Starship Krupa

Since you're importing bundles, does Cakewalk give you the option of where to put the WAV's when it unpacks them? I've only worked with .CWB, not .BUN.

Because the choice(s) made by one custom theme developer will force everyone to use that theme? Exactly. ?

Not sure why this is happening, but it's best practice with Cakewalk to have per-project audio folders rather than one big global folder. I suspect that doing it this way might end your troubles with it.

I went into this in tl/dr detail in the thread in Q&A. The discussion helped me to understand it all better. I had a lightbulb moment. Think of a MIDI track as being similar to a hardware notes-only sequencer. You have it set up so that your keyboard controller goes to its MIDI input jack, with a sound module connected to its MIDI output jack. If you muted it, the notes programmed into it would no longer go to the sound module, but it would still pass MIDI from your controller to the sound module ("Thru"). Any built-in "metering" would likely not register what was coming into it from the controller unless it was in record mode. In order to have it not pass the notes, you would need to disable input echo, which is how it works in Cakewalk. A MIDI track is not as similar to an audio track as the look of their channel strips and track headers led me to expect at first. Given Cakewalk's long history, the logic behind it seems appropriate. Having said that, I agree that an option for MIDI track mute to disable input echo would be a good feature request.

I was thinking more in terms of the most obnoxious 500mS strobe I could come up with. If I turn Ripple Edit on, it's pretty much 100% that I'll forget that it's enabled until things start to look weird, Indicator or no. I'm not surprised that this was a clamored-for feature.

I'm no connoisseur of guitar plug-ins, but I've gotten some decent results with Applied Acoustics' Strum Session and the Strum soundpacks that come with Swatches. Once you get a handle on the different articulations, you can do a lot of interesting things with it. Modeled, not sampled, but the results are what counts. IIRC, the whole A|A|S Sessions bundle is on sale right now somewhere for $10.

Since it would only be used in custom themes, disable=switch to standard Mercury or Tungsten. As a Lord of the .STH I would love to be able to use pulsing Record and Mute buttons. Also Ripple Edit indicator.

https://www.arturia.com/products/software-instruments/analoglab-lite/overview You can get a license by signing up at https://soundbetter.com/ Signup also comes with licenses for iZotope Neutron Elements and Ozone Elements, and Mastering the Mix EXPOSE.

I just wanted to say that I'm happy to know that I'm not the only one who does this from time to time. It's good to get some easy solutions for it. I'd just leave them as they are, but I like to use tempo-sync'd FX and arp's that then run at the wrong speed either double or half, depending on which way I got it wrong).

No. The company who offered that giveaway in Computer Music ceased to exist in October of 2017. They are no longer around to issue new serial numbers for their discontinued products. Elsewhere in this forum you will find a thread with more free virtual instruments than you can download and try in a week. Get Arturia Analog Labs, IK Multimedia Sampletank4 CS and Syntronik Free, Applied Acoustic Systems Swatches, and Native Instruments Kontakt Starter. With just those you'll end up with well over 1,000 top quality sounds. All free, all recent technology.

This is it. Still not winning any beauty contests, but I think it's easier to understand what's going on and it sort of looks like the rest of the theme. There's a "recording" button instead of red cartoon footprints. The note value buttons aren't concave and the MIDI ticks button is a MIDI symbol rather than the letter "n." The step buttons say Step, Beat, and Bar rather than being Cartoon Feet, Quarter Note, and Cheese Grater. Basic and Advanced view buttons say "Basic" and "Adv." Step recording neanderthal emits reluctant grunt of satisfaction.

You can move the licenses to the cloud (if, for instance, you want to park them while you do a system rebuild), but at this point, very few licenses will work from the cloud. The plug-ins have to be made to use the Cloud License feature. iLok Manager will show you which ones can be fully cloudified by the little icon to the left of the license name.

