Grem

Thanks for all the replies. She is not an "audiophile" (not that there's anything wrong with that!). SO I got something from Best Buy. An Audio-Technica turntable, a small Sony receiver,  Sony 5" 3 way speakers, a Sony 10" active subwoofer, a record cleaning set, and three new albums. She should be good to.go for a little while.  

The turntable is Bluetooth.  Which when paired with our Bose Bluetooth Soundbar would have worked fine. But she let me know she didn't want any digital/Bluetooth BS in her turntable. She wanted an "old-fashioned record player" 

So I ordered the other stuff to go along with the turntable.

I will update ya'll with my opinion as to the CD/Vinyl thing. 

I thought this was gonna be easy!!

EZD3. With the addition of the Grid tab and the ability to finally edit a EDX midi clip, I am in lala land!!

UA Apollo and the channel strips that I can use with it.

Got:

UAD 3 Bundle that got me 3 free

UAD Manley Tube Preamp

Rigid Audio Everything Bundle

Two Notes IR's

Audio Assault IR's

EZD midi pk

EzD UK EDX

Cube Mini

And a very nice mic for half price, but it doesn't qualify as a BF/CM deal.

And I think that's it.

Had 5 PA amp sims in my cart and with the dynamic discount could have gotten them for less than $10 each... but didn't pull the trigger.

All in all I didn't go overboard.  Glad for that.

Almost pulled the trigger on the Positive Grid Smart Amp with the Carry Bag and Foot Switch. But I am hoping the wife gets the hint and picks it up for me for Christmas!!

29 minutes ago, Bapu said:

I have the UAD Vintage/Bass/Metal Amp Rooms  and the Softube Amp Room as well as Softube Vintage Amp Room.

Softube website cracks me up:
 

They want more of your money!!! Never enough!! 

Gotta love it. :)

2 minutes ago, Bad Penguin said:

my last purchase of BF/CM.

Yep. I think I am tapping out too. Just nothing that's grabbing me at all.

I thought there would be some more cuts on the EZX for ED and EB, but of the few they offered I only got one. And one midi. That was it!!

Was expecting so much more. Reminds me of a great video: Constantly Disappointed Toleration - Devine Lie

6 hours ago, simon said:

a bit lacklustre from TT in some of these deals ?

My thoughts exactly. They got very little of the money I was willing to give them.

7 hours ago, Wibbles said:

would be a feature users soon forgot about.

That does seem to be what happened to me!!

8 hours ago, jesse g said:

and click on it and then hold down Shift and X.

Not the title bar. The plugin itself.

I know you said 'the plugin' but me in my infinite wisdom thought that the title bar would qualify. It don't!

Yeah I forgot about that. It was enabled too. Maybe by default?

8 hours ago, jesse g said:

totally forgot about this feature in Cakewalk

Yep. So did I. Will have to check it out.

Thanks Jesse

On 11/12/2022 at 1:19 AM, daveiv said:

https://oimo.io/works/bubbles/

Enjoy.

I am having fun with this!!

Looks like a nice mic

9 hours ago, ALC said:

This is an old product.  You want to get Amp Room which is $43 on Softube.com right now.

But it's still a great amp sim. Still one that I grab from time to time. I am using the UAD version.  

@telecode 101 yep.

EZK really needs the "Add Track" feature of EZB and EZD3.

18 hours ago, Zo said:

You guyz really using those midi stuff ?

Oh yes. I have used it more than several ways. 

1. I took a piano part I like, created a song verse with it, wrote some lyrics, then form a whole song around that idea. The hook of the song ends up being a guitar part!! It allowed me to create a song without a guitar. I did it on a Surface Pro 3 at work!!

2. Used a chord progression that I had made up on guitar, stitched some piano parts together (that was a lot of work) from different midi clips I found in the EZK midi libraries I have and got a great song. It was like I had an accomplished piano player sitting right next to me, and they were able to hear exactly what I hear in my head, so they knew what I wanted, and was able to play it. Which I can't do!! I was able to tell them, no not that note in the middle, this note" "Play a fill at the end like this" "Don't go to that chord, stay in this chord". Actually it's kinda fun.

3. I have taken different chord progressions from the EZK midi library, put them together, tweaked a lot of the lines and notes to what I wanted it to do, then handed that to a very accomplished piano player. He was able to listen and see what I had done, was able to easily figure out where I wanted the song to go and hand me a very well done version of the song I wanted.

The ways to use this stuff is really limited by you.

I have learned to take parts of one midi clip and stitch it to another part and with a little   modification of some note duration/placement  have something that you would not be able to tell came from EZK.  I expected EZB to work the same, but it's a totally different instrument and took some new skills to make that work.

