Z3ta or Sonar?

Should i get the Rgc: Audio Bundle or Sonar Producers Edition with the next $300 I get?

-C W

Should i get the Rgc: Audio Bundle or Sonar Producers Edition with the next $300 I get?

Uh oh. As an aside to Bradster, Julie, and all the other active members of the GLASS organization: It's too late; CW's a goner. We can't save him from gear-lust addiction. All we can do now is to help him cope with the disease. I don't ever recall such an early onset of every one of the symptoms.

CW: Read Alfonso's reply above and let us know what you're looking towards. It bothers me that you've completely skipped the crucial step of downloading every one of the thousands of free VSTis available on the 'net first. It's a rite-of-passage to have to weed through all of the junk out there before you settle on the diamonds-in-the-rough.

Go the the Green Oak site and download the free Crystal plugin. That ought to tide you over for a while. I hope that there's not a rash of muggings in Utah or a strange increase in missing household items that coincides with your new addiction. <g>

Im not lusting for gear. Im just planning ahead.

Mmm-hmm. Denial. That's one of the first warning signs.

I hope that you know that I'm just kidding with you, CW. This post came right on the heels of the controller thread, and it seemed to me that you were considering an immediate purchase. Just trying to look out for ya', bud, and I hope that this didn't come across in a negative way, because that wasn't my intent.

I figure its always good to have a plan.

Planning is good. Get all the research in that you can. Either one of these purchases is an excellent investment, but they fulfill two entirely different sets of needs. Z3ta+ is one of the deepest programmable synths on the market, yet it comes with (and you have access to) thousands of preset programs and some modifications that'll change it into an entirely different synth or two (simultaneously available).

You either love or hate the sound results; I'd suggest that you d/l the demo at the rgcaudio site. As even Rene has said, the demo is almost irresistable if you're inclined towards the synth, so be forewarned. <g>

Of course, Sonar is a completely different beast. Extensive audio capability; a different focus and workflow for MIDI; more what you'd expect from a full-fledged traditional recording studio. You can find out a lot about the program at Cakewalk's Sonar forum from reading the posts. Poke around a bit and get a read on the atmosphere there before diving into posting some questions. There's a tremendous wealth of knowledge there given by some highly qualified people, but it can be a little less-forgiving on newer members.

I'm sure that Sonar5 is due out at some point in the autumn, so now might be the time to start looking at the current potential. Z3ta+ is at 1.4, and there's been some speculation surrounding a new update for that for some time now. You might want to look into the rgc:audio forum at K-v-R for the background. Again; another great source of detailed information. HTH

Go the the Green Oak site and download the free Crystal plugin. That ought to tide you over for a while. I hope that there's not a rash of muggings in Utah or a strange increase in missing household items that coincides with your new addiction. <g>

Hey b, I'm afraid that in only 1 month into P5 I, too, suffer from G.L.A. So I went to the Green Oak site and downloaded the crystal plug-in. When I open P5, it's not showing up if I right click on a Audio track to insert an instrument. Shouldn't it be? I assigned it to my P5 folder, and it shows up in the "browse" function in the loops/patterns bin, but that doesn't do me any good. Did I extract the file incorrectly or something?

Did I extract the file incorrectly or something?

Fred is steering you to the corect procedure in his reply above, Erik. The Crystal plugin is a VSTi; unlike the DXi plugins that you see listed in the default P5 installation. You have to 'convince' the plugin to act as a DXi, and that happens in the VST Adapter.

First of all, you don't really want to start loading your VSTs into the P5 folder. It won't do any immediate harm that I know of, but you're going to start bogging down the P5 folder eventually with all sorts of files that accompany the VST .dlls, and it'll become impossible to retrace your steps later on. This has more to do with good housekeeping.

My suggestion is to create a top-level folder for just your VST plugins. It could be as simple as C:/VST Plugins, and you could divide it down even further with C:/VST Plugins/VSTi Synths and C:/VST Plugins/VST Effects. Under the C:/VST Plugins/VSTi Synths sub-folder, create another folder named Green Oak and extract the contents of the .zip file to that folder. Since you already done that to the P5 folder, you might want to delete those, or move them to C:/VST Plugins/VSTi Synths/Green Oak in Windows Explorer.

That'll include the CrystalPatchBanks and CrytalSoundFonts folders (if you downloaded the entire package), along with the Crystal%20VSTi.pdf (manual) and the Crystal.dll (the 'business end' of the plugin). Go to the Start/All Programs menu in Windows, navigate to the Cakewalk folder, and look to running the Cakewalk VST Adapter 4 program. This is what 'preps' your VST(x) plugins for use in Project5 (or Sonar, etc.).

In the second screen, browse to your newly-created VST folder (in my example: C:/VST Plugins). You only need to point the Adapter to the top-level folder; it'll scan for any .dlls in the layers underneath that. Watch the process unfold, and when you're finished, your Crystal plugin will be 'registered' for use in P5. You have to repeat this process everytime that you add or delete a new plugin [VST-based] to tell Project5 of the changes you've made.

There's all sorts of options that you can adjust during the VST Adapter scan. Leave them alone for the time being, but remember that the options are there should any plugin problems develop later on. You don't need to go through this for a DXi synth or DX effect; only for VSTis and VSTs. The next time that you open P5, Replace or Insert Instrument will contain a VST section under the DXi 'line', and under that: Crystal; ready to play.

Enjoy that synth. It's one of the best 'freebies' out there, and there's tons of patches to download for it around the 'net. Make sure that you grab any patch banks by Tim Conrady (patches usually are appended by "TC" if they're his). He's got some fantastic creations out there, and his method is simply tweaking one patch to get another. He saves that, and starts anew from the freshly created patch. It's incredible how many unique sounds that he comes up with using that procedure, although sometimes you can see the progressive 'lineage'.

If you have any additional problems with this, don't hesitate to reply back. HTH

What second screen are you referring to, and how do I "point" the Adapter at it?

You have to launch the VST Adapter program manually yourself. It's a seperate program altogether under Start/All Programs/Cakewalk, and it is installed by default with your P5 installation, but doesn't run automatically. You should shut down Project5, run the Adapter, then relaunch P5 to see the results.

When you run the Adapter, the first screen is an 'About' informational screen. Hitting Next brings you to the second screen. Once there, hit the Add button to open up a browser, and navigate to whatever folder you've placed your VST plugins in (I suggested that to be C:/VST Plugins, but it can be anything that you can easily find & remember).

I'm assuming when you say "top level folder" you're talking about my most important folder, yes?

I was thinking more along the lines of a folder that's easily accessible when you look at your hard drive listings without having to open up any 'branches to the tree'. That is: not one buried under several other levels of folders. That's why I suggested that you create a new folder (C:/VST Plugins), rather than trying to search for something like C:/Program Files/Cakewalk/Utilities/VST Plugins.