Kanthos

Not exactly bullshit, but I'm having a lot of fun with Earthquake -> Inferno -> wait for Earthquake to start to wear off -> Fireball. I've had fights where none of the enemies get to attack because they're too busy falling down and burning.

I wonder how long it'll be before a petition is started to ban the 'obviously violent Mario games that are influencing our children'.

Nope. Zevran and Leilana will go for either gender, and Alastair and Morrigan will only go for the opposite gender.

If you want weighted keys (feeling more like a piano), then no. For that money though, you can easily get an M-Audio Axiom series, and possibly an M-Audio Axiom Pro. Korg has some decent-looking controllers as well, and there are a few brands I don't really know anything about that might also be good.

If you want good orchestral, why are you looking at a synth and not a workstation or arranger keyboard? You're right, you might be pushing it for good orchestral samples (at very least, you'd have to do a lot of track freezing to get remotely good performance on a netbook), but getting any of the synths you listed won't take you any closer to achieving what you want.

The only reason for not trying out any instrument before you buy it is if you live a ridiculously long distance from a music store. Instruments aren't computers, where the specs tell you all you need and the character of each computer isn't that important. Reading over the specs of each instrument is important (especially for keyboards), but nothing compares to trying it out yourself.

1) I'd install any drivers first, though if you don't (or if you ever get a new keyboard with new drivers), it's not a big deal. Any decent DAW should have no problem with hardware changes of that nature (though you may have to do a bit of configuration, obviously, to use the new hardware - you'd have to do this kind of thing in either case). 2) You typically want to set the tempo in your DAW (it should be pretty obvious in most) and then play along with that. Most, if not all, DAWs will give you a clicktrack or metronome to play along with. 4) Easier to use, in some cases, but mostly having more and better features and more and better plugins, particularly effects.

What you use your knobs, faders, and buttons for really depends on what your setup is. The most obvious use is to adjust or toggle something while playing, where it'd be impractical to move a hand to the mouse, click precisely on the control you want to adjust, and drag it to the right spot. Even for buttons, you don't want to be trying to click a button accurately as you play. Knobs and faders also give tactile feedback that you don't get from dragging a mouse: the motion of your hand when moving a fader up and down or rotating a knob is much more naturally associated with the change in sound you're causing. So really, what you'd want to do is figure out which controls you find yourself adjusting (or wanting to adjust) most, and map those to your keyboard. Or, if there are many of them, do some quick MIDI Learning as you play each part of the song you're working on, and basically do your assignments on the fly. As for what I use, I'm really the live type, but I'd use some of my controls if I was doing remixing work. My Korg TR has four knobs that I use for volumes in Forte, the software I use for live performance. I use Aux buses there so that the organ sounds, piano sounds, lead sounds, and 'pad' sounds (really, anything that's not in the above categories: synth pads, orchestral, sound effects and so on) are on their own bus. I use the Korg TR knobs to control the volumes of those buses. I also use a Korg nanoKEY to send CC messages live. Two map to Next Program and Previous Program in Forte, one toggles the rotor speed for NI's B4-II plugin (I don't have an available footswitch to do that), and three are converted to keystrokes by another program and are used to send PgUp, PgDn, and Ctrl+Tab keystrokes to my PDF viewer which has all my leadsheets loaded in different tabs, letting my laptop act as both a sound rack and a full-screen music reader. I'm also going to start playing around with Guitar Rig's looper in the near future, and I'll certainly use some of the keys on the nanoKey to control that.

Good luck with an attitude like that. Someone with a more open mind might be more willing to listen to those who are way more experienced, but hey, suit yourself. It's just your own time you'll be using less effectively than you should.

I don't remix, but I have a TR. If I'd had the money, I'd have definitely gotten the M3.

Seriously, effects are the way to go. In your case, playing around with the reverb (even using a different reverb plugin than the one that Kontakt has built in) will make a difference. Here's a great example: Jordan Rudess playing Ra. The low sound that he uses right at the start is a that he's running through four effects. I can't remember which effects, other than EQ, but the point is you can drastically change a sound, for better or worse, with the right combination of effects.For a muted trumpet, definitely play with EQ and reverb, and if you're intending to use it as a trumpet section and not a solo instrument, maybe some chorus.

I got mine, but I'm still working out my Lounge Lizard order with them. I placed it Thursday night, and have sent a number of e-mails trying to work out an issue they had. I ordered the download-only version (why wouldn't I? It's about a 5 MB download), and they're complaining that I either didn't give them a shipping address with PayPal or that it was an unverified address so they won't ship a product. They've been really slow about replying to e-mails on this; I'm going to call them if I haven't heard anything by noon today.

Nice nanoKey; smallest DAW ever. I sold Kore along with its controller to switch to a different but similar piece of software that's much more suited for live performance, and I picked up a nanoKey to replace the Kore Controller (I have all the knobs I really need for live performance on my Korg TR). The nanoKey kind of sucks as a keyboard (though, it's great for being able to go wherever with my laptop and not have to stand beside my keyboards, particularly when I'm working on tweaking synth sounds and need an easy way to hear what I'm doing), but it's also really useful for sending controller messages. I'm definitely happy with it.

