Moseph

chthonic -- He's not the goddamn Batman

At least in terms of facial expression, I pretty much look like my avatar IRL.

Honestly, for RAM, unless you're doing really hardcore stuff like loading large sample libraries for a full orchestra, 4 GB is probably enough. You could probably also get away with an i5 instead of an i7 if you're trying to really cut the price.

I built an i7-860 with 8 GB RAM and a 1 TB drive (but no external drive) (EDIT: also w/o monitor) for just over $900. If they want $3400 for that, they're ripping you off.

Recently realized for orchestra stuff that I was panning things way too widely (as compared to live recordings). My approach now is to keep panning things wide but squeeze the stereo image with a stereo manipulator thingy on the master channel, which makes controlling the overall spread easier than it would be if I had to adjust twenty to thirty individual pan faders every time I wanted to try a wider or narrower stereo image.

Given the clear dominant to tonic motion, there should be an E major key signature. Faaaail.

It might save RAM if you minimize the number of Kompakt instances that are running, but that's about it.

I dunno. I don't use Kontakt/Kompakt or FL. It may be an input/output routing issue. Things in the second Kontakt slot may read MIDI input from MIDI channel 2, in which case you would have to create a MIDI track in FL that outputs on MIDI channel 2 to the VST. You might also need a synth track in FL that takes its input from whichever of the VST's outputs the second slot feeds through. Sorry I can't be more specific, but I don't know exactly how the signal routing in Kontakt and FL is set up. Nothing necessarily wrong with multiple instances of the sampler, though. My VSL orchestra template has over forty instances of the VSL sampler running. EDIT: There's also a possibility that the Kontakt/Kompakt sampler has only one stereo output and the second slot is used for stacking instruments to be accessed via keyswitch and not for playing multiple instruments separately. This is how the VSL sampler is set up, so you have to use different instances for different instruments.

I assume when you're talking about grouping, you're talking about combining instruments using submaster channels or something of the sort? If you group, group by type, generally. I usually create submaster channels for winds, brass, strings, and percussion. You might find that it makes levels and shared effects a little bit easier to control, or you might find that it's a waste of time. The kind of processing to use depends entirely on what kind of sound you're going for. Orchestra samples usually sound pretty good with just reverb, but if you're combining the orchestra with hip-hop, you might want some compression on certain instruments to help them cut through the mix. Normally, you shouldn't need heavy EQ on orchestra samples, but you might need it mixing with hip-hop depending on how you want things to fit together. Panning is also something to consider. I think the EWQL samples are pre-panned to orchestra position by default. Normally when doing orchestra mixing, you'd want things to reflect the instrument positioning of a real orchestra, but since you're doing a hybrid of sorts, there might be reason to pan things differently. (Like you might want to put cellos and basses in the middle to match the default electric bass position instead of off to the right like a standard orchestra.)

Actually, this gets asked frequently enough that it should probably be mentioned in the site FAQ or on the download pages themselves.

From what I've seen, they've been specifically avoiding putting Hollywood Strings on sale. I'm pretty sure it's been excluded from the general discounts they've had since it was released.

EWQL has released a stripped-down version of Hollywood Strings for $795 (as opposed to the full version's $1495). This is mostly just a heads-up to anyone interested, I guess, although if you happen to have used Hollywood Strings, do share your opinion of it. I'm thinking about getting a new strings library, although HS Gold may still be a bit beyond my budget.

I'm no longer sure exactly what everyone's talking about. To be more specific, I'm talking about Sonar's Fit Improvisation feature which lets you record a click track by hitting a key on the MIDI keyboard over and over again to mark the beat. Sonar then uses the MIDI track you recorded to generate an automated tempo for the project, so the actual click track for the project will reflect the tempo changes that you entered with the MIDI keyboard. The result of this process can also be edited manually, since it just shows up as tempo automation in the tempo view.

That's ... pretty much what I was going to recommend doing (I've done this before for an entire orchestra; yes, it's a pain). One thing that may help a lot: I don't know if FL has this feature, but some DAWs let you record a tempo track with MIDI input and then sync the project to that tempo track, which basically lets you "perform" the tempo and then apply that performance to the whole project. On occasion, I've gone as far as to videotape myself conducting the piece and then base the tempo track on the conducting video. It's extremely helpful for humanization. Also, for workflow in general, I only begin with a sheet music program if I know that I'll need sheet music for the piece sometime in the future. I find that it's much easier and quicker to get the humanization and samples working properly when I write in a piano roll view instead of importing from Finale.

Having you tried increasing the latency?

It just sounds like ooh and aah samples at low velocities processed to sound far away. I'd be very surprised if EWQL Choirs can't achieve that sound. (I have EWQL Choirs, too. If you want, I can see if I can recreate the sound with it.)

