Matthew Sorrels

It seems pretty clear with these micro-subscriptions focused on a single developer they are dealing with some issues for how to pay all their partners fairly based on the in coming subscription amounts. Why exactly they would think offering single developer subscriptions would be something customers would want is kind of beyond me though. Next move will see a few of their partners offering products that aren't included in the main subscription but only in their own micro-subscription or products not included in any subscription. That or/and they add some sort of usage monitoring to the subscription plugins so they can divvy up the pot to their partners based on usage. The Spotify payment system doesn't work for music artists very and I think the same thing may apply here.

NI has had update subscriptions before actually, long long ago. But they only did it for a year or so. You basically pre-paid for the a year of upgrades to Komplete. I don't think they are going subscriptions on software anytime soon. The Loop Loft stuff (sounds.com) maybe, the Machine expansions, maybe, but not the rest. In past things like this (NI has done this a few times actually) what usually happens is they kill off a bunch of amazing and great products in favor of some stuff you have no interest in. Most likely this means more hardware/mobile phone nonsense and less improve Kontakt so it doesn't suck.

I guess I'm glad I jumped on the 25% coupon and bought the mega bundle before they turned it off. ?

If you are running Windows 7 you are most likely going to have to sort out the TLS support one way or another, no matter how much developers do. I think the easy fix will do the registry stuff for you, the download button is kind of hidden on that web page and not very clear (look for the download button after the section labeled Easy Fix). The actual OS update patch download should have been installed with normal Windows updates (unless you didn't apply them, or turned the updates off). I've had to fix a bunch of IIS servers with TLS support and vaguely remember some nice utility app that let you see/configure everything but I did this years ago. This may not be the last time you have issues with TLS support on Windows 7 though.

Now having played with it for a while, I think it just kind of falls short of being useful. A new beta of Sundog was made available yesterday. Just playing around with it for a few minutes I got far more interesting music than anything I could get out of Harvest. But it's not a plugin so that might be more of an issue. I'm pretty fond of the Captain Chord plugin set if you must have a plugin. And I still think Rapid Composer is hands down the most "pro" (but very hard to fully understand) MIDI composer out there. Orb Composer and I still aren't getting along all that well, but it's later releases have been better. Harvest has potential but it needs to step up a lot to make it in my regular toolbox.

Previous releases (for example Sampletank 3) the updates and sound add ons were added to the Resources download section rather than the sounds download section, so they would be available to everyone.

I don't think there is any effect due to competition among orchestra sample libraries. It's not like normal businesses in that way. Companies really aren't one uping each other for our benefit. Otherwise prices would be a lot lower. I don't like their player, it's not very good really. If this were a Kontakt instrument I might have to think about it, but I'm punting any of their own sampler based libraries for now.

I picked this up. At first it wouldn't install, kept saying my (copy and pasted) serial number was invalid. Then it suddenly worked. Looks like their installer connects to their website to "verify" your serial. So if the site goes down (or changes) your old installer won't work. Not sure I really like that all that much. They also don't ask for permission/tell you it will go to the net to validate your serial number during the install either. No drag and drop, which is kind of a bummer. Also the GUI isn't resizable. Still may be useful though, just has a few rough edges.

Looks good, passed all my initial tests. ? I was kind of surprised I can't download the sound updates anymore though. If I had missed that "window" I'd be shafted about getting the new guitar/etc. Used to be the updates would be available for longer (always available?) and just the core would time out and require paying to re-download.

What awards did their plugin win? Also no cowbell. ?

I wouldn't count on ReWireing ACID Pro. I sure couldn't get it work right and I'm pretty good with stuff like that.

Looks like they are dropping rewire completely too. Not sure I'll upgrade my Reason 10. I bought it because it was on sale. I don't think I've used it at all though. If the $129 upgrade isn't a special/limited time deal I'll wait.