Got everything worked out; e-mailing sales was the trick. I also decided to pick up Lounge Lizard; I was blown away by how good it was given the memory footprint. It'll be a nice supplement to the EPs on my Nord Stage, if it doesn't outright replace it.

Was the sender for the download link and serial 'aM', and were they both in the same e-mail? If so, I accidentally deleted it from my spam filter. I did call the store an hour after doing that (somewhere around 4 hours ago, now), and they said they hadn't sent it yet. I'll probably have to call them again tomorrow. Sigh.

How long does it typically take for the serial number to be e-mailed? I ordered within 45 minutes of zircon making the post and still haven't gotten the serial number, though I do have confirmation that it 'shipped'. Maybe because I paid with PayPal, out of my bank account, and it's a Canadian bank?

Please remove Kore and Absynth from the For Sale category, under Computer/Electronic Music

Doesn't look like it, though Kontakt does have an acoustic piano of some sort, just not sampled to the same level as Akoustik Pianos was, I guess.

Yeah, I'm not saying that becoming a good pianist is an easy road - I've put enough time into it myself to know otherwise. I'm just hoping to prevent you from doing things that will be better in the short term but much worse in the long term. As for playing notes in a key, what I meant is that it'll be a lot of work to set up for one E major song that sticks just to the 7 notes in the major scale and another that adds the flat 7th and a third that adds the flat third and so on. I'm saying that there are a lot of simple possibilities that use varied notes - would you want to change MIDI filters for each? What if you had a note filtered out accidentally that you didn't want? You might think you were playing it wrong which might be more confusing.

That's something you can learn to overcome, especially if you're not playing solo so it's not like the sound stops while you recover. You'd be better served spending time trying to acquire that skill, and just improve as a player in general, than coming up with complicated shortcuts. Also, what happens when you intentionally want to play notes that aren't in the key? Limiting yourself to, say, the notes in a major scale can only get you so far.

I don't even see the point while typing. For recording MIDI though, there's no value you get out of doing this. If you hit a wrong note, you can edit it in the piano roll later.

Just ordered it today at the upgrade from Kontakt 3 pricing. The better versions of Absynth and Kontakt will be worth it, and I'll probably be able to use Massive and Guitar Rig as well; I especially want to start using the looper in guitar rig for live performance stuff.

I also put them up on Craigslist as well and someone was asking me about the formats. I'll edit the post above momentarily to keep it easy. Basically, other than the Celtic one, there are programs for some samplers; if you've got something like Kontakt, it'll work easily with all of them. If you're interested in getting the lot, let me know; I'd rather sell all of them to someone on OCRemix than to someone else, plus it's more convenient not to go piece-by-piece.

A bunch of updates from me, all under For Sale. Changes :::pc::: StarCraft Battlechest (full box & manuals): $20 (includes shipping) [kanthos] Oblivion + Knights of the Nine disc (all downloadable content) + Shivering Isles expansion (discs in third-party cases only, no manuals/boxes/official cases) + Strategy Guide: $25 (includes shipping) [kanthos] King's Quest I-VII package (2 CDs in official case; manual is in PDF format and contains codes for all KQ games that need them): $10 (includes shipping) [kanthos] :::gb/gba::: Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (cartridge only, perfect condition) - $10 (includes shipping) [kanthos] :::computer/music electronic stuff::: Line6 PodXT with FX Junkie expansion pack and FBV Express foot controller: $275 + s/h [kanthos] Removals :::gb/gba::: Blackthorne Final Fantasy VI Advance Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past/4 Swords Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap :::wii::: Smash Brothers Brawl :::ps1::: Chrono Cross Final Fantasy IX :::books::: java books (o'reilly): java network programming swing hacks :::computer/music electronic stuff::: Native Instruments Pro-53 Additions :::computer/music electronic stuff::: Native Instruments Kore (CDs in case + manual): $200 for software only, $250 + s/h with Kore Controller [kanthos] Native Instruments Absynth 4 (was downloaded: you get the serial number and can download it yourself): $75 [kanthos] Arturia Prophet V (CDs in case + manual + Syncrosoft USB key): $100 [kanthos] Sample CDs (all in original cases except the IK Multimedia Capsules) - $10 each, $80 for the lot (includes shipping) IK Multimedia/Sonic Reality Studio Drums Capsule - AIFF/Battery/EXS24/HALion/Kontakt/Reason NN-XT IK Multimedia/Sonic Reality Bass Guitars Capsule - AIFF/EXS24/HALion/Kontakt/Reason NN-XT IK Multimedia/Sonic Reality Electric Guitars Capsule - AIFF/EXS24/HALion/Kontakt/Reason NN-XT IK Multimedia/Sonic Reality Acoustic Guitars Capsule - AIFF/EXS24/HALion/Kontakt/Reason NN-XT Quantum Leap Rare Instruments - Gigastudio Zero G Harmonica: The Definitive Harmonica Sample Collection - Audio/WAV/ACID/HALion/EXS24

I paid $2,800 CDN when I bought it. Due to the economy, prices have gone up in Canada for virtually all music gear this year, plus they released a newer version with double the sample memory. It'd be $3,270 CDN to buy it now. The only way I could afford it was that I lost vacation time when switching jobs last year, and the vacation pay they owed me covered most of the price. The Korg I got free by trading in the sax I never play anymore.