Kanthos

I think he meant "live performance?" Based on what you're saying, I'd get a weighted keyboard of some sort. If it's basic and only has a few (or even no) sounds, that's probably all you need. I'd hold off on any kind of MIDI controller until you find a need for it in your workflow (e.g. "I wish I didn't have to use the mouse to automate this..."

Ok, your post reads like you're misunderstanding MIDI controllers. A MIDI controller is any device (not necessarily one that has keys! Things like the Korg nano series don't!) that sends MIDI data. In today's market, virtually every keyboard of any kind sends MIDI data, except perhaps super-cheap entry-level Casios or something. Obviously, check if any keyboard that you're interested in sends MIDI (through a standard 5-pin MIDI cable or over USB), but probably that won't be an issue. Something billed as a MIDI Controller will *only* send MIDI data, and may have a lot of other knobs, faders, and buttons that send various MIDI messages, while with keyboards, it can vary quite a bit. The two weighted keyboards you showed will probably send note and pedal information, but the buttons they have are likely more for controlling the built-in sounds rather than sending MIDI messages. Should you get a MIDI controller or something with built-in sounds? That depends entirely on where you want to play. If you're only ever going to use the keyboard in front of your computer, than built-in sounds don't matter; if the keyboard you buy happens to have them, great, but to actually *record* them, you need additional hardware anyway. If you're going to play anywhere else with the keyboard (and also use it as a controller), then built-in sounds matter much more. Then again, $500 or so is going to get you a keyboard with pretty crappy built-in sounds, and the same money spent on software sounds will get you much better quality. Or, if you really want to be playing away from your computer as well as recording things, I'd look at something like the Roland FA-08 or Yamaha MX-8 or MOXF-8 for a moderately-priced workstation keyboard that will have a large quantity of good-quality sounds and also work just fine as a MIDI controller. Yes, it's more money, but it's worth saving for unless the ONLY thing you can EVER afford in the next few years is a lower-budget keyboard. So, before you go looking at keyboards, you need to decide: weighted, semi-weighted, synth-action, or don't care? (Sounds like you only want weighted). Built-in sounds or not? (If so, will you be recording them? And do you have an audio interface to do that? If not, you'll need to get one. If you don't want built-in sounds, do you have, or will you buy/find free sounds/find sounds bundled with your DAW, the sounds you need?) There might be cheaper weighted MIDI controllers than the ones you linked. I'd figure out why you think you need a keyboard vs. a MIDI controller, and what you want to do with sounds. Also, unless you're in a rural area and you really can't get to a local store, I wouldn't recommend buying a keyboard based on what you see online, especially a keyboard with built-in sounds. Given this, I don't understand your questions about getting a MIDI controller down the road. Buy any keyboard, with sounds or not, that has MIDI capability and you're set, and if you want some extra knobs and faders, you can look to a second, small, device (the Korg nanoKontrol is great, for one example). The DAW that you should use is the DAW that you feel most comfortable with. All major DAWs support MIDI. Some are a bit better or worse than the majority, but pick your DAW based on what makes sense for you, and you'll find that the MIDI support is good enough.

1) What do you mean by keyboard here? Something you can play on to send MIDI note data to your computer? Something with its own built-in sounds? You're not going to find anything in your price range that's semi-weighted or weighted and also has more than a few built-in sounds. Semi-weighted is rare for keyboards with built-in sounds, except for a few models that go for thousands new. There probably are a few semi-weighted MIDI controllers in your price range, but they won't have built in sounds. You may find weighted, though not in your price range if they're any good or have built-in sounds. Most likely, your budget is limiting you to synth-action keyboards. There's also a bunch more important questions to ask, like how many keys you need, whether you need pedal connections and how many, etc. I'd suggest going to a website like sweetwater.com and getting a better idea of what's out there, and then coming back with more specific questions about which keyboards may or may not be good choices, and explain what you need it fore in a bit more detail too. 2) It definitely is. Keyboards are line-level instruments while guitars are instrument-level, so there's a big difference in the volumes coming in. Some brands of pedals can handle line-level signals, while others only can if you turn the instrument down a lot. That may or may not be good for what you want. If you get the levels right, though, it's no different than using a guitar: connect your keyboard to the pedal with a 1/4" cable, and then connect the pedal to something else (your audio interface, a mixer, amp/speaker, etc.). I have a stack of pedals I run my keyboards through, but they're all brands that work well with line-level signals (Strymon, Earthquaker Devices, Neo Instruments for their Leslie speaker pedal, and Moog). If you can only swing $500 on a keyboard, all of those will be out of your price range.

I got mine today; it took so long because it was a pre-order. Thanks, Kitty, for The Legend of Zeld: Art and Artifacts. It's fantastic!

Could whoever was my secret santa please let me know (PM is fine) who you are and if and when you sent something? I'm not upset if you didn't, and not looking to shame you. I think that there's a problem with my mail not getting delivered properly, as I've had a couple other things go missing, so I want to know if your present was among them before I go to Canada Post. Thanks!

Still nothing as of yesterday...

Still waiting here too.

No problem; it'll get here when it gets here!

