Ame one Loves You

Today I was out in Umeda, doing some Christmas Shopping and was thinking about how I would like to upgrade some certain music softwares. The choices are upgrading to Logic 8 or Kontakt 3. The prices are about the same here in Japan. Both cost about ¥22,000. I’m still not sure which would be the better choice. I am kind of leaning toward the Kontakt 3 upgrade.

What are the benefits of upgrading from Kontakt 1.5 to Kontakt 3? First off, a ton more samples. It comes with so many samples that I don’t even have enough hard drive space for it. The second advantage is that it would seem to be a bit more useful than Logic in the long run. I can use it in all of my sequencers. Just to let you know, I actually use Cubase SX2, ProTools Le 7 and Logic 7. Which seems like a plus because I can always switch platform and still be able to have the sampler work, instead of the way it is now. If I am doing something in Cubase SX2 which is running under Windows and make a sample for a song that would go better with another song that I am working on in Logic, I can just switch over to logic and load up the sampler instead of having to deal with importing or recreating the sample in the EXS24 editor or slap it in to that free ProTools sampler called Structure. Which I have yet to use so I don’t know how easy or difficult it would be. The third reason to upgrade would be that I could use Kontakt on my Mac finally, and utilize all those samples I made using Kontakt in the past. The fourth and last reason is, It’s version 3 vs 1.5. Lots has changed. If you are wondering why I didn’t get Kontakt 2, the reason is, I just never got around to it. When I finally started to really consider upgrading, version 3 came out.

Now here is the reasons to upgrade to Logic Studio. First new workflow enhancements. Although I was not to impressed with the whole everything available in one screen when I saw the Sonar 7 demonstration, I think the Apple idea of it using tabs seems much better. The reason why I didn’t care much for it in Sonar was, when I was I watching the demonstration the guy was constantly resizing the little window area in the arrange window. Second reason for upgrading Logic is…. it has all that stuff. How can you go wrong with all those things included. I don’t know if soundtrack is really useful, but I’m sure I can find someway to use it. The soundstage app, looks interesting, but not too useful because I don’t play live. Waveburner?? Well I got that already in L7. The third reason is that I can dump the dongle. Recently I have been feeling that dongles are kind of a drag. After using them for about 3 years, only now it seems to me to be that way. The reason is that my situation has changed with the way I write music. Since I don’t have a studio I am writing at a couple of different places and sometimes I want to write in my spare time between jobs while I am out. Because of this, the fear of losing or breaking my dongle is real and kind of scary.

Those are my reasons for wanting to upgrade. Although upgrading Logic seems good, I can always do that later. The same could be said about Kontakt too, but I think I would like to be able to use Kontakt again. I do miss it. I’m not that big of a fan of the EXS24 sampler in Logic. It’s a good sampler and all, but I always liked Kontakt and it’s features.

I noticed recently that people have been coming here after entering the search term Yamaha HS50 in a search engine. I guess this page is not too useful, for that. So I guess I will add my opinion on them.

The Following is the original post. The additional information is after.

Today I finally have my first complaint about these speakers. I love them, think they are great. Damn the thing that sucked most about them was, lugging them half way across Osaka. That sucked. I’m glad I had the foresight to keep the boxes and the little make shift handles that the store I bought them at made, but walk to the train station and catching the train and then walking to my place, sucked. I did not like the attention that they brought me on the train. People staring at me and my speakers. After awhile those bad boys got heavy. I’m just glad I didn’t go with the bigger Yamaha monitors. I really considered it at one point, but these are fine.

By the way I used these on my EP. Berliner and Robot were mixed in ProTools and the Umbra tracks were mixed in Cubase SX2.

So far after having the monitors for about 8 months, I have to say I do love them I find that they were better than Alesis Monitor ones I used to use in Hawaii. Those had a nasty little brightness in the mid highs. I could never really get the area sounding good on the first try in my mixes. When I listened to the test mixes after mixing on the Yamahas, I found that my mixes were a little loud in the same frequency range as the Alesis’s. However it turns out that the Yamahas were not to blame. When I went back to fix the mixes, I noticed that the mix was just bad. I think part of it was that I had not done in mixing in a long time and was having difficulty hearing things properly.

