Shane_B.

It's hard to let stuff go. I still have some stuff from the very early 80's myself. I have an extremely powerful Peavey phantom powered mic a friend gave me in the mid 80's and I even have the first recording I made when I was 12 ~ 13. What do you use now? I'm still using my Yamaha HS-80's I've had for a well over 10 years. They were my first real monitors. Got them on clearance sale at my local Guitar Center in Des Moines. It was an unadvertised 50% off sale. Basically buy 1 get 1 free. They had a stacked pyramid of them sitting in the middle of the show room with a sign on them and I figured I'd never see a deal like that again so I grabbed a pair.

'eh. I'm from Jersey you little cazzo. We invented the f-stop.

I wasn't sure where to post this link. All the right people who would know and remember what this reminds me of are here so I figured I'd post it here. Maybe make someone smile and remember the 'good ol days'. (Cue Billy Joel's 'Keeping The Faith') The more things change the more they stay the same ... Crick here.

Sorry to hear that Gary. Prayers and best wishes to your wife and you.

I've only ever had to get my CC involved once. I bought a new TV direct from Samsung a few years ago. They sent a damaged return someone had and sent back at least once before. You could see the box was really messed up and a lot of packing material and a few small parts were missing. They refused to swap it out and refused to give me a refund until they got the damaged one back. They got it back but never refunded my money so I had to get my C.C. company involved. My wife travels a lot for work. She had a waiter at a restaurant in Oregon steal her C.C. info one time. I like watching those guys scam the scammers too. There is one guy I watch that also does it live on Twitch. Here's his youtube channel.

Exactly. It's why it almost seems legit to me. The internet bots are really coming down on pirate sites now and bots take those sites down almost immediately. That place has been around for year. From what I've seen pirated software has mostly gone to private bit torrent servers that you pay a fee to be a member of and then you download whatever you want. It's how the torrent site's get around being responsible for what is posted. I discovered this when I was trying to find ways to download digital copies of movies I own and it led me down that rabbit hole. In the end it was easier to just buy a cheap disc drive and use a tiny free utility and do it myself. There is enough free stuff out there that I see no reason for pirated software. Between Gimp, Blender, and Open Office and the plethora of free plug-in's for both I waved goodbye to Adobe and Microsoft a very very long time ago. And there's more free DAW's, VST's, VSTi's, and samples of every size, shape, and genre you could ever want or use in a lifetime. But again, before totally writing this site off, I would seriously check with Sweetwater or the company who makes it. It could be returned software. Who knows. It's legal to transfer licenses. That's what BiaB was when I got it from Sweetwater. It was a return that they used for demo's at shows and then I got it. I know it was a return because it still had Christmas wrapping paper on the bottom of the box. They all do that stuff all the time. The only reason my scale is tipping toward it being a legitimate site is the fact they've been around so long. But I could be wrong.

There are web sites out there that you can copy/paste their link to and they try to verify if the site is legitimate. I tried it and the site does appear to be legitimate. What I would do is ... contact Sweetwater and say, "Hey, I'd really rather deal with you guys. Can you match this price on this site?". They'll move heaven and Earth to try and prove you wrong and you'll get your answer right away. If it's legit, they'll either give you a good discount or match their price. If it's not legit they'll call you out on it and report them. All signs point to it being a legitimate site. It's secure, it comes up as safe when you scan with other web sites. Here is the site I use to check and see if sites are legit. It says it appears legit. But if you are concerned, I'd throw it on Sweetwater's lap. They just went through a 're-organization' themselves and are looking for sales anywhere they can get them ...

I clicked on the link too, now, and several times a long time ago. It was the typical say a lot of nothing type stuff when buyouts like this happen. I thought we had talked about this before that's why I was shocked to see it again but I must be wrong. No harm in talking about it again though either. I still stand by my thoughts on it. And it still doesn't matter what myself or anyone thinks because they're going to do what they are going to do no matter what they say now and we have 0% input in it. It sure is a good DAW and if they ever do start to charge for it again it's worth it, now. It wasn't when they were charging for it, in my opinion.

