AxlBrutality

Thanks! Yea, harsh vocals are definitely a challenge, and not something everyone can do. I myself (having done this for close to 20 years) can't hit all the super lows and super highs I used to (which is part of why I actually use high-pitched shrieking pretty sparingly these days, and stick mostly to growling and cookie monster type stuff). As far as that particular release goes (things change with each project and each release), nothing fancy gear wise on this one. Guitar was an Ibanez RG 6-string with Ernie Ball Skinny Top/Heavy Bottom strings in CGCFAD. Bass was actually just a cheap DanElectric 4-string tuned down to CGCF, using a Dunlop 5-string bass set of strings, lol). Amp modelling was all digital in Revalver. Guitars used a Tubescreamer in front of a 6505 head, and a combination of Mesa, Deizel, and EDVH cab IRs from Ownhammer. Bass used Ampeg cab IRs from OH. Drums were done in Addictive Drums 2. Vocal mic was an SM58. As far as plugins and processing goes, I rely pretty heavily on Slate and JST plugins, along with a few native Cakewalk ones. I'm actually just finishing up a new EP for that project...main vocal mic on the new one is a Rode NT2a, and most of my amp sims (guitar and bass) are Audio Assault rigs (with the exception of clean guitars, which I still use Revalver for). The new release also has some piano on it, for which I'm still using TruePianos for modelling. It's funny, because that project was kinda just meant to be a random side project that I didn't really know if I was going to put much effort or resources into...was just kindof a "I wanted to have fun and jam some catchier stuff, but still be heavy". But it's become my most popular project as far as listeners/fans goes. So I guess that's gonna become my main thing. Haha.

I have a pretty decent arsenal of stuff at my disposal these days; just experimenting with more stuff and figured I'd share my impressions. Particularly since death metal/core discussion isn't super common on here, and there's not a ton of reviews/info to be found on some of the smaller companies like AA.

@Noel Borthwick I just had a random weird thing happen where I adjusted my ASIO buffer from 256 to 1024 (went from tracking to mixing), and Cakewalk abruptly crashed to desktop. No warning, no dump file, nada. (Reopened and it was fine after that.) Luckily I didn't lose too much work, but yea. Figured I'd mention it. I'm on whatever build BA told me to update to a few days ago, so I should be good there.

I posted a while ago wondering if anyone had had any experience with Audio Assault's stuff, as he was having another ridiculous sale (as he does a lot). For those who are unaware, he's a Mexico-based guy that makes sims and plugins geared mostly towards extreme metal: www.audioassault.mx Well, I went ahead and picked up several of his sims (I mean, for $5-10 apiece, why the hell not). Now that I've had a few days to really, seriously play with them, I figured I'd share some quick thoughts and impressions for anyone else in the future who might also inquire or be curious. Disclaimer: I use a variety of my own cab IRs from Ownhammer, who are pretty much the kings of cab IRs for metal. So I can't speak too much to any of the included cabs, and the usability of these sims may vary for you if you just stick with those stock cabs. Duality Bass Studio: Decent little sim for metal bass. Very nice low end and sub tones, lots of good fuzz/distortion options and tones. NOT a good bass sim if you're looking for pure, clean tones....even for death metal stuff, I've had to dial the drives down quite a bit to get a cleaner top end (although I'm admittedly not a big fan of fuzz/distortion on bass anyway, and really only use it if I need it to stand out in a dense mix). I'll probably continue using it on occasion for my extreme metal stuff, but not so much for rock or acoustic stuff. (In all fairness, again, most AA stuff is geared specifically towards extreme metal). The VST2 is extremely unstable in CbB, and I can't get the standalone to work at all. But the VST3 works beautifully, and is currently being used on an EP I'm working on. Dominator: Easily the best of the bunch that I bought. Takes some dialing in, but I've gotten some nasty rhythm tones for metalcore/death metal stuff. It's pretty on par with, if not better than, most of what's in Revalver for high gain stuff. I think it takes a backseat to the JST Toneforge series sims though. Emperor: A close second to Dominator for extreme metal tones...it loses out because it's one of the noisier high gain amp sims I've encountered. Even with gates, the thing just generates too high of a signal to noise ratio for most of what I'm doing right now. This would be a great sim for black metal, grindcore, crust, etc., but just isn't clean enough for run of the mill death metal, deathcore, etc. Hellbeast: Also pretty close to the Dominator, except that even after extensive dialing in, it's still got a bit of that boxy, old-school "Line 6 metal", solid state practice amp tone...that really isn't good for rhythms. Having said that, that same cheap boxiness, when put on leads/solos, actually separates them nicely from the rhythms while still sitting in a high-gain mix very well. (It's the same reason that some metal guys will run a lead guitar through a wah in the mid position and just leave it [the wah] stationary.) I'm currently running this on my leads and solos over Dominator rhythms, and things are sounding pretty gnarly (in a good way). So basically.... I wouldn't pay full price for any of these, and they take some dialing in. None of them are really good enough or versatile enough to be that "workhorse" that you can just slap on anything. I've found them each to be decent-to-good at very specific things, individually. Having said that, they're definitely worth the sale price if you want some specialty/niche tools or some more blending options at your disposal....or if you just want/need to try something different...or if you're on a budget. And they're a bit more user-friendly than things like Revalver...and the GUIs are pretty sexy. But I think there's a reason these are on ridiculous sale all the time (besides the insane dollar to peso conversion rate, lmao). You often get what you pay for, and these sims don't quite stack up against other modern metal options like JST's Toneforge series. They're more than usable, but only if you really know what you're doing and have lots of other tools (like other IRs) at your disposal.

