bitflipper

In the interest of objectivity and honesty toward the youth of the world, we must acknowledge that studies show cannabis to be the primary gateway drug to jazz and blues.

In our household, we have a tradition of me taking my daughter to a concert on her birthday. Not this year. This year she got invited to my own gig and I bought her dinner. Last time we went to a concert was three years ago (Evanescence @ White River Amphitheater) and while the performance was quite good, everything else about the evening was unpleasant. Tickets were $450 for the two of us. Traffic was a nightmare, parking was a mess (two hours to get out of the parking lot, another two to reach the freeway), food and drinks were outrageously expensive. More trouble than it was worth. What's sad is that Seattle used to be known as a music town. There used to be lots of great medium-sized venues, mostly converted movie theaters so the acoustics were good. We'd see shows like the Strawbs with Gentle Giant for 10 bucks, local bands for 5. There were also similarly-sized bars that were mainly music venues, where we'd go see bands such as Heart, Tower of Power and Badfinger for a buck to get in and another buck for a pitcher of beer. They're all sports bars now, if they still exist. Now, Ticketmaster will blame inflation for current prices, but that ain't it. Adjusted for inflation, that $1 we spent in 1973 would be $7 today.

TDLR: It's Ticketmaster and Live Nation

According to Mathew Fisher, chorus/vibrato was turned off. Check out this article.

That's the great thing about drawbar organs: you can easily replicate any Hammond tone if you know the registration (drawbar positions), percussion settings (just 3 switches) and chorus/vibrato selection. I learned the settings for Whiter Shade of Pale (68860000, 2nd harmonic percussion soft+slow) from a video of a Procol Harem performance, where the camera hovered over the organ just long enough to pause the video.

Nerd.

Invited my bandmates and their spouses over. We jammed a bit, smoked some cannabis, jammed some more, ate barbecue with pot brownies for dessert, jammed some more. Yeh, we all have sh*t days, more than we'd like. But you know, at least on some days, life is good.

^^^ Good advice. First step when diagnosing audio problems is to make sure Windows can work with the interface. Gotta make Windows happy first, since Sonar only knows what Windows tells it about the interface. My standard sanity check is Windows Media Player. If that works, then address Sonar settings. If it doesn't, go into system settings -> Audio and see if maybe the motherboard's integrated audio is being used, and disable it if necessary. Start with the Sonar settings in the first page of the Devices section under Audio in the Preferences dialog. Make sure all of your inputs and outputs are listed there, that none of them are disabled (grayed out), and that every input and output is checked. If more than one device is listed, e.g. anything other than your new interface, or if your interface's inputs and outputs are disabled, then you may have another device activated that needs to be disabled before proceeding. If all this looks good, check the Output destination of your master bus. Make sure it points to the new interface and isn't set to "None" (which Sonar does automatically if the previous destination is not valid). If there is still no audio, try plugging in headphones to the interface's headphone jack. If you get audio there but not in your main speakers, there may be a routing issue with the driver itself. To fix that, you'll want to bring up the Focusrite control panel (Mix Control). That utility can be daunting, but there should be a preset named "DAW" that'll get you going. Also, and sorry to state the obvious, make sure your speakers are plugged into the correct jacks on the interface. (I don't know how many outputs yours has, but my Focusrite has 8 outputs and it's easy to choose the wrong pair) One last thing that you can try is switching to a different driver. If you're using WASAPI, switch to ASIO. Or vice versa. If you get sound with WASAPI but not ASIO, then some other device is claiming ownership of the ASIO driver. If so, you can just stick with WASAPI and all will be well.

Cakewalk/12Tone never owned the TTS-1. It was created and owned by Roland, and licensed to Cakewalk. This is why it's no longer included with Sonar - it was removed from the distribution at Roland's direction. It was implemented as a DXi because at the time that made the most sense for a Windows-based DAW, and the TTS-1 was exclusive to Sonar (Roland owned a large share of Cakewalk at the time). The DX format offered features unavailable to VSTs, such as finer automation resolution and better preset management. Those differences are moot today, and VST has become the standard due to its universality. If Roland had designs on revamping the TTS-1 and broadening its appeal, they would certainly rewrite it as a VST. But Roland has little interest in the wider software market anymore. Channeling software development into hardware synths yields bigger profit margins, exclusivity, and no worries about software piracy.

I am disappointed that NOT included in the list of enhancements is a bullet point promising that it "sounds more like a B3". The original VB3 was, in its time, the most believable B3/Leslie emulation you could get. I wished then that I could use it live on stage, even going as far as running it on a laptop for awhile before deciding that laptops were too much of a hassle and too unreliable for live performance. Then I heard about the Crumar Mojo, a hardware synth that ran VB3 internally. It also featured the respected Fatar waterfall keybed. Perfect! So I bought one for $1500. That instrument now sits in a case on a shelf gathering dust, one of many expensive mistakes I've made. The reason: it sounds worse than the original VB3 soft synth. Why? Because it runs VB3-II under the hood, a complete rewrite that doesn't sound as good as the original VB3. I also have the soft synth version of VB3-II, and have tried every trick I know to make it sound good. It just doesn't. After trying just about every Hammond emulation there is, Blue3 deserves second place. The top spot, IMO, belongs to IKM's B3-X.

Turns out I need a new chair now. I had tried to extend the life of my office chair by replacing its wheels, as per Starship's suggestion. Unfortunately, I wrenched my back attempting to remove the old wheels and spent the subsequent week in utter agony, unable to sleep or walk. Oh well, I thought, flat wheels will have to do for now. Then last night I sat down on said chair and there was a loud bang. The next thing I knew I was slamming into the concrete floor. Fortunately, my left butt cheek absorbed much of the impact, so at least there was no concussion or broken bones. But I could not get up from the floor. Fortunately there was a wooden stool within reach, and I used that to climb to my feet. Turns out the screw jack that connects the chair to the base had explosively snapped in two. The chair now resides next to the trash can and I am presently perched atop the aforementioned wooden stool. Time to review this thread again.

Big fan of Indiginus, a literal "mom & pop" operation. Tracy and Brenda are two of the nicest people I've ever met. I've got almost every one of their libraries (the only one I don't have is the original Torch guitar that kicked off their business) and use them regularly. Don't overlook Solid State Symphony, a fun instrument for jamming out melodies and arrangements. Plus it works as a fattening underlay for conventional acoustic orchestral libraries.

Sounds like every elementary school teacher who wrote comments on my report cards.

Bingo. The main purpose for calibrating your speakers is to achieve consistency. Personally, the levels proposed in the K standard are a little too loud for my tired ears. Doesn't matter. However, I can clearly hear a difference between projects I made before reading Bob Katz's Mastering Audio and after. It was a paradigm-shifting read.

Too rich for me.

Knowing Fleer, I'm sure he bought them all lunch.

Great observation. I watched Guy Michelmore's video comparing BBCSO and SSO, in which he demonstrates that the latter is drier. That would be my preference, especially for low strings. However, that alone isn't a big enough deal to warrant an extra $200. But the extra mic positions, articulations and instruments might. I don't know why I'm so reluctant to spend $629 on a sample library, when I have no reservations about blowing much more on hardware. Heck, that's about what I paid for a single 4-fixture light bar for the band. That rarely gets used. Indeed, I have probably spent much more on cables alone!

I've been thinking about upgrading my symphonic toolkit lately, triggered by Albion One going on sale. Thanks, btw, to everyone who offered thoughts in my other thread about Albion One. That conversation got me going on an exploratory safari to see what's out there, and who's offering the biggest bang:buck ratio. While poking about and making a list of candidates worthy of my hard-earned dollars, I kept coming back to Spitfire's BBC Symphonic Orchestra Core. It sounds great and seems to include every feature I'd need. Except maybe the lack of mic options that other libraries have, but I'm not overly concerned about that, as I am a certified reverb ninja. So two questions. First, for those who have BBSCO Core (or Professional), do you use it as your go-to orchestral library (vs. just another flavor to layer with other libs). Second, did you buy it on sale and for how much? It's currently $449.

