chord function is superior. (And it's output feeding into Chord Potion works great too!)

As I have said before about this ever-recurring sale - nice sound but difficult to use. You are much better off taking your $89 and save it for one guitar during a sale at Ample Sound.

A nice sounding upright jazz bass, it can do various patterns to match chords, but getting it for just the sound at $39 is a good deal.

Have you checked out Barricade from Toneboosters? I use it for mastering all the time. https://www.toneboosters.com/tb_barricade_v4.html

Yeah, I seem to have this in Syntronik already. I did purchase Syntronik when it first came out, and if I recall there were a couple of free add-ons previously. Perhaps some people don't have it, otherwise I don't understand why they would be offering it as a freebie.

2.05 seems much better - I have only crashed once in the last 2 hours and it wasn't as severe as the crashes that caused the whole DAW to go down - only Scaler 2 closed.

Uh oh... lots of crashes with Scaler 2. (I never had a single crash with the original Scaler.) I suggest saving often because you ARE going to crash. There's LOTS of complaints on the Scaler community board: https://forum.scalerplugin.com/t/scaler-2-crash/3195

Grabbed the upgrade last night. Lots of new stuff in it - version 1 was already good, so this is an excellent upgrade! Going to start looking at the new modulation stuff.