Magic Russ

We used to have a similar model in our household growing up except that the F# key was broken. We had the choice of either having it drone at that pitch or covering up the hole with duct tape.

One of the problems I have with EZ Keys is just trying to find the right patterns. It looks like this update might be more helpful in that regard.

How does this compare to NI version?

It seems all of their effects are being updated.

7.2.0 - 2023-03-29 New features for instrument builders, performance optimizations and bug fixes. ADDED Bus amplifier section now includes phase invert and L/R swap controls ADDED Naming voice groups is now possible in Group Editor ADDED Stereo Modeller Pan parameter can now be modulated ADDED Lo-Fi Color parameter can now be modulated ADDED Lowpass and Highpass filters in Solid EQ ADDED Repack NKR button in Instrument Options dialog (only shows if the instrument has a resource container assigned) ADDED Collection of new wavetables and single cycle waveforms ADDED Several new mod shaper presets IMPROVED Previous and next instrument buttons in Single View are now disabled if only one instrument is loaded IMPROVED Output section now correctly recalls effect slot settings saved in output section presets IMPROVED Show additional useful info about the instrument in Monitor > Groups and Monitor > Zones panes IMPROVED All remaining dropdown menus are replaced with HiDPI menus FIXED TMPro Legato behavior was incorrect since Kontakt 7.1.3 FIXED Kontakt would crash attempting to reveal a sample in the Mapping Editor with no sample selected FIXED Bass Pro would always process the signal in stereo even if Mono button was enabled FIXED Mismatch in sample rate during sample analysis for AET filter which caused incorrect frequency response for non-44.1k samples FIXED In certain cases the performance view would be incorrectly shifted in the rack FIXED In certain cases the performance view size would not be updated correctly FIXED Slice Trigger group start condition listed available slices in the Trigger Zone menu, instead of Slice Index menu FIXED Pitch Bend Down/Up Only mod shaper presets were affecting the tuning even when pitch bend controller was zeroed out FIXED Harmonize and Harmonize - Tonal multi scripts produced an extraneous note off event for the original note ADDED KSP New source module engine parameters for Keyboard tracking, HQI mode, TMPro Keep Formants and S1200 filter mode ADDED KSP Filename of the last loaded MIDI file can be retrieved with mf_get_last_filename() ADDED KSP It is now possible to determine if Kontakt is running as a plugin or in standalone with $NI_KONTAKT_IS_STANDALONE IMPROVED KSP In certain cases using many ui_panel widgets would lag the whole performance view IMPROVED KSP Major performance improvement when setting zone, loop and sample parameters in batch IMPROVED KSP Added optional arguments to search() command which allows searching only a specific range of the array instead of the whole array FIXED KSP Incorrect script error was raised when load_array, save_array(), load_array_str(), save_array_str() commands were used in the init callback REMOVED Pop-out buttons for Mapping/Wave Editors in plugin versions

They were originally developed by a company called Ultrafunk. Cakewalk bought them out 20 years or so ago. It looks like TTS-1 was done by Roland when they owned Cakewalk and Roland wasn't nice enough to share the code.

Odd, because I update the whole collection back then and haven't seen this until now.

V 1.12.0 New features and improvements: Window can now be resized by dragging the bottom right corner Added audio protection on plugin output (Limiter at +12dB) AAX is now compatible with Mac M1 NKS is now compatible with Mac M1 and VST3 Graphic performance improvements Bug fixes: Fixed crash in preset browser on Windows Fixed crash when dragging & dropping a MIDI Clip in Ableton Live Fixed potential install issues with .pkg files on macOS 13 Ventura Fixed automation from controller in FL Studio

