Mornats

I always thought that VE Pro was for running slave machines only. Do you get many benefits running it on a single machine?

Thanks again Si, I'll drop the support team a note to mention the huge improvements moving from Avast gave me. Maybe they should give a Nod32 licence away as part of their monthly plugin deals I've got a lot more confidence in Focusrite now so I may look into the Scarlett 2i4 a bit more (key thing for me on that is the RCA out connectors which means I can go through the same interface and test the mix on my Yamaha HS7s and my Tannoy E11 / Rotel RA930AX amp hi-fi setup. Any idea if there are any comparisons of the latency improvements between the Forte and the Scarlett 2nd gen?

Righto, another update. got rid of AVAST and installed a demo of ESET Nod32 antivirus and the ASIO issue has been resolved. What's more, I'm playing a track back in recording mode at 64 samples without any issues at all (6.7ms latency). I've updated the title of this post to say it's been resolved Tried playing the track at 32 samples and Kontakt crashed. Tried it again and it ran through the track with a few pops and crackles when the choir kicked it (which has always been one of the most demanding VSTs to be fair). Playing this track back at 64 samples is far better than the 256 that seemed to be the limit earlier. Free antivirus eh? Not worth it! I'll buy a licence for Nod32 when my trial expires. So I'm happy now. SiBob - any ideas if Focusrite will put out any driver updates or optimisations for the Forte? I do periodically run into problems like this and I've lost work in the past so anything that can be done to help with stability would be fantastic.

Mine's plugged in constantly so it could be that too. I've just been going round Focusrite's support site and found this article: https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115003109265-1st-Gen-Scarlett-interfaces-No-playback-or-metering-from-ASIO-applications- so even though it's a different interface, I'm currently installing a trial of NOD32 to replace my Avast antivirus to see if that's the cause. I've been meaning to jump from the free AV software for a while due to the nagging they give you to upgrade. More updates as I get them

[quote name='Sibob' timestamp='1494023857' post='3292766'] Hey bud, Just wondered if you've talked to Focusrite's Tech Support about it? Si // Focusrite Media Relations [/quote] Hey Si, I'm just drafting a tech support ticket for them this morning. I'm trying to describe what's been happening in a more useful way than "it just stopped working and I don't know why" which is kinda what happened but not useful for a support tech! I'll go over all the symptoms I mentioned above and see what they come back with. I'll update this thread with the results (most likely mid next week hopefully as they won't pick anything up until Monday at the earliest). [quote name='ambient' timestamp='1494027046' post='3292788'] I had one of these. One of the members on here is part of their technical support team. He was brilliant at helping me to get it sorted out. [/quote] That will be SiBob Great to hear yours got sorted - that gives me some hope for mine. Although I do still have concerns that there will never be any driver updates or optimisations for it.

Ha yeah, I finished up posting something similar to the above on Vi-control At least I'm in a lucky position that my old Guitar Rig Session is holding up very well so I can take my time with finding a new one.

I've been playing with this for a bit. The Forte will play back in Reaper if I select anything other than ASIO as the driver. With ASIO selected, I get no sound output and the song in Reaper will play back around 1.5x faster than it should (can't hear it but I can see it moving too quickly). I can't change the sample rate on the Forte from 44.1khz. If I unplug the Forte and reinstall, Windows doesn't recognise the device the first few times. Once it does eventually pick it up, it attempts a firmware upgrade which fails. I dug out my old Native Instruments Guitar Rig Session - their old, cheap entry point model. No Win 10 drivers, no new drivers since 2013 but I installed the Win 8 drivers. It worked. But also, the latency is way better than the Forte's. Same sample rates and where the Forte is around 8.9ms the Guitar Rig is showing 6.9ms. I can also play back without pops and crackles at a lower sample rate on the Guitar Rig than I can on the Forte (in case you're wondering, one track that I have wouldn't play back in real time without pops and crackles last week at less than 256 samples. I can do it on 48 samples with the GR). WTH? I was looking at the Audient ID14 but for now, the Guitar Rig is killing the (pretty much dead) Forte.

