dannthr

I own GR2, I use it as a VSTi, it's recommended by the manual to use as a VSTi in SONAR. Cheers,

Some FX plug-ins which utilize automatable MIDI data are used as VSTi's The "i" is, I believe, for "instrument." Guitar Rig 2 is meant to be used as a VSTi

I believe there is, but I have no direct experience with Silver. I do, however, have Gold and Gold XP, and I have to say that I would probably not know any better if all I had was Gold, but that having had Gold XP, I would never go back. Additionally, I just installed the Westgate Studio bundle and it gives me the flippin' shivers! Excellent stuff.

If you want something a bit cheap, the Garritan Orchestral Strings, which is just the String section, is selling for $200 or less and has been used in Warcraft III, Monk, Sum of all Fears, Icewind Dale, and many other big name productions: http://www.garritan.com/mp3_1.html They have a nice tone.

I agree with DarkeSword. I'd go further and say that you should require yourself to not just learn basic music theory, but also to ANALYZE the artists you like and EMULATE songs you like. When I started out producing electronic music with my Roland 7++ years ago, I had some advice from a JVXP mailing group that basically told me to try to emulate the sounds I heard of artists I liked with my equipment. When I could do that, then I would have mastered my equipment. That's your goal, to master your equipment. Not just in useability, but in your mind, in the way you conceive your workflow. You should be able to make any sound you desire with your equipment, and if you can't, you should learn how. Then, when you want to make music, it's EASY to translate what's in your head to what other people will hear. Music theory is only one of many vital implementation devices you need to have in order to execute this thing we call music.

Max, what PLANET do you come from? If it sounds good on $5 radioshack headphones it sounds good on $5 radioshack headphones. Period. But what you should realize is that nothing sounds good on $5 radioshack headphones. What happens when you mix/master on $5 radioshack headphones, at best it will sound like they sound on $5 radioshack headphones on $500 Grados. So someone who listens to music on $500 Grados will listen to all of their music and hear that it sounds good like they're on $500 Grados and then will listen to your tune and think it sounds like they're listening on $5 radioshacks. That's best case scenario. Worst case scenario is that it sounds worse than $5 radioshacks on $500 Grados because you mixed on phones that don't actually have a full, even frequency response and you get maddening holes in your mix where sound is dampened unnaturally or even sounding. There are sounds that $5 radioshacks CAN NOT reproduce. Period.

I was once able to locate service pack 2 as a redistributable on the MS website, I just tried to find it and had a little trouble--but that's the way to go.

God, I love seeing some dude wail on a keytar in a metal band. Candy red too! It sounds like a saw wave with a square envelope. It also has a dramatic pitch bend range and it also is a solo patch with a quick portamento setting. There are ways to get that fatter sound depending on the way you can route your wave forms (to get harmonics and octaves) and also combining different waves with different Lo or Hi pass filters. If your synth archetecture in whatever you're using lets you do these things, then I would suggest fiddling around with it more with some direction from other users--sometimes the best way to become familiar with your equipment is to emulate what you hear with it using only your own gut as guidance. You learn a lot when you do it like that.

at Vince Clarke's studio, apparently he's selling the lot: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Vince-Clarke-Studio-For-Sale I don't know what order everything is going to be sold in, but if he's selling the actual building, man, I'd like to get my hands on that dome. One item that might catch peoples' sentimental eyes would be the Fairlight C.M.I. which is basically the original sampler. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr99/articles/fairlight.htm Cheers,

You're not ready. I'm telling you that you're not ready because I've looked at your work--what you've created so-far--and I know, because I've been there before. So even though I'm telling you now that you're not ready, I'm also wishing you good luck on your project. Not luck in success of your project, because it won't be a success, but luck for what you'll learn on the way. Never let anyone stop you from being driven and never stop biting off more than you can chew. Just, try not to let anyone down, especially your team members. They're your crew--your family--your brothers in arms. Because of this, never promise anyone the success you hope to achieve, their reward is the experience. Yes experience in the way we think of having learned something, but also in a profound sense. The experience of the process, the experience of the creative interaction. Respect of this experience and of your team members is fundamental. Therefore it is vital that you do not use your brothers needlessly. Do not ask them to raise money for your project. Do not ask them to raise money for your project. Respect them as individual artists without whose creativity the project would not fluorish. Do not make mass appeals for dozens of artists to raise money for your project--this is not respect. Animation is an expensive and time consuming process. I know this because I've done it and because I have friends who do it (some for a living). You will spend your first 10 hours of animation producing less than 15 seconds of a scene. It will suck. It will suck and you will be proud of it because you will have finally realized the accomplishment of something so small. That is the experience. That is what you achieve. Good luck,

No worries, man. A KeySwitch or a KS (as it's sometimes termed on a file name) is a patch that contains multiple articulations that can be switched to and from by using keys on the piano--often times they're keys which are outside of the range of the instrument. This way the articulation switching can occur in real time and it allows live performance of more complex instruments on the keyboard. So the shakuhachi flute patch might have a few different breath types or effects--or say a violin patch might contain pizz, stac, legato, portamento, etc articulations all in one--then you can use key presses outside the range of the violin to change from one articulation to the next. I usually don't like Keyswitches because it muddles up my notation--but that's just me being nitpicky.