The monitors have a bass roll off switch on the back. It’s intended to help with the low end when the speaker is placed in a less than ideal location such as close to walls. I did play with it when I first got them and noticed a difference in but I believe I left it alone and didn’t bother with the roll off. That is what my ears liked best.

The only problem I have with them besides the one mentioned above is that the low end is not low enough. I can’t blame them, they are not very big speakers. I should really get sub. I would recommend anyone getting a pair of these to get a subwoofer to compliment them. I’m sure it will make a big difference once you get everything calibrated and set up right.

I’m done with my EP. It’s going to be called “AMe one and the depressed robot.” The ep consists of 3 downtempo songs and 1 house song. Everything has been sent off to SIQ Records. Now it’s up to them to get things done. I’m pretty happy about everything. I already got the next release planned. It will most likely be DNB. The jazzy style dnb I love and maybe some source direct sounding songs.

If you want to hear a preview of my album, check out http://www.myspace.com/ameone

Today when I was at SofMap I caught a demonstration of Sonar 7. It seems like a pretty cool program. I have not used any Cakewalk Products since Cakewalk 8.

The thing that really impressed me most was the Roland V-Voice Plugin. That thing was bad ass! I wish they would make that into a AU or VST plugin. It does pitch correction, time correction and a couple of other things. I think the coolest thing was pitch to midi. The other plugins were not that impressive. Nothing that you can not find for free or comes with any other sequencer.It’s nice to see that Sonar is now supporting VST along with DXi. When DXi first came out I thought it was going to be the new standard because of the way direct x integrates with the windows operating system. However it never really seemed to catch on. A lot of companies made DXi versions of their stuff, but at the same time it was bundled with VST and RTAS versions too. So if you were not running Sonar it was not used. I don’t think Cubase, Nuendo, or ProTools support DXi. That is probably the biggest reason why it never took off. Whether it is superior to VST, I don’t really know.

Another nice feature is the POW-R dither. I think of all the major sequencers, Cubase/Nuendo are the only ones that don’t utilize POW-R. Steinberg opted to go with the UV22hr dither by Apogee. From what I understand POW-R is a better plugin. Bob Katz also did some tests which indicated that it is a better choice over Apogee’s UV22hr. I have used both in the past and either one is fine. Odds are these days a lot of music is being dithered with POW-R or UV22hr or the Waves L series limiter dither.

The only thing I didn’t like about Sonar was that the screen seemed cluttered. With all the available windows and sub windows and tabs it just seemed like too much. Other than that, the only other thing I question is the the stability.  During the demo, Sonar crashed. I don’t know exactly what the reason was because I was not quick enough to read the error screen due to that it was in Japanese. However I suspect that one of these three reasons are why it crashed. 1. Windows Vista caused some sort of error. 2. Sonar itself had some sort of internal error. 3. The Edirol digital mixer interface lost connectivity or caused an error.

Overall I have to say Sonar has come along ways since when I first used it when it was Cakewalk 6. In fact sequencers have come a long way. This past year I had a chance to play with Cakewalk 6 and I realized that is a real unfriendly program. I don’t know how I even managed to learn it without using a manual. I have to say with out it, I would not have such a good understanding of the way sequencers work. I think if someone asked me whether they should pick up Sonar 7 for their studio, I would say go ahead. The only negative things I would say about it is what I mentioned above. There is no reason to tell not to pick it up. In the end it’s all about how they choose to use it. I really think that Sonar 7 is kind of similar to Apple’s Logic. I mean similar in the way it comes with a lot of plugins that are really useful. Unlike Cubase, which always seemed to be the most lacking in the included plugins.

After watching the demonstration, I will say that for as cool as Sonar seems, I will not be picking up a copy. Mainly because I currently have Cubase SX2, Logic Pro 7, ProTools LE 7, Cakewalk 8, Reason adapted for Digidesign, and Live Lite 6. It’s not all the latest and some aren’t even the full versions, but I do have to say that I am pretty covered for sequencers. In addition to that I don’t feel the need or want to learn a new one. There is still a lot for me to learn about Cubase, Logic and ProTools. Not to mention the others which I barely use. Now if Roland only released that V-Voice plugin as a VST/AU/RTAS!