Starship Krupa

Are you using a crossfade? That's what crossfades are designed for, to smooth that kind of transition.

One of those old school camera cleaning brushes with the integrated squeeze bulb blower is a good bet for getting rid of dust. They're made for the delicate mechanisms and mirrors of camera gear, the optical equivalent of microphones.

Headphones. Good ones for mixing and listening and inexpensive over-ear ones for tracking. I like Sennheiser's low end over-ear models for this, but there are many options. Mic stands, cables, adaptors. Hard to have too many of them. Patchbay if you use outboard gear.

Would handle it (and much more) easily.

Your external drive may be transferring too slowly. Make sure it's USB3 and plugged into a USB3 port on your system.

Cakewalk can absolutely do what you want, and is the right tool for the job. John's videos are a great way to start. The Cakewalk Reference Guide PDF is the best manual.

Unfortunately MIDI instruments only respond (via MIDI, anyway) to global panning messages. So you can tell it to pan a certain amount on a particular beat, but it will pan all of the notes that it's playing on that beat the same. The way around that is to use an instrument with its own mixer. You can then use automation to control the mixer. Most drum plug-ins have mixers or at least volume and pan control of individual instruments.

My goal is "drums in a room." I want to capture what it sounds like for me or another drummer to be playing the kit in the room, rather than trying to get the best possible capture of each individual piece of the kit. Snare and kick getting their own mics is fine. Do you put that 3rd mic on the bass drum? I'd expect MDrumStrip to be good, the founder/chief engineer of MeldaProduction is a drummer. I'll surely give it a try when I start recording drums again.

Actually, I haven't used MDrumStrip at all except to just try it out. ?. Mostly because I haven't been recording live drums, but also because I have a hard time cozying up to channel strip plug-ins. Which is what MDrumStrip is: it's a collection of drum-specific channel strips. It's a completely different concept and function from MDrumLeveler and they're intended for different workflows. MDrumLeveler takes a unique approach to dynamics, and dynamics only. It levels out the sound of your drum hits and separates them from the rest of the kit. My drum kit mic'ing is simple, just 4 mics in my interpretation of the "Recorderman" setup. A mic each for kick and snare, and overheads set up asymmetrically. Each of MDrumStrip's channel strip devices gives you EQ, compression, reverb, saturation, and limiting. It's like MTurboEQ in that there's no "edit" mode where you have under-the-hood access to the individual elements. What you get is 9 channel strips, each for a different piece of the drum kit, plus bus and master. My mixing flow for live drums is MDrumLeveler on kick, MDrumLeveler on snare, EQ as needed on each, compression and EQ on the overheads, and then one last compressor on the whole drum bus. MDrumStrip could sub for whatever compressor and EQ I use on the overheads. That's about all it could do for me. MeldaProduction's plug-ins aren't necessarily designed to complement each other, many of them are aimed at dissimilar workflows. That's the case with these two. MDrumStrip is part of the initiative he's taken in latter years to also accommodate tastes outside his original philosophy. Doing the "devices" was the first step, then the skeuomorphic devices was the second step and then making plug-ins that were only devices, with no "edit" mode was the most recent step. I clicked with MeldaProduction's original utility-overkill design philosophy. And I don't care so much for their take on skeuomorphic. A lot of them look like what you'd get if you asked an AI to do a skeuomorphic plug-in UI, except I think they're actually done by humans who haven't necessarily actually seen the physical devices they're trying to imitate. Here's my candidate for the worst example, from MDynamics: A de-esser in the body of a Marshall practice amp (complete with handle and reinforced corners). Someone who had never seen an actual de-esser might come up with this. Fortunately, even for the "devices only" ones there's a toggle setting for "enable custom GUI for devices" that will banish this sort of thing and get you to a more utilitarian UI if you prefer. Anyway, MDrumStrip is part of their attempt to cater to people who are put off by the standard MeldaProduction UI. I'm not one of those people, and when it comes to channel strips, I usually end up choosing individual discrete processors.