I like RA, I find that I tend to use it in a lot of stuff to throw some spice into the mix. The duduks and shakuhachi are definitely worth the price. Their stringed instruments take more work. Their plucked and wind instruments are definitely good. Their drums are okay. Their taiko isn't worth it. I defer to my previous post for the taiko. http://www.dannthr.com/samples/sketches/shakuhachi_sketch.mp3 This is a piece I did with the shakuhachi keyswitch, improvised in real-time, the piano is from EWQL SO Gold XP's Steinway B.

PMI's Black Grand retails at $140 which is a pretty fair offering--they sell a Close Mic'd Version for $50 which isn't bad if you have some convolution/IR to work with... it could be quite convincing. Similarly, they have a Medium distanced mic version for the same price.

That is a tall order. You're not just asking for a passable piano sound, you want the absolute most realistic (without actually owning a real piano--I assume that's the ommitted ending of this clause). At the moment, this guy is one of the top contenders: Galaxy II Grand Piano Collection It comes in three flavors: Steinway D 96 Key Bosendorfer (that's a monster) Vintage Bluethner (of the demos, this is my favorite, and if they offered this piano at 1/3 of the price of the whole package, it'd be in my hands right now) For a classical pianist, I doubt you'd ask for much more. When you get really insane you can look at Quantum Leap Pianos when it releases (insane, obscene library sizes--about 30GB per Piano). What's interesting about the approach they claim to have used for QL Pianos (which isn't out and no demos currently exist save for an obscure MusikMesse video) is one which senses real-time repetitions to properly or realistically simulate the hammer being stopped before it goes all the way back. They're definitely trying hard to create an "as realistic as possible" piano experience--though I wonder if it's worth the trouble... probably. EDIT: oops, under estimated their library size--60GB per piano--that's enough to make your head explode twice!

Good find, Hy Bound--just keep in mind that EW doesn't allow License Transfers on their products. But hopefully you won't run into any trouble. As I suspected, Tsaiko Drums is now on sale through Halloween and anyone who buys it before the end of the sale (and subsequently the end of the introductory pricing) will get their Tsaiko Expander for free which will include all sorts of cool taiko related stuff: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2779508 For anyone who doesn't know, I did a demo for them because I was one of the first to get their library and I am just a flippin' nut for taiko drums: http://www.seanbeeson.com/Tsaiko/Demos/tsaiko_demo_6.mp3 It's in the style of Joji Hirota

It is a bit mysterious. Just in time for Halloween!

Their vocal removal tool has some demos applied to real life songs--as you can hear there's a ghost of a vocal remaining, it's not perfect, but it cuts out most of what's there.

No, I haven't used it, I actually went to the iZotope website because I had recently seen a video of their audio restoration software (iZotope Rx) and it had this one example of some incredible noise removal and I thought it might be used to remove vocals, but when I got to their site I noticed that they had a vocal remover. Obviously the presence of the vocals, in their audio remover example couldn't get rid of everything, but I don't think they work on the same stereo premise--they have a different way of approaching audio editing. Watch the video, their spectral repair segment, at the end, is brilliant: http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/rx/Player.swf They seem to have a very innovative method of isolating sound. - Dan

http://www.izotope.com/tech/vocalremover/ Izotope is a good company, they have made some really cool products--not cheap though...

Yeah, or buy Platinum Pro XP with the close mics, yo! I'd like to add that EWQL has a very strong forum community but not the best customer service though Doug Rogers and Nick Pheonix post regularly.

SONAR's workflow isn't that different, really. They just separate the up/down movement of a note from the left/right so if you click on the far left side then you can slide it left or right and if you click in the middle you can slide up or down. Every time you move it to a new note it auditions the note at the notes native velocity. Additionally, if you hold down leftclick when you place a note you can move it in the x or y directions with the mouse to place it exactly where you need. you can select all of the notes and do mass velocity changes by sliding the velocity up or down or obviously you can draw in a velocity line/curve. Right click brings up finite note properties so you can edit everything the note to precision with a single click. Similarly, SONAR has quantization toggles. The only time you have to change a tool is if you want to expand a selection box around a specific region in the roll bar or if you want to erase a note quickly. Your default note size can be selected or it can be the same as the last note you edited--same with velocity. Additionally, you can audition on the piano roll and in SONAR 7 (I have 5) I think you can hear different velocity auditions depending on how far left or right you click on the piano roll (like in K2). You can do relative velocity offsets as well. Seriously, that's just general sequencing stuff--if your sequencer doesn't do that it isn't any good.

