Recommend a USB MIDI controller for me?

[namnibor]

Originally Posted by MBTC

I actually have to disagree with this. There's been lots of evidence to support Windows 8 as better than Windows 7 with regard to music production. The whole metro interface thing does take some getting used to and still bugs me sometimes, but check out these benchmarks and keep in mind this comes to us from Cakewalk/Roland, who has absolutely no motivation to get you to upgrade to Windows 8:

http://blog.cakewalk.com/windows-8-a...-applications/

From the summary : "The results of the benchmarks were surprisingly good! Windows 8 performed better than Windows 7 across the board in all categories, and in many cases with fairly dramatic performance gains."

To keep on-subject, if not for but this one sentence; I think Novation has always been well-ahead of likes of M-Audio in this department going back to their VA Synths such as the X Station, which was not only a capable synth but an all-out audio interface and controller in one. No idea what the Novation Impulse line is like but am glad I went with the Remote SL 61MkII because Automap or not, for me and most of us its the feel of the keys and my top requirement of After Touch, as I find it an invaluable creative routing option for things a lot of people never think of like Breath Control.

Now, I wanted to tell Tweakhead that I do INDEED have what I deem a "pre-mixer" for my hardware synths that is an older Kawai Keyboard Mixer that not only has individual sends for my Lexicon MPX110 at either pre or post-fader AND this ahead of its time utilitarian mixer actually has one MIDI IN and THREE MIDI THRU ports, effectively serving as a midi merge device that's not connected to the audio input signal. Even though sending that mixer's output to AI, if I desire of course to do a sister midi track for some automation am aware this will be effortless to make those connections to do so.
The Focusrite Mix Control on their interfaces seems to be incredibly flexible. Yesterday, got an email that stated Automap has yet another update and supportive of WIN 8 and USB 3 ports. That's great info from Roland regarding benchmarks on WIN 8. I am not being "a stick in the mud" about WