PavlovsCat

Sheesh, you're such a mensch, Simon! What a credit to this community to make such a kind offer. Okay, I didn't really have anything to say beyond that it just makes my day a little brighter to see people so helpful to others. Look at that support, Reid!

Another excellent video. You've really found the right formula, Reid. Great job!

"It’s designed for delivering quick results with easy access to mission critical controls. The result tone is alive, gentle, natural and convincingly real." I'm not really sure if my music is "mission critical " and I'm pretty sure that my voice would be enough to kill any tone that is "alive, gentle, natural and convincingly real." So I suppose I'll pass.

I don't even know what a frozen reverb does or if one of the reverb effects I own does that. And yet, I feel compelled to listen and buy it. I really should block this entire forum. Danger! Danger!

I'd be interested in folks here giving their thoughts on this and other platforms.

But the video only had two thumbs ups when I watched this morning, so we need to step up our thumbs up game.

This new video is excellent, Reid. You definitely have found your footing on this. You're incredibly more relaxed, bright and cheerful and the pace is a lot quicker, which makes it much more compelling video. Great job! This is a giant leap forward. I really enjoyed the video and I wish you success. (I'm Peter D. that left a comment on this and your previous video, BTW) . For my fellow forum members, don't forget to give Reid's YouTube video a thumbs up. Support one of our own!

It can get crazy. But I think you've also found a good deal of people who like and appreciate you (me among that group). I've contemplated picking up the library, as it's very inexpensive, but I'm not sure of situations where I would use them. It's been a while since I watched your video -- and I did -- but it seemed that each of the pianos was really unique and not really in the realm of what I felt would fit my style. But maybe I should listen again. I mean, I found them interesting, but probably more appropriate for someone doing trailers, movies, TV or games. What situations could you imagine using it for?

Thanks. I do listen to everyone's advice. Professionally I was only a drummer who did background vocals, so I'm not very comfortable with my voice and am only learning about mixing and mastering (and the related effects, eq'ing, etc). I mainly only ever focused on playing and songwriting back when I was a working musician, so I'm really just learning about mixing and production and the advice here has been very helpful and people have been super kind. Candidly, I'm always super uptight about sharing anything with my voice and when I first put this up and no one responded for several hours I thought, "wow, my vocals are so bad that no one wanted to comment. "

Wait, I just heard a strong testimonial for McDSP from a friend who does music for video games who said they make really good effects and that he owns this and loves it. I'm installing.

I just wanted to repost that image of Simeon with his jazz hands -- it immediately made me smile back! My only problem with Simeon videos are when I play the same libraries he does, the pianist doesn't sound even 10% as good as Simeon. Very disappointing. He should screw up once in a while to help lower the bar for guys like me. I kid, I kid. I enjoy his videos.

It's seriously useful to see you production nerds who are knowledgeable on mixing discussing your favorite effects, so us less knowledgeable folks can spot what to look for. (Okay, I'm just being lighthearted using the term nerds, no one take offense!) The one effects developer I find that all of my friends who record music digitally praise is FabFilter, but I mostly have been using Izotope stuff -- and even then, I don't know what I'm doing with that. So I'm definitely not worth the investment on FabFilter stuff. But I suppose I can download this McDSP. Can I get that with cheese? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I suppose this epitomizes why we don't discuss politics here. My comment was not meant to be a political statement, but pro peace. I sincerely understand --and actually share -- your frustration about racial bias in the world's attention and compassion However, you engaged in national and racial stereotyping in your comment, and that's a problem. You're conflating the actions of politicians with those of citizens of a nation and that's simply not reasonable. Just as it's unreasonable to assume that all Russian citizens are in agreement with Putin's invasion of Ukraine, it's unreasonable to assume that every American is in agreement with every act of its politicians. I don't know what country you live in, but I suspect that you don't agree with every act of your nation's politicians. Stereotyping all Americans or all white Americans, as you've done, is inherently problematic and, ironically, part of the problem that you're lamenting. One's compassion isn't inherently limited by one's race and it's problematic for you to assume that my race and nationality makes me inherently unconcerned with non-white populations, Did you even consider that I might come from a mult-ethnic and mult-racial extended family and that I have friends from/residing in South Africa, Nigeria, Belize, Cuba, China, India, Pakistan, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia... Which I do, but even if I didn't it wouldn't make your stereotypes justified. Just because one cares about what is going on in Ukraine doesn't preclude that person from caring about what's going on in other places in the world and your style of making attacks with stereotypes isn't helping to further the concerns that you have -- some of which I also care about. So I'd propose that you could make more of an impact by having a conversation about what you care about rather than stereotyping and launching attacks. You can care about Ukraine and still care about Yemen and other places in the world. Your rage is misplaced and I hope you would have enough compassion to care for the people of Ukraine. You definitely shouldn't stop talking about the other issues, but I would hope you could stop making assumptions based in stereotyping and prejudices. Your claim of the US supporting neo-Nazis that isn't only false, you attempted to project that unto the grandson of a Jew who fought the Nazis in WWII, which, I hope you will realize, is one small example that underscores the mistake of stereotyping. Take some time to pause before stereotyping everyone of a certain nationality and/or race you resent. Consider people as individuals. On a much smaller note, you've made a number of erroneous and inaccurate statements about a number of things. I'll just respond to the most obvious, non-controversial and glaring one, your statement that Russia is a superpower. It hasn't been for more than 30 years.

