Olaf

Thanks for the suggestions. I've kept an eye out for alternatives, but everybody seems to be sold on this minimalist "modern" GUI look, which means a very caricatural, depersonalized, schematic look, with nothing to lean your eyes against. Very underwhelming. I'll just wait to see if Luna implements some of the major requests everybody's talking about, and, if it does, we've got a winner. I do like Luna's look, and they seem to release an update every month or so - though they also seem very slow in implementing major changes. If not, I really don't know what I'm gonna choose.

I guess i just kept hoping. When I like something, I don't give up on it easily - define "easily", right? It's the feeling that the problems will never get addressed that's the downer - that's when you give up. I like the interface of CW, I like the concept, the possibilities, all the integrated options. I have Reaper, too, but I don't like the interface, and if it doesn't inspire me when I open it up, that kind of settles it right there, for me. There are various skins, but still, plus there's no front console - that's a always great thing to have. I was looking at Mixbus, but it's too expensive, and the workflow, too complicated and unintuitive. It does sound great, though. Now, with Luna coming into the picture for Windows... I get that tingly feeling again. Still a lot of things to solve in that one, too - a few majors, plus a lot of minors - but I hope they're gonna solve them ?. Hopefully, not turning into a deja vu.

i've been waiting for this day ever since i've seen it. having it free was the only thing that could top that. already installed, made my first project in it, already sent them the first few dozen suggestions ?. biggest ones: multi-out instruments, mono inputs for stereo tracks, an additional insert section before the tape/pre extension stage - for amp sims, rooms, different pres when you don't want the api, etc., and (my favorite ?) option for control bar at the bottom.

unfortunately, cakewalk is a great concept, very poorly implemented. i won't go through the list of problems, they're countless, and i've talked about only a very few of them here - right now, for instance, i can't export a project, plain and simple, it crashes on every attempt - cakewalk.exe, defaulting module, i've tried reinstalling various vcredists, cakewalk itself, to no avail, i don't know what to do; i always find audio clips in different places than where i thought i'd placed them - because the timeline bar indicator popup is not accurate - i've figured out why there's always tons of useless and unintentional clip slices in the time line, which are a nightmare when trying to trimm or comp clips - cause the smart tool visual indicator does not match the action region it's placed in, and it shows trim when it slices, without you knowing; anyway, that's just the latest. editing is a nightmare, so is working with envelopes. can't work on a gain envelope when the clip is not enabled, can't enable without switching modes, then you need to switch back, at which point it places envelopes on all the rest of the clips, you've just deleted them from. stuff just doesn't make any sense. exporting a clip that is not active exports silence ?- so you need to activate it - freezing is, in fact, rendering, so on. i took a peak at sonar's new interface, vectoring aside, the look is not something to look for. basically the gui was one of the best things about cw, if the devs' idea of improvement is not to solve the major problems, but to give up the things that were good, that tops it for me. i'm getting the feeling i had when i gave up reason. i've updated to the latest edition, for various reasons - got a good deal on it - but i won't probably ever use it again. i'm one inch away from deciding that about cakewalk/sonar. i'm spending half my time doing damage control, in it, anyway - for instance, now, acustica black displays a... black window in some projects - works fine in others, have no idea why - and the worst thing is most of the damage you need to control you don't even know where it comes from. and i'm at a point where i don't even want to solve anything anymore. too bad. i was so excited about it in the beginning. so many good things about it. if only they worked. or were implemented intuitively. for instance, even now, after over 4 years, i can't get used to the midi editing right click thing for selections, the selections are not accurate as per the bar region, the copy-paste is always guesswork, pretty much instead of relaxing, i feel i need to be on my toes every time i work in it.

i agree. it's still got a little bit of a problem in the low mids - a bit of a thin tone, covered in honk, instead of a full body, on some models - and the (very little) spiky top end - but it's a nuance thing, it's not a majordown point. overall it does sound good, to, sometimes, very good - i love the hiwatts, i plan to buy them tomorrow - it's got all the controls you need, without going down the rabbit hole - which is important - and, best of all, it's permanently improving. i think it's made strides so far. i wish it switched to 0 gain input calibration, all amp simps i think should do that, that would eliminate the infinite input gain guessing/setting problem, and also make different plugins compatible to each other in the signal chain, gain wise, without having to guess/tweek the gain differences between them - when switching, or using different stages of each. tonocracy and nam have done that so far, i think everybody should follow their example. for instance, i don't know how the nam player input is calibrated in amplocker, but if it's at the same level at the rest, that would be too hot for most nam captures.

