Starship Krupa

Every couple of years I make an effort, I try, I really do, to use the drum grid. And every time it ends in failure. This time I'm attempting to use Addictive Drums 2 to program a beat. I want to use the drum grid, with the names of the notes over on the left hand side. Step 1 I make a simple instrument track with Addictive Drums on it. Step 2 I go to Preferences and create a new drum map using the Addictive Drums 2 map I downloaded from the forum (including the step of, for some reason, having to change the Out Port for all of the instruments to Addictive Drums 2 instead of my MIDI interface). I know it sounds weird to say that I create a new drum map using an existing drum map, but I didn't make up this terminology. Step 3 I set the output of the MIDI strip in Inspector to use the Addictive Drums 2 map I just set up in Preferences. At this point I can play the drums using my MIDI keyboard. Step 4 I open the Piano Roll View, and I see that under "View," "Show/Hide Drum Pane" is checked. Yet what I see in my Piano Roll View is an empty grey box on the left, and a space with a set of vertical grid lines to its right. What I do not see is a drum editing grid with the drum note names. This drum track is so far the only MIDI track in the project, and I see in the PRV that it is the selected track. Not only is the process too many steps to take for what is a simple matter in every other DAW I've used, it's also needlessly obscure, and having to dance back and forth between Track View, Preferences, Inspector, and Piano Roll View is absurd. And of course, the worst thing about all this hassle is at the end of it, I still didn't achieve my simple goal of setting up a grid for programming drums with the drum names on the left. Any inspiration or even desire I had to work on the drum beat has evaporated. After almost 9 years of beating my head against this and sharing my frustrations I'm past the point of asking for the process to be improved, streamlined, simplified, or getting any changes whatsoever. All I can do is vent, so I am venting. Here's the fruit of about an hour of hassle:

If it's any consolation, ST 4 MAX 2 seems to be offered for a deeply discounted price (usually $49) pretty regularly. With BF coming up, who knows what deals may be had in the near future.

In my opinion, Sonar is "worth it." Something that is different about Sonar vs. past Cakewalk DAW's is that the licensing model has changed. Research that, and if you're comfortable with it, Sonar is your best option of the bunch. "Already know how to use it" is at or near the top of a DAW's feature list. Learning a different one is not, IMO, the chore it once was. So many features have been copied back and forth between the programs that there is usually an equivalent feature. Not always. For instance not all DAW's have scripting languages. Not all DAW's have performance panels or chord tracks. Not all of them have staff views. With the mainstream payware DAW's it's now more a matter of how to access and use a feature than whether a feature exists or not. As with any major software purchase, demo, demo, demo.

IK Multimedia sometimes take a while to sort things out, but they will sort them out. Open a ticket and be patient. Maybe it will take a day or two to receive access to the content that you didn't even expect to get when you paid for the bundle, but you'll get the content and it is fine content indeed. Syntronik 2 and SampleTron 2 are excellent instruments/libraries, two of my very favorite ones. This is not a deal to get a refund and walk away from. You'll see.😀

As do I, but I also open all the top menus just to see what's there, and if I don't see a command, I sometimes get the initial impression that it doesn't exist. If someone is coming from the Mac world, where the law of "If It Was First Available In Windows It Must Never Be Added To MacOS" once ruled, the right mouse button and Steve Jobs couldn't exist at the same time. They may not be so up to speed on context menus. Experienced DAW users will take it for granted that any DAW that uses clips/regions/events/whatever has to have a Split command, somewhere. But there are always people who are entirely new to DAW's, who might not even know that clips can be split. They may assume that slip editing (or whatever) is the only way. With the current model of bundling Sonar with a BandLab membership, I think that there will be more users who open it up just to poke around. They're paying for it, so why not. I bet it would drive an experienced user nuts to look over the shoulder of a newer user and see all the fumbling and "long way around" methods they are using.😄

Longtime fan of WizTree. I consider it an essential Windows utility. Great for sniffing out redundant installers, as well as deciding whether a plug-in's data is taking up so much disk space that it's not worth keeping around.

I've always thought that the mighty MFreeFX bundle had a gap in this position. Looking forward to taking it for a spin.

I was one of the people who managed to battle my way through the timeouts, empty downloads, installer shell and iLok to actually get the plug-in in the original giveaway. It's sort of a stereoizing toolbox, with 4 stereo-related modules that can be rearranged in any order. There's an M/S module with delay, a pan module, a delay-based widener, and a tonal spectrum based widener. Rounding it out is a goniometer to show what's going on. So if you already have plug-ins that do those things, and you miss out on this, don't wail and gnash your teeth. With a Cakewalk DAW you can make plug-in chain presets, or in another DAW just insert them in whatever order you wish. As with omnibuses like RC-20, it's handy to have them all in one plug-in, but not necessary to get similar results.

I'd give the reverbs a shot. The algorithms in Stratus (same as in Phoenix and Nimbus) are the best I've heard. I was skeptical about Neoverb, and it does display iZotope's usual cavalier attitude toward resource usage, but when I tried it it really does sound good. Not getting Aurora and Plasma licenses is a drag, but Logic's continued inability to support VST is a shortcoming of Logic. Speaking of which, when reviewers list pros and cons of DAW software, I seldom see Logic's inadequacy in this regard mentioned. Sometimes they list "Mac only," but I don't think I've ever seen a review mention its lack of VST support a a "con." Which it is, in at least two senses of the word.

