bitflipper

Here's a chart showing which Spitfire products support NKS. Note that even though it's not supported natively in the free LABS series, you can get it from a third party.

The old Shimmer & Shake was my go-to tambourine/shaker instrument for a long time. I, too, hesitated to get Shimmer Shake Strike because it seemed redundant, and an unnecessary self-indulgence. But it went on sale and I caved. I haven't touched Shimmer & Shake since. The new one is that much better. Advantages: more instruments, better-sounding instruments, more options, and a fairly intuitive sequencer. (As an aside, I have to mention Skaka. This simple and inexpensive percussion instrument gets even more use here than Shimmer Shake Strike. That's because mostly I just want subtle shakers and tambourines and don't need to get fancy. Skaka is a lot quicker to set up. Just an observation to keep in mind in case you see it go on sale.)

When you say "pan themselves", does that mean you see their pan sliders or knobs move? Or the pan slider in the track header? Or that nothing visibly changes but the sound moves?

It's very good, especially that weird Quartz mode. When bought, I did not think I needed yet another delay. Turns out, I did.

Been playing with this for the past two days. When I started the download and saw its size, my first thought was "100 GB for a percussion lib? wtf?". Turns out there's a lot more in there than initially meets the eye. The huge size isn't because this is the ultimate percussion library - there are no cowbells - but rather the depth of content.

You're on the right track, Marcello. Lots of trial and error and experimentation to figure out what works and what doesn't. There is, unfortunately, no recipe book. As I said, it's a process. Much like learning to play the guitar - the more you learn the more you realize you don't know. Every experienced guitarist knows this. And yet many of them, including those who've been playing for 30+ years, are confounded and frustrated because they're still struggling with mixing and mastering after a whole year of practice.

Save As will only save audio files that are referenced in the project file. Things like deleted tracks won't be copied into the new folder.

I last used the cleanup utility circa 2006. It hosed a project and I haven't used it since. If I want to clean up a project nowadays, I'll do a Save As to make a copy and then delete the original folder. But that's going to be quite tedious if you want to clean every project you have. Now, if there was just some convenient way to identify and delete all my never-completed-and-never-will projects. That would give me a lot of disk space back!

You're assuming that they are also opening their own studio. But that would make sense. After all, what else are they going to do with all those Gibson studio monitors?

I was unable to duplicate this. Here's what I tried: opened a blank project inserted an Instrument track with LABS added some MIDI data verified that it played back deleted the track Is that how you did it?

It's really about dynamic range (the ratio of the quiet parts to the loud parts) and average RMS to peak ratios (crest factor). These things are objectively measurable and therefore controllable. How impactful a snare hit is isn't about how high its level is, but how it compares to the audio surrounding it. The short video below illustrates the concept, using a snare drum as an example.

Yes. I'm on Ozone 7 here and it does that, too. What Steve was saying is you can't put anything after Ozone. So any metering plugin hosted within it will be showing what's happening before the master volume sliders. I don't think that's a problem, though. Why would you want to fiddle with your mastering limiter's output levels, Ozone or otherwise?

I have always recorded my keyboards via S/PDIF. Yes, the quality is marginally better because you bypass the D/A-A/D conversion, the output amplifier circuitry and cables. There is never any EMI/RFI interference, and you never worry about distortion. The only downside is that the levels are often too low, at least out of all my current and past instruments, requiring a gain adjustment after recording.

You need to venture out of the basement more often, Doug. We're all upstairs, (usually) discussing grownup stuff. Ask Ed, he knows.

I guess that's one advantage of Ozone as a plugin over the standalone exe, being able to place other processors after it. Still, for as long as I've been using Ozone (c. 2007, IIRC) I can't recall ever touching the output fader. Another benefit to using your method of mastering in Cakewalk is that when doing an entire album you are able to easily create gapless CD masters with crossfades between tracks. Although I've successfully done that with CD Architect, it was more trouble than it was worth.

Also consider using the standalone executable of Ozone. I haven't done it in a while, but IIRC it was quicker than creating a new project. It can also serve as a VST host, so you can add in other non-iZotope plugins if needed.

Thanks for the votes of confidence, Grem, Bapu and Kenny. I'll keep this friendly gaslighting in mind next time you report some spam or personal attacks.

We have a local chain here that manages to survive on band rentals and lessons. It's a place I used to hang out at in the 70's, trying out every new keyboard. Once they even let me MIDI every synth in the store together so I could play them all at once. I once played an outdoor festival that they sponsored, during which I blew out my PA speakers - they replaced the speakers at no charge for better ones (18" JBL D130s). But I have to admit that the last time I went there was 3 years ago, to pick up an SM-58 on the way to a gig after mine broke. (Yes, it is possible to break a 58 if you're especially talented at breaking things.) Once they're gone, the only remaining retailer will be Guitar Center. And I will never shop there again after my stolen-gear fiasco.

Heck, I miss the old way of buying a damn t-shirt. With no more clothing stores nearby anymore, I have to get stuff from Amazon. That's a crapshoot - you never know what you're actually gonna get.

Hold the SHIFT key down while dragging a node up and down. It locks the x coordinate, the same way you can move MIDI notes up and down in the PRV without jiggling left/right, or drag an audio clip in the track view into another track without losing its place on the timeline.

You might give Fiddle! from Bolder Sounds a try. I haven't used it myself, but everything I've gotten from him in the past has been pretty good. One difference I hear from my traditional violin instruments is that it's recorded very dry. Downside: needs full Kontakt.

It's a process. And, on a professional level, a specialty. It can indeed be daunting at first. Best advice is to get the best-sounding mix you can get without any mastering. Once you're good at mixing, mastering will be much, much easier. A really good mix won't require much finalization other than a volume boost and maybe - maybe - a smidge of EQ.

VST3 implements a more formalized directory structure for plugins, so all you really need to specify for them is the vst3 root directory, usually c:\program files\common files\vst3. The other scan paths are for VST2 plugins, which have no standard for where they or their dependencies are stored. So yes, it's not uncommon to see separate entries for VST2 and VST3 versions of the same plugin, assuming you installed both.

Bingo. This is how it usually pans out: you address the instrument that's causing the excessive peaks rather than trying to fix it in the overall mix. And, as you observed, it's quite often the kick drum that's the culprit. And yes, a compressor and/or limiter on the drums or kick track is the usual solution. Don't worry that shaving a couple dB off the kick might lessen its impact. There are ways to make sure the kick remains impactful even when peak-limited.