PavlovsCat

@pwalpwal As the forum has a no politics policy I didn't like your post. But if didn't have that policy, I definitely would have liked your post.

I recorded this song I originally wrote back in the 90s called "The Last Time," earlier this year (I did my original demo and copyrighted it back in the 90s), but only recorded first drafts on each instrument, had a really lousy scratch vocal (that you hear) and didn't refine anything as I wasn't sure if this song was worth doing and if I could pull of a decent vocal. Historically, I was a semi-pro drummer whose first instrument was piano that wrote original songs that stopped playing due to an injury back in the 90s. I never publicly shared any demos with my voice on them, because I'm not a singer, until last year. But I've gotten over the embarrassment and even can share my scratch vocal on this because I'm interested if anyone likes this or not. I wrote over 100 songs when I was a working musician and there are some that I think are interesting but I'm not sure about. This is in that camp. I think the guitar riffs and the chorus hook are pretty good, but I'm not sure about it. So before I decide if I want to try doing proper vocals and any refinements I wanted to see if the group thinks this song is worthwhile or not.

Yeah, I haven't picked up the Aturia Mellotron V, but not because I don't think it sounds great. I do want it. I think that their feature to use your own samples and make them sound lofi like Tron samples impressing the heck out of me. Arturia doesn't seem to release any plugins that aren't killer. I just exceeded by meager budget a long time ago. For what I do own, M-tron Pro is my favorite. But if Mellotron V ever goes cheap enough, I definitely want it. I just think I've already spent more money on my music hobby than my talent level warrants, so I've been cutting back my spending.

How counterintuitive. A detailed lofi Mellotron-ish library. While I get Paul's point that there is a ton of Tron libraries on the market-- and I own a bunch of them -- I must admit that I still was very excited about the idea, at least on paper, of a new series of libraries that emulates that distinctive Tron vibe. But I find, based on the demos, this misses the mark. It just falls flat. I'd love something to come along that samples different instruments in a very Tron like way. I think the best attempt yet was by Sound Dust. I think throwing effects on existing libraries does a better job than this Soundpaint library. Sorry. I like Troels and I'm a Tron superfan. The latter is why I find this library doesn't cut it.

I know. I still believe when and if they do a sale you have some kind of special radar -- a sixth sense (like the kid in the movie!). You will know.

What is SDS?

Wait, I just wrote "and you can't beat that price" in a thread cclarry started. It's like I unintentionally issued a challenge. But that's okay, now I'm going to watch this thread because I expect Larry will find a way to beat that price! It's in his DNA.

That sounds really good and you can't beat that price.

I love this developer's work. I picked up his Ship's Piano and 1900 Dulcitone library in his early days and other libraries since. The vibe of his libraries is so incredibly cool. For those unfamiliar with Sound Dust (you need KONTAKT), check him out and download his freebies. I wish there were many more quirky high quality developers with a ton of personality like Pendle just doing their own thing. I know he's picked up a bunch of famous, super talented clients over the years. I know Trent Reznor is a huge fan.

When The Famous E it first came out I was talking to Greg about how its tone really brought back memories of certain songs and artists and the first one I named Greg told me he was on the phone with him the day prior to our conversation. But Jay Graydon, who he worked with on this library, is a total studio musician legend who's been part of so many great rock and R&B classic songs it's amazing, including songs by Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Joe Cocker, Diana Ross, Albert King, Cheap Trick, Wayne Shorter... Jay was responsible for one of the most memorable rock guitar solos of all time on "Peg" by Steely Dan. I don't have permission to share the names of musicians and Grammy and Oscar winning composers who are OTS customers, but they include some very heavy hitters. I just want to say this brag -- I recognized Greg's genius in OTS's very early days when a certain major plugin developer was trying to recruit him and I was telling him, don't do it, you're an innovator, you are doing things in this space that are leaps and bounds beyond other developers, stay independent. I will share that one of the developers who told me that he was inspired by Greg's work was Andrew Aversa at ISW, that he basically reverse engineered a less advanced one trick pony version (genre wise) of Evolution. Another developer who told me he was reverse engineering Greg's work did the Big Fish guitar libraries. I haven't heard from him in ages, so I have no idea what he's up to these days as I'm focused on my own business.

