Tim Smith

I seen a few of the separate synths for sale but they were WAY pricey compared to buying the entire collection. If you were to buy two of them you could almost buy the V collection, and on this sale if I were considering buying one with the V collection at half price I would just get the collection, but that's me. @Billy86 For the person who might think this is not a good time for this buy, there are plenty of preset emulations out there either for free or for a lot less. The tradeoff is you might miss real time control for some of them and be stuck with presets. Having said that I have used some very convincing moog patches I liked in the AIR collection. If you can map some of those controls to a midi device you might get something usable you like even in real time.

Is this two different sets of sounds? One NKS and the other Arturia? Or will my Arturia sounds scan in Komplete and be seen as instruments in the GUI? I downloaded Komplete control but don't have an NI controller. The problem with the NI controller is, well.....it lacks as much tactile control IMHO. Still a great addition to any setup that uses a lot of NKS libraries. To be fair I haven't looked yet to see if there are classifications that can be accessed in a search field to make the task of finding a certain sound personality possible. I will see if V collection is integrated into the lab. Not sure. The whole idea seems to be to allow manual control ( like a real synth) with the presets there as ways to get close to something you might like. MY initial impression (which may not be correct) was it's a bunch of souns in the presets someone named. Many of them not really indicating to me what they really are, and this seems to happen a lot with soundbanks all over. They had to name it. They tried to name it something that might help, but they often fail. For instance there's a sound called "Balls To The Wall". I figured it was aggressive but not much else. Let's just say I found it underwhelming if going by the title.? If someone had brand X synth at one time I guess they might understand the controls better than someone who doesn't know that hardware. I will say it's fun to play with and maybe I'll land something I can use in a mix.

I should have limited myself because I would spend hours looking for the holy grail of drums. Less choice means a faster choice for me. Most pop and electronic mixes today are not terribly demanding on drums and don't necessarily need a lot of personality as compared to a more open acoustic mix. Dead samples actually work best in many of those mixes. Just boom boom boom. I could almost get away with 8 bit and no one would notice on some of it. People are not listening to the drums, they are following the beat. For highlighting the drums though I want to hear the nice ting on those cymbals and feel like I'm there and that's probably going to be mostly in classic rock, prog rock, maybe some metal and jazz. I have heard some amazing mixes with great drums in Cakewalk using only CW Session drummer. That usually isn't me, but I've heard others do it and do it well. This goes to show that velocity levels and bit depth might not be as important as some have thought. If you can put the set in a realistic environment and have everything EQd right a good mixer doesn't need much. My experiences with BFD 3 were mainly re registering it and loosing some of my kits when the changeover happened. I haven't noticed any major bugs with the program itself in Cakewalk. SD3 is one of the few I haven't tried,but I continue to hear good things about it. It's probably at least in par with BFD 3 ? In that line I think I might be looking for that upgrade/crossgrade price. The thing that turned a lot of BFD2 users off was they changed the gui to and some of the ways you worked in it have been changed. And if one thing is certain, many people don't like change once they are used to something.

No thanks. I've already hurt my back so bad I had to shave laying on the floor. Nothing a tens unit and 2 months of healing didn't eventually fix. I helped load in at one time for portable church. The entire PA system.It was the same sort of thing. I don't plan on ever doing it again. Two HUGE speakers and 100 ft. snake, a huge heavy mixer and power amps. All the setup PLUS my keyboards. The back is a funny thing. If it works you never think about it. If it doesn't you can't think about anything else.

I remember the Irish gigs where the flute player would show up on a motorcycle and all of his flutes of different kinds in a small bag on back. I should have probably taken up flute. WAYYYY back when I played trumpet in the school marching band. You might think that instrument is easy but you would be wrong. I was constantly concerned about loosing my front teeth because if the horn gets bumped this could easily happen. I had my lips busted a few times that way. Playing in cold weather was the worst when I couldn't feel my lips and the mouthpiece is trying to stick to them because it's so cold. Then you had to make sure you were following the marching routine on the field while you played. I was tempted to try mandolin because it's the same fingering as violin which I play. Small light weight and easily transported. Most smaller instruments have cases though and need tuning before you pick it up to play it. NEVER leave a violin in a hot car in the case. It will ruin the instrument if it stays in there too long. And when you're holding that expensive lightweight thing it's only one mistake away from utter destruction. If I drop it, it's a gonner, if someone sits on it, it's a gonner, if I hold it the wrong way I'll throw the tuning off. If going somewhere to play it will always need to be tuned. I haven't even gone into the bow. Most violinists have a gig violin and leave their nice one at home.