Are you using any plugins? Everyone is focused on the "feedback" descriptor, but that's not the only thing that causes meters to get pegged and sound to cut out. One or more of your plugs could be crashing. I had this happen just recently. Try disabling all of your plugins and see if that stops it. If so, then you need to narrow down which plugin is the culprit.

Haha; that was it! Must have accidentally hit it somewhere along the line. Seems stupid, but it's a pretty nice workflow/speed thing to have when working with loops and such.

I seem to have disabled (or it seems to have suddenly disappeared) the predictive line that appears across all tracks, up to the timeline, when you're moving/dragging audio clips and midi loops and such. The one that helps you align exactly where you're going with the clip....if that makes sense? Anybody know what I'm talking about?

Hey, can you PM me your email so I can forward it to them? I had it at one point but can't seem to find it.

Man; what a blast from the past. Haha. I loved a couple of those plugins back in the day. I still have a few laying around on my computer, but I don't use them. As someone else mentioned; they were relegated to the dustbin for a reason. The free effects and modules that became standard in the XSeries/Platinum, and continue to be in CbB, are really much better.

Just as an update to everyone; I got ahold of AA and let them know what was going on...they were super easy to work with and seem to be aware of some instability issues with the VST2 (sounds like they've had issues before), and they seem to know exactly where to look. So there's that. @Noel Borthwick figured you'd appreciate that, in light of recent events. That's how you deal with customer service and tech support as a third party vendor. Lol.

Yea, I've heard a lot of really good stuff about Darkglass. Just don't have the cash to drop on it right now...it's on the [very long] list. ? Duality was kinda just an impulse buy, since it was dirt cheap and I was curious. Even if I'm still unimpressed with it after a while, I still have Revalver (pretty much the only thing I still use Revalver for) until I can afford Darkglass or Bassforge.

Thanks, Noel. I'll go ahead and let AA know their VST2 version appears to be occasionally crashing/having freakouts in CbB...and I'll stick with the VST3 for now (as long as it's doing fine). Honestly, I'm not too heartbroken. I got it on ridiculous sale for only $12, I have other bass sims, and I'm not very attached to it....kinda unimpressed. Which is a shame; I like their guitar stuff.

Lol it wasn't in the first screenshot, so no worries. I posted a second screenshot to show proof that I was indeed using the VST2 version. Interesting note...next logical step was to try the VST3 version...now I cannot, for the life of me, recreate the issue. I didn't think it was common for the VST3 version to be more stable than the VST2 version....

Plugin shows that it's the VST2 version.

So last night I grabbed Audio Assault's Duality bass amp sim, and played with it all last evening and this morning with no issue. Then, all of a sudden, I open my project back up later this morning, and as soon as it loads, there's a pop, my bass track is pegged (volume wise) as shown (without even hitting play or having input monitoring enabled)...and I have no sound out of anything. It's like there's a massive feedback loop somewhere....except there's not. The problem is quite obviously Duality...because if I disable/turn off Duality, it's fine. But it seems strange to me that it was literally working fine, and now it's not....with literally zero changes or updates to my computer, CbB, or Duality. Anybody else have an experience with something like this with other plugins, or maybe a simple solution before I contact Audio Assault? I do recall having this happen a few random times over the years with random other plugins, but normally closing Cakewalk and reopening it solved it. Not so in this instance. Edit: As a quick note: if I delete the plugin and insert a new instance of it, it's fine.....until I reopen the project next time. Opening/loading the project is what seems to trigger it. Edit 2: Problem doesn't seem to occur unless I change more than a few parameters on the plugin. Leaving it at its defaults doesn't seem to cause the problem. Gradually tweaking more and more parameters, I found that after about the 6th parameter change from defaults is when the problem starts to occur. Edit 3: I have reproduced this problem both in this project and in a blank, 1-track project.

