Starship Krupa

Hear hear. Filterstep in particular is amazing.

Eduardo, with the number of plug-ins you have, two iLoks and $30 a year is pocket lint! Having the physical iLok is most definitely the way to go with systems that don't travel, and I must thank you again for your kindness. Before that, I had an iLok 1, which was not compatible with my Exponential Audio reverbs. I need to get a small USB extension cable so that I can just use my second iLok2 on the laptop. An iLok is too nice a thing to risk injuring sticking out of a laptop. So: for those following the saga, it's been just over 24 hours after stranding 20 iLok licenses by merely disabling the network adapters on my laptop. The reset score so far has surprising results. Most of them have been reset. I did the original reset request through the new option in iLok Manager. PACE keeps you notified via email each time a company resets your license(s), so I have a timeline for how quickly each company responded. Also, the first email they send has a table of all of the licenses and manufacturers, with contact information. InMusic's (AIR, SONiVOX) and UVI's entries showed no email, only a website link, so I decided to contact them directly, via email in the case of InMusic, and a web form at UVI. This was going on the theory that if no email were shown, then iLok Manager wouldn't know how to contact them. The absolute winner is Vienna Symphonic Library, who reset all of my VSL licenses in a matter of hours right from the iLok Manager request. Next was Softube, then UVI in the wee hours of the morning. Upon waking up, I found that InMusic had issued the reset pretty much upon start of their business day. then Soundtoys, then Eventide. The surprise poor performers are iZotope, who still haven't reset my Exponential Audio licenses. Surprisingly good performance from InMusic, although I helped out by emailing them directly with all the information they needed. The email address I used was softwaresales@inmusicbrands.com. Way better than expected. In the past, I tried contacting them via their websites, and it didn't work. I suspect that trying to use the support forms on the old AiR and SONiVOX sites is like trying to use them on the old Cakewalk, Inc. site. Nobody on the other end. Tip: when I contacted InMusic (and UVI) directly, I gave them all of the original activation codes as well as the old iLok location ID of the laptop, and I'm sure that helped speed things up. If you're storing locally, I strongly recommend keeping these available, although they should theoretically be able to be gleaned from iLok Manager on another computer in case of complete system failure. Still, easier if you can just copy and paste them from a document. So, overall, I'm sore about how merely disabling my network adapters bork't both iLok and Waves. That's just sloppy (and scary). I prefer local license storage on the laptop because less crap to haul around and this is making me trust it less. The laptop does have an SD card slot, so I'll look into using that, moving the Waves licenses to an SD card if I can. On the other hand, both companies' recovery solutions got almost everything back in under 24 hours. I suspect that if I contacted iZotope directly as I did with InMusic that they'd get me the reset pretty quickly, although I'm tempted to wait a bit longer just to test the system. Maybe it's an excuse to get more cozy with MTurboReverble and MReverbMB, which do actually rival the Exponential stuff. As long as nobody gets pissy about doing the resets, I guess I'm okay with the iLok recovery process, although it does seem to rely on the companies involved still being around to reset your licenses. What happens when a company goes under and then iLok arbitrarily decides to give your computer a new location ID? No reset, no recovery? I'm not against the iLok dongle in principle, it's just part of whatever method companies choose for licensing. Of course I prefer the Meldaproduction and A|A|S type licensing, but that's not my business decision to make.

Wow, PluginDoctor is really a must-have for any plug-in addict. Especially if, like me, you've been very curious about what the various "character" EQ's and compressors in your toolkit are really doing. MTurboEQ and MTurboComple, I'm (literally) looking at you. All of those models in MTurboComple that have both a "compression" knob and a "threshold" knob. ? I was charmed to find that one of my favorite "digital" compressors, MCompressor, actually has a little upward kink after the knee, which the dbx 165 emulations I ran through it also have. No wonder I like it so much. Turns out it has some "character" after all. What I'm hoping is that by giving me a better insight into how these processors are actually behaving, I can do some weeding. Choose my favorite fast or squishy compressors, precision and character EQ's, etc. Do some checking into which ones are throwing off harmonics (desirable or not). Check out this review by our own Dave Bitflipper: https://soundbytesmag.net/review-plugindoctor-from-ddmf/ He's right, the thing is just plain FUN.

Being a BIG fan of the singles from Daft Punk's Discovery, and their production methods in general, sidechaining has long been on my radar.

I got this bundled when I bought my new-in-box Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 a couple of months ago, and thought "a 2-band EQ?" Turns out it has the lord's own air band. A real ear-pleaser. Haven't tried it on vox, but on breathy synth pads, it's the bee sneeze.

Wonder when they'll update Swatches so that we can try Tabby Dance and Caffeine. Its lagging behind could mean that more soundpacks are in the pipeline, yay.

If you need to push bass down in the space, sidechain. If you wanna make room for the kick drum boom, sidechain. He don't lie, he don't lie, he don't lie: sidechain.

Huh. I also snagged it during that sale and can say nothing but good about it. It is the plug-in to have for treating dialog samples in ambient productions, as far as I'm concerned.

Nor do I. The problem for me is that a large swath of my most-used plug-ins are iLok licensed. XPand!2, Hybrid 3, Vacuum Pro, Boom, Exponential R4 and Nimbus to name a few. I use at least one of them in every project. My Meldaproduction reverbs can just about touch the Exponential ones, but only just about. To get synths that do what the AIR ones do, I'd have to spend a bunch more money and learn my way around the newer synths, which would likely be more resource-hungry than these. So iLok is an unavoidable fact of my digital audio life if I want to use my favorite tools. All I can do is be aware of the gotchas and try to avoid them as best I can. I also had the USB stick I was keeping my Wave licenses on go sideways a few days ago and did the once a year reset on the lost activations. When it rains, it pours.

I feel compelled to post this because I've long been someone who mentions that he's never had any trouble with iLok's local drive activation. This is no longer the case, and the failure is pretty spectacular. Thanks to the kindness of a forumite, I have migrated all of my iLok licenses to a physical iLok on my main system. On my laptop, however, I activated them to the local system. This is despite the fact that said forumite was extra kind and gave me not one but two iLok II's. I just didn't want to have a dongle sticking out of a USB port on the laptop. Today, while trying to chase down an issue with clicks and pops, I turned off both my hardwire and my wi-fi adaptors and restarted Cakewalk. Both iLok and Waves threw dialogs during scan saying that there must have been some change to my system and that they couldn't load the plug-ins. I re-enabled my network adaptor and checked Waves Central and iLok Manager and sure enough, the licenses were shown as being activated to a system that was unavailable. Waves' support FAQ gave me a recipe for disabling all but one of the network adaptors and trying again, and that seems to have solved the issue. No go with iLok, so I had no choice but to try the new integrated reset request feature in iLok Manager. There are 28 licenses from 8 different companies currently in limboland. I've not tried the built-in reset request feature yet, so we'll see how it goes. I'm giving some thought to using a small USB extension cable to attach the spare iLok to the notebook in case of future "hardware changes" that really aren't. Not much harm here; if I want to get full functionality from my laptop all I have to do is stick the iLok from my main DAW in, but if this had happened while I wasn't at home, I'd have been dead in the water, waiting for these companies to reset the licenses. Some of my bread and butter synths are iLok'd, such as my collection of AIR instruments. AIR is not known for excellence in customer service. In the past, when I bork't a system by replacing the system drive, it took me days to get a reset from them. I had thought that iLok used a key on the hard drive somehow, but it's apparently also tied to the network adaptors, and subject to having the system ID change if you turn them off. So if you're thinking of trying that old suggestion to disable network interfaces while you're DAW'ing, tread lightly and maybe carry a physical iLok stick. I'll report back on the results of the reset request. If it works, it's a very good advancement for iLok, but if it doesn't, I'll be chasing down AIR/Sonivox via their "support" forum at KVR.

PluginDoctor, you are MINE!

I seriously thought that this had already been addressed (no pun). Or was it only how Cakewalk would usurp the next available port for control surface duty if you started with your USB MIDI control surface unplugged? And yes, Windows manages USB ports, but so what? That does NOT mean that Cakewalk should lose track and shuffle them around if you unplug a device and then restart the program. I believe that each USB MIDI device gets its own GUID, but even if that's not the case, most of the ones I've seen have unique friendly names, which Cakewalk can and does read (it displays them, after all). Just because Windows manages them doesn't mean that Cakewalk can't or shouldn't gather and maintain its own information about them. So IMO, Cakewalk doesn't have to lose track (no pun). Even if I'm wrong about the GUID's, at worst it might be lose track in the case of two USB MIDI devices with the same friendly name, which is a thing that I've yet to see. If you want to see the information that Cakewalk can get from the OS regarding USB ports and devices, there's a freeware utility called USBDeview (scroll alll the way down to download it) that will show you. Each USB device has a manufacturer number and a product ID, which you can also read right from Device Manager: https://www.the-sz.com/products/usbid/ There's plenty of information supplied by the OS to distinguish one USB MIDI port from another. A program should be able to look at that list, notice which devices are still there from the last time it started, which of them are not, and retain its configuration for the ones that are still there. As the OP points out, there are other Windows programs that don't have the same issue, which suggests that it's possible to address. I thought that it had been addressed. It no longer causes trouble for me, anyway, but that might just be for the control surface issue.

