PavlovsCat

Hmm...Larry, how does buying used software with Toontrack work? I've actually never bought used software before. Is it NFR for the person who buys it?

OMG!!! I can't believe that when I saw Larry's original post, for some reason I was only looking at it as some kind of eligibility and not even thinking that what Dr Deal is saying is, it's his birthday (it took someone else posting it to realize!!! Sad on my part). A thousand pardons, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, @cclarry !!!!

If anyone has Indiependent for sale, I'd be open to buying that for the right price.

But these whipper snappers, including my own 13 yr old daughter, havr pushed our beloved Yoda aside for a younger, hipper, cuter character, Grogu AKA Baby Yoda. I think our little group here at the forum is a bit on the older side. Maybe that's why there's not all the trolling of some of the other forums. Maybe we've lost our spunk? Young people can mouth off and be cool, but geezers do the same and it has the "get off my lawn vibe." So, I suppose that being friendly is our best option. Darn. (Intentional use of dated terms, BTW, for comic effect. )

Congratulations, you're now officially a socialist! (It's a reference to some PMs Larry and I had a while back. Just having fun, but it is accurate.)

What month? I pick up Computer Music every so often and may even already have it. EDIT: Nevermind. I just found it. CM257 from 2018, for anyone else looking. It may be in subsequent issues too, I believe.

Thanks. Are you pretty happy with the synth? I'm guessing yes, as you've used it on multiple tracks, but I'd love to get your thoughts.

I've been contemplating Thorn but was a little hesitant as reviews were overwhelmingly positive but all pointed out that its CPU use is incredibly high. Does anyone here have it that can speak to whether the developer has optimized it a bit over time or offer other insights on the synth? Thanks.

Wow, I made my post about liking MNDALA after trying it one time and finding it really cool. Now I just went back a second time and it not only can't remember where to locate samples, but when I show it, it forgets it and doesn't make a sound. I uninstalled it -- and it is a mess when it uninstalls leaving pieces behind you have to manually clean up. I reinstalled it and it still, I need to point it to the samples folder (I guess this is what happens when you don't use its default locations) and it forgets the paths, even though the patch names still show up in the UI but no sounds, because it can't locate the samples. A dialogue pops up asking you to relocate the samples. After you do, it tells you that you may have to restart the plugin to hear the sounds, but that has no effect and it forgets the path you set and you go through an endless, frustrating cycle that ends in you screaming into the abyss and cursing the developer and their wretched, poorly executed sample player (okay, I'm kidding mostly), but it's really obvious that this developer didn't take this plugin through any serious usability testing or even adequate beta testing. This epitomizes why sample developers shouldn't be amateur plugin developers who expect us to pay for what should be commercial level products. This thing isn't even close to ready for prime time. Now even 5 bucks is too much to ask for this, at least in my experience.

Yeah, I own most of those, and know Dave Kerzner. It must have at least been a decade or more I've had them. But I would really enjoy that Andy John's libraries in a higher end format like KONTAKT.

You guys may totally disagree with me -- that's okay -- but this situation with the really poorly done plugin epitomizes why I wish sample developers wouldn't also try to create their own plugins. I've worked in the digital realm for more than 20 years at a senior level and worked with brilliant user experience and user interface designers and had the opportunity to have budgets in the ten million plus range where you can afford great agencies and hire really talented people with that expertise. When I see what really are amateur level plugin developers looking to compete against experts at NI and other firms, by launching their own proprietary plugins, it can be really frustrating and cause me to stop buying from a developer. There's more than one case of my doing that. And I've communicated with the developers, but it's often an ego thing and not user centric. Having another plugin to learn, update and maintain is a hassle for the user, and it's even worse when it's some buggy, poorly designed user interface done by someone who has no experience in user interface design or user experience. I really usually just opt-out when a small dev makes their own plugin these days. I've gotten to know KONTAKT and really like it and don't want to install and maintain a bunch of other sample players from small devs. Even Orchestra Tools user interface design is incredibly poor -- as is their website design. It took me a year to realize that they sell the component parts of their libraries-- something you only figure out after you unintuitively click around and accidentally stumble on it, it has completely kept me from spending any money on their libraries. On the flipside, we have the minimalist approach of Spitfire's interface -- which isn't my favorite, but I love its simplicity. There's no way for someone even marginally familiar with sample players to not understand that interface almost immediately.

