Tim Smith

I have had great luck with the JBL LSR monitors. The 308's if you're looking for more low end in a bigger space and the 6" version for smaller rooms. I'll bet you might be surprised with these.

Oh I have that soundpack but wasn't aware the guitars were physically modeled. Had no idea A/A/S stuff was physically modeled. I believe this technology is worth paying a little extra if it can reproduce an original instrument with a minimum load on memory. Pianoteq is a good example of a winner. It's probably more expensive than the average sample library. In many cases I think the way the samples are played makes a huge difference using either sample libraries or physically modeled. Guitar in particular. That's one misconception with a nice guitar sampled library. Keyboardists think they can now play guitar to sound just as well as a real guitarists. Unlike some random synth patch creation, you have a single instrument with characteristics that need to be perfectly emulated. To do that with a few track passes free hand not using a robotic helper like STRUM and get all the articulations right takes some know how beyond just loading a patch and thinking you can play it. I recently had a similar experience with a harp library. Harps are played a certain way or they don't sound real. To me, something like strum is taking too much of the control out of my hands. I would much rather program my own which takes a lot more effort, but I think sounds much better.

I'm still pulling for ya man. Whatever it is there will be an end to it. Hopefully soon things will look up again. No worries Rain and thanks. We might not be similar in much any other way or maybe we are, who knows? I will say we share the writer thing. I could easily write a book and maybe I should. I usually end up just overloading message boards. I try not to ramble but rather I attempt to keep things relevant. It seems you may have held yourself off because message boards, or maybe just this message board, is seen as a place for short bits of info. If this is what you thought, you may be correct here. There seems to be a concern we might say too much or expose too much of ourselves. I'm not sure what the external pressures are that cause it. If it goes too far , then I see it as 'them' trying to control 'us'. There is a word they sometimes use on another message board I frequent -"WOT" or "wall of text". I have found grouping multiple posts and separating my thoughts into smaller bits usually let me get my points across without it looking like someone lost control of their fingers FWIW I don't think I would have considered any of it nonsense knowing you. Don't feel bad here. I'm not either but I've been trying for the last 30 years. I have some people fooled. ? I think I see the concept here. This is why I think it's a good idea to play several instruments, because the novelty probably wears off for any one instrument. I played bouzouki yesterday. I find having different sound sets and libraries can help to break some of that monotony up. Not that I'm loaded to the gills with sample libraries, but I have plenty enough to keep things interesting. On con to that is , I sometimes pull up a library that's supposed to sound like a particular instrument and it doesn't come close. For example I have a bouzouki sampled library, actually a few of them and it isn't anything like the real deal. I have found guitars to be similar. Playing a real one just brings out a different personality in the instrument as opposed to a sampled one. Oh man, I thought I was the only one who could never find a category for much of my music. While a lot of what I do has an acoustic ethereal vibe I feel similar. I don't usually see "fairy and elf music" on the list. I remember when KISS first debuted. I was a kid with a half a brain so far as anything was concerned. I didn't know what to make of them..This was at a time when people in my area had them pegged for the devil's servants. Now that I'm older I can see that showmanship was probably more influential to their success than raw talent. If they had come on stage dressed like typical musicians of the time, they would probably still be playing bar gigs if they were lucky. I come from a family where my mum expected me to wear a shirt and keep my hair cut. Here was a guy with an open shirt bearing that hairy chest to the world, sometimes breathing fire and spitting fake blood. Whatever the plot called for. I imagine they would pick the theatrics for their worst songs. Maybe no one would notice how bad the music actually was.not that they were terrible or anything, " I ..........wanna rock and roll all night........and party every day". Yeah, just the kind of thing a protective mum wants her kids to hear and try to emulate lol. Unfortunately a few did follow that mantra. A few of them might still be alive. I guess it depends on what the dealer was slipping them. Sorry, I can be a little sarcastic sometimes. But yeah I appreciated at least the effort that went into the costumes, makeup and that act. I won't get on a kick about any of the others or this will be too long. I hear ya. I have enough trouble wearing my own underwear. I am a stage person, but I don't have a presence. I'm like the bass guitar just standing over there doing his thing. I actually try to disappear on stage and just become a part of the whole.Not given to stage shenanigans. I am able to maintain better focus sometimes as the result of my diet and rest. No zen here for me though. No pun intended (No zen, nozen,no thing nothing). My brain seems to work in a different way than most. I am not even inclined toward another musician or act. Not so much that I wanted to make music like them. I HAVE liked certain acts. That's only as far as it ever went. I readily acknowledge that he is a great musician and I like a lot of what he does but for some odd reason I never hung on any of it in any real way...or any other musician for that matter. Agree and I guess this is what I was getting at in my last post as well. Authenticity. In a nutshell I think that captures it. I believe authenticity is what makes creative originality. Even if that originality in my case holds no one else's interest. That's not the point for me.

