antler

Sweet tune Kevin. The drums give the piece a certain momentum that really feels like it drives it along. One small suggestion that might give it a slightly different direction - and please feel free to ignore - might be to open up a little towards the end: the highs are quite attenuated throughout, and I was thinking at some point there might be a cymbal crash transitioning to a more open sound to end with; probably just indicative of stuff I usually listen to though. Great work!

Another great song Keith, and you've got some great piano chops. I do like how the piano part follows the main melody during the verse, reinforcing the musical phrases. Nice use of the organ towards the end too to add some sonic variety.

Very cool - bit of an abrupt/unexpected ending though

Nice uptempo song, Tim. Bit of a shame that SoundCloud's encoding is mangling the top end a little. I like the drum groove - gives it some good momentum.

I was actually looking for World AI: I clicked on The Shop, and filtered by Sample Logic, but it wasn't there. It magically appears if you search though.

The scripting in Kontakt is generally considered to be the best, and NI work on it full time. If a library developer makes their own engine, they are split between their instrument, and their sampling platform. Not to single them out, but think of MNTRA - very innovative instruments, but many users experience bugs in them, some to the point of them being unusable. I'm sure that the developer is very talented, but they've had to split their focus on the instrument, and the platform. Consider another scenario. Some people sell premade Excel spreadsheet templates, maybe for keeping financial records, etc. with many built in Macros. Why does one need a license to use Excel to use the spreadsheet that they bought? Why doesn't the spreadsheet developer build their own financial tracking app? Kontakt is the same concept - Kontakt is the platform (i.e. 'Excel'), the instrument is the product running on the platform (i.e. 'the spreadsheet').

NI want to make money from Kontakt, just as any business wants to make money from their products: when a Kontakt user uses a Kontakt library, NI wants some money to cover their costs. They can cover the costs from one of two places - the developer, or the end user. When the end user has bought a full Kontakt licence, that is in effect NI making money from the end user. When the end user doesn't have a Kontakt licence, NI can't cover the Kontakt costs from that user, so they get it from the library developer.

The Outer Wilds looks interesting. For some reason it was giving me a Life is Strange vibe and I saw a mention of it in the comments; I'm guessing it's a completely different type of game though. I've added it to my Steam shopping list. The beeps and boops make sense now (don't get me wrong, they sounded cool even when I didn't know the story). Very effective. Did the birds come from a sample library?

Very nice. The sound effects certainly add an aspect of interest to it - was there some kind of story in mind? Love the drum break roughly in the middle, and the addition of the choirs after it give it an epic feel too, as well as diversifying the sonic palette. Well done!

Not familiar with the original, but this sounds great to me! The vocals match the song, and there's some really good guitar work in there - well done!

Now if only they'd un-iLok those Exponential reverbs...

I remember they (used to) sell OriginX. I'm not really a loops person, but thought I might consider it with the additional discount. No longer stocked though (not sure whether that's temporary or permanently). Oh well - money and disk space saved.

If you're referring to it being centred on 11, there is an option to left-align it. I think they centred it for people with extraordinarily wide monitors.

Great song Keith! I love the diverse sonic palette - I've not heard a combination of brass and marimbas/xylophones work so well before. A great mix and a toe-tapper.

Really nice dreamy quality to this one - certainly one to wash away the day's troubles with. Well done!

Probably a bit late as you've already ordered, but I've always liked Noctua fans. The colour isn't exactly my taste, but hey - the fans go inside the case ? Probably a dumb question, but do the M2s have heatsinks on them?

They usually don't explicitly discount the bundles - they're discounted already. But keep the bundles in mind for the rare times when retailers offer a storewide discount voucher.

If it helps, they do offer a 20% discount on GEMs if you already have another GEM; check your account for the code - probably generic, but I won't post it.

This one's a bit old, but great too https://windirstat.net/

You still need it if your computer goes to sleep/hibernation

Well... it seemed like at least one of those might have gone under without; with that perspective, I prefer this version to the alternative.

Also, don't forget that some plugins like to install all of their samples on the system drive. Another thing that's often forgotten is having enough overhead for your page file, which gets bigger the more RAM you have. System Restore points need free space too!

When you've had a chance to use it for a bit, let us know what you think please @James Foxall

It's a new product - I think it's Kontakt 3 because it's mostly loop based and the Kontakt mapping/scripting required is very simplistic. Nothing wrong with that though - loops are loops; use the right tool for the right job. You could even use the WAV files directly without Kontakt.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet... yeah... CLAP is a word to describe hitting your hands together to make a sound; it sounds vaguely like another word that means rubbish; and it's used in slang for a variety of things including unpleasant diseases. And probably other things too. You could probably make some connection between VST being a combination of VD and STD; or ASIO being pronounced very similarly to a phrase meaning a particular bodily orifice/contemptable person - potentially even worse when you append the word driver to it. Personally, I don't care what it called: if it's good and gains widespread adoption, its name alone isn't going to make me think twice about using it.