Brian Walton

As mentioned, theme would need to be updated. One of my favorite themes was one that had not been updated so I made some updates and then also customized it further to integrate both my own ideas and those I picked up from other themes. A theme like the one you mentioned - with all the colors of text and buttons being the same, seems like it would be really difficult to actually want to work with. But everyone has different taste and aesthetics.

I've been creating music for something like 25 years and find Scaler to be a breath of fresh air and an easy way to come up with things I might not have on my own. I personally think it is one of the best additions to a DAW you can buy for a non-keyboard user. While I can play multiple instruments, guitar is where most of my experience and learning stemmed from and that generally provides the framework for a limited set of chords and inversions .

Most come with 2 seats. Thus you authorize one to a dongle, then the other can be authorized to your main computer. Or the other way around. Main computer gets the dongle and and you move the "other seat around" as needed. With 2 seats if your computer crashes or the dongle breaks/goes bad you will be without your software until the manufacture decides to help you out and give you a re-authorization. This can be days or longer. If you have two seats, you at least have the option to move one around to the machine you are working on, as it is unlikely for someone to have 2 flat out failures at the same time. USB ports can be scarce especially on a mobile rig.

And only one single authorization at that.

Don't recall actually seeing it for free recently. But it has had some cheap sales for many months. 8 very well could be on the way, but I don't think that is much of an indicator. They seem more focused on gett ing you hooked and then play the Standard or Advanced upgrade price. Which is always real money. They offered the latest Ozone Elements for free within a few months after it came out.

Not everyone already has multiple compressors with "real" parallel built in, I don't think it is fair to assume a plugin maker is trying to take advantage of our GAS. As my post points out, I have no interest in it based on other plugins I do happen to have. They also just gave away what now looks like the baby brother to this plugin. So are you really going to fault them for putting out a more feature rich version that looks better and charging for it? A $20 upgrade price for those that got the free one isn't totally outrageous. If it were $5, they might have gotten my $5 even though I don't need it. I also like wet/dry/mix knobs. You of course could do as you say and put different and multiple Comps and Saturators on the buses. But again that points back to both what you have already and workflow. Setting up a bus, multiple comps and saturators takes way more effort than loading a single plugin setting it and moving on. It also assumes you have already purchased (or have the other tools). I'm at the point where I clearly don't need anything else, but I buy the occasional toy. I don't need another comp, but I also do really like the new Toneboosters one and that price isn't crazy.

They have powerful tools, but I would not recommend them for a "beginner" which I beleive you refered to yourself as one previously. Melda offer so many options and a layout that can be combersome even for more experienced users. Autoalign mentioned is more straightforward than most though.

Not something I'm interested in....however, this offers both paralel compression and the seperate saturation signal. SUre you can do the same thing with two effect sends to two different buses and having a comp and a saturator on the respective bus. But that also seems like a sloppy way to work. I have a couple paralell compressors (including one from Baby Audio, and Boz come to mind) but adding in the extra channel of saturation is a bit unique. Again, not interested myself, but I would say I much prefer Paralell comp workflow within a plugin than setting up a bus and routing. Especially if you are using it for more than just a single drum track or something.

When the CTO of Cakewalk for nearly 2 decades offers to help, I'd tend to not question his methods and just graciously accept his offer.

This seems like a pretty epic freebie and deserves a mention in this thread:

I'll say it again, you have more /better tools than many pros have already. Do you get much use out of the TAL-FIlter? Is this is plugin you actually use all the time? This is the kind tool that you might not really use enough to need an "upgrade" especially for $60, when as noted above MComb is pretty powerful and you already have the well respected TAL-FIlter.

The example posted looks like an eyesore. Can't stand looking at that for a couple seconds let alone the hours I spend in front of a mix.

That is the way Photoshop should have worked all along. Affinity got it right from the get go. Not appropriate to fault them for correcting a major mistake even if it took them for ever to figure it out.

My question probably was a little on the rude side, (rest of the updates here are fantastic). I raised the question because I've been a Sonar/Cakewalk user for a long time and frankly never used or realized I already had these - I bought lifetime updates so I have a larger tool-set than someone downloading Cakewalk by Bandlab as a new user would. Not sure these are a major value add other than Noel's comment about the fact they are used by some fx-chain presets. Some of the other Cakewalk developed plugins are top tier (Adaptive Limiter, Multi-Band Comp, Linear EQ, CA-2A) wondering if they will see a release at some point for others as well.

All depends on the workflow you want and how you want to achieve it. As mentioned, I have Camtasia, and personally I think it is a chore to use it for the NLE and vastly prefer Resolve or Premiere Pro. On that front. (unless I need to obfuscate information which Camtasia does have far better tools for) I personally record video with an actual video camera and use an external mic. Using a headset or computer audio is reserved for a "I don't care" teaching video. I personally don't find that opening up a different app and lining them up takes more than a couple minutes, not exactly a big deal to me personally. And the time saved during the editing process of using something that doesn't' feel clunky makes up for it very quickly. The actual editing is the time consuming part, not the application opening and bringing files in based on my experience. The other major consideration is the rendering time. Camtasia is quick for the screen sharing stuff. Other programs treat it as normal video and can take quite a while to render.

Davinci Resolve is free for the actual editing part. I haven't used the free options for the screen capture (outside of using Zoom and Skype) OBS might feel like it is aimed at the broadcasting side, but it is one of the most popular screen recording products out there. https://www.bandicam.com/free-screen-recorder/ https://screenrec.com/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/geforce-experience/shadowplay/ https://camstudio.org/ https://www.flashbackrecorder.com/express/

Are these the super antiquated Direct X Plugins that didn't even come with Sonar X3? (other than the Channel Tools, which is cool for those that don't have them).

WAVES is bad with emails, though I don't get pop ups on the machine itself telling me about updates (to my old WAVES plugins) even when I'm not using them. But if you haven't unsubscribed from WAVES emails and can tolerate that, you are likely just fine here.

They have been around for quite a while, though do not have a massive user base. I have an older version of Camtasia that still works fine. There are other free alternatives with varying abilities and quality. OBSProjects is an open source one to check out though I haven't used it myself. Filmora has a cheap ($20?) Screen capture product as well. If it is like other ACDSee products they have a garbage once computer seat model.

I have not installed this yet (though I grabbed a serial number) I have the paid Ultimate ACDSEE Photography program , it isn't cheap. (and I only use it for the right click preview in Windows function, not what it is really designed to do as it isn't as good as my other options. The paid version does have nags and upgrade prompts even when I wasn't using the program and they certainly send a lot of emails. If you want truly clean, I'd stay away.

XenoVerb is also just under $30

That is impressive. I'll have to do some digging on this. Curious how much variation you get one one style trying to create different songs and progressions, or if they all just end up sounding a bit too similar without having to select a different style, etc. Certainly liked the demo there, and can see the major value in having it as a VST for a more idealized workflow.

Depends on what you are looking for in a deal. Not everyone cares about the latest version. What does 2020 offer that 2018 doesn't that is worth over twice the price? Even at a typical sale price of $99 that is still a decent discount if 2020 doesn't have major feature improvements. Do they not also have deals on upgrades from time to time?

The Pan knob is amzing, wouldn't want to mix without it - but it really would be so much better to have it in the prochannel. (I end up putting in in the effects bin within th e prochannel but it is a pain to add it to every track. PC woudl allow you to add it to every track with a couple clicks, and would look nice and be easily accepssable. It is a perfect match for that application. This is appropriate. His contact page: https://www.bozdigitallabs.com/support

A year ago he told me it was a perfect idea for the prochannel.....but we haven't seen it yet. Think he needs some encrouragement.... ?