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I just thought that your criticism of users as ignorant was a bit over the top John, and I was trying to redirect it. But you seem to want to keep hitting that wall. I'm done here.

Everything should work as long as you can custom map the correct notes to the kit pieces in the kit that you have selected in Xpand!2. For example to trigger the kick with a selected pad, you probably need to have that pad send a C1 (at least that works on my system with middle C for reference as octave 3). Xpand!2 shows the kick mapped to C1 in the plugin GUI. You may have to try several different octave ranges, as Cakewalk does not always display notes in the octave where you might expect it to be. It might turn up at C0, C1, or C2 , or elsewhere depending on the Cakewalk preferences. I found it helps if I set Cakewalk Preferences > Customization > Display > Base Octave for Pitches [-2]. The easiest way to find the kick is usually to plug in a MIDI keyboard and hit every C note until you find the kick drum. Or use a MIDI analyzer like MIDI-OX to determine the exact note that you are sending from your MIDI controller. http://www.midiox.com/ As far as setting up Xpand!2, maybe this video will help. It uses Pro Tools as the host in this example, but setting up the Xpand!2 drums is not Pro Tools specific, except at the 3:15 min mark in the video, you will actually find the big instrument preset menu is at the bottom of the Xpand!2 VST interface, not at the top of the plugin window as shown in Pro Tools in the video. The Xpand!2 smart knobs for each layer A-B-C-D will let you see the mappings for the pieces and do some minor adjustments to the kit. Creating a drumbeat using Xpand!2 https://www.lynda.com/Pro-Tools-tutorials/Creating-drumbeat-using-Xpand2/383573/413476-4.html

Maybe you were thinking of Cakewalk Session Drummer 3? With that one you can drag 'wav' file samples from the browser right onto the kit pieces.

Xpand!2's drum kits respond to keyboard notes. The kits are mapped across the keyboard, so it's not really Cakewalk specific. I don't have an Akai controller to test with, but if you can set those pads to send MIDI notes you should be all set.

I would definitely get them off the system drive. I make sure that everything that I download goes into the "Downloads" folder on my system drive, where it then gets extracted to run any installers, etc. My system drive is SSD, so it does these tasks very quickly. But it does require a bit of housekeeping. Mostly I just move the downloaded files into my archives on an external drive. Also make sure to delete any newly unzipped install folders in the "Downloads" folder, as they are redundant, and can be recreated from the main zip files.

I don't think it is always fear or "ignorance". Sometimes it's just better with "the devil you know"!!! We used to have an expression at work, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!!! Plenty of major enterprises will be paying Microsoft handsomely for the privilege of extended support for Windows 7 after its end of life. At least until they can budget for the bulldozer upgrades needed to replace all of their aging hardware.

Agreed on the GUI bug with Big Bang Cinematic Percussion, that is a legit issue that has never been resolved. Regarding those nice samples in Cinematic Percussion, they are not locked or encrypted. So you can load those into any drum sample player to form your own custom kit, and avoid the GUI issue...

Totally agree with Jim on what an excellent platform Windows 10 makes, once reined in! I will add +1 to the other comments recommending at least 8GB of RAM, and a SSD for the boot/system drive. I have an older home-built desktop that was built for Win7/8 that has these specs and it runs very well with Win 10 after a clean Windows install and a bit of tweaking! I also upgraded a laptop (not my DAW) from Win 8.1 with 4GB RAM, and it's minimally usable with Win 10, with very little free memory, and a spinning drive. On my system, Win 10 periodically runs a few background processes that access the boot drive. These are mostly undetectable on my desktop with the SSD. But on the laptop I can occasionally see them plodding along at 100% disk utilization. Believe me, I have tried stopping all startup & scheduled tasks that I could find and then some, but I can't stop them all. Better to just get an SSD! And bottom line for the Windows 10 updates is that they come in 2 flavors. (1) monthly quality and security updates, and (2) semi-annual feature updates (aka: 1803, 1809, 1903, etc.). (1) The monthly updates are usually harmless, and highly recommended for security if your DAW is online. But it is still best to have control over when they happen, so that your workflow is not interrupted by some surprise updater running. Then you will have time to make backups or an image just in case. (2) The semi-annual feature updates are actually full Windows version upgrades, and run a complete Windows re-installation during the update process. These are more likely to be the system wreckers if your hardware and drivers are not up to par. They are also the culprits that can sometimes reset your DAW tweaks. Keep a list of tweaks handy so that you can check them after an upgrade. Also highly recommend making a system image first. The difference between Windows 10 'feature updates' and 'quality updates' https://www.windowscentral.com/whats-difference-between-quality-updates-and-feature-updates-windows-10

My CPU is 3.4GHz, so it works well as long as I only need to bang on two cores at a time. But as far as for processing a virtual instrument I believe clock speed is king, rather than core count. Having both should increase track counts as well as concurrent plugin instances supported. So I am shooting for 4-5GHz on my next build, and 6-10 cores. Hopefully that will carry me for another 5-10 years, and with the latest CPU hungry virtual instruments!