I ordered those wheels - thanks for the idea. They arrived yesterday and I immediately flipped my chair over to begin the replacement procedure. And quickly destroyed my back attempting to pry out the old ones. It took an extra large screwdriver and a rubber mallet to extricate just one of them. And then couldn't manage to insert the new one, even though the pin diameter and length appear to be identical. As I subsequently laid in bed contemplating a narcotic for the pain, I realized that this chair is at least 40 years old. No doubt the accumulation of four decades' worth of dust and spilt salsa have accreted into something a geologist might approach with a small pickaxe. But dagnabbit, I'm now invested to the tune of $23 and determined to complete the repair. Not today, perhaps, but soon.

When two meters disagree, it always comes down to settings within the meters being different. Sometimes, it's because they are using different reference values. For example, some let you specify a reference other than 0dBFS. This is really just a convenience, allowing you to easily set a target below full scale, e.g. when mastering for streaming services versus writing to a CD. It just means that "0dB" is something other than the actual maximum value that digital audio supports (0dBFS). But it can lead to confusion when you see two meters giving different readings. It can also be because of averaging, length of the RMS window, and FFT bucket size (called "Block Size" in SPAN). For example, a 50ms RMS window will yield different values than a 500ms window. These things can affect apparent accuracy, but they serve a purpose. That's why you can't worry too much about which one is "right". You can achieve your goals with any meter, as long as you know what it's telling you. Then there are "weighted" meters, which try to measure sound the way human ears perceive it. Weighting can radically effect the values you see. Then there are meters that offer "True Peak" readings. That just means they are oversampled internally, allowing greater accuracy between individual samples. That will very often result in different peak values. True peak can be as much as 6dB higher than what Cakewalk's meters show, especially after conversion to MP3. SPAN shows true peak values at the bottom of the UI. Just make sure the TP values don't go too much over your chosen target; if they do, you'll want to lower your limiter threshold a little. Sonar/CbB built-in meters are accurate and as un-colored as a meter can be. You can specify the RMS window, but that's about it. No weighting, no "true peak" option and full scale is always the reference. For the most part, what you see is what's really happening. You can generally trust the -3dB peak values, but RMS comparisons are only valid between tracks within the project. Cakewalk's default 50ms RMS window is a widely-used standard, but you should be wary of using RMS readings as an indicator of suitability to streaming applications, especially as an indicator of loudness. Streaming services rely on LUFS values to decide whether your song needs to be turned up or down on playback. Even if two of them use the same LUFS threshold, LUFS, like RMS, is averaged over a period of time. Fortunately, LUFS has been standardized to "short" (comparable to RMS), "momentary" and "integrated" windows. "Integrated Loudness" has been standardized to 400ms with no weighting, so it's the most consistent when used alongside transparent meters such as Cakewalk's (in a well-balanced mix, anyway). If the target is YouTube or Spotify, for example, you'll want to shoot for around -14 on the LUFS scale. This correlates reasonably well with -14dBRMS/FS as shown in the Cakewalk meters. It's usually OK to have a slightly lower value (e.g. -16 or -18), because the streaming player will turn up your volume automatically. But beware going too far over the desired levels (e.g. -6), as that can be damaging to your sound. There's a whole lot you can say about metering, and these are just thoughts off the top of my head. SPAN has a bunch of options, each of which will yield different results. The closest to Cakewalk is the "DBFS" option, but I'd suggest trying out the "LUFS-SL" option for comparison. I'm not going to tell you to go out and buy an expensive metering suite like iZotope Insight because you can manage quite well with what you've already got. At the end of the day, if you upload it to a streaming service and play it back, and it doesn't sound radically different than it did in your DAW, then you can claim success.

Related joke: An A, a C and an E walk into a bar. Bartender says "we don't service minors here". So the C left and the A and E split a fifth between them.

It's also funny because the bass drum assumes it's the snare drum doing the kicking. Reminds me of the joke about a lady accusing her man of having s*x behind her back, to which he replied "duh, who did you think it was?"

It's funny because bass drums are notorious for not having a sense of humor.

That works. Now at least one other person has listened to your stuff.

Don't feel bad. I just recently noticed that my own soundclick link has been missing from my sig since the new forum started up.