Studio Profiles let's talk about it,,,,

[harmony gardens]

I thought it was time to change focus and start taking this from a GB into an evaluation of what we have here. A place to bounce our thoughts on what we like or don't like about certain sets, what we're doing with them, what factors we're taking into consideration when we choose which set we are going to upgrade to,,,,, etc. I'd like to discuss it as a product, not as a Group Buy.

I've been exploring the disks, and wow. I'm totally impressed!!! Thanks Squids!! The set you've given us is an excellent way to evaluate what is coming up.


After spending a day with them, it seems to me the stereo sets are of the greatest interest to me. I think there is enough stuff in the Danny Gottlieb stereo folder to do a nice project with. I've been loading the stereo loops into Project 5's That's a really tasty combination!! I haven't done it yet, but I'm intending to load the multi's into the Project 5 groove matrix and having each in a separate row, I think that's going to be incredible.

What are your thoughts on Studio Profiles????

[mlyon]

I spent a couple of hours yesterday auditioning the various multi-tracks in Logic, the Reason combinators, and some of the RAW and stereo edition loops. So far, I most interested in the mulit-tracks (both for Logic and Reason). They sound and loop great, and I love the flexibility. I took one of the Blackwell loops, slowed it down a bit, compressed the kick and snare, boosted the rooms and cut back the directs a bit (with the exception of the hats), and then added some verb and I had a very funky dub-ish loop which I could easily see folding into some ideas I've been playing around with.

Not sure which is my favorite, yet. I like quite a few of the samples from several of the editions. The Marotta set has some great percussion, which the others don't have, and that may make me lean toward that set in the first instance. Decisions, decisions, decisions......

--Mark

[mlyon]

One thing that would be good to have would be a tutorial on how to load in the various forms. I loaded Stylus with some of the stereo rex loops, but haven't figured out an easy way to load up the multi-tracks, without having to do it loop by loop (if someone knows a short cut, let me know, please). Similarly, the Apple Loops all went into the browser easily enough, but it would be great if there was a tag or some other identification of their source so that I could easily search for just the loops from the ProFiles (or RAW, in this case) editions (by edition title, preferably), as they went in but were sacattered throughout the browser (I had to search by file name). Makes it trickier to just audition those loops.

So far, everything I've tried has looped well, and it's been easy to slice up the multi-tracks to grab a kick sequence, rim or hat sequence, etc. to play around with.

Oh, and I like the Kontakt kit. When are you guys going to post the chart with the I-Map mapping referenced in the "readme" file? (I can figure it out, but it's not immediately obvious to me how you've grouped kicks, hats, etc.).

Cheers,
Mark

[Squids]

The chart we're late on. Notice how smug I was in the video and proud that we "finally" posted that! We had made one but it was wrong so I postponed it until I could fix it. I will get it done this week and it will be posted on http://www.sonicreality.com/imap I will let you know.

Tutorials are something we're going to be doing heavily this year. It should be starting soon. Everything from finger drumming to how to use the loops in various formats with tips and tricks etc. Plus, we'll have some videos and photos on the making of various titles and the sessions, interviews with the artists etc.

One thing we'll also probably do is a tutorial using the Special Edition as examples so you can try things out with the material you have if you have the Special Edition. Another benefit. Education. I might even get a few famous engineers to show how they mix drums for you guys. Like I said, this is JUST the beginning of something with a lot of aspects to it.

Speaking of the Special Edition, here is something I posted in the other group buy thread.

I have some good news for Studio ProFile SE owners. We're going to do "Mini ProFiles" as downloadable sound packs. They are format specific so there will be ones in Wave, ones in Rex, Apple Loops... possibly even other proprietary formats (maybe even RMX, we'll have to see about that). Maybe even SoundFont. That should be up by some time next week. It is most of the 2-track master edition title split up into 50 mb on average sized sound sets. You will be able to apply $79. from your Special Edition purchase toward any mix and match of those downloadable sound sets if you want! (or you can wait and apply them to a full title - 2Track or Multi). We'll have sets from the following available within the next two weeks:

Steve Gadd Sessions Wave, Rex, Apple Loops
Danny Gottlieb Sessions Wave
Bluegrass Sessions Wave
Rockabilly Sessions Wave
Mainstream Rock Drum Sessions Wave Rex Apple Loops
Chicago Blues Drum Sessions Wave Rex Apple Loops
MTown Drum Sessions Wave (and possibly Rex, Apple Loops etc.)
Vintage Soul Drum Sessions Wave (and possibly Rex, Apple Loops)
Nashville Drum Sessions Wave (and...you know)
Latin Sessions Wave Rex Apple Loops

and more...

[mlyon]

Thanks, Squids. That all sounds terrific! I'm really looking forward to all you guys have lined up and really like what I've seen so far.

