Starship Krupa

I trust our dedicated .STH lords will give it a thorough assessment. So far the biggest issues I have with it are that there is STILL no way to set the color of beat and measure grid lines 🤬 and that too many of the element colors are tied to other disparate elements. That is, when you change one element, it affects something in a completely different area of the UI, and not necessarily something that you wanted to have match.

I think this was @Noel Borthwick's baby. Noel, any insights?

They didn't put it in my Start Menu, which is why I gave the full path in my original post. This is on two Windows systems, one Windows 10 and the other Windows 11. I'd like to see your video when it's done.

The ones you get when you hover the name of the plug-in in the FX bin: It's a percentage, but of what? Is this explained in more detail in the documentation somewhere? I couldn't find anything.

When I got SampleTank 4 MAX a year and change ago, Product Manager installed and authorized Miroslav Philharmonik 2 correctly. Also Syntronik 2 and SampleTron 2. Product Manager isn't perfect, it still has a way to go, but it at least now does what it was created to do. I still ran into big problems when installing SampleTank 4 MAX. I wound up with multiple copies of some libraries and missed about 1/3 of the content I was entitled to. Part of it was that I didn't understand that so much of SampleTank 4 MAX v2 consisted of separate products and add-on content that were otherwise sold separately. I wound up writing a tutorial on installing SampleTank 4 MAX that helps ensure that all of the content was installed correctly with no duplication. When your end users have to write tutorials for each other on how to install your products, that seems like a sign that your install process needs work. They seem to be listening regarding installation issues. Some of their moves may be baffling, but they're at least improving the installation and authorization process.

To paraphrase a great movie, "forget it, Eusebio, it's IK Multimedia."😁 Really, though, at least in the past year or so, Product Manager has come into its own as the unified solution it was originally intended to be. I haven't fired up Authorization Manager in a long time. I no longer have any Custom Shops installed. So I have to hand it to them, they are cleaning up their act. And yes, I had the same impression about there being competing interests within the company coming up with Modules Manager. The ones who pay attention to customer/forum gripes and the ones who think it's good marketing to keep cluttering your plug-in collection with unlicensed demo FX. The fact that I had to stumble across Modules Manager, that it's not even included in the IK Multimedia Start Menu folder, suggests that someone doesn't like it.

Oh man, me too. I didn't realize how much I was going to like it when I picked it up in the previous IK HB. The way you can combine components from whatever models you happen to have is crazy. The controls for string age, picking style, pickup position, active vs. passive electronics, it's possible to put together just what I want. I had underestimated both of the MODO instruments. MODO Drums is a similar laboratory for drum sounds. The ability to combine different kit pieces to assemble what you want is brilliant. Like most drummers, I'm picky about my snare sound.

With great competition comes great deals. The plug-in market has grown so much in the past 25 years. The transition from latest hot plug-in to long tail cash cow now takes a lot less time for companies like IK Multimedia. They get the big fees from the people who want the latest great thing they come out with, then a couple of years later cut killer deals for people like me who have more plug-ins than they can use and are only interested once the price comes way down. Free stuff has improved so much in quantity and quality, even in the past 10 years. I remember when CbB first shipped as freeware, and Noel speaking disparagingly about the reliability of freeware plug-ins. Umm.... TBF, in those days there were still a lot of bedroom-coded 32-bit Synthedit ones around. These days you can get SO MANY great loss leader plug-ins from the likes of Native Instruments/iZotope/Plugin Alliance, Kilohearts, and MeldaProduction. The bedroom coders have much better tools to work with, like JUCE.

I'm more concerned about the resource usage, which IS important at the mix/master stage when the mixing plug-ins start piling up. The comment about waking up to it cooking breakfast was for comedic effect. It looks like MMultiAnalyzer is most similar as far as features, although the different meters aren't simultaneously front-facing. I picked up MPS during the Schroedinger's Upgrade glitch a couple of years back and I'm kind of surprised how little I've used it. I don't regret spending the money, having such a powerful set of tools ready to go is comforting. But iZotope's plug-ins are such HOGS that I find myself not reaching for them. It's not so much an issue on my main DAW system, but when I copy a project to my laptop, I need all the resources I can get. Gotta ask Noel what those numbers really signify. I can't find it in the documentation.

I don't actually know everything about their product line. It's much easier to just front like I do.😂 Really, outside of the FreeFX bundle and MEssentialsFX bundle (but together that's what, almost 50 plug-ins?), the rest of the stuff in my MComplete bundle is pretty dusty. They hold my interest because I think Vojtech is a really smart guy and I like the way he runs his business. It's fun to see what he comes up with. I do remember hearing something about the MB trick at one point. Thanks for reminding me. Have you tried it? Is it fairly straightforward? It sounded kinda over my head. I've tried messing about with the MB versions of MeldaProduction stuff and didn't click with it. Maybe I'll try it some time when I want to mess with some M/S flanging or something. I bet Chandler could come up with a tutorial for it. So far it's come down to whether I want to spend a couple hours trying to get MDynamicsMB to do independent mid/side processing or just throw on Cyclone or one of the T-RackS dynamics or EQ FX that's already built that way. The way that IK Multimedia do it is elegant and simple. MLimiterX is my go-to master bus limiter and I always try flipping it over to M/S just to see if I like the sound better that way. I usually end up leaving it in M/S mode. Any thread that I participate in seems to have a decent chance of going down the MeldaProduction garden path at some point....