Talent?

The Prophet 5 and Juno 6 are my favorites with the Oberheim a close 3rd.

I have had my eye on this one it's a 10th gen i7. Since I plan to use a future computer for video editing I would need a video card in the minimum 350-400 dollar range. This chip can be OC'd to over 5ghz. Motherboard would be socket LGA 1200. I could easily have 800-1200 in the cpu, video, MOBO and memory with this. It seems many are utilizing the i9  Alder Lake for high end builds which makes this whole thing a little more expensive. I don't see an O.C. max for that chip. Or I could spend another 1500, get a Mac M1 Max ( just kidding).

And I believe these are physically modeled instruments are they not? Just curious. I thought I read it somewhere.

I don't deal well with the drugs they use to put me out, so I have opted to just bear with it. If you don't mind something that feels like a snake crawling into your gut you could handle it. One benefit is I was able to see the inside of my colon in real time. The doc asked me at least a half dozen times- Are you SURE you don't want to be sedated? To which I would answer nah, I can handle it.Only about one in a 1000 refuses sedation. I don't recommend it if you are the least bit queasy or don't tolerate small amounts of pain well.

Not to derail a good thread, but I was looking at some of the SWAM products. I think they sound quite good. They don't emphasize what I think is a key selling point, I'm guessing because they want to present their instruments as equals and not sell it only based on size. After looking through the manual in specifications I eventually found this: Required space after installation: 16 MB per single plugin format + 15 MB for shared resources and assets, 240 MB for the complete Solo Strings bundle (all plugin formats). RAM occupancy: about 15 MB for each instrument instance Wait....let me wipe my glasses. 240 MB! While I haven't heard physically modeled guitars, I have heard Pianoteq and it is VERY convincing. Any variable in it can be adjusted. Same company now has a nice pipe organ. SWAM instruments are pretty amazing too. Can't vouch for physically modeled guitars. Maybe that tech is still catching up.

If I'm making an uncomplicated mix I still pull up CbB. I can throw anything at it fast and get the job done. I mostly use S1 for mastering if I use it at all. It mostly gathers dust. Intense mixes with lots of plugins and tracks I'm using Cubase 12. I consider using Ableton if I'm making a movie mix that needs more of a feel than a song. Mixcraft mostly gathers dust as does Acid pro. Both of those are full of loops if I get an itch to compose that way. I never intended to go to Cubase. Like others here I used Cakewalk and bought Studio One when we all thought Cakewalk was a done. I keep S1 updated. I don't think it's as deep as Cubase. Cubase keep adding new features every year. When I tried cbase I thought it was very intuitive. There are many YouTube videos explaining it, so I seem to have gravitated in that direction because I know anything I need to do I probably won't need to go anywhere else. Maybe one other reason I went that route is because I am contemplating a program like Final cut pro in the future.......and we know what that means. Just tired of the clunky feel I get from Vegas software.

I have one of those but I haven't used it for the purposes Bapu mentions. True story- I remained aware and took no sedation with my last two colonoscopys. I will say it is a very uncomfortable experience without sedation.

Good way to put it. It's a toolkit for the purpose of combining VSTs in unique ways using a set of unique tools. It does that well and probably why I own it. While I guess nothing is exactly like anything else, there is often more than one way to skin a cat ( just for the record, I don't skin cats at all). As in most fairly deep programs, much of the user base only use the easiest to approach functions and don't as often look at the other capabilities it has. If you get deeper into UNIFY, I think it's really pretty amazing. I also realize I am not half the sound programmer Skippy is, so no matter what tools you give me I won't come up with many of the things he makes. Not that going deeper is a bad thing since maybe we can get to places we never imagined. Yep, I could play in UNIFY for months if I had the time and probably come up with some amazing things. If you look at what Skippy has done, some of it can be copied to other vsts using those ideas. I see it mainly as a time saver. Sure I can load up other programs and set midi key limits on different ranges for different sounds in a DAW, adjust volumes, add plugins etc. UNIFY makes the process a bit more fun and trouble free. Most stick with one or two DAWs. Any studio worth their salt will meticulously save everything. Not knocking that product, just making the point that if a person hade some of the same goals as UNIFY they could do similar in a DAW. Not really "apples to apples" either ......anyways, sorry to side track a thread on this Spitfire library. Not sure if Skippy did it yet, but it would be interesting to now combine the orchestra and the choir in a UNIFY patch.

