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I also think it is because every commercial studios out there own Mac systems leaving Cakewalk that are on the same level and standards as The top 7 Absolute. FL Studio Logic Pro Pro Tools Ableton Cubase Reaper Studio One All of these DAWS have a fully function version for Macintosh and Windows systems except for one of course. It's for this reason I had changed to Mac too. My Cakewalk system is now my personal computer in the main house in the study room. I often sit infront of it when I do beats for myself. So, I think it's for this reason that Cakewalk went dead - Macs are the standard system in Studios and Cakewalk doesn't have one. Sonar tried, but it was a fail. I guess they didn't have enough resources to keep working and perfecting it - dont know. Then of course, there's the youth. What teenager these days own a windows system? I'm going to my mid 30's and was forced the past two years throughout the pandemic to invest in a MACINTOSH business wise, because of the demands from clients sending and requesting Mac files and I can say with confidence, I'm not disappointed. Cakewalk will pickup overnight when there's a Mac version available to promote at NAMM should they decide to create a Mac version the next 12 months. This of course will not happen. I'm willing to create one quality short Video for their IG page weekly.

Rain experiencing a drought? A drought is defined as the absence of rain. Talk about your existential crises! I could never take Schecter seriously, for the dumbest of reasons: they always featured semi-nude models at their NAMM booth. Pretty girls who clearly had never held a guitar before (although perhaps a few guitar players). Sure, I dawdled there and took snapshots. But it seemed if they worked that hard to sell the sizzle, then the steaks would probably be disappointing. But then I'm not a guitarist.

Yeh, I literally can't count how many times that has come up in conversations with musicians. But I get the analogy. That's why I drive a 1969 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. Sure, I'm still paying it off, but it kept me from buying a Pacer in 1973. </Tongue_In_Cheek> Spectrasonics does take a bit of a haughty attitude. You may know that I write software reviews for SoundBytes, and in that capacity have been fortunate to deal with many top-tier developers. Out of all of them, only Spectrasonics demanded a pre-publication copy of my review. And then sent me detailed "corrections". I remain a Spectrasonics fan, though. As you point out, Eric created many of our favorite patches on 1980's-era hardware synths. My main synths in those days were the Jupiter 8 and Juno 106, so I was a fan of his even before I'd ever heard his name - when I saw him demo Omnisphere at NAMM 2008. He's a great presenter who exudes infectious enthusiasm for synthesizers. I wanted to buy it then and there, but it would be a couple more years before I made the plunge.

Each time i see Softube Central , i see more like South Central lol ...each time lol Imagine plugins made by creeps lol the guy coming in namm C walking on sound on sound .... souwou !!

Good one, Simeon. You're almost as good at faux-guitar playing on a keyboard as Tracy himself. Better singer, though. I once spent a wonderful afternoon hanging out with Tracy down in Anaheim. It was his first time at NAMM and he didn't have a team of assistants to man the booth, so it was just him and his delightful wife Brenda. Wanting to be helpful, I gave some enthusiastic - if unsolicited - product demonstrations to passers-by. Don't know if I helped them sell anything that day, but it was sure fun for me.