Not as an open program, no. I'd imagine it was listed a background process, along with about 50 other things. Nobody knew to suspect it specifically until Ben noticed it in the call stack in the dump file (where it had also been previously overlooked) and threw a hail mary. @JonD True, but that really would have only narrowed it down to about 2 dozen or more processes. And we had no reason to suspect that a background process was the issue. /shrug Hindsight is always 20/20, I suppose.

I don't know how many metalheads we have in here, but I figured I'd post my stuff in here. All of these projects are solo projects. Vocals, guitars, bass, piano/keys, orchestral arrangements, drum programming (I do play drums, but find it easier to program these days), lyrics, recording/mixing, etc.). -Silence Before the Storm is a heavier metalcore/light melodeath/groove metal type project of mine. For fans of old Chimaira, Unearth, Heaven Shall Burn, Lamb of God, etc. Newest release: The Sufferer EP (Spotify, Youtube) -Agony By Default is a death metal project that bounces between melodic death metal and blackened melodeath. For fans of vehemence, Kataklysm, Dark Tranquility, Dissection, etc. Newest release: Refleksjoner (Spotify, Youtube) -Ashes of Denial is a hard rock/post-grunge project with some occasional acoustic stuff. For fans of Tantric, Days of the New, Alice In Chains, Black Label Society, Shaman's Harvest, etc. Newest release: Dark Days (Spotify, Youtube)

Oh snap; I didn't know that. Thanks a ton! Almost 17 years of using Sonar/Cakewalk and I still am discovering little shit. Haha. I still think it would be nice/easier to have an option to make clip fades post-everything (particularly for start/stop chugging metal stuff, where a ton of automation will still be tedious), but yea. That really helps, thanks again.

This would be particularly useful where amp sims are concerned. As it stands now, fades are pre-FX bin, which means if you have heavy distortion on your guitar via an amp sim, the distortion itself lessens...and more importantly, with high-gain stuff, the amp noise-to-signal ratio becomes intolerable through the fade (and this isn't something easily cured by gates, even "intelligent" gates like Kaften). I realize I can automate the volume, but emulating the curve of slow/fast fades is a very tedious and time-consuming. Any alternatives?

Yup; literally just finished that test up and messaged Ben. LP plugins work perfectly in a full project, under load, when opened on my secondary display, with OpenGL re-enabled. I'm so freaking excited right now; you have no idea. For those who are curious...it was tested in Reaper nearly a year ago and the problem didn't occur. What we didn't realize is that it was an issue only on secondary displays...apparently I had opened it up on my primary display, because it had worked perfectly then. Little things, man. Update ( @Noel Borthwick) The last piece of the puzzle....I now finally get to play around with MAutoPitch, as I have confirmed it is working as well. All known problem plugins (Slate VTM, Eiosis DeEsser, LP EQ, LP MB, Meldaproductions MAutoPitch) are a full go!

I want to thank @Ben Staton and @Noel Borthwick for their continued pursuit of this, as well as their patience and their tolerance of my frustration. I also want to mention that in this year-long saga, Slate and MeldaProductions both abandoned me almost immediately and showed no interest in even trying to identify the issue. But has been the Cakewalk team that was willing to pick this up again, and has finally apparently tracked this down. In all fairness to everyone involved, this was the single most niche problem I've ever seen. An MSI-only app, causing a conflict only with OpenGL plugins, only on secondary displays, even when not running/open itself (I don't even use Nahimic, lmao). It's pretty insane, haha. @Ben Staton deserves all the credit, cookies, and kudos in the world for catching the Nahimic process in the dump files. It's been overlooked by an awful lot of people over the last year. Obviously we're still tidying up some things and doing some testing, but it appears to have completely disappeared once uninstalling the Nahimic 3 app. Keep in mind, on my end it was an actual Windows 10 app, so it didn't show up in my Programs list in Control Panel. I had to find and uninstall it from the Start menu. Anybody with MSI systems should double check there and make sure...I'd imagine it could eventually cause issues even if your workflow seems fine now.

