Starship Krupa

I'm sure it was. Telephones and televisions were easier to use 15 years ago, too! There's a tendency with me to rely too much on the Smart Tool, because I can accomplish so much with it without having to switch to other tools. If I treat Cakewalk a little more like a paint program where there's no "Smart Tool," it works better. I find that I can perform most tasks using the Smart Tool, allowing for modifier keys and (especially) right mouse button marquee select. But for some things, the specialized tools are, as you say, more predictable, less dependent on hitting a hotspot. If I'm working on editing, maybe one of the Edit tools is better. I used to switch back and forth between Smart and Select (F6) a LOT, but that was because I hadn't learned about using the right mouse button to select when using the Smart Tool. For my uses, Smart Tool+right button makes it so I never switch to the Select Tool. Editing can be easier (surely more consistent) with the Edit Tool variations, and drawing automation is definitely easier (for me) using the Draw Tool. Draw Tool is the easiest way to program drums, every click of the mouse drops a note of the currently selected value, no double-clicking or dragging needed. Right click still deletes, so there's rudimentary editing available. It also works well for some other MIDI note drawing tasks like bass lines where there's not so much variation in note length.

It's a lot of fun, in that Glitchmachines way. I also ignored it after I first bought it. They call it a "sampler," so I figured, hey, I don't have a sampler, and this is only $10....well, that didn't work out so great. Then a couple of years later I got into more glitchy electronica and YEAH.

I wonder if this works on upgrades. I have Cataract and would like to do the upgrade to Cataract 2. I went ahead and tried it, and yes, it works on the Cataract upgrade. My total with virtual cash is $5.

Sitala is a free sampler plug-in that is popular with Cakewalkers: https://decomposer.de/sitala/ You can load your samples into it and trigger them with MIDI notes in the Piano Roll. If you need more, TX16Wx has a lot more features, but along with that comes greater complexity: https://www.tx16wx.com/

Still a few kinks in the system. Some of the resets worked from within iLok Manager, some I needed to contact the manufacturers directly. I had most things back within 24 hours, and everything else back within 48 hours. Part of the delay was that I wanted to see how well the reset process worked. This was all on a secondary system, my laptop. I do machine registrations on it because I don't want to risk breaking an iLok dongle.

I like the UHS hint system better than full walkthroughs. For any given area or puzzle, it starts out by asking you simple questions that nudge you in the direction of being able to solve it yourself. It doesn't spoil the fun and sense of accomplishment as much as watching someone play who already knows the answers. Sometimes I just get stuck and need a nudge in the right direction. Myst Journey is good too. I like my hints in the form of questions. Obduction came with a hint guide from Cyan, which is available online here: https://obduction.fandom.com/wiki/Obduction_Exploration_Guide. To put this back on topic for the forum somewhat, I think MYST was also the first time a music soundtrack for a game was released as an album, which went platinum. The way they used music and sound design as hints (when you explore an important new area for the first time, the soundtrack kicks in to let you know you've found something). It really complements the sense of wonder. I suspect that the ability to have careers doing game soundtrack music got kickstarted by the success of MYST. As with many cultural innovations, it would have happened anyway, but someone had to get there first. Props to Robyn Miller for that. He came back to do the soundtrack for Obduction and it shows.

Obduction got under my skin the same way MYST did, I dreamt about it. A couple of nights ago I had a dream that conflated Cakewalk and Obduction. I had to solve Obduction-like puzzles in Cakewalk or something like that. It wasn't the Drum Map, though. The bundle doesn't have MYST 2021. It has some really early pre-MYST games from Cyan, like Cosmic Osmo. It has 2 versions of MYST. I played realMYST Masterpiece Edition, which is the one I recommend for anyone wanting to go back and try it. It uses new art and a 3-D engine, so you can free roam instead of click and move slideshow style. It also has an extra "Age" called Rime, which was fun. It was still just as fun and engaging as it was when it first came out. I banged my way through Exile, which I had started 20 years ago and not finished, Revelation, and End of Ages. Revelation has some amazing art direction and also a few puzzles that I would consider almost sadistic in their difficulty level. There were two that even using a complete step-by-step walkthrough guide I still had difficulty completing. Not my idea of fun, but the scenery and world-building make it worth it. End of Ages dropped the misery level of the puzzles, but I still had to hit the hint guides a couple of times. The world-building was superb. Obduction is the true return to form (although there is a maze puzzle toward the end that is full-on brutal). I haven't finished Uru, which is the one that was originally designed to be multiplayer, with humanoid avatars. It's weird to watch mini-me climbing around on things. I think you can "die" in Uru, so kinda not MYST-y in that way. The thing about MYST that some people, and I think this includes the developers that did a few of them after Riven, don't get is that it's not about solving puzzles, it's about exploring landscapes that you have to figure out how to get around in and what you're even supposed to do. And putting together the story of what the heck happened there. Some of that figuring involves solving things that are puzzle-like, but it's more about visiting those fantastic worlds. Obduction has 4 "worlds," and the tonal shift between them is really great. The first one, where you start out, is the dusty Western mining town, which you get used to, then the next one is a damp, cold gothic steampunk world. The contrast between the sort of cozy warm familiarity of the one and the cold ancient alienness of the other made it even creepier and cooler. I couldn't wait to get out of the cold and miserable place and back to the dusty Western place. Just like MYST inspired me to get a CD-ROM drive 27 years ago, Obduction has me thinking about some kind of VR rig. I'd love to cruise around those landscapes in VR. The nagging question for me regarding Obduction is where did everyone other than Farley, Cecil and Josef sleep? There were supposedly dozens of people inhabiting the town but only enough living quarters for a population of about 10.

