bitflipper

You have better recall than me, Steve. I blame it on 50+ years as a cannabis consumer. But you're right; Samplitude's was indeed a customized ASIO4All. Why they felt a need to install that beats the heck outa me. Unless the OP is using Avid hardware, it's likely that his driver might even be ASIO4All as well. All the more reason to switch it out.

This instrument could be so much more versatile if there was a way to either import or reference external samples. Unfortunately, the samples are baked into the DLL, so that's not going to be possible under its current design. That seems to be its biggest limitation: a measly 8 instruments to choose from (and none of them are a cowbell!).

^^^ That explanation makes sense. When I initially read the top post, I struggled to imagine a scenario in which a ProTools component could possibly crash Cakewalk. The only thing I could come up with was using a ProTools component within Cakewalk, e.g. a software instrument, but to the best of my knowledge that isn't even possible. Using an Avid-supplied ASIO driver, however, could very well explain everything. I had a similar experience after running Samplitude. Like the OP, I had started shopping around for a backup DAW during the Gibsonacolypse and settled on Samplitude as a good candidate. However, it installed its own ASIO driver and SONAR didn't like it. I reverted to the ASIO driver that came with my interface and the problem was easily resolved. If changing your ASIO driver isn't a convenient solution, just switch to WASAPI for Cakewalk. As an aside, Cakewalk is not sensitive to network issues. You can actually run it just fine with no network connection at all, something many users do in order to make their DAWs more efficient.

Targeted advertising is still in its infancy. For now. "Based on your interest in ... CHEESEBURGERS .. you may also be interested in ... SAILING THE SEAS OF CHEESE BY PRIMUS"

I did a side-by-side comparison just last night, after a friend turned me onto Skaka. I had a project that needed some simple percussion, just shakers and tambourine Shimmer Shake Strike has been my go-to for hand percussion since it came out, but it's a quirky beast that often requires an inordinate amount of tweaking before it does what I want it to do. I thought Skaka might be a simpler quick-n-dirty alternative. Well, it is and it isn't. Skaka is indeed pretty simple to use and cheaper - way cheaper if you count SSS's Kontakt prerequisite. But there is always a price for simplicity. The two products are not interchangeable; their only real similarity is that they both do sequenced hand percussion. SSS has better-sounding samples, many more instruments, finer control, more rhythmic variation and more automation options. But Skaka is slightly quicker to set up and supports up to 12 instruments at once (SSS does only 3 at once). In the end I decided Skaka wasn't a waste of $25 and threw it into the toolbox along with the dozen other hand-percussion instruments I've collected over the years. But in my comparison test, SSS was the clear winner and that's the one that will stay in the song.

Last summer I was shopping at Home Depot for a new barbecue and saw one that came with its own app. Makes about as much sense as a refrigerator with a web browser or a wi-fi enabled toaster. Until the barbecue app can light the fire, turn the burgers and tell me with certainty that there is no chance of botulism, I'll pass.

4:00 AM is my "normal" wake-up time. Every fall I dread going off Daylight Savings Time. Four is early, but three is ridiculous. It'll be Christmas before my brain and body have adapted to the new paradigm. I think we've all saved enough candles to justify getting rid of that silly convention.

Nah, they're weird but not funky. Yeh, they suck as hi-fi speakers because they're extremely directional. But they are extraordinarily flat, which is a good thing for mixing and mastering - as long as you're sitting in the sweet spot. Just don't start dancing in your chair, because moving your head just a few inches will muffle them. As for longevity, they are damn near indestructible. Certainly harder to damage by high volume than paper or silk. They can distort, yes, but won't self-destruct. Part of my decision to buy my current monitors (not ADAM) was that they had ADAM-style folded tweeters. I had become quite a fan of them during the years when I was an ADAM user. You are absolutely correct that good monitors don't make a good mix, any more than having good light guarantees a great painting.

I have two primary synths here, one is ARM and the other some kind of x86. The latter comes up in about 10 seconds. The ARM-based instrument takes over two minutes to boot. Which sounds like no big deal until somebody kills the power in the middle of a set and the singer has to tell lame jokes while the whole room waits for Dave's computer to reboot. And I can't even leverage the CPU's efficiency to run the thing off batteries. I miss the pre-computer keyboards that took 83 milliseconds to initialize.

I have never seen discounts on ADAM. Or Genelec, or Focal, or any other high-end monitors. Not even at their booths on the last day of NAMM, where you can often score a deal on just about anything because the salespeople don't want to pack all that stuff up. However, great deals are available in used gear, and studio monitors are among the safest of gambles because they are literally in "like new" condition even after a decade of use. Speakers don't wear out (some even say they get better-sounding over time) and they rarely have scratches and dings because they rarely move. You may find that not only can you afford those ADAMs, you may even be able to step up to a better model. The X series was meant to be ADAM's market answer to KRK's entry-level Rokit products and as such are actually downgrades from earlier P- and S- models.

That puts both my favorite go-to delay and the new Irid regenerative reverb at 36.75EU / $43USD each. https://www.tritik.com/

I doubt the interface is at fault. Do you not also listen to other sources, e.g. YouTube, through the same interface? I'd also look at routing as a starting point for troubleshooting. And congrats on the live gig. I've almost forgotten what that's like.

How about abbreviations that aren't briefer when spoken? "World Wide Web" is three syllables. "WWW" is nine. Twenty years ago, I had to explain to people how to spell "dot". Curiously, "bang" never caught on generally and is still just a geek thing.

I just tried out the "IDK" joke on my teenage granddaughter. She laughed, and then spent the next ten minutes patiently explaining to this pathetic geezer what "IDK" meant. "We short-ended it", she explained. Meanwhile, her mom was rolling with laughter.

