Reid Rosefelt

IMHO, the biggest expense of a DAW is the time you put in learning how to use it. I think buying a limited edition of a major DAW like Studio One, Cubase, Logic, Reaper, etc., and then upgrading over time is the smarter move. Cakewalk is also free and a good choice. Or Ableton, if that better suits the kind of music you make. If you have the ambitions to grow, you will learn someday that you want (and even need) the higher capabilities and features of a major DAW. A DAW that has been around for awhile with a huge user base and community. The community, like this one, is precious. Then the money will be worth it to you.

For those of you who use Unify... Eight Voice, DCO-106, and Polymode are Unified. From the previous bundle, CA2600, Memorymode, and PS-20 are Unified. https://www.pluginguru.com/products/unify-standard/

Sorry, I got distracted, but Blend I & II, KRFT Jams, and Shift all work with Loopmix LITE. I also bought a paid expansion I really like, Vocal Pop, to get this from Plugin Boutique. They really got me with Loopmix Lite. I have all the other Audiomodern stuff, but because I don't use it enough, I've resisted. But if the price is right over BF, I will get it. The big difference with the full version is that you can import your own samples--which of course is the whole ball game for something like this. Also, there are 12 expansions that come with the factory library--you only get selections from them in the lite version. You can't download these.

FYI, Tracy Collins is the developer of Indiginus. To my knowledge, it is just him. He also created the user interface for Sonic Scores Amadeus Symphonic Orchestra. It includes a "Symphony" feature that is very similar to one of Indiginus's most popular libraries, Solid State Symphony. With SSS, you can play a whole orchestra at the same time--it kind of predated the things that Sonuscore came up with later. Only it's all done with synthesis. If you're curious about what that's like, you can get a taste of it in the freebie called Copernicus. https://www.indiginus.com/copernicus

I think it's a great company. I own most of what they sell. Every year I try to buy another one. Don't be distracted by how reasonable the prices are. The Indiginus instruments are as good or better than ones in the $100-$200 range. I find them very inspiring and I've written a lot of music with them. My favorite now is The STEEL. I'm probably going to get the Ukulele to go with the new NI one.

I just want to make it clear that "church bell, piano, trumpet, horse, whistling, harmonica, cow bell, ticking clock, whip, banjo, gravel being smashed, fist hitting wall, etc" is not music for westerns. More specifically, it's music that Ennio Morricone invented for Sergio Leone's "Dollars" westerns and other "Spaghetti Westerns." Then thousands of composers knocked off Morricone's style and instrumentation. Before this, to my memory, movies set in the old west had traditional Hollywood orchestral music: Morricone did music in other styles too, like in "Once Upon a Time in the West," This soundtrack was also extremely influential in Hollywood. I hear traces of it in Jerry Fielding's music for "The Wild Bunch."

I did a Morricone-ish piece once, before the Fluffy Audio Spaghetti Western library came out. So I just had to cobble together sounds from everything I had. (Apologies to those of you who have seen me post this many times before.) I used tubular bells for church bells, because that let me tune them with the music. There are a few whistling libraries out there--I think I used something from one of ProjectSam's Swing (I got my harmonica there too) I used vocal sounds from Red Room Audios freebie "Snaps Claps slaps stomps and shouts" and a wood block from NI percussion for that old faithful "horse hoof" sound. For my gun shot and whip, I just used sound FX. It's very easy to find all those sounds at sites like freesound.org. I used choirs from many places, but also a solo vocal from Organic Samples' Solo Opera. I also used a Native American flute from Ethno World. There are a lot of NI Session Guitarists and Indiginus libraries (including The Resonator). I threw everything at this. 😃

It's not just music that makes the cash fly away. I just pre-ordered the pricey new Quest 3 512 GB VR headset. When it comes Wednesday, I'm going to have to buy a lot of new accessories, as the old ones reportedly don't fit it. I'm going to buy the NI Ukulele. Definitely going to download a trial of Musio 1. If I do buy that, I'll need a new SSD. Sonuscore in October. I generally love their stuff. Pretty much everything they've come out with. Then on to Black Friday and the holiday sales! 😟

It's funny. That's exactly what my Guitalele cost. That's a Ukelele tuned like a guitar but a 4th higher (A string)

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/native-instruments-session-guitarist-picked-nylon-55-off-45.143612/ But just Picked Nylon -- Electric Vintage already sold. It's up on Knobcloud as well.

I checked and my $25 Voucher was still good. But NI wouldn't accept it even though there's no promo price. I've submitted a ticket and will report back.

In case you weren't paying attention, the third teaser came out yesterday. There are some waveforms in a DAW which might suggest some clue as to what this thing is. More interestingly, Best Service said this was the last teaser and we will know soon. Scared about my wallet.

The Virtual Pianos are among my very favorite UVI products. 😀 I have them all.