Yeah, Will's library seems really nice--though I'm saving up for Flying Hand Percussion as I've already got SD 1 and I'm really intrigued by SD 2's promise of an 80ft bridge. If you're looking for Taiko drums, though, I know that Sean Beeson's Tsaiko Drums is going to go on sale soon with the promise of some expansion stuff--and it's probably the best Taiko drum library I've ever used. It has the range of the big hollywood drums and the nuance of the more organic real taiko drum. Really solid stuff!

I know there's a bunch of bass players on this forum, so you all can go somewhere else because this is for the bass deficient! Scarbee announced a 33% off sale recently and I couldn't resist buying Black Bass which is a K2.2.3 sample bass library programmed by legendary Kontakt script-o-matic, Nils Liberg (sp?) and let me just say: It's flippin' awesome! It has some of the absolute best programming I've ever seen for a bass/guitar/anything library yet! It's all placed on a single, compact keyswitch instrument. Which at first makes you think, damn, why do I need another keyswitch instrument? Well, I wish all guitar libraries were programmed like this! Basically, the library keeps track of one major thing--automatically or by user control--the hand position. From the hand position, it tries to play whatever note you want it to play within the reach of the hand, and if it can't reach the note, it'll move the hand. Above the sampled keyrange are keyswitches to move the hand manually, letting you fine tune your control over which notes are played on which strings. I plugged in some tabs from portrait of tracy and it worked like a charm. There are also keyswitches which will let you play a note on a specific string if you so desire (if you don't want it to automatically determine which string) and legato (hammer on/pull offs and portamento) is controlled by overlapping same string notes or using the sustain pedal respectively. The library is made for live play being a straight up keyswitch instrument so there are a bunch of keyswitches that initiate some kind of articulation change for one note before switching back or for some notes depending. Like trills, which will make the next note a trill and then automatically switch back so you can keep playing. Or they have an extended hammer on/pull off keyswitch that makes every note you play a hammer on (if possible) while you hold it down. I say if possible because if you switch strings, it won't work, which is actually good for most people since the idea is to try to get as realistic a performance as possible. If the hand position is automatically moved, or if you manually move the hand position, it'll make a little fret noise, which is a great effect. Additionally, harmonics are all controlled by attempting a harmonic on the low, low 1-14 velocity range. What that means is that you can try to do harmonics on every string and on every fret (which is determined by the hand range or if you're manually controlling the string) and if there's a harmonic on that fret, on that string, then it'll play, and if not you'll get that little dull string pluck noise you'd normally get if you tried to play harmonics on a fret that doesn't make one. They also have grace notes which are made by hitting two notes next to eachother one immediately after the other. They also have all these interface features that let you fine-tune the instrument like a 3-band EQ and controlling how "sloppy" the virtual player is and the release of the notes, etc. In short, they sampled almost EVERYTHING! With all these new proprietary samplers coming out, it definitely reminds you of how awesome Kontakt can be if people put the work into it. What I didn't like? They didn't use aftertouch, I know a lot of keyboards don't support it, but despite how clumsy Prominy's programming is, the fact that I can get a vibrato with aftertouch is awesome--I wish I could do that with Black Bass. There aren't (m)any FX, not that I need them, I own QL HardCore Bass XP, but all it has is a little fret slap--which I'm sure comes in handy, but I haven't seen myself using yet. They do have random pickup noises and the frequency of those can be controlled with a knob in the interface, but sometimes you like to dirty up your compos. Additionally, the Jaco piece asked for some harmonics that weren't created from an open string, that I couldn't seem to do--I needed an Eb harmonic and I couldn't create one without doing that, so I just went with a D harmonic. Nonetheless, it offers A LOT for its current sale price of $67, so I'm very pleased with my purchase, extremely pleased. It gets a thumbs up from me, if you care. So now I'll just leave you with a little transcription I made last night made from some guitar tabs of the opening to Portrait of Tracy with Black Bass and Guitar Rig 2 for some extra drive and some amp "air" : http://www.dannthr.com/music/tests/black_bass_jppot.mp3 Cheers, EDIT: Here's a revision with no FX applied except some normalization in soundforge: http://dannthr.com/music/tests/bb_jppot.mp3 I'm looking into a hurdle I've run into that has more to do with Jaco being super advanced...

Yeah, go with Silver and then suppliment later on with solo instruments from places like westgatestudios--that way you can have that one instrument that sounds really good and really stands out

Had to throw this down here: Scarbee is having a 33% off sale on all their products until the 19th of October--I just ordered a copy of Black Bass. They also have a new Bass vi based on their Slap 'n' Fingered bass library with the sick BB nils k2 scripting called Red Bass--a little out of my price range for a sampled bass library, but pretty impressive for the price: http://www.scarbee-shop.com/ Seriously, some of the best legato electric bass programming around! Cheers,