Starship Krupa

There's one plug-in I can think of that might work. MCCGenerator is part of the legendary Meldaproduction MFreeFX Bundle. It generates MIDI CC messages based on a variety of things, from built-in oscillators, to level envelope following (which is what you want). It requires a way to map the parameters of your target FX to MIDI CC's. Download the bundle and try it in free mode and see if you can get the results you want. I have the upgraded version, and the custom modulators section is readily accessible. This may not be so for the free version, as access to the modulators and multiparameters is advertised as one of the advantages of upgrading the bundle. Good news, though, for another week, Meldaproduction are having a 50% off everything sale, and that includes the FreeFX upgrade. You can get the whole bundle upgraded for about $10 USD if you first sign up for their newsletter, which gives you a $10 credit. Then when you check out, apply discount code MELDA1923165. The result of all of these discounts is that you'll get the bundle upgrade for about $10 USD. There are of course 36 other plug-ins in the bundle, so it's a pretty decent deal overall.

I like this. There's certainly plenty of room in the UI.

Waiting for the Squier version over here.

Hmm. I guess I need to investigate this further. The Saffire Pro 40 has a loopback feature, but I've ignored it. If it makes it easier to capture audio from Windows, I'm in. I do this all the time to capture dialog samples.

It may be kind of arcane these days, but would mapping the users' home directories (on the server) to a drive letter help solve the problem? For instance, if, when logging on to a system, the user had an "H:" drive that was really their network share. That way you could set up the Cakewalk project/template/etc. folders to all be on the H: drive. Are there other per-user files that Cakewalk needs to install on the C: drive? The only hard-coded folder I know of that must be on the C: drive is Cakewalk Content\Cakewalk Themes, and that can be for all users. And add me to the list of people who would like Cakewalk to become more network aware.

C'mon, you don't think that track # and artist are more important than date, type, and size? ?

AIMP is a good one, also MusicBee.

I got Diffuse as a freebie many years ago, and kind of forgot about it until a few months ago. Loaded up the latest version and it's pretty damn cool for sound design-y things. In the Valhalla Supermassive vein.

One with the Exponential engine(s) in it for sure.

The ONE thing? When REAPER has such an abundance of things to get bugged about? ? In defense of theming, which you can see from my sig I like to do, and have spent many happy hours doing, would you make the "use it to make music" comment about someone whose guitar hobby included putting custom paint jobs on their axes (um, something else I like to do)? Many if not most people love to customize their music-making tools. The fact that Cakewalk has the Theme Editor is a big plus for me. Cakewalk looks and works better for me with my custom themes. I get to share them with others, just like I do with my music. Well, more so, because I've finished and released more friggin' Cakewalk themes than I have songs lately, no fault of the themes. ? It's a fun thing to do when I'm not feeling the music, and it's also a really good way to get familiar with the dusty corners of the DAW I might not otherwise explore.

That's a big "if," and a very conditional "should." These assume that the plug-in spec is perfect, which it's not. There are 3 pieces at work: the plug-in, the host, and then the standard that lets them communicate. One of the problems with the VST spec from the start is that it's at the mercy of what Steinberg think is important. Error handling, memory management, thread scheduling, inter-plug-in communication, code sharing, I don't believe any of them is covered by the VST specs so far. This leaves it up to the individual plug-in developers to come up with their own ways of handling it. The looseness and gaps in the VST spec mean that plug-in and a host can each be "compliant" but still not work well together. In my experience, the Cakewalk developers and most plug-in developers are cool about coming up with solutions to interoperability issues.

Maybe asking over at the Presonus forum?

As others have alluded to, it very much matters what type and how many tracks you anticipate using. It should work fine for "new & aspiring," but you may outgrow it as you try to do more with it. How quickly that happens depends on what type of material you're creating. As you learn more, you'll probably want to do more, and you'll eventually want a more powerful system, but there's no harm in starting out with this one. Swapping the HDD for an SSD and stuffing in as much RAM as it will take are inexpensive upgrades that will have great payoffs in performance for the whole system, and when you upgrade to a more powerful system, you can take the SSD with you. If you want to record audio, you'll need an external interface with mic inputs. The things that tax a system these days are plug-ins, either FX or virtual instruments, so it really matters how many and how resource-hungry the ones you'll use are. I can do a decent level of audio production on the system where I'm typing this, which is my kinda elderly Dell Latitude notebook with 8G of RAM (maxed out). But it is getting to the point where a couple of the plug-ins I use on my main system won't run on this one due to its lacking later versions of the AVX instruction set. Doesn't make it unusable, but it means that I have to watch it. Whatever system you use, it's always a good idea to optimize it for use with audio. There are several threads on this forum with suggestions for how to do it.

Really? I got a killer synthwave drone bass out of it in just a couple of minutes. Do you mean "where does it fit in in the type of music I want to make?" So far it seems more of a good Synthwave machine than the "House Essentials" they describe it as. As far as user-facing controls, the synth in my collection it most resembles is xPand!2, although I think I saw that you have sworn off AIR's products (that's kinda too bad, because xPand!2 is a real powerhouse of a ROMpler and Hybrid3 is my #1 go-to). It also resembles several Kontakt Factory Selection synths. You have a main sound/sample, then a few controls for tweaking it. Resembles a ROMpler, although I don't know if their waveforms are samples or generated by the synth engine. However the waveforms were/are generated, it sounds pretty damn good. It doesn't hurt that one of the main effects is UJAM's own Finisher. I don't think there's a way to start from scratch and build up your own patches, rather it's always start from a factory patch and adjust it to taste.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/512790/Quern__Undying_Thoughts/ 50% off. I'd had this in my wishlist. Played for about an hour and a half and can say that if you liked MYST, Riven, Exile, etc., you'll like this. Yes, it's very derivative of MYST, and to me, that's a very good thing. Also, if you liked MYST, remember there's a free version of one of the MYST sequels, Uru Live, available to play for free: https://www.mystonline.com/en/ As with Cakewalk by BandLab, you don't have to get into the "online" part (although for me it adds to the fun). ?

