PavlovsCat

I have the lite version and like it, but I don't think I've ever used it in a production yet. I'd love to hear from someone who owns it. @abacabMy budget doesn't allow me to buy the V Collection. What would you think of Analog Lab if you didn't have Aurturia's other synths?

Exactly. I also know that it will be difficult for anyone to monetize that kind of site at a really attractive level. Consider this, those sites are going to basically optimize for their own profit. They're all about aggregating affiliate links -- which overall, is an old technique in the digital world. But their site isn't going to have the community and related content that keeps people coming back. That's why this forum, KVR and VI Control do well. And powering the deals by people like cclarry, you get posts that aren't confined to affiliate marketing. That's why I am going to choose a forum like this first and why most people will too. #teamlarry

The OP deleted it, so hopefully, he's moving on. But he uses the name "Plugin Deals" and feels his site, which he created last year in October or November was the first site to feature plugin and sample deals and that everyone is stealing his ideas. He might be a nice person, no reason to think he isn't, but it was just a purely bitter and ego driven post that was also technically very incorrect that he somehow invented the idea of featuring sales of plugins and sample libraries on his site. My point was that besides that he was incorrect about being first to create that kind of site, instead of being bitter he should try making his site worthwhile.

Absolutely. Very nice. That is a very cool vibe to the drum sound and the whole song. Unlike you though, I'm a long way to figuring out how to come up with that sound from a regular kit and am more prone to just pay for presets that someone talented made. I just want to be able to play instruments that sound nice.

I think you might have an issue with bitterness. Also, the name you're using, Plugin Deals is a pretty popular site that posts here and has been around for probably a decade, so I think your claims of being original are more than a bit overstated. Instead of being bitter, if you care, try to build a better site than the other ones. That's all. No one is going to be impressed with your claim of originality on a concept that has been done for at least two decades. You're way off on this stuff. But I think the more important thing is that you shouldn't be so clearly bitter. Dead serious. Life is too short. If you want to compete, compete, but your assertion that you were the first to do this is ridiculously off. I've been giving plugin and sample developers advice going back to the early 00s and such sites and sections of forums have existed for a long time and your name clearly infringes on Plugin Deals trademark.

Yeah, you can add it subtly. I haven't figured out subtlety yet! (I'm referring to mixing, BTW!)

I thought the same thing as you guys, but I figured, what do I know, Softube makes really nice effects, somebody with more expertise with effects probably hears something I don't. But, as you guys know a lot more about effects than me and had the same reaction, I'm thinking there's something to my instincts. Still, when their server stops getting hit, I'll give it a try. I do love lofi sounds.

Cool groove and I enjoy the sound of the keys. Imaginative keyboard parts.

I really dig the vibe of this. It's really imaginative and tasteful. Kudos.

You're a monster, Fleer. Teasing us like that. I kid, I kid. You know I appreciate you.

Absolutely great advice. I follow him on YouTube and Facebook. I have watched his EQ basics video twice so far, but I'm still not really grasping everything. But Mike does an excellent job. Thanks, Larry.

Once again, thanks to everyone who commented, I greatly appreciate people taking the time to listen and then offering me constructive advice or posting something encouraging. I have been pretty reluctant to share any of my recordings that I've recently made, especially when I hear the quality of some of the stuff people are sharing. The specific advice people are giving is especially useful as it will help me zero in one areas I need to improve this mix, otherwise, frankly, it can be overwhelming trying to figure everything out. I'm certainly not going to be able to create a great mix anytime soon, but if I can improve this mix considerably, I'd be pretty happy. Just getting back to playing after two decades after stopping (not because I didn't love playing --- I enormously love playing -- but due to tendonitis, I couldn't play without experiencing pain, even playing one song on the drums with say an 8th note cymbal pattern, I'll get pain after a minute and besides that completely sucking, it really made it incredibly difficult to keep good time; now, while I won't be realistically be able to play live with other musicians, I've learned how to play for say 3 minutes without letting the pain destroy my timing, which was something I previously thought would be impossible). Anyhow, I've always loved this community for how kind people are to one another and the comments in this thread are people being really kind to me and I want to make sure that everyone who commented in this thread is aware that I read every word and I am thankful. When I was on my phone I gave every comment a like, but then I got on my computer and changed those to thanks. I will be doing my best to digest and implement the advice everyone has provided, but there is a learning curve. I will update this thread with my progress in making the suggested improvements. I think everyone was way too kind about the vocals which I know find ruins the whole song and want to re-record. I'm sure I can do better, but I sometimes my enthusiasm for a song or a performance can outweighed my objectivity and I need time to step back to something I've done and listen with fresh ears. I tend to do everything as a first take, which I could do twenty some years ago when I practiced all the time and was a good musician, but now, I listen back to something a week after I recorded it and I suddenly hear the mistakes, bad vocal notes and hear the mix more critically. Anyhow, this has been really helpful and everyone has been very kind. - Peter