I have seen some heavy CPU use with some patches. That is a known issue that is addressed in the user guide, and there are some workarounds. Freezing is probably the most effective way to deal with it in a mix, as well as maxing out your audio buffers if you are done recording. But I am still running an Intel i3 dual core from 2012 and only experience slight glitches with heavy patches. So I would assume a newer CPU would do far better!

MIDI-OX might be able to help you. It has MIDI filtering and mapping. http://www.midiox.com/

I grabbed this bundle for $10 and change. Great Deal! Thanks for the heads up!!! Don't have any of the AAS full modeling synths yet, but have had Chromaphone on my wish list for a while. Picked up their Objeq Delay effect last year, which is killer! For a while now I've been collecting a few of these AAS sound packs for free or when they go on sale, so now I have most of the packs for Chromaphone. So that synth will probably be my next GAS attack, since I am well ahead of the game now!!!

If you combine the EP discount with Waves "GIFT20", you can get Bass Fingers for a crazy low price today! Just snagged it!

Sort of like getting a new synth for free!

If I was going to spend that kind of money, think I'd rather go to Burning Man.

I just checked again and the free Blocks Base comes with about 35 free pre-wired racks. It appears to be a replacement for the previous Blocks Wired and Reaktor Factory Selection.

I noticed that some Reaktor presets in Blocks Wired and Blocks Base did not play in standalone. Looked closer and these silent ones each had a clock input module that was set to external. By setting the clock to internal, and then hitting the play button in the module, it played as expected.

A helpful tool to determine what plugins are used in a Cakewalk project, even if you cannot open a project, is the free ProjectScope utility. I find that this still works with CWP files that were saved with CbB. https://www.adamczyk.com/miscellaneous-files

If you don't have it yet, you won't regret getting it!

Have no idea since it's been so long. The last update (AD1>AD2) was bundled with Sonar Platinum.

Win 10 updates come in two flavors: 1. Monthly security and quality rollups, and 2. the semi-annual feature upgrade (aka: new Windows version). With Win 10 Pro you have a bit more control over updates. By default you will get them all when they are ready. But there are a couple of options: I believe most folks use the built-in feature to defer feature and quality updates. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026834/windows-10-defer-feature-updates The following is the alternate method I use to disable automatic updates with the Group Policy Editor. So I dug in a bit deeper and learned this trick. I prefer to use the Windows Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc). There is a policy in there that you can use to completely disable automatic updates, that is not available in the Windows advanced settings UI. Once I set this policy, I must manually check for updates before I can receive them. It is located in the group policy editor at: " Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > All Settings > Configure Automatic Updates". I set the policy to "Disabled". See comment highlighted in blue in the image below. Once I have set this policy to "Disabled", my Windows Update settings under Advance Options show this (*Some settings are hidden or managed by your organization): To check for updates, I click the "Check for updates" button on the main Windows update screen. The only caution I can give here is the same for any Win 10 updates. You will receive all updates that are queued up for your machine. Everything will come rolling down the update chute as soon as you open the door! But there is a free MS tool that lets you hide updates, and you need to use it to hide any updates you don't want before clicking "Check for updates". Here is a tutorial for that in case you ever need it: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/8280-hide-show-windows-updates-windows-10-a.html Bottom line: I will add that I support regular security updates for Windows. I usually install them monthly, but only after letting them chill for several weeks, and install them just prior to the next monthly update cycle. For the major feature updates I try to stay one Windows version behind the current version. If you get too far behind you can no longer receive security updates. I like the peace of mind just knowing that a Windows update will not jump up and interrupt when I am in the middle of a project. Priceless!!! And taking images at least monthly is highly recommended. Just in case you need to roll back a busted update that your machine disagrees with.

Holy sh*t, this CZ has that punch and big beefy sound I remember! I recall having to be careful with the volume on my CZ-1000 because I was afraid it would rip the bass cones out of my speakers at full volume. Still the same beast!

That's a great video, and is a better demo than the official ones, as it shows several ways to apply the features in order to get authentic bass voices from the keys. Am really tempted to check it out now!

Click Start then type: CMD Right click CMD Click Run as administrator At the command prompt type: slmgr.vbs /dlv Hit Enter This will indicate the channel, retail or OEM. Found here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install-winpc/how-can-you-tell-if-windows-10-is-oem-or-retail/b8f9eed4-8e41-4552-ba7f-d4f3b08fd1f9

The Play Series Selection comes with the free Komplete Start, and has selected presets from Analog Dreams, Ethereal Earth & Hybrid Keys. Some of them are very good!