Not that I'm against the use of anti-malware software, but IME, measures taken to combat malware have done worse harm to the end user experience than actual malware. I'm ever fascinated by the fear of something causing more damage than the thing itself. My favorite case: in 2002, Americans stayed away from airline travel in favor of automobile travel, this being of course due to the Sept. 11 tragedy the previous year. Due to the relative safety of car travel vs. plane travel, more Americans were killed on the highways as a result of the shift than were killed in the Sept. 11 event itself. It's good to take precautions, but it's also good to take caution about taking precautions.

I'm interested to hear what you think of it.

Not at all. While it does control dynamics, it's nothing like a compressor emulation. I used to have a whole chain worked out for my live drum tracks, using Boz' Gatey Watey, elysia mpressor, etc. Then I got MDrumLeveler in one of my Melda bundles and....whoa. It replaced all of the track-level dynamics processing I had been using. It takes care of everything but EQ. If you're mixing live drums, run, don't walk. Unequivocal recommendation from this drummer. Makes it so easy that it almost takes the fun out of it.?

Reading this it's apparent which other DAW probably inspired this policy of theirs, and I'm sorry, but ?.

If I leave Sonar open overnight, and the monitor goes to sleep, when I come back Sonar's playback cursor will have disappeared. I can play, rewind, whatever, and the playback cursor just sits there. I haven't reported it because it seemed a bit obscure and "doctor it hurts when I do this," but from day 1 using Cakewalk by BandLab, the program hasn't been the best at keeping control of the playhead. I could make the first version of CbB wig out just by alt-tabbing to another program then dragging the main window. Cakewalk would be in one place on the screen, with the playback cursor merrily cruising along all by itself where the Cakewalk window used to be. They fixed this within the first couple of updates, but over the years I've noticed odd non-fatal behavior from time to time having to do with the program losing control of its cursor. Nothing I considered worth reporting.

I think El has had his coffee today. And we get to benefit! These kinds of comparative listening tests are very valuable for comparing processors.

421 new patches. Also the existing 670 were "remastered" to take advantage of the newer features (2 layers and the ability to run both synth layers through the synth's common effects rack). To me, the UI looks better, crisper, more modern. When Chromaphone 3 first shipped I didn't have it, I was using Chromaphone (and other) soundpacks with Player. I noticed right away that the "remastered" patches in my soundpacks sounded different from how they had sounded before (and I could compare due to having a soundpack that came with Mixcraft and is frozen at the version 2 level). I warned people here to be aware if they (like I did) had existing projects that used the sounds. The new ones are "bigger," and as such, may sit differently in a mix. If you have any Chromaphone soundpacks, try them side-by-side, using Player and Chromaphone 2. If you don't hear a difference, then maybe the upgrade isn't for you. Save the money for a tank of gas or a party size pizza.

The controls look like the ones I see when I click on the advanced controls button in Trackspacer, so if I didn't already have Trackspacer, I would try them both.

Wasn't 3 when they added the second layer? At some point, I think it was 3, they added what's basically most of an entire 2nd Chromaphone synth engine with controls behind a tab. Also hundreds of new factory presets, and the v2 presets will of course work. The layers can be addressed multitimbrally, if you like to fly that way. I've only ever had Chromaphone 3, but I used A|A|S Player before I got it, and when they added the second layers in the synths, the Swatches sounds got noticeably more lush. For String Studio and Analog VA as well as Chromaphone. Whatever Chromaphone soundpacks you're currently licensed for have been "remastered" to take advantage of the second layer, and if you use them in Chromaphone 2 instead of 3 or Player, they'll sound thinner. In other words, way worth it, IMO. As ever, log in to your A|A|S account and see what your direct deal will be, sometimes they toss in the newest soundpack.

