Starise

I see your point here. The classic definition probably no longer applies. It's funny. Depending on what hat you wear you might see it differently. A couple of things come to mind. Just stuff that has accumulated in my grey matter over time from various experiences that probably form my opinion. Here are just a few- Someone on a music writing site is looking for someone who can either take their music and make it sound better or "audio engineer" it. These people clearly don't even know what a DAW is. They just want someone to "do that stuff". Make them sound good. One person I worked with didn't really have any talent...sorry,. the truth hurts. Someone who attended college and graduated with a degree in music theory and has dedicated themselves to write music to be published for orchestras. These dudes are up on music theory and they at least see themselves as professional score writers. Some of the stuff they write is admittedly "out there" to anyone who has been trained in the western music system. This is often because they are attempting to make some kind of statement. They often use free programs like Musescore and their material has that clunky midi feel to it when you hear it. These guys are an eccentric bunch. They don't know a DAW from their butt though. Another person grew up on computers and took to software like babies to milk. They know every single thing you could imagine about some DAWs and a few things you can't imagine. Most of these types can't write any kind of music that stands out. Me? I do a little bit of a whole lot of nothing but it's all fun. I like to work through problems in software and come to solutions. I can often hear music in my head or construct music.....I'm not a computer expert, but I can usually make it do what I need it to do. I have a computer related day job. I am a musician using a computer to assist me in making music not a computer user trying to produce music using a computer. Make sense?. So yeah, I admit I'm biased to some degree. I don't think someone with no musical talent is really capable of composing and I don't think many talented musicians can produce music. In between there somewhere are those who can effectively wear both hats to various degrees of success. Others who are talented musically in a technical way but can't make anything anyone wants to hear to save their life. It's easy to import a midi and work it into something for me but I don't do much of that because it isn't as fulfilling as making something from scratch. Often it isn't nearly as good as borrowing loops/midi. That's just a personal thing for me...I could give a few examples of music I did like that. You can wear both hats if you have the aptitude to do it. I think we have a lot of guys here who can.

This looks like the "year of the build" for you. Congrats Simeon! I'm on the 3rd year? of my last build. It's always fun to select the parts you want and do the build. I only have a few common sense comments. I wouldn't progress so slowly on it that the warranties expire on return options for the vendor in case there is a problem. There has never been any harm in slightly overclocking for me. I managed to get 4.2ghz from a chip that usually runs in the 3s. Never had an issue and keep it OC'd all the time. Not sure how all the hoopla was started over ram. When I built my system I only added 16gb thinking I might need more later on. I never did and have ran some heavy Kontakt unfrozen mixes with nary a hiccup.....so while lots of ram can't hurt I don't think it's necessarily mandatory unless you're running boat loads of plugins. 32 would probably suffice even in that case. I would load winpro 10. I didn't. I wish I would have. They make great studio heaters in the winter months...can get toasty in the summer without great A/C. If possible I try to locate the computer portion outside of the studio. Just an opinion take it or leave it. People like to see the pretty lights in the case now. I like to be cool in the summer. Buy a UPS backup if you don't have one. You might thank me one day for suggesting it. If things die or brownout and you don't have one.........let's just say it's the kind of thing that keeps places like Newegg in business :0)

Thanks Matt. I downloaded both the VST2 and VST3 versions. I have recently gone to only downloading VST3 thinking it might avoid issues. I seen it is sandboxed because I haven't checked use VST2 in VST preferences. So far so good- knock on wood. I tend to gravitate to certain programs that work well for me and that have the features I like. I don't see myself using Sampletank a lot in the future. I could be wrong. Their concert grand piano in the 77 pack is one of the hands down best pianos for recording and playing I have ever used. It's just fun to play and fits right into recordings well. I have all of the pianos in Kontakt, Addictive keys and others. Sometimes it isn't about how real something sounds. Has more to do with if it sounds good and works well in the context of a recording....that one is a keeper and made it worth the effort to get ST4 working for me.