Yer tellin' me. According to Steam, Last week I spent 40 hours playing Obduction. Which, BTW, was really amazing. I loved it. Haven't dug a game like that since MYST. I scored the entire Cyan catalog for $25 in a Humble Bundle thanks to this forum. Obduction was a true return to form.

I know, right? My first thought was "why are they embedding a distraction into the plug-in??"

I dunno, after I read this I looked for something in SliceEQ and CarveEQ and couldn't find any game. Did you know that the Bandcamp Artists site has a vintage arcade game in the menu? I think it's based on Defender.

I agree that adoption will have a huge uptake once this happens. For me, doing my 90's ambient stuff, I really look forward to being able to more easily load and trigger dialog samples and glitch accents. Little Fluffy Clouds, bay-bee. The way I do it now is by using clips in an audio track, but that has its drawbacks. A real sampler with editing, looping, and reversing would be sweet. I'm sure that an integrated sampler is in the pipeline. Big new features like that take time, and we want it done right, right?

With the Smart Tool, yes. You can also double-click, which is also fraught with possibilities to mess it up. ? However, I discovered that if I switch to the Draw Tool (F9), all it takes is a single click with no dragging. I'm not saying that it shouldn't work better with the Smart Tool, but you might like the Draw Tool for drawing notes in the PRV. It has fewer options than the Smart Tool, but it does let you right click to delete notes. You can't drag to make notes longer, what you get instead is a series of notes of the selected duration. But that makes it great for drum programming, where you usually want a 1/16 duration for every hit. Speaking of which, let's say you're bashing in a 1/8 note hi hat pattern, doing the usual copy and paste dance. Instead you can use the Pattern Tool. Ctrl-swipe across whatever set of notes you want to copy, then left click and drag and it will paint those notes in. Draw Tool (only Freehand and Pattern modes work) is very handy for drum programming. Since the Smart Tool works well for so many things, I can sometimes forget about the other, dedicated tools, which come with fewer quirks since they don't have to "guess" what operation I'm trying to do. And in the case of the Pattern Tool, you can do some fancy things that you can't do with the Smart Tool.

Also, SnapHeap has an Asteroids-y game built into it. I am not making this up. I just found it by clicking on a button I couldn't identify. Click on the odd little button in the upper right and it will start: Observe this warning: $29, and I bet there are no Waves plug-ins with Easter Eggs this fun.

I'm going to have to try this to see if I can get it to do it. It seems like maybe one of those things that happen more or less often depending on individual mouse technique. The one that plagues me is trying and failing to grab the lower edge of a track so that I can resize it. I'll swing and miss 3 or 4 times in a row because apparently I click it "just right" with a moving mouse. Part of it is because the hot spot/cursor change ain't quite right in that area, but still, I seem to have a special talent for it. ? The appropriate authorities have been notified in detail but have yet to comment.

I, too somehow wound up with a free license for Snap Heap. Now that I have so many modules, must check it out.

This is the latest graphic change from the more stock Cakewalk iconography. Revamped Tools module buttons. Two goals: make the icons as large as possible for greater legibility (the stock themes' buttons don't use all the pixels), and try to make what's on the Tool button resemble the cursor that you see when you switch to the tool. Ever notice how the Draw Tool's cursors all have the line shapes at the top end of the pencil but the Tools module buttons have the line shapes at the bottom? Also, the Edit buttons look nothing like what you get when you select them. Maybe there's a better choice for the Mute Tool than just the letter "M." How about the usual symbol for "mute?" And what's up with the wrench for the Edit Tool? I've thrown more spanners into the works with the Smart Tool than the Edit Tool. ?

I'd like to be able to customize the colors, even if it's just the module backgrounds. As you can see from my sig, I love to customize my tools. Especially when I'm doing orchestral stuff, I like to use sends for reverb, so versions of the presets without the convolution would be a convenience.