I built a new machine at the end of last year with a Fractal Design Define R6 USB-C Blackout case (product code is FD-CA-DEF-R6C-BKO) got it from Amazon. It has everything you mention except no Thunderbolt on the top. The blu-ray drive (one slot) lives behind the front door. I'm using air cooling (Noctua) the end result is very quiet. Don't get the glass side so you can get more damping material (the sides are padded) and less flashing lights. The only thing that disappointed me about it was how tricky it is to get to the back of the power supply through the power supply cover (which isn't removable). I was always feeding cables into the modular power supply and having to wedge my hand in there to get them through and connected. If I had removed the lower drive bay it would have been easier perhaps though. I only had to deal with it a few times but it was my only real issue. It's a pretty nice case and a good size. I ended up using a different fan controller (that came with the ASUS motherboard) that didn't fit along the back panel like the one included with it but it's hard to fault them for that.

Do you have Sonarworks Reference installed? They just sent out an update that talks about an error like this. Might be related. I don't use Systemwide so I never saw this but perhaps it's the source of your problem? https://www.sonarworks.com/blog/release-notes/

You might be able to use this free Kontakt multiscript: https://cinesamples.com/product/cinemap To remap the keyswitches and the key range.

I'm way too busy thinking about fixing TextFX to work right on 64bit Notepad++. I really should just lock myself my office until I do it, how hard could it be?

Thanks to this, for this brief moment in time I now have no "Not Purchased" gear listed under Amplitube and T-Racks in Custom Shop. And no left over bonus picks! Until they decide to expand this. ?

You can tell if a loop is ACIDized because it will have the word "acid" near the end of the file if you "strings" the binary .wav file (use a unix-like utility app to extract strings from a binary file). You can also load them into Sound Forge and check. The problem is that acid section doesn't tell you if the transients and key/bpm were set correctly, just that it is there. Every file I've checked has an acid signature at the end. And everything has seemed to have correct settings in ACID Pro 9.0. Here's an example:

All their older pedals are $49 full price, so I guess the subscription adds a 3x markup. So the new math to figure out what a PA product should really sell for is take price, divide by 3 then take 50% (expected basic music software sale discount) which is the same as 16.6% of the full retail price. So I guess that means the new discount level for PA needs to hit 83% off before it's a good deal.

Run Native Access to get it. This is the full string ensemble. They finally (after more than a year I think) have fixed the bug where it wouldn't play exact repeating notes on the grid if you turned off auto-divisi. A bug that made the entire library nearly worthless for me (since I never play things and always use exact notes/grid/scoring software). 1.4.0 -- 2019-08-13 FIXED hanging notes in certain scenarios FIXED an issue that prevented two or more adjacent notes from generating an individual bow ADDED The release knob has been improved to respond to previously excluded articulations ADDED Several improvements to the auto-divisi mode

You can't go wrong with Indiginus. It's a whole better class than the old Zero-G content.

It's pretty decent. Not just a bunch of percussion, includes lots of regional instruments loops. Fair number of vocal loops from the various regions. The loops are loops though, no way around that. I'm pretty fond of using loops with ACID so I don't see that as a problem. It does have a directory called "World Pack Instruments" which seems to contain various instruments used for the loops as wav samples. So for example the "Celtic Norhern Pipe" directory has the following files: Northern Pipe Multi 1-G#3.wav Northern Pipe Multi 2-A#3.wav Northern Pipe Multi 3-C4.wav Northern Pipe Multi 4-D4.wav Northern Pipe Multi 5-D#4.wav Northern Pipe Multi 6-F4.wav Northern Pipe Multi 7-G4.wav Northern Pipe Multi 8-G#4.wav Northern Pipe Multi 9-A#4.wav Northern Pipe Multi Drone-A#2.wav These samples could easily be mapped in Kontakt, though I think the quality might be a little lacking ( you really can't make a good instrument from a handful of samples). Oddly enough these instrument samples don't seem to exist in the Garageband/Apple Loop version. The old Zero-G titles aren't quite like modern stuff though and it's usefulness is always going to be kind of iffy. But with the AcidWav versions I'm pretty happy with what I got vs what it cost me. I feel the same about the AcidWav version of the Pro Pack (which I'm not really sure you can even buy except at T&S). If you have an interest in the Celtic, Deepest India, Sounds of Polynesia, etc products I think this is a better deal at a better price. If they are cut down I'm not really seeing it (my Deepest India directory is actually larger than the single product's size). The content lists from the full packages seem to match what is in this World Pack.