I'm sure that if he has midi files used in the video that @Greg Schlaepfer will share them (although he may have made that in real-time and not have the midi files). But I also want to chime in to respond to what Steven wrote in the quote you shared. Yes, a ton of sample library demos feature incredibly good playing and Greg is an extremely talented musician far beyond my abilities and his audio demos feature a lot of playing far beyond my modest abilities that are probably equivalent to Greg's abilities at 7 years old. However, I can perform everything Greg did in that video fairly easily and I am a below average keyboardist (I played drums professionally, but piano was my first instrument) and I have only started to play again after 20+ years after stopping and now I have zero technique and get pain after 30 seconds of playing an arpeggio, so yeah, I'm not going to impress anyone). My teenage son has been learning keyboards with a self-study course and what he would do with that video, and what I would recommend anyone interested do, is slow it down to half speed. Open the Evolution Rock Standard library and find the patch Greg is using and try to play the same thing along with him (and then practice it alone after that). His playing in that video is not at a difficult level, a beginning keyboardist might not be able to pull off the same parts with beautiful timing and feel, but should be able to do it. What makes those parts sound so convincing is really about the complex sampling, the modeling techniques used and scripting. If you played the same exact part with another library, you're not going to get those results. Particularly with leads. That is where the brilliance of the Evolution guitar libraries really is most evident and I'm blown away by what I can do with it (again, not bragging because I am now a terrible keyboardist with all the technique of a cat walking on a piano).

Wow, I don't know you @Walter Cruz, but just by the sheer kindness of your offer, I'm very moved. I did have the demo of Minimonsta a few months ago but I don't recall the patch's name. It's the synth bass you hear in the third demo on this page called "Bass funk." https://www.gforcesoftware.com/products/minimonsta/ Thanks, Peter

@Starship KrupaI have and very much like these plugins. As you're vastly more knowledgeable on this stuff than me, I'd love to see more posts from you weighing in with your opinions and advice. They're really helpful for me. Same thing for you @cclarry. You provide us with a wealth of deals, but I've heard your playing -- which is really good--and can tell you have strong production skills and would love to see more of your advice, especially with regard to mixing as you clearly know your stuff and folks like me can learn from that.

Thanks for sharing the videos, I have a Focusrite device, but I missed that freebie and it's no longer available.

I am contemplating getting the Minimosta for only one patch -- the funk bass, as it sounds really close to the patch Stevie Wonder used back in the 70s. But I have a couple of other Mini Moog D emulation plugins and was wondering if I could get that sound out of those. I don't know much/hardly anything about making my own synth patches. I have Arturia's Minimoog V Original, Ni Monarch and some freebie VSTs. But none have a similar funk bass patch. What do you more experienced synth tweakers think? Is it easy to get that sound from what I already own or should I buy a new plugin for a single patch?

I realize that guitarists won't be impressed by this and I put zero work into it (that is, rehearsing), it's a series of first takes but the reason I think it's decent is my enthusiasm. All of the guitar parts were played in real-time without the auto-chord/strumming function, as I wanted to be able to quickly go from chords to single notes in real-time. For me, the results I got from playing Evolution Rock Standard greatly inspired my playing. This was the first complete song that I played from start to finish more than 20 years since tendonitis stopped me from playing professionally or even as a hobbyist (for the most part, I still continued to play and write music for my kids when they were young; I stopped playing music after they got older). So, for Christmas 2020, my teenage son asked for a gaming computer and midi keyboard. I started playing songs i wrote decades ago and teaching him to play Beatles songs (I love that band and my kids grew up hearing their music all the time). So I started showing him a few Beatles tunes and thought I sounded decent on some of them (I was never a lead singer, just a drummer and keyboardist who did background vocals). So, a few months later, I decided to get another DAW computer (yes, I still was coming here and buying stuff when I didn't even have a properly equipped machine or any of my midi stuff hooked up to play) and pressed record and got this first take on me on electric piano then I added two instances of Evolution Rock Standard using factory presets and Abbey Road 60s drums. The timing is by no means perfect, and my drumming and playing isn't impressive, but I still think it turned out pretty well and the guitar parts were a blast to play (I'm doing leads all over the second half of the song, largely to distract from my voice).

I have MODO, which I use for the Hofner, and it is pretty nice but still falls short with regard to authenticity. If there's any library I'm eager for, it's Orange Tree Samples releasing a Hofner bass library. I've been begging Greg for one for at least a decade, so my apologies, Greg. But you know how much I love that tone. Although, I usually use the Evolution bass library with the James Jamerson preset as it's more realistic sounding and McCartney actually developed his style and sound after that of Jamerson and when you play that preset, it really becomes evident. That said, I'm probably going to go back and redo those tracks when OTS releases a Hofner bass library.

