jackson white

@George D fwiw, I've been working through what sounds like a similar problem. I've always built my own PCs and am very comfortable with all aspects of fine tuning for audio performance. My current cfg had been running flawlessly for years but starting "acting up" around Mar 2021. This particular project was an older one that a client wanted to revisit and used to run just fine with absolutely no problems. The symptom was a serious degradation/smearing of sound quality on playback, like running the audio through a meat grinder (or putting your thumb on the reel for a tape machine). It would only happen for 10-30 secs and then somehow "recover'. Not sure how this compares to your "clicks and pops" but the performance monitor would go crazy when this happened, super erratic, cores jumping/spiking all over the place. This would also happen when opening a VST or the browser (i.e. to open a user manual, not to check on sports scores...) something that -never- used to happen. The project isn't super large, only a drum VST and a few amp sims in addition to std audio tracks with FX. I don't generally freeze these as I've never had to before SO... not thinking the project/VSTs itself is the problem. Additionally, the ability to run at low latency has been significantly compromised. Used to track just fine on the very same project down to 64 samples. Then only way I could get reasonable playback now was to raise it to 512, which is pretty useless for tracking. The major areas of focus were; 1. WIN 10 updates - Running WIN 10 Pro with updates disabled except for security updates. Always an issue, but I've got a good checklist and always managed to restore the changed settings quickly and easily when they happened, which was not often. Decided to update to the latest version (last update was over a year ago) to solve the problem. = Didn't help. 2. VST updates ? Possibly some update to an existing VST? - Couldn't pin it down on any in the project. They're all by reputable proven devs and run fine in other projects (and DAWs) with no issues reported for any of them. = no obvious suspects 3. Other SW updates (like other applications phoning home) - rechecked / reinstalled the native A/I drivers (they were always the latest update, but...) - I've added some new VSTs/suppliers with various means of authorization. Tried freezing those and disabling any service that looked like it might be trying to do something. - tried running the project completely off-line (Internet disconnected, actually boot cfg is off-line, have to manually go online) = no improvement 4. Checked my system services again. Ran Latency Mon and for the first time on this system, it would show some issue when running the project but w/o much of a clue as to a specific cause. The highest DPC counts were for the Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime. The second highest were for LatMon iteself... Multiple sessions were rather uneven and hard to pin down. FYI, no BT, WiFi, etc, active, only Window Defender running for when online, never been a problem in the past. ? Not sure where to go with this, still looking into it with no idea what changed, so the challenge is to hunt down what might have made it worse. 5. CxB changes/updates. - CxB has never been the problem (despite the number of outraged posters in this forum ?), but there have been a -lot- of changes and had me considering the possibility of some newer potential stability issues. Not that I have any insight into the development, but it is a very feature rich (=complex) program. NB This project has since crashed several times and flagged an issue with Cakewalk core. Doesn't mean it wasn't caused by some VST issue, but despite the best efforts of the Support team (they've been super responsive), no clear cause has been noted. > Worked through a matrix of Record/Playback IO buffer sizes, A/I buffer sizes and was able to confirm a few settings which helped, but mostly raising the A/I buffer. Changing the Record/Playback IO buffer sizes generally made it worse. = All changes were correlated with Performance Monitor specs during playback but they generally behaved as expected... > Tried various settings in the Initialization file. = Back to the original settings as none of the changes made much sense and generally only made things worse. ... In the course of working through this, it's started to behave a bit better, which makes it sound like a moving target, or maybe it just takes a few reboots for everything to settle down? I still have a problem project with repeatable symptoms at a specific spot in the playback, trying different states/cfgs to see what might expose the culprit. And also noting the issues are only with older projects so far (like 3-5 years old) being opened in this years version of CxB. FWIW, all of my newer projects are running fine atm, so I'm considering the possibility of some project specific corruption or as yet undiscovered backwards compatibility issue? Don't know that this does you any good but just hearing about something similar might help. I don't expect to find any answers here as I'm assuming it's something specific to my system, but stuff like this comes with the territory (infinite cfg possibilities + ongoing dev) I'll come back if something useful gets figured out.

This is the key imho. Racking up a reference track or two in a DAW to compare with your existing mix can be pretty helpful. Something like Metric A|B works very well.

As noted elsewhere, it can be useful on drum busses. ... Just wondering when they'll come out with the "perfect recreation" of a "complete authentic" experience with a "vintage" master bus version featuring an "award winning" mix down matrix that only allows first generation signal degradation of "exquisitely modeled tape warmth and color" for the original number of tracks, and applies additional layers of "glorious tone and other audible hallmarks" for successive iterations that exceed the original track count. Wouldn't it be awesome to emulate the "unique sonic character ... behind many famous song demos, and even whole albums made by some of the most influential rock bands ever" by selecting the order in which your tracks are bounced to inject a new level of authenticity and vibrancy into a wide range of music and other recording efforts." They could launch this with a contest to mix down the tracks for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Or give this a look.

... slap an instance on every track of a 20-40 tracks Made me laugh. Wasn't the Porta One a 4 track?

my observation as well, wondering how you access these built in fx, noting it's both WIN/OS, assuming some standalone app? and if this new 'platform' is capable of supporting a greater variety of fx options in the future. probably too much to ask for...

Took a look to see what it might take to integrate as a preamp option with an existing audio interface = audio outs only.

Pay full price for SD3 core and one SDX, get one SDX for free.

wondering if Keith Richards can say this...

Drum samples are mapped to MIDI note velocity values. Different values will trigger different samples. It should not matter what creates the MIDI velocity value (mouse, drum trigger, controller, etc.).

An example of both @ 5'30"

The feature set for Modula looks interesting. Just sold an SPX90 to a guitar player for that specific program (Symphonic).