@Scott Mire Thanks for taking the time to come in and give some details on everything. I am curious and interested to see where you guys take things. Although I have moved on to other sims for most things, I do intend to keep Revalver for the time being and haven't written it off. It's still my main rig for bass and clean guitars, but that's mainly only due to a lack of options elsewhere as well. One thing that does concern me is that if you guys didn't get the resources you need from a fairly large, reputable, successful company like Peavey, how likely is it that you'll get (and continue to get) the resources you need as a smaller and unheard of company? This is an especially relevant question considering how much more competitive the amp sim market is these days...you guys are fighting to take back market share from some very popular heavyweights in this space now (Positive Grid, Fortin, JST, etc...and even smaller companies like Audio Assault seem to be gaining steam). Secondly, I've never jumped in the whole dongle debate because it never much mattered to me (I think people just like to complain to complain), but it's starting to become an issue from a pure management perspective. I have no problem with anti-piracy measures, even physical ones. But if you guys could make managing/changing dongles on our own a bit easier (as you just mentioned)....without having to email customer support and all that....that would be great. Right now I have 3 USB ports. I have a keyboard, a mouse, a regular USB dongle for Revalver, an iLok I later acquired for Slate plugins, a USB audio interface, an external hard drive, and I'm looking at the potential of having to get a proprietary Steinberg dongle as well...it's insane. Lmao. Now, I do have a USB hub that allows me to accommodate most of what I need, but even with USB select suspend settings off, my USB ports do sometimes get overloaded and temporarily shut down. So I'll be looking for ways to downsize, and having an easy way of just resetting Revalver licensing and tying it to my iLok, for example, would be nice. Furthermore, if you guys could maybe just team up with iLok/PACE and use the cloud licensing service, we could dump the need for a physical dongle altogether. Glad to hear you guys are keeping your ears open and acknowledging feedback! That's one of the reasons a lot of us here stick with Cakewalk...the team here is much more interactive and in-tune, which isn't always the case with larger DAW/plugin companies. If you or your team can maintain a presence here and continue this same line of communication, that'd be awesome. I'd pay close attention to what JST has done with Bassforge Hellraiser. Honestly, that was going to be my next amp sim purchase...it seems to be pretty popular and is one of the only really good specialty bass sims on the market right now (particularly for metal guys).

@Noel Borthwick @scook @Starship Krupa I sent this to @Ben Staton (who is working on this) as soon as I found this out, but I have a massive development for the OpenGL/GUI hanging issues and figured you guys might be curious (and Noel might want to be looped in). For background, I have a second display...an LG32LF500b television connected via HDMI. This is what I primarily open CbB on, as my laptop screen is nearly half the size and it's so much nicer having a bigger display. On a hunch, I opened CbB and both VTM and Eiosis Deesser on my primary laptop screen for the first time in forever, and they worked perfectly. I then opened CbB and inserted the plugins on my secondary (TV) screen once again, and the original problem reliably persisted once again. I then crosschecked and repeated the process on my laptop's screen, and the plugins again ran perfectly. So I was faced with the question....is the problem the TV, or is the problem the act of running CbB/plugins on a second display at all? So I then connected my wife's MSI Optix G27C2 to my laptop as an extended display. The problem persisted on that as well. Keeping the Optix connected, I once again crosschecked by running CbB and the plugins on my laptop/home screen. They ran beautifully. I ran one last test..I opened CbB on my home screen and opened up VTM, but then dragged VTM to the second display. The freeze/hang was reproduced instantly. It appears some OpenGL-powered plugins' GUIs have a problem running on a second display, period. Why, I have no idea...as I've mentioned before, I have no problem admitting I'm no developer...but that seems like a pretty big development [lmao, no pun intended]. The saga continues.......lol. Not gonna lie; I'm pretty proud of my detective work right now. Lol.

@Canopus Thanks for that, btw...I had made another thread asking about pianos specifically, and had kinda forgot to look into Addictive Keys for some reason (I actually run AD2 and have an XLN account and all that). Do you have any experience in how it compares sonically to things like Sonivox Eighty-Eight, EastWest, TruePianos, etc.?

I mean, I already have an iLok and have to use it for other things, but yea I have the elicenser service installed as well....so none of that's an issue.