Woo-hoo, e-cue, you went all in! I bumped the deal partly because it seemed like nobody else had jumped on it and now I'm extra glad I did. Curious about the difference(s) between the 'bird and the Bottle. I went with the Bottle 'cause I had had a great experience with one 20 years ago in a recording studio, it being used to record my guitar as a demo clip for my own Crucible Fuzzes. I had thought I could do it at home, y'know, point my trusty SM56 at the cone of my vintage Fender Champ and let rip, but it sounded, frankly, like hell. I mean, questioning why I ever thought I was any good at recording hell. I doubt anyone else can relate to that feeling when something sounds awesome in the room, but through your best mic and board and mic placement copied from half a dozen interviews with classic rockers and engineers, it sounds like someone brought their 1972 Panasonic cassette deck in and used its internal mic with the AGC on. Of course, now people earn real money intentionally getting that sound, but that was not what I was after. I might be able to recreate it though....shoot, maybe I'll make an IR of it. Took prototype fuzzbox over to my friend Myles Boisen's Guerilla Recording. Myles, who had/has written many a mic review article for EM, Mix, and Tape Op, rolled out his silver panel Fender Pro Reverb and hung a single mic that looked like something Clark Kent would use for field work about 18" above the front of the grille cloth. Then he put a set of headphones on me and in about 5 minutes I had the clips of me playing "I Wanna Be Your Dog" that I wanted. It sounded great. Not that anyone here would, but dang, never underestimate the skill and efficiency of someone who has placed microphones just about every day for decades. Fun fact: they get pretty good at it. It was of course an early, Latvian Baby Bottle, and I've kind of wanted one ever since but figured they were out of reach of my cheapskate budget. I can do a brand new Logitech made in China version for under $200 just fine, though. It's the first mic I've ever bought brand new. Pity that Logitech seems to have Gibson'd the brand and its studio-oriented products. I hate to see a good veteran brand (and product line) go down. This article from a year ago says that Logitech's intention was to drop the Blue branding and rename the line Yeti, but I don't see any studio mics on Logitech's mic page, only gamer/YouTuber USB models (and a single dynamic non-USB mic). It's so hard for a specialty product to share a corporate roof with mass-market products. The numbers will kill it every time. Why devote resources to a line that while profitable, may only bring in a fraction of the bucks that OEM'ing a mouse for every HP and Logitech computer does, then selling yet another mouse on the aftermarket to go with the same computer? Someone probably did research among their target customers and found that "Yeti" had better recognition than "Blue." Let's hope that nobody buys Shure and renames the line "SM7B." All that Blue mic tooling over in China not being used any more....seems like it could be put to use by someone clever enough to do so. Were I but younger and had the energy....it's not as if it's a big part of Chinese business culture to protect trademarks like the physical shape of a microphone.

Just wait until you see MTurboConfusion and MBaffleMB.

I eventually picked up the Baby Bottle at $164. Probably the best mic I own, certainly the most I've ever spent on a single mic. This is a great deal, and they're still selling at these prices.

Presumably v17 is still "beta." The downloads page says that the latest kernel is 17.00.08. MMystique or MObtuse?

Wow, Saverio, good to see you. You and HorNet are legendary around here. The first time I ever got a drum sound that I liked was with HoRNet DrumShaper CM. I studied the article that went along with it so closely trying to figure out what it was doing, how it had bested all of my efforts up to that time. Since then I've bought several of your other products. Now that you've come out with HA/2A and H76, I'm watching for HNX 165! Among the vintage emulation compressor plug-ins out there, I see fewer dbx 165 emulations. Waves have one, Softube have one....who else?

That is likely due to some hosts automatically using the VST3 if both are available on your system. Sonar has an option for this. I do my own housekeeping: if a plug-in installer automatically installs both VST3 and VST2 versions, I delete the VST2 DLL's. If only the VST2 version works properly (as with Acon Multiply), I keep the VST2 and delete the VST3's dynamic linking library (.VST3 file).

Yeah, Sonar's plug-in oversampling is still just 2X I'm curious which specific plug-ins are benefiting from the 4X and 8X over the 2X. A lot of newer plug-ins (MeldaProduction) either have their own oversampling options or just do it internally anyway. In my testing, with some plug-ins (mostly older synths like Hybrid 3) I can hear the results of 2X, but after that, there's nothing. Theoretically (although I'm a fan of empirical over theoretical when it comes to these matters), at 2X it's already way far away from the Nyquist. Testing with Plugin Doctor concurs. I also get the same audible results when I leave oversampling off and just export the whole project at 88.2K. I suppose you could try doing the 2X on the plug-ins where you can hear it and then export at 88.2 or 96 and maybe get similar results to 4X, but if you want it on a granular (no pun) level, REAPER is it.