ZincT

Ouch! ?

Good question @Tezza. In the UK Scan Computers make Pro Audio PCs using both AMD and Intel CPUs and they also produce this information page which might help your decision... http://www.scanproaudio.info/ I'm leaning towards a 3900X based system myself at the moment but waiting to see if prices settle back down again once we see light at the end of the Covid-19 tunnel. My main PC is used as much for video editing as audio work so AMD seems to have the edge there for me in price/performance at the moment and I don't really need the ultimate in single-threaded performance which Intel seem to have by a small margin. Will be interested to hear what you buy and how it turns out.

Not a whole lot of money either, hmmmm ?

Yes I can see where my voucher's going this month (subject to demo as ever).

Ah yes, nice ? For some reason I now have a retro 80's hankering after one of these... ? https://www.alesis.com/products/view2/vortex-wireless-2 and also one of these... https://www.roland.com/uk/products/aerophone_mini/

Yes I asked the developer about the fact that VirusTotal is showing one detection of W32/InstallCore.CHDH!tr on version 1.0.13 of ChordPrism from the Acronis Fortinet AV engine. There were 70 other AV engines that gave it a clean bill of health including my installed version of Kaspersky AV. Zac from Mosaic Beats responded.. ...which I take to mean that it is a false positive!

If you own an RTX enabled NVidia video card this could be useful for livestreaming etc to cut down background noise. Download here --> https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/nvidia-rtx-voice-setup-guide/ It is now also possible to run this on GTX NVidia cards but I haven't tried it. If you have a GTX card and want try it see this article but you do so at your own risk --> https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/nvidia-rtx-voice-works-fine-on-non-rtx-gpus The demo looks pretty impressive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-mETIjcIV0

Yes, I was a little surprised that the beta code worked on the released product Eusebio. Makes up a little for the fact that I paid for and didn't like or use AutoTheory

I had the original version which was called AutoTheory and while it was good I didn't like that it operated outside your DAW. I was able to get a free upgrade to Chord Prism and I do like it a lot and it is now integrated in your DAW. I also own Scaler and you can do most (not all) of it with Scaler (which is soon to updated). For me I am happy to have both and would recommend Chord Prism. I would definitely buy it at this price if I didn't already own it. This one, Scaler and InstaChord are my favourite apps of this type. I'm not including apps like Rapid Composer and Orb Producer, Sundog, Captain Chords in this as they are full blown songwriting aids - kind of the next step after this. If you are an adept keyboard player then you probably don't need it but as a so so keyboard player it works for me and I really like the new features. You basically have chords on the left octave and notes/arps on the right octave and you set the key on the left and it then gives you the chords for the key on the left octave but also changes the keys on the right octave to fit in with the chord and the key as you are playing them. It doesn't stop there as there are various options for how the notes on the right hand octave are displayed and also for leading notes/7th/9th/11ths for the chords on the left octave. There's even more to it than that so just have a look at these videos...

Thanks Matthew, you must have read my mind!

I found this portable SQL Lite browser which seems to work OK just for viewing the database offline and it's a nice small install in a single folder (being portable). https://sqlitebrowser.org/blog/portableapp-for-3-11-2-release-now-available/ (Kaspersky AV gives it a clean bill of health as does VirusTotal btw) I created a couple of favourites in ST4 and they appeared in the "Instrument" table when I looked in SQL Lite browser. The "is_favorite" field is set to 1 for favourites and otherwise 0, so just put a 1 in the is_favorite filter to see your favourites. This could actually be quite useful for searching instruments when you don't have ST4 loaded or are on a different PC without ST4 (just copy the instrument.db file there for browsing in SQLLite).

Yes I still have and use some of those old ST2/3 libraries and got them cheaply (esoundz I think?). The World Instruments one includes accordions

I meant for backing up on the same machine when you uninstall and reinstall. So you don't think a copy of the file made before un-installation and then restored to it's correct location after a clean install would work? I suppose if ST4 installation creates a new db file then overwriting it with a different backup copy might confuse it. Then again if the uninstaller leaves the file alone or asks whether to leave it there that would imply that a fresh installation can use the file. IDK. Anyway, that's useful information and it's a good excuse for me to blow the cobwebs off some old SQL course notes .

