Matthew Sorrels

I've never had much luck with build your own ensemble. Real players playing together aren't the same as a bunch of separate recordings. Of course real players aren't the same as multi-sampled libraries either. But multi-sampled libraries of single players put together never seem to jell right. It's like two stages removed.

To be honest I have to admit I like NI's Session Horns Pro, not so much for the sound but because I really like the instrument features/scripting (including the phrases which for someone like me are a lot more useful). All the rest that I might consider for the funk brass sound are kind of over priced. Mojo 2 looked interesting but the pricing is way too high. Eastwest and Play are pretty much no go for me with the way they handle the streaming. I can't invest more money in a platform that won't render correctly at full speed. I'd also recommend you avoid Cmusic Production's brass, very disappointed with the Trumpet I got from them.

Before buying any of the ProjectSAM libraries I recommend watching Guy Roland's videos. Here's one on Swing More. He has a bunch of them for almost all the ProjectSam Libraries. To be honest I doubt the Swing libraries are what you want, since they are kind of phrase library based (sort of). Check out all his videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtBlIrl__YxIEjuZs8vHU1g

While I'm still upset you haven't fixed the problem with the Steel Drums crashing Sampletank (going on 1.5 years now) I'm nothing if not willing to keep doing the same thing hoping for a different outcome. So I've submitted the repeating note bug, with Cubase and Reaper projects and a MIDI file that reproduces it. Anyone that wants to try this can download it here https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kQYEnFkCmbbDJPC3yTJGjD3wSbdgtIOX

My coupon was in a second message from the announcement, titled "Hyperion Strings Elements has arrived! Your personal upgrade code awaits within!"

They sent a coupon for $39 off (what I paid for the micro library). Just played with it for a few minutes between compiles. Seems pretty nice, a lot more articulations over the micro version. May be the best string library value-wise today.

Kontakt 6 Player and Kontakt 5 (player or full) co-exist just fine. I installed this Komplete Start back when I had Kontakt 5 full but only the player Kontakt 6 with no problems at all. Now that I've upgraded to full Kontakt 6, my Kontakt 5 still works just fine but won't load/use Kontakt 6 libraries or anything I re-save in Kontakt 6. This is a nice set of free stuff any full Kontakt 5 full user would be foolish to skip.

4.0.5 is pretty broken. Even by IK standards. The repeating MIDI note problem reproduces in Cubase easily. Just draw a bunch of 1/8 notes on the same key. It won't play them all when you play it back. Doesn't seem to matter what patch you use either, it's the engine not the samples.

I certainly hope it's sensible. If it was just them and Brainworx I'd believe they will discount massively(maybe not at first, but sooner or later), but they have Shadow Hills involved too. If you look at all these recent high end compressor plugins, they all retail way too high. Even $99 is kind of high in my book for a single compressor, but it's not crazy like $200+.

If you figure it's cost is $399, 10 at that price minus 60% works out to $159.60 each. Then add in $20 transfer fee. So $179.60 base cost before vouchers. Right now they won't let you do the dynamic discount with the $19 tuner, you have to get a $29 product (assuming no sales). Even 5 people (and 5 copies of a $29 plugin) would reduce the cost to $171.20 before the $20 transfer fee. So $191.20 base cost before vouchers. Just 1 person buying 9 $29 filler products and no transfer fee works out to $264 (about 33% off). You'd have to trust someone with ~$4k, might be a tall order. And vouchers over $20 won't help (I don't think you can pool vouchers, so they could only be used to cover the transfer fee). You'd think they would fix the dynamic pricing loopholes.

No way they don't retail this for at least the same as the UAD one ($299). The question then becomes what kind of discounts will they offer? My monthly voucher went up this month, I guess because I bought Dear VR pro. I think that means the price of everything at PA will now have to double. ?

Not really possible. VST design doesn't really cover this (changing one plugin to a whole new one), so it would break projects/etc. The best they could have done is reuse the VST id for one of the two plugins and make the new one read the old data format. But even that's kind of iffy. It's a whole new plugin and the old ones stay.

They lowered their prices 50% after pretty much stopping sales (I think because they felt piracy was killing them so they stopped selling anything). I've been wanting to get Giovani since it first came out ages ago, but it never made it to the top of my buy list. This extra coupon (on top of their lowered prices) was enough to push me over. Honestly I'm not sure these products are really in the same class as the highest end Kontakt instruments, even with the recent updates. I mostly picked this up because I've been wanting it since like 2005. When it was released it was pretty much the definition of high end vocal libraries and had a price to match, with this coupon it was $70. GAS never fades, just waits for the better deal. https://www.beladmedia.com/ For a limited time, the complete Bela D Media product catalog is on sale. Save 20% off the listed price and your entire shopping cart. Promo Code SAVE20BDM Please enter the above code at checkout to apply the discount. Format & Requirements Presently all Bela D Media products require the full version of Native Instruments Kontakt. Our products do not include a Player/Engine/VSTi. Any Player/Engine/VSTi you may own from another product cannot be used. This includes the free Kontakt player or demo modes. Native Instruments Kontakt 4/5. Tested successfully in Kontakt 6. Notice This sale will end on July, 7th. This offer may not be combined with any other promotional savings code. Vocal Tools Audition is excluded from this sale. This offer is available only via beladmedia.com.