I wouldn't have gotten a League of Legends card for an arbitrary person, but I saw you had some forum posts mentioning that you played it, so that made it easy!

Glad you liked it, Hyperion! I wasn't entirely sure what to go for, but figured that you can't go wrong with Zelda, right?

Mine didn't give any interests at all, just t-shirt size. I found a few things that nearly any gamer would likely want, though, and one thing that I'm sure will appeal specifically to my person. I just got it in the mail over lunch today, and they can expect it within two weeks, I think.

I missed this last year, but I'm in this year!

I don't mind getting my ass kicked; I just don't want to drag you guys down. I'll almost certainly be really busy for the next while, but I've got your info, and Ryan's, and I'll catch up when things settle down.

Ok, so I'll probably get my ass kicked repeatedly, then. It'd still be fun to play with other people though! I'll see how my schedule works out now; it's quite erratic right now for several reasons, but it should hopefully calm down before too long.

Hey Ryan, is there place in your LoL gaming for someone who's basically a beginner to the genre? In the short term, I may or may not have time to play; I'm going through some pretty major stuff right now and it's hard to predict right now what any given night looks like. Longer-term though, I expect a ton of free time; with Will going to bed at 7ish, I'm usually free not far after 8 PM, even with going to the gym. I feel everyone's pain about how hard it can be to find friends, especially if you're a quieter, more introverted, type. I lost a few friends I had through leaving the church a year ago (I tried to stay connected with them, but they were just too busy for someone they didn't see regularly any longer; I played in the church band with them), and lost a few more by walking from a band I was trying to put together when it became clear that only two of the six of us had the skill and passion and time commitment to get where we wanted to go. It's tough to find people to connect with if you don't have common interests, or if a lot of your interests are things that you can only do alone. Having a kid makes things a lot harder for me as well. I need to work out some other things first, but I hope to be in a position before too long where I can try and pursue some other interests. My cousins who live 5 hours away have gotten me into Pub Quiz, weekly trivia nights in a bar; I'm sure I can find something local and hopefully meet some people that way. Got to try to stay positive!

Nice, glad to hear it does just what you want!

This is getting comical I didn't say that *you* said Komplete was on sale, or to look for it. That's why I said it was the point *I* was trying to make. They did indeed have Komplete on sale in the past. But sales on new (non-upgrade/crossgrade) versions of Komplete are rare, so don't count on it.

Oops, you did say that. Sorry! The point I was trying to make is that they have had Komplete on sale before, but usually, it's just an upgrade version, so unless it's really close to the start of the summer sale or to Black Friday, there's probably no point waiting to see if Komplete will go on sale.

They've had Black Friday sales, yes; maybe I misremembered, but I didn't think they all had Komplete at a discount. I recall it wasn't that long ago where they weren't discounting new versions Komplete (or any, though I feel like they were at least discounting upgrades at some point). At any rate, past sales aren't a guarantee of future sales, though it is likely and possibly worth waiting until November to see for sure.

Do keep in mind that they may not have those exact sales this year. But, for the past several years, I believe there's been at least one sale on new versions of Komplete. It's also worth noting that as long as you don't have academic versions, you can get individual NI products removed from your NI account, enabling you to pass the serial number on to someone else and sell the product second-hand. (Of course, you have to find someone who wants to buy the NI product and doesn't already have Komplete, which isn't always easy).

Fair enough; not everyone has to use their gear just like I do. I think the reason they don't have springback expression pedals though is because unless you're trying to do some crazy pedal-dancing with more than two pedals, there's no reason why you couldn't just use your foot to put the pedal back to the 'off' position (however you define off; is that with the heel down or toe down?) I've got five pedals on the floor - one is a two-button switch for a Leslie effect pedal for the speed and stop modes, like on a real Leslie, but I rarely use stop - and I don't find it unmanageable. I can use an expression pedal to keep my hands free, but when I'm done modulating a sound, I can just as easily push the pedal back, also without using my hands, and if I'm trying to do so much in a live show that I *need* three feet, I should probably think about simplifying something. Pedals probably aren't USB devices because many controllers have more than one pedal jack or, for a lot of people, adding various modulation is something they'll do after the fact, or with one hand while playing the keys with the other. I think the music industry doesn't have a good handle on what people actually want, at least as far as keyboards go; you obviously aren't the only one who needs a way to get a pedal signal into the computer and doesn't have a good keyboard with which to do it. (Granted, I'd argue that a springback expression pedal is a pretty niche request, but still...) I mean, even something as simple as using one of the Korg nanoKontrols as a quick tool but wanting a sustain pedal is something that should be easier to do.

