Starise

Tom,

This is a well made tune. The lyrics are creative to say the least. I already said too much on another "politically leaning" post not long ago that I probably should have left unsaid. I guess in hindsight music is a good way to release frustration of the "powers that be" . Who needs soap operas? Just watch a news channel. 

I am primarily a policy directed person and personalities or people a few fries short of a happy meal really don't influence my thinking on laws or policies so long as we are at least headed in the right direction. I see a merge of everything political because the platforms voted on seldom produce the results intended. I have thick skin. I do get tired of the constant pounding a certain fake red head takes. Yes he asks for it a lot of the time. His doody really does stink too.It's a circus....it really it is.  People on my FB account just won't give it a rest though.......like how do you want it today T sitting down or bending over? I seldom let it occupy my thoughts. This was a fun look at the whole C-virus political thing done in a very creative way. Kudos for that. One day I hope we can all look back on it like a small bump in the road

Well this was simply an amazing mix. I think it should have more exposure. Seriously makes me want to get a Console 1. Your voice is amazing. Hats off!

bjornpdx , Thank you! I believe it's the "mystical" element that attracts me to some of this. Music with the feeling that there's magic in the air. Does that make sense?

JoeGBradford- Many thanks for listening and comments!

Douglas Kirby- Thank you for giving this a listen on headphones. I'm glad that the outcome was good. The shaker was a sample. I have a shaler I intended to use but I could not locate it at the time. 

Hidden Symmetry, I am releived that it came across ok on a laptop. I always worry about my mixes on laptop speakers. Thanks for listening.

thegaltieribrothers ( Paul)- Thank you Paul for listening and for your comments on the music. Much appreciated. I couldn't have hoped for more than to inspire a dream!

DeeringAmps- At first I thought maybe  Marie o'Conor was an well known artist in another country.  I'll bet your grandmother was quite a woman.

Bajan Blue- Thank you!

Wookie- Thank you for listening.  Adams? Nice!!  The sense of space was made using 2CAudio PBJ.  I appreciate you taking the time to give this a listen.

The cutoff was my fault. When I ported to the other DAW I clipped the tails a little too short. Not much I could do about it after that. Lesson learned.

I left the timing off a little here and there on purpose. I hate quantization. It's basically the way I played it. 

Thanks for your comments Tom.  That Marie O'Connor is something else. (seriously I don't know who she is)

Not exactly but I play some Jazz. Do you?

Thanks to Mike from Creative Sauce for the video.

A few small snags I ran into on folders , installation and scanning with this program. Probably simple things many will not have issues with. Maybe this will help someone else who isn't entirely familiar with how the program works.

I installed Miroslav and Syntronic to separate folders. I seen these as separate programs to Sampletank. What was slightly confusing to me is that even though SampleTank and those other programs can be bought and played separately , they can be collectively brought into the Sampletank GUI so long as you scan the folders each is in. So SampleTank really is more than only SampleTank. It's more of a universal hub. I think this should be clarified. All programs can go under the ST GUI so that when you open it they all show up.

A few more things.  I noticed I was missing sounds advertised as appearing in ST 4 MAX. What they don't tell you is many of the listed sounds are actually ST3 libraries. Since ST 3 appears in the GUI you need to select it for all sounds to appear in the meta data search. When libraries are selected the words will be red. If they are not red you are only looking at the libraries selected and appearing red in the ST browser. What is confusing here is that The sounds advertised under ST 4 MAX are not all under ST 4 MAX in the gui if you only select that library.

Just little stuff., but if you don't know you don't know and it probably should be made more clear.

This thread was aptly named "Threadripper" . You guys are tearing this one up?

Improvisation is some of the most enjoyable music to play for me. I only had time to sample through this and couldn't listen to the entire 10 minutes of it.

I can tell you guys have played together a few times and make a great improv team! Thanks for sharing!

You have a wonderful vocal ability. The music is well done IMHO. A tweak here and there on overall volumes couldn't hurt. Excellent work though!

I didn't have time to listen to all. The ones I listened to are all well done.  You guys are talented and I hope you can keep working together!

