bitflipper

Man takes his dog to the vet, says the dog has been acting listless. Vet prescribes vitamins. Vitamins? the man said, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I want a second opinion! So the vet brings in a cat, who walks around the dog and then looks up at the vet and nods. Yep, says the vet. Vitamins. WTF? I want a third opinion! So the vet brings in a Labrador retriever, who sniffs the patient and nods to the doc. Yep, says the vet. That clinches it, and hands the man a bill for $300. 300?!? why so high? Says the vet: don't blame me. You're the one who demanded the cat scan and the lab test.

^^^ That observation is true for every drum sampler I've ever used. Or, for that matter, every virtual instrument that strives to emulate real-life instruments. Getting a credible performance is almost always going to involve some CC automation, whether it's drums or violins. And yes, it can get messy. But don't let that put you off - the rewards are worth the effort.

^^^Well, that's rather cynical...even if mostly true. There are, however, many products that do a decent enough job. Unfortunately, they also cost a fair bit of money, starting at around $150. TH3 is a pretty good mid-priced example. Of course, there are freebies. Lots of them. They don't cost anything, so poke around the internet and give 'em a try. Here are a few lists to get you started. Granted, each is just one person's opinions, but it's a jumping-off point to your adventure. https://www.gearnews.com/top-7-free-amp-sims-the-best-freeware-virtual-guitar-amp-plug-ins/ https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2012/02/21/bpb-freeware-studio-best-free-guitar-amp-simulator-vstau-plugins/ https://www.musicianonamission.com/guitar-amp-simulators-vs-real/

^^^ Was just about to make this point before Craig beat me to it. An alternative to clip gain is to use a gain plugin such as the (free!) ones from Blue Cat. I do this on every vocal track because instead of pulling an entire clip up or down, I can precisely automate gain for both large and small sections regardless of clip membership. Often, I can avoid using a de-esser this way. Putting it in front of the compressor means I'm not constantly re-adjusting compressor threshold as I tweak the track. Plus I don't have to rely entirely on the compressor for leveling, allowing for less-brutal compression ratios. The Blue Cat gain controls are more useful than a plain old volume knob, as they can be scaled (set min/max levels) and ganged (multiple tracks from one knob). When controlling more than one track, one can be opposite the other, i.e as one goes up, the other goes down.

They are. Maybe even a little better. However, I have to add an important caveat: artificial harmonies are a tricky business if you don't want them to sound fake. While harmony-on-the-fly is OK for live performance when used judiciously, they sound pretty bad in a recording. Except, of course, when you're specifically reaching for an artificial-sounding effect such as what's demonstrated so beautifully in the video at the top of this thread. I have only managed to fake acceptable vocal harmonies one way - using Melodyne. Even then, you have to fiddle with formants to make them sound natural, and probably don't want to feature them too prominently in the mix. Whenever I've done that, it's been to create a single high part, higher than I could ever sing myself, sitting atop three naturally-sung parts.

I've never noticed them, either. That's probably down to my poor eyesight - even after having them pointed out, I couldn't see them right away.

There is a simple native solution: look at enough of them long enough and you reach a point where you can recognize them right away. Kind of like how electronics techs can read resistor values at a glance without actually decoding the colored stripes. Also consider downloading a copy of foobar2000. Has a lot of handy features.

Get MediaInfo here. When installed, it becomes a right-click menu option, very convenient. Tells you pretty much everything that can be determined by the file contents alone, including metadata for mp3/flac and bit depth, sample rate and channel count for wav files.

If there was any doubt that video game music has entered the mainstream, YouTube is full of examples of serious treatments in front of live audiences. Here's a nice example (the music starts after the interview part, which you'll want to skip if you don't speak Swedish). And my favorite rendition of the Skyrim theme... And if you're a fan of Fallout 4 you'll recognize this one right away..;

I've got one of those. Recognized it immediately, after her first "yep". It's a fun toy. Got MIDI input so what you're playing on a keyboard determines the synthesized notes. Also fx such as reverb, delay, chorus. And a looper, as heard in the video. I even use it (um, used to use, pre-pandemic) in the band for background oohs and aahs. The grandkids like the "Arnold" preset (e.g. "I'll be back").

This is why, when given the option, I always choose the VST2 version.

I also see that Boz's Manic Compressor is on sale for $29. Even if you're not into ultra compression, everybody needs at least one super-squasher on hand. Manic Compressor excels at beating any track into submission.

Boz took a lot of flak for initially pricing this at $300. He honestly thought it was that good. So did I. But there just wasn't a market for a $300 delay plugin, and it floundered. Even when the price came down to $150, the demand was not huge. Not when you can get goodies such as the wonderful tritik delay for 50 EUR. So I am delighted that it can now be had for 25 bucks. Now everyone can enjoy this top-tier effect. It's my absolute favorite for vocals because you can get that lush thickening that doesn't draw attention to itself, doesn't slur consonants or otherwise muddy the vocal.