Not sure why you'd post this or where we're supposed to go with it? It's old news now. I mean, it was almost 5 months ago this was announced. Is it 'corporate speak' for CbB will now be a legacy product and we'll need to visit the CaS (Caldecott App Store) for further upgrades in the future? I dunno. Honestly don't care one way or the other anymore. But it is entertaining to watch from a distance to see how they'll squirm out of the free promise. I stand by my opinion that it's just a matter of time before that goes the way of the Dodo. @craigb ... I said Dodo.

My favorite is Soundcloud. I've never heard of Drooble or AudioMack. I just checked an you're right about Drooble, it is down right now. Not a good sign. I've tried the others but I didn't like their layouts. I like how Soundcloud looks, if you master your music to the levels they want your streams will sound great, and I like that I can set things to private. I'm sure you can set things private on the other sites too, I just never got that far to check. I did have a country song I wrote reach #6 on Soundclick one time. I was completely shocked. But I never cared for how it was laid out so I stopped using it. On the few I did post publicly on Soundcloud I got a lot of good response and a few followers which completely blew my mind. I never even tried. I didn't want that. I just wanted a place to park my recordings to share here, TDPRI, and the Presonus forums. The Presonus forum sucks for Soundcloud links because you can't post a private one. It has to be a public link and I do not like that especially when I'm in the mix process asking for advice. So, I don't post there anymore. TDPRI either for other reasons. They do ask me to pay to have unlimited uploads but I don't do enough music to ever hit the upload cap. If I ever do hit it I'll just deleted the really old stuff I have set to private. I'm sure others have more in depth input, but from a weekend warrior type not trying to sell his music, my choice is Soundcloud. There is some great music there. Don't rule out Youtube either. The things I have posted I just did simple videos with the lyrics scrolling in the background. Nothing fancy. I have noticed that people are more willing to listen to music with a video than just audio like on Soundcloud. Even if it is just a simple background with the lyrics going across the screen.

If you notice, he also had his hand slid up the tape about 1/2" from the metal tab. (Just sayin' ... )

10" But, I had to go out to the garage to get a tape measure and it was cold out there so ....

I jumped from XP to Windows 7 then to Windows 10. As much as I loved XP, I don't miss it. No matter how lean and clean you ran your system, something got corrupted. It was general routine maintenance to format and reinstall XP about every year or so. It was as if there was a memory leak or something that slowly corrupted it over time. I've never had to do that with Windows 7 or 10. I'm still running my initial install of Windows 10 that I did from disc 6 or 7 years ago IIRC? I just let it do it's updates and it does it's thing and it's happy. There has been a couple of times the update caused some flaky behavior, but they were aware of it and resolved it very quickly. I really can't complain about Windows since 7. A friend of mine ran Sonar on Vista and ME and never had trouble. People are always worried about privacy and resist doing updates, but in my experience, if you just let it do what it wants it actually runs really well. They already have everything they need to know about you the split millisecond you get on to the net the first time from any PC on your home network. Microsoft and Google aren't the ones you really need to worry about. It's the people hiding in the shadows that steel the info they collect by way of you installing a virus or tricking you in to giving it to them that are the problem. MS and G seem to do their best to try and block those people. At least that's how I see it. IMO.

I could never get used to Reaper either. I've seen some absolutely beautiful skins for it. Some people sell custom skins for it. I couldn't tell you the last time I tried Cubase. I don't know how long it's been around, but I'd say it feels like a good 12 or more years ago since I tried it. I couldn't warm up to it at all. Studio One has morphed a lot over the years. It's heading in a one size fits all direction now. It's big claim to fame was it doesn't do midi. And it still doesn't. How it deals with midi is proprietary. But as it got more popular people started demanding more PRV type stuff and here we are. When X1 crashed on the scene (LOL) people flocked to S1 and started hounding them to be more like Sonar, only stable. And the rest is history. The one to watch now is Band In A Box. They are really making some great changes. They still have a few kinks to work out but I have no doubt they will and it will be a force to be reckoned with in a few years. Once they get the AI stuff involved and get it to manipulate samples properly the way they're trying now it's game over. If we all survive that long that is. For the first time in my life I have my doubts anyone will be around much longer . . . ???

