Canopus

You open up the KIT panel and then click the L in the upper-left corner of one of the Flexi slots to load a kit piece. You can optionally navigate between kit pieces by clicking the Up or Down arrow beneath the L button it that Flexi slot to find the one best suited for your needs. That might however be less convenient, unless you have already narrowed in on the type of kit piece using the first method mentioned above.

Not me. I think its primary use is for adding orchestral effects to scoring. If you’re not into that, there are more general libraries that will fit you better. But I do think the price is great for those that are part of the target group. No, the only 8dio library that still remains on my wish list after this year’s purchases is the Century Brass Bundle. Maybe next year, if the price is right.

That shouldn’t have anything to do with the latest update. Most likely you have activated the option “Recycle Plug-In Windows” in Preferences > File > VST Settings > General. Unselect that checkbox and you should be able to display multiple VSTs again.

I take that as a rhetorical question.

That’s by default. In order to let a plug-in have keyboard focus, you must click the small keyboard icon in the upper right corner of that plug-in. The button tooltip is “Give All Keystrokes to Plug-in”.

Giveaways like this are normally posted in the Deals sub-forum. There you will find this post:

Zynaptiq used to have upgrades to the Design Bundle, so if you had two of the three bundled plug-ins you could get the bundle reasonably cheap. I haven’t seen that in a long time, so I guess I’ll just hang on to my Adaptiverb and live without both Morph 2 and Wormhole until Zynaptiq change their upgrade policies. The last two are really niche products anyway. But yeah, fun.

Well, finally. That was THREE HOURS I COULD ACTUALLY HAVE USED to something better than trying to logon to Arturia’s servers. Nah, I'm grateful.

Here's a link to the Z3TA+ 2.2 update release notes: http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowledge-Base/2007013432/Z3TA-2-2-Update

Great job! There must have been countless hours going into that document for the benefit of the community. Hopefully this will help more CbB users get over the threshold to make custom theme modifications, either for their own private use or out in the open. As you also actively participate in other CbB sub-forums, maybe you should also add a link to the document in your signature to spread the word outside the small group of users visiting the UI Themes forum.

I’m in the same position having all the electric pianos I need, so normally I would have waited for tomorrow morning (CET) and hopefully have got Hybrid Tools Neo instead. But as I’m travelling for quite a few hours tomorrow I won’t be able to do that, so I had to grab the chance to get the All Claire Bundle while it was still possible. At around $21 per instrument this is as cheap as it will get for quite some time.

This is the cheapest ever for the All Claire bundle, I think. In May 8DIO had a 70% discount at $198, but I much prefer almost 80% at $148. Regardless, this will turn out to be one pretty expensive Black Holiday for me. And you also get 78 GB of vintage keyboards for free. My sample drive will not be happy.

@simon Sorry, I don't really understand the "pun" part, but my hopes of using my 8DIO Century Harps freebie in just about anything cross-over hasn’t really worked the way I’d hoped. My best bets Hip Harp or Deep Harp (or just about anything EDH) have been deeply disappointing. Unfortunately, I think that adding Christmas bells will even, if possible, make it worse. Now I’m seriously thinking of using the harp freebie in symphonic stuff. Or possibly as a giant cheese cutter.

The fact that 8DIO now have raised the breaking point for the freebie from $99 to $148 might be an indication that tomorrow’s All Claire Bundle will be sold for $148. If so, I might be tempted.

Here's some additional info about the similarities and differences between the two versions.

I bought Requiem Pro yesterday and got almost 60 GB of harps for free. Ouch. But the more I think about it, the more I realize there’s probably room for a lot more harp in contemporary music. Maybe time for some creative new cross-over genres, like Harp Metal, Progressive Harp, Hip Harp, EDH, R&H, or Country & Harp?

Here you go:

Although Requiem Professional is a bit long in the tooth, at $88 I’m still interested. A choir has been one of the few things I was looking for this holiday season, as the small choir I already have only includes aaahs and ooohs. Those phrases are great for simple self-admiration, but not very useful in a more epic context. And then we have the word builder. Ag Cre Cru Nis Nus Rhi, as they say in outer space.

I always create my own custom plug-in menu layouts inside the Plug-in Manager. To only show VST3 plug-ins, I simply don’t add the VST2 versions to my layouts, unless there is a good reason for it.

Although I have a ridiculous amount of virtual pianos, I have neither Sonivox Eighty-Eight nor anything EastWest and the only TruePianos I’ve got is the one that came bundled with some older version of SONAR (can’t remember which version it was though). So obviously I can’t say anything about the first two. But if I understand the inner workings of TruePianos correctly, it’s a hybrid consisting of both sampled and modelling parts which due to a small CPU footprint might make it a good choice if you’re primarily looking for something to use on stage. That hasn’t been a concern for me, so only looking at it from a studio perspective I would choose Addictive Keys Studio Grand ahead of TruePianos due to its beautiful and warm sound. But we’re all different and the way we perceive sound is very personal. But already having the XLN Online Installer, I see no reason why you shouldn’t download the free version of Addictive Keys Studio Grand and test it out for yourself.

When it comes to virtual pianos, I can strongly recommend starting with the free version of Addictive Keys Studio Grand from XLN Audio. The free Studio Grand is a scaled-down version of the full Studio Grand with only 49 keys and fewer mic perspectives, but it comes with the same samples as the full instrument. Also, this demo version never times out and doesn’t require iLok or Kontakt. And you don't have to be afraid you're going to be ripped off - it comes from the same company that also makes Addictive Drums, which, as you may know, came bundled with SONAR Platinum. In the video below, you can get some examples of how the full Studio Grand sounds, but as I said the samples are the same in the free scaled-down version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV1zCw06zUQ To download it, simply install the XLN Online Installer, and after completion click the button Add Now to the right of ADDICTIVE KEYS > Studio Grand and let the installer do its job. After Cakewalk have scanned for new plug-ins you’re ready to go. Should you later decide to buy the full 88 key version, XLN Audio normally has one or two sales a year with a 50% discount which effectively puts the full version in the $45 price range (and that's in my opinion a steal for the full instrument).

No, I failed on those two as well. Too dark even for my PS filters.

Me too. It will be here on the 13th if my Photoshop adjustments didn't fool me. But the price had better be good.

I just noticed that 8Dio has made the free sound library Free Radicals available again for download. I actually looked for it just a few days ago by the time Free Angels was released, but couldn’t find it anywhere on their site (or anywhere else). It was originally released as a free library back in 2012 and was presented as having an "unhealthy cluster of cancerous and asylum friendly sounds". As with all libraries from 8Dio, Free Radicals requires full Kontakt. Download this scary and ghostly Kontakt library here - if you dare...

Depends on what time span “Black Friday” covers, but if confined to the month of November: Native Instruments K12U CE (upgrade) KV331 SynthMaster (crossgrade) + some additional expansions AudioThing Frostbite 2 (update) Toontrack EZKeys New Wave and Hooks & Chords MIDI Packs (already had Dream Machine) SampleTekk S.S.G. All the Samples from Mars Now let’s see what December has to offer…