Starship Krupa

DANGER! I installed the beta, VST3 only, and it deleted all of the factory presets in the ProgramFiles(86) folder. This resulted in the synth only finding some of the expansion presets I've bought, and my user-created ones. No sweat at my house, I just copied the preset folder from my laptop, but beware. Their traditional lameness in regard to installers is in full force.

Thanks, but I'll wait for bx_glue True Peak and bx_glue Pro. And/or bx_glue Class A that has neon green instead of neon pink accents. I'm a bit surprised that they didn't withhold the multiband feature in order to be able to offer bx_glue MB in 6 months. Heck, maybe someday we'll even see this version released as bx_glue Classic as part of their freebie bundle. ? I guess this stuff keeps the subscribers happy....at least they still have Unfiltered Audio to squeeze out something truly unique every year or so.

Assuming that they expose the amount of shift as an automatable parameter, try automating it and see what happens. To access track automation, just click on the automation lane icon at the lower left of the track header. You'll be able to select what parameter(s) you wish to automate. Give it a ramp and see what happens. If it zippers, then you'll need to find another pitcher. Let us know how it goes....

I woke up to this email today from InMusic/AIR: "We've been listening to you and know how much you've missed using our classic plugins. It's time to bring them back, better than ever, and we need your help to make it happen. Be among the first to experience the Apple Silicon and VST3 versions of our classic plugins." Followed by a link that took me to a registration page that referred to it as an "open beta," and requested my name and email address. The email also features an image of a sheaf of their instrument plug-ins, including my faves Hybrid 3, XPand!2, Vacuum Pro and Boom. The ones I mentioned are not just my favorite AIR synths, they're my favorite synths PERIOD. And I'm not a total bottom feeder when it comes to soft synths, I have Chromaphone 3, Ultra Analog VA-3, and MASSIVE, among others, and Hybrid 3 and XPand!2 are still my best go-to's for inspiration (Hybrid's arpeggiator system is freakin ferocious). I am cautiously optimistic about this development (no pun). In the past couple of years they released new synths that obviously leveraged some of the classics' underlying code, and while they're nice enough, they're basically cut down versions. But it indicates that AIR have at least hired some developers, and that they do good work. Too many good plug-ins have fallen by the wayside during the transition to VST3 and Apple Silicon, so the fact that they're putting attention to these is good news. At least there will be these upcoming releases to update the dusty code. They don't mention the #1 requested feature since the last major updates, which is a resizable UI. That has been screamed about so often on KVR that if they don't include it, people will be calling for boycotts of InMusic's entire product line.?Nor do they mention whether there will be any bug bounties that result in free licenses for people who submit unique showstoppers. It would also be nice to get a modernized skin for Hybrid 3; the current brushed aluminum one is starting to look a bit dated. Of course I expect the subscription fear brigade to check in with assertions that this is a harbinger of subscription-only pricing to come.? But seriously, none of AIR's recent releases has been offered under that licensing model. And given AIR's history of decades between updates, there would be few takers. I signed up, and when I know more, so will you....

Hmmm. I would imagine that since you're doing a soundtrack for an entire performance, you're rendering the whole thing as one long audio file? How about using track automation? Automate the pitch shift at the track level, not as clip automation. Do you have a pitch shifter plug-in? My favorite is kHs Pitch from the Kilohearts Essentials collection, which is a very useful bundle of free FX. I've never tried to automate a smooth pitch shift with it, though, only shifted entire clips by a static amount. It's not the only one in town, just my personal favorite.

Yeah, well, even though I think of myself as pretty good with words, sometimes my brain kicks into pattern-recognition mode at the expense of context. When I was in my late teens I heard a couple of college students talking about how they were going to apply for student visas and for a couple of minutes I pondered how that worked: was the bank targeting college kids as being good credit risks? Was MasterCard doing the same thing? More recently I was frustrated by not being able to find a good emulation of a spring reverb. It took me years to find one that I thought was worth spending money on (Wavesfactory won the contest), but before I found it, every year March-May my eye would get distracted by Plugin Boutique's deal page with all of these effects companies having "spring sales."

I guess you could say that I'm one of the original Dummies, 'cause I owned a copy of DOS For Dummies. Also Windows For Dummies which soon followed. I was doing telephone tech support (remember that?) for Addstor, makers of SuperStor, a DOS disk compression utility (competitor to Stacker). These books REALLY helped in that position. Too many people are put off by the "For Dummies" title, but I've found that it's helpful to admit that I don't know enough about whatever it is that I'm trying to learn about, and those titles somehow help me cop to it. As Heath Row aptly pointed out, I like to seem smart (don't we all?), and referring to a Dummies book takes me down a peg. In the first book, Dan Gookin used a "skip around and find what you need" style of organization that's way useful. 30 years later, I've bought books on many other topics. Not all of them are as good as DOS For Dummies, but shoot, for a buck a piece, there's GOT to be something I can use. And it's under the "price of a large pizza" threshold. Make spaghetti instead of ordering a large pizza and it's paid for.?

So I guess in your opinion, no DAW developer has brains. It's not you, it's every DAW ever created.

Whoa. $95 for the budget solutions. $295 for the dee-luxe. Sidewidener 2 looks better all the time.

You referring to this one or the CM version? It looks like the Boz branding is gone from v. 2. So many stereoizers (iZotope's isn't half bad), but the only one I have that can touch Sidewidener CM is Polyverse/Infected Mushroom Wider 2.

Tempting despite the plethora of stereoizers I already have. The original version, which was a Computer Music giveaway, is really the best one I've ever used for taking a mono phone recording and polishing it up. Looks like you can sign up for their newsletter and get another 10% off. $17.10 Hmm, an update to the best-in-type plug-in I've ever used for less than the price of a large pizza?