I agree with you, their plugin is not very good and KONTAKT would be incredibly better. But there is something fascinating to me about their instruments. I'm not even sure I can use them in my music, but I just kind of dig them and for 5 bucks, why the heck not?

Thanks, Larry. I wish they made these for KONTAKT. I'd pick them up in a heartbeat. Also, not to be a hater, but Andy Johns kits are the ones I'd want the most -- and he worked on some of the greatest albums in rock with some of the greatest, most iconic drum sounds for Zeppelin, The Stones, Blind Faith, Joe Cocker...and the first thing you see on his page are a bunch of pictures of him and Eddie Money???? Sorry man, but WTH???? Is there someone in the 21st century who is passing over the sound of Bonham's drums and saying, "I want to capture the magic of the drum's on Eddie Money's Shaking" or "Take Me Home Tonight." Okay, granted, my favorite drum teacher -- I had like five -- played with the Peter Brown Band, who gave us the hits "Do You Wanna Get Funky with Me" and "Dance With Me," but even he'd acknowledge that drum libraries from his albums aren't at anywhere near the greatness of Zeppelin albums or the Stones. You're promoting Andy freaking Johns, you have 7 images of him you use on the website -- you don't make three of those images Eddie Money. Anyhow, rant over!

Larry, help me out here. These have to be significantly lower quality than their version for BFD 3.0, right? If not, for 15 bucks I'm definitely going to pick this up. But I'm used to Superior Drummer 2, Addictive Drums and KONTAKT drum libraries and Session Drummer's factory kit is a huge step down from any of those, but are these kits somehow at a higher quality level than those and in the same league ad, say Addictive Drums? I actually always wanted to pick this library up but never bought BFD.

Non-virtual instruments? Do people still play those? I kid, I kid.

I feel you've missed some excellent humor opportunities for your problems with a library with the word "shipwreck" in its name. I'm just sayin'... If I had an issue with that library, there would easily be a dozen puns in my post. Oh, well, thanks for the heads up. I'll update now.

Don't regret it guys. I downloaded them last year and they were literally the same quality as the soundfonts I bought in the 90s from Sonic Implants. You can easily find vastly superior drum kit sample libraries for free from Seinheiser, Steven Slate, Ivy Audio, Orange Tree Samples and at Pianobook. I put together a list recently but I can do it again if anyone likes. Just let me know.

I worked on marketing for Windows phones and the first iTunes phone for what was then the top mobile phone brand in the US. Windows mobile was a mess, a train wreck, and Microsoft epitomized a bloated bureaucracy that couldn't get its act together. My experience with Jobs, well, he definetly wasn't the guy his PR machine created. But, he was responsible for the first really iconic smartphone globally and disrupting the mobile phone market in the US -- and you could easily see it coming from the mobile phone industry, but he still pulled it off. A horrible human being, but an absolutely brilliant business person.

I prefer the term swine, thank you. ALTERNATIVE RESPONSE: We're not. We're having ours with pineapple and a side of sweet potatoes. Okay, I realize you weren't referring to me. I was just trying to inject a little humor into our nerd talk. I think you're saying that you're with the Puritans, right? In any event, I'll pivot back to music before the mods clip this thread. So I wish you and everyone else here a great, peaceful, friendly, happy and healthy day.

Yes, on a federal level it wasn't illegal, it just wasn't declared a federal holiday. But it was banned for two decades in the mid-late 1600s in part of Boston. Anyhow, thanks for allowing me to share otherwise completely uninteresting nerd knowledge I learned back in college. I have yet to attend any kind of social gathering -- including those with just my kids -- where other humans find this knowledge of interest, so thanks! And here's more, if you're so inclined. https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas

Sorry, that's incorrect. Christmas was not illegal in the entire US, but only in the heavily Puritan area in Massachusetts. Many Puritans and Bible-based Christians in the US and Europe were highly offended by the Christmas holiday, which they saw as a perversion of the faith. Like Easter, Christmas was created out of the Catholic church, and put on the holy days of other religions in an attempt to confuse and get more converts from those religions -- and consequently, was seen as an offensive, promotional outreach technique. In the case of Christmas, it was created by the Romans in the 300s. A number of Bible-based Christians of the day took the Bible and Christ's teachings not to go beyond scripture very seriously and as both of these holidays were created by the Catholic church and not practiced, taught or commanded anywhere in the Bible or by Christ, these hardcore Bible-believing Protestants deemed them heathen practices. https://apnews.com/article/archive-fact-checking-2739050002