An argument possibly in favor of physically modeled instruments? I have both and can't tell the difference in sound. Sometimes physically modeled sounds better to my ears. Libraries OTOH will probably not be the best candidates for physical modeling. Seems more complex. If we take each instrument from a group to physically model and then combine them, but maybe not as bad as I'm thinking. As to the present ordeal, I have run across it depending on the instrument and what other demands were being placed on the computer at the time. Freezing tracks always helped in most of those cases. I have heard one singular SSD .vs multiple SSD really doesn't affect things much. I don't see how it wouldn't.

The music or growing watermelons? Did you get video of that one? Don't tell me, the recorder wasn't working at the time due to the anti gravity wave. I had a leak in my shower plumbing a few years ago inside the wall. The leak was very small. By the time we realized it, a lot of damage had been done. You should write a book after all of this. Seriously. I have the feeling I'm only into about 1% of what's actually going on. Best wishes and hope you get back on track soon.

Yes but........this is all dependent on the same plugins still being available. So the same thing can happen due to lack of updated or discontinued plugins. And if I build a DAW stack as a template it's really quite similar.

At least you're doing something.

I see UNIFY as mainly a plug in that shows off one of the best sound programmers out there. It's really pretty amazing what he does. If you look at the individual building blocks he uses to make his sounds, the efx aren't really anything special. UNIFY allows you to do anything he can do, however we ain't him, so your results might vary. I still highly recommend buying the program if you're looking for sound inspiration and/or don't have the time to do what Skippy does. Yes, you could similarly stack tracks in a DAW and get very similar results. Skippy's program has some advantages though because it is very file friendly whereas many DAWs are more specific. UNIFY reminds me of Cantabile in some ways since you can mix and match plugins and instruments within it. In a nutshell it's a very versatile plugin shell.

Thanks Andy. I'll have to include the Genesis chord. I spent an hour going through sounds last night. I suspected the Oberheim or the Mini Moog to be the choice for my solos, but ended up preferring the Prophet 5 and the Juno 6. I dabbled with some of the lesser known synths too. While many of them have amazing sound in them, I am finding I have to "wring" something valuable out of them. I don't have all day to tweak. Tweaking is fun, but you don't write music that way. I was playing with the Arturia synths and with those you can absolutely tweak with their controller in real time and write the automation. As a meat and potatoes sort of guy I thought about loading up AIR synths and working the finer sound details later. Going through the sounds improvising did at least help with a few ideas. I don't write things down, so hopefully some of it stuck. In the end you have to start somewhere ( wait, did that make sense?) Any painting starts with the brush strokes. You have to decide on the paint. If you can't be happy with any of the paint, there's no way the artist is ever going to paint a picture. Rain you do have a sense of humor " 50 year olds in skinny jeans". lol. On the other end of it, I would say I don't want to be on the web as yet another wanna be electronic artist whose music sounds like a kid playing with pads. There must be a million of those on soundcloud already. Probably the same way you see the 50 year olds in skinny jeans. " Just another bloke with a synth". TBH I AM just another bloke with a synth. Different for the sake of different might be worse, OTOH sameness can all sound good. I guess it all depends. I think what the world needs is YOU or US as musicians. If that happens to sound similar to someone or something else, so be it. I get into trouble if I start my goals with " I want to sound just like ****** *******" I'm really not concerned what someone else sounds like when I'm making my music. Whenever someone says the drums are "supposed to" sound like this or that or the guitar "should" sound this way.....this is art and if an artist wants to copy another artist, I guess that's their prerogative. This has never been what I'm about. I do look at and admire what many artists do. That doesn't mean I try to copy it. Genre all seem to fall closely within the lines of sounding like a group of artists, much like modern and classical art are different. To be fair, I did say I was thinking about writing some prog rock music, so I put my thinking into a classification because the ideas in that genre were the closest to what I envision. In my mind the music might sound similar to or 'like' what some of the other prog rock bands sound like. I don't really think I will ever reinvent the mouse trap. I've heard some music and productions that are over the top and I know I'll never compete with either those production chops or that talent on some of those levels. If anything, they are a standard to look at for me. Maybe in the process I'll come up with a different kind of mouse trap, not a better one. I can then improve my mouse trap. At the outset something puts the wind in the sails of music, be it an emotional feeling , a technical idea, or both. Some see music as a stand alone art form while others see it as a way to convey something. Most often in modern culture music seems to convey a thought, an idea, or point to something. Something deep within us bubbles to the surface and some of it becomes music if we are musicians. Something about us makes it what it is. Some people's ideologies are so closely tied to the rest of them that the music seems inseparable from who the person is. Do death metal music musicians see their music as a way to express their ways or is it all an act? Most metal bands will tell you it's all an act while others will tell you they are in fact, well invested in that lifestyle. Same could probably be said of religious bands. Many are not associating their beliefs with their music and since many Christian record labels are now owned by secular interests, the Christian music 'biz' is not that different from the Satan music 'biz' There are still the sincere few, but for the vast majority a lot of it on both ends of the spectrum isn't sincere. One thing that isn't often mentioned about some of this- Many who hold certain beliefs are told to or encouraged to lie to cover up what they are, so an artist might laugh it all off in a public interview as nothing more than a theatrical ploy. One aspect of all of that is secrecy to a degree. The public face isn't the private face. If you get deep into some of it, you are doing things against the law so the 'brothers' cover for each other. There's a lot of symbology used in culture I am well aware of. It all says something about something. It's like an undercurrent, an ebb that often indicates the source or origin for a lot of it. I will never ride on a concept I am either not sure of, or am not invested in to sell a song. I will never use any sort of publicity that points to anything I can't support. I will never be associated with anything that is against what I believe intentionally. My mission here as I see it is to love everyone ( brotherly love), no matter who they are or what they have done or haven't done....and you know it really isn't that hard to do for me. Doesn't mean everyone is blood brothers. It just means we all have value in God's eyes. HE sees us as valuable, so should I. The real enemy isn't us.