Mostly Apple stuff, but for Massive X allowing user preset tags to be edited has been long in coming. 1.4.3 - 2023-03-23 MASSIVE X is available as AAX, AU, VST and VST3 Plug-ins in this version. MASSIVE X requires an Intel processor with AVX or an Apple Silicon processor. The MASSIVE X Factory Library is a separate installation, be sure to install via NATIVE ACCESS. ADDED AAX Apple Silicon support IMPROVED Various browser fixes and enhancements. User preset tags can now be edited FIXED Massive is now macOS Ventura compatible KNOWN ISSUE VST3 crashes in Reaper on macOS during scan (but still passes validation) KNOWN ISSUE Host automation parameter names are fixed to "Macro" in Logic and GarageBand on Apple Silicon computers KNOWN ISSUE Intermittent crashes when used with Mainstage KNOWN ISSUE VST3 Macro parameters are overwritten by the DAW when recalling projects with Digital Performer. Please use AU or VST2 instead 2.9.0 2023-03-22 ADDED AAX plug-in running natively on Apple Silicon FIXED Crash in Logic Pro when closing plug-in UI with speech engine enabled FIXED Handling of MIDI program change messages with VST3 plug-ins FIXED AAS plug-ins UI are blank after reopening UI in Live FIXED ScanApp crashes

Speaking of forgotten Cakewalk plugins, I was just pulling up an old project where I used the "ob9" patch for Triangle II. It sounded pretty good. I thought I could reproduce that with one of my various Oberheim type soft synths, but I would still have to go with the Triangle patch.

Maybe Bandlab dug up and made Beatscape into the next generation synth Cakewalk originally hyped it up to be!

Of course with Amplitube I can do that, but the time to do that over a lot of projects just adds up. Maybe it was originally a vox preset and I load a deluxe, no big deal, who knows the second patch might even be better... On the other hand, with instruments, just swapping out a sound is harder than it seems. Sure, there will be cases where I might know the original was a string pad or square lead and I have no shortages of those and it won't matter which one I load. On the other hand there are also a lot of cases where I might not be able to tell what I used even if I had bounced the track at some point. I've heard that Reaper has the ability to replace old instruments with current ones. I don't know how much of a burden it would be for Cakewalk to do likewise.

I'd also like the ability to replace old versions of plugins with new versions with little to no effort. For example if I have Amplitube 3 with a Clean Twin patch, and no longer have A3 installed, perhaps give me the option to replace it with a Amplitube 5 and use the same patch if it can find it. Same for Kontakt.

It would be nice if they implemented a tagged system for browsing track templates and effects chains. And while the whole container for the FX chain was kind of cute, for me it just seems to be an extra step to remove it.

Most of my track templates have an instance of MODO bass. It just seems to be a little bit better than any of the sample libraries I have.

I just had a chance to play with these. Cesium is a pretty good Chorus but not particularly unique. Tungsten, however has reverse and granular controls that can create some messed up delays that you won't find from just any delay.

I'd even qualify that to say that the rate of new development for AD is poor. I love RC-20 and the more recent drum kits of theirs are not bad at all. Besides, how many drum kits do you need anyway?

Because VI is also an acronym for Virtual Instrument? That and Gibson involvement.

Adds new compressor and bank featuring it.

I have two or three very simple tracks with it. One is a reggae thing and the other has sort of a spaghetti western vibe. The Strum part in the reggae track is not particularly convincing but doesn't need to be - just some rhythmic mutes. The spaghetti western song uses an acoustic guitar that I ran through Vinyl to make it sound like it was coming off an old gramophone record. This turned out to be a good way of hiding the flaws in Strum's modeling while adding a certain sense of place to the track. I mostly use Strum in the same way as EZ Keys - as a compositional tool. Anything it outputs will either get re-recorded or heavily effected.

It really looks like the samples are the same, with a prettier scripted front end and NKS integration. I can't say the Dimension version was among my most used libraries, so I'm not going to be in at $99. If you like the sounds and don't have the older Cakewalk version (which doesn't seem to be available any more) and can't wait until BF, it might make sense.

In addition to two others, I picked up the Shofuku cartridges by Nori Ubukata. I have mixed feelings about these. On one hand they are marvels of what you can do with a DX7. On the other hand, I don't know that they added that much to my existing palette. Every once in a while I try to mess around with FM synthesis, and these are probably as good to learn from as anything else out there.

Thanks for the heads up on this.

This does seem to load a lot faster.