Oh boy, Starship! I can see how the #stayhomelements process would be off putting to anyone considering a purchase. Apologies again if I misled you and thanks for your understanding - I think it might just be my bad memory ? I could have sworn that I recorded the song where I used the accordions before I upgraded to HS3. Then again I also now realise that when I bought my Steinberg Audio interface it came with a copy of Cubase AI which also included some sound content and which I subsequently upgraded to Cubase Elements and then Cubase Pro (even more sound content) so maybe the accordions came with one of those. Who knows!??? I cannot even look back at my download backups as I deleted the HS SE stuff when I upgraded to HS3. Anyway, I found another free accordion (albeit a variant) - Button Accordion from Bolder Sounds and it's available in Kontakt 2 / Apple EXS24 / Digidesign Structure formats (full Kontakt required)... https://www.boldersounds.com/index.php?main_page=product_music_info&cPath=22&products_id=64

Good find, thanks Matthew. Should also make it easy to backup any favourites.

That's a nice looking controller but it doesn't seem to be available in the UK (nor the other two as you said). They seem to be pushing their MPK range over here.

Thanks abacab, I will have a look.

The new PB freebie for May is ERA 4 Voice Leveler which I picked up on a deal previously (it's worth having for anyone who doesn't). https://www.pluginboutique.com/articles/1597

Thanks Larry. Also noticed that Sticky Rain and Grate Bass Lite are both free downloads (for the full version of Kontakt).

It's a while since I downloaded it but I'm pretty sure I used Steinberg Download Assistant - under VST Plugins and Instruments. Maybe they have changed what comes with the free version now in which case apologies. The problem I have is that since I got the free version a couple of years ago I have upgraded to Halion Sonic 3 (30Gb+ content) and then the full verson of Halion 6 so it's hard for me to tell what is free and what is paid for as when I load up SE I can see all of my content. I found another non-Halion Accordion here but it's a 32bit VSTi and I haven't tried it although it has some good feedback --> http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?plugin=Accordion&id=302

This looks interesting and a cheap way into Novo sounds. Just waiting to see what the new PB freebie is

Thanks Larry. Also note that Vocaloid now have a crossgrade campaign where you can crossgrade to Vocaloid 5 Standard or Premium which can include Megpoid. This is for people with a 16-digit serial code for one or more Voicebanks from VOCALOID2, VOCALOID3, VOCALOID4, VOCALOID(5) There's full list of eligible products on their website: https://www.vocaloid.com/en/news/crossgrade_vocaloid5_campaign/

Ah that's a pity The two top runners for me at the moment are the Nektar Impact LX 49+ or M-Audio Oxygen 49 Mk IV. I can get the latter slightly cheaper (£104 inc VAT vs 115). I'm reading through a lot of Cakewalk forum threads about both and trying to decide. I already have all of the software that comes with the Oxygen but not Bitwig that comes with the Nektar (but do I need yet another DAW?!). From reading through various forums I'm unsure whether the built-in preset configurations of the Nektar are really worth having as ACT config in CbB doesn't seem too hard (I also use Cubase, Reaper and Studio One but much less than CbB). Would be interested in any opinions of anyone who owns either. I should probably start a new thread with an appropriate heading.

Oh that's a shame . I guess memory might be an issue although just running standalone with one or two sounds should be OK. One of my current CbB projects is fairly lightly loaded using one instance of Kontakt with 5 instruments, EzDrummer and TTS-1 and the system shows 8.1Gb of memory in use. I am probably a bit paranoid about ASIO4ALL after all the problems it caused me and I'm sure that nowadays many people are using it successfully. I also had a friend who was trying to get into hobbyist recording on a PC and was having problems which also turned out to be issues with ASIO4All. It's just that I can't help think that such a key piece of the audio recording jigsaw needs to be optimised for best performance rather than some kind of one size fits all generic software. That link from Starship Krupa might offer a glimmer of hope though. FYI I have my old Steinberg UR242 interface for sale if you are interested, just haven't put it on eBay yet. No pressure but PM me if interested.

Hi again Joe, As soon as I saw you mention ASIO4All it made me go into a cold sweat! I only ever used it once on an old SoundBlaster card and it caused so many problems I vowed never to install it again and I have stuck to that. I dare say they have improved it since I used it as it was a long time ago but I would honestly invest in a new sound card that came with it's own ASIO drivers before ever installing it again. That may not solve your ST4 problems of course but as Starise and Matthew said it may help in general to improve stability and latency. To answer your question about favourites they are saved so that they will show up in whichever version you load (standalone, VST2, VST3). It's been a while since I uninstalled it so I cannot recall whether there is a prompt to leave them in place or not. Also I have googled and found a few support questions (remember to use the non UK spelling - favorites) asking where they are stored but haven't managed to track a definitive answer. A quick search of standard places on my system (program folder, sample/instrument folders, ProgramData and Common Files drew a blank so maybe they are in the registry IDK?