Wednesday was a year since my last dog died. She was 16 which is almost unheard of for a lab mix. My wife and I have had dogs, cat's, and horses since we've been together. That will be 25 years this year. They're all gone now except the horse and he's 31. I sure don't miss the dog mines as I used to call them. I miss the companionship but I like my freedom more now. Maybe when my wife retires, but that's another good 15 ~ 16 years. Good luck with the new pup.

The K means it can be overclocked and has built in GPU support. This article explains all the letter meanings. I wouldn't go with anything but a K series. This has not been my experience. In order of DAW's I've used: 1.Reaper 2.Studio One 3.CbB That said, the difference that I've seen between them in recent years is almost unmeasurable. Things have changed greatly since the days of Sonar. They've all become rock solid IMO. What my preferences boil down to these days is the visual and ease of use aspects. And with that kind of thing there is no right or wrong so to speak. I will say though, out of everything I've used, Sonar 8.5PE was the last DAW that I used that fit both of those requirements. I liked what it did and I could customize it to look exactly how I wanted. Man if it only had the features current DAW's had.

That's getting closer to the point. When I said we can't compare the digital age to the pre-digital age of recording, it's not an insult to people who use electronics as instruments or the ones who sit in front of a computer and peck out every single note, instrument, and beat with a mouse. It is an observation that there is a huge difference between a group of musicians using whatever instrument they have at their disposal to perform a song as a group and a guy or two in a control room piecing together audio snippets (aka samples/VSTi's) in a computer to create a performance or editing a bad live performance to make it good. You can't compare the two. They are not the same. It's like comparing a carving done by hand to one done by a CNC machine. Both can be awesome but one doesn't carry the same feeling, weight, and respect. That said there will always be a large group of people who don't know and/or don't care and accept it and like it and that's ok too. For those of us who know the difference though and see what has happened to the music industry, it's a hard pill to swallow. I just read an article by David Crosby who recommends people don't become musicians anymore. The industry has died. I'd post a link to it but he goes off on a tangent about other crap, but he's right about most of what he said in it. "When asked what advice he'd give to the younger generation, he said: “Don’t become a musician.”

I don't have an audio interface hooked up right now so I couldn't play it but yes I'm sure it would be pulling more while running. Out of force of habit from dealing with all the crashing in Sonar back in the day, to this day, I still have the habit of freezing and bouncing everything. I get how people want a powerful enough system to run tons and tons of stuff real time, but it's not technically necessary except in a few rare cases. Systems runs so much better if they are dealing with playing back waves tracks and processing as little as possible real time. Right now I'm using the audio out through the HDMI cable and that's how I have sound for gaming. The speakers on this crappy little TV actually sound pretty good, especially compared to the speakers on that monitor I returned. It sounded like I had a cell phone on speakerphone. Absolutely horrible. But, S1 either doesn't support audio through HDMI or I don't have it set up right because I tried to use it and S1 couldn't see it.

You got me curious as to what was running and what it was using on my system so I took a look at Task Manager. Window's Defender is using 0% of my CPU when I'm at idle. I tried loading Studio One and watched Task Manager. Window's Defender upped to 4% then went back to 0%. Studio One used 3.4% loading then 0% when idle. It did seem to load a lot in to memory though. I loaded a project and it appeared to put the entire thing in to memory. It used 1.6GB but was still at 0% idle. The Brave web browser uses my GPU and it's memory. There are 3 things using the GPU on my system. The other two are generic windows runtime items. Ironically, the Nvidia background software does not run on the GPU. For a single window open in Brave it's dumping 550MB in to my GPU's memory and using the GPU's processing. It bounces up to about 3% when I'm navigating a page or opening a new tab or typing. But it falls back to 0% when idle. I've never had a system running so lean and smooth. And for so long. It was a regular occurrence to have to re-install XP. I've never had to do anything with Windows 7 or Windows 10. I'm very happy with the system I have now. I hope they change their requirements for Windows 11 and support this CPU.