My experience is that in the days following 9/11 we had a time of great unity in this nation because hyperpartisan media wasn't as powerful as it is today, there wasn't an ultrapowerful cult of personality politician who seized a tragedy in order to more greatly strengthen an existing cultural divide and social media was not mainstreamed. The week of 9/11 I actually ghostwrote an article that appeared, I think it was on the front page of a major newspaper's business section, on what made America's response to 9/11 -- the population's response not the military's response -- so incredible and what truly made our nation great. To boil the op-ed down, I contrasted the extremists who attacked us and their rigid intolerant positions with the better angels of America in its response in the days that followed those attacks. What made and makes us great is our diversity. That's what makes us great innovators, great thinkers, great designers, great strategists -- because our diverse population enables us to see things in different ways, as opposed to hyperpartisans and cults of personality. Funny, I actually wrote the op-ed for my own newsletter, and the views were not the kinds of things our billionaire CEO had -- a man who was a top political contributor and had the president and numerous federal legislators literally on speed dial and staying at his homes when in town -- we are political opposites. But he thought my values were the ones that made our nation great, even though the politicians he supported didn't espouse those views to win over their middle-class voters. So today, I think the evidence is overwhelming from numerous studies, that what has kept us from being unified in our response to the pandemic is that part of America that rejects diversity, that sees it as a problem. And that hatred for diversity extends to intolerance for independent thought, anti-intellectualism and contempt for science and fact. Some recent studies have found things like, around a 70% correlation between political party affiliation and not being vaccinated or wearing a mask (fortunately, that number has gone down more recently) -- which in turn can be found in a more recent study that found if you live in a region of the US that voted a certain way during the last major election that you are 300% more likely to die of COVID-19 than the avg citizen. Right now, our hospitals are around 90% filled up with people who oppose vaccination and masking -- and that is primarily people of the same political affiliation, psychographics and demographics. Sadly, those who value diversity -- including diversity of thought -- are not able to engage in civil dialogue with those who don't value the same, and that's why it's simply not equal across the spectrum. And here we are on a day that is supposedly in honor of bi-racial, Jewish rabbi who commanded to love others -- without conditions. As the grandson of a Jewish WWII vet -- a man who fought against a nation that passionately claimed to be followers of that same rabbi, but of course, practiced deeds incredibly contrary to His teachings, it's rather clear that professions without equivalent actions mean nothing. I don't know how the US is going to do better, and I don't think one politician could unite us -- it seems the greatest impact any of them have had socially in the past decade is at dividing people. So yes, this Christmas my hope is that people in my nation put aside their political affiliations, that they stop looking at media outlets engineered to make and keep them angry, and instead invest themselves in caring for others. My wife and I met at my church at a program I created and ran that brought together upper middle class churchgoers with the local homeless community for meals. Not to preach to the local homeless people, but to show them love and kindness, to buy them a meal, to invest time with them and truly get to know them and care about them. Nearly two decades later, our son spent the other night volunteering at a food pantry. He invited his best friend to volunteer -- whose family holds very different political views than me and whose father works for an infamous billionaire political contributor that used to mostly be known as the brother of another billionaire, that most Americans know the name of -- and they worked together, as they have a few times this month -- to bring food to people in need. That is, to me, the kind of unity this nation needs. To prioritize the greater good instead of rigidly demanding adherence to extreme positions and an intolerant worldview. To be listeners and thinkers who embrace those from different backgrounds and put the greater good first. And no, for those who make illogical leaps, that's not socialist. I'm a business owner and very much a capitalist and have been quoted in dozens of business books and done speaking for some pretty conservative business organizations.

That's really cool -- I like it! It's really interesting. Nice job and the oohs sound very good in this context.

Obviously, I don't know you, Brian, but you're in the deals forum -- and even more you posted about this deal in the deals forum, so can you hold out until Jan 4? My guess would be no. If we had self control we wouldn't be at this forum so often!

I spent years trying to persuade developers to do soul background vocals and something more retro Beatle-esque with male vocalists with oohs, aahs, laas, da-da-das -- I even offered to invest in the production. That period ended several years ago and there's still no male vocal library out that really fits the bill that I know of. I think I saw EastWest has a female soul vocal library that looks good. What styles of music do you do? And, all of us in this forum are guilty of GAS -- which isn't much different than buying while intoxicated. And Larry's our bartender. We love him, but he is an enabler.