I liked your example track. The "gallop" kept by the drums and shared by the synths keeps it moving well. What you've pulled off here probably took a lot of work. Kudos on the nice synth work. Well you aren't playing around. Or are you? I checked out you page. Some amazing stuff there! The common plight now it seems. I hope you see some success. YouTube is ridiculous.

Yes I agree totally. I have been going through a period of indecisiveness on these type of libraries because I seldom use them any more, yet when I need them they become important. The big difference I hear in these libraries that seems to differentiate quality is either a more individual sounding choir or a more collective sound. It's a really tough thing to make a choir library that has unity AND a sense that you are listening to the individuals in that choir. The better libraries pull that second one off very well. I have some of those female libraries like Shevannai and Mimi Page Light & Shadow and they are great libraries for a lot of what I do. I knew a vocalist who was even better at it. A more intimate mix works better for me using those kinds of libraries. Some of this might come down to mixing .vs creating music. If I'm only creating from scratch I am looking for a fast fit for the rough draft. It has to fit ok, but doesn't need to be the final outcome, whereas if those construction decisions have already been made, I am at liberty to get the perfect library to my mix, unless the tracks are frozen and I can't find the original ? While this library leans more in the collective direction , I think it has a decent amount of individuality in it too and makes a much better fit than a generic choir patch by a long shot.

Here is what I am considering- Since I recently got a whole ton of classic synths I thought it might be fun to make some kind of an extended prog rock thing. I opened up a project and started about the first minute of it. I'm still debating on if I should keep it or throw it out. My thinking this far has been to do something I don't usually do and work longer overall at one much longer prog rock journey. I'm thinking 5-10 minutes long. Not a song, a journey. I am open to any suggestions from prog rockers on what kind of a journey this could be ( minus any substances ). What keys to start off in, tempos etc. What usually happens is my intentions on a project take far longer to realize than originally intended. Even making a template for a 10 minute prog journey could take a very long time. Adjusting the details would take even longer. ..and I know the music biz isn't that great right now so far as profits, but if I put two or three months into something part time I would be looking to put it up somewhere besides the places where music is free. And if you do one thing like this then people who like the music want to hear an album, so this is a real commitment over time if looking at it that way. Where say, in two years there could be an album after a lot of hard work. Granted I can't tour it because there's no band but me. I think everyone needs a goal of some kind to keep moving. I'm not mixing for the man or charging to mix projects ( not that this is a bad thing), I'm just out here doing what I do which varies considerable between the different projects. As a suggestion, maybe we could use something besides our main music channel to post links to projects we are working on as they go. All the way from the sucky beginning to hopefully better later versions of it. I don't think this should be a compliments area where we all make each other feel good. No, if we post like this, I think we should be fair about the music and tell the person who posted it. It is about the MUSIC and not a bias either for or against the person or persons posting the examples. I think opinions should be just that, mixing opinions and if the artist doesn't agree with them, then they don't need to comply with any suggestion made. All too often I see an artist bowing to an opinion from someone they don't know enough to trust, even when they liked their mix better without the changes the person is suggesting. They are doing it because "so and so" thought it sounded better. If you don't want to make the change, then don't. I would be as open minded and objective as you can be, and if you can't hear, then trust someone who can. If you don't trust yourself to mix, then hire someone and trust them to do it for you. I see this as mainly about , " This is what I'm working on I'll take suggestions", however no one here has any more right than another to say what sounds good, or what doesn't. Only what they think sounds good to them. Armchair critics are a dime a dozen and that's about what some of them are really worth. Having said that, most of the music advice given on the songs forum here is spot on because we have several experienced mixing engineers there. The music genre and delivery are obviously going to be opinion driven. Thoughts?

