JoeGBradford

You do need an audio interface if you are planning to record audio (vocals, guitar etc) but if, like me, you are only working with midi it is not essential as you can usually use your computer's on board sound chip which I've been doing for years now

Try Mike's video here where he connects a midi keyboard to his PC to use in Cakewalk - you have a USB connection so just ignore the first bit where he talks about midi connections! Good luck!

You should be able to get a USB cable with that shape at one end as it's the same as my keyboard and many printers

Ah yes I'd forgotten that. When the guy at Production Expert, who I won it via, said 'I'll ask Jesus if he can upgrade you' I thought he very good connections!

It was indeed!

Tip of the week @abacab - thanks!

Full Kontakt

I was lucky enough to win this in a Production Expert competition a while back - I won the full Kontakt version but when I said I didn't have Kontakt they gave the the Kontakt Player version instead. Very nice piano - samples take a while to load but not that surprising!

That was the whole point of the operation but they managed to persuade a sufficient number of people it was about other stuff 😞

The free Hammersmith Keys (check the Deals forum) is well rated by Mike at Creative Sauce. Sounded pretty good in his short demo of it

Ha - neither do I!

It's all very depressing 😞 All for blue passports and some fish

Excluding all the amazing free stuff this year..... I'm still working my way through Total Studio Max that I got at very competitive JRR upgrade pricing as I already had an IK compressor that I have never used which was free with Computer Music At the other end of the scale it is either Rob Papen Go2, that I got for £6.60 with T&S loyalty points, which seems a very capable synth or Zero G's World Collection for £10 - I haven't had the time to start looking through that yet!

Ah thought that was him. That is very sad 😞

Got 'em - thanks!

Yes thanks - was just about to look for them again when I saw your post so thanks very much!

Wow didn't know that!

I've been trying to find these with no luck - do you have a link please?

Yes Surge is another good 'un!

I've got Ozone Elements 8. Is it worth upgrading to 9? I know it's free but just wondering if there are any significant improvements / extra features

To be fair it was worth the effort - another 1000 presets to work through and help me avoid actually writing any music! 😉

Checkout Mike's tutorials here - he should be able to help!

Couldn't sign up with email for some reason so used FB - not too intrusive - just wanted my email and profile picture (why would anyone want that!) It'll be my only Christmas present as we had a present truce this Christmas!

Ah we're near neighbours!