The multi-track as layers in Cubase 10 mostly just crashes for me. Works perfectly in CbB, but the same 5 wav files in Cubase crashes just applying SpectraLayers. I think perhaps the new Cubase 10.0.30 isn't up to snuff on ARA just yet. The CbB ARA integration with SpectraLayers seems much better than in Cubase as well. Perhaps not a surprise but I would have thought the two teams would have worked together a bit more.

The ARA stuff works pretty well with CbB and Cubase 10. But (and this is a big one) you can't make layers. Every track you apply the ARA effect to is a layer, but when using it in ARA mode you can't cut part of the audio out and make it a new layer. Your ARA host can make layers, but not it. I understand why they did it this way, but it's lame and they should have done the work. It is should have been possible to have a virtual layer system that exists along with the ARA host layers, but that would require development and design work. Kind of disappointed with it to be honest. No plugins/effects and no layers in ARA mode seem like some sort of epic fail to me. Definitely not worth the full price.

The manual covers using it with Bandlab!

Well it has no plugins/audio effects. So on that basis I think RX7 Pro is a bit better as an audio editor. I suspect if I had tried a demo I might have re-thought getting it. I was hoping for RX7 Pro with ARA, but it doesn't really have the tool set to go with the selection engine.

Just bought it, the full version (I never got the MAGIX/Sony version). It's using the eLicenser but doesn't require the hardware, will soft license if you'd like. Only VST3 and AAX versions of the plugin. No VST2.

Truthfully CbB/SONAR has long needed much more complex MIDI routing features. It should provide virtual MIDI cables and routing without requiring external drivers. It could also support more advanced filtering, etc (ability to place the MFX plugin before the record for example). There were rumors the patch point and aux virtual buses might be expanded to cover MIDI tracks (or perhaps MIDI versions of the same). But that work has never happened. I'm still hopeful that one day I can take a single MIDI track, and route it to more than one soft synth without having to use something outside of CbB. I'd love to be able to bus and patch MIDI data like we can do audio. I'd also really like a much better drum map editor and the ability to create/edit arp patterns. All things Cakewalk could/should do, but for now you just have to work around it sometimes.

There was some discussion on KvR about this (when they announced it back a while ago). I believe the developer's company decided to not stay with MAGIX and moved the whole thing to Steinberg. Perhaps MAGIX gets to keep selling what they have now though.

If what you want is the notes to not show up on the track at all, the only way to get that to work is to use two MIDI tracks and a virtual MIDI cable. Stick the MFX MIDI plugin on the first track, turn it's echo on, set it's input to the keyboard and it's output to the virtual MIDI cable. On track number 2, the only one you record/use, set it's input to the virtual MIDI cable's output and it's output to the software instrument you are using. The first track with the MFX MIDI plugin (perhaps more than one depending on what exactly you want to filter) filters out the MIDI and the second track does the recording. You can also set up something like this using an external app (MIDI Ox) and virtual MIDI cables. Having Mute and Solo buttons on keys in the PRV I don't think would do what you are talking about either. All it would do is prevent a key from playing. It wouldn't stop it from recording/etc. If you want to use the virtual soft keyboard and have it just not show notes outside the range you'd need a whole new feature inside CbB.

Track Doorman (and any of the MIDI MFX plugins) won't prevent notes from showing up when you record. CbB/SONAR doesn't have a pre-record filter. It will prevent the note from passing to the synth though. It can also be applied to a clip after the clip is recorded and will remove the notes that way (select the clip and use the menu item Process->Apply Effect->MIDI Effects). So you can just put it on the track and leave it there, those notes outside the range won't ever be played, then when you want to clean up clip you can apply it directly.

Does the same for me in Cubase 10. Technically it's a missing feature, any VSTi can restore its setting's however it wants. Looks like Massive X doesn't (correctly) handle preset selection (without changes) vs modification and turns everything into a User patch.

I was really interested in Phase Plant until I realized you need all the rest of Kilohearts products to really get it. I have some of their stuff (freebies and a few random other bits) but I'm not sure I want another synth I need to buy parts for. I've been resisting some of these modular synths that have been flooding the market for the same reason. It does seem like we have gotten a whole lot of new synths and compressors these days. Too many to really sort through them all.

It's not so much unfinished but just kind of bland. It's maybe the most boring synth I've gotten recently. It needed to bring something unique to the table and near as I can tell it really doesn't. I don't see this as changing the synth pecking order all that much. Couple that with the AVX decision (it was a choice, they could have made it work for any hardware and work better on AVX hardware but they didn't). I don't see this becoming the next "hot" synth. As long as you got it with a Komplete bundle though I don't think it's bad. I just wouldn't buy it separately.