Tim Smith

I had been looking at this product because even though I'm a guitarist I can't quite pull off those very fast math metal runs. I can somewhat but not like the pros. I never bought it because well, 299.00 Went to Amazon and found it for 149.00 from a Japanese vendor. Emailed Prominy to validate the link and the vendor. Long story short , Prominy said that due to a strong dollar against a weak yen, the price and the item was legit. I had to pay an additional 18.00 for what basically amounts to an empty box with a number in it. Still a good deal on this. There were 4 four left when I ordered, so now it's three. Just sayin' About 21 gigs, but I don't think there is another program out there that emulated those tunings and guitars the way this does. It's a Jackson they sampled. The same Jackson all the metal guys play.

Looks like you are into it too. I have maybe three different brands of smart home products. Most of the main things in my house are all smart devices. There are some quirky things, like my ceiling fan is on an alexa voice controlled switch that turns the fan on or off, but to turn on the fan light you need the fan control. Since I don't use the light very much, it usually isn't a problem. Everything else is great which is mostly lights and thermostat. If your wifi goes out though it's odd. Like when I drive our ICE car and get out of it and forget to turn it off because I usually drive a Tesla and all you do is get out of it and everything shuts off lol. My wife has to remind me, uhhh...the car is still running. So when the wifi goes out, it's like Oh I guess I better find the light switch. Luckily the wifi doesn't often go out. We are all probably a little bit spoiled by technology.

I hate to give up Omnisphere because there are some unique one of a kind sounds in it I haven't found anywhere else, some of them specifically for solos, so they stick out. If I was only planning basic keys sounds I guess it wouldn't be as much of a concern. If I give it up I feel my performance sound will hurt. The house system runs in stereo so that could be a killer sound live. I probably can't do that because of playing through a DAW and latency. I have a secondary Focusrite I plan to maybe use. You're right though. It's a pain.I can't tell you how many times either myself or someone else stepped on the audio jack and pulled it out. I've got a little folding table maybe 18 x 24 and plastic, Probably need velcro in case it gets bumped. I agree macs are probably better for this. I think for me this might be the answer. I have Ableton. Apparently you don't need a computer as you can load projects into it. I would be playing to backing tracks with live instruments. I have seen backing tracks done well and was impressed with it. I need to be able to toggle and start songs. If they are Ableton projects I just put them into PUSH. There might be a caveat though as I'm not sure it just plays through songs as opposed to individual chunks of audio. In some cases it would be cool to play a verse or chorus again, or add another element and I know it does that. It's also an interface, but I need to play my synths live using my controller with it. Still checking this thing out. For monitoring , I seen THIS used by a professional touring act as a reference monitor, so I'm considering something like this . It sits high enough to hear and is bottom heavy. This would be maybe no more tha 5-6' away. Yikes that looks scary. I am hoping to use one controller and have my synths changed up as the programs run. Easier said than done. If using Omnisphere, I would need those commands for each sound and would need to have a computer booted on that instrument ready to play. Sounds easy in the studio. Probably not so much live. IF I could get that into the Push it would be great, but might be asking a lot. Alternately I could use substandard sounds on one of my stand alone keyboards. I don't really like that idea. plus it's another audio feed to route and mix. My setup is going to be computer based ( or PUSH) but I want to play synths and guitars. Sometimes it seems like trying to juggle with three arms. I have Guitar rig 7 which I love and it would save dragging amps and efx to a show. I will certainly need to submix and route the main feed to the house. Doesn't sound simple any more does it? I am evolving wih this as I go and trying not to go broke in the process. I think I would rather run a show on PUSH than a lappy.

I have a bunch of Waves plugins but it's kind of scattered .What happens I guess when I nibble on those sales I didn't have a unified package other than Horizon. None of that has been wuped in forever. To WUP only Horizon is 240.00 and that leaves probably 30 more plugins. The upgrade may cover a few and leave holes for the others. Having said that, as someone else commented. It all works. Never had a Waves plugin crash my DAW. They are good plugins and I don't think it's fair to imply they are all dinosaurs.Many have updated interfaces and functions. Prolly the biggest hurdle for me is going through all of them. Waves needs a meta search.

It seems 3 way switches should be easy to install or replace, but I sort of found out the hard way it isn't always that straight forward. In addition I was repacing regular switches with smart switches that used wifi and they are larger than the other switches. I still don't know how I managed to stuff that wiring and those swtches into that cavity and even make it look normal from the outside. No more puns. Craig has me covered I have been 'popped' several times. It really gets your attention. So it was something simple. Go figure. I have had a few midi cables go bad. I might need to take notes from you or look up some of your info as I'm maybe preparing to play live again running a DAW and a midi synth controller playing Omnisphere. Omnisphere is a big program but the patches are light. Running my old i7 quad core lappy.