From Deals | 50% off BFD and Expansions ... cut down a recent project to create a custom template for how a basic kit in BFD3 could be used with CxB. NOTES: > use case: basic acoustic kit and rolling your own MIDI grooves > assumes the latest version of BFD3 > most, if not all kit pieces should be from the BFD3 Core Library (not confirmed) > the direct kit pieces and OH, Room, Ambient, Master Out channels in the BFD mixer are routed to discrete channels in CxB. > the FX in BFD might be used to get a kit sound for the "tracking" stage but in general, all mixing done in CxB > general approach: get a basic kit sound using OH/Room/Ambient channels, then add/mix in direct channels and fine tune with additional ambient channels thru Ambient or Master Out. BFD supports additional auxes if it helps organize things. > the original project used a parallel drum buss for compression/harmonic distortion. Left in the sends and aux for that. > MIDI channels are broken out per a preferred workflow. A CxB drum map and BFD keymap are included for the BFD preset with a screenshot of the PRV. FILES: CxB template: > copy CxB BFD3 template.cwt to your CxB Project Templates dir CxB drum map: > copy SM BFD3 5Cym 4Tom 4Perc.map to your CxB Drum Maps dir BFD preset: > copy SM Baseline.bfd3 and SM Baseline.png (file icon) to your BFD user preset dir (i.e. Documents | BFD Drums | BFD3 | Presets) BFD kit: (Not sure this is needed, included in case it is.) > copy SM Baseline.bfd3kit and SM Baseline.png (file icon) to your BFD user preset dir (i.e. Documents | BFD Drums | BFD3 | Kits) BFD keymap: > copy SM 5Cym 4Tom 4Perc.bfd3map and SM 5Cym 4Tom 4Perc.png (file icon) to your user keymap dir (i.e. Documents | BFD Drums | BFD3 | Maps) NB. These all work with my current ecosystem, but were not tested anywhere else. CxB BFD3 template.zip

@David Baay BFD3 Project Template (with custom key map/drum map)

fwiw, every kit piece I use has a 'direct' channel with a reasonable name which gets routed from BFD to it's own channel in CxB. Each kit piece has a variety of ambient mic channels which all get dumped into the AmbMix channel with arbitrary settings. Different expansion packs have different recording techniques which can lead to an even longer list of extra mic channels when using kit pieces from different expansions. The approach used to get an initial kit sound is to; 1. load project template with all direct kit pieces, OH and Room channels and AmbMix (master out of BFD) routed to respective channels in CxB 2. OH, Room and AmbMix are routed to an Ambient Aux in CxB. 2. drop the faders on all AmbMix channels and set nominal levels for OH and Room 3. pick a "main" ambient channel for each kit piece (in the Tech module in BFD) and balance levels by monitoring the Ambient Aux (also, panning, phase, etc). 4. monitor the drum stem to set a mix of direct (in CxB) and extra mic channels (in BFD) to get the kit sound for the project 5. save as a preset once all is sorted out. mix adjustments are pretty much all done in CxB after that. project templates include aligned BFD keymaps, CxB drum maps and MIDI channels with a color coded PRV. Can't say this is going to work for everyone and there may be smarter ways to do this, but I've always been able to get drums sounding the way I need them to, more so than any other drum VST. That being said, a few of us are pooling resources to give SD3 a fresh look as they list 4-5 kits with "raw" samples which might be our way forward if InMusic continues to prioritize some sketchy online authorization over product functionality/value. hth

I was looking at this (like I don't already have enough on my plate...) https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/aum-guitars-vibraslide

The visualization of some of the finer points of mixing can be interesting (i.e. curves, harmonics, aliasing, etc). Price is fair and can pay for itself by disarming hyperbolic marketing copy/pretty pixels for a plugin, especially for something like EQs. (OT, @telecode 101 what are you using for a lap steel?)

The OmniTec-67A vintage tube preamp turns even the most sterile of signals into a rich-sounding production by introducing lush vintage tube saturation and that 1567A sparkle. From gritty vocals to saturated drums and harmonically complex mixes, this vintage classic with a twist can do it all. Introductory offer: only $49 (regular $99) for a limited time! https://blackroosteraudio.com/en/landing/omnitec-67a?_se=anBkZ21sNzEwMkBnbWFpbC5jb20%3D&utm_campaign=Omnitec-67A_Launch&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Email1

I use multiple drum vsts across multiple daws and wanted a consistent display for editing across platforms. It took creating a custom keymap in the drum vst and a corresponding custom drum map in each DAW. There is a bit of a challenge with different kit piece articulations across drum vsts, just went with the 80/20 rule. I expect a GM map should work, but never found the GM layout useful enough for editing purposes to try it. The drum map manager in CxB is bit dated and clunky, but entirely functional and does the job. I only needed to do it once.

hard to tell what this really sounds like, way too much fx/"ensemble clutter" in the clips they posted. kinda like most drum samples...

You Are My Sunshine (w/o the stylist and pretention du jour...)

Can't comment on Sonar 8, but maybe try putting the audio and midi tracks into folders with exclusive solo enabled to select a folder?

gave this a listen again, had bookmarked it a while back, but held off as I was trying to avoid going down the Kontakt Full path. May have to give it another think...

Always preferred BFD for sound quality, BUT they've tried to implement some sort of mandatory online authorization with the relaunch via InMusic. IME it's been a complete mess, with random driveby deauthorizations of *everything* I've owned for years. Can't recommend it until they've sorted this out with a user/customer focused update. FYI, a couple of the original FXpansion crew are full time on damage control, but this has been going on since April, and it's InMusic, which does not have a track record of investing in product improvement. Great sounds/feature set for "realistic" drums, and yes, the user interface could benefit just as greatly from a major overhaul. Would love to see it happen.

yes. this.