What do you prefer about this one over KeySuite? Do you own Keysuite and find it lacking? Keysuite is not my first choice for acoustic piano libraries, but there are some nice offbeat stuff in their plucked and Metallophone sections. I think the electrics are better than the ones in Arturia, but, not as good as Keyscape. But the digital collection is superb IMHO. If you like those kinds of sounds, and I do. And they all work in Falcon, which creates a ton of possibilities you can't have in other keyboard libraries, from 20 sequencers to harmonizers, etc. How does the Hammond in the UVI Retro collection compare to other Hammonds on the market? I feel like there aren't any organs in it that I don't have covered. But being in Falcon is a big deal.

I can't wait for this. I'll my copy when KU16 comes out. But it's disappointing that there is no intro price or trade-up price for Session Guitarist owners. 😢 I just sold my copy of Electric Vintage and have a copy of Picked Nylon for sale at VI:Control. They should finance this. 😀

I think all the packs work with LITE, but I will check tomorrow.

Found out about this at the last minute. Damn! I'm a big Klevgrand fan. I started buying a lot of them back when I was making music on the iPad. Like an idiot, I started watching Tove's videos. https://klevgrand.com/stories/toves-tutorials Got Skaka and Pipa. It's true that I have wanted both of them for a long time and these are good prices. Also, whatever music software company offers gift wrapping?

FYI, I did buy the Audiomodern vocal expansion, Vocal Pop Chops & Kits in order to get this PB freebie. Loopmix Lite is very cool, as is this expansion. Loopmix Lite works with the expansions, but you can't bring your own samples in. It also doesn't come with all the expansions that come with the full version. Just selections from them. For me, this was an expensive freebie, as it's likely I will now buy Loopmix when the price is right. But if I do buy it, then I also could have gotten this expansion at a discount in a sale. 😢 Anyway, I recommend Loopmix Lite. Only a few days to go to get it free...

After reading a thread on VI:Control (where some thought it would be a new version of The Orchestrator or AI) I re-read the description and changed my mind. This is what I wrote there: I don't think it's going to be The Orchestrator. I think it's going to be an expandable version of Sonuscore's The Orchestra. From what they are teasing, I think this is about combining orchestral sounds with a wide variety of other sounds, creating new kinds of hybrid presets. Now that they have added modules to the original Orchestrator for Strings, Brass and Woods, they are looking to add more stuff. I think they will add separate modules (probably at $149 each). Each of these will be available separately, but when incorporated into The Orchestra there will be presets that combine all the Orchestral instruments with the sounds in this new module. World Instruments - They'll use the library of sounds from the Origins series, but probably a lot more, like flutes and percussion. Synths - This could be a real synth, with presets that work with the Orchestral presets, but my guess it will be sampled, so they would have the ability to have any kind of synthesizer sound to blend with everything else. Band - A rock band, with guitars, bass, keyboards, and drums? Or maybe a jazz band? There are lots of possibilities suggested by the word "band." As these are added, the price of The Orchestra is going to go up and up.

I just want to be on top of all the stuff I’m going to try not to buy.

That sounds like a very good guess. A separate library like Elysion or Dark Horizon, using the interface of The Orchestra, but dedicated to World Instruments. Sonuscore has a lot of world instruments sampled and ready to go from their Origins series. Ugh! I'm trying not to spend money, but this sounds right up my alley.

I really got this wrong. This is a whole new piece of technology. It has a computer on-board so that the lights work with Kontakt--without Komplete Kontrol. This is something a lot of people care about. I've never had any problems using Komplete Kontrol, so it's not a big deal. But that might be significant for other people. There's lots of useful info in this VI:Control thread. https://vi-control.net/community/threads/komplete-kontrol-s-series-keyboards-mark-3-now-available.143521/

Great deal. Even if you have T-RackS and AmpliTube, it's still very useful.

I count 18 buttons on this. There are 28 buttons on my S88 MK2. They removed five buttons between the left screen and the preset buttons. These are normally not lit, but if you load Maschine 2 software in your DAW (which NI sells to people without Maschines) they all light up: Scene, Pattern, Track, Key Mode, and Clear. With those buttons and the keyboard, you have a lot of Maschine functionality. It's not as good as having a Maschine, of course. I'm sure very few people use them, but I do and I'm not parting with my S88 MK2. No idea exactly what the other five buttons were. A lot of things that are marked as NEW in this video are already present. DIN plugs!!!!!!! I'm very relieved that I don't have to buy this! Very scared it would be way better. It's only a touch better, in some ways. The knobs change color to match the libraries. Woo hoo! 😄 But not worth it to me for the cost. I mean, I have a little ROLI if I want MPE. It's not something I do all the time.

UPDATE. The feature with the dots that find similar sounds turns out to be super useful. To be honest, I never used SA2 or SA3 that much. But I think I’m going to use this a lot.