Cropping the top seems to be an asset for aging dudes who get into techno/electronica. Underworld are an example; when they were Freur and going "Doot-Doot," they had long hair that they even took a crimper to. BTW, if you watch this, the actual song doesn't start until :45.

Well, IMO the documentary really drives this point home in the interviews with the musicians who, unlike you and Craig and I, aren't from California. I'm thinking of Bruce and Elton here. Springsteen created anthems that captured the cultural zeitgeist of New Jersey. I had never been to New Jersey when Born To Run came out, but it resonated with me. A taste of another world. And it occurred to me while listening to him speak about The Beach Boys that maybe he decided to do for his childhood home what Brian (and the lyricists he worked with) had done for Southern California. I was born in San Diego and spent my childhood in Los Angeles until my family moved away in the early 70's. We moved to Mississippi. I pined like crazy for Los Angeles throughout my adolescence, which was when I really got into The Beach Boys. They were a lifeline to me during my exile. So it wasn't so culturally critical to me while I was actually living in Southern California, but it sure was after I left. Another thing: one of my favorite painters is Norman Rockwell, who is often dismissed as a kitsch artist. However, I watched a PBS documentary on his life which touched on his wife's struggles with mental illness/alcoholism. Those quaint New England village scenes? Some of that came from the fact that the family moved to Stockbridge, MA to be near the Austen Riggs psychiatric center. This was so that she could be an outpatient there instead of an inpatient. And it clicked for me: yes, there's an underlying wistfulness in his paintings. He was painting life as he wanted it to be, not as it actually was for him. Brian's work was similar: he never had the idyllic California adolescence depicted in the early music. Rather he grew up with a horribly abusive father, who beat him so badly that it ruined his hearing in one ear. Whacked him upside the head with a 2x4. So there's a wistfulness and longing buried in the music (which he wrote, usually leaving the lyrics to others). When exiled from CA, that wistfulness started to resonate hard with me. Not for going into deeply here, but at the time, I was having my own troubles with alcoholic/rageoholic parents. And I'm in no way suggesting that it's necessary to know these things about these people to appreciate their work. The opposite, actually. It just answered the question for me why this stuff that appeared as such fluff on the surface resonated so much. I mean, my taste in music includes things like Steve Roach, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, The Stooges, and The Dead Kennedys. That stuff is a little easier to understand why I would like it: it's dark and angsty. Yada yada, anyway, it's also my opinion that with great art, it's built in that it's not going to connect with everyone. It won't because how can anything that resonates so much resonate with everyone? My own examples of music that a lot of people whose tastes I respect love and that I just don't care for are The Jesus and Mary Chain and Captain Beefheart. Try as I might. But isn't that as it should be? Art communicates and evokes emotions. Let me tell you that especially among my musician friends, it's blasphemous to admit that I don't just love the snot out of JAMC and Captain Beefheart. They are sure that there's something in it that I just haven't gotten yet, but maybe I am getting it and just can't relate to the emotions being conveyed. Listening to anything Frank Zappa did after the 60's, for me it's like being stuck at a party with some arrogant dick who's sure he's smarter than everyone else in the room and wants to let the world know. And sure enough, in interviews and recollections, he comes off as an arrogant dick who's sure he's smarter than everyone else in the room. I can blow hot air all day long about how great The Beach Boys music is to me, and maybe something I say will cause you to reconsider and find something in it, but also maybe you do get it and it just isn't for you. Maybe I can ease confusion about why people go on about it. But I can certainly understand if it sounds like a lot of superficial fluff and peddles a California fantasy world that's too obviously lovable.

A bunch of sample packs are $5 each, but the prize is Tactic, "a percussive phrase generator geared towards metamorphic rhythms and evolving sequences." That's their fancy way of saying that this is Glitchmachines' groove box. Per usual, it comes with a ton of useful samples and presets. This is one Glitchmachines plug-in that I can almost say I have a handle on. 8 slots for samples, then a sequencer with variable probability, including probability of applying a chosen effect to a sample. If the phrase "Glitchmachines drum machine" makes your heart flutter a bit, you know that it's worth many times the tenner, so just get it. https://www.pluginboutique.com/deals/show?sale_id=10676

The giveaway was a long time ago, like 2014 or 2015? I snagged it then and use it sometimes. Before I built up my FX collection, the compressors, EQ and delay were very useful. To this day, there's still nothing quite like that sweet Eventide micro pitch-shifted doubling.

