Peter C

I'm permanently in the dark - I never know what I'm doing. And the lights are on but my brain doesn't seem to be at home. ?

Jerry, a really well written concise deconstruction of these issues. You make a very valid point: the moment there is an attempt to capture an orchestra's acoustic sound in any given space, it becomes digital. Extra people become involved. Just the placement of mic positions and the choices of mics can of course dramatically alter how a 'real' orchestra sounds. Then there are production decisions about levels and so on.. the choice of equipment it all goes through. The net result can often sound more unrealistic (to my ears) than a well-constructed virtual orchestra. As usual this year I am watching the Proms and I'm always struck by how the woodwinds, in particular piccolos, can sound too prominent and destroy entirely what a composer originally intended. Don't get me started about how soloists - piano, violin, horn, whatever - are deliberately brought up in the mix, giving an entirely false impression of what it actually sounds like in a concert hall. What was a breath of fresh air for me was a couple of years ago I watched an orchestral concert from I think it was Austria. A piano concerto was a delight to listen to because the producer had very obviously decided the piano was actually part of the orchestra and was not over-amplified. (Take note please BBC) So when I bought my first virtual orchestra, back in 2005, the first thing I did was write a couple of orchestral style pieces. I quickly realised it was only possible to mimic a real orchestra and my first production decisions were not to use woodwinds (sorry woody players). That decision was probably the result of me listening to too many broadcasts and getting too used to those mixes. As something of a traditionalist (you'd never have guessed would you), how do I feel about virtual orchestras? As long as it makes a pleasing sound, whatever instrument combinations are used, I'm happy. We are making decisions now with all these wonderful things available which composers centuries ago were making, albeit at a simpler level: how many string players, do we try this new-fangled brass thing......... Many thanks for making me think.

Only problem is it seems to have disappeared from Roland Cloud. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, thanks for mentioning that. The installer is fine - it's just the zip file that needs the code and that was handled by 7-zip.Of course some discontinued stuff e.g. Roland Concerto (should be in the free inst thread) does seem worthwhile.

Is anyone still using this? Accusonus - ERA Bundle Pro v4 VST Free Download. I'm interested to know if it just proves too s-l-o-w and it's not just my setup. It does work but the reverb remover for example has incredibly high latency and takes up to a minute to close down. It's a discontinued product but is still available to download from getintopc.com. Incredibly the download works although you have to enter the code shown on the webpage to be able to unzip it.

Well done. If you wanted to pursue this further to find out what was going on you could try another daw and see if the problem is replicated there. It took me years to summon the courage to sell the Fantom but I have to say soft synths are generally so much easier to manage. Especially as all the Fantom sounds can be got at via Roland Cloud, and thousands more.

Mmmmm. .....now struggling with this. However it does seem to be caused by all channels being routed to the Fantom. In the Inspector, right-hand column under the mix rotary control just check that all channels is not selected. It used to baffle me when I could see multiple channels in the Fantom's performance mode change and that was the problem. I'm not familiar with the XR but I presume Louis has got that in performance mode?????? (just a thought)

Right. Understood. I remember I had a similar problem. It was caused by midi tracks being assigned to the same outputs. Check in the Inspector where your midi tracks are sending data. I had to be really careful to make sure I had each track set to its individual output, track 1 midi out 1, track 2 midi out 2 and so on. I found that somehow Cakewalk can make it easy to send midi to multiple outs.

So when you select say JD-800 Piano you can't get it to sound and it just plays the sound of the first patch in that bank? If that's the case have you checked the Fantom menu (I had the Fantom X keyboard but I presume there's a way into the XR's settings via its front panel) to make sure it's set to receive midi messages? And it's just worth double checking that Cakewalk is sending midi messages out - it should be as that's its default I think.

I no longer have the Fantom so can't try to replicate this. I presume you change the preset within the Inspector drop-down menu.

Sorry I should have made that clear. Yes, if you don't want the srx banks you can delete them in a text editor or within the instrument definition within cbb. Or just ignore them.

Oh sugar I sent you a Cubase definition file. Here is the correct one I hope. I presume you get the drop down menu in the Inspector which should show all the patches in a bank from which you select your choice of patch? Roland Fantom XR Drum Kits incl SRX-06.ins Roland Fantom XR incl SRX-06.ins

Try using this ins file to show all the XR presets. You can then select them in the CbB inspector. As I recall from the days of my Fantom-X it's one-way midi traffic, i.e. you can change the bank and patch in Cakewalk and that gets you the patch you want. But when I used to select as patch on the Fantom it did not transmit that to Cakewalk. roland_fantomXR382.zip

I'll second that. I've just come across this and much appreciate the hard work that will have gone into creating it. Many thanks.