A lot of us are thinking this, but I'll just write it. What's going on in the Ukraine, being invaded by a foreign country that has been murdering Ukrainian military and civilians only trying to protect their nation/home, is horrifying. I really appreciate anyone trying to make a difference by helping others --- no matter how small -- doing something to help is meaningful. I appreciate this small developer -- who I'm a customer of and I think the guy is very talented (he's out of Poland, I believe). To anyone out here from Ukraine, I know that every American I know, our hearts go out to you and we want to see aid to your nation and, most importantly, peace for your nation -- all the people of Ukraine, as everyone else -- deserve peace and your nation's sovereignty should be respected.

I was thinking about doing harmonies on the chorus, but I tend to get frustrated that my voice just doesn't cut it. I will give it a try. As I've heard the suggestion to turn up the bass a couple of times, I'm definitely going to do that too. Thanks for the advice. I'll share the updated version when I have an opportunity to make the changes.

When I wrote and play the song on piano and sing it, it doesn't sound so Beatle-esque, but when I arranged it for a rock band and strings, my use of a Rickenbacker 12 string guitar (Orange Tree Samples' Evolution Rick 12 String library) and the Modo modelled Hofner bass played with a pick (the way McCartney plays it), really gave it a strong Beatles' vibe -- and of course the string arrangement is definitely from the George Martin school. I originally recorded this with a Fender Precision Bass (Orange Tree Samples') library using a preset that is based on James Jamerson's tone, but I really wanted the tone of a Hofner bass on the pre-chorus (the section where the drums drop out), so I found when I replaced the bass, the song took on a much more Beatle-esque vibe and then when the Rick 12 string guitar on the chorus is incredibly linked to the Beatles' sound too. And then I ruined it all with my crap vocals! Hahaha. Sad.

@steve@baselines.comI just clicked on your Bandlab link and that's all it took to convince me I should start using that. Of course, I really enjoyed your covers -- Beatles (For No One is one of my favorites), Steely Dan (as a kid, I would put my headphones on and play drums to everything from the Aja album -- it is perfection)... As soon as I spend some time getting set up on Bandlab, you'll be the first person I follow!

Thanks mibby, Fleer, MusicMan, and Sidney Earl Goodroe, I really appreciate the insights and will try what you mentioned, mibby.

Yeah, it's no surprise I'm a huge Beatles fan, is it? Thanks for the comment and advice. The bass is a modeled Hofner played with a pick from MODO. I thought it sounded pretty good during the prechorus but wasn't sure about the level.

Asking those more knowledgeable on mixing than me, do you find this tool useful and when do you tend to use it?

I wrote this song over a decade ago, but only started recording music again last year and always wanted to record it with full rock instrumentation. I'm not sure how to categorize it beyond a mellow rock song, probably Beatle-esque (not intentionally, it just came out that way probably because that band is a huge influence on me). It's called "Where Would I Be?" It has a bridge not included here, as my hard drive with it just crashed and I really can't recall exactly how it went. So this is my first attempt at the song with full instrumentation. As always, constructive criticism is always appreciated. I do think that I need to add the bridge and end it on a brighter note with a full chorus ringing out as opposed to the mellow ending I gave it here. I'd love to hear what others' think about that, the song and as I know almost nothing about mixing and don't use many effects in this beyond on my vocals, I could use advice from those who are knowledgeable on production. Thanks!

I bought the Baltic Shimmers library when it first came out and really like it. I use the FREE Halion Sonic SE player. You can check out how it runs with Sonic Atoms free piano library, which is really nice. In fact, it's one of my favorite free piano libraries. Here's the link: https://sonicatoms.com/novel-piano/

Interesting. I just bought CR8 yesterday and installed it using Waves Central and had no issues. I'm using the latest version of Cakewalk and CR8 installed perfectly fine as a VST3. I'm running a fairly new, pretty powerful Win 10 machine (with all of the latest updates installed), built specifically for running my DAW, KONTAKT, big sample libraries and various plugins. While I'm not a fan of the Waves' Update Plan or how Waves' goes about marketing their products -- with respect to pre-informing prospective customers about WUP -- for ten bucks, IMO, CR8 is a worthwhile tool.

While I've been disappointed in the 8Dio string libraries I have for KONTAKT, largely due to the scripting being less than optimal, I picked this up for $20USD and was very pleasantly surprised. If you like the demos, I'd recommend picking this one up. It's definitely a bargain.

I watched the rest of the video, Reid, and enjoyed it -- gave it a like and commented positively (hopefully others in this thread will give it a like and a positive comment too). As I wrote, it was like sitting at a coffee shop listening to you reminisce, which I think works very well. While I'm very much not knowledgeable on actors, my wife is, so I'll share your video with her, and I'm certain she'll enjoy it.