I know, right? They sound great, but ugh, the UI's: My eyes! My eyes! You'd think they'd at least be able to make the highlights on the knobs match. ?

Also direct from Meldaproduction, which means that you can use referral credits and referral codes. https://www.meldaproduction.com/SummerMBundleWeeks And for anyone new to Meldaproduction who still hasn't leveled-up their FreeFX Bundle to the pro versions, this means that if you combine the credit from signing up for their (delightfully un-spammy) newsletter with someone else's referral code AND the 50%, you can get the whole thing upgraded for slightly over $10. My referral code is MELDA1923165, which gets you 20% off the first time you use it. Bundle season is the best time to maximize its usefulness. I'm weighing whether I want to get the MMixing bundle or the MMastering bundle this time around.

I think I get where you're coming from. The thing is, though, with a genre like the teen pop of the 60's, it's hard to assess it taken away from the context of the times, the audiences, even the technology used to create it. One of the things I try to do when I create music is have it communicate a vibe of place and time. This could be my actual surroundings at the time, or it could be an imaginary. Brian Wilson did and does this really, really well. I don't think that it's a coincidence that the ability to create art that evokes so strongly so often goes along with mental health issues. The more aware of and sensitive to their surroundings a person is, the better they're going to be able to do it. Brian Wilson's 60's hits with The Beach Boys are the sound of California. Endlessly influential. Like The Beatles, the "genius" included being able to stay on top of the cultural zeitgeist and provide a soundtrack to it. Both acts were made up of people from the generation just prior to the Baby Boomers. Both acts came along and music started to sound different from what had come before. With acts that are that popular and influential, we take so much about their sound for granted because yes, now it sounds kinda ordinary. It sounds ordinary because we're still so heavily influenced by them today. With Brian Wilson, and I say this as a lifelong fan of his and his band's work (up until 15 Big Ones, that's where I get off the boat), there is some hype where you have to allow for events in his life. He was so far gone for at least 20 years. I remember going to see I Just Wasn't Made For These Times and crying because I, like many Beach Boys fans, had believed that he would never come back. There was a joke in LA in the late 70's about "I brake for Brian Wilson" bumper stickers because he had a reputation for running around drunk and high in his bathrobe (or less). We're kinda psyched that he's with us at all. Also, there was that difficult transition that he and The Beach Boys kind of failed to make out of the 60's, artistically and commercially. the mythology says that Brian wanted to explore more complex themes with artier lyrics and was dragged down by others around him with narrower vision, bla bla bla. Well, maybe, somewhat, but he was also a child abuse survivor who could obtain as much of any recreational drug as he wanted. So the band's output of hit singles dried up substantially after Pet Sounds. There are plenty of people who love Beach Boys music who pretty much only know about the early sun 'n' fun and boy-girl material. So I think writers feel the need to educate their readers about how there's more going on under the surface and about the great material on subsequent albums into the 1970's. I was a fan in high school in the late 70's, and it was not cool music to like. So for me, having the world "catch up" to my own personal taste from back then feels good, and this may be similar for a lot of people. So, I dunno, how do you define "genius" in the pop music world? The guy learned guitar, piano and complex harmony arranging mostly by ear while he was still a teenager. He was switched on and confident enough to manage recording sessions in LA's top studios with LA's top session players while he was still only 21. That seems kinda genius-y to me. Take a close listen to "California Girls" and "Good Vibrations" and keep in mind the years they were made, how old Wilson was when he and the others made them, and that nothing else before them sounded like that production-wise. No outside arrangers, no outside producers or A&R men or mix engineers (as far as I know).