Thanks Matt. I found the issue. I was looking at the middle box for my presets. I didn't see meta data so figured something was amiss. Must have rebuilt my data 5 times. I happened to go to load instrument on the first track and there it was! All of the meta data. Duh..... I thought I pretty swift on learning new software. I will say that I'm still not sure why a few programs show up under the middle drop down box. If nothing had showed up at all it would have been better than seeing a few sounds there and wondering why they all weren't there? Once you get to know the way it all works it's pretty nice actually. Seems way more intuitive in that respect than Kontakt for multis. I'm not usually a multi person, but this makes building one look tempting to me. Looking through the presents I didn't see a solo violin. Might have missed it....or they save that for their orchestra package. Max is a monster! I especially don't understand lines and lines of drum kits/sounds, but that's me. I guess they get loaded across the keyboard and you can mate them or map them to a kit? Using a drum program seems more intuitive in that respect. That's the thing though, all types of musicians are using it who do lots of different stuff. Laying out an instance, mapping the different parts to different keys, Adding movement to it using loops has a lot of potential. I think ST4 is a vast improvement over ST3. It is tough for me to move from Kontakt, but I could see only working in this world and never using Kontakt for some people. I would give it a 4 out of 10 for intuitive use for first time users of ST4 like myself. Those earlier versions undoubtedly didn't give the product the best rap. An 8 out of 10 for the SE version. I would take that higher for the more equipped versions. The middle version seems to have almost everything the Max version has. ST4 also uses my ST3 sounds. I have heard comments on the samples not all being the best. The vast majority of the ones I played were nicely done. So far as I know most of the samples don't use the same kinds of techniques used by Spitfire or similar. The stand alone cello sounded good to my ears. I would probably use Joshua Bell violin instead of their violin anyways. The acoustic guitars are pretty impressive for sampled guitars which are mostly on offer with the higher versions...This is another thing that can be covered by others in Kontakt for not a lot of $$ if you have the SE version. Only Max version covers these bases completely. I seldom if ever use sampled electric guitars because I just can't make them sound real. I have acoustic guitars in my studio and I SHOULD be using them.

Thanks Matt for sharing the preset list. I guess I'm not finished yet. I have nowhere near that number of presets. I set all of my sound files in what is D drive on my computer. I made a folder for it called Sampletank Sounds. I unzipped everything in all of the folders. I pointed ST4 to that folder. I'll let you know what I find. I am admin on this computer. Shouldn't be a factor but I've been wrong before. This is the kind of thing that absolutely KILLS any creativity I had in trying to work out these kinds of issues. I know a certain amount of it is inevitable.. I'm just ready to be playing instead of looking for more boo boos lol.

The thing is.....I have heard some great composers who didn't have mixing/production chops. So no, production is not composition but in this day and age composers need either someone who can do it or they need to learn to do it. Makes all the difference online (where most music is heard nowadays). Also, it is possible to change composition with production now.........they pretty much go hand in hand IMHO.

Thanks Matt and others for chiming in. I think I have finally found the answer which was something I overlooked. Since I recently installed ST4 I was pretty sure I had the latest version. Wouldn't you know it was version 4.0.7 and not version 4.0.9. I uninstalled that version and reinstalled 4.0.9 from the IK website>products area. FWIW I went to their forum and this has been occurring on pro Tools , Ableton and Fruity Loops to name a few...so this was not a Cakewalk issue. 4.0.7 and maybe earlier versions are buggy. I loaded the old version into Studio One and I had some kind of a default dummy graphic. I guess the SE library is lighter than I thought it was. Scanned that twice. Unzipped multiple files and still only have maybe a handful of sounds there. Shouldnt ST 4 show up on my Custom shop ? I knew something was amiss when I seen the default graphic. See the pics below. If you have the grapic in the first pic there's a problem. Looks as if there's an issue with my TRacks too.

That's a nice setup there. I though it sounded like maybe Spitfire was in there.

Thanks Jim. I guess I wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking something before I went that far. A few things that seem "off" to me about this. First the VST is white in the tree when most of the others are orange. The info indicated it's a VST 3 plug in. I will try to post pics of what I mean here. Secondly, since I don't have a desktop shortcut I'm going over to the IK programs folder to open ST4. In that folder the icon is off...almost as if something didn't register the graphic. ST4 does however, play some of the sounds ok in stand alone mode. I locks every time in Cakewalk as a VST. My product shows up in the purchased list, but does not show up as a purchase in the custom shop Sample Tank area. This happens even when I reload my purchases........

Do I need silverware for that? How about plastic ware? Chopsticks?

Yes I went back and made sure I was activated. I'll attach a pic of the screen I get right before Cakewalk shuts entirely down. I'm not sure what this means.

