Dad3353

Yes, Dave, I'm the chubby one behind the drums. It's Our Youngest on bass, in hyperactive mode, Our Eldest with the Explorer stage left, Vince being unusually expressive stage right (now gone to the Antilles, 'replaced by Nico...) and Steph 'performing' in his inimitable 'put all you've got into it, or don't do it at all' style. Our repertoire is varied; we have one or two 'up-beat' numbers, followed by a cooling-off spate so that I may continue without medical assistance. Another belter, then another low-key one. This RATM was our closing piece, after which I discreetly slip backstage to lie out flat on the ground for a while, to recover. Happy daze..!

Yes, yes; now go and lie down, you'll feel better in the morning. (... but thanks for watching, just the same... )

This is (or rather, was...) our hypnotically mesmerising band, playing at a local mini-festival a few years ago now. You'll understand from the insane antics of all of us the magnetic attraction we emanate, which explains why we get called upon so often. The choreography is meticulously rehearsed, perhaps even more so than the research for the best sound, and pays off handsomely (although it's hard on the knees, and the stunts are dangerous for the untrained. Do not try this at home...). I'll let those that get to the end judge the (modest...) popularity of our 'performance'. So, with no further ado, I'll leave the stage and welcome... The Daubs..! (sporadic applause...)

Not worth the ink needed to reply.

Indeed... Cherry-picking..? Just being ornery, or obtuse..? All performers must get up to antics..? You're just being contrary for the sake of it.

Dongle..? Dongle..? What's a 'dongle'..? ...

There was nothing from you to quote, and I didn't want to encourage any delicate ears to set in motion the video clip. Some oriental girls messing about, making a din; nothing of note, so no loss.

Here's a screenshot of one of my orchestral templates. There a re 106 tracks in all; I may well add a few for Fx buses. All of these can be whatever they are, it seems simple enough to me, and I'm dumb... Click to enlarge; the individual tracks are all folded here, but can, of course, expand, individually as required, to show the audio, or MIDI, or sample etc. Yes, the colour coding helps..!

Now you're confusing Fodera and fedora again. We've warned you before about that. ...

The clue is in the OP's title, and opening video. Being on stage doesn't have to mean acting the clown, or acting at all. For some, and some circumstances, that's the deal, but at other times, for other performers and audiences, it's not. Simple, really.

We're not going to agree. I've listened (often...) to concert pianists, and others, on the radio, so expression..? It's all in the fingers, mate. Bass face..? Nah, 's'for the birds. 'Perform' has many more connotations than that, to me at least.

Cynical codswallop, in my opinion.

When you've played that so many times, for weddings, village fêtes, dance parties, over the decades... At the moment, my eyes are open; they might just as well be closed.

I have 2002's, but these are my Sound Edge 602's. Re-issues, of course; my originals didn't stand up to the rigours of variety band touring back in the '70s. I should have used the 2002's that I replaced them with a lot earlier.

But some music is to be listened to, even better with one's eyes closed. There are occasion when jiving is 'la raison d'être' of the event, and others where passivity is appreciated. I seem to remember a concert performed by Ravi Shankar, way back then, at which he introduced the evening with a request that the audience restrain their appreciation; the music he and his colleagues were to play was not played for reactions of the sort. The band Kiss have a different perspective, but some bands prefer the sober approach. Just sayin'.

You see, that, in itself, confuses me. Reaper doesn't have 'x-tracks', they are all 'tracks'. Audio, samples, MIDI, whatever... I've some compositions with fifty or so tracks, half of which are the elements of my drum Vst. I can add Fx to directly to each track, or send one or more tracks to an Fx bus, and dose the amount sent for each. A couple of dozen tracks for woodwinds, a few more tracks with audio, either imported or internally rendered ('frozen'...), some samples tracks... All of these are just tracks, when I'm mixing, I'm not concerned with 'em being such-and-such a 'type', I just mix 'em. Any limitation would be the memory of my PC (rather modest HP8200, i5 proc, 12G memory...); I'm far from saturating the machine, even with IR reverbs in there. I don't know what a 'rack instrument' is. I'll have another look at Cubase, Protools and such, to see. I had another bash with Harrison a few moments ago, and this time could set up the Vst paths, so there's another to try, but it tells me that the plug-ins I selected are 'demo only', so I don't know how far I'll get with that. Fascinating stuff, with so many ways to skin a cat..!

