Bitten by Snow Leopard?

So on October 7th at 10:30pm, I decided to take the plunge and upgrade to Snow Leopard.

Now there was no uber-compelling reason to do this. Granted I was curious about the reports of “snappier” system response times (true), and really curious about Grand Central, but there was no “gotta have” things in the new system that couldn’t wait a couple of months.

But I did it anyway. I took some precautions: upgraded software where I could, cleaned up the hard drives, etc. As far as software goes, things went pretty smoothly. Of the 350+ AU plug-ins I have only 14 did not pass AU validation with LOGIC. (And no, I am not insane; a number of those are demos and freeware…Ah who am I kidding.) Updating key software apps like CarbonCopyCloner really helped to keep things smooth. Yep. This upgrade stuff was pretty easy…

Surprised by Sonnet?

Except that none of my external SATA drives (you know, the ones with my samples, sounds, and patches) would mount on the desktop.

After MUCH investigation, I figured out that Sonnet’s Tempo SATA E2P card is NOT Snow Leopard compatible.

Here at last...

Propellerheads released RECORD today. They are going to make a metric ton of money with this I think. Maybe a ton plus: It’s listed as a $149 upgrade NOT the $129 price quoted everywhere. Factor in $20 shipping to the US, and that’s $169 out of the door. On the plus side: The box set includes an upgrade to REASON4 for owners of REASON versions 1 – 3 and that’s a helluva deal for those folks. But if you have REASON4 already, it’s just an extra $20 for naught.

I’ve really got to give it to the Props: They know how to make a helluva product trailer.

Coming soon. Check out the video previews...

…pretty cool. (Check it out here.) I’ve only spent an hour with it. Quick first impressions before I get off to work:

• Pretty easy to figure out what’s going on — especially if you watch the intro videos on the website
• I was hoping the “german engineers” alluded to in the adverts were emagic alumnus. If the interface is a hint, it looks like they are folks from the old Cubase/Nuendo crowd.
• The interface is cold, very monochromatic.
• Assigning controllers is dead simple.
• I experienced a few odd crashes. (More on that in a bit.)
• From what I can tell, automation is all breakpoints, no bezier curves or things like that.
• It has a nice approach on workflow (based on the little bit I’ve played around with)

(To be continued…)

This is a 'key' purchase. Get it? Key? You know 'Key' as in Key....

I’m a big fan of Waldorf gear.

I own a MicroWave II and a MicroQ (yet I STILL troll around on eBay for a MicroWaveXT and a plain old Q). My current studio set up is not really optimized for using them easily in compositions — my mixer/ergonomic set-up for using actual gear “has issues” at the moment — but the MWII and microQ are a blast.

Waldorf released the Blofeld in the last year or two. Interesting, but something about it said “cheap” to me (stereo outs only might have had something to do with that). Probably unfair. In any case, Waldorf announced the Largo some months back and this promised to be the Waldorf experience on (virtual) steroids.

Having messed around with it for an hour or so, I’d say it is.

General Features

• up to 256 voices per instance (depending on available CPU power)
• up to 4 layers per sound
• 4 stereo outputs (alternatively 1 stereo sum)
• host automation of almost all parameters
• MIDI Controller automation of the most important parameters

Per Voice

• 5 Oscillators
  • 3 Main Oscillators
  • 2 Sub Oscillators
• Virtual Analog Models:
  • Pulse with Pulse Width Modulation
  • Sawtooth
  • Triangle
  • Sine
• Wavetables:
  • 68 wavetables taken from the legendary Microwave and Wave synthesizer as also Q and Blofeld wavetables
• Frequency Modulation between Oscillators and Noise Generator
• Oscillator Synchronization
• Ring Modulator for Osc 1 / 2
• Noise Generator with Noise Colour
• 2 independent Multi Mode Filters
  • Filter FM
  • Resonance up to Self-Oscillation
  • Low Pass 24 dB / 12 dB
  • Band Pass 24 dB / 12 dB
  • High Pass 24 dB / 12 dB
  • Notch 24 dB / 12 dB
  • Comb Filter with positive / negative Feedback
• 2 Drive Stages per voice with adjustable Drive Gain and selectable Curves
  • Clip
  • Hard
  • Medium
  • Soft
  • Sine Shaper
    and more
• Modulation Matrix with 16 Slots, freely programmable
• Modulation Speed far into Audio Range
• Modulation Sources include all internal Modulation Sources plus various MIDI messages
• Modulation Destinations for almost all continuous sound parameters
• various pre-routed Modulation Destinations with selectable Sources
  • Pitch Modulation
  • Oscillator 1 / 2 / 3 Frequency Modulation
  • Oscillator 1 / 2 / 3 Pulse Width Modulation
  • Filter 1 / 2 Cutoff Modulation
  • Filter 1 / 2 Frequency Modulation
  • Pan 1 / 2 Modulation
  • Amp Modulation
• 4 Modifiers for transforming Modulation Sources with various Algorithms
• 3 fast LFOs
  • syncable to MIDI Clock
  • Note Retrigger with adjustable Start Phase
  • monophonic LFO
  • Keytrack
  • freely drawable LFO waveform with 16 steps (only LFO3)
• 4 fast Envelopes with selectable types
  • Single Trigger / Retrigger per Envelope
  • ADSR
  • ADS1DS2R (2 Decay/Sustain stages plus adjustable Attack Level)
  • One Shot
  • Loop S1S2 (Loop between Sustain 1 and 2)
  • Loop All (Loop over all stages)
• Poly, Mono, Dual or Unisono Mode with selectable Voice Count, Unisono Detune and Stereo Spread

Per Layer

• powerful Arpeggiator
  • Hold and One Shot modes
  • syncable to MIDI Clock
  • Direction Up, Down, Alternate
  • Range up to 10 Octaves
  • various methods to modify Note Sort Order
  • freely programmable Arpeggiator Pattern with up to 16 Steps
• programmable per Step:
  • Accent
  • Timing
  • Length
  • Pause
• 2 Effect slots per layer
• Effect Types:
  • Chorus
  • Flanger
  • Phaser
  • Overdrive
  • Delay (2nd effect slot only)
  • Reverb (2nd effect slot only)

Damn.

Initial impressions: This puppy sounds really, really good.

There is an interesting new entrant to the traditional DAW world: Presonus Studio One.

Coming soon. Check out the video preview...

Check out the video on the site. Expected by the end of summer with a rumored MSRP of $399.

I’m participating in the RECORD Betas and wanted to post a few thoughts. Note that the NDA prevents me from discussing any details or juicy stuff, but head over to Propellerheads‘ beta sign up site and get a copy for yourself.

My initial impressions were not what I would call “over the top” with enthusiasm. I actually found the interface a bit confusing at first: The screen is JAM PACKED with stuff (nothing you can’t figure out from the screenshots and micro-tutorials on the Prop’s site). On a 13″ macbook screen (my main machine was in the shop the first time I fired RECORD up), it is just too much (although the function key based focus switches help.) Anyway, I am talking about my first impressions here and my first impression was that there is a disconnect between what I was looking at on the screen (a LOT of stuff) and the product’s marketing (”stripped down recording simplicity”).

My next mental hurdle was due to my being familiar with REASON. (Note I said ‘familiar’ and not ‘expert’.) There are enough similarities in the interfaces and many methods of doing things that – as a prior user of REASON – I tend to forget that I’m not IN REASON.