This sounds like a manageable feature request.

Given the number of hours I put into this and the ho-hum results....well, it will at least remind me that Step Recording Mode exists as a useful tool. Since this thing pops up whenever you're in Step Record mode, at least I can look at it knowing that I tried. Yes, I know that the asterisk means "freeze track" in Cakewalk's visual language. I'm using it for the button that indicates that you're using a step size that you've entered in "ticks." The default button image is a lower-case "n," which in mathematics means "natural number," so I suppose it applies, but I think it looks ugly and weird so I replaced it with what is known as a wild card symbol. It's no more or less indicative of the button's meaning. Maybe I'll change it again. I bet that I could change it to a blank square of pixels the same color as the background and nobody would ever notice that they couldn't enter note values in ticks. I'm just thinking that ticks aren't such a big deal these days unless you're worried about lyme disease. I tried to make the Basic/Adv. button as much as possible resemble the ones in other dialogs like Paste Special, although I really didn't like using the abbreviation "Adv." in a dialog where so many other buttons cause the write position to ADVANCE. I also got rid of the Pink Panther footprints and quarter note and cheese grater images and replaced them with "Step" and "Beat" and "Bar," all of which I think are less confusing indications of how far the note writing point will advance when you click on them. Two buttons next to each other saying Step Step, Beat Beat and Bar Bar look kind of silly, but my hands are kinda tied here. I see below that I used the wrong type size for "Bar," but at least you can figure out what the button does by looking at it. I'll fix it when I can stand to open Paint,Net again. Step size buttons are adapted from note draw duration buttons. The "Recording" button now looks like you're ready to record notes rather than take dance lessons. It still looks like a Windows for Workgroups dialog box that someone accidentally got graphics on. There's nothing that the graphical buttons do that couldn't be more tidily accomplished with radio buttons and so forth. Why are there buttons for single and double dots, yet a checkbox for tuplets? Don't you love that cute little transport slider that it has, all its own? Why is there no help button?

Keep in mind that when you launch it, it's already in Record, so if you (as did I the first time out) click on the little red "record" button in the dialog, you're actually pausing it. It's confusing, because we expect the flow to be that you select the options, then start recording. But Step mode doesn't actually start recording until you hit a note, and you can change the note values and steps on the fly. It's poor UI design, but as I said, once you figure it out, it works and is versatile.

Pro Audio, that sounds about right. And early SONAR, getting their feet wet by putting a few graphical buttons in what is essentially still a text dialog. I'm sure there were to do lists with "overhaul Step Record dialog" on them for a very long time. It's very useful for my electronic music, where I'll come up with a bass or lead phrase on a soft synth and want to get it into PRV as fast as possible. It can be easier than recording a MIDI performance, depending on the situation. I'll do my best to try to make it more visually appealing, but sow's ear/silk purse. I understand why it hasn't been touched in 20 years, it does work well, it's just that the dialog is hopelessly funky. If there's one feature I would add, it would be to add an option to have it follow the note values already set in PRV rather than always having to set them in the dialog. BTW, what's up with the "ticks?" Does anyone measure MIDI with ticks any more? Is it for lighting control?

Brainworx (and the related brands) install their presets to the locations laid out in the VST3 specification. Unfortunately they are one of the few manufacturers who do this, most others favoring their own preset managers. My preference is for using the DAW's native preset system, so it would be nice if Cakewalk could scan presets from those locations to use in its preset manager. Studio One does this, and Cubase/Nuendo likely do as well. Cakewalk does allow access to them via the VST3 menu in its plug-in window, but then it's up to the user to save them in the native preset manager. It doesn't take that long to get through 20 presets, although it is tedious. It can be automated with a scripting/macro program. It used to be that the host would query a plug-in, which would then feed it its factory preset list to populate the host's preset system. That API seems to have fallen out of favor in the VST3 era, although it still works if the plug-in uses it.