Starship Krupa

Yes. The quiz is about third-party FX.

Wow, these replies are even more fascinating than I thought. And proof of diversity of technique: some categories that I used others leave blank and some categories I omitted others find essential (so please do fill in the blanks). I did miss Channel Strip. I sorta think of them as multi-FX, although I know that for many people, they're something you use on every track to add character. I use Cakewalk's Console Emulator. I'd probably go with the bx_Focusrite or the Lindell rack that houses their preamp, EQ, and compressor. I'd say UltraChannel, but it's really a multieffect unit. Sandwiching a bunch of FX between two transformer emulations doesn't make it a "channel strip," or does it? Lots of love for Fabfilter and Melda so far, almost none whatsoever for Waves (man, how times have changed!), and how can I be the only one so far to mention T-Racks? I couldn't help asking myself after I wrote out my list "okay, that's 20 FX, why do I have at least 15X that many?"

Scenario: in rehab for plug-in hoarding, you are sent to a desert island (with wi-fi for updates, of course) and given the choice of a single 3rd-party plug-in in each FX category. No suites, individual FX only. You can take individual plug-ins from your beloved iZotope suites, but not the whole suite. Which FX do you choose? For me, versatility will be an issue, so it's going to skew toward Meldaproduction. Reverb: MTurboReverb. Covers it all. Not as simple as just slapping Phoenix/Nimbus/Stratus on the reverb bus, but more versatile. Track Compressor: elysia mpressor. Sounds so sweet. Bus Compressor: T-Racks 670. Magic bus. Does M/S Multiband Compressor: MDynamicsMB. Versatility. M/S Precision EQ: T-Racks Equal. Plenty of bands and filter types. Character EQ: Lindell T-100. If I have to choose just one, this one seems the most versatile. Delay: MTurboDelay. See MTurboReverb. Covers it all. Chorus: Acon Multiply Pitch Shifter: kHs Pitch Shifter. The simplest possible, but it also works the best of any I've tried. Basic Filter: Soundspot Fat 2. Glitcher/Stutterer: MRhythmizer. Easier to navigate than Stutter Edit 2 Limiter: MLimiterX . Does the M/S Stereo Imager: OzSoft Xpander (it's a freebie, do check it out) Amp sim: bx_rockrack Vocoder: MVocoder. After a pretty exhaustive search, this is the one Saturation: Waves BB Tubes. Pretty nice freebie, I must say. Restoration: ReaFIR. Criminally overlooked and underrated, I've found no single plug-in that can do what this venerable freebie does when it comes to cleaning up camcorder footage or other noisy audio Clipper: T-Racks Classic Clipper Bonus round. As time goes on, you are allowed to expand with utilities and combos: Utility: Trackspacer. Edges out MAutoAlign because I won't be recording drums on the island. Multieffect: Unfiltered Audio TRIAD. Covers a LOT of ground in the realm of sound design. All-in-one Mastering: bx_masterdesk

https://www.meldaproduction.com/MTurboBundle22 MTurboReverb, MTurboDelay, MTurboComp, MTurboEQ, MTurboAmp. Good through the end of the year. Effective price is $318. However, for first-time buyers, sign up for their newsletter and get $10 credit, use a referral code (mine is MELDA1923165) and get 20% off. By my calculations, this would get you the bundle for $245. IMO, though, if the MTurbo line piques your interest, I'd suggest you check out the MEssentialsFX bundle first. It gets you MTurboReverbLE, MTurboDelay, and MTurboCompLE along with 7 other FX. With the current 50% off sale, it's $132. Apply the same new buyer discounts and it comes out to $79. Yikes. That leaves plenty of room to throw in the pro upgrade for MFreeFX bundle and get about 50 FX for under $100. The most useful MTurbos are MTurboReverb (the LE is fine for me, designing my own reverb algos is not on my list of things I want to learn), and MTurboDelay. Both of those are my "Desert Island" FX in their categories. The rest of the MTurbos are great, but haven't seen nearly as much use.

I guess if I had to choose only one that would be it. I can vouch for the sound design-y usefulness of the Unfiltered Audio range as a whole. I have SpecOps, Fault, Sandman Pro/Instant Delay, G8, BYOME, TRIAD, SILO, and Dent/Indent. G8 is the best gate ever. Dent/Indent is the one I use least, because Trash 2 has that covered. The rest are just great weird sound warpers of one kind or another. Collect 'em all!