You certainly have captured an authentic Beatles sound!  I'm not so familiar with this particular song. Sorry to hear you plans were thwarted. 

Best of luck to you on this project! Thanks for sharing!

Nice work. Kudos to all! Amazing that people from so far away can work together. Makes me think  about using Bandlab more often.

Thank you David!

I am beginning to make a new collection of music based on Celtic music. Sounds better with headphones IMO. It has some acoustic space in it. Any comments or crits welcome!

Thanks.

On 4/22/2020 at 4:25 AM, msmcleod said:

We've just fixed an issue for VSTi's getting re-assigned when hardware MIDI devices are changed during a session and you had multiple instances of the same VSTi within a project.

Theoretically this issue could also occur if you deleted a VSTi synth that you added before you added other synths, and you still had multiple instances of another VSTi  in your project.

I'm pretty sure this will cure the issues described in this thread.

 Thank you for getting on this right away!

I had the same issues as others which I  have reported. I believe I did change at least one sound in KONTAKT but kept the instance. In another case I didn't change anything. When I froze and then unfroze the tracks they were swapped with other tracks. Multiple tracks unfroze when I only wanted to unfreeze one track. The track I intended to unfreeze had no data in it. I attributed this to me maybe bungling up the audio outputs in KONTAKT but this seems to be happening with different VSTi.

At least the issue is being reported and you guys are aware of it. Thanks again!

There's a lot of data to ponder when looking at modern computers. A person could read a few reviews online and come to some false conclusions. This is why I really appreciate someone like Jim who has built basically all of the most recent setups and can comment on actual use.

None of the choices seem bad per se unless you are planning mixes that could potentially bottleneck one of these computers. I remember one time we had a discussion about how many instances of KONAKT and how many plugins could be loaded on an older i7 computers equipped with plenty of memory and fast hard drives. That number was ridiculously high. Probably WAY more than the average layman home studio enthusiast will ever use. And these "laymen" are often pushing 100 tracks with effects. If you're going for lots of instances of Spitfire and VSL , then yeah don't skimp. It's really two different worlds and most of those people wouldn't be on the Cakewalk forum. Just being honest. We men like to hop stuff up and see what goes the fastest and even us lowly home recordists like to plan for the future.

My next build will probably be an i9. I admit to being a little biased because no Intel system I have built ever failed, so I guess I'm a slightly brand loyal for that reason. I still have my old quad core  DAW. It didn't die. I had to unplug it after 8 years.

Overall gain can be set using pink noise if you use the K-system. Studio One has a pink noise generator built in. Cakewalk does not but you can get them for free online.

MNoiseGenerator by Melda HERE. You can also get a DB meter app if you have a smart phone.

Here's a video on getting set up. TBH I have changed my levels a bit and need to do this again. I found a setting over time that worked for me when mastering. The K system is  hard science Bob Katz came up with. Bob is a world renowned mastering engineer and I had the opportunity to interview him back when I was podcasting. Bought his updated book called Mastering Audio which he signed!  

Mastering levels are not the same for classical music as they are for other genre. Classical music is generally mastered for more dynamics which often translates to lower volume. Even if you don't calibrate your system you can put a levels meter like the one in Ozone or TRacks to see what the signal is doing at the master. This is similar to flying an airplane using only the instruments because without some kind of calibration you wont hear the music the way it's coming off the master. Hope this helps.

2 hours ago, Patrick Derbidge said:

I agree. Keeping everything cool is one of the most important things you can do for performance or your cpu and mobo will throttle and you won't see any performance benefits. I treat my pc like a server and have it located on a shelf in the adjacent room to my studio so that I don't have to compromise between noise and cooling too much. I get the benefit of a quiet studio and a well cooled PC at the same time but I understand not everyone has that luxury.

 

This is a best solution IMO, to have the main computer elsewhere. Right now my computer is in a Fractal case and I use very quiet ball bearing fans. Noise isn't an issue. Most of the time the temp in my studio is ok all except for the hottest months here in the north east US. Humidity is more the issue. If I don't humidify I'll have 20%  or less humidity in my studio in winter months. Computers also make excellent air dehumidifiers. Most residential spaces aren't designed for additional heat load. More often contractors in  developments skimp and buy the most inexpensive systems they can put in and still get by. This means most rooms are pushing the limits even with only a few people in a space. A "studio" could be anything from a mixing desk and a PC to a pile of outboard gear, so I guess the needs vary. Anyone interested in the heat load of a space can get heat load calculations.