At one time I could have sworn I could pick out BFD 2 from the others. To me it sounded the most like a real kit. It was probably the overheads that had more sheen. Sounded crisp, like I was hearing them in an acoustically live hall. If we were betting a hamburger on this one though, you might be able to fool me using different techniques in the others. I would rather have a live crisp sample that is too crisp than a sample that never quite made it and attempt to make it crisp. To me EZ Drummer sounded less crisp. More like a kit made to fit in the most mixes well. Not a lot of sheen on those last samples. It will be interesting to hear these.

It won't let me see it Jackson.

I was a part time musician. Back when I lugged the heavy 88 key controllers I didn't think I had it better than a guitarist who seemed to just pick up the thing and play it. I still remember the back aches from it. Probably the single biggest thing for me was getting all the tech to work with no problems. Making sure I changed sounds at the right times etc. Talking through a harmonizer accidentally is not a good thing. And there really are more things happening than some might realize. With two keyboards and multiple pedals in addition to remembering the music, I remember it being a lot. A lot of it too probably depends on whether a person is chord playing or note playing. I have seen plenty of both guitar strummers and piano chord players which is all good and well, however when you get into the more technical playing I think a musician can be pushed on both instruments. I tried guitar on stage. I was never good enough to do it without glancing at my hands. I even had the nerve to try it with a looper. A normal trained guitarist would have done it probably with ease. I had to push myself to 110% because I wasn't really a guitar player unless you count it as someone who plays the strings and gets organized noise from it. I could do that on a good day. Bass wasn't bad. It was the drummers I felt sorry for loading all of that kit on and off, getting in placed tuned etc.

Yeah, that's where I think Cakewalk will fit probably in best HUI or MCU on the MKII 61. Going back to instrument focus with the push of a button will then let you adjust and automate the synths in real time. Arturia doesn't map every control as that would be close to impossible for all of them. They map the most used controls. I'm guessing additional controls could be mapped. The main things I see about V8 that might slow someone up initially is learning each instrument and what you need to do to make it do what you want it to do. Alternately you could use mostly presets, but you still need to learn what they are and there are LOTS of them. I haven't used Reaper much. It reminds me of a DAW that people who like to play in Linux might use. Most of the others I have used. Until I got this controller the only thing I had with pads on it was the QuNeo. Not sure if they still make them. It's a quirky little controller. I tried the pads on the MKII in Ableton last night. Love it! Suggestion- Drag the MPC like kit into the instrument pane. Click on any pad in the Ableton drum pads and add any sample you want into it. Now tap the pads. Instant drummer. The master drum track in Ableton breaks down into the individual pads as sub tracks which can each be automated and controlled.

EZ DRummer has been my last and least used drum program. TBH I sort of bought it on a whim. I began with BFD back from the eco days and eventually moved to BFD3. I have all the drum kits in NI Komplete which is quite substantial and I think often overlooked for some reason. There's a lot of drum heft in those kits. Then I added Addictive Drums. Add to this all of the kits and pads in Ableton which I can load and I can play on my controller pads. PLUS the tons of drum samples and loops in Sampletank MAX. It's gigs and gigs of drum samples. Not to mention all the loops and stuff in Mixcraft and Acid. Oh and I have a bunch of midi drum loops from 3rd party vendors....so I ain't hurtin' for drums lol. Many serious mixers will send drum tracks individually to Cakewalk or another DAW so each drum track can be treated separately and I think this is the best way to mix drums, but I often opt for the path of least resistance and mix in the drum GUI because I'm not usually mixing a huge kit with a lot of requirements. This seems to be where VST drums have been headed for a long time now. I like the option to send tracks per track to my DAW though as a group. The only advantage I see to the built in GUI is the overhead mics. You can get a very similar or maybe even better thing happening as separate tracks with a bus in your DAW. The drawbacks to mixing in the drum GUI are we are stuck with the plugins they give you. If they work great. If they don't not so great. Automation might be more of a challenge as well compared to automating in the DAW. In other drum programs this can be accomplished. My guess is SD2 might have it since it's a more pro program. I see EZ Drummer as more of a beginner program that gets the job done. I'll admit I liked the program. The competition now seems to be concentrating on the design and implementation of the GUI and the quality of the midi loops aside from sample quality. I mean, there isn't much else. It's just samples all organized to play like a drum kit on a grid. How will this new version of EZD improve on that model? Can the listener tell if the shell was maple or not, or which heads and sticks were used? I'll bet I could play you samples blind and we would be surprised which ones you thought were better. Can a listener pick out EZD from BFD3 or AD3 on a record?