The main tool is me and I think it needs sharpened

I am pretty indecisive at the moment on when to upgrade the computer. I am a long way off looking at this I suppose.

Bolder sounds bagpipes was my go to, still is but apparently they don't sell it any more?? I can't find it in his catalog. Best Service offers some things that would fit well into a single instrument mock up or for a celtic arrangement. I have some of Eduardo Tarilonte's celtic librarys and they are pretty impressive.You may need to download free ENGINE player, especially with his older libraries. Here is one Celtic ERA 2 It's 25 gigs . Maybe something to consider.

I have a real one, but it's small. None of the vsti ones seemed to fit for me. The bodhran wasn't hard for me, but then I never added a bunch of the fancy stuff.

I didn't go crazy over black friday like I generally do. I'm not bapu in plugin count but I know I'm close. Anything I wanted I pretty much have and anything else I didn't really need. I was waiting for Fabfilter Pro Q 4. I updated my Melodyne and bought Arturia Pigments ti add to my V collection. I am using a fully functional but going obsolete computer, also thinking about maybe a Mac lappy in the future, so tossing that all aound. I'll prolly still build another PC, but one of my buds is mac and I might like to work with him possibly. I bought a Universal Audio 4/76 and picked up an Alvarez on discount at my local Guitar Center. Not quite Yairi but some of that DNA , while Chinese, my Martin X had a bag in the sound hole that you have to put a 9 volt battery in. What was Martin thinking? So the Alvarez is perfect as it has the smaller body, has decent electronics and the battery can be changed outside the guitar, also has a tuner. I love it. Action is slightly high but it builds my calluses. I haven't had the time to download the EZD3 I just upgraded to. I have a friend who, no joke, uses Digital Performer and upgraded Garage band and has made numerous CDs and has them out there. His mixes are stellar. Also uses GB to make accompaniment tracks and has NEVER bought another plug in. He has taught me a lesson in minimalism. I just never follow it if I come here

Well I sprung for it. Now I have overkill on my overkill lol. The guys at toontrack were very helpful with me when there was an issue with EZD 2. I have a few of those paks. EZD3 is about 15 gigs, so not a light download. I can't download it right now, but hopefully this afternoon. Not sure if EZD 3 uses some of the EZD 2 samples? There have only been a few programs where I went back to the older version because I preferred it better. Since it needs to probably see EZD 2, I probably should not consider dumping it just yet. I know they have record of that in my portal as well. You know how computers and programs are. Everything has to be done in the right order. Thanks for the FYI on the search function. Demoing 300 drum loops is similar to me demoing 300 string patches. No joy. Thankfully these programs have gotten better at metadata and search functions. I bought 3 drum paks over the holidays and I don't remember the program I bought them for . I believe it was AD. I don't think we should have to buy 100 midi paks to get something decent out of these programs and for the most part, unless it's something very odd, the staple loops are pretty good. Part of me thinks that having two drum programs at 15gigs each, maybe I should have thought more about Superior drummer instead, but I do things to the bass drums and acoustics anyways, so those base kits can be 'tweaked'. I wonder how many here are still mapping each track in Cakewalk? I seldom do that any more.

Believe it or not Addictive Drums seems to fit a lot of my mixes best and I haven't used EZ as much. I admit a lot of that could just be what I've gotten accustomed to. I'm not even a drummer but this suff fascinates me.

I am looking at this as a possibility although I must have like 10 other drum kits. I think my upgrade would be 99.00 and then the 20% through Febuary. Has anyone used the AI features in EZD 3? THat seems to be the improvement with maybe a few more samples added.

Interesting. Nice mix.

Nice track jack.

You software guys, have you ever had the thought that maybe all of this free software coming from a certain country or associated countries as free for all kinds of things could harbor bad stuff? Or is it just me? Free is free right? As in no i.e. pop ups or verifications necessary. There was a time when a version of Cakewalk was this. No more.

This is all AI embedded stuff they can use to capitalize on our systems when the big AI takeover happens. I am kidding. Or am I?

Great guitar tones here. It's nice of you to help those guys out!

Thanks guys!

I used mellotron in the beginning. The rest wasn't as mellow, so I didn't.

I believe there may have been some advantages, however I much prefer the present way things are. So long as I can mold my thoughts into something I envisioned I like it. DAWs are amazing. I'm not smoking anything, I swear.

Now where's my magnet?

Thanks for comments.

I have a couple of recents but decided to put this one up first since it has vocals.

I sang this one in German.