I have it because Music Production Studio and never fired it up until seeing all these endorsements by people whose opinions I trust. It seems to provide much in the way of analysis, but it also induces much in the way of latency, 49mS to be exact. It also spikes up to about 9% "audio processing" in Sonar, not sure exactly what that means but it has something to do with the load it puts on Sonar's audio engine, and compared to other plug-ins it's high. For a metering plug-in it's nuts, even for iZotope. I took a brief sweep through my plug-in collection to see if I could find something NOT made by iZotope (and not a linear phase EQ) that read more than 9% and the only ones so far that did were Unfiltered Audio BYOME with 7 of its modules active, sonible proximityEQ+, and Motion Fractal. Which doesn't seem unreasonable given how much number crunching those are doing. Freakshow Industries Dumpster Fire had about the same impact (if you've never tried Dumpster Fire on a full mix, where is your sense of adventure?). After seeing this, I compared it to APU Spectrum Analyzer, MStereoScope, MLoudnessAnalyzer, MTM LEVELS, Voxengo SPAN, HoRNet StereoView and LUMeter, TBProAudio dpMeter5, and T-RackS 6 Metering. To get an idea of what to expect from an analysis plug-in. Only APU Spectrum Analyzer induced any latency at all at 30mS. That sucker's going right into the dustbin. SPAN uses FFT too and doesn't have to induce a slap delay to do it. LEVELS (max 3.5%), Metering (max 2%), LUMeter (max 2.5%), MLoudnessAnalyzer (max 4%), APU Spectrum Analyzer (max 2%), and dpMeter 5 (max 3%) were the biggest engine "hogs," with SPAN, StereoView, MAnalyzer, MMultiAnalyzer, and MStereoScope never making it to 1%. (WTF is MLoudnessAnalyzer's problem?) LEVELS measures stereo field and loudness/peak/dynamic range and has a "bass space" feature that checks for overlaps down in the boomies. TR6 Metering has VU meters, loudness meter, phase scope, spectrogram, and spectrum analyzer all running at once. MMultiAnalyzer has spectrum analyzer, sonogram, collision checking, loudness, stereo, and an oscilloscope. Both LUMeter and MMultiAnalyzer support grouping via inter-plug-in communication. If Insight 2 needs 49mS of latency to do some metering, I better wake up to it cooking breakfast wearing nothing but one of my shirts.

The T-RackS FX that I use most, like the 670, have been around for a very long time, probably due to my snapping up every freebie that they offer. So the algorithms are coded for the systems of 15 years ago. The newer ones....I'd use them at mix/master time, so CPU hoggery is not such a big deal. I'm one of those who still remembers that I can freeze tracks.😊 I already have most of the bases covered by notoriously resource-frugal MeldaProduction FX. I go to T-RackS when I want a pretty, skeuomorphic UI, and when mid/side processing is important. The 670 "widening" preset is what introduced me to the wonders of mid/side compression, and it has that ear candy circuit emulation too. They've added mid/side capability to many of their applicable FX (dynamics and EQ), and it can be accessed in a single instance, which is important. Even MeldaProduction's stuff needs 2 instances in order to have different settings for mid and side. With T-RackS, I can click a button to change it from stereo to M/S, and then get a second view where I can make independent settings.

Indeed, and it's a decent complement to the previous IK Hurdle Blurble, enough added to have me considering it. I've become fond of MODO Bass and MODO Drum, so the extra models plus the couple of T-RackS processors I don't already have are tempting.

Regarding @Carl Ewing's visual comparison of channel strips, I really like the most recent iteration of Eventide's UltraChannel. There are knobs, buttons, and sliders, and they look enough like those things for their functions to be clear. However, there's no imitation 3-D stuff, no drop shadows or reflections. I think it fits between the bx and the Softube. I don't like the Softube, I don't really want to learn a new control paradigm, knobs and sliders are fine. I just prefer the flat look over the 3-D. No offense intended to those who prefer them (even I love my T-RackS processors), but those screws and 3-D controls feel like 70's simulated woodgrain to me these days.

You'll find Modules Manager in C:\Program Files\IK Multimedia\T-RackS 6. Run it and you'll likely be delighted to see what it does. Background/tl/dr: I had read the blurb about T-RackS 6 before I Bumble Hundled it that mentioned that they had added the ability to only install the modules you own (or wish to install). The spamming of unowned modules is a longtime complaint about T-RackS. By default, they dump every module in the line into your VST3 folder, which causes them to show up in your hosts' plug-in lists with no indication as to whether you own licenses for them or not. So two types of clutter, both hard drive and visual. In the past I solved this by creating a "bullpen" folder where I would move unowned modules until such time as I acquired licenses for them. I expected this ability to be part of the installer or built into IK Product Manager, but it's not. Weeks later I was doing some cleaning work on my C drive and poked around in IK Multimedia's programs folder. That's when I discovered Modules Manager. Modules Manager allows you to see what licenses you own and choose to only install those modules. IK seem to be still into the idea that you (or they) want to dump the unlicensed modules onto your system, and some of the design of this tool reflects that. So you need to be careful when using it. When you first run it, select "Show All" in the left column. Then you can look over on the right and see the ones you own and the ones that are only available as trials. Toggle the button as appropriate for each one. Then click "Apply Changes" down at the bottom. This will remove unwanted modules. What to watch out for is that the next time you run it you may get a message about how your installation doesn't match your preferences. Do NOT click yes to this dialog. If you do, it will reinstall all of the modules you previously excluded. It's a useful tool, you just have to keep an eye on it.