Cheers,
Mark

[Squids]

Thanks, Squids. That all sounds terrific! I'm really looking forward to all you guys have lined up and really like what I've seen so far.

Cheers,
Mark

Thanks Mark. It is sort of interesting because on the one hand you have stereo loops that are unprocessed for the most part. So, some people aren't used to that and they expect to hear loops that have eq and compression on them. A lot of us know that it is much more flexible to be able to add those effects yourself to the degree you want and with different plug-ins or settings (even tailoring it to your song). So, we'll go over even that part and perhaps teach some people how it is better this way.

Then you have multi-tracks which again to some people could be unusual. I mean, it is even possible for it to sound bad if one doesn't mix it right! So, how DO you mix multi-track drums? Well, there's no right or wrong but there's some good tips from either myself or some great engineers I know. As I travel around I will try to capture some of these things for everyone to get deeper and deeper into this stuff whether you own it already and want to get the most out of it or whether you are thinking about getting it and want to know what kind of things can be done with a product that is made this way.

[harmony gardens]

That sounds great, Squids. Judging from the video demo you did for Studio ProFiles, it would be nice to have some more of those. I know a lot of people really liked that.

One little thing I've been realizing is that you can't load aif files directly into Project 5. You can only load aif into the 864 sampler. No big deal, but as a developer, you need to know that about P5. Also, the multi track files you did were in Sonar 5. I have Sonar 4, so they won't work on my version. Thought you might want to know that, too. We know how careful we have to be about this stuff.

[beergeek]

Tutorials are something we're going to be doing heavily this year. It should be starting soon. Everything from finger drumming to how to use the loops in various formats with tips and tricks etc. Plus, we'll have some videos and photos on the making of various titles and the sessions, interviews with the artists etc.

One thing we'll also probably do is a tutorial using the Special Edition as examples so you can try things out with the material you have if you have the Special Edition. Another benefit. Education. I might even get a few famous engineers to show how they mix drums for you guys. Like I said, this is JUST the beginning of something with a lot of aspects to it.

Well, I'm really stoked about this!

[mlyon]

That sounds great, Squids. Judging from the video demo you did for Studio ProFiles, it would be nice to have some more of those. I know a lot of people really liked that.

I'll second that. When I first bought Stylus, I was really disappointed that there wasn't a written manual and that I had to sit through a couple hours of video tutorials to find out what it could do. That was right up until I sat through Eric's video demonstrations. Man, those are just fantastic and I learned a heck of a lot faster by watching than I would have by reading. In fact, that's why I bought the DVD for Absynth 3 (and have since picked up a bunch of pointers on how to use that synth that I would have never gleaned just from reading the manual). I'm now a total convert to video tutorials/demos of how products work and how you can use them. They're an extremely powerful ways of teaching/learning the subtleties.

With all you've got lined up, it sounds like you guys are going to be Waaaaa-ayyyyy busy this year -- and we're all very happy about that.

Cheers,
Mark

[Squids]

Yeah, we should have used Sonar 4 or even 3 so it could be upward compatible. We need to know more about Sonar if we are going to start really including it on the main titles. Of course, you can just bring in the waves from the main sessions on DVD 1. You don't have to use the aifs.

We like to know if anyone is having trouble loading the files and we want to keep track of that. It is a little tricky because it can either be something we can do on our end or it is something that is on the player's end. For example, some people were saying they couldn't read all of the Rexes in Stylus RMX. But, then one person told me that they were reading other rex collections and had the same problem with it! So, hmmmm. Is it our rexes or Stylus RMX? These are things we want to find out.

In that particular case we are testing all of the rexes on the SE with Stylus RMX this week to be sure they work. If they do then if someone is having a problem with that they either need to update their Stylus RMX or more likely there could be something wrong with the disc and we'll have to replace it. Please contact elijah@esoundz.com if there is any problem reading anything. There's a LOT of data on those two discs.

[waynelangford]

For example, some people were saying they couldn't read all of the Rexes in Stylus RMX. But, then one person told me that they were reading other rex collections and had the same problem with it! So, hmmmm. Is it our rexes or Stylus RMX? These are things we want to find out.

Yeah, there were a couple of people on the Spectrasounds list who had trouble with imports of the SE loops. One had tried to drag and drop a directory with too many levels of sub-directories. The other said that the latest rex library upgrade cured the problem. I had no problems getting all the loops into RMX and I'm pretty happy with most of them. I'm really digging the Steve Gadd, Ed Greene, and Motown stuff. I felt some of the loops may have been "recycled" better than others. Some stretch really well and some don't seem to support more than a couple of BPM deviation before artifacts show up.

I've also been trying to sketch out a way to make the multi-track loops work in StylusRMX without bringing my computers to their knees. I can't imagine sixteen channels of RMX running on any of my computers. I suppose I could use a bunch of Dr. Rexs, but RMX just seems to sound so much better.