That is a LOT of processors piled up. We each have our own techniques and styles, and there's no "wrong" way unless it doesn't sound good, but in your case, it's not sounding good (to you). The first thing I do if I'm getting unwanted noise or distortion in a plug-in chain is go through the plug-in rack one-by-one bypassing and then turning them back on until I find the one that's causing the problem. Unlike others in this thread, I'm less sure that you're getting too much level into a processor because your overall level is pretty low. -12dB is low. So unless one of the FX is boosting it too much for the next one in line to take, that's not a problem. I would record hotter, though. I examined "problem.wav" and had a hard time hearing the "distortion. Examining your FX chain....I will say that one should only ever use one instance of a de-esser on a track. That's best practice. Over-aggressive de-essing can create distortion and a lisping sound. I can't help but want to comment on your (long) FX chains. What you're doing is....unusual. 4 compressors is excessive. One fast one (Molotok or maybe MCompressor) to take the peaks off and a smoother one (LALA) for leveling should do it. MEQualizer is a great plug-in, but 3 instances of it on the same track? If you're feeling the need to de-ess, then de-ess again after going through 2 EQ's and 2 compressors, you've probably boosting the highs too much on one of the EQ's and are compensating for it with the second stage of de-essing. There's no reason to boost highs if you're just going to shave them off again with a de-esser. You are doing a lot of carving that might not be necessary. One or two 3-6dB cuts at the "honk" frequencies and a highpass can all be done with one instance of MEQualizer. Maybe also a lowpass rolloff at the very top. As a general guide, the fewer FX I can use to get results, the better. Each one comes at a price in fidelity, in the form of phase distortion, aliasing, etc. As for your de-breath plug-in, perhaps using a pop filter when recording vocals, then editing your vocal into phrases and trimming the clips to eliminate the breath intakes could get you better results without the need for yet another plug-in. Remember, when we're mixing, we're mixing, that is, the idea is to get multiple sounds to sound good together rather than sculpting each track into sonic perfection and then putting them all together. In a good mix, some if not most or all of the tracks are going to sound like hell when solo'd. This applies greatly to vocals and acoustic guitar, which carry a lot of unnecessary sonic information at the lower end. We have to solo for some tasks like finding and cutting the aforementioned "honk" frequencies and chasing down breath intakes, but most of the time, it's best to work with all the tracks together.

I have both Kontakt Player 6 and 7, and they show up just fine. In the plug-in browser, Kontakt 7 is listed as "Kontakt 7" and 6 is "Kontakt." So it can be done. My aging laptop also shows a black box in the Kontakt 7 UI which happens when your system doesn't support a high enough level of DirectX 3D. It has a separate nVidia GPU, but it's just too old. 'twould be nice if they had an OpenGL option, but they don't.

If you just want it to turn on at a certain point, a gate that can send a MIDI note, like Unfiltered Audio's G8 (and freebie G8CM), might also help you accomplish this. G8 sends a MIDI note whenever it opens (or closes, it can be set either way).

Download and install the freeware Acon Digital Multiply and you might change your mind about your old favorite being "best of its kind." There are many other freeware options available. Get the Kilohearts and Meldaproduction free bundles. The Meldaproduction one has MFlanger, which allows chorus settings, and the Kilohearts bundle has a chorus. Between them, you'll get over 50 new plug-ins to experiment with. The longer you cling to deprecated technology like 32-bit plug-ins, the more likely your favorite tools will stop working. At some point, you have to let it go.

Doesn't Reason do this? Or is that just in the "rack?" I had to kinda get used to the virtual patch cable visual metaphor, didn't care for it at first. Working with my beloved Glitchmachines and Unfiltered Audio FX finally made it click.

Hmm. And here I thought I already had every PA product that I wanted.

I suspect development resources are devoted to Cherry Audio synths at the expense of Mixcraft.

Acoustica are very much a "sell no wine before its time" outfit.

Fascinating question. The scenario you lay out actually sounds appealing to me. I recently became aware of Snoezelen, and applying that kind of AI to your environment to enable highly personalized snoezelen rooms seems like a logical step (I want one NOW). My answer: what's left to value in human-created art at that point is the communication I mentioned earlier. Your scenario is one where music (and decor) serve the purpose of complementing or changing your mood. But it does nothing to give me a glimpse into another person's feelings or worldview. AI will have to go pretty far before it can come up with something like "Rhapsody in Blue" or "Subterranean Homesick Blues." As you said, AI could be fine for "wallpaper" music, but when it can come up with words and music that can make me cry like "Casimir Pulaski Day" or exhilarate me like "Teenage Riot," by that time the AI would have to be sentient. At which point, we're back around to music being created by a living, thinking creature.

Here is proof that this forum also needs an eyeroll reaction.