Maybe trying the Meldaproduction (and BandLab) ploy of free licensing a package of goodies to build brand recognition and loyalty? I don't know how many of Vojtech's current loyal userbase downloaded the MFreeFX bundle before spending however many hundreds on their pay licensed plug-ins, but I bet it's a lot. It hooked me, for sure. The replies here and in the thread I posted in the Deals forum show that it draws attention and interest. If you Google "freeware fx for Cakewalk," this thread is the top result. Every forum has people who just lurk, never post or react. If a YouTuber like @Xel Ohh or @Creative Sauce puts this information in one of their periodic freeware roundups, that's even better reach. Whenever a manufacturer does this, I think it's a cool thing, so I try to do my part by spreading the word. I'm a hard sell on compressors, I collected so many of them that I now have a lot to weed out. With Meldaproduction alone I have MCompressor, MModernCompressor, MTurboCompressor, Mdynamics, then elysia mastering, elysia mpressor, Shadow Hills Mastering, T-Racks Opto, and the Lindell 76-alike. Not to mention the ones in ProChannel. Those are just the ones I'm keeping. It also omits the multiband ones. I'll keep it and try it because it's probably part of some good SnapHeap presets, but if it weren't, I'm done with introducing new compressors into my workflow. Same with EQ's, I have too many top quality ones as it is. Since I acquired my favorites kind of recently, now that I'm building a new(er) workstation, I'm in the (probably not uncommon) position of having to keep a whole bunch of stuff I'd never use in new projects on my previous system just so I can open the projects that are on it.

Back in late May, Kilohearts greatly expanded what's included in their collection of Kilohearts Essentials freebies, adding 24 new FX to go with the half dozen that originally came with the package. It looks like they're taking a hint from the Meldaproduction marketing playbook. They have the very minimal ("essential," one might say) UI's associated with these plug-ins. Where there's overlap, they're no threats to the ones in MFreeFX Bundle, but sometimes you don't need/want that level of power/complexity, right? With Meldaproduction, some people never want that overdose of control. ? Where they don't overlap, there are some useful goodies in the collection, especially Reverser, Tape Stop, Pitch Shifter (freeware pitch shifters are hard to come by and this one sounds pretty good), and Ensemble. I haven't tried all of them, but the ones I have tried have the typical kHs great sound quality. These are the new ones from May: Bitcrush Comb Filter Compressor Nonlinear Filter Distortion Filter Flanger Frequency Shifter Gate Haas Ladder Filter Dynamics Phase Distortion Phaser Pitch Shifter Resonator Ring Mod Reverser Reverb Trance Gate Transient Shaper Tape Stop Ensemble Formant Filter

As always, Ilir, thank you so much for bringing us ORCHESTOOLS. They've mostly replaced my use of Sonivox Orchestral Companions.

This may have already been posted, although I did my usual search. Back in late May, Kilohearts greatly expanded what's included in their collection of Kilohearts Essentials freebies, adding 24 new FX to go with the half dozen that originally came with the package. It looks like they're taking a hint from the Meldaproduction marketing playbook. They have the very minimal ("essential," one might say) UI's associated with these plug-ins. Where there's overlap, they're no threats to the ones in MFreeFX Bundle, but sometimes you don't need/want that level of power/complexity, right? With Meldaproduction, some people never want that overdose of control! Where they don't overlap, there are some useful goodies in the collection, especially Reverser, Tape Stop, Pitch Shifter (freeware pitch shifters are hard to come by and this one sounds really good), and Ensemble. I haven't tried all of them, but the ones I have tried have the typical kHs great sound quality. These are the new ones from May: Bitcrush Comb Filter Compressor Nonlinear Filter Distortion Filter Flanger Frequency Shifter Gate Haas Ladder Filter Dynamics Phase Distortion Phaser Pitch Shifter Resonator Ring Mod Reverser Reverb Trance Gate Transient Shaper Tape Stop Ensemble Formant Filter

Incorrect. The article says that the new motherboards may not support Gen 5 M2 SSD's, which are themselves still in the prototype phase. What it would mean in practical terms is that if they do forgo full support for Generation 5 drives, and you want to be able to use Generation 5 drives, you'll have to wait for the next generation of motherboards.

Maybe it's a crutch, but I'm pretty attached to using a snare on the backbeat. Right now I'm in the process of building a new (new to me, it's all used parts that are higher spec than my current rig) DAW computer, and rather than throwing every mixing plug-in that I've acquired over the past few years on to it, I'm slowly adding only the ones I want to focus on. So much stuff I've installed just because it was free for the downloading or came in a bundle.

I was referring to this. I don't keep the views in sync because I do want to see MIDI tracks in Track View, while I never do in Console View.

Huh. Weird. I didn't compare the gut shots, but they are indeed different. I wonder why they would use the exact same model number. Maybe get in touch and ask them what the differences are. I like the gut shot of the orange one better because the transformer is mounted to its own PCB rather than the one for the front panel. I like getting heavy components down off of highly-populated boards. They can wiggle around and cause other components' solder joints to break (a fault you have experienced). It looks like a layout and power supply change. The power supply components are on their own PCB in the black one and mounted on the input board in the orange one. It looks like the orange one is AC wall-wart powered whereas the black one has a self-contained power supply (that's what the big toroid donut is for, the audio transformers look the same). Whether one thinks that is a good thing depends. Yeah, ask them. My guess is the black one is a newer model with those layout and power supply changes. The changes may be for reliability, cost, or noise floor reasons.