Hmm. the Jay voice sounds pretty good and I imagine would probably work to do harmonies with me. Do any of you who own this comment on its ease of use? I heard the demo for Last Town a couple of years ago and always thought about buying this. If anyone remembers an artist who had a hit in the 90s called "Barely Breathing" named Duncan Sheik, this sounds a bit like him and I really like that. Considering that I was a musician who did background vocals that really doesn't have a lead singer quality voice, I was thinking if I could use this for harmonies it could really improve things. But if it's really difficult to use, I doubt I'm going to bother going through the effort. EDIT: I am going to download the demo. But I'd still greatly appreciate feedback from someone who's spent time using this.

Can anyone who has this compare it to the rotary speaker effect in Guitar Rig?

Is that a deal going on right now? I don't need any of this stuff, I already have much more stuff than I'll ever use -- but come on, isn't that true for all of us regulars here??? -- but I grew up the son of a musician and music teacher and took organ lessons (as well as piano and drum lessons) and we had a Leslie and I loved the sound and I still love the sound to this day.

Wow, I didn't see notifications for all of these comments. Thanks to everyone who commented for taking the time to listen and offer advice. I really appreciate it. In fact, your suggestions have inspired me to go back to this song and re-record the vocals. This was my first take and I know that I can do better. I'll probably do that next weekend and update the post. But again, thanks everyone. It's both fun to play again and frustrating because I can't play like I once did. But in the year since I started playing again two decades after I stopped, I know that I'm at least seeing my timing improve-- and that's really encouraging. What is funny is that you guys are a lot more encouraging than my teenage kids, who enjoy teasing me for my lousy vocals and regularly say things like, "Um yeah, stick to the drums, dad." My son did tell me that I need to re-record this vocal, that it sinks an otherwise good musical performance and after listening back to it with him, I realized that he's right. And after a couple weeks since I recorded this, I really don't like this mix. It's very boomy.

It just struck me that people are writing to turn up the vocals and I turned up the lead vocal to the point that it's distorting and yet I'm still hearing that I need to turn up the vocal, which leads me to wonder if maybe the vocals that everyone is telling me to turn up really isn't the lead vocal but are the background vocals? The lead vocal starts in the verse and in the chorus it's quite restrained with a low pitch while one background vocal is me with a falsetto and in another I'm doing a blues type holler-- really loud. Is it both of those background vocals or one of those two background vocals that everyone is suggesting should be turned up or is it my vocal that you hear during the verses that you find needs to be turned up --- which as I mentioned that I turned up so loud in the last mix that it's starting to distort?

The kit is from Superior Drummer. I turned up the vocal so high it is distorting, but I also turned up the guitars. So I will try turning down the guitars. To me it seems like my voice is loud, but clearly, the consensus was that it was not loud enough. It's not like I have someone I could give this to to mix it for me. I'm just a hobbyist playing songs I wrote back ages ago when I was a working musician. I was trying to take the advice and I'll give it another shot and probably try again tomorrow. But I was mostly trying to get a more aggressive rock mix with the guitars way up, which I suppose meant I probably turned up the guitars too loud and if I put them down a little, my vocal might be fine. But yeah, because I don't have a very good voice, I'm hesitant to have my voice too loud in the mix and draw too much attention to it. That is, I'm not trying to make it soft, I'm more concerned about making my voice too loud. But I appreciate the input. Aside from the vocals, you commented on the earlier version which had a much less aggressive mix and a completely different drum track. Do you recall which version you liked better? Because I wanted to share both and see which one was the more liked version and then work on that going forward. I'm really not knowledgeable on mixing. I use mostly Izotope's AI tools as well as Focusrite's Balancer -- which seems superb. So I am trying. I'm just a novice at mixing. When I was a musician, I was in bands that had sound pros and when I went in the studios I relied on engineers. I would do my own demos, but I really didn't know how to EQ anything, but I'm now trying to learn. - Peter

I brought up the vocals -- which I loathe doing because, well, I know my voice isn't very good -- and remixed the song with the guitars more upfront and decided to completely replace the drums to play them more like my original demo decades ago, which makes the song a lot more aggressive during the chorus -- which was how I prefer it, but I thought most people would prefer it less aggressive. I'd be interested what the folks here think. The drums are my first take and I'm not much of a drummer anymore, as I explained earlier, so it's definitely not polished, but I mostly wanted to see if people prefer this more aggressive version of the previous version I shared.