I've mostly worked out some of how it works but that doesn't change the fact it's kind of unfriendly and not always really helpful. The presets that come with it are also kind of a big problem (and I don't have the expansions since I bought it earlier on). If you think about your keyboard instachord splits it in half. The lower half is for selecting a chord (and there are two halves to that, Chords A and Chords B), the upper half is for playing that chord (Picks A and Picks B). If you load the preset RF 01 C Major Chords you get this: But I'll tell you right now, this setup is kind of crappy. Here's why. Ignore the Chords B and Picks B section, just focus on the Chords A and Picks A. If you press one of the keys on the Chords A section it selects a chord. It's setup with this preset to select the chords that make up C Major (C, Dm,Em,F,G,Am,Bm5) using only the white keys. It also selects them with basic voicing and a few are an octave down. That's actually fine. So if you want to play a song using only C Major chords you press any of the white keys C3-B3 and it automatically selects a chord in the C Major scale. The problem is the Picks section. The way this preset is rigged, if you want to play the notes of the chord you are selected you have to hit a TON of white keys all in a row, all at once. And yes that's not natural at all. Or at least not at first. The white keys starting at C5 are all set to each of the notes of the chord, so to play that C Major cord as a triad you have to hit D5 , E5 and F5. What you say? Why did I skip C5, that's because C5 is mapped to the bass note which isn't the first note of the triad. In order to play the bass note and all 6 notes of the chord you actually have to hold down 7 white keys in a row to trigger all those notes. Which seems crazy and requires more hands than I have. So instead change the preset so that it's simpler. Change the Action at the bottom from Bass Note to Hit 1-2-3 (to play the triad for the chord) and clear out all the Chords B section and the Picks B section). So it looks like this Now you can select a chord using the white keys in the Chords A area (C3) and play it by hitting just one key (C5). And the chords you'll play are all in C Major. Playing with this you can start to realize that all the rest of Instachord involves more complex ways of selecting a chord (and it's voicing) and then playing that chord (by strumming for example) But unlike trying to play normal piano, to use instachord you are mostly going to be using keys as triggers, so you will often press 3-5 of them all in a row at the same time. Something you'd normally never do playing. With the right preset though you can easily two finger and stay in scale. Note I should point out that I've never read the manual (if there is one) and I have no idea if this is really how it's supposed to work. This is how it seems to work for me. I also know just enough music theory that I only know I know nothing. I also can't play piano at all, so I may be missing large bits of that as well. So take this with a grain of salt.

Their support sent me another Connect code and download links for the AcidWav version. I think they don't give this out version often though, because the RAR files (and the directory it makes) are missnamed (ZeroG_World_Parck_AcidWav without the dash between Zero and G and pack misspelled). So I'm happy but kind of sad. Apple loop format isn't documented (publicly anyway) and no one supports it but Apple. I think a Apple Loop to Acid wav converter that translates the BPM/Key/Transients is possible. One of the handful of projects I may someday get around to hacking up. I know the advertising copy talks about taking selective parts of the included products but for Celtic the wav files come to 834.8MB, which is very close to the 862MB they claim the full Celtic is. At least with the Pro Pack the included packages are the whole thing, they say it's not but I've had some overlaps and they check out 100%. Of course most of those older titles are actually audio CD's (or a mix of audio and wav files). Looking at the content's PDF I think everything listed is included.

Bought it, but the download is only the Apple Loops. No Acidized Wave Formats at all. I've sent them an email. They used to have Acid versions of this and the Dance Packs and the Pro Pack. The Pro Pack I bought (long ago) on disc from Time&Space and it is Acidized, but they seem to have punted Acidized in favor of Apple Loops.