bitflipper

Someone once told me I had great piano chops. At the time, I took it as a compliment. Now I'm not sure. I still have confidence in my pork chops, though. Barbequed over mesquite, mmm.

So I went to the website to try and find out what the product actually is, and right at the top there's a button labeled "What is an Orchestration Recipe?". Wow, like he was reading my mind. But if you click there you get the same video Mathew posted above. Fortunately, there is more explanation to be had there. Each recipe is a video + text tutorial with MIDI files and notation for how to achieve some common orchestral technique. Great idea, actually. (Could have saved me thousands of hours (no, more like 69 years) of closely listening to orchestral music! Nobody got time for that, right? J/K!) The tutorials are as generic as possible, as he doesn't talk about specific libraries or DAWs. Which is good. You could in fact do these lessons using nothing more than Cakewalk and the TTS-1. (OK, the choirs would sound pretty lame, but you could do it.) I watched the first video, and I gotta say it again: it's a great idea. Brilliant, in fact, and I'm surprised no one has thought of this before. I think if you're new to orchestration it would be a great way to fast-track the learning curve. Even if you're an old hand at this stuff, you'll likely still come away inspired to add some of these techniques to your arsenal. I know I did.

I'm still not sure what the product is, but golly, what a great marketing video! Now I really want that "Finely Chopped Piano".

CC11 and CC7 are both defined as volume controls. The MIDI spec does spell it out clearly, but instrument developers often stray from the official spec in order to suit the dynamics of a particular instrument. Some want CC11 to have a dramatic effect, some want it to be subtle. Others completely ignore CC11. I've seen these controllers implemented in three different ways: CC7 is a full volume control where 0 is silence and 127 is maximum volume, and it's the only volume controller CC11 replaces CC7 and works exactly as above (Most common) CC7 and CC11 are additive. Sometimes CC11 will be scaled, serving as a fine volume control with less effect on volume than CC7 . This is common with orchestral libraries, where CC11 is intended to be used for swells and decrescendos. It's also useful to note that usually, CC11's effect is to lower volume, i.e. CC11 cannot make it louder than CC7 says it should be, only quieter. That means CC11 at zero might result in silence. However, I have instruments where CC11 only makes small adjustments to volume and cannot silence the instrument completely, in which case forgetting to set CC11 merely results in a quieter - not silent - instrument. I was unaware that TTS-1 used Expression this way (ya learn something new every day if you're lucky!), because I usually automate volume on the audio track, only automating CC11 on certain Kontakt string and orchestral libraries.

50 bucks is about right. Like most of their products, it's built around an elaborate step sequencer. I haven't used this particular product, but I'm familiar with others such as Cinematic Guitars Motion and can say that they are definitely fun to play around with. Atmospheres appears to be more pad-oriented than the other CG products.

To reverse the phase on a ribbon mic, you just have to turn it around.

Volume automation will always work on the audio track, but there are legitimate reasons why someone might want to do the automation in MIDI instead. How I'm reading the OP is that there are two instruments that aren't responding to CC7. I can think of a couple scenarios where that might happen. Most likely is that the instrument is designed to use CC11 rather than CC7 for volume. I have a several Kontakt instruments that work that way. Some of them won't even make any sound at all until you put in at least one CC11 event. A less-likely scenario is that CC7 has been reassigned, either by design or by accident. And of course there's always the possibility that automation has been inadvertently disabled on those tracks (make sure the Automation Read button is lit).

In theory, MP3 encoding (or, more specifically the steep low-pass filters it employs) can cause peaks to increase by up to +3dB. Therefore, you'd have to limit to -3 dB true peak to be perfectly safe. Even then, streaming platforms may still raise the overall level if your average RMS is below their recommendation. So if YouTube says -14 dB and yours comes in at -20 dB, they'll raise it up by 6 dB or thereabouts - including your carefully limited peaks, which will then have to be limited again by their algorithm. The end result may not be what you'd have preferred. That said, I limit to -1 dB. It doesn't guarantee absolute protection from overs, but it's conservative enough that any clipping will be probably short enough in duration to slip by unnoticed.

Had to throw in my favorite Filipino band, Fuseboxx. Props for playing keyboards, Chapman stick and singing at the same time!

And of course, my favorite Asian country hasn't been slacking, either. Sorry, it's in Taglish and no subtitles, but I think you'll get the gist.

Love this stuff. When I was 4 years old, my father spent time in Japan and brought me back some interesting gifts. My favorite was a stack of 78 RPM Japanese pop records. Something about how they blended traditional techniques with European classical sensibilities really resonated with my toddler brain. Good to see they're still doing that.

I love Sample Logic. Their products aren't clones of anybody else's stuff, and always high-quality. But sheesh, they need to get a grip on reality when it comes to pricing. As good as they are, these libraries are primarily ear candy, not the must-have bread 'n butter instruments that people are willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for.

