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The demo is a great way to see if you really need something! I did the F'em demo when it was first released, and then passed up on the intro deal. I also passed on the $29 deal as I already had FM8 and Arturia DX7 V. The F'em synth was developed by the veteran braniac from Waldorf Music, Wolfram Franke, the same one who did Tracktion Biotek 1/2 which I do have. His stuff is very deep! https://soundbytesmag.net/review-f-em-by-tracktion/ I am currently running the demo of Dawesome Novum, by the same developer that did Dawesome Abyss. Tracktion is the marketing partner for Dawesome. Here's a 12-year old interview with Wolfram when he was working at Waldforf...

Tracktion also offers 90-day demos of their synths.

Here is a quick render of a 4-bar groove using an EZkeys MIDI pattern from Toontrack AOR Ballads, with accompaniment by EZbass and EZdrummer 3. Three tracks total. EZkeys + EZbass + EZdrummer 3 Test.flac

The trick here is to just let EZbass and EZdrummer 3 find the "feel" to accompany the keys track. Just use your ears. If it sounds good, it is good! -VT

You can get a nice workflow going when you start with a groove on EZkeys that you like, then generate accompanying bass MIDI on another track by dragging the keys MIDI into EZbass, and finally use "Bandmate" in EZdrummer 3 to match up a beat by dragging in the keys or bass MIDI.

It's not Pro Tools, Cubase, or Logic, LOL! It's Waveform. Love it or hate it, it's rather different, but functional enough for a musician.

Actually all expansions are free to play until August 30th. "Play Expansions Free Until 10am PT on Aug 30"

You just made me remember that I played "Descent: Freespace" back in the day. Not the same, I understand, but the GOG page for Descent had a link to that one! I have Freespace 2 in my GOG library. Picked it up on sale at some point. Need to give it some attention! https://www.gog.com/en/game/freespace_2

Interesting extra bit! I didn't catch that DAW Essentials were now part of Waveform 12 Free now, as I already had DAW essentials from an earlier Waveform Pro bundle. Nice!

I have seen more than a few comments like that. I never had played Descent, but from the description it sounds similar. This was way back in the days before "open worlds" were commonly used in games (the first gen Unreal Engine was released in 1998), and shooter games were mostly constrained to halls and walls, or tunnels. I really enjoyed the 6 degrees of freedom of movement and the soundtrack in Forsaken.

GOG also has this old gem "Forsaken Remastered" (2018) discounted (-65%) to $6.99. https://www.gog.com/en/game/forsaken I used to play the original PC version of Forsaken in 1998 or so, probably on a RivaTNT, a competitor to 3dfx's Voodoo2.

Are you referring to Thomann? They have been a reliable seller for me! Even bought a DAW upgrade from them last year... My preferred seller for Toontracks has been Best Service, but I generally go wherever the best deal is.

Well I thought it would be awesome fun, but ran into 2 things when I installed it. 1. I realized that it was an only online-only game, but the first surprise was that it's a 110 GB download! Wow! But I had some spare space on my data drive, so I thought I'd try it out anyway... 2. When I tried to launch the game, another pop-up installer said I would have to install "BattlEye", an anti-cheat app on my machine in order to play online. https://www.battleye.com/ Nope! I don't want any more services installed on my DAW PC. I suppose if I had a dedicated gaming PC I might consider it, but nope... ? Edit: I was also going to check out Fortnite, another Epic online-only game. But apparently it uses BattlEye as well. That sort of shortens my Epic games backlog a bit, LOL!

Guess that depends on your definition of "taken". Apparently not taken verbatim, but some of the samples used in SDX may have been borrowed and remixed with new samples. At least that is how I interpret this Toontrack description... https://www.toontrack.com/product/rock-ezx/ "Take Neil Dorfsman, a Grammy Award-winning engineer with four decades worth of experience and credits on some of the best selling rock records ever made, give him full access to drums recorded in the most renowned studios in the world and the freedom to blend, mix and match samples collected during his entire recording career, all in order to design the ultimate collection of rock drums. The end result you get is a jaw-dropping selection of completely unique kits unlike anything you have ever heard – hybrids of mixed and custom made drum sets, tailored for any kind of rock. The Rock! EZX comes with eight custom drum kits based on selections from the near infinite Toontrack sound vaults, featuring rare and vintage drums recorded over the past decade in renowned studios like New York’s Allaire Studios, Blackbird Studios in Nashville and 2 Khz Studios in London. All sounds were handpicked and re-mixed through various outboard chains as well as layered with engineer Neil Dorfsman’s (Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Dire Straits) personal collection of samples."

Already have Classic Rock EZX and Rock Solid EZX , but thanks for the tip on the Heavy Rock Grooves!

DESTINY 2 NEW PLAYER GUIDE: https://www.bungie.net/en/Guide/Destiny2

Free until 8/30. Windows only. https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/destiny-2 "Dive into the world of Destiny 2 to explore the mysteries of the solar system and experience responsive first-person shooter combat. Unlock powerful elemental abilities and collect unique gear to customize your Guardian's look and playstyle. Enjoy Destiny 2’s cinematic story, challenging co-op missions, and a variety of PvP modes alone or with friends. Download for free today and write your legend in the stars." Edit: Disclaimer, this game is online-only and requires the installation of an "Anti cheat" program called BattlEye. https://www.battleye.com/ You will be prompted to install BattlEye upon first game launch. Also, the initial download is about 110 GB... the upside to that is probably no waiting between levels or quests or whatever... ?

To jump to his completed track at 1:39:13, hit this link. It is followed by a Q&A with his livestream chat room. >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sin3qkyn7Ds&t=5953s To watch him work on his track, the beginning of the video starts below:

Gotcha, but that's a different topic as well... ?

LOL, I probably didn't correctly say what I was thinking. A period would have been better punctuation than a comma in the example. You are correct. Well back on topic. I was attempting to express that this thread had gone way off track, and not even close to the original topic. ?

Well back on topic, Mixcraft suffers from the same limitation as Cakewalk, as it's not cross platform. Windows only! Plus it's not completely free!