abacab

It's Solid!

I just did that last week when the AAS sound packs were available as a freebie choice. Bought an Ultra Analog AAS pack on sale, and received a different AAS pack as the freebie!

Cloud City, a Unify library that needs no additional synths!

Exactly! Recommend for anyone to watch a few live stream videos on John "Skippy" Lehmkuhl's YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/PlugInGuruVideo/videos He loves giving sound design tutorials! As a former Korg employee, and long time sound designer, he excels in bringing out the best sounds in any synth, including Spectrasonics Omnisphere. Unify is a two man show, with Skippy doing the sound design, and developer Shane Dunne, PhD Computer Science, https://getdunne.com/ doing the coding. Skippy has done sound design on the following https://www.pluginguru.com/about/: Korg M1 (PCM and Patch Sound Cards) Korg M3R (factory voicing) Korg O1W Series (factory voicing) Korg Trinity Series (factory voicing) Korg Triton Series (factory voicing and PCM Sound Cards) Korg Wavestation (factory voicing, PCM and Sound Cards) Korg Wavestation A/D (factory voicing) Korg Wavestation WSSR (factory voicing and PCM Sound Cards) Korg S-3 Component Drum Machine (factory voicing) Roland JV-1080 (HipHop PCM Expansion card (created of the loops)) Korg KARMA Workstation (factory voicing) Yamaha TX-16W (sample libraries) Roland V-Synth V1 (factory voicing) Roland XV-5080 (factory drum kits) Alesis DM Pro (factory voicing of kits) Korg Wavedrum (DSP algorithm design and factory voicing) Korg Z-1 (factory voicing) Korg OASYS (factory voicing) Korg M50 (factory voicing) Korg M3 (factory voicing) Korg TR (factory voicing) Spectrasonics Atmosphere Plug-In (beta testing & limited voicing) Spectrasonics Trilogy Plug-In (beta testing & 200+ synth bass patches) Spectrasonics Omnisphere (beta testing and limited voicing) Camel Audio Alchemy (beta testing, factory and patch bank voicing) Native Instruments Absynth (voicing on v1 of Absynth (pre-NI) & voicing for Absynth Sounds Vol. 1 )

I recently downloaded a full orchestral track template for Spitfire BBCSO Discover and Core, that were customized for various DAWs. There are stacks for each section and articulation, sends for FX, very detailed. A good tutorial for mixing an orchestra! The Spitfire team started out by providing templates for Logic Pro X, then GarageBand, Ableton Live, Protools, and Cubase. But users have adapted the originals to a few more DAWs. https://www.spitfireaudiothepage.com/templates I compared the versions that I loaded into Ableton and Studio One. There is no way I would dive into that with Ableton using so many tracks and sends, etc., LOL! ? BBCSO Discover Templates: https://www.spitfireaudiothepage.com/posts/discover-templates (even Reaper, Bitwig, and FL Studio) BBCSO Core Templates: https://www.spitfireaudiothepage.com/posts/core-templates BBCSO Pro Templates: https://www.spitfireaudiothepage.com/posts/pro-templates

Unify is stable, and fairly low on PC resources. You can load up as many layers as your PC can take, and route various MIDI controllers to various macro knobs. And with the MIDI patterns in the various patches adding arpeggios, rhythm patterns, etc, you can make a lot happen by pressing a few notes and turning some knobs! I've never used it live, but that use case could cover a wide range of workflows, so without knowing how your setup works it might be hard to say if it would work for you. Try the demo for free to assess it for yourself!

My favorite DAWs that I am trying to dig a bit deeper into are Studio One 5 Pro, and Ableton Live 11 Suite. I've been easing into it, and keeping up with the latest versions, but it's a huge learning curve coming from Cakewalk, LOL! I made the commitment to switch DAWs back when Gibson bailed out, but BandLab has made that effort difficult by constantly making Cakewalk better! I still tend to grab CbB first when I want to do something quickly with a few instruments. It's the muscle memory thing... So if I wanted to do some experimental sound design and composing pattern based music, I would start with Live. Or if I wanted to do a larger project with an arrangement using a conventional track template, console view, MIDI editor with key switches, and possibly some music notation, it would definitely be Studio One for me.

Do what exactly? You can layer two synths in Analog Lab. But the V instruments themselves are not multitimbral. However, as far as I can tell, all Arturia V models are polyphonic, even the Moog Mini V3 and the ARP 2600 V3, which were originally vintage monophonic synths. Unify is more like a DAW host, with an unlimited synth rack, but without tracking/recording. When using Unify as a plugin within your DAW, you can utilize the DAW features to accomplish recording.

With Unify, a monophonic synth plugin can even be used as a polyphonic synth within a Unify patch! For example the "Unified" library for the monophonic synth Newfangled Audio Pendulate (free), has some patches that will play polyphonic pads. For example, Unify can do this with a tool included in Unify called "PolyBox" to link 8 mono plugin voice layers (2-16 are available) within an 8 voice Unify layer.

AAS Soundbanks are $19 right now.

Yes, $119 is as excellent price for a Kontakt crossgrade! I think that I paid $124 earlier this year during a 50% off sale at NI. Well worth it!

Cakewalk was never intended to be entry level. It was always a complex pro level audio/MIDI recording studio. BandLab acquired it to be available as a step up from the BandLab music program.

I noticed that with the Studio One v4 release. Their forum lit up with comments from "traditional" users complaining that most of the new features rolled out by PreSonus were aimed at "non-musicians", i.e., "producers".

If he did that, Pro Tools would probably be #1, with FL Studio and Cakewalk last... ?

Yup, wondered what he was thinking about Studio One there... but otherwise his list was about what I expected. I tried FL Studio some years ago, but couldn't work with it. According to his survey, FL Studio is #1 for EDM, so I guess that EDM producers must be the biggest DAW market these days.

The Software Center updated, but did not show any updates initially. So I hit the "Synchronize" button, and then saw 29 instrument updates waiting.

Sometimes it is just much easier to find tools that work the way you do, rather than expect tools to change to accommodate your workflow. Making a feature request is always encouraged, however it should be made with the awareness that only the most highly requested features ever get implemented. And even then, it could be a very long wait. Any community discussion of pro and cons is not a rejection of a request, but is intended to hammer out the level of usefulness of said feature to the largest number of users. I have used Cakewalk for over 20 years, as well as a few other music programs, and change is usually evolutionary, with the exception of major bug fixes that have widespread impact.

I had no problem using PayPal with Fastspring yesterday. I always use the Firefox browser for shopping, and with most browser extensions disabled during financial transactions. I have found that some privacy and ad-blockers can mess up the shopping experience!

Oh, wait!!! There's still Cyber Monday??? ?

Yep, that was a promo, where they were also offering discounted bundles. And just after the Studio One 4 release in May 2018, which featured their new chord track. Ujam virtual bassist v2.1 instruments were integrated with that PreSonus chord track!

I thought we were talking about music here?

July 2018, for Studio One customers >>> http://forum.cakewalk.com/Presonus-Owners-get-Virtual-Guitarist-Sparkle-FREE-m3770518.aspx

Very humorous, and enlightening regarding the need for accumulating endless libraries... ?

Since I got the Hammond B3X from IK, I'll never look at another sampled or modeled organ! Pnky swear!