Peter @PavlovsCat has attempted to do just that. I'm not sure where to find his list at the moment. He was maintaining it in the Deals subforum. There are way too many great free instruments that aren't in this topic just because nobody has gotten around to posting them. Even in just the 5 years since we started the topic (and its sister topic about freeware FX), there's been such an explosion in the area of loss leader plug-ins that I don't have enough time to try them much less post about them. At some point, I hope to get another song into a releaseable state....

If you want to keep using your Behringer mixer as an interface, I'd suggest trying WASAPI Exclusive. It looks like the only step you're missing is that you need to choose an input on the track itself, before you arm for recording. The issue with the Behringer mixer is that while it's good at being a mixer, it's not great at being an audio interface due to the lack of a true ASIO driver. 2-input interfaces with ASIO drivers may be had for as little as $70 new, much less to get a used one on Craig's List.

Sorry, I haven't tried the instruments. I got free-reed instruments confused with reed instruments being offered for free. Have you tried this (found in the concertina.net forum)?: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KZ1EPAueS-xBiBLDeMVfa3Fvno85UHHg?usp=sharing It needs an .SF2 player, but those are plentiful.

It looks like you're running a plug-in called Tonocracy and it's crashing in Cakewalk Next.

I think I tried a free version of Halion at one point and it was such a pain to set up the eLicenser thing for a free product and then once I got it going it was kind of crap anyway, UI way too small, couldn't locate the supposed plethora of free sample content....yeah, they can keep it. The licensing system gave me a bad vibe, I'm usually pretty easygoing on that front, iLok has never bothered me, but this eLicenser...it seemed like a half-a55ed imitation of iLok, which made me wonder why the hell they didn't just use iLok.

Bapu'd.

I have yet to experience any computer virus that was as destructive to a computer's operation as realtime anti-malware "solutions." While you're at it, go into Windows Settings/Update and Security/Windows Security/Virus & threat protection/Manage settings and scroll down to Exclusions. In there you can exclude folders from Windows' own realtime virus protection. By default, Windows Defender scans every disk read and write. I exclude my Cakewalk programs folder, projects folders, plug-in folders, sample folders, anywhere I don't want or need realtime virus scanning. You might find that file I/O operations get even quicker. I actually turn off realtime scanning entirely, but that's up to the individual. I'm fine with having Defender just scan my drives while I'm not using the computer.

Well, they claim that. There are people on this forum whose knowledge and opinions I respect highly who don't agree with me in regard to the possibility of DAW's sounding different. They cite the theory behind it, but that theory was conceived decades before there was such a thing as a DAW. Theory is one thing, actual real world implementation via algorithm, code, talking to drivers, that's another thing entirely. I can name three DAW's that in the past 10 years or so claimed that they improved their sound (Samplitude/Sequoia/Music Maker, Ableton Live, and Mixcraft). If it's not possible for DAW's to sound different, how did they pull that off? I know that jitter in a digital audio stream results in audible degradation (avoid most interfaces made before 2010 when JetPLL was introduced), and I don't think Fletcher, Munson, Linkwitz, Riley and company accounted for it.

With any complex software such as a DAW, it will take at least a few hours of familiarization. There is often a tradeoff between ease of use and versatility. There are plenty of them that are free to try. When I set about learning to use a modern DAW, I chose Mixcraft, whose motto is "software should be easy to use."

First, one scenario.

"Long-windedness," as far as I can gather.

Not so long ago I spent a lot of time trying to chase down a difference in sound I thought I heard between CbB and Mixcraft. It was weird, like chasing a phantom, but I trust my hearing. Initially, I wasn't testing side by side trying to find a difference, quite the opposite. Ultimately, after trying to set up an objective test, using VSTi's, in REAPER Mixcraft, Studio One, and CbB, my conclusion was....that it's really difficult to come up with an objective test, even if, like me, you use software that double-blinds the files. It's sometimes said that you hear a difference because you want to hear a difference, but for me the opposite is true: I want there to be no difference. Cakewalk feels more comfortable to me than Mixcraft. If any difference I hear is all in my mind, why would listening on the less comfortable program sound slightly better? I know that it's possible for audio playback engines to sound different from each other because I can hear differences between various music players. My favorite so far is JRiver, followed by AIMP and Music Bee. They all claim to provide bit-perfect playback (which means that they feed your ASIO or WASAPI driver the exact ones and zeroes that they read from the file, bypassing Windows' mixer), but they all sound different as far as detail, soundstage, and transients. in all of my many years of participating on music software forums, nobody has ever taken my suggestion to just try one of these bit-perfect music player programs (AIMP and Music Bee are free, Jriver has a trial period), and I don't expect that to change now, but if you do, set them up to use your ASIO driver or WASAPI Exclusive. If you try this, and A-B it vs. Windows Media Player, you may get a sense of what the differences are between playback engines. Listen closely for "masked" elements of the sound, like when an artist mixes in sound effects or brief little ear candy samples. Also reverb tails. Some players reveal those, others bury them. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know why this is, but I can hear it. Whether the player is better at suppressing jitter, or what, it's there.

I'd like a definition of "jibba jabba," and I don't mean reposting my "Old Euthymia" bourbon label. ?

Yeah, it doesn't seem to choke other hosts. My guess is that, if Windows barfs upon encountering that situation, it's passing the barf on to Sonar. Cakewalk is probably using a system call to get the file list whereas other hosts may be doing their own thing. For who to realize? Plug-in manufacturers such as IK Multimedia seem to have gotten it wrong, and innocent end users can't be expected to check for it. We have a situation where some installers seem to do this. It would be great if vstscan.exe could handle it more gracefully.