David’s Adventures Through the World of Music Creation and Sonic Exploration

I’ve started looking at alternatives to my Universal Audio plugins. And here’s why.

Steinberg is adding to the pile of me switching to Mac completely since Cubase 5 doesn’t work at a satisfactional level on my PC, but is working beautiful on my Mac. Since I don’t want to spend money on a Mac Pro all the plugins needs to be native, or use an external box like the SSL Duende. The UAD-2 Solo/Laptop won’t work since Apple decided to not include the PC card slot on the 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pro models so I’m more, or less, looking at the paradigm shift of leaving Universal Audio behind.

I’ve downloaded the PSP Xenon since they listened to the criticism and releaseed the plugin without the iLok dongle protection. A rather unexpected move, but very welcomed. As regular readers know, I’m running a 64 bit Windows Vista installation on my stationary DAW and I’ve got both Cubase 4 (32 and 64 bit versions) and Cubase 5 (native 64 bit version) installed. I first installed the 32 bit version of Xenon, which didn’t appear in any of the Cubase versions I’m running. I then uninstalled it and installed the 64 bit version of Xenon, which only appeared in the 64 bit versions of Cubase – but crashed the VSTbridge upon loading the plugin. Steinberg says they’ve developed the VSTbridge in the upcoming Cubase version 5.5 which will be released in the second quarter of 2010 - and I can’t wait!

PSP Xenon works beautiful on my Mac running OS X 10.6.2 and Cubase 5.1.1 and it’s not the only thing which works neat on the Mac and not the Windows cousin, hence the switch towards a Mac-only platform and that’s why I’ve started to compile a list of alternatives to my favourite plugins.

I know that REVerence isn’t really the same thing as the RealVerb-Pro, but it’s a quite nice reverb effect and I like the addition that it reads impulse response files. It actually completes my needs of a reverb. I would, however, love to try out the Space Designer which ships with Logic.

I’m no fan of copy protection as they only tend to add problems rather than solving piracy. Here are the reasons why SPL uses the iLok protection:

“There are a few reasons why we use the iLok system. Primarily to protect our customers against piracy. Thus the purchase of an Analog Code plug-in from SPL is a safe investment.

Furthermore, the iLok software protection is very common in the audio industry. You can dispose of a very broad range of products with one single protection system.”

(source http://www.spl.info/en/software/ilok-information.html)

A quick search on the Internet shows clearly that the iLok actually didn’t help protecting against piracy at all. I can’t really see in what way that I’m protected. If I lose my dongle, my insurance company have told me that they will replace the donlge itself but not the licenses stored on it. If the plugin therefore is not protected by iLok (or Syncosoft) I can just install it again from a backup and be ready to continue to work.

I don’t mean to bash at SPL as they’re bringing top notch quality hardware and software to us, music producers, but they just happened to be caught by my eye.

So, my point being is that copy protections are adding problems and not protecting users at all but on the other hand cause more expenses and head-ache.

I’ll keep this post up to date with my findings, so tune back in if you’re in the same boat as me or just curious. I’ll try out Softube, SoundToys, SPL and WaveArts to start with, and I guess I have to invest in an iLok dongle too…

This is an old entry that I haven’t published until now…

I’m facing extremely irritating problems with my DAW at the moment. Nothing really works, at all, sort of.

Motu have finally released the new firewire driver for Windows 7 so I could, for the first time ever, use my Motu 828mkII under Windows 7. My Windows 7 installation hasn’t crashed a single time (since February) until now – when I’ve applied this driver. I’m not using Windows 7 to produce music since I haven’t had a functioning sound card (no – the crap on my mainboard is nothing remotely close to a sound card even though it can produce sound). So I’ve been using Windows Vista (64 bit Ultimate edition) which have been a solid platform. Cubase 4 have always had its little bugs and quirks but have been marching on rather good still. I bought Native Instruments Komplete 5 when it was on a big sale last summer and that’s when things started to happen. Absynth can take down everything upon loading. It’s actually a gamble using it and that’s why I haven’t explored it as much as I would. Reaktor, Kontakt, Massive and FM8 works nice though, so that’s what I’m using the most at the moment. I thought about upgrading to Komplete 6 but there’s no point when the shit doesn’t work - is there? And that’s in Vista. It works like a charm on my newly purchased MacBook Pro.