Much as I'd like to hear more about "Beatle Infestations" (I know, that McCartney fellow is everywhere!), I'm locking this thread at the request of the OP.

MSpectralDynamics is one of my most-used effects. Absolutely love it. However, I really wouldn't bother with the new LE version. It's essentially MSpectralDynamics without the Edit button. IOW, it's presets-only. This is a dynamics processor. Who uses presets on a dynamics processor? It's like having a car with no accelerator or brake pedals, just buttons labeled "Slow", "Fast" and "Stop".

Sorry, OJ, I didn't notice your last post until now. Here are my thoughts on the Hum-X product... It's neither a filter nor an isolator. It works by inserting a series resistance into the ground connection. That limits current, which in turn reduces the amount of electromagnetic radiation from the ground conductor and thus reduces hum. It's a less-drastic version of what happens when you use a 3-to-2-prong "cheater" adapter. The cheater completely opens the ground conductor, so there can be no current. Unfortunately, it's a violation of code because without the safety ground you could, well, fry. To get around this, they place a pair of diodes in parallel with the resistor. The idea is that if the current ever gets high enough (e.g. due to a ground fault) that the voltage drop across the resistor exceeds the threshold at which the diode starts conducting, the diode will then effectively bypass the resistor, allowing full current flow and assuring that the circuit breaker is tripped and you don't die. Assuming, of course, that the fault current isn't so high as to destroy the diodes, in which case you now have an unsafe situation as there is no longer any safety ground. Even worse, you won't know that you're in danger without testing the Hum-X device with an ohmmeter to see if the diodes are still intact. So does Hum-X work? Yes. Assuming that ground current is in fact the source of your problem. There are other ways to pick up hum that Hum-X can't address. Is Hum-X safe? Probably. I'm guessing they had to demonstrate high reliability in order to be allowed to sell in in North America. They don't sell it in Europe, although I don't see any reason why they couldn't design a higher-voltage version for Europe. The principle would still be the same. Maybe they couldn't meet the higher EU standards of safety, I don't know. Is Hum-X the only/best solution for a studio? No. It's for situations where you cannot change the actual underlying problem, such as in a nightclub where you just have to make do with whatever crappy power is provided. A good thing to have in your gig bag for emergencies, absolutely. But not necessarily the best solution for your studio.

The dirty secret of the chip industry is that there is no physical difference between CPUs (or any other type of IC or transistor) that differ only in rated clock speed. They all come out of the same oven, but are subsequently tested to see how fast each one can go before it craps out and then labeled accordingly. The whole overclocking thing began when users realized that the manufacturers were being conservative with those speed ratings, and consumers could claim a bit of that margin of safety back by intentionally clocking CPUs a little higher. A reasonable gamble if you're not doing anything critical on your computer, such as playing video games, and it was gamers who originally popularized the practice. This is separate from the heat issue. The faster a chip runs, the harder it is to dissipate heat. Too much heat and you get premature physical failures. Manufacturers adopted a strategy inspired in the 1920's with the invention of the first electric cash register. A strict calculation of heat and power requirements dictated that a cash register should have an enormous electric motor, making electrification impractical. But an engineer named Charles Kettering showed that as long as the motor wasn't running continuously it could be severely overloaded and not burn up. Thus the concept of "duty cycle" was born, enabling such modern wonders as small but blindingly-bright LED lights.

I do the same thing, but with FLAC files. No data is lost when the hosting site creates the MP3 version for streaming, but upload times are half that of a wav. AFAIK SC was the first to allow wav uploads and raise file size limits on a free account. Since then, others (e.g. SoundClick) have followed suit. Competition has also spurred them to raise the streaming bitrate from 128 to 192 Kb/s and increase the number of format options for downloads. SC led the way there, too.

That's good. Assuming one takes the time to decipher what the heck "*****" stands for. The way things are going in our hyper-sensitive world, jokes may eventually become indecipherable... So a ****, a **** and a **** walk into a bar. The bartender says ****. Sorry, trust me, it's really funny. I just don't know how to tell a joke.

That's pretty heavy, Jerry. Although you're probably quite right about that, my mechanistic mind tends to think of it as a psychosomatic response leading to a release of endorphins. Any way you look at it, we all create music for an audience of one and just hope somebody else likes it, too.

Good stuff as always, Jerry. Definitely could imagine this as a lost Gershwin piece, especially if it was played in double-time. That big string-ish wash patch reminds me of Tomita's fat and juicy Moog strings. Suggestion: take a look at a regenerative pitch-shifting reverb such as Valhalla Shimmer or tritik's Irid. With automation you can make a string phrase morph into a lush pad. I have been experimenting with the technique - here's my experiment. That big wash in the middle of the piano intro isn't a synth, it's a pitch-shifting reverb. At 1:36 you can hear the same effect on a solo violin.

Just for Bapu: An A, a C and an E walk into a bar. The bartender says "we don't serve minors".

The length of one full cycle for the lowest note on a bass is 24 ms. Attack times less than that will therefore alter the waveform itself at that frequency, causing distortion. In the microsecond range you probably won't even notice it because that's such a tiny percentage of the cycle, but at around 3 ms and above it'll become more and more noticeable as you lengthen the attack time. You'll also need a short release to get the maximum impact.

Got an email from vi-control titled "I hope you took your heart attack pills!" The text went on: "...the heart attack will be worth it, because there's some cool stuff going on at VI-Control this week." Now, I've had three heart attacks. Thinking back on them, I gotta say that not one of them was worth a forum thread, or even a great Black Friday deal. Not even the morphine. OK, I misled you with my own title, so here's some Grandpa humor. That's like Dad jokes but with more miles on them. A priest, a minister and a rabbit walk into a bar. The rabbit says "I think I might be a typo".