I'd like this, because I love to customize, but I think most would agree that it's the purpose of the Custom module.

Do you mean RX and Ozone or Stratus and Symphony won't be upgraded? I don't really need the reverbs to be upgraded (aside from maintenance updates). As for Ozone and RX, aren't those kinda their flagship products? How could they not upgrade them? Also, which 2 new plug-ins are they leaving out? The new Trash maybe? Which other one? It does seem kinda weird to leave Trash out of something called "Music Production Suite."

The only way to invoke the split clip command is to either use a keyboard shortcut ("S") or right click menu (or Alt-click). Less common operations such as Bounce to Clips and Convert to Stereo/Convert to Mono are included on the Track View Clips menu. This makes Sonar more difficult for new users to learn, at least those users who expect commands (especially common ones) to be in the menus. Which included me when I first started using CbB.

I feel sad at the news. It has gone the way of all things. The people who created it created something really useful and fun and I hope they will go on and create other really useful and fun things. The use of computers to make music was a disruptive technology that they surfed for many years. Now Computer Music has been done in by another disruptive technology. So it goes. The Colt .45 revolver "won the West." For someone to win the West, someone else had to lose it.

I'm scratching my chin about this one, especially if there's a GROUP discount at JRRShop. Wouldn't mind having a couple more licenses for Stratus/Symphony to use on my laptop. Other than that it would increment my RX and Ozone to 11, no idea if that's a worthy upgrade.

This should help. Sampletank 4, the engine and player/editor, is the same in all versions, they just vary greatly in the amount of content you get with it. With IK, it usually goes, in order of content: CS<SE<Standard<MAX CS is the free version, limited but quite useful. SE is the lightest paid version, then Standard, then MAX. Your Sampletank 4 CS has 4GB of samples and 50 patches. If you pay for the $1 Humble Bundle you get the Standard version, with 100GB of samples and 6000 patches. So, yes, it very much gives you something else. If you pay $30, you get MAX,. which includes Miroslav Philharmonik 2, Syntronik 2, and SampleTron 2. Those products may be used in Sampletank or separately. Then there's a whole lotta Sampletank modules, like Neil Peart Drums, Terry Bozzio Drums, Alan Parsons Piano, their Rhodes, Wurli, combo organs, just a ton of content. So much that I've had Sampletank 4 MAX for over a year and I still haven't gone through it all. 600GB of samples, 18, 096 patches. Some of the modules (like the drum modules) come with libraries of MIDI loops that are designed around the sounds. I haven't even messed about with those. It's a huge buffet of sounds. Think of a vintage keyboard or synth and it's likely in there somewhere.

No, that's the same Sampletank 4 MAX that has been kicking about for $49. This is a change they made to the bundle, an excellent one.

I sent email to e2genesis warning/asking them about this but haven't heard anything yet. Kinda disappointed in Groupon for letting this kind of thing through.

On subsequent viewing, the listing shows a lot of older versions of the products, but then so does e2genesis' own website.

Can you elaborate?

If this is legit, this has to be the deal of the century: https://www.groupon.com/deals/e2genesis

I don't know what genre you're working in, but for electronic stuff, often what sparks an idea is choosing a synth I haven't explored in a while and running through its presets. Often enough, a timbre or arpeggio will suggest a melody, chord change, lyric, and then further filling out. A drum machine with interesting pre-programmed beats is also a good way to spark something. Running through the content in Breaktweaker, all the patches and individual variations in them can flush out an idea. With more conventional guitar bass drum keys pop, I start with a lyrical phrase, sing it to myself, make up a melody, add chord changes, etc. Whatever instrument(s), I put my hands on them and just make up shapes and patterns, without regard for whether they "fit." Thom Yorke and Brian Wilson are a couple of songwriters who I am sure do this at times, I can tell by the way their chords shift.

"Can't apply coupon to already discounted order"

I created the Wikipedia page for Cakewalk by BandLab, but when the new name semi-reversion was announced, I threw in the towel. I suspect the page for SONAR could stand to be updated at this point.

Wow, I didn't know there were so many visual artists on the forum. I will be asking for advice. I've only briefly tried the freehand painting/drawing functions in Painter. I made a couple of abstract things that I liked. Painter locked up and crashed at one point just as I was digging something I had done. It feels kind of "fragile," so saving is important. I'm hoping that Rebelle is more sturdy. I need to get used to the feel of the pen and what it can do, how to quickly correct when I make mistakes, etc.

Thank you Brian. I almost pulled the trigger the last time a sale was mentioned here, this is a much better deal, 7 instead of 6 and Pro for $15. It will be interesting to compare it to Painter, which I Humble Bundled. I got good results with Painter, using it to morph a photo of my mother's dog into a pastel drawing. She loves it. Thanks to the local Salvation Army thrift store, I now have 2 Wacom tablets.