I do not give a Rattus norvegicus' gluteus maximus if you have thing for Berhinger also. It is no epidermis off my pecans.... Patents last 21 years ... copyrights last, as a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. That is actually over a hundred years that copyrights last. I was talking about patents AND copyrights which as I said both have similar laws like "fair use" and attribution attached to them. Behringer sued by Roland/Boss March 1, 2005 Leading electronic musical instrument and equipment manufacturer Roland Corporation has sued Behringer International GmbH and its subsidiaries to enforce Rolands trade dress, trademark, and other intellectual property rights in and to the famous guitar effects pedals manufactured, distributed and sold by Rolands division, BOSS, as well as other Roland products. BOSS has long been an industry leader in the design and manufacture of guitar effects pedals, recording equipment and other musical instrument accessories. In addition to their unparalleled sound, the BOSS pedals feature a unique combination of aesthetic design elements which have served to establish BOSS as an instantly-recognizable brand and to distinguish BOSS pedals from pedals manufactured by others. The Complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, alleges that at the January, 2005 NAMM industry trade show, Behringer announced the launch of a line of guitar effects pedals which replicate the distinctive design features of the BOSS pedals with such painstaking detail that the Behringer pedals are nearly indistinguishable from the BOSS pedals. Roland contends that this is no coincidence, and that the overall look and feel of the Behringer pedals is intentionally designed to confuse consumers as to the origin, sponsorship or affiliation of the Behringer Pedals, and to capitalize and profit from Rolands success, its impeccable reputation and the goodwill that it has developed over years of hard work. The Complaint alleges that in an effort to gain industry acceptance of the cloned pedals, Behringer falsely assured industry retailers that the Behringer line of pedals was approved and endorsed by Roland. Dennis Houlihan, President of Roland Corporation U.S. commented: “Imitation is not flattery, and is far from sincere, when the subject is Rolands valuable trade dress. Roland has expended monumental effort and substantial amounts to create and promote the design elements of its BOSS line of guitar effects pedals. Behringers replication of the famous BOSS trade dress has caused extensive damage to Roland and its reputation, and Behringers false claim that Roland has endorsed Behringers unadulterated infringement is unconscionable.” Comment and then there is this: Behringer tried to sue Dave Smith Instruments and 20 forum users for libel The budget gear company filed a suit last year for what it claimed were “false, defamatory, and libelous” statements made on the Gearslutz forum. Music Group – the umbrella company that owns budget gear specialist Behringer, speaker brand Tannoy and several other music tech brands – last year sued synth company Dave Smith Instruments together with 20 anonymous Gearslutz forum users for libel and product disparagement and lost, according to a report at CDM. According to filings from the San Francisco County Superior Court examined by CDM, Music Group launched the suit against DSI after one of its engineers described its CT100 cable tester as a “blatant copy” of a similar 6-in-1 testing product made by Ebtech in a 2017 thread on the Gearslutz forum. A further 20 anonymous forum users were added as defendants in the $250,000 suit for making “false, defamatory, and libelous” statements, ranging from general complaints about Behringer ‘copying’ other products or using business practices described by one poster as “underhanded”. The suit – which was filed in June 2017 – was rejected by the court, who ruled that the lawsuit was a ‘strategic lawsuit against public participation’ (SLAPP) intended to censor Behringer’s critics by burdening them with the cost of a hefty legal defense. The court ruled that “all of Music Group’s claims against it arise from activity protected by the anti-SLAPP statute, because all of the claims are based on statements that were made in a public forum on an issue of public interest.” Although DSI got the case dismissed, the company is reportedly still seeking to recoup over $100,000 in legal costs from Music Group. Behringer, which recently released its own version of Moog’s classic Model D synth, has doubled down on its strategy of cloning vintage synths over the past few months, showing off replicas of the Sequential Circuits Pro-One, Roland TR-808 drum machine and ARP Odyssey at this year’s Superbooth show. Last week, CDM reported that Music Group was considering legal action against Chinese gear news site Midifan after it called Behringer a ‘copycat’ and ‘shameless’ for its synth cloning practices. Comment: Creating their own unique line of foot pedals must have been simply too hard. and It seems the "false, defamatory, and libelous” statements made on the Gearslutz forum were, TRUE... Here are companies who innovate and make their "own" synths... REAL synth enthusiasts... https://www.vengeance-sound.com/plugins.php https://www.uvi.net/falcon.html https://refx.com/nexus/

Yes Mike has produced a lot of Hip Hop. He is also one of the most important developers in my book, having made so many classic instruments like Blue, the under-rated Realidrums, and the awesome Sunset Strings. It took him forever to make this after he introduced it at NAMM because it was so close to his heart and he’s a perfectionist who kept adding more and more features. He is also one of the few developers who offers refunds fo a limited time But you’d have to buy it from him to get that