Is anyone else having issues with Sampletank 4? I have Sampletank 3 and had not used it much but never recall having any problems with it. Not too long ago I bought Sampletank 4 LE on a deal thinking I might upgrade to 4 later. The library that comes with it looked pretty good for the LE version. Several weeks ago was the first time I attempted to use ST4 LE. I unzipped the library samples and put them on one of my internal SSDs. Not on my C drive. Cakewalk sees the VST. When I drag the VST to my tracks view ST locks up every time. I went to the IK site and made sure I was using the latest build. Same issue. Tried stand alone and it works maybe 50% of the time or less. The loaded libraries are not all being seen either. The arpeggios are there but not all of the sounds, even though the sounds all show up on my D drive and are unzipped. When I downloaded the library I pointed everything to the library drive for samples. Slightly disappointing. Updates haven't helped. Updating the Sampletank custom shop hasn't helped. It is pretty much useless to me at this point.

It worked!

I received a notification on this? It's good to see this kind of thing here as a change! Not that I don't like pop/rock/ethereal.....I also like Bach. Did you use Albion on this or other Spitfire libraries? Amazing realism here. I'm guessing you also used standard orchestra panning techniques? I liked the second mix the best. Reverb on these mixes can be very subjective. I mean, do you want it to sound like it was recorded in a cathedral or a smaller venue? The choice is all up to you. I liked the balance of reverb . Sounds as if it was recorded in a nice ambient place. The only thing that I noticed is it seemed as if the lead parts were fighting for attention ever so slightly...I could still hear them but not quite the way a lead part might be. If you had not asked for suggestions I wouldn't have said a thing. I mean it's great as it is.

Kenny FYI, I have just subscribed to "Hello Fresh". They are based in NY. The meals are healthy and they send you all of the ingredients. There's something in there for everyone. Meat lovers, veg lovers etc. It is a little more expensive but then you don't waste time in the market buying food wandering around the lanes looking for the ingredients or burn gas ( UK petrol) in your car. An added benefit is you learn the recipes so you can make it from scratch in the future. So far we love it.

Kenny congrats on the new diet. Sorry I didn't mean to crash your post. It's really not worth my time to even comment on most of their BS. I think the whole breakfast thing is mainly what we grew up with and are accustomed to eating. I think some of that UK food is odd but then I didn't grow up over there. Those pig blood sausages don't do much for me. Where I grew up we had eggs and ham or eggs and sausage, toast, being from the south grits were a staple...which I love when done right. Corned beef hash with eggs is probably my favorite. Not a healthy meal but occasionally it doesn't hurt. I mostly don't eat breakfast in the morning during the week....up at 5am and out the door.

Ok we'll pull our bases out of your area then. Apparently you don't know what NATO is.

They are great programs with a luddite business model . If it weren't for that I would own a Steinberg product. I still might one day if they can ever see a way to make it easier to own the products for the average guy. I'm not going to spend 3X what any other DAW costs.....or downplay the massive capability we get in CbB for FREE. I get to bake a cake and the ingredients are free.

Ya but we sure know how to make Raptors to send to the UK for YOUR protection. .Funny. I haven't seen an English Raptor???

This is supposed to be about music so here is an associated video I made with all music I played Called "Lancaster County"

Yes but............................they don't horse around. Here's an unlisted vid of one of my friends down the street. This was a vid taken to show a horse for sale. The carbon foot print is really low. Just a few plops a day. Makes pretty decent metronome. I'm outta puff here since I ran to the location.

I want to give this one a try but I'm at my "work" workstation and not my music workstation. I should do a remote PC hookup here....great to read the results though. It's FREE! ? !> The site is overloaded?! Oh crap I can't find it ?> there it is ! ?> I like it ?> I wouldn't have payed for it ? Thank for the FYI ! Best of all.No dongle to dangle. Seriously. I can see where this would fit well in a diatonic setting.

The main issue IMHO is there are good choices at lower price points. This almost looks as if they are targeting the smaller income producing studio. Most certainly not small home studios. I know this is all subjective too because some have a lot of loot to spend on home studios. My perception of the "average" home studio is that this price point is too high when decent monitors can be had for 100-200 each. It's their game and the shots they call will determine where it goes. I will be interested to see how they fare against others. I have to hand it to them to be so bold as to introduce a product into an area already saturated with competition.

Thank goodness you didn't see granny. ? We have these storm cells that come here sometimes in the summer. Sometimes they generate tornadoes. If one ever directly hit my house there probably wouldn't be much left. Hair today, gone tomorrow.

I won't ask if you looked inside or what you saw when the roofs blew off.................. OK maybe I will ask. Did you see anything interesting? Grandmaw in curlers with her face pack on? ............................That isn't very interesting.