Listening to Ke$ha's semi-pitched stuff (e.g. the verses of Your Love Is My Drug) reminded me of .Sprechstimme, anyone?

For the variable named path, hit edit (as shown in the link). The box that comes up will have a string of filepaths in the "variable value" field. For example, my computer has this string: c:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\ProgramData\East West\playgui This is a bunch of folders' filepaths separated by semicolons (. Windows will look in the folders specified by these paths for programs that can be executed. Any program that Windows finds in these folders can be accessed at the DOS prompt or in a batch file by simply referencing the filename for the program (minus extension) without giving the complete path. Say I want to use this method to access the program Firefox that is located at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe I would add the path of the folder that contains firefox.exe to the end of the list, separated by a semicolon. The modified value for the path variable would then read: c:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\ProgramData\East West\playgui;C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox I can confirm that the change has taken effect by okaying the open boxes and then running cmd.exe. (In XP: Start > Run ... > cmd.exe. In 7: Start > Search Programs and Files > cmd.exe.) This brings up the DOS prompt. When I type firefox and hit enter, it launches the browser just as if I had opened it from the desktop, confirming that the change worked. If I had tried this DOS command before changing the path variable, it would have given me the error message that you encountered. To do this for your FLAC stuff, you'll need to locate flac.exe and win2dos.exe and add the path(s) of the folder(s) that contain them to the string in the path variable. If you're concerned about screwing something up, you can copy/paste your current path variable into a text file and save it to make a backup that can be pasted back into the variable field if the need arises. Basically, you just don't want to delete anything that's already there.

You might have to add win2dos and flac as path variables in Windows. This would let you run the programs from the DOS prompt (or whatever batch file you're using) by specifying the names only without the entire filepaths. How to do it in XP, or Google for more detailed info. Alternately, you could edit the batch file to include the entire filepaths of the programs instead of just the program names. EDIT: In case it wasn't clear from my post, the problem is that Windows doesn't know where the win2dos and flac programs are located, and the batch file isn't telling Windows where they are because the batch file references only the names of the programs and not their entire filepaths. So you have to tell Windows where the programs are either by setting the programs as path variables or by replacing the programs' names in the batch file with their complete filepaths. (I'm assuming you downloaded the batch file from the internet -- the reason it doesn't contain the complete filepaths is that the programs are in different places on every computer, so every user would have to edit the batch file with the correct filepaths anyway. And it's also cleaner and simpler just to type the program name instead of the entire filepath every time you want to invoke the program, which is what setting the path variables lets you do.)

No. Using ReMixes for profit is against OCR's terms of service. If you're talking about remixes/arrangements/covers in general and not OCR, then yes, but you have to license the music and pay royalties. Originals, you can do whatever you want.

Sustaining a note with the pedal and dragging the note to be longer in the piano roll editor are not the same thing as far as MIDI is concerned. When you drag the note to make it longer, you're affecting the duration of the note (the MIDI data tells the VST, "This note is now longer"). When you use the pedal, pedal down and pedal up events are transmitted on one of the control channels (the MIDI data tells the VST, "The pedal is down, and now it's up"). As far as I know, recording pedaling never affects actual note duration in the piano roll -- just the pedal events, which the VST then interprets as an instruction to sustain the note beyond its written length. Most VSTs should still layer the same pitch as long as the pedal is down even if they aren't overlapped in the piano roll, though. Is it possible that you had some option set in FL or the VST previously that affected how pedaling is recorded? If you want to play around with manually inputting pedal data to see if that can give any insight into the problem, the pedal is recorded on MIDI control channel 64. EDIT: I remember that GarretGraves had trouble figuring out how to access the MIDI control channels in FL Studio. Is it possible that FL simply isn't recording the pedal at all? Can someone who uses FL (I don't) comment on how this works in FL?

If Michael Jackson had been a painter, he'd have been better than Rembrandt.

You had the level sufficiently lowered inside the Kore player (i.e. the plugin's output level) in addition to having proper FL track level and master level, right? The only thing I can think of that would make it clip like that is if Kore's output was set too high. If Kore's output was so high it was clipping, lowering the track level and master level in FL wouldn't do anything -- it would just give you a quieter clipped signal like you described.

Now that's definitely weird. Since installing the interface, have you tried going back to the internal soundcard to see if that's still okay or if it now clips, too? EDIT: Posted before you edited. At least having clipping in the rendered mp3 means that the signal chain hasn't stopped making sense. Can you post an example that contains the clipping?

If other programs work properly and it still clips in FL when you lower the master toward nothing, it sounds like the problem is something internal to FL. The fact that the clipping continues when you bring the master down indicates that the clipping is occurring before the signal reaches the master.