What keyboard do you have where the mod wheel springs back to 0? It must be one with a joystick-type control that does pitch bend and mod in one? I've never heard of standalone mod wheels that snap back. Also, why are you not connecting a pedal to the keyboard and sending MIDI into your computer that way? You also don't want to be looking at expression pedals; none of them will behave the way you like. I've never heard of one that springs back. It's also extremely easy to make one 'spring back' yourself; I often do a trick where I have an expression pedal controlling the volume of a pad or strings on my keyboard,layered with a piano that's NOT controlled by the expression pedal. I can bring the pad in or out by quickly pushing the expression pedal all the way up or all the way down. Or, another example, my Moog synth has a mod wheel that doesn't snap back, and I usually use it to control vibrato. It's really easy and natural to add vibrato and then pull the wheel towards me to shut the vibrato off, and the benefit of the wheel not snapping back is that I can add some kind of modulation and then leave it alone for a while, freeing up my hand to do something else. There really aren't many real-world situations where keyboard players WANT an expression pedal (or mod wheel!) that springs back. You might have luck with a continuous sustain pedal like the Yamaha FC3. The problem is that it might not work with your setup; I have no idea how the MIDI Expression thing would handle it, and a keyboard would have to be designed to handle it (or, allow the FC3 to be plugged into an Expression Pedal input and treat it accordingly) in order to work.

Maybe I'm missing something, Meteo, but where did you formally agree with them that all assets you produced were your IP, to be used at your discretion, and that you retained full control over your work? Do you actually have something in writing saying this? Or, do they have something in writing saying that all IP produced for the project is retained by the project and can be used as the project team sees fit? Or do you have nothing at all? It seems to me that in the absence of a written agreement saying otherwise, you breaking ties with them doesn't mean that they have to stop using music that you produced specifically for the project, even if you request that they do. Breaking a 'contract' (again, what did you have in writing besides an NDA, which, unless it was more than a standard NDA, would only be related to you revealing their IP to the outside world) doesn't automatically imply they have to stop using your work. If I were to leave my job, my employer isn't required to delete all the code I've contributed to the codebase; is your situation different, and why? If you have a good, previously-agreed-upon, reason to be sure they have no legal right to use your title theme, you could go after them legally, or not, but you're not going to gain much by going out of your way to slam them other than tarnishing your reputation as well as theirs. I know I wouldn't take a stranger's account of 'they phased me out and wasted my time' as 100% true without strong evidence to back it up; if I was hiring and someone complained in the interview or on the Internet about a previous employer, that would be an immediate red flag and they'd have to have seriously impressive skills, and be able to adequately explain why they complained publicly, in order for me to want to hire them. And if you don't have a strong reason to go after them legally, you have even less to gain by complaining. I'd say that if you want to vent anonymously in public, without naming yourself OR the company or giving any details that could really tie them to you, then do so (or, perhaps this thread is all the venting you need). But I think you stand to lose more than you stand to gain by taking things public.

That's actually not how software and computers work. EVER. If something doesn't work, there is ALWAYS a reason, 100% of the time, whether it's bad configuration, a hardware problem, a software problem, or a user problem. It is literally IMPOSSIBLE for stuff to randomly 'stop working' with no cause. Physics, computer hardware, software, they simply do not and CAN NOT work that way. I'm a few months away from the 10-year mark as a full-time software developer, and have had interactions with customers in every position I've had, and you're exhibiting the behaviours of the most difficult customers I've had to deal with. The whole "It doesn't work and I want to have others listen to me whine about it" approach is a good way to annoy people and a terrible way to solve problems. You've been given a lot of suggestions in this thread and have provided little to no indication that you've even considered any of them, let alone tried them out. If you want help from intelligent people, you need to ask intelligent questions and you need to follow through on what they say, otherwise you're wasting everyone's time. If you're serious about finding a solution to your problem, please go through this thread again, top to bottom. The answer is probably in here already, or in the video that someone linked. Watch that video, and do EVERYTHING it says. Chances are VERY GOOD that it will solve your problem. If you have questions or don't understand things, google it or ask specific followup questions. There's more than enough knowledge in this thread to help you get the performance you should out of your setup. The one thing I can pretty much guarantee is that switching DAWs is going to do very little for you besides be a good way for you to throw away money. Your performance issues are from your configuration in some way, NOT simply from the fact that you use FL Studio. (If you don't want to believe the ton of evidence in this thread, then don't, but that attitude is one I would call stupid, given by someone who doesn't deserve help). By all means spend money on Cubase. A new program isn't going to solve your defeatist attitude, and it isn't going to fix any issues with how your system is configured. It may have better multi-processor options turned on by default, but no DAW is going to get rid of all configuration issues forever. What happens when you try to get a larger Kontakt sample library? Or add new plugins? Or upgrade your hardware? You don't seem like much of a reader, but on the off-chance that you actually care about getting better, you should read this. David Sirlin is a game designer with a lot of titles under his belt. While the eBook (available in full for free on his website) uses examples from Street Fighter and other fighting games, his ideas apply to other games and to other parts of life, especially the stuff about being serious about wanting to win, not having a defeatist attitude (what he calls a 'scrub'), and so on. I hope you listen to the advice you've gotten in this thread, about your software setup and about your attitude. Maybe you'll make some changes to both and accomplish some cool things! But I agree with Flexstyle; don't come here, or anywhere, and waste people's time asking for advice and ignoring it.

You might also find new appreciation for your own work once you share it with others. I've started a jazz/funk band and have never really tried writing original music before now, but the other members have appreciated the songs I've written sometimes more than I have, and sometimes, seeing how they like one of my tunes has made me like it even more.