But any of the ideas I just mentioned above can be fed into EZB and come up with at least a good starting point. (A finished product takes some work!) And now with EZD3, that bass can be fed into EZD3 and it will have something useful to work with. Feed the EZK part into EZD3 and then combine the parts from the EZB and the EZK feeds into something that will give me some very good ideas on which direction I would like/could go.

They are useable. Very much so.

[Rant]

Downfall of EZK right now is the UI. That needs updating. Everything I described above is made worse by the UI. I would be happy with everything else staying the same (which it won't) when EZK2 comes out. Just give me a better UI!!! Like a midi grid! Piano Roll!! Something that I can edit the midi in EZK and not have to drag back and forth.

[/Rant over!! :)

3 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

the Audio Assault one, the main draw back is the way you have to search for and load the IRs.  I appreciate it has some extra modules and you can export your custom IR, but it isn't the fastest workflow in general.

Couldn't have said it better. Great little program that's ALMOST a PITA to get to the IR's. It has some great little modules that really allow a lot of flexibility for the IR's you do load. BTW, it's on sale for $5 right now. Not a bad deal at all. And you can get IR's for $2.50!

1 hour ago, ALC said:

Two Notes cab sim is a bit complex—I never gelled with it.

Agreed. But recently I gave it a shot again and was really floored with the results. Really a lot of control if you take a minute to figure it out. And it allows you to load a IR you don't own and try it out. The only catch? You get a moment of "silence" instead of the white noise thing. Which I wish more devs used instead of that damn white noise!! : )

52 minutes ago, heath row said:

settling long ago on Recabinet 5, followed up with Redwirez mixIR2 and mixIR3, with OVERLOUDs SuperCabinet

I do have those, and was a user of Recab since the first one. Redwirez too. Used them before they had their own IR loader. Ken (RIP brudda) with ABG had a IR loader called iFace that was designed to use Redwirez to their fullest long before other IR loaders came on the scene. And I just recently came across Overlouds IR program. 

1 hour ago, Marc Cormier said:

The PRS Archon with Ownhammer IRs sounds REALLY good.

Looking at them now. Thanks

19 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

Melda MConvolutionEZ is surprisingly good (and free), makes wading through folders and folders of IRs easy.

MConvolutionMB is even better and more flexible and sounds great.

I forgot about the Melda offerings. I have them! Thanks for reminding me.

9 minutes ago, Jan Schmitz said:

https://www.nembriniaudio.com/collections/utilities/products/ir-loader

Do they use iLok? Looking on the website now. Looks interesting. But I don't have any Nembrini stuff and I am wondering why!

[edit]

Yes they do and that's why I don't have any Nembrini stuff.

18 minutes ago, Marc Cormier said:

these to work best with 3rd party IRs

I am starting to explore this more and more. Haven't settled on a IR loader yet. BUt I have looked at the one from Audio Assault, Kuassa has one too that I have been using. And I have the stuff from RedWirez, Recab, and some Two Tones. 

1 hour ago, Jan Schmitz said:

making multiple exclamation marks

It's what I feel like doing. And I belive, regardless of what you believe, that this amp sim is worth $20. I n fact well worth $20!!!! : )

1 hour ago, Jan Schmitz said:

You people

And what do you mean by that?

Just a heads up on this little talked about amp sim. These really sound good. And at this price are a great deal.

PRS Amp Sim Waves price at everyplugin.com is little over $20!!!

15 hours ago, Rain said:

really wasn't familiar with computers either.  All I cared about was: 8 tracks of cd quality audio.

eventually, I realized that MIDI could be useful

Yep, exactly my first thought when I read about computer recording.  Never thought I would use midi, until I read the manual and realized I could automate stuff!!

Then I learned about "Sequencing"

Yep, jumped right in that rabbit hole!!!

7 hours ago, Patricio Campos said:

would never buy something from them,

IDK, I sent my wife a link to the Spark amp telling her it would make someone a great Christmas present!!

47 minutes ago, jackson white said:

never understood why they expect someone to pay twice for these after renaming it a "collection".

Yep. I got the updated SSL channel strip, and it would still cost me the same price to buy the "SSL Collection" which would only give me the Bus comp. Which I would like. But I ain't paying for the Channel Strip three times!!

4 hours ago, Jesse Screed said:

I love your pedal board.  Right now I am reviving one of these

I got the smaller version of that, the ME 50. Never really got on with it. But I am about to give it a second, (third?) chance and see if I wanna keep it.