I put off Omnisphere for a long time due to the scary pricetag and lack of a demo version to assure me that it would be worth the investment. In the end, I had to accept the word of people I trusted (mostly on this forum), cross my fingers and take the plunge. Much to my relief, it turned out to be money well spent. Omnisphere finds its way into almost every project, as it fills a hole that Kontakt libraries don't. For me, Omnisphere has become essential. That said, it isn't for everyone. If you mainly use traditional "bread 'n butter" sounds in your music, e.g. pianos, strings, percussion, these aren't what Omnisphere excels at. Oh, they're all in there. But if you're primarily a piano player there are better pianos out there. If you use sampled guitars, there are better (and far cheaper) solutions for that, too. If you do classic orchestration, ditto. Omnisphere doesn't replace those, it augments them. In a spectacularly lush way.

Yes, do a deep scan. It'll take awhile, so just kick it off at bedtime and check the results in the morning.

Makes sense to pick one platform and learn it well. For me, it was the other way around; I elected to dive into Kontakt instead. Mainly because I wanted to create Kontakt instruments from some of my favorite ROMpler patches. For that kind of thing, Kontakt is quick and easy. There was a period, though, when I was determined to become equally conversant with Omnisphere. It just didn't take, sorry to say. Made a few patches but none of them were significantly better than what I could have achieved more easily with a simpler synth. Nowadays, I limit myself to modifying other peoples' patches. Which is why I'm appreciative of folks such as yourself who have taken the time to make new content for Omnisphere. I am astonished that SampleTank is being mentioned in the same thread as if it were somehow comparable to either of these. Yes, I have SampleTank and have had it for years, going back to version 1. Yes, ST4 is easy to use and cheaper than either Kontakt or Omnisphere. But then you could say the same about the TTS-1.

Thanks for bumping the thread, Bob. I, too, had lost track of it. I'm guessing your issue isn't caused directly by excessive DPC latency, although that doesn't mean LatencyMon can't provide useful clues. That 28 milliseconds incurred by ATAPort.sys (your hard drive driver) warrants further investigation. Of course, it's not unusual for your drive to be working hard during a DAW session. But if it's got a bad or soft spot in the middle of an audio file, you could get noticeable glitching as the drive repeatedly attempts to re-read the sector. It wouldn't hurt to run a deep drive test (e.g. Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Diagnostics).

Thank you for solving a 50-year mystery, John. Maybe you have a theory on just what they put in the acid I took that night? A vending machine at the Strassenbahnhaltestelle (hope I remembered how to spell that correctly) warned me that I might be a character in someone else's thought experiment. At least, I think that's what it said. I can't be sure because on a normal day my German fluency was adequate for a conversation with a 5-year-old. (Yes, of course the vending machine spoke auf Deutsch. Duh.)

Saw Zappa in 1970, in Munich. Great show, featuring Flo & Eddie. Frank said very little during the performance, but at one point did note that the next song was in the key of "fish minor". I've been searching for that key ever since.

Also, you might want to consider a Kontakt version for the wider audience it would bring. Even if you're using Omnisphere-specific features that Kontakt can't duplicate exactly, that might just mean a slightly dumbed-down version with modulations baked in. Spectrasonics does indeed see Omnisphere as a synth, which makes sense given the company's origins. But most users see it as a ROMpler. Most Kontakt users have at least dabbled in making their own libraries for it, as evidenced by the plethora of free/cheap libraries out there. Non-commercial user-made Omnisphere libs don't seem like much of a thing beyond the efforts of a few brave souls such as yourself (thank you!). It certainly wouldn't be my first choice.

Great library! At least, based on the sample above. I've downloaded it and am looking forward to auditioning all 283 patches Be sure to bump this thread come Halloween.

BFD sounds better? That's a reasonable personal opinion, and you're not alone in that. I love the BFD sound. But more realistic? Nope. That's SD's main problem, really - too realistic. Anyone who has recorded real drums knows it's a lot of work getting a specific type of sound from them. BFD does much of that work for you, and I'm not knocking that. However, there is a necessary compromise, namely that BFD and similar products can't offer the flexibility of Superior's bare-metal approach. If a person can only afford one premium drum synth, SD is a good candidate because it can do it all. That includes SD2, which I used for its lifetime and loved it. Never bought any extra kits, either. Just the default kit that came with it. That's how flexible it is. Honestly, I only bought SD3 for the brushes and mallets.

Great review, Simeon. I remember vividly the first time I heard Ivory and being blown away by it. The demonstrator must have gotten a sore face from grinning all day, handing headphones to one convention-goer after another and watching them react. I stood there for awhile just watching peoples' faces light up. It was a universal reaction. Nowadays, we have a LOT of sampled pianos in that league to choose from but Ivory is still at or near the top of that category. It's so good that I can't imagine what version 3 might add - play itself, maybe? Gotta add, though, that despite having maybe 40 piano libraries in my collection, I have finally come around to believe that the future of piano VIs is not conventional sample libraries, but rather physical modeling. I was a skeptic for a long time, and for good reason. But today we are this close to modeled pianos that are indistinguishable from a high-end sample library - but only take up a few hundred megabytes, load in an eye blink and have 5-10x the velocity layers.

Unfortunately, that would require re-inventing the fundamental design of packet-based networks.