I am building  a new studio and that's why I thought about this . I might not actually be in it for another year because it is only part of a larger project I'm involved in. I just bought a dual zone system to augment my main home system. Part of it will condition a large room addition 14ft ceilings large windows etc. My calculation with it was less that 12,000 btus or 1 "ton"of air conditioning. The studio will be in the back portion of a garage I added on to my other garage. The 2nd zone will go there and it will be 9000 btu. Should be plenty for my purposes. I will have the option to put my main computer out in the adjacent garage.  The A/C is also a heat pump, but I added hydronic floor heat to the room addition and am contemplating it for the studio as well. Probably wouldn't be absolutely necessary in there. For those who don't know there are professional programs for heat calculations like Manual-J. I used a few online sources to get mine. Everything adds up. Wall thickness, insulation R- value, weather patterns for your area, proximity to sun, windows surface area etc. If you live in a tropical climate you will need a special tropical designed A/C system. They are made to handle more extreme heat. My system is made to go to 120F.

That high end thread ripper looks like something I could heat my house with

As a suggestion. Look at heat load too. Might want to add an extra air conditioning duct into your studio.  That heat has to go somewhere.

I recently started a thread over on the Ning forum called " Good mid priced sample libraries" Because honestly I don't think you need to go get the most expensive libraries. Lots of people there are buying the VSL stuff. Granted VSL make good libraries I just think you can make great mock ups using far less. A trained ear might hear the difference.

Here's one I recently made using a set of SONiVOX libraries. I bought Brass, woodwinds and strings plus the 88 as a bundle for 20.00 US. The strings are a little grainy but that has more to do with the way I mixed it. The 88 was a big surprise. It is pretty amazing! I also used the 8dio solo violin in this. When I bought it for 20.00 I didn't think I would ever use it. The cello is Cinesamples Tina Quo though. Even that wasn't terribly expensive on a deal. Originally this mix was too hot. I had to bring the levels down for this kind of music when not in a movie context. I think I managed to get pretty close for someone who isn't a pro.

As others have said it has more to do with the room. The best monitors in the world won't help you if you aren't hearing things correctly. Even with lots of correction on my space mixes often come out bass shy and I have to work on the bass. This is because my space still isn't totally right. If it were me I would probably take the subwoofer out or have it set VERY low if your mixing room is small. JMOP.

I am not as particular about instrument placement unless it affects how the sound will be. Some who mix for this are very particular about that. Sometimes I am, but only if the context fits.

Thanks!

As primarily a keyboardist I often have the keyboard set up to track both an audio and  midi track. If the audio coming from the keyboard is something that really fits I'll track both.

I mostly track  guitars as audio but since getting hold of a few decent guitar libraries I've been more prone to just use one of those if it sounds good. As someone else already mentioned, I could potentially drag the audio parts to midi. One DAW I use doesn't let me write volume automation to a midi track so I'll often "freeze" that track.

KONTAKT is not only a sample library player but a merge point of sorts and the place where you select whether you want to play a multi or a single instrument. You can play all sounds as one on one channel or you can set each sound up on it's own midi channel. Things can easily "go south" when selecting, labeling and directing audio out of KONTAKT. Don't ask me how I know that. Two things made KONTAKT really frustrating for me in the early days of it. NI still had some streamlining to do on their code for efficiency and computers weren't half what they are today.  Back then there was no way I could load any kind of heavy library ( in terms of disk size) and have it play well. Both KONTAKT and computers have come a long way but NI still does frustrating things such as removing features from older versions that people used and didn't want removed. 

Most people who use KONTAKT professionally are staying in the midi domain until the very end. They can do that sort of thing at high track counts if they have a computer that will handle it. I wish software makers would give a minimum spec that really works with more than a few tracks.  If the intention is to make big productions you will need a well spec'd computer.