Yepper. As in the case of Muskrat Love, Never Been Any Reason by Head East with that epic synth lead, Frankenstein by Edgar Winter, Rush, Beatles, and on and on.

Never cared for Muskrat Love but Cap and T were great musicians. The other two are great songs. All real musicians playing real instruments. I mean, Cap was no Richard Carpenter, but extremely few are ...

I can't really compare todays music to music from pre 80's. It's simply not the same. You can't compare midi/sample based, quantized, and pitch corrected music that started hitting the scene in the 80's to anything that came before. It's just simply not the same. There are real musicians still forming bands and recording, but you really have to look for them now. And even most of those people are having their recordings edited to perfection. Not saying one is better or worse, just saying in my opinion I can't really compare the two worlds. There'll never be another Led Zepplin or Beatles or Stones or Black Sabbath and so on. That kind of collaborative creativity is long dead, gone, buried, ashes sprinkled to the wind, and the widows have remarried and moved on. Real groups are still out there but they fall in the 'Indie' category now and are really hard to find.

I haven't seen any improvement in my DAW performance. I thought I would when I added in the RAM but nothing has changed that I can tell. One thing that blows my mind is how lightning fast this old game loads that I'm playing. I played it on PS3 many years ago. When you would go from one area of the open world map to another, or load a saved game, it would takes almost a minute depending on how long you played and how large the saved game files were getting. They increase in size the farther in to the game you are. It crashed constantly on the PS3 but so far I haven't had a single crash and the maps and saved games load in less than a second. I click 'Yes' to load the game, the saved game screen closes and it's loaded. It has to be less than a second. But as for a DAW work, I see zero performance increase. That's going to solely rely on your CPU based off what I'm seeing with this rig now.

Two things I've learned the hard way over the years is leave the PC plugged in but turn the PSU switch off and never spin the fans when blowing them out with compressed air from a can or from a compressor. You can actually create a voltage by spinning the fans and feed it back to the mobo if you spin them fast enough. I also have a wrist strap with an alligator clip on it but I can't find it. I threw it in a box somewhere years ago and swore I'd never open another PC. And here I am. I just rub my hands on a faucet, fridge handle (they always give you a good shock) and then touch the case. As long as it's plugged in and the PSU switch is off. I hold the fan blades still with my fingers or a pen/pencil. Anything nonconductive so they don't spin when I blow them out. That's all assuming your outlets are properly grounded. If they aren't you and your PC can get fried. EMF's can destroy data and chips too. Just touching any data cable inside your PC without your body being properly discharged beforehand can destroy it. I've told the story hear a few times about how I worked of fax machines a long long time ago. One of the big laser fax machines I worked on had a sensor to detect if the drum cartridge was in it. After a while it couldn't read it. It turned out to be the EMF between the sensor wires confusing the control board. Someone at the factory put the nylon tie straps on the wire harness too tight and the official fix was to cut the strap and that fixed it. I may have to flip this new PSU around in my PC. That clicking is driving me nuts. From a distance it sounds like arcing but it's not. I tried laying the PC on it's side and sitting it upside down and it doesn't do it so it has to be the fan in the PSU. Half the time the fans aren't even spinning on the GPU and I still hear it so I know it's not that. I just don't feel like going through the hassle of returning it and probably getting another one with the same problem. Honestly, I've never seen a PSU with the fan pointing down, but that's what the install sheet said to do if there were vents in the bottom of the case. This is a pretty nice case I have. It came with a PSU with the fan pointing up and it has vent holes on the bottom with a filter. There's a guy on youtube that has an entire channel dedicated to cleaning PC's. He does local drop off and every once in a while a viewer will send one in. It can make a difference. Thermal paste breaks down over time, fans get clogged with dust, dust settles on the electronics and all that makes everything run hotter. I didn't have the nerve to take the heat sink and fan off the CPU and re-paste it. Probably should have though. The guy on youtube goes as far as to take the GPU's apart and re-paste those too sometimes. Here's a link to his vids. Kind of fun to watch.