Well, one reason I can think of is that my ears and mixing moves might have accommodated for the variations while I was finalizing (yeah, right) the mix. Something I don't need is a button that generates variations in a mix after I've decided that I'm finished. Why not just call it the "Rabbit Hole Generator," or "Too Much Choicerizer?" The way that this works in the physical world is that every strip does indeed have tiny variations, especially when it comes to pots. But if we're "mixing with our ears" (which I thought was one of the points of using a channel strip rather than, say, a chain of Meldaproduction or Fab Filter "scalpels," then couldn't one's mixing moves have accommodated for the variations in some way? TMT="Too Much Twiddling?" "Tweaker's Midnight Terror?"

Something I've discovered about this after tearing a certain amount of hair out: I can only get it to work if there's already a node later in the timeline. Once I have created that first node, I can use this technique only to the left of it, not to the right. Is this as-designed? I can't find it described in the Ref. Guide, but it's a big book and it wouldn't be the first time I've missed something.

I'm happy to have rewarded whoever was responsible for its creation with my small contribution! I also liked the earlier freebie bx_masterdesk Classic. I submitted a mix to PA's online mastering service and found the results to be unsatisfactory. There's still a difference between having an all-in-1 mastering plug-in where I can tune each module the way I want and just letting an algorithm do its thing. V2 looks pretty similar to V1, but with more "food processor" buttons.

I paid for v. 1 right before they gave it away in that intro bundle, and I don't regret it. All-in-one mastering plug-ins prior to this one were only for quickies, but I started turning it loose on quickies and decided that it was sounding pretty danged good for keepers as well. And it's not as if I hadn't been using some top notch (or boost as the case may be?) mastering FX.

Nice UI's!

A favorite of mine. The built-in soundset is limited to just the TR-606, but you can also load up each slot with your own samples. They also give you about 30 samples for each drum to make it easier to put together your own kit. It will also do multiple outs for when you want to pan or process each drum sound on its own.

Unfiltered Audio G8 CM is the best all-around gate anywhere, IMO, only surpassed by the full version (which adds some features that not all would consider essential). As for the others: JST/Boz Sidewidener is my favorite stereoizer, HY-FX CM is a crazy deep multieffect that AFAIK, has no corresponding product in HY's lineup. The Overtone Program EQ is a feature complete Pultec emulation (everyone needs at least one Pultec emulation, don\t they?). Many public libraries will allow you to check out and read issues of Computer Music via libbyapp.com. Worth looking into. They also have Sound on Sound.

Just open your take lanes and it should be right there, big black box in the header. It sits right beneath the track's FX rack. It's sort of "hidden in plain sight." You may have thought (as I did at first) that it was just a placeholder. Before I started using CbB, I had to insert a plug-in like MNotepad in order to get close to this functionality.

I never used P5, but the thing that chaps Superabbit's bunny tail is that its ability to create arp patterns for use in Sonar didn't get rolled into Sonar. I love using arps, and it would be nice to be able to roll my own patterns for use in CbB without having to use a 3rd-party plug-in.

This. I've been going to NAMM Shows for 35 years, seen countless MIDI guitars, and it just seemed like a solution in search of a problem. I've read so many accounts of people saying that they had to develop new techniques and whatnot. It's always seemed that with all the time it would take me to work out all the glitches and get good at it, if I spent that time learning how to imitate guitar playing on my keyboard (a la Daft Punk on "Digital Love"), I'd get better results. Best application I've heard: Fripp and Belew on 80's Crimson. Coolest use: Josh Menashe of Triptides playing a plastic Casio DG-20 into an iPad that was running a Mellotron emulation. Since Triptides are a '60's retro band (complete with Farfisa and 12-string electric), it was mind-bending to see all those eras of technology represented. I sort of accidentally wound up with a MIDI guitar that I didn't know was a MIDI guitar until the morning I was going to sell it for $50 at a swap meet. https://www.engadget.com/2012-05-21-gtar-iphone-guitar-hands-on.html A friend's girlfriend won it in a raffle and gave it to me, and since I didn't have the right iPhone, I tossed it in the closet. By the time I dug it out, the company was gone and the iPhone app with it. So I forgot about it until the next time I put on one of my Musicians and DIY Electronics swap meets in Oakland. The morning of, I plugged it into a computer via the USB port just to check it. The computer happened to have Cakewalk running, and Cakewalk cheerfully asked me if I wanted to add it as a MIDI device. Uh....yeah? I guess? Turns out that before the company went away, they updated the firmware in the thing to make it a polyphonic MIDI controller, and mine was from that era. So far I've kept it around as an oddity, but it's kind of useless as a MIDI controller. It does "note on" okay, but is hopeless for "note off." To be usable, one would need to rig some kind of "all notes off" panic button. On the other hand (or strap) I love my Rock Band keytar. After watching Edgar Winter and Gary Wright tear it up on Midnight Special as a kid, I wanted to strap on a keyboard and prance around the stage. Hold the platforms:

Porter shaggin' 'er? I've had a couple of Southern girlfriends. I'd've boinked that tag right off her hat. Howwww-dee!