Moseph

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And I think Stormdrum 2's Black Kit is taken from Ministry of Rock, so that's another reason not to get Ministry of Rock if you only want the drums and are trying to reduce redundancy. (And yes, it IS definitely a great drumkit.)

You only use one iLok. The license resides on the iLok. The software can be installed on any computer but it won't run unless the iLok is in the computer's USB port. So you could install on both your desktop and laptop and move the iLok around as needed. (Obviously this means that you can't run the software simultaneously on both computers.)

Was just looking at the Garritan site to see if they had info on their sampler's features, and it mentions that GPO4 has a legato mode that is triggered with the footpedal (CC 64).

Attack time and velocity aren't the same things -- I'm not familiar with Garritan, so I'm only assuming it has the option to change attack time. Usually there will be a knob labeled "attack," and increasing the value will increase the amount of time it takes for the sound to reach its full level. (Whereas velocity controls how loud the sound is overall and/or what version of the sample is played.)

If it's a polyphonic patch, overlapping the note durations will probably help. Depending on what kind of instrument it is, it might also sound good if you give both a slow attack and a slow release when you overlap so the notes blend more -- this will probably mean that the notes won't line up with the tempo grid, though, so use your ears to figure out where the notes should be placed. Doing this should work especially well for strings.

(soft)---->(loud) kazoo---->violin---->trombone---->pipe organ---->couple o' trumpets---->rocket launch---->lots o' trumpets Please note that this list is not exhaustive.

If you mic stuff, it ceases to be an issue. In live performance for the cases you cite, I'm pretty sure there would be amplification. EDIT: IMO, the only circumstances in which "authentic" level balance is really a considerable issue are those of ensembles that are traditionally unamplified such as orchestras, string quartets, etc. and those of ad hoc ensembles in live performance situations for which amplification is not available or not desired. But the cases you cite don't fall into either of these categories. For ad hoc ensembles in recording studio or sampled situations, anything goes as long as it sounds good.

I've been using an external LaCie drive for several years with no problems, first as a sample drive and now as a backup drive.

I told Facebook a month or so ago that I work for Aperture Science, and this makes my day.

Technological advances have improved everything. To the extent that people are making music without knowing anything about music, it's because the technology has made music accessible to them in a way that it never was before. That's a good thing. People should be encouraged to be musicians even if they lack formal training. If the objection is that technology is hindering people's creativity, that's really a problem with self-discipline and/or education rather than technology per se. There will always be the means to cut corners and write mediocre music rather than excellent music regardless of what the level of technology is, even if those means are as simple as repeating a phrase when you ought to have varied it or using a piano when you ought to have heard things in your head. That project managers have high expectations for demos and mockups is, in my view, not a problem at all. The reason that mockups and demos have traditionally been stripped to the bare minimum is that the means of doing anything more complicated weren't available. The means are now available, and its not unreasonable to expect people to use them. One of the things, in fact, that I don't like about composition programs in academia is that so many of the old guard composers have no idea how to do decent mockup recordings, have no interest in learning, and can't teach students how to do them.

Sounds like a driver sharing problem. Cubase wants exclusive control over your audio drivers, so anything else such as WinAmp that tries to use the drivers gets messed up. You should try to avoid running other programs that want to play sounds while Cubase is open. I'm not familiar with Cubase, but it might have an "allow other programs to access audio drivers" option or something like that (Sonar does, in any event). If it has such an option and you enable it, you may see an increase in latency but it should allow you to have WinAmp open along with Cubase.

I assume Cubase has a realtime export option where it will actually play through the music as it saves to disk. Try turning that on and see if it exports correctly.

I don't know if this is the problem you're having or not, but with Sonar and possibly with other DAWs, Glitch by default will just automatically cycle through the effects you set up and won't follow the sequencer playback -- if this happens, you need to go into the DAW's VST setup options and set Glitch as a tempo-based effect to make it work properly.

Yeah, I don't know if it's Glitch specifically that the track uses, but Glitch can certainly do those things. Definitely download it.

Wrestling with freaking Sonar and its borked automation curves.

If you're looking for a more distinct attack, a 15ms attack on the compressor is too fast. Dial that up a bit and you should hear the bass's attack start to come out before the compressor clamps down on it.

Example link doesn't work for me.

I don't know that this helps at all, but I have on occasion zoomed in to sample level to try and fix pops that I could see in the waveform, and the pops remain even after the waveform has been smoothed. So it goes both ways, at least.

If the software still interests you, the non-pro version is available for free to registered VSL users, but it can only host VSL instruments. (See feature comparison here.) In addition to that restriction, it lacks the network capabilities, plugin support, and freebie samples of the Pro version. Note that NONE of the versions come with the MIR Pro impulse reverb that is used in that Youtube video. MIR sells by itself and is extremely expensive. Seriously, it's a glorified mixing console. You have a mixing console in your DAW already. The Pro version is for people who need to network several machines. The free version is to make managing large VSL projects slightly more convenient (which I know because I use it). If you don't need to network machines and you don't have a bunch of VSL libraries, this software is useless to you.

What Dan said. You do not need this. Granted, the description says it comes with 9 GB of orchestral samples as a freebie, but that's not a lot. VSL Special Edition is something like 50 GB.

Right, but my point is that it's not necessary to learn to play an instrument in order to write for it. It's much more time-efficient to write the music, run it by a pianist, and then revise it based on the feedback you get. Rinse, repeat on future arrangements, and you'll get more and more comfortable with how piano arranging works. That said, I definitely agree that learning to play the piano at least on a basic level is probably worth the time investment for any musician.

I'm going to contradict what several people have said and say that if you can't play piano, buying a MIDI controller may not help much in creating performable piano music. You'll be able to see what fits under the hand with a MIDI controller, yes, but you'll still have questions about how complicated things can get before a competent pianist is unable to play them. These questions cannot be answered by playing around with a keyboard -- you either need to be able to play proficiently or to understand what is entailed in playing proficiently. The easiest thing to do would be to write what you want and then post the MIDI file/sheet music and ask pianists to comment on its playability and make suggestions. It's only by discussing your actual music with an actual pianist (and ideally hearing that pianist play the music) that you'll come to understand what does and doesn't work well. Some general pointers: Remember that the pianist has only two hands. For each note you write, you should know what hand will play it and should make sure it can be reached in the context of the other notes that the hand is playing. Simultaneous notes in a single hand should generally be kept within the span of a ninth to make sure all the keys can be reached (unless you're writing for someone whom you know has larger hands). Pretty much any single-voice line is playable in a single hand. The faster and jumpier it gets, though, the more difficult it will become to play. Large leaps are only a problem when they involve a lot of notes at a high speed. Even then, most things won't be strictly unplayable -- just really awkward. Parallel octaves in a single hand are difficult to play accurately at high speeds (e.g. a fast melody doubled at the octave). Remember that pedaling can be used to sustain notes and build fuller textures. EDIT: If you can put a link to the MIDI file in your WIP thread, I'd be happy to take a look at it. EDIT 2: If if makes you feel any more confident, I've seen orchestral piano parts that are unplayable. It's an issue that even professional arrangers sometimes struggle with.

GlovePIE can reinterpret pretty much any type of input as any other type of input. I use a Wiimote as a MIDI controller, for example.