Oh, that's cool, with its own fader? You can probably throw FX on there as well. That's nice, that Pro Tools is introducing a feature at 2020 Winter NAMM that Mixcraft introduced at 2016 Winter NAMM. It used to be that other DAW's imitated PT, but when was the last time that PT came out with a new feature that users of other DAW's coveted? I ask because I don't know, it's not a rhetorical question. I know they were busy for a couple of years implementing "not locking up at random and critical moments," which CbB also successfully did, but I'm not sure if they were strictly copying them or if it came out of user requests.

MIDI Association Feb 23rd news on MIDI 2.0 MIDI 2.0 prototyping session at Winter NAMM 2019 At the MIDI 2.0 prototyping session at NAMM, a number of MIDI 2.0 features were demonstrated. There have been over 100,000 people who have visited the MIDI.org site in the past month viewing the information on MIDI 2.0. We have been monitoring the comments on various websites and wanted to provide some more information about MIDI 2.0. to clarify several points. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Will MIDI 2.0 devices need to use a new connector or cable? No, MIDI 2.0 is a transport agnostic protocol. -Transport- To transfer or convey from one place to another -Agnostic- designed to be compatible with different devices -Protocol-a set of conventions governing the treatment and especially the formatting of data in an electronic communications system That's engineering speak for MIDI 2.0 is a set of messages and those messages are not tied to any particular cable or connector. When MIDI first started it could only run over the classic 5 Pin DIN cable and the definition of that connector and how it was built was described in the MIDI 1.0 spec. However soon the MIDI Manufacturers Association and Association of Music Electronic Industries defined how to run MIDI over many different cables and connectors. So for many years, MIDI 1.0 has been a transport agnostic protocol. MIDI 1.0 messages currently run over 5 PIN Din, serial ports, Tip Ring Sleeve 1/8" cables, Firewire and Ethernet and all the different variations of USB cables. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can MIDI 2.0 run over those different MIDI 1.0 transports now? No, new specifications need to be written for each transport. There is a new Universal Packet Format that will be common to all modern transports that will help make this work move quicker. The new Universal Packet contains both MIDI 1 .0 messages and MIDI 2.0 messages plus some messages that can be used with both. The most popular MIDI transport today is USB. The vast majority of MIDI products are connected to computers or hosts via USB. USB is the first target for MIDI 2.0. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Will MIDI 2.0 provide more reliable timing? Yes, and not only that the timing for MIDI 1.0 can also be improved. One of the new messages that can work with both MIDI 1.0 and MIDI 2.0 are Jitter Timestamps. Goals of JR Timestamps: -Capture a performance with accurate timing -Transmit MIDI message with accurate timing over a system that is subject to jitter -Does not depend on system-wide synchronization, master clock, or explicit clock synchronization between Sender and Receiver. Note: There are two different sources of error for timing: Jitter (precision) and Latency (sync). The Jitter Reduction Timestamp mechanism only addresses the errors introduced by jitter. The problem of synchronization or time alignment across multiple devices in a system requires a measurement of latency. This is a complex problem and is not addressed by the JR Timestamping mechanism. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can MIDI 2.0 provide more resolution? Yes, MIDI 1.0 messages are usually 7 bit (14 bit is possible by not widely implemented because there are only 128 CC messages). In MIDI 2.0 velocity is 16 bit and the 128 control change messages, 16,384 Registered Controllers, 16,384 Assignable Controllers, Poly and channel pressure and Pitch Bend are 32 bit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can MIDI 2.0 make it easier to have microtonal control and different non-western scales? Yes, MIDI 2.0 allows direct pitch control of individual notes ( see video) More MIDI 2.0 info...

