msmcleod

The DNS cache doesn't ever flush, unless you explicitly tell it to or you make a DNS/networking related configuration change. DNS records have a Time To Live (TTL) value associated with them which tells a DNS cache how long the particular record is good for. Records in the cache are kept for their TTL, then re-queried. So a reboot isn't enough. Normally this isn't needed, if a website's IP address is changed after the TTL value. But if the IP address is changed before the TTL expires, that's when you need to flush it. If you suspect it's out of date, you need to manually flush it.

Another thing to try is flushing your DNS cache. Run the following from a command line: ipconfig /flushdns

Have you got any custom firewall software running? It sounds like something is blocking internet access to the BandLab Assistant. Also, have you tried running the BandLab Assistant as administrator?

I definitely agree that some knob implementations are better than others. Maybe I came across too strong about the "real" look of VSTs - in fact, if it is an emulation of an existing bit of gear I prefer it to have the real-gear look, because you can use it as if it was the original... and in those cases, a knob makes total sense if it was a knob on the original. And I'm certainly not against good artwork on a plugin, as long as it doesn't affect its usability. There's the other end of the scale too, where the "functional" look is taken too far - take some of the Melda Production plugins for example... some of the GUI's leave me looking all over the place to find the parameters as everything looks the same. I do love the sound of the Melda stuff though. I guess what I'm looking for is a sensible balance between looks and ease of use. With the sonitus stuff, the look is a bit bland, but for me it doesn't affect functionality.

For me the GUI of the sonitus plugins is pretty low priority. IMHO there's too much emphasis on trying to make VST's look like "real" gear, often at the expense of usability. Turning knobs with a mouse isn't the most intuitive thing, whereas sliders and graphical envelopes are perfect for a mouse. If anything, making the GUI slightly bigger would be nice, but apart from that the interface works well for me and they sound great.

What I tend to do is switch the ProChannel off before freezing, this means that it's not included in the freeze. I can then switch it back on to mix the frozen audio.

I've done a similar thing with other VSTi's, and it took days, but it was worth it as it left me less overwhelmed by the number of presets to choose from. I guess I did the same thing when sampling my hardware synths too: I went through every patch on every hardware synth I had, decided if I liked it or not, and sampled each one. I also went through all my old unfinished projects (some dating back to Pro Audio 7), and updated them to use the sampled synths rather than the real ones. This took about 3 months, but it does mean all my old hardware synths are now all "in the box", and in particular on my laptop when I'm on the move.

I quite often choose to not include Track FX when freezing tracks that are using soft synths. This free's up the processing associated with the soft synth, but still allows me to use Track FX when mixing... so of course in this case, the FX rack will not be disabled. If however, the track FX are part of the "sound" (e.g. GuitarRig on a guitar part), I'll choose to freeze with Track FX.

Out of Amplitube 4, GuitarRig 5, Revalver 4 and TH3, overall TH3 stands out for me as the best. All four products are great and have their place though. I love the guitar modelling of Revalver, and the sheer number and range of presets in GuitarRig is very impressive and the sounds are good, if a tad over-processed for my liking. But as far as TH3 is concerned, the upgrade to TH3 Full from the Cakewalk Edition was well worth it. The upgrade from TH3 Full to TH-U is not as big an upgrade, but I welcome the new presets & models.

Looks like these loops disappeared at the time of Cakewalk Inc shutdown: http://forum.cakewalk.com/loopmasters-sample-magic-and-xmix-content-collections-won39t-install-m3692709.aspx Presumably their license became defunct when Cakewalk Inc became no more.

I got the email too, and I've upgraded. It worked out at £52.00 once VAT was added. Not a huge difference to TH3 Full, but the new models & presets are welcome. It installs separately alongside TH3 so my existing sounds are untouched.

There shouldn't be any headaches if you use the Cakewalk Plugin Manager. Just select the plugin, click on Plugin Properties and toggle the "Load with JBridge Wrapper" checkbox. Doing it this way (as opposed to using the JBridger app to create wrappers) means that Cakewalk sees it as the same plugin regardless of which wrapper its using.

BitBridge wrapped plugins have a blue/white title bar: JBridge wrapped plugins have a normal title bar, but have an extra bar at the bottom with a "Settings" button.

I tried a few kits out a good few years back, although I never actually got around to buying one (I'm still using a DIY kit based on a Remo practice kit & Alesis DM5). The Roland kits definitely stood out as the best, at least from a controller point of view - i.e. pad responsiveness (especially the mesh kits) and also the fact the hi-hat was completely variable between open and closed. Sound-wise I actually preferred the Alesis, but the hi-hat is an on/off type with nothing in between. In practice this didn't cause me too many issues, but it did limit my playing. Personally, I think the TD-17KVX is a good choice... and I think you're right about the machine gun effect being more to do with Roland's internal sounds.

I was thinking the same myself. Another thing that crossed my mind was exporting the stems and importing them into ProTools First (which is free, but limited to 16 tracks). At least that way you're actually sending a ProTools session to your colleague. But if quality is maintained in BandLab, then that might be a good choice... as long as the 6 minute limit isn't an issue.

JBridge is well worth the small investment. It offers far more options/tweaks to get around potential compatibility issues with various 32 bit plugins. Note that there's no need to use the JBridger program to create wrappers for each plugin. If you fire up Cakewalk Plugin Manager and select plugin properties on your 32 bit plugin, you can just check the "Load with JBridge wrapper" option and it takes care of it for you.

This is a known issue with Addictive Drums. Every time you do a major Windows update, you have to un-authorise and re-authorise your computer using the XLN installer.

You could try MFreqShifter from Melda Productions, automating the Shift parameter. Its free as well.

Just tried it myself. I get the same clicks & pops using the BitBridge wrapper. It works fine with JBridge.

I do the following: Select Views->Tempo from the menu to display the tempo map on the multi-dock. Double click on the tempo list entry on the right hand side to bring up the tempo dialog Click the "Click here to tap tempo" button

I've had this before on my laptop. It was down to me having Input Echo enabled on a track whose audio input was set to my laptop's internal microphone. Other times I've seen this, is when the laptop's input device is set to "Stereo Mix" and the track has input echo enabled.

You need the full version of Kontakt I'm afraid. Kontakt player only plays sounds that have been specially licensed by Native Instruments (which costs money). That's why Kontakt player compatible sounds cost so much. SF2 is a standard SoundFont, so any soundfont player should play that. SFZ will work with Rapture, Dimension Pro, sfz+ to name a few.

I've had the flu for 2 weeks, so I've been limited to playing my Yamaha digital piano when I felt up to it. I got really frustrated that anything I recorded sounded radically different both sound-wise & expression-wise when using any of my usual piano sounds (MiniGrand, AddictiveKeys etc), so I took the plunge and sampled my piano. So here it is, all 88 note's sampled at 7 velocity levels: Kontakt: http://msmcleod.co.uk/sounds/GPiano.nki SFZ: http://msmcleod.co.uk/sounds/GPianoSFZ.zip SF2: http://msmcleod.co.uk/sounds/GPianoSF2.zip The SFZ/SF2 will need a release time of around 0.5 secs. Personally, I find this piano sound radically different from all the others. Hopefully some of you can find a use for it too.

The MackieControl surface is shipped with CbB, even though it was written by a 3rd party on their behalf. Both Azslow3 and myself have made enhancements to this, but the original MackieControl should work fine for basic operations. I'd try re-installing Cakewalk to see if this fixes it.

I use a Shure SM58 for my vocals too (just the standard one, not the beta). I've never got along with condensers for my voice. I suspect a Shure SM7B would be better, but I'll need to find somewhere to try one out first.