Vernon Barnes

I know there are a few people here who like Big Big Train, so I am posting this here. Things have been very difficult for bands in general recently, for Big Big Train even more so. When David Longdon the lead singer and one of the main writers was killed in an accident last year the band had already gone through major line-up changes and suffered the usual COVID disruption to tours and recording schedules. The gig in Aylesbury (UK) I attended last Friday had been postponed twice and tickets originally went on sale in 2019, it was supposed to be the start of a European tour, but the last-minute cancellation of the Leeds HRH Prog festival blew a hole in the bands cash flow and the tour had to be cancelled. I was lucky to attend one of the few shows that went ahead. The show kicked off with a set by Norwegian band Dim Grey who were very good indeed. When Big Big Train took the stage only three of the eight members were the same as the line-up I saw in Newport before Lockdown. I was familiar with the new lead guitarist Dave Foster having seen him with his own band, Panic Room and the Steve Rothery Band. I had also seen the new violinist Clair Lindley with Stackridge and DML in the past. Dim Grey’s Oskar Holldorff was standing in for Carly Bryant who had other commitments. There was also a slightly smaller brass section, just four with the euphonium being dropped supplementing the core members. But the big question was what would new vocalist, Italian Alberto Bravin, who had previously been with PFM be like? He was a very good choice, certainly not a David Longdon soundalike but well suited to the material. He also added additional guitar and keyboards to the line-up. By the second song “The First Rebreather” one was sure they this was still Big Big Train and they were still excellent. Probably the most moving moment was when rest of the band left the stage and Nick D’Vergilio accompanied by Rikard Sjöblom on piano preformed David Longdon’s “Telling the Bees” in tribute. An American and a Swede and a very English song. Gregory Spawton, the band leader, writer and bass player is always a retiring player right at the back, but nothing shy and retiring about this Rickenbaker playing. The extrovert Nick D’Vergilio made a particular point in ensuring Greg had a particularly enthusiastic standing ovation during the band introductions. Times remain difficult but it was a triumphant come back and as they said, “the journey continues”.

Also Superior Drummer to 3.3.3

That's a deal!

$39 from Cherry Audio https://cherryaudio.com/products/elka-x £ 32.95 inc VAT in UK from Plugin Boutique https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/1-Instruments/4-Synth/9504-Elka-X but you get £1.37 back in Virtual cash.

£131 + VAT https://www.gforcesoftware.com/products/the-oberheim-bundle/ As I already have the SEM I have contacted them to see if its possible to upgrade to the bundle.

There were also updates for MonoPoly and Polysix in Software Pass.

The interfaces are old style basic Kontakt without a fancy GUI but don't let that put you off the quality of their libraries is excellent.

Must have been ?

There were also updates for MonoPoly and PolySix in Software Pass.

Some nice stuff here. The pentodian choir and the string collections are my favourites but you can't go wrong with any of them at these prices.

I was a Kitcore user and liked it a lot back in the day. Some of the kits still stand up today but after Sonama dropped Kitcore and brought out the 64bit Drumcore I never got multi-out working in either Cakewalk or Studio One and I am not much of an audio loop person, so it's mostly gathering dust on my hard drive. It could have been great with the right development but I think it's too far behind now.

Installed - I have the Sonic Pass subscription. Its rather nice on first impressions wit a lot of good presets and with reasonable editing options for a sample based synth. There are two layers to widely increase the depth of the sound.

WUP by a different name.

Delete

Worth a watch if you are interested in vintage keyboards and/or Genesis. Dave Kerzner has sampled for IKMultimedia and his Instagram hints that samples of this collection may appear as IKMultimedia products in the future.

Sounds great, you hooked me in! I am in the UK so 20% VAT on top of the 36 Euros. ? I had not really looed at them before because of the high end pricing, but I see there are quite a few free libraries for Sine player.

Has anyone tried these? The audio demos sound very good.

Installed. ( I have Sonic Pass) It's a delay! ? But it does look like their are some interesting options to explore that may set it apart from the pack.

Installation lacks transparency but by luck I have just installed the content on my E drive, exactly where I want it. The very first instrument I installed asked for the paths, subsequent installations used this same path. If your stuff has ended up on the system drive I suggest uninstalling and reinstalling. (who knows it may need a registry clean). I tried the demo of concerto a while back and concluded it was not worth the extra subscription cost over Core for me as I had packages covering similar ground. For free, as long as you have the disk space I think its a nice to have with a decent, if not earth shattering, range of sounds.

How did I miss this new forum until now? It looks like a place I will visit often.

Here is some good insight into how Richard develops his sound with Porcupine Tree. New album is out now and there are also gear talk videos from Steven Wilson (guitar) and Gavin Harrison (drums) on this channel.

Not a high price for being able to use it without a full Kontakt licence. Almost all other free libraries may install with a drag and drop but won't work in the player. This foundation series of free instruments is well above par for free libraries.

Most of the pre-sets packs I did not already have were EDM related, not my genre at all, but I picked my three and will have fun seeing what can be used out of context. I always find their way of downloading the pre-sets to the synths to be a bit awkward, it would be nice if there was a more prominent and obvious button / menu for this.

Me too.

It looks underwhelming compared to Cherry and Softube. The Objeq filter looks a nice touch, I always think its a shame there is not a common standard for these modules so you could use an AAS module in Voltage modular or Softube modular and vice versa. The weakness of the AAS modular seems to be the lack of expandability. There are an amazing amount of modules, both by Cherry and third parties for Voltage modular, that is the big strength of that system (but it can be a money pit even though modules are relativly inexpensive). That said I think its a good deal at this price.