Tim Smith

Doctor's couch- The place where you go talk to another crazy person who takes your money. ( Not that I have ever been to one).

Nice guitars Kenny! I sold off several keyboards and guitars wish I had kept as well.

Goos? You feeling better ?

I have nothing against vegetarians. In fact I sort of respect them for keeping to that regimen. If I couldn't obtain meat I would be forced to be one. Is there anything in the vegetable world that tastes like chicken?

The last job I did was a favor for a Tim McGraw impersonator. He was facebooking himself to chicks all through the session. He was set to do a concert and his promoter wanted to have CD's to sell. They were considered favors. This whole thing was shady from the start. He had user written all over him. Not the least bit interested in the tech or how I did what I did. He wanted a master and he wanted it cheap. He happened to know me through some other people. I was dumb enough to oblige because I thought I was helping him out. He ended up in a fight with his promoter and all my work still sits on a hard drive. I hate to delete it, but I know I'll never use it.

Can we get an optometrist up in here?

Yeah my knobs sag a little but they still work.

There's still three pieces left. Come on over. I can't be guilty all by myself .

Long day here. Cooking New York Strip steak out back. I am temporarily without my Blackstone, so I didn't cook the onions and mushrooms. Maybe later. On the menu- steak well done but soft, baked potato with butter and sour cream,salad with fresh locally grown strawberries,victory pils pilsner. Finished off with lapsang souchong tea and honey

249.00 and you got it for free. Dang!

There are many angles to this subject. A lot depends on the client you are going for, which in some cases might be anyone who walks through the door or it might be more niche. Some clients are going after a dream while others have more concrete objectives. Most clients will want some idea of your work no matter what you charge. Quality is the first consideration. A solid portfolio of some of your best work probably helps. Not sure of the market you are in. Philadelphia? That's a pretty big market if you can get some visibility. Many larger media companies have their own in house engineers though.Rather than tracking someone down every time they have a project they hire. That way they know they have the talent. I don't claim to be an expert on this subject, but from my observations you have to know who to call and where to go.

I actually have the Hammond and MODO bass already. I owned Total Studio 2 MAX before I upgraded so I had many of these programs already. MixBox is a new one for me though.

I received a response to contact Drew. So I guess I contact Drew using a PM on their forum. Interesting. The licensing issue I had with another product recently ( not inMusic) was settled through a forum PM as well. @Paul Young I am glad you were able to get things sorted. It really is a great program when it works.

Thanks @abacab From an organizational perspective this helps. ? I'm attempting to juggle hard drive space to make all of this fit and work efficiently. I only want what is supposed to go inside of ST4 to go into it.

I have a question I'm asking here because this is where those who use ST4 go. I have ST4 MAX as part of Total Studio MAX 3.5. My question is, how do you best organize all of these files? What I wish they would do and what they actually do are two different things. I WISH IK had a global plugin called Total Studio Max and all files would automatically install under it. To refine further the designations could be better, for instance classify a loop area and put all loop associated packages into it. Sampletank 4 is similar in that it doesn't have a very guided locations process for installations. Basically ST4 Max is the head program or the global program. The shell and main command center for everything else. And this is what makes Total Studio confusing as a product because if you buy it there isn't that specific title to download. Instead there is just a collection of products under that umbrella. It's up to me to figure out all of the products that are included. Several things I can tell they have improved on are the download process through the new License manager as well as the well laid out meta data cataloging system. Once I finally get all of my products installed it isn't terrible hard to find what I'm after. Several things still continue to make the process confusing. For instance I was attempting to download and install MODO drums last night and could not determine if they are stand alone or go inside of ST4? I had the same problem with MODO bass. I am able to load it apart from ST4 so it seems more of an independent program from ST4 yet there is nothing telling me any of this? What happens if I loaded the files inside of the ST4 sound folders? The LM lets you designate a file location and when I checked those files it looks like the files are still zipped? The LM says they were 'installed' I find this confusing. If a person does not check the red under the designated product showing in the ST4 search area that product will not be a part of the search, so if I search 'piano' and I don't have a particular piano selected none of those sounds show up. I have files all over the place on my system and was just wondering how you guys set your up to avoid a lot of these issues?

After I read this yesterday I decided to go over to inMusic BFD forum and ask how I could get the use of my BFD 2 back and my Ziljian cymbals. It was a rather terse "wake up" type of post I don't usually post. I wanted them to know they are loosing customers and I told them in no uncertain terms how frustrated I was. They can either light up a smoke and Pfffffffft me to hell or take my post seriously. The other alternative would be to ignore me completely. The jury is still out as I haven't gone back to the forum yet to see what they responded with. HOW they respond is going to determine my future as a customer with them, and I hope after my post they are at least seriously aware of the damage they are doing to themselves and the benefit this is to their competition. I also decided to mess about with BFD 3 as stand alone to see if I could get the files to finally connect. As luck would have it I finally managed to get it to load kits and play. While not very intuitive, there is a way to add other file locations and delete older ones. I haven't tried it as a plugin yet in a DAW after my adjustments to it. If it works I would be happy to once again be able to use it.

Maybe THIS is a more traditional Les? One huge advantage to a removable neck would be if the neck breaks. I guess??

Big LIKE!!!!

