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It seems to me that the best deals are if you are already a customer with the current Pro edition. Pro first time is $129. For example upgrade from Pro 2020/2021 to UltraPak 2021 is $279 $149. First time purchase of UltraPak is $469.

That's the lowest price I have seen! Since I already have Pigments and Analog Lab, I just looked at the V Collection and I have a $50 coupon in the cart, so $50 off of half price is $199 for the V.

Hey, I bought this one back in August! A re-run?

I have found that sometimes Reaper is good to have around for checking and comparing routing scenarios in Cakewalk, due to the track design being completely different for each. In Cakewalk you have specific audio, MIDI, and instrument tracks, where each track type has specifically defined rules about how they can interact with other objects in the DAW. In Reaper, a track is a track, where it seems that almost anything can route to anything. For example, it is much easier to route audio to an instrument in Reaper, as in the case of a sampler VSTi that needs an audio input in order to live sample. And Reaper seems to be much more intelligent on opening GM MIDI files (type 1/type2), where it will ask if you want to split out a track per MIDI channel if it detects that. Some DAWs don't export multi-track MIDI correctly, and I have used Reaper as a middle man to import/export MIDI multi-track to be used elsewhere. It seems they got that part right!

I started with Swatches in the AAS player a few years ago, and then started collecting AAS sound banks whenever they were on special, or free. Between Chromaphone, String Studio, and Ultra Analog, I couldn't help noticing that the Chromaphone sounds covered a much broader range of sounds than the others. And perhaps that even a few sound designers seem to have pushed way beyond what the AAS developers probably had in mind for a chromatic, percussive modeling synth. It is much more than that to my ears! The arps, basses, effects, keys, guitars, leads, organs, pads, plucks, rhythmics, sequences, strings, sweeps, textures, and more make this an awesome synth! Long story, short... I've always had Chromaphone on my wish list, so that I never felt that acquiring the sound banks for it in advance was a wasted effort. I finally got Chromaphone 2 on sale earlier this year, and then grabbed the v3 update as soon as it arrived! ?

I finally completed my AAS Chromaphone 3 sound pack collection with the final 4 packs that I was missing. I got a Chromaphone 3 Sound Packs (custom offer) bundle of 4 for $35 direct from AAS. ?

Nice score! SynthMaster One is a very good synth on its own! The dev has ported a lot of code from SM1 into SM2 so that the SM3 should be a monster hybrid of the two when it is finished! The dev has indicated that he is devoting full time to the new release!

Objeq Delay is cool. Hard to describe, but it's different, and useful for sound design. Is a good companion for non-AAS synths.

I recently retired my M-Audio FireWire 410 (drivers not updated since inMusic bought them from Avid in 2012), and replaced it with a 3rd gen Scarlett 2i2. Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd gen performing flawlessly on Win 10!

I think that is the same reason I picked up EZKeys as a BF deal. I also picked up Scaler a while back. I want to spend some time learning to use them to manipulate MIDI in a more productive way. But as far as ST4 sounds go, I am quite impressed with the ST4 C7 Grand Classical. I imported a couple of solo MIDI piano scores and they sounded great on that piano!

I got that one for $99. ?

Udemy frequently offers many discounted $9.99 courses. Any music courses by Jason Allen PhD are excellent. Jason is qualified to teach music as he is a composer, producer, songwriter, engineer, sound designer, DJ, remix artist, multi-media artist, performer, inventor, and entrepreneur. He teaches at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, MN, where he runs the Music, Media, and Management program. https://www.udemy.com/user/janthonyallen/ His courses on Udemy include Music Theory Comprehensive, Mixing Masterclass, Composition and Film Scoring, Ultimate Ableton Live, Drum Programming Masterclass, etc.

I got those two as the BF specials for MIDI at Toontrack as well at $10 each, as well as Americana EZX for $20. Also grabbed EZKeys Upright Piano for $39, along with Americana and Piano Pop EZKeys MIDI for $10 each.

Waveform Pro Basic will get you a drum sampler and a multi-sampler (they are tied to Waveform), as well as the Collective synth (not tied to Waveform). List of content for each edition here: https://www.tracktion.com/products/waveform-pro-content

The aesthetics could definitely use a facelift! But the functionality has been much improved!

You really do need to watch the video all the way to the end to realize the full capabilities of this tool. At first I thought, well all that could be done with a few simple arpeggiators ... but then ... look out!

I felt the same way about the ST3 UI. The new ST4 UI is a breath of fresh air by comparison. I agree that there could still be improvements, but it's much easier to work with now! Especially with the scalable UI.

I would be very surprised to find an average user that comes here looking for a free DAW that has otherwise extensive/demanding (read expensive) requirements for orchestral instruments libraries The more pedestrian sample libraries probably suit the average hobbyist, home recordist, or songwriter just fine. In fact if you are doing paid work your client would probably be much more happy with a live recorded orchestra, than with a Kontakt sample library. Cheers! ?

Cakewalk MIDI Basics

The only thing I would ask is that Cakewalk please stop scanning all Waves shells completely at startup after adding just a single Waves plugin. Cakewalk starts up OK, but the plug-in scan continues for an extended time after start up. Running Cakewalk 2020-11 (Build 099). I realize how the Waves Shell obfuscates changes with individual plug-ins, but other DAWs don't seem to have this issue to the same extent.

If a streaming service accepts a lossless format such as FLAC, and is going to transcode whatever you upload anyway, you might as well send them the highest resolution file that they will accept, rather than MP3 (lossy). Imagine that the rules for peaks might vary with different file formats, so running a few test uploads/transcodes with the chosen service is probably a good idea to judge the end results.

You can easily switch the ST4 browser back to "Folder" view by instrument, similar to the default ST3 view. Agree that the ST4 default "Category" view is confusing...

Reel ADT is a very nice one! I got it included back when I upgraded to the Abbey Road Collection. Vintage double tracking, well done!

I got my code for the CLA EchoSphere this morning and downloaded it. Sounds nice! Thanks, Waves! ?