Short interview about the technicalities of digital sound processing. Thought it was interesting for one paradox, and two misconceptions. Most people out there think digital sound is of "perfect" objective precision, whereas this interview, like the Rupert Neve interview of a few days ago, highlights two things: one, that it's not objective by default, it still involves a lot of choices, good engineering, workarounds, and, in the end, personalized algorithms, and, two, while most people think digital sound is superior in quality to analog, exactly the reverse is true. Not only is it not, but even today it's still struggling to equal the quality of good analog gear. It's true that you might get a lower noise floor - objectively, which is not automatically a good thing, subjectively, and even that's not a given - some analog gear had/has an incredibly low noise floor - but there're plenty of shortcomings. For the last few years I think it's come close, in some departments, and hopefully in the future it's gonna bridge the gap. I've talked to Jatin personally, about his Matrix delay, he knows his stuff, and he's a cool dude.

fully agree! people have more and more tools, but less and less perspective of what to do with them, and why. info overload, but little knowledge.

Ditto. I my experience, fast scale players, as a general rule, can't write squat. And the problem with practicing scales and riffs to no end is that you automatically form a reflex to revert back to them, instead of writing/playing/imagining lines. That's why I personally avoid it, and that's part of the reason. In honesty, I kind of avoid practicing, in general - what am I saying, I avoid it altogether - so I'm not fast at all - and don't miss it at all, except when I listen to Mike Oldfield, Eric Johnson, and John Petrucci, maybe Tony MacAlpine, in his early days - those are some of the very few guys i find can make music while playing fast, and not just play whatever, fast - so they actually make me want to be able to do that, instead of just ignoring them, which is the default mode for most. On the other hand, my favorite guitar players are Dave Gilmour, The Edge, Tony Iommi, B. B. King, so on. People who wrote music on guitar, not just played fast, to no apparent outcome .

I'm curious about the negative side. Luckily, we can make music for ourselves now, and promote it oursleves - that's the bad part. For what I hear about the music business, I wouldn't sign up with a corporation even if they asked me to. The fascination is gone. And I would never give up the rights to anything I wrote. I'd rather be buried with it - hopefully not any time soon.

Cool! I'll make time to watch. Even though not my favorite Beatle.

great voice. can't stand the hiss on that microphone, though. it literally hurts my ears. and there's a chest rumble in there, too. enough to turn me off. no crying here. probably cause i don't listen to the lyrics anyway, unless they jump at me, and they're not syrupy - otherwise i turn the word recognition center off, and just listen to the music/sound.

I pay for my Waves plugins, whenever I have the cash and I like the particular promotion - I usually go for the pay 2, get 4 promotion, but, as of late, I have everything on the "free" list that I'm interested in - but I use a cracked version, with no Waves Central - and a lot less drive space, and RAM occupied, no folders erratically written everywhere. ? don't tell anybody... I'm not a professional Waves basher, like I see some people being, I actually like many of their plugins - some, like the SSL emulations - Mixhub and EV2 - to me are the best available - I haven't tried any UAD stuff - and many more. Plus the prices are great, and I've had a great experience with their support when I suggested a few fixes and improvements for Mixhub - about 15 of them, for those who think my 100 point CW suggestion list is a bit much. But the new subscription only model they just switched to - own nothing and be happy - was too much for me. They're backtracked, but the taste will never go away. I've always asked myself, in a world where the big software developers only have a few employees each, working full time, how these people maintain permanent offices in America, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, India, and so on. Something doesn't add up for me, there.

A lecture I invite everyone to watch, for a little perspective, especially those who believe the planet was invented in the 1990s. Some points maybe to take into account in digital engineering. Extremely interesting, even though the tempo should probably have been a little faster ?.

i've installed it, but it has no selectable install paths, and it makes folders all over the place. i've tried moving the freetaktvst folder to my vst folder, and cakewalk doesn't see it. the freetaktvst folder is full of dlls. has anybody managed to get it recognized?

definitely original, really driving and convincing. the mix is a bit rough, though. i would like to hear a vocal on this one. there certainly is mood and energy.