Sorry for the BFD incursion there guys and thanks for the suggestions.

Following that same line of thinking- No?

That dude plays a pretty mean bell pepper. And the squash percussion was just.....................................no words for it really.

Almost none of the pre cut loops in any drum program I tried work out for me, so I end up building them in midi anyways. New midi loops don't give me much confidence. I guess I am a pessimist here. I bought EZ drummer on a deal when things started to get shaky for BFD 3. Until then I had been a BFD fan. Even after I made the conversion to their new setup under new ownership I lost access to my ziljian cymbals. Not a lot of love on other forums for BFD. BFD 3 though is killer. BFD weren't as concerned about GUI. It looks like with this new version of EZ drummer, they went back to a flashy GUI. The upgrade price is pretty good on these. I need to decide which program I'm going to work in. I think the loops in the Komplete kits are better than the old EZ drummer. There are a few decent basic patterns in there....and I have tons of nice samples in STMAX. Not sure what the advantage to working with midi in a dedicated drum GUI is compared to working with midi in say, the included Cakewalk drum set which isn't too shabby. You can't layer bass midi over drum midi in a dedicated GUI.

I picked up the 61 open box and got a decent deal on it. I still haven't mapped mine to Cakewalk yet. Since I have a computer keyboard right in front of the MKII 61, some things are faster using keystrokes. The mixing capabilities along with Arturia synth focus are what shine for me on that hardware so far. Unfortunately I have bugs in it with Cubase I'm still working through, and Cubase is still getting a few bugs out of their new midi controller features for version 12. In Ableton though, it's fully integrated. Faders are pick up, which takes some getting used to. Writing automation with it in Ableton is nice. I haven't checked to see what the implementation in Ableton is for the drum pads. I'm guessing they probably change scenes in Ableton in addition to drums. My only regret as a keyboard player is I think I should have probably looked at the 88 key version. I'm getting by with the 61. TBH I am not a fan of ACT in Cakewalk, mainly because I never made it work. If there is something Cake could work on that would be it. Scripts for the most common controllers. I can probably make it work in Mackie mode, but don't have a lot of time to diddle with it. I want to go into my setup and make music, not spend an hour poking around to try to figure things out. I realize ACT will work. I just haven't figured it all out.

I remember Alesis M1s being one of the most popular monitors during those years. Hopefully you have a regular place to keep your gear instead of being in transition. I am in between studios with a remodel going on and a relocation, so I'm set up in my dining room temporarily. Temporarily could end up being a few years. We never eat in there because we use the eat in kitchen. Surprisingly my mixes are sounding better. When I buy most things I do a lot of research first. I remember reading up on all the monitors in the poor man's price range and for me the BX 8 won. None of the mixes I made on them were much good. That problem was not the monitors.

To hear everyone talk I though you were born with it.