I'm still trying to find a way to check out the kit. Sadly, I don't own Kontakt. I don't suppose anyone out there would be willing to try a conversion into Gigastudio or even NNxt with translator? I started to map one out by hand in Giga, but without knowing where each sample is meant to be assigned, I didn't get beyond the kick drums.

Overall, I think the quality of the loops is quite good and I'm looking forward to hearing the kits when they make it into a Giga or nnxt format.

a happy consumer,
Wayne

[beergeek]

I actually combined some Steve Gadd and Danny Gottlieb and got an awesome dual drummers loop...I haven't had time to do the beat correction properly so it starts to go off after a bit but it's wicked til then!

While you can't use every loop right outta the box in a song, you can do some VERY cool things with them if you play around and fill in...

What this SE shows me is the POTENTIAL of all the stuff Squids and company are sending our way this year....

I'm totally stoked about it...well, that and the fact that I gotz epointz burning a hole in my pocket... BTW, thanks to Rabban and deannic...

"Epointz, the gift that just keeps givin'"

[gamcontrolroom]

[i][quote="waynelangford"] I had no problems getting all the loops into RMX and I'm pretty happy with most of them. I'm really digging the Steve Gadd, Ed Greene, and Motown stuff. I felt some of the loops may have been "recycled" better than others. Some stretch really well and some don't seem to support more than a couple of BPM deviation before artifacts show up.[/i]

I'll second that. All the loops are in RMX and working well with the exception wayne mentionned about the stretching. 2 or 3 also play 2x faster their original tempo, but you can easily mange it with the half/double buttons.

[i]I've also been trying to sketch out a way to make the multi-track loops work in StylusRMX without bringing my computers to their knees. I can't imagine sixteen channels of RMX running on any of my computers. I suppose I could use a bunch of Dr. Rexs, but RMX just seems to sound so much better.[/i]

That's right that when you set two full instances of Stylus, it can bring processor power low. But it depends a lot of what processor you use and how you use fx's in Stylus. I can manage it quite well on my 2x2 GHz G5 along with a complete 16 channels of MachFive.
What is interesting with the multi-tracks loops is that you can use only some part of them and mix it with some other stuff.
I'm currently preparing all the multi-track loops to have them as "Multi" ready to go in Stylus.

[i]I'm still trying to find a way to check out the kit. :cry: Sadly, I don't own Kontakt. I don't suppose anyone out there would be willing to try a conversion into Gigastudio or even NNxt with translator? I started to map one out by hand in Giga, but without knowing where each sample is meant to be assigned, I didn't get beyond the kick drums.[/i]

I don't own Kontakt either but I have Motu MachFive. So I decided to do it by myself and after 6-7 hours of work it's been done. In fact you have to understand how the files are organized. It's a little bit long at first but after doing it three or four times you are going fast. You have also to group the samples by edit group (or layers) for example OH or EW or SB or Rm etc...
One of the biggest work has been to edit the amp and enveloppe, etc... settings (for example you can do velocity relative amp). You can measure while doing this how much work it is to do such a project like SP SE. And the work that's behind it.It always amaze me when I think about guys like Eric Persing, or Squids (and their techs). Their work is so creative...and generates so much creativity all around the world.
Another thing that is not so easy to achieve is the way to allow layers to be amp'ed independently. For example if you need more level of the Rm layer, it's not so easy in MachFive than what I saw when Squids demoed it in the video with Kontakt. So perhaps one day I will get Kontakt...I don't understand what is the problem with Motu. I hope it can be solved.
However the time I spent doing this gives me the ability to get the most of the "package".

A happy consumer too...

[Hewitt Huntwork]

Even at $79, I thought this was a steal just for the Rex files, which I feed to Stylus RMX. As any RMX owner will tell you, the value of a Rex file is greater in RMX because of Chaos and the kick-a$$ effects.

The libraries I'm most interested in are Jerry Marrotta, Mtown, and Vintage Soul. Even though the latter two don't fit "my" style, they're the loops I see myself getting the most use out of, based on SE. Go figure! I also thought the Nashville loops included in SE were pretty rock oriented, and wished there was more than one loop included for Classic Rock.

In terms of what else I'd like to see, that would be percussion! Hand percussion with no more than one instrument per loop. How is Squids going to sell multitrack files with no more than one instrument per loop? That's HIS problem!

[beergeek]

Oh man...I was in the studio tonight with Ed Greene

I am LOVING this stuff...didn't like the pitch of the toms...opened up the toms in Melodyne and voila...mixed up a nice backing track with some CSR...

I can't wait for the full titles...this is too much fun...too easy to do what you want...it's perfect. You have everything you need to get pro drummers work for you only you don't have to pay them

Squids, this is the real deal bud...bring on the goods!