I wouldn't worry about having the same sonic imprint on every track. It just doesn't have an identifiable character, being transparent like all FF products. That's what I like about them: they do exactly what you tell them to do, no more and no less.

And yeh, Q3 is the best place to start. I've got everything except the de-esser, but it's the EQ that gets plopped onto every track.

You're still West of the Netherlands, so the accolade remains geographically relevant.

I don't know how many times I've thought "Sul Ponticello would be just the ticket here!". Then I'd think "what the hell is Sul Ponticello, anyway? Larry, the advantage of JB over Friedlander appears to be that the former has this nifty "intuitive" mode that apparently inserts articulations automatically based on things like note length, overlap, and intervals.

The "Essential" version gives you half the articulations (but the most useful ones are still in there) for just 50 bucks. Granted, not everybody needs a solo violin, but I've found that subtly adding one atop a string ensemble really brings out the definition, regardless of the context. If I wasn't already covered for solo violin, I'd jump on this. The ones that I have aren't nearly as good, but I can't justify adding another one. To fight off the GAS, I had to take TUMS (Twice the Usual Modicum of Self control) for this one.

Go to Preferences (press "P"), then click Devices under the MIDI heading. This will list all MIDI input devices that Windows has reported to CbB as being available. If the synth isn't included in that list, that means Windows doesn't know about it. If it is on the list, check the box next to the device name to enable it within the DAW. At that point, it will appear in the dropdown list in the MIDI track and can be selected. You can verify that all's well with the routing by clicking the Record button, hitting some keys and seeing that some MIDI notes have been recorded. If nothing's recorded, the next step is to figure out what's impeding MIDI data (make sure the MIDI channel is set to Omni). If MIDI notes do show up in the track, then you're in good shape. If your issue is that you don't hear the instrument while recording, that means you don't have Input Echo turned on. There's a button in the MIDI track header for that. If MIDI is recorded but you don't hear anything when you play it back, it's probably because the Yamaha's MIDI Out device has not been enabled. Try inserting the TTS-1 and routing the MIDI to that - you should hear sound then.

That was most enjoyable, Kenny. Impressive guitar chops! Love that you don't fall into the common trap of burying a nice tone under excessive fx. If I was mixing it, I'd try brightening/fattening the kick and snare a bit as they get a little lost here and there and don't contribute as much punch as they could. The drum programming is quite good. I'm especially impressed that it was played on a keyboard by a non-keyboardist. And very appreciative that you avoided my biggest peeve regarding sampled drums: the sin of tedious repetition. But given that the featured element is the back-and-forth guitars, giving the back seat to percussion is a very minor nit.

Cosmos is useful for fattening bass and kick. Worth $19.

I don't remember if I asked you this last time, but given how great these speakers are, what on earth did you upgrade to? And did you have to take out a second mortgage to pay for them?

The problem is that no standards exist for keyswitch mapping, even across products from the same vendor. The best you could hope for is a method for creating a starting point that you'd then have to complete by hand. Imagine a kind of "MIDI Learn" feature where you'd simply press every assigned keyswitch and that would generate an entry in an articulation map. There'd be no way for the software to know what those keyswitches do, but you'd at least start out with a list (with the correct octave numbers - no more figuring out if it's C0 or C1). Like MIDI Learn, this could be generated from playback if you wanted to map only those keyswitches that are used in a particular song. Another idea: a translation table similar to drum maps, where articulations from one instrument could be remapped to another. For example, you've created a project using an entry-level string library but now you've saved up your pennies for a high-end symphonic collection. A translation table or MIDI plugin could allow easy substitution of another library. Caveat: I have only begun to start using articulation maps, so I wouldn't be surprised if these things are already possible.

I wouldn't expect mismatched sample rates to completely prevent playback. More likely is it would play back but at the wrong speed. I have a Saffire, too, and noticed something peculiar recently. I normally work at 44.1, but after working on a 96K project I noticed that now the interface always defaults to 96 KHz. Previously, it would default to 48K. That hasn't actually been a problem, though, as it does obey Cakewalk's request to switch to 44.1 when I'm in the DAW. This is relevant to this topic only insofar as the interface has no problem switching sample rates on command. I'm not sure about this, but it may be that I/O device assignments are per-project rather than global. If that's the case, perhaps the cure is to go into Preferences and make sure the new interface is designated for those old projects. [EDIT] I just tried an experiment that yielded unexpected results. With the interface at 96 KHz, I pulled up WMP and played something. Then I closed WMP and set the interface SR to 44.1 via the MixControl app. WMP then failed with "can't find an audio device". Same thing for 48 KHz. But after setting it back to 96 KHz WMP was happy. Neither the file format nor its sample rate mattered (MP3, WMA, FLAC, WAV). When the SR was anything other than 96 KHz it was as if the interface wasn't even there. YouTube acted the same way, except it didn't show an error message; just wouldn't play.

Drums of War 2 for $74! Best taiko collection around, I think.