Test- Rub the fingers of thumb and forefinger together on each hand close to LR ears. Do you hear that? You should. Now move your hands to full arm length and continue to rub the fingers together lightly. Do you still hear that? Good. If you can hear that you can still mix detail and are a candidate for super detailed monitors. Now for the real test- Try the rubbing the fingers together in a loud environment. Right now I hear an air conditioner and someone talking in the background ( plus my tinnitus). Can you still hear the fingers? Don't fake yourself out by thinking you hear it because you know when you rubbed your fingers. Maybe get your wife or girlfriend to do the same thing at the same distance. Just make sure they aren't pulling one over on you by telling you they are doing it when they aren't. If you can hear it with low background noise from 3Ft. out you can mix critically. If you can't, good monitors are wasted on you, sorry. Good monitors can also help to mix low end detail, but most can still hear that even with high end hearing loss. No harm in having that old Mackie pair alongside another pair of monitors. Put em' on an A/B switch and make comparative A/B listens.

Open back pros- more comfortable wearing them for a long time than closed back. Cons- The design lets in sound from your room. If you mix in an environment that has noise, if you bought headphones in the first place because of the noise, not such a good choice. Won't probably hear as much detail as closed backs. Closed back headphones pros- These allow hearing the details better than open back IMO. External sound is isolated better. Cons- Not usually as comfortable over long listens. Look at the ohm value of the headphones too and buy a pair that match up to the output you''ll be using. There is no such thing as a pair of perfectly flat ( frequency wise) headphones. There is only "not flat in any way shape or form", IOW incredibly hyped or cut in critical ranges OR "semi flat with an attempt to be flat". That last category is what studio mixing headphones attempt to fit into. The only way to improve on the curves of the various headphones is by using electronic correction software. I use Sonarworks Reference 4 headphones version. In the mixing world the old ATH M50 headphones have been in some circles like baseball, hot dogs and apple pie are here in the US. A very common, often used model. Several here have them. I am on my 2nd pair. The second time I bought the ATH-M50x version which has the capability to replace the cord if you happen to have a dog who likes to chew things.?. My headphones can get uncomfortable over long listening periods so I am more likely to run my monitors at low volume in the evening and only go to the M50s when I need to listen critically to fine detail. If you have big ears, you'll either need to reduce the size of your ears or go to something else since these headphones are not made for big eared people. They work well for 99% of those with average ears.

I should have taken your advice and tried the 88 first Jim. I agree trying out a product instead of ordering it sight unseen and relying on product reviews to make a choice isn't always the best way to go about it. I plan to take your advice this time. I'm not the kind of a guy who would visit a brick and mortar music store to demo their stock and then go home to order it somewhere else. I know a lot of people do that and see nothing wrong with it. If the owner though, can't at least come close to retail for me after a discussion with them, They will know I gave them a fair chance at making the sale. I will pay some markup for the convenience of playing and testing on site, but only within reason. I do appreciate our local small businessmen. Arturias's lower end 88 ( they have two versions) is a different keybed I think. This might also be an option. Thanks for sharing your experiences with the 88. I am not sure if the keybed would sit well with me or not for critical playing of piano material. "Stiff" keys might be a concern. On the big three releasing a better midi controller with better keybed, I agree. I think this is especially true if trying to sell to pianists who are coming often from finely crafted instruments and are accustomed to quality keys. They know what they like and often these controllers are not it.

I hear ya. I have a couple of the introductory choirs , IOW not full versions that mostly get the job done, but I always get the feeling there are better libraries out there. I haven't listened to this one yet. I don't use this kind of thing all the time, but when I do I want something realistic that doesn't require a lot of time to place it in a mix and have it sound right. Am I lazy? Maybe.