All of this works well for one man or woman ITB setups. I still think the best albums were made using real people playing real instruments. A decent musician can visualize how something is "supposed" to sound and make ITB compositions that fool just about everyone. That's at least part of it if you're going for realism in knowing how a real musician playing that particular instrument would play, what keys they might be in etc. 

TBH although the sounds that come with CbB are decent for a beginner I think anyone who is getting serious about making a more realistic presentation ITB should be looking at something like KONTAKT...don't forget though, there are lots of alternatives to KONTAKT as well. There's the older ENGINE player, SampleTank, UVI, Garratain has a built in player. Spitfire moved away from KONTAKT recently by using their own player.Many DAWS have a built in player for basic sounds that sometimes works very well. There are lots of others.

I think the main draw to KONTAKT for those working on a professional level using lots of tracks is it's all in one easy to manage environment and is usually fairly stable. If you integrate the NI controller into that environment you have access to everything fast. Smaller ITB setups can add whatever they want to add randomly and if you only have 10-20 tracks you can make some great work on an average computer. 

20 minutes ago, InstrEd said:

Man go over to some of the religious forums if you want to have some nastiness!  I'm not going to name any, you can google search some if you want. 

After my brother committed suicide I went looking for some comfort and not what I found at all on those forums.  The fighting about who is right and who is wrong still has me shaking my head. Anyway I know we are not suppose to talk religion here so carry on.  I'm glad this place has a good sense of humor about most of the posts.

Wow, Sorry to hear that bro.  There are really bitter people who had a bad experience with some people in "religion". I don't blame them for being bitter. There are all types out there and I think some of those places attract the kinds of people who think their purpose in the word is to tell everyone how right they are and how wrong everyone else is in a very condescending way. Been there seen some of it. No thanks.

8 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Sorry to read about your brother, but you’re right, this place is different in a pretty, pretty good way. 

Yep for sure!

I sometimes use one of these- QuNeo It has flat sliders and the pads have different zones. Lights on it are an added gimmick? The lights actually help to see how you are adjusting it. No software comes with it though and it isn't plug-and play. 

4 minutes ago, Peter - IK Multimedia said:

True and I really was joking.  I wouldn't be here 10+ years if I wasn't enjoying myself.  Of course that segues nicely into KVR as I'll admit that's probably the only thing that's nearly broken me over those 10+ years.  There has been some nastiness for sure, with a marked improvement lately even if it still can seem a bit heated compared to somewhere like here.     I did have the advantage of an existing rapport with many users there pre-IK as I believe I had 4,000+ posts before my IK tenure started.  Another tangent is that I stipulated to both KVR and IK that I must be able to use a separate and clearly-branded IK username as would any IK rep in the future.  Glad to stick to that, though I really could have made that 4K post count SO much higher otherwise.  Either way, "sock puppets" were a huge problem back then (and some argue still are, but I think it is far better now) so I didn't want to get associated with anything like that and wanted to remain above board.

Reminds me of a forum I will not name here. It wasn't KVR but it's a fairly popular forum and I know the owner who has really built it up over the years into a great place.

In this forum a few of us wondered what would happen if we had a free forum where there were no stipulations as to religion or politics. Even called it the "anything goes" forum. It lasted maybe two months. Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was like a roller coaster ride ending 1000 feet up in the grand canyon. For one thing, it taught me that people have some very odd views and tend to name call and use stereotypes about any view different from their own. One or two "take chargers" there were trying to set up who was ****** and who wasn't. Yeah........after a bit they just went away because I don't think they could handle the real world. I'll never forget some of the subjects we got onto were giants and is the queen a reptilian and does she eat mice?  LOL!   I happen to believe we in fact had some tall people way back when because I think we have found the bones. Man was I ever taken to task for that one. The whole thing was eventually closed down because a few there were reporting that it had them so shook up they couldn't function. 

Music production though, It's kind of difficult for me to argue about Mac .vs PC or AMD .vs Intel ....to me that's small stuff. I like to investigate it though. I had  LOT of posts on the old Cakewalk forum. Many thousands. It seems the only one who was able to take their post count to the new forum was BAPU. Not sure how much he payed them for that