It would be difficult to duplicate exactly the Cakewalk VX64 since it has several things many other vocal strips do not have like doubling, a very detailed EQ, delay and a compander. Others might have some of these but I don't believe I've seen one with all of it. VX64 is a solid plugin most of the time. This has me questioning what could be causing you issues and wondering if a computer or software setting might fix it.? I even accidentally discovered it works in Cubase. I sometimes use Waves JJP Vocals. When I use it, I only use the settings in small amounts. Like the VX64, it has plenty of presets to get you started. Ideally I would use hardware if I could. Once again ideally, a good mic and a good pre amp (and someone who can actually sing) always helps.

This is a small FYI for anyone who thinks fried chicken is one of life's small pleasures. I made some the other night and it was wonderful. I'll keep it brief - I used peanut oil, high flash point, no flavor transfer to oil, may use canola oil or shortening instead, 4 eggs hand beaten to dip the chicken in, a flour mix called Kentucky Kernel (can be found at WalMart). You can make your own mix using flour, onion powder, garlic powder pepper and other spices. Lots of info online. I wanted something that tasted like southern fried chicken, this did. - chicken must be room temperature and patted dry. Oil doesn't like water when hot. -Use a high temp thermometer. Oil must be at 325-350F. Peanut oil flash point 400F. Cooking room temperature chicken in smaller quantities helps to maintain a more even oil temp - I used a cast iron skillet with 1" of oil in it, alternately can cook outside using a propane burner which keeps the kitchen clean. Be careful! This is HOT oil. -Chicken must be turned fairly frequently or it can burn. 15 or 20 minutes should be about right if oil is at right temp. -My wife doesn't like chicken on the bone so this first fry was boneless skinless chicken breast cut into smaller pieces. -Dip chicken in egg mixture first, then into flour mixture, then into fry pan, may use tongs or wear cooking gloves.

It does seem the effects of COVID on my vaccinated wife are less severe than the effects her close friend has who was not vaccinated. I have been pumping lots of zinc, vitamin C and other vitamins into my system. I was concerned not getting enough rest might inhibit my immunity, but not concerned enough to go to bed on time. Like Bapu, I had a constant hacking cough early on that lasted for maybe a month. This was at the same time COVID was bad with people in hospitals. While I can't be sure, I think I had it then.

Glad I'm not the only one. I was beginning to wonder what I was doing wrong. It is a very nice plugin when it works. Freezing or bouncing helps for sure, and frequent use of CTRL+S

I have several pairs of bluetooth ear buds I occasionally use. As would probably be expected, the cheaper ones don't sound as good as the better ones do. While I wouldn't use mine for critical listening, they do a pretty decent job of covering the bases. I haven't researched it either. One thing I notice in using any headphones, reverb sounds different in my mixes on headphones compared to my studio monitors. This was using headphone calibration. No air gap between ears and sound drivers to speak of makes a huge difference. Probably is a width thing too. The brain aurally locates using monitors. Using headphones we have to fake the brain into thinking there is space. I have begun to use a lot more mono or the existing stereo pan baked into the track with less panning, as panning even slightly kills a lot of emphasis in my mixes on cheaper systems and smart phones. Sound great on a nice pair or monitors or stereo system. Greatly diminished on those other systems. Even a nice bose system like the one I have in my car is crap for balance. If I pan at all it isn't much. maybe 20% .

I recently heard Cakewalk is making some changes to Mackie control in Cakewalk in an upcoming update. If true, this may add improvements for control.

I would agree our ears have an internal "compressor like" function. They try to protect themselves from suddenly overly loud situations or from ongoing louder situations. Too loud and I guess that's what we have hands to cover our ears and legs for The way the brain selects sounds by order of importance is associated with the process the brain uses to hone on on those sounds. It's an interesting science to study. If a very loud sound happens suddenly our ears can't protect from this to the degree a compressor can respond. I'll never forget kneeling beside a riding mower while servicing it. I had just turned it off. My left ear was right next to the muffler when the engine backfired. I have tinnitus from it to this day. The only way to protect from that would be to have had the foresight to know it was going to backfire and move away from it. A look ahead compressor might be able to catch and harness it in a mix. If I hear a loud waterfall, people talking, and a woman screaming in the distance, my brain is going to hone on on the woman screaming even if I can barely hear her. Using both of my ears I am going to try and locate the direction of the scream. If the sound was louder from the right I'm going to move my head in that direction to further discern direction. In the real world I think more about ear fatigue and the Fletcher Munson effect as ways our ears 'shut down' or adjust. Tinny annoying sounds at high levels tend to wear us down. I say "us" but I don't have a pair of your ears so possibly you like more or less than I do. As a general rule we tend to like some of that in a mix. This is another area we have more control over in a mix than we do in the real world so we can hype these frequencies. We get to accentuate the things we like, while in the real world we don't. TBH I don't use compression in bass nearly as often as I use it on other kinds of tracks or maybe on the master. For me, bass in relation to other tracks is probably easier to over do than reverb If I have a good bass sound properly EQ'd hopefully I won't need compression. I won't even side chain to the bass drum if I don't think I need it. If I want to knock the peak down to make room for other instruments I will do that. Sometimes the peak works with the material and other times it needs some attention. Back in the days of AM everything was compressed in the carrier wave and it's really an odd way to hear music compared to hearing it live. FM stereo changed all of that but we still had limits. Today most are using bluetooth ear buds and that is yet another approach. The trick being to make a small speaker in each ear sound like open space in the real world, unless you're making a genre that doesn't require it.