You could try selling them on CL. Or elsewhere. I like to build computers. PM me how much you want for them. It's a pretty easy ship in a USPS Flat Rate box.

Um, guys? Guys? I just followed the "Doctor iZotope" link at the top of the thread and it worked a treat. Got the MPS 5 Universal for $149. ? Along the way to confirming the order, I don't remember seeing anything about needing a qualifying purchase, so I just kept a-clickin'. iZotope has my money, spent directly to them, and I have my licenses. Jumpy to the point of installing the ones I was most interested first in case they "caught on." But everything is authorized and works. Pinch me, I must be dreaming. I didn't have any of the plug-ins included except a couple of the bx ones. I know, I know, I said no more mixing plug-ins, but this....good lord. Ozone 10 Advanced? VocalSynth? Stratus/Symphony? Neoverb? Neutron 4? RX 10? I'd regret it forever. I agree that iZotope's business practices are often gripeworthy (really, I need to keep 3 versions of Neutron on my system just so I can open older projects?) and their plug-ins are resource hogs, but they do sound very, very good. (and thank heaven, it justifies my acquisition of Audiolens ?)

Looks like UJAM are doing the A|A|S thing with Usynth. A single engine repurposed in multiple different flavors.

The only 3rd party plug-ins that I consider absolutely indispensable, which is to say that I wouldn't want to release a track without being able to use them, are my reverbs. My ears seem to be very sensitive to reverb. When I'm listening especially critically, like testing equipment or CODEC's, it's the transients and reverb tails that reveal the differences. Exponential Nimbus or Meldaproduction MTurboReverb. Flip a coin. Probably go with MTurboReverb because of the licensing and continued support by the developer, although I have few worries that the Exponential 'verbs are going to break any time soon. Could do it without 'em, I suppose, but I'd be gritting my teeth.

"So what" indeed. There is a practical, easy explanation, though. SONAR was the product of a whole division of Gibson, Cakewalk, Inc. Cakewalk is the product of a handful of developers who work for BandLab. Cakewalk, Inc. had multiple marketing employees whose job description included maintaining friendly relationships with the marketing people at other software (and hardware) companies. Part of their job would have been to keep an eye on iZotope and others to make sure those companies had everything they needed to make sure that SONAR stayed on their compatibility list. This could include things like free NFR copies of SONAR for testing, cross promotions, bundling, etc. There's nobody to do that now. It's entirely up to the marketing (and engineering) people at those companies to decide which DAW's to list as explicitly compatible. As mentioned elsewhere, there are only so many hosts that it's economically feasible for them to be able to test thoroughly enough to put on their compatibility list. Not to worry; in the past 5 years of BandLab's ownership, getting on compatibility lists is actually on the way up. BandLab make it easy to test with Cakewalk; it's free. Also, the Cakewalk developers have a healthy interest in working with plug-in manufacturers to ensure compatibility.

If you're a first-time Melda customer, sign up for their newsletter to get a flat €10 credit. Also, be sure to use a referral code (mine is MELDA1923165, but anyone's will do) to get 20% off your first order. By stacking all the discounts, a first-time buyer can upgrade their FreeFX bundle to "pro" for about €10. For veterans, check your My Account page to see what kind of prices you'll get on upgrades. Bundle prices will be reduced even further to take into account plug-ins you already own that are in the bundles. If you're wondering which bundle(s) give you the most bang for the buck, MEssentialFX is a smokin' deal. You get Mturboreverble (the only reverb I've heard that can touch the Exponential ones), MTurboDelay ( @abacab described it as a "Swiss Army knife," but to me that doesn't say it all, it's more like one of those plus a Leatherman Tool), MAutoAlign (essential if you're stereo mic'ing anything), MAutoDynamicEQ and a bunch of other heavy hitters.

I have a similar product, the Presonus Studio 2|4 and neither it nor any other USB-powered interface I've used has shown any difficulty with either gain or headroom on the inputs, as long as one has them properly switched, that is Mic vs. Instrument level and phantom power for the condenser mics. They have gain adjustment knobs on the front that you turn down if you get clipping, and there's plenty of range. Most if not all of the interfaces in the $150 and under price range will be powered by the USB bus. That goes for Focusrite, Tascam, Presonus, Behringer, just about anybody's, They use dc-dc converters to bump the voltage up from the 5V supplied by the bus. You just can't run them for very long on a phone or tablet that isn't also hooked up to a charger (I use an iPhone "camera adapter" to accomplish this).

The Presonus AudioBox USB 96 is a steal at $79 before the 10% discount. If you need 5-pin DIN MIDI, it's the way to go. I have the similar Studio 2|4 and hooking it up to my system made me remove my Firepods and go in search of a better 8-input interface.

Nebula is one of those plug-ins that seems like it would be more useful than it actually is. All that flexibility in modulation, I thought it would end up being my go-to flanger, chorus, trem, etc. Very attractive UI, too. But somehow it just never clicked with me. Maybe it's that "something" that is missing.

I tried it and didn't think it had much to offer, especially considering that it chews up system resources as much as or more so than Chromophone 2.