I've had my Forte for a few years now and whilst I love the quality of the sound I've had various driver issues, not so great latency and general all-round flakiness. They discontinued it a few months after I paid full retail price for it (£330) and have a crappy beta driver that you can only find by googling it. I think I spent 2-3 weeks getting that to work after the official one refused to work with Windows 10. So today I tried playing around in Reaper and there's no sound coming from the Forte. If I set Windows' default sound to be the Forte and play Spotify then I get sound. It's just no joy in Reaper and there's no change in settings. I've checked everything, reset the Forte to its default settings (something I have to do on a fortnightly basis to get the damn thing to work) and I've had it completely with the damn thing. It's buggy and has been abandoned by Focusrite almost as soon as I bought it. So, are there any alternatives? I want super low latency in virtual instruments and good clear sound output. I'm not actually recording a great into it at the moment so high-quality preamps aren't a big consideration although they have to be good. Rock solid stability is a must and the ability to control the volume from the PC would be nice (it's very handy on the Forte as my interface is a distance from my desk). Budget has to be £200-250 tops as I wasn't planning on changing my interface so that rules out any recommendations of RME and their envious stability. I'm on a PC too so it's USB 2 or 3 so I can't go for a Thunderbolt interface. My first consideration would have been the Scarlett 2nd gen as I hear good things about the latency but I'm loathe to trust Focusrite's support of these after being burned by the Forte. I don't think they will be lax in driver updates and the like as it's their most popular range but still. I wish I'd bought an RME Babyface back when they were only £100 more than the Forte...

This may give you an idea of how my PC's spec can handle a pretty heavy project. Hopefully it'll be useful for you to gauge what you may need. Take this song I did recently for the composition challenge: [url="https://soundcloud.com/mornats/low-mass"]https://soundcloud.c...ornats/low-mass[/url] [b]Here's the important bits of my spec:[/b][list] [*]i7 4790k overclocked to 4.6ghz [*]16GB DDR3 RAM 1866mhz running at 2133mhz (due to the overclock) [*]Windows 10 drive: SSD [*]Sample library drive: SSD [*]Interface: Focusrite Forte [*]Buffer: 256 samples (256 is the limit for latency that allows me to record a part in real time) [*]Cockos Reaper [/list] I have 27 tracks of instruments in this. I have 6 buses (I send strings to one bus so I can add compression/eq etc. to them all at once for example) and I have one reverb bus (RC 48 is the reverb plugin). This is important IMO. Rather than putting a CPU heavy reverb on each and every track and tweaking them all individually, you can send the audio of each track to one reverb bus and use just the one plugin. You can adjust the mix of the dry and wet signal for each track. It's a new trick for me and it saves massively on CPU (and time). So on this I have:[list] [*]Albion One synth [*]Rise and Hit (three tracks of this) [*]Albion One legato strings [*]Albion One tremelo strings [*]Albion One long strings [*]Albion One spicatto strings (two tracks of these) [*]Albion One woodwinds low [*]Albion One woodwinds high [*]Albion One brass low [*]Albion One brass mid [*]Albion One brass high [*]Albion One percussion [*]Damage (two tracks of this) [*]Albion One hyper toms [*]Apocalypse Elements orchestral percussion [*]Juggernaut [*]Storm Choir [*]Olympus Elements choir [*]Spirfire Orchestral Grand Piano [*]Kontakt Library harp [*]Zodiac synth [*]Massive synth [*]Spirfire Orchestral Grand Piano (another instance) [/list] I have Izotope Neutron on 11 tracks, 2 buses and the master bus along with various EQ, compressor and a couple of other plugins. If I counted it right, that's 25 instances of Kontakt running in Komplete Kontrol. [b]Playing it real time[/b] CPU peaks at around 90-95% across all 8 threads (4 cores). RAM Usage: 12.7GB (just over a GB free but that will vary based on whatever you have running in the background. This is with just Reaper running. So I'm nearing the limits of the PC). If I'm playing it back for mixing I will of course increase the buffer as latency doesn't matter for this. So this is just an idea of what type of musical production will push this system. Now, this is a worse-case scenario for this song. I can (and had to when producing it) render some tracks to audio to help with the playback. A few of the strings tracks and the choir tracks helped. Not everything needs to be bounced down. I also went in afterwards and purged all of the samples (essentially removing all unplayed samples from each library from RAM) and this got RAM usage down to around 6.5GB. So there are things you can do to make a system like this work for a song like this but hopefully this is a good example of how this setup can handle a demanding song.

Well done! Top tune and very nicely produced too.

So many to choose from this month! It was a 6-way tie at one point for me but a few stood out (thankfully). Top notch all round I say.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1492420301' post='3280027'] I've said it before, but it might be worth repeating... One can mix with even very modest gear (although there are limits, of course..!) if one uses known pieces from one's own repertoire as reference for the sound one is trying to achieve. A comparison between a 'pro' mix and the 'work in progress' can be made; any lack of fidelity will be common to the two, and so has little effect. I have to admit to having very dodgy ears (wot wiv bein' old an' all...), but use this method to check my efforts. Usually, I find that if I can hear the cymbals, they're too loud..! Just sayin'; hope this helps... [/quote] That's very true indeed. All of the advice that I read says to use reference tracks - commercially released songs that match the sound you're looking for. Listen to these on your system, whether it's studio monitors, hi-fi speakers, headphones or whatever. Get used to how they sound on your system and use that to match your track to the reference track.