I thought the same thing initially, that I already have a bunch of quality Rhodes sample libraries and this has become my go to (I'm hoping OTS will do a Wurly next, as I grew up with one at our house; I do own several Wurly library, but candidly, I feel very confident that OTS could create a better one). For me, the differentiator with The Famous E is the quality of the underlying sampling, the ability to customize and the presets. There's a ton of great presets, and I, admittedly, am largely a preset user; I have bought many libraries that duplicate instruments I already have due to great presets. I do make my own presets too, but I don't have the skills of the real experts that make really great presets, and The Famous E contains more presets, I would imagine, than any other electric piano library I have and the quality of the presets is superb. You can also get under the hood and do a great deal of fine tuning. I wish I could find a preset walkthrough of the library, but I really like this video walkthrough. It will give you a good idea of the library.

Back on topic of the libraries, for those who looking into Orange Tree Samples acoustic guitar libraries, I think this video from composer Guy Michaelmore is pretty useful, as are most of his videos, IMO.

I always defer to how the group the slur is used against thinks of the slur. Some Romanies see it as simply a disparaging slur that Europeans and European descended people have long used to describe them that is just a fact of life they can't change, while others are profoundly offended and see it as similar to the N-word. I think Romani jazz musicians, like the founders of the Gipsy Kings, faced a complex situation when they founded the band during the late 1970s, because that slur was very popularly used to describe the Romani people in the Western world with very little resistance and was being used to describe the Romani jazz style at the time the band was founded and the Romani population is very small (25 million globally), so it's not like getting awareness is easy for a minority group that small. I think the founders of the band saw an easier path was to make light of the label, where other Romani are profoundly offended by the slur. I come from a family that is part Jewish, so we are especially sensitive to other groups that experienced a great deal of prejudice against them, like the Romanies, leading up to their being targeted by the Nazis in the holocaust. The European Roma Rights Centre does a good job of explaining the Romani (also called Roma) perspective: "A term used to describe Roma. Amongst most Romani communities this is an offensive racial slur. It derives from the word 'Egyptian' due to the misconception that Roma arriving in Great Britain originated in Egypt." Okay, I promise, back to the group buy! I just thought it was a good time to spread a little awareness, understanding and respect for one another, as most Americans and Europeans have no idea that this term is a slur, especially those 40 and up who grew up hearing it used on TV shows. Most white people use this term without any awareness that it's a racial slur and I think because the Romani population is relatively small, there's not much awareness of this fact. Here's a review of the Evolution Django Jazz guitar library.

Some Romani people are okay with the term, despite it being a slur, because it's been used in such a pervasive manner to describe the Romani people, just as there are people of other ethnicities that use slurs against their group with the mindset that it takes the power away from those who used the term against them. It's definitely a complex situation, especially with a genre of music defined by white European descended people to describe Romani style jazz. My personal choice is to avoid using slurs. But, of course, Romanis have the right to choose to use a term used against them. I respect and understand that. My own (late) paternal grandmother used to use a slur against our own ethnicity, which some people choose to do. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

On a side note, there's a good reason not to call the style of music Django Rhinehart played "Gypsy jazz." That label came about many years after Django Rhinehart's death to describe the style of jazz played by Romani musicians. It wasn’t something he used or the Romani people used to describe their style of jazz. The term is from an era where Europeans and European descended people (which is my background, BTW) regularly used the slur "Gypsy" to describe the Romani people, half a million of whom were put to death during the holocaust. American literature, film and TV had routinely disparaged Romanis, even until recent decades. I grew up reading and watching this stuff and had no idea until I was an adult that the term was a slur, as is often the case for many Americans. Consequently, Greg, who is a very talented jazz musician, was respectful of this when developing the Evolution Django Jazz guitar library. Granted, from a marketing and search engine optimization perspective, it would have been easier to market the library using the slur containing phrase, but Greg chose to respect Django and the Romani people.

Man, I wish this was a cello. Everything I have from this developer is excellent. Beautiful tone, expertly sampled, well scripted. I'm sure this is no exception. I would just love to see him sample a cello. Although, the price for this double bass is tempting.

@chris.r Evolution Django is exactly what you're looking for. https://www.orangetreesamples.com/products/evolution-django-jazz

@Mibby KONTAKT differentiates itself from other samplers in a number of ways, especially when it comes to permitting complex scripting far beyond other samplers. That matters an enormous deal for Evolution guitar libraries, which feature very complex scripting. It's a giant leap from what you can do with other samplers. If you have an Evolution guitar library and play a lead and hit the keys at different velocities and use keyswitches, assign pedals, etc, it's really super impressive and candidly, fun. From a developer perspective is it worth it? If you're a developer and make detailed sample libraries with complex scripting, I find it's a smart choice. KONTAKT has the largest installed user base of any commercial sampler. Licensing the player, from a developer perspective, is a more complex matter.