Maybe I should just download the trial versions of some of these DAWs, just to see, as, for the moment, I just don't understand exactly what the difference is. I've looked at the spec for Elements, and its cost, and can't see anything in there that makes it more attractive, to me. It says, for instance, that Elements allows three Vst instruments at a time in a project. I couldn't do a fifth of what I do with such a limitation; sometimes I have more than three drum kits, let alone the orchestral parts..! I've looked at the screen screenshots, for the layout, and see only similitude with Reaper (or maybe it's the other way around..?). I see tracks, plug-in windows, mixing faders, transport buttons... Nothing radically different involving organic lifeforms or spreadsheet columns. I don't doubt that everyone picks up a certain familiarity with keyboard short-cuts, or has a more or less need for sophistication in the rendering quality, or even the need to share projects, real-time, over t'web, but without something radical of the sort, I really can't see the fuss. My ignorance, certainly, but I'll try to educate myself and give some of these others a chance to shine. I've tried Harrison, for instance, but, for reasons I've not yet understood, it crashes when trying to direct it to a Vst folder, so I haven't been able to 'give it a whirl' (yet...). Maybe I'd be better at guidance if, from experience, I had wider vision of these things. We'll see...

As above ^^. The test is easy : listen again the next day to what has been recorded. The 'freshness' will have returned. There's nothing in your signal chain that could cause such an effect; it's not faulty equipment. Give it a rest.

It depends not a little on exactly what you're doing, and how. If you're recording onto a track or two, using a bit of treatment, then mixing and rendering to a stereo WAV, OGG or MP3, then you probably won't see much of a difference, once you've done a tour of the screen and a few keyboard shortcuts. The Vst plugins will work in similar fashion, unless you have particular compressors or console strips that are specific to Protools, with no equivalent. I don't use Protools, but from what I've seen of others using it, and the screenshots and videos on the subject, I can't see much difference. For cost reasons, there's no chance I'll be doing it, but if I was considering doing the opposite (going from Reaper to Protools...), I wouldn't sweat it; they're not that far apart. The simple way forward would be to install Reaper and use in on a typical task, whilst maintaining current 'production' on Protools until proficiency is obtained. I don't reckon that that would take long. In truth, of course, the answer's a lemon : suck it and see.

A Red Letter Day..! A packet from the UK arrived this morning, containing the precious straplocks, plus..! I immediately ceased all other activities and fitted them (well, one, for now...), and took a photo. Here it is ... Wonderful..! No, I know that the 'Basschat' part can't be read, but when I'm asked, as I Shirley will be, what intriguing accessory I've fitted, I'll proudly reveal all to an astonished crowd of fans and fellow musicians. Effect guaranteed..! Thanks, Ped , for staying the course. You may sleep soundly tonight, with the comfort and satisfaction of having kept your eye on the ball. Great lanyard, too; I'll be the envy of our next gig.

A lot depends on the way you approach the music you're making, and, to a lesser extent, which genre(s). Some are very good with manipulating samples, others are more adapted to 'live' takes, and the use of MIDI and/or virtual instruments counts, too. I can't speak for all the other uses, but I've been using Reaper for well over a decade, and it's done everything I've asked of it, whatever the genre. It didn't come easily, the first day, but is possibilities are far in excess of anything I'll be able to come up with. One advantage I've found (for me...) is that Reaper does not distinguish between types of track. Any track can be recorded audio, or samples, or MIDI, so, when mixing, I just have to do the faders, and not think about how the sound was made. It takes all the virtual instruments I need, including orchestral ensembles and suites, several drum simulators and any samples I care to use. I create a very diverse, modest load of nonsense, and Reaper allows me to try all sorts of stuff, for very modest cost. Hope this helps (but it's unlikely...).

Brutal..? With my cloth ears, can't be anything but..! I listened to Lst 1, by skipping through, with headphones at first, then through my modest monitors. I then compared to the 'mastered' four tracks. With headphones, there's a serious lack of bass in the balance, but this is largely corrected through monitors. I'd assume, then, that the bass is in general EQ'ed rather towards the low end. The mastered versions are noticeably improved in relation one track to another, with a more regular dispersion of frequencies, better to listen to in general. Difficult to say how this will reflect on the whole list (there is quite some difference in level between the tracks of Lst 1...), but if the levels of the first four are maintained throughout, this disparity should disappear. I don't know how these will sound through car speakers; I'd guess that there would be a lack of bass there. The other instruments and vocals blend well, but the bass doesn't cut through on lesser systems. I haven't listened to Lst 2 or 3 yet; not really much point without comparing to the mastered versions, though. The link is dead now; are you updating the files..?

No, and never were. It shouldn't be necessary, either. 'Blighter' would have worked just as well, or 'so-and-so'.