I've found that a good range of speakers can help with mixing. Currently I use (in order of use):[list=1] [*]Audio Technica M50x headphones [*]Yamaha HS7 monitors [*]Tannoy E11 hi-fi speakers via an Asus Xonar Essence STX sound card through a Rotel RA930AX amp [*]Logitech computer speakers - can't remember the model but they're dead cheap, have a stupidly boomy sub and tinny speakers [*]Juice sound square - a nice little mono speaker with half decent bass [*]Car hi-fi (Mitsubishi Lancer not that it matters hehe) [/list]

[quote name='Chiliwailer' timestamp='1491973902' post='3276814'] Another one from your top drawer, luscious textures and arranging [/quote] Thanks Chili Those synth textures came from Massive Darkscore V for Massive and Photosynthesis Volume 1 by Audio Imperia. [quote name='Chiliwailer' timestamp='1491974023' post='3276815'] Uh oh, want the Albion One now.... [/quote] It's good. Very, very good. It's quite an outlay but it all sounds great together and is easy to work with. How much RAM do you have in your computer though? My piece above had around 24 tracks plus a reverb track and takes 9.5GB of RAM and there's not a lot on there! The solo violin was Kirk Hunter Solo Strings by the way. A really nice sounding library but you need to try and match the reverb to Albion One's. I find that Native Instruments' RC 48 on a medium hall preset gets you close. The legatos in KH Solo Strings aren't great IMO. I tried a lovely sounding cello legato but it loops incredibly badly and you can hear a very sharp loud attack note halfway through the loop. It looped after around 3 seconds too so it was unusable in this. The violin I went with (the Stradivarius patch) was better but I can hear where it loops. Fairly subtle as I timed the dynamics to dip around the loop point but honestly, I shouldn't have to work around this sort of thing. I'm eyeing up Spitfire Solo Strings as a result now.

Here's mine. https://soundcloud.com/mornats/i-am-become-death I wanted something that built up dramatically but didn't go on and on building up so I went fairly mournful at the end, focusing a bit on the aftermath of the bombs. Learnt a fair bit about midi cc controls and was very chuffed when I managed to get my Maschine Jam set up to control up to 8 midi cc sliders at once! Expression, dynamics and vibrato all at my fingertips whilst I play away in Albion One now! I've even got a fair few sliders left for luscious verb and what not.

Thanks everyone this was a cracking day! I managed to have a go on some amazingly good gear and almost came back far far poorer as a result! A Gillett bass is on my wish list for sure, the quality of these is outstanding.

Oh, someone wants an apocalyptic track do they? I'm on it

Mine is done using virtual instruments played on a midi keyboard. The main instrument library I used was this one: http://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/ranges/albion/albion-one/.

I've had a more polished version of mine waiting in the wings for the comp to end. So here it is (if anyone's interested in seeing how I progressed it). https://soundcloud.com/mornats/low-mass

Congrats!

Got my vote in with 10 mins to spare!! Great effort from everyone. Loved the mix of EDM type tracks mixed in with indie rock too. Mine was originally going to be indie rock too but Albion One took over...

I'm still planning on coming down. Although I need to remove the Bass Collection SB320 from the for-sale bit (it's sold so won't be bringing it!)

[quote name='RockfordStone' timestamp='1490626814' post='3266585'] ta. i dont expect it will get many, it's sh*t [/quote] I'm sure it will be better than mine! I almost didn't make it this month and mine's not exactly a good fit for the picture. It was also rushed out. I've done 4 more tweaked version since then but I'll wait until after voting to update the track on Soundcloud. Can't really do a "bait and switch" on it mid-vote, plus it wouldn't have been entirely done in the time frame.

I didn't quite get mine to the standard I wanted it at before the comp ended so I'll upload a new version after voting ends. I've been watching a few tutorials on epic trailer track percussion and have been beefing it up a bit

This wasn't what I intended to write at all... My first real test of Albion One. This was originally going to be more of an indie rock style track at first but I wanted a project for my new orchestral library. I've started a course on cinematic trailer production and wanted a first go to see how I progress through the course. The image this track is based on is a moment frozen in time. A smidgen of peace and serenity before the music lover leaps into the chaos of the crowd. There's a moment of being lost in the moment before a triumphant realisation that's he's in bliss. Or something like that. This track is mostly composed of Spitfire's Albion One with a few additions from other libraries, notably the Spitfire Orchestral Grand Piano (I'm loving the ostinatum on that), the harp from the Kontakt factory library, Rise and Hit, Massive with EQ and compression handled by Neutron. https://soundcloud.com/mornats/low-mass