bitflipper

I paid $10 for my chair in 1993, and it was at least 10 years old at that time. The wheels aren't quite round anymore, but everything else is fine. Mainly, it does one thing very well: I can lean all the way back, put my feet on the desk and take a nap without fear of it tipping over. What more could you ask for in a chair? It also supports my back well. When I had my back problems, this chair was my only pain-free refuge. I suppose it must have been an expensive chair originally. The office was closing and they just wanted to get rid of everything. I also bought the desk I'm still using, also for ten bucks. It's military gray and made of steel. It has a drawer. It may seem odd that someone who has spent so many thousands of dollars on software, synths, amps, monitors and microphones is content to sit on a $10 chair. But if it doesn't make sound, it's not a priority. I'm using a microwave I bought in 1979. I'd probably still be wearing jeans from the 70's if my belly girth had remained constant.

Sheesh, the hours - no, days - wasted on the original DOOM for DOS. Back in the day I'd pack up my desktop computer and haul it over to a friend's house where we'd network our computers and play DOOM all day long. He lived in a high rise apartment building, and when leaving after a marathon session I noticed that when the elevator door opened I reflexively stepped to one side as if expecting an imp to step out. Not to brag, but I was unstoppable in deathmatch, even against the Microsoft guys who apparently did nothing else at the office all day except play DOOM. You don't want to go head-to-head with a piano player in a keyboard-controlled game. At my last real job in the 90's, I made a DOOM map of the campus where I worked. The boss found out about our game sessions and tasked me with writing a program that would seek out and destroy all games from employees' computers. Which I happily did. It freed up a lot of bandwidth for the IT department, resulting in better framerates for our own sessions. Despite my onetime obsession with DOOM, Duke Nukem, Shadow Warrior, Redneck Rampage, etc. I've had no interest in run 'n gun shooters for some time. Skyrim ruined those types of games for me. Nowadays it's gotta be an open world, story-driven and strategic. Preferably one that supports modding.

"D***s will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no d***s" - The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Hmm. Anybody else see something worse than "drugs" in the censored version above?

I downloaded this library - 'cause why not - and gave it a test drive. Yikes. Not only is it big, the .nki loads damn near everything by default. 6.11 GB loaded, took several minutes. At first I couldn't figure out why only one mic position (there are 6) was working, then noticed in the Kontakt header that samples were still loading. I had already composed a test melody in less time than it took to fully load. Looks like I'd been overly generous before, assuming there must be many velocity layers. Wrong, most groups have only 1 layer. I'd also been overly generous in assuming there was no pitch stretching. Again, wrong. Most samples are stretched over 5 notes. I'd been overly optimistic in assuming there'd be multiple mallet types. There aren't. But what about those 45 audio sources that can be blended in? To be honest, I still haven't figured those out. Every one I've tried added an atonal layer that was not pleasing. I'll give it another hour to prove itself, then I'm reclaiming 7.61 GB of disk space back.

That comes out to an average of 1.2 MB per sample, which may seem high for a 4-octave instrument without a lot of articulations. Most of my piano libraries are smaller than that, but then pianos (usually) don't have the option of banging them with different kinds of hammers. Plus this library has 45 other sound sources beyond the xylophone. So yeh, the size is probably justified.

Here's something Cherry Audio has so far neglected to do - post some actual sounds. If you're hearing Oberheim-like sounds, it's those 12dB/octave filters. This synth also offers 24dB slopes for a more Moog-ish profile. Note that this video shows the actual synth upon which the Cherry emulation is based.

I think this would be a great synth for somebody new to synths who wants to learn how to create their own patches from scratch. It's got every parameter you'd expect in a classic subtractive synthesizer plus some not-so-common features, all laid out in a logical manner. Back in the day this would have been considered an exceptionally full-featured synth. Sure, modern soft synths include more sophisticated features, but that also makes the process of learning to program them more intimidating. Plus, it sounds really good.

I thought this might be a time-saver for learning new songs for the band, but I was unable to purchase using PayPal. Says "Developer Error: Something went wrong". Clearly, some serious thought went into error handling when designing this site. I guess they're doing me a favor, forcing me to figure stuff out the old-fashioned way (trial-and-argue-with-the-drummer).

Oh man, I know that sound. The good news is that there is a very good chance your data is (mostly) recoverable. That clicking noise is the drive performing RTZs (return to zero), a last-resort action it takes when it can't figure out where it is on the disk. If you're lucky it's a mechanical failure and the platters themselves are still OK. (If you're extremely unlucky, the heads have literally crashed into the drive surfaces and been dragged across the magnetic coating, leaving gouges on every track. In which case some of the data might still be recoverable, but it'll be an expensive operation. Expensive enough to justify the cost of an uninterruptible power supply to avoid such disasters in the future. )

Second only to the Beatles in the number of hits during the 60's. He co-wrote the only hit to chart 6 times (Keep Me Hangin' On) with 6 different artists. "Heat Wave", "Can't Hurry Love" and "Baby I Need Your Lovin'" are some that come to mind that had more than one trip up the Top 40.

Normally this would be excellent advice, but Annabelle is stuck with 8.5 because she is visually challenged and apparently the accessibility software she uses is only compatible with 8.5. Even if that wasn't the case, this issue is probably not the result of some old bug that's since been fixed. Annabelle, does the problem persist if you reduce the project to just the TTS-1 and its associated MIDI tracks? If so, we'd be glad to examine your project and help identify the problem. You could upload the project file to DropBox, or if that's problematic zip it up and email it to me. I still have 8.5 installed here.