Lol took me a while to find this original thread. Below is part of an email that went out to MIDI Association members on Mon Jan 27th. ********************************** MIDI 2.0 Adopted at Winter NAMM 2020! Hi , At the Annual Meeting of the MIDI Manufacturers Association during Winter NAMM 2020, MMA members in attendance unanimously completed the adoption of the core MIDI 2.0 specifications including five core documents. MIDI Capability Inquiry (Update) Specification for Universal MIDI Packet (UMP) Format and MIDI 2.0 Protocol Common Rules for MIDI CI Profiles Common Rules for MIDI-CI Property Exchange Property Exchange Foundational Resources and Basic Resources At the annual meeting afternoon session, there were demonstrations by Korg, Roland and Yamaha of prototype MIDI 2.0 devices sending and receiving MIDI 2.0 protocol messages. Details about MIDI 2.0™, MIDI-CI, Profiles and Property Exchange

Below is part of an email that went out to MIDI Association members on Mon Jan 27th. ********************************** MIDI 2.0 Adopted at Winter NAMM 2020! Hi , At the Annual Meeting of the MIDI Manufacturers Association during Winter NAMM 2020, MMA members in attendance unanimously completed the adoption of the core MIDI 2.0 specifications including five core documents. MIDI Capability Inquiry (Update) Specification for Universal MIDI Packet (UMP) Format and MIDI 2.0 Protocol Common Rules for MIDI CI Profiles Common Rules for MIDI-CI Property Exchange Property Exchange Foundational Resources and Basic Resources At the annual meeting afternoon session, there were demonstrations by Korg, Roland and Yamaha of prototype MIDI 2.0 devices sending and receiving MIDI 2.0 protocol messages. Details about MIDI 2.0™, MIDI-CI, Profiles and Property Exchange

https://www.uaudio.com/namm?__s=roewswu6qzh573xxfmco&utm_source=drip_broadcast&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020+-+Pre-NAMM+%235