Back to Windows 7. After the driver for the Motu 828mkII have been installed the system is anything but stable. It can crash when I hit play in Winamp, then the screen-saver starts or when the login prompt is shown. Motu won’t acknowledge the problem and my only solution is not to use Windows 7, which I’m luckily only has a free trial version of.

But, I’ve managed to produce two remixes for the Little Boots remix competition. One co-produced with Patrik and one on my own.

Patrik’s own, Gearsluts remix, can be found here:
Little Boots - “Earthquake (Gearsluts Shaky 16th Remix)”

Neither of them got to the finals, but we’re still very pleased with them anyway.

I’ve also produced a remix for “My Despair” by In Strict Confidence and that competition will be decided in March. Fingers crossed!

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately - mostly regarding music, what I’m doing musically and why.
What’s the point, really? Why do I have all the gear I’ve got? What’s my goal?

I don’t strife to be in-the-spotlight-famous - don’t think I could coup with that. But I’d like to become someone. I’d like to produce and be a part of something people refer to as “really good” or “simply amazing”. I’d like to play live at more trance parties. I’d like to support, or produce, a big music act.

I’m not giving up, nor am I selling my hardware equipment even though I’m using software solely today - and I got more software coming…

I ended up in third place in a remix competition which was extremely fun, but it didn’t seem to get me anywhere.

But in the end, it’s the heart-warming comments that really is the driving force behind my music creativity.

Tongue-tied Twisted at the Digitally Imported forum wrote the following when listening to Heliosphere:
“was gonna call it a day at wrk… simply cant now….!!!!! yyeeaahh”
There are some other really amazing comments as well which I’m reading a little now and then when I need it. Those can lift me up when I’m down and inspire me to continue creating music.

Fans, friends, family and lover - Thank You for Listening and boosting my driving force!

Next up: mindXpander Live @ Mimerlaven, Norbergfestivalen. See you there!

I’ve been home from the office a couple of days with an incredible head-ache. So, tomorrow my brain will be examined using the MRI method and I’ll also meet an eye specialist since one cause might be a damage to my retina, or that my optical nerve has become inflamed.

Anyhow, being home a while can get a bit boring. So, when curiosity took the upper hand, I installed Windows 7 after a quick download from Microsoft. The first impression is simply nice! They’ve got rid of the stuff you find annoying in Windows Vista and they’ve optimized the code too so a clean install is much more efficient on my quadcore than Vista is. Even though in beta, it managed to install the drivers for my webcam all by itself (I just can’t get it to run under Vista x64) and I even my Motu Express 128 working after installing the drivers. I do have trouble getting the Motu 828 mkII to work, but I guess that Motu needs to tweak their firewire drivers a bit first. I could be a case for Microsoft too - we’ll see. I really liked the new program bar with the Start button. What I still miss is a good multiple desktop solution.

Waldorf’s been creative and managed to squeeze, more or less, a Blofeld into a VST called Largo. Rumours say it’s got the VA oscillators from the Q+, the wavetables from the PPG Wave, The Wave and the µQ. Sweet!

Sugar Bytes has also come up with a nice piece of software. It’s called Consequence.It’s a chord sequencer and by looking on the videos, on Sugar Bytes webpage, it seems rather cool actually.There’s also a MIDI output feature which will allow for chord, or arp, triggering on MIDI compatible gear. The demo is downloaded. I’ll get back with a short review when I’m feeling better.

Okay, so I’ve been quite busy at the office with various stuff and haven’t had the time to compose, nor to blog about anything interesting. Sorry ’bout that.

Anyhow, I’ve written a new track and I’m now working on the lyrics for it. I might have got a female vocalist for it, so hopefully this will turn out to be something good.

The track is based around a couple of thick, layered, pads and a cute melody. The drums might sound Enigma-ish (in a good way) and there’s a Tangerine Dream-ish arpeggio in the background.

No title for it yet, but I got a couple of suggestions.

Sorry for entering a journal post instead of a blog post. Will blog more when I got more time on my hands.

Oh, the pads in the track are created in Kontakt 3 using waveforms bought at Galbanum. Since Rapture won’t start in my 3-bit version of Cubase 4 I just started creating patches in Kontakt 3. I’ve been using it too little. You can do crazy things with it!

It became a blog entry after all… ;-)