BBE Sonic Maximizer

I got their newest model, called Alpha 80 Evo. It is close to the absolute bottom of the Focal product line. Focals for po' folk, you might say. Definitely not comparable to the S3s. However, if I did have S3-level money to spend I'd probably favor the high-end Focals over the high-end ADAMs. But it's like imagining Lamborghini vs. Ferrari if I won the lottery.

Hi, Jerry. Wonderful stuff, as always. Today my new Focals arrived, so I spent the first couple hours listening to my favorite Deutsche Gramophone recordings to get a feel for the new speakers. As expected, they sounded great. Next step, pull up one of Jerry's pieces. Guess what? This one stacks up with the best references I have on hand. On top of being a fine composer, you are also a bona fide Audio Engineer. You probably keep your lawn manicured as well, and squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom like a civilized person.

Thanks, I enjoyed that. But does anybody else hear Chris Farley when Joe speaks?

wtf, who studies that sh*t, lmao? I'm guessing it's the same grant-scammers who studied why snow-shovel usage declines in July. btw, it's pronounced "SDuh".

It's most likely the reverb insert. I see you're a FabFilter guy; any chance you have Pro-R? It has a mono version. If not, look through your reverb collection and try different ones, freezing each until you find one that preserves the interleave.

Oh, now I'm truly triggered. Drew Carey's glasses are FAKE.

The speakers arrive on Saturday. I won't be able to set them up until Sunday, but that's OK because whenever the band isn't rehearsing, Sunday is My Music Day! And we won't be rehearsing Sunday because Saturday's gig is a 2-hour drive and nobody will be up for practicing the next day after getting home at 3:00 AM. I, however, will be up early as always and will likely faceplant into my keyboard by afternoon. Geez, I hope these speakers live up to their reputation. If they do, I'll be singing their praises loudly because they were way cheaper than any I've had.

Technically, the majority of modern synths are computers. My Korg Kronos takes two full minutes to boot up, which is inconvenient when somebody steps on your power cable in the middle of a song. And yet, replacing a synth with a laptop and a MIDI controller is frustratingly impractical, e.g. when Microsoft decides it's time to reboot just as the band launches into its opening number. (Both examples based on actual events, btw.) Imagine being on stage ready to entertain an audience, and when you load up Omnisphere you get this:

A pet peeve of mine. When a programmer could have clocked out 5 minutes later and made his product better. Example #1: when you open the door of a microwave it should stop beeping automatically. You've clearly heard the alert and you're actively responding to it by taking your leftovers out. You've done everything the microwave demanded of you, but it keeps on beeping. That's lazy coding. Example #2: Now, I'm a big fan of Spitfire, but somebody in the office spends too much time playing video games. btw, the "something" that went wrong was I replaced my motherboard and CPU, and had to re-authorize several products. Not just the Spitfire ones. But every other one, e.g. Kontakt, came right out and explained the problem. "ERROR #1"? Seriously? If you click on "LET'S FIX IT" you are taken to a YouTube video, and even it doesn't come right out and tell you what you need to know.

Well, *I* am offended because he has long hair and wears glasses. Plus he looks too young to know what he's talking about. But - when he touts a product he backs it up with examples. I never get the impression that he's a shill. I give him high marks for credibility and objectivity. And how do we know what Dan Worrall's fingernails look like? Never seen them. What's he hiding?

I just added Epic Strings and Epic Brass and Woodwinds to my Originals collection for $39. I didn't really need any more strings, brass or woodwinds, but these sound pretty darn good for the price of a nice lunch.

That's encouraging. I've seen side-by-side comparisons of the Alpha 65s and the EVOs, and the consensus seems to be that the EVOs are an improvement. And cheaper to boot. I wouldn't mind getting the dual-woofer version, but at 21" wide I just don't have space for them. So you've never felt the need for a sub? Or maybe would like one but just couldn't justify the expense (the Focal sub is a grand)? Or maybe your room isn't big enough to support a subwoofer? For the past 7 years I've enjoyed the luxury of really good bass extension on my current monitors (Emotiva Stealth8), that reach down to a window-rattling 30 Hz at -3dB. Consequently, I never replaced my stolen subwoofer because I didn't need it anymore. Prior to that, I used ADAM P11-A, predecessor to the A7 but with a slightly larger woofer. I liked them a lot, their only real downside being the narrow sweet spot from those laser-like folded ribbon tweeters. These Focals are famous for having a wide sweet spot, and they go down to 38 Hz so no sub needed. I'm also concerned that the EVO might not be loud enough. For everyday mixing, sure, you don't need 104 dB. I mix at around 70 dB. But my band also rehearses in this space and we often learn songs from YouTube videos so there are times when I do need them loud enough for a roomful of people to hear. The Stealths featured 200W of amplification. My other candidate is the Presonus Sceptre 8, at 180W. The EVOs are a wimpy 115W. It sounds like that's never been a problem for you. As I was typing this out I got a call from my guy at Sweetwater, whom I'd asked for advice on this purchase. He didn't waffle for a second, saying he's a total Focal fanboy. Of course, the ones he's running are the $8k model - he must get a helluva employee discount - but he's convinced me to place the order for the Focals.

Hard to find nowadays in the original Wintergreen livery.