? Wellll, that's been up for debate for a long time, hasn't it? I already mentioned Andy and his soup cans, there's Marcel Duchamp's Fountain from 1917. That's the one where he bought a urinal and submitted it to an exhibition whose policy was to accept all works by their members. The moment you see it or think of it and ask "what the hell was he thinking, was he pulling a prank, making a statement, or being a dick?" then it's made you think about a lot of things that you don't normally think about. Further complicating things with Fountain was Alfred Stieglitz taking an excellently composed black and white photo of the urinal. If the urinal wasn't art, what about the photograph? Can of worms, ain't it? The source of art and how humans see it are only as important as we want to make them. I remember when The Monkees weren't a "real" rock 'n' roll band because they first met each other while trying out for roles playing musicians rather than by placing ads in the local underground weekly or however "real" bands were supposed to form. Now we appreciate the artistry involved, from the individual members as singers and players and from the writers and producers. The Monkees' music is great pop music, excellently written sung, played and produced. Whether they like the music or not, nobody cares about the backstory that once mattered so much that they made a whole movie about their being "manufactured." Here's what Wikipedia says about "art:" "Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas." So by that definition, an algorithm can't produce art....unless you consider the creation of the algorithm to be the qualifying "human activity." In my view (which has been and remains subject to change at any time), art is about one person or a group of people expressing something to other people that must be expressed in that way (the idea/feeling may be "the way the reflections of the lights on the puddles looks breaks my heart" or it may be "I wonder how people would react if I applied my fine art skills to painting a stack of food cans."). The big outstanding questions: who is the one doing the expressing? Who is a part of the group doing the expressing? What about art that someone does only to please themselves (plenty of that on my hard drive!)? Does it even matter at all (except for copyright enforcement)? Who gets to say whether it matters? I don't think these questions can even be answered definitively, only raised. I dunno, can we compare it to the advent of photography as an art form? It once was if you wanted a portrait of yourself for the office lobby, you sat down in front of a painter with training in that fine art. Then it became that all someone had to do was set up a tripod and push a button. Ah....but. The person pressing the button has to point the camera in just the right direction, get the lighting set, and very importantly, wait out the subject's changing facial expressions until just the moment that the person the photographer "sees" will be captured on film. Then they take multiples and choose the best one. When hip hop began to gain more widespread popularity, we as a society had to make decisions about ownership rights. My favorite argument on the producers' side said that collage was a well-established art form and that hip hop songs based on samples from a variety of sources were similar to that sonically. Someone has to first listen to all of those bits of music, then have the idea that they might go together to form something else, then actually put them together, and so forth. I guess we finally settled on the idea that if your collage contains so much of someone else's work, you must credit them, which seems fair enough. Maybe everything that's meant for human consumption needs some sort of human input and intervention in order to be useful. Even if it's only editorial. Someone has to listen to that algorithmically-created song and decide whether to keep it or to let the algorithm do another "take." The description you gave of someone telling Alexa what kind of chamber orchestra piece they wanted....it made me really curious to hear what the AI would make of that. I like melancholy chamber orchestra music. ? Very enjoyable discussion, BTW. Thanks for raising the questions.

I looked it up and it seems that they moved the copy/cut/paste commands to the bottom row and are labeling them with icons instead of words. Is that the case on your system. If so, that doesn't seems as bad as eliminating them entirely.

WTF indeed. You've got to be kidding me! I use context menu copy/cut/paste CONSTANTLY. Has Microsoft given some rationale for that? Why remove functionality?? Ah, the endless impulse to "fix" things that are so not broken. I'm not running Windows 11. Even my newest build (from Craig's List parts) doesn't meet the requirements to run it. Now I'm glad for that. By the time I get around to running Windows 11, context menu copy/cut/paste will have been restored, even if it's with a 3rd-party shell add-on.

This. No offense intended to anyone reading this who does trailer music, but 99% of it is already indistinguishable cookie-cutter/paint by numbers wallpaper. Insert bass drop here, toss in a few braams. If it's a comedy or romantic movie, insert appropriate cliches. If a piece of music can be credibly replaced by something pooped out by a computer, then how good was it to begin with? Ah, but you see there? It still takes a human to say that a human made it! And at that point, ta-dah, it becomes art. We can thank Andy Warhol (and other pop artists) for bringing us an understanding of that. A soup can is just a soup can until you paint a realistic picture of them and stick it in a gallery. Then it forces whoever looks at it to think about it in a different way. To the extent that art is about communication, that is a person or group of people trying to communicate an idea or feeling, even if that feeling is "buy this thing" or "see this movie," AI is no threat. All it can do is poop out stuff. It still takes human interaction, even if it's just weeding out the stuff that doesn't serve the purpose. Generative/process music has been around a long time. In that case, the artist is the person(s) who created the process or algorithms or whatever it is that generates the finished piece. We offload things that are "grunt" work, and then it goes further. There's stuff built into good ol' Cakewalk that I'm sure that purists would have sneered at in times past. The Arpeggiator, the randomization elements in Step Sequencer (yes, the Step Sequencer has adjustable probability for each note), Snap to Scale, Drum Replacer, Quantize, Humanize. Each of those could provoke: "Learn to arpeggiate! Learn your scales and modes! Learn how to mic your drums and do takes until you play it correctly! Learn how to play to a click! If you have to 'Humanize' something, it wasn't "human" to begin with!" Each of us here has technology (FREE technology, check Peter's thread about free sample libraries and instruments) that allows us to create orchestral music without having to hire an orchestra or even write a note of sheet music. We string canned loops together and call it our own, even if every note was played by someone else. We've somehow managed to handle the copyright issues there. Ain't nothing new under the sun.