Not familiar with the EMU. I need to recycle a few things. Most people around here wouldn't know what to do with most of it. I had an ART reverb. I don't remember what happened to it. I once had a rack with a bunch of gear in it. Most of it wasn't worth as much as the rack. I still have the Pro MPA II. I wanted to get the mod for it. Remember the Sonic Maximizer? I still have one of those. We had a 6 page thread on the old forum once arguing the benefits of using one. Some people call it an exciter. Aurally it has that effect, but it's supposed to align the frequencies coming from your speakers. Either that or it was a line they invented to sell it. Actually sounded pretty good on the front end of some electric guitar setups. Pushing in that power button gave me the same rush I would get when I pushed the power button on that 200 watt amp I put in my car stereo. I guess it didn't take much to please me back then. A decent car with a decent stereo, a girlfriend and I was good to go. At least I had the car. My second interface was a MOTU MK 3. They may still make drivers for it.

Is this auto banger button an April fools joke?

Well, If I hadn't dug deeper and read @abacab 's video link and description I would be a little richer but I wouldn't have the V collection 8. I went from " I'm not dropping 99.00" to " I think I could use this". I downloaded the collection, played with a bunch of the synths. They are probably the very best sounding classic synth emulations I have ever played. I have no idea how true to the originals they are and I guess I don't care. Using the Keylab MKII is really nice with these synths. Another pretty good deal on the deals forum! Thanks James!

Was this before you got the Alembic?

A lot of good hardware went away with OS and driver changes. This was my first serious audio interface. An Aardvark. The 1/4" phono plugs give it away as the pinnacle of quality it was *cough* It was actually ok for what it was. It had a card the went in the PC and a breakout box. It helped keep the ants away too....I think.

Hi Rain, Good to see you around! I guess M-audio and Alesis were the working man's monitors for the longest time. At that time Mackie and Adam were out of touch for me. I bought a whole bunch of odd stuff to record besides because I didn't really know anything about what I was doing. Not that the M-audio BX8s were bad monitors. They had their own sound I had to work around to get a decent mix. The BX8s were not distinct compared to higher end monitors. Not bad but not wonderful either. I learned the hard way that 8" woofers really didn't work very well in a small studio. I now use a set of monitors that are 5" and I use ARC 3. I am often getting my base mix on headphones with Sonarworks. Similar to you maybe I hate to part with some of my history. ? I still have an old 88 key m-audio controller. I sometimes use it still to this day.

Glad to help Michael! The speaker I rebuilt was from a Toyota Avalon. The sub woofer in those cars has a strange wattage and was mucho buchos to replace. This company had the parts. The one thing I really appreciated was they offered both a foam and a cloth replacement for my speaker. I ordered the cloth and couldn't be happier with the results. Watching the how to video helped me a lot. I noticed they had some parts for studio monitors. Another company might have more. I have a set of M audio BX8 monitors. One of the tweeters started making a tinny noise. Parts were unavailable for it, so I found a close match. I wouldn't use them as my main speakers any more. They are buried in my garage somewhere because I couldn't throw them away. Those are the only monitors I have ever attempted to repair. I guess companies such as Adam and Tannoy probably have parts available. I dunno.

I'll admit I am impressed with modeled instruments and don't understand why the tech all went mostly to sample libraries. Think of all the hard drive space we would save if there were more modeled instruments. I can't comment on all of the emulations offered in the collection as to accuracy. I believe Arturia went to great lengths to get these as close as possible, in many cases offering additions the originals don't have. I also realize no emulation is perfect. Dave did a review of the B3-V organ which I found interesting HERE . As a direct emulation it isn't exactly exact This peeked my interest because at the time I was looking for a B3 and had been eyeing the IK B3 X . At the time I thought it was too expensive so I waited until it went on sale and bought it. Dave reviews that organ HERE. I take his reviews seriously because he has actually played a real B3. I haven't. My take away was B3-V was less real than IK B3 X. For me, I'm not as personally concerned about authenticity as long as it works for what I'm doing, it sounds good, and I like it. When you consider my price of 249.00 for an entire collection of keyboards that are probably so close no one will know compared to the IK B3 X which was retailing at 299.00 when it came out, I picked it up for something like 60.00 with my IK credits. STILL, in comparison to something like the Korg Triton as a VSTi for 249.00 in the Korg shop, this really is a pretty sweet deal if I can open and play with settings similar to the real keyboards. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has played the other keyboards to see how much like the originals they are. Probably wouldn't sway me one way or the other. Just curious.