Thanks so much. I suppose with the trons in the verse and drum sound, it's probably not very hard to figure out that I absolutely adore The Beatles music, so if you're going to compare my original songs to Lennon's songwriting, I consider that a huge compliment. Thank you. The first song I recorded after not playing for 20 years was "I Am the Walrus." I bought my son a new PC and midi keyboard for Christmas and started showing him how to play keyboards mostly using Beatles songs he knew and before you know it I was hooked and thought I'd record myself playing then got my own DAW PC a few months later and added additional tracks until I had this:

Of all the advice you guys could give me, it has to be turning up my voice, the instrument I least want people to hear! I'll try it, but I'm not really comfortable with my voice and making it louder seems like drawing attention to the weakest link. I threw the towel in on my original band because, after several months of auditions we couldn't find a decent lead singer. The keyboardist and I would give each other a look when a singer would audition and before he sang he would refer to my demos and say something to me like, "You have a really good voice, why aren't you doing the lead vocals? " Every time we heard a singer say that it was like an iron clad guarantee they would be absolutely terrible -- even worse than me. I didn't even pick me to sing in the band I led, so turning up my vocal is hard to do because it draws attention to my vocal, which really isn't that good. I actually thought I sounded better on the background vocals during the chorus. But you guys think I should turn up the lead vocal, right? I mean, I'll try it, but it just seems like drawing attention to the worst instrument in my song.

Hi Christian. I hope you're well. I like the library, but like anything it's really subjective. The sounds are very 80s-ish. If you search on "karanyi polycsape" on YouTube there are some videos where people play patches, so I'd strongly recommend checking that out before you purchase the library.

I get emails from Karanyi and Focusrite, but without Larry I almost certainly would have missed them due to an overfilled in box. Time to upgrade my Polyscape to the pro version. If anyone else is looking to do the same it's $9 USD. Thanks for the heads up, @cclarry.

This is a song I wrote back when I was 23 and a working musician (a drummer, but piano was my first instrument, organ my second, then drums) and planned to perform with an original band I put together in the 90s that never found a lead singer and disbanded before recording or playing out. So, I have a bunch of songs that no one ever heard but a handful of musicians out of Chicago a long time ago. I stopped performing as a musician around 2000 due to tendonitis but decided I could deal with some pain and got a new DAW PC and have been recording in the past year, so between not playing for two decades and tendonitis, I'm no longer much of a musician and I only did background vocals as a working musician, so the caveats aside, this is middle-age me covering young me. I know next to nothing about mixing and mastering and rely on my ears -- which aren't great (I have a significant hearing loss) -- so I would especially welcome insights on mixing. Yeah, those are a lot of caveats, but while I had a lot of confidence when in my skills as a musician, I was never a good singer and now I can't play very well, so sharing this publicly is not the easiest thing to do. So, I'm never going to be able to sing very well. I'm mainly looking for some advice on how to mix better. This song actually has a bridge, but I was playing it from memory and completely forgot how the bridge goes (there's a demo somewhere in my basement that would be a major undertaking to find) so I'm hoping I either can recall the bridge at some point or I'll just write a new one rather than spending 30 hours searching for the original demo. Everything was played using sample libraries via midi controllers. I played all the instrumental parts and sang the vocals. The "mmm mmm mmm mmm" female vocal is from Ehtera's Soul sample library. The guitars are mostly Orange Tree Samples' libraries. While I've worked with Orange Tree Samples going back to their early days and have become good friends with Greg, I only started using the acoustic slide guitar library with this song -- that's what triggered my memory of this song. OMG, I am in love with that library. Anyhow, I welcome your constructive criticism to make this song better (and of course, I realize the first method would be to find a better singer! Hahaha. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option).

I'm saying that history -- and Troels' 8Dio history -- leads me to anticipate future sales promotions of some sort. Why? Eventually sales will slow and they'll want to motivate consumers to make a purchase in a short time frame for a variety of reasons, including paying the bills. Promotions are one of the ways a retailer can drive revenue on their schedule. I write that as a strategist who has, a long time ago, was called on by Troels. I think the trendy anti sales strategy he's now employing is never going to be a serious long term strategy for almost any retail business. For the group of consumers who complain when they see a sale after they make a purchase, I would suggest therapy. Dead serious, it's ridiculous and neurotic. Yes, everyone has bought something that later went on sale for less. It's not a big deal for an adult and doing a business strategy around those consumers is worse than silly because they're eventually going to do promotions which will irritate those customers. Guaranteed. Let's check back in a year.