5 years ago there was a backlog of more serious bugs, by which I mean crashers and the like. Those were mostly addressed in the first 6 months of BandLab ("in the first month of BandLab, the bakers gave to me: one Ripple Button, PRV note durations, and a promise of future stabiliteeee.") What remained/remains are the ones where some feature or other just doesn't function as intended, and I consider those to be annoyances because they can usually be worked around. Things like automation node placement not obeying snap settings. Annoying, but if you let your cursor snap over, the node will land on grid. Still, needs to be fixed. Those are the sort of bugs that remain.

Cool! I hope so. Sometimes all it takes is another pair of (virtual) eyes and a good question to prime the troubleshooting pump, right? I do install the Logitech software for my beloved multi-button mice, for the reason that it allows me to program the side buttons as Ctrl and Alt. Very handy for copying, splitting, and zooming in Cakewalk. So far, no issues except that Logitech seems to want to make it harder and harder to program a button for double-clicking. Odd, because for me, that's the most useful mapping. Middle button=double click.

What I meant was that the physical iLok will survive system rebuilds and the issue of hardware changes causing the system to be considered “offline” by iLok. It’s only if you want protection against the loss or destruction of the iLok dongle, that’s when you get the ZDT.

They may not want to be seen as endorsing the products mentioned in the topics. All good, as Peter said, if you find it useful and know of a permanent freebies that deserve attention, bumpit. I think at this point you can Google Cakewalk freeware and those topics will show up On the first page, which is great.

Unfortunately not true; neither the Freeware FX nor the Freeware Instruments threads have ever been stickied. It's not that tough for me to keep them bumped, but it does sometimes lead to silly "where can I get freeware instruments and FX to go with Cakewalk" or "why don't we have one of these for instruments/fx (depending on which one has scrolled too far)" questions. I've asked the forum powers that be twice to sticky them, the first time I was told that they didn't want to start the forum off with too many stickies, then the second time got no reply, so I just dropped it. If you do contact TPTB, maybe put in a good word for those threads; they deserve it, IMO. I've found some key plug-ins there, like Soundpaint. And any products listed there are at least supposed to be vetted to work with Cakewalk. The fantasy when I started them was that someone could be able to put together a decent DAW system with top quality software all for free, a fantasy that has come true in the years since the forum went on line.

You won't: just make sure to deauthorize your licenses via iLok Manager while your old system is still accessible and they'll be instantly available on the new system. The only time there's a hassle with iLok and/or Waves is when your licenses are machine-authorized and then that machine becomes inaccessible. This can happen even if the system doesn't even go offline, sometimes all you have to do to trigger it is install a new drive, and that can somehow break iLok and/or Waves' system fingerprint. I had this happen on my secondary (portable) system several months back. Had to use my Waves get-out-of-jail-free card and then contact the manufacturers of the iLok machine-authorized plug-ins for license resets. I tried doing the license resets through iLok Manager; all it does is send the emails for you, to whatever email address the manufacturer has registered with iLok. In the case of AIR and SONIVOX, I eventually had to contact them myself via their web support form, which added an extra 24 hours to the recovery process. I will say this: if you have more than a handful of iLok-licensed products, and being without any of them for 24 hours would cause a hardship, just pry open your wallet and get a physical iLok. Figure the cost spread out across however many iLok'd plug-ins you have and it's a bargain. If all your iLok'd licenses are for AIR and SONIVOX, you can even get a cheap original iLok that will work with those. I have one in the bottom of a drawer in my studio room. The only plug-ins I have that do require an iLok 2 are of course the ones that are most important to me, my Exponential reverbs. ? (I mean, really, there's some kind of tech built into the newer dongle that their plug-ins can't do without?) Moving your Waves licenses to a removable drive is a great use for an old 64 Meg thumb drive or SD card.