I wish I could recall the links to the posts and articles, but if you trust my credibility at all as a 58-year-old musician/business owner who spent most of the '90's in the software industry, in everything from startups to Adobe, I'll tell you that the situation with plug-in specifications and compatibility is probably not what you imagine. Even (especially) with the latest, VST3, if anyone thinks that Steinberg and other industry players (or even plug-in vendors) sat down and worked out the details of how VST's and DAW's should work together, then wrote out a spec, went over it checking for omissions and errors, and finally published it, then as errors and inconsistencies were uncovered by other companies and plug-in vendors, Steinberg was alerted and those changes were incorporated into revisions of the spec, then I must now inform you that the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny were actually just your parents leaving you money and candy. It probably went more like: Scene: Offices of Steinberg, 3 Months before Musikmesse 1996 Sales: "I think we can sell more copies of our new pluggy-inny Cubase if we let other people make plug-ins for it too." Marketing: "Great idea! The new version with the plug-ins! Let's let everyone make plug-ins for it! We'll be legends, it'll be the new MIDI!" Management: "Hey, people who chose coding and not technical writing as their career, give us the specification for the plug-ins so that other people can write them." Engineering: "That's insane, we can barely make our own that don't crash the host, and we don't have it all written down in one place, it's in the form of comments in the code!" Marketing: "Ha, ha, you geeks have a great sense of humor. The spec must be ready for our presentation at Musikmesse. We're calling it VST for 'Virtual Studio Technology.' And don't worry, the outside vendors' plug-ins will all be certified by our QA process." Engineering: "You're insane, Musikmesse is in 3 months and furthermore our QA staff can barely handle testing our own products with the resources they have." Management: "Just have that spec ready for the presentation at Musikmesse. Even if you have to write it on a cocktail napkin and hand it to them, it will be ready." A couple of years pass.... Scene: offices of an unidentified other DAW company Other company's marketing: "Cubase got such a huge head start on us with that VST thing that it's become the friggin' standard, we have to make our host support VST's because people have these huge libraries of them. And plug-in houses don't want to code for DX." Other company's management: "Hey, engineering, this is the VST spec from Steinberg, we will be showing off how our product can host every VST ever coded by anyone at Winter NAMM this year." Other company's engineering: "This is a series of German swear words written on the back of a cocktail napkin from Steinberg's Musikmesse booth a couple of years ago and Winter NAMM is in 2 months." OCMgmt.: "Ha ha, you geeks have a great sense of humor. It's the full VST spec. Steinberg says so." OCEng.: "Steinberg has no incentive for our host to be able to run VST's. It's the opposite. There's nothing in this about crash protection, memory management, preset management, default UI, installation location, sidechaining, UI scaling, they barely tell you how to get audio in and out. People will blame us when the things fail to load and/or bring our host down. We're at the mercy of Steinberg and the plug-in developers. It'll be a testing and support nightmare forever." OCMgmt.: "This is the VST spec. We'll be showing off how we can host every VST on the market. I have faith in you." (I made up the foregoing drama based on reading KVR and Wikipedia and my own experiences as a QA engineer testing a photo editor that was advertised as being "compatible with Photoshop plug-ins." There is a financial incentive for the company who creates the spec to make it difficult for their competitors to use it. Cakewalk and DP and Samplitude and FLStudio and Mixcraft get reps for being "buggy" and having compatibility problems, bingo, less competition for Cubase. Poor Mixcraft couldn't run a VST3 without crashing to save its life until the most recent version, 9, and Mixcraft is a stable program. Sampletank 3 never has been able to run for more than about 10 minutes without crashing in either CbB or MX. I'll bet it works a treat in Cubase.) From reports, it didn't get any better with VST3. Maybe they added plugin-based sidechaining to the German swear words. From all I can gather, VST3 is the "New Coke" of plug-in formats, for those of you old enough to remember that marketing debacle/accidental success. As for some plug-in vendors being dix, well, some of them are virtually one-person operations, and being good at coding does not necessarily, or even greater than 50% of the time, in my experience, go hand-in-hand with being good at dealing with other people. They're not all as personable as Noel! I am a one-person operation myself, and one of the reasons for that is I don't want other people telling me how to do things I feel passionate about. If you're even an average coder, you can make a fortune working for any number of companies and not have to hassle with the things you have to deal with as a business owner, and have retirement and health benefits as well. So why have your own company? Many engineers are, as they say these days "on the spectrum," and one of the things that goes along with that is difficulty in reading and conveying emotions. Being on the spectrum is often an advantage when it comes to the main work of coding, but a disadvantage when it comes to things like hashing things out with engineers at other companies. They can read to neurotypical people as rude and abrupt. They want to focus on the important thing (which would probably be the signal processing algorithm) and get annoyed by "peripheral" things like host compatibility. Larger companies can hire people to act as a buffer between the coding talent and the rest of the world. I've had that role at a couple of companies. I felt like the "Jive Lady" in Airplane! "Stewardess, I speak geek." One-person operations don't have that luxury, so it's the world talking directly to the programming genius. In the end, what works for ensuring compatibility is if the plug-in vendors feel it is worth their resources to help ensure it. Whenever possible, on forms or questionnaires, I let the vendors know I use Cakewalk. I put it in my sig on recording forums so people can see. I use Cakewalk and I buy plug-in licenses!

Hilarious video! I doubt Avid will play it in their booth at NAMM.

Sounds like the FL Studio user who presents all of these ideas on their forum thinking Image Line will go under. We forget new users happen almost every day. Their user base has grown about 20% every year. I have a product called Goldwave which is the most affordable and underrated audio editor. I bought it in the last century and I still get updates. The larger companies have such a larger support staff that free lifetime updates are not possible. They also place large ads and send a rep to every NAMM like thing. Cakewalk was sold to some dude who has some serious cash. Bandlab probably wont go under unless he dies and someone greedy takes over.

https://www.namm.org/

Thanks Craig I'll buy you a drink the next time we have an in-person NAMM or MIDI meeting. Pete

Tracktion is supposed to be releasing their new FM synthesis instrument F.'em sometime this year. Caught a NAMM promo about it, where they mentioned they've been running a bit behind in development. Letting the devs, including Wolfram Franke (former Waldorf dev and now current Biotek dev) take a deeper dive, or something to that effect. Might be interesting... It's a 13 operator FM synth with 8 operators as classic single cycle wave operators, plus 2 sample oscillators. Plus loads of modulations like Biotek has.

