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Crossed to the Dark Side


Vernon Barnes

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Well I have gone and done it and signed up for a Presonus Sphere subscription.  I wanted Notion and I also felt I should learn another DAW.

It was Studio One 3 when I last tried the demo and at that time I did not care for it. Initial impressions this time around are more favourable. I am still downloading the Soundsets but the ones I have tried so far sound useful.

Its disappointing the instruments are only available in Studio One. The effects are VST and I have successfully loaded them in Cakewalk.

I don't particularly care for the way you can't see the VSTi audio track in track view, it seems a bit clumsy to have to open the mixer as well as the track view, but it seems a lot of people prefer this and Bandlab are moving in the direction with their Instrument track development.

I could not initially see how to set up multi outs for VSTi but once I watched a couple of videos its reasonably straightforward and I would say better if you have a mix of stereo and mono outputs.

Notion will need a bit of finding my way around but it looks like what I was looking for.

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Congrats. I didn't get sphere. I did upgrade to SO5 and had Notion. I don't think you'll be sorry there.

There are pros and cons to having instruments tied to Presonus. My understanding is those instruments have pre mapped key switches. I think they sound better than say Garritan or similar. 

Aside from the Sphere subscription SO users have access to the "cloud" without a subscription . If you go to Browser> Home>Cloud>Keyswitches you will see uploaded  files free for download. Someone already made most of the Key switches for East West libraries and many others. Key switches can be saved with individual instruments for future reload into other projects.  I have found this to be most helpful. I planned to make a template for Amadeus and upload it soon.

You may also make your own Key switches and save them.

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On 7/24/2020 at 4:36 PM, Starise said:

 

Aside from the Sphere subscription SO users have access to the "cloud" without a subscription . If you go to Browser> Home>Cloud>Keyswitches you will see uploaded  files free for download. Someone already made most of the Key switches for East West libraries and many others. Key switches can be saved with individual instruments for future reload into other projects.  I have found this to be most helpful. I planned to make a template for Amadeus and upload it soon.

You may also make your own Key switches and save them.

I have downloaded most of the relevant keyswitch files which should save a lot of time later. I have not tried using them yet.

I also grabbed a lot of pitch maps, these seem a lot easier to use, but less versatile than Cakewalk's drum maps. The cloud seems a very useful resource.

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The sound sets are pretty capable as is, with the ability for SO to drill into their own patches. If you want "cello" (or whatever), you can search and find fillers quickly in the browser and keep composing... then either tweak or replace the VSTi as you go. For composition "speed" that has been handy for me; getting distracted with searching while composing tends to wreak havoc on workflow.

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6 hours ago, Blades said:

Still on studio one 4 here but strongly considering Sphere rather than the upgrade to so5 due to the low cost of entry and the about $600 worth of stuff I know I would actually want (but wouldn't buy).

Its certainly better value if you did not have a version to upgrade, but its still an option to consider particularly if you want Notion. I looked on it as low risk because if I don't get on with it I can always cancel, but its looking good so far. The collaboration tools could be useful.

The content is certainly useful. Maybe not up there with the top flight libraries but as mettelus says very useful for sketching and I would say on a par with Sampletank 3.

I have not downloaded many of the Notion instruments yet. It looks like they are only available in Notion but look fit for the  purpose of sketching out a score.

Edited by Vernon Barnes
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@Vernon Barnes I am coming in with pro already, so yeah, definitely less value than if I were new to the product, and I am not really interested in notion, but between the sample libraries, the additional stuff like the editor for the rompler, the additional modules for the fat channel, maybe but probably not the looks for me (though for free I will play around with them), and the collaboration, which I hope to be able to use if I can find some folks interested in some drums or maybe vocals or someone who might be able co tribute a guitar solo out of my skills or maybe even something like a sax solo for a few different covers I would like to do but won't bother without a decent sax. 

I am also interested to see what they do to grow the subscription.  It was one thing that actually got me to buy into the sonat lifetime subscription (yeah, we saw how that worked out): the continual updates that subscribers got during the year...maybe some exclusive feature updates or sample packs or whatever will come along.  THAT is something that could make this work over time.  Hopefully they are paying attention and aren't going to assume that the existing library of stuff will suffice for ongoing payments.  I think they would see subscribers turn back into upgraders at the next cycle.

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