One of my heroes. Introduced me to fusion in the 70’s I met him at a NAMM show in the 80s. He will be missed RIP Romantic Warrior

Soundtheory Announces Windows Version of Gullfoss Debuts Windows version of Gullfoss Intelligent EQ at NAMM 2019 with special introductory pricing Soundtheory announces the Windows version of their intelligent automatic EQ plugin, Gullfoss. Windows users get a first look at the 2019 NAMM Show in the Anaheim Convention Center from January 24 through January 27, 2019. Gullfoss is an intelligent equalizer based on a highly advanced computational model of auditory perception. It makes objective decisions on equalization around 300 times per second. The user can increase the perception of clarity, space and dimension of any input signal — with low latency (22ms), and no artifacts or phase destruction. Additionally, Gullfoss eliminates annoying resonances and cancellations and retains dynamics and reduces the need for multiband compression. Gullfoss is an easy-to-use tool for everyone from the amateur musician to the professional mastering engineer, delivering exceptional results in a matter of seconds. Key Features Automatic equalization in real-time, based on simple input parameters Highly advanced computational auditory perception model makes objective processing decisions Intelligently treats sound elements in the mix separately Improves clarity, detail, spatiality, definition and presence Eliminates annoying resonances and cancellations Retains dynamics and reduces the need for multiband compression Mixes translate much more consistently between listening environments Improve your mixes by watching the real-time EQ graph display Price and Availability Gullfoss for Windows will be available at a special introductory early access price of $99 USD at Soundtheory - Reveal your sound from the end of February 2019 (regular price: $199.00). https://www.soundtheory.com/home

We’ll be joining the creators of the immensely popular Waveform DAW for a post NAMM Q&A on Thursday 28th January 2021 at 6PM GMT. Discover what the Tracktion team have planned for 2021 and have your questions answered from the developers and CEO themselves. {replay on YouTube]: Waveform 11.5 update will be free. New F'em Synth is nearly ready after a year...

Was looking around and came across this. Anyone has tried Black Lion Audio stuff? https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Revolution2x2--black-lion-audio-revolution-2x2-2x2-usb-audio-interface?psnl=128&utm_content=grid1&utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20210122-namm-t1-giutar-bass

Kinda different. The NX system actually has a piece of hardware that connects to your headphones and is used for head tracking. You can also use the clunky face tracking version with a webcam. This allows you to work in surround environments with headphones on, and I feel this actually has value (latency and other gripes aside). This means if you move your head counter clockwise, it will seem like your right ear is in front of the center speaker (in a 5.1 set up for example). I worked on a surround mix on a plane once from NY to LA, due to time constraints with NX. When I got to the studio with my 5.1 set up coming out my Cranesong Avocet tower, it was really good, and comparable to mixing on headphones vs mixing on speakers. As for using it to simulate mixing in Abbey Road, or Oceanway, or the music hall section of the Namm convention or whatever.... I don't find this to be very realistic or something I'll really use. Headphones and speakers, being as subjective as they are, will likely show other people that thrive using this, but not me. While the Waves NX system does include some " Eq correction", The Sonarworks would be more comparable to, say, the new Slate headphones (even though the Sonarworks can also be applied to some speakers).

Have to admit I browsed the new NAMM link while using the Lavatory. Was it wrong. Is this too much information to share in the Coffee House? Can you tell I'm bored this morning 😜

Found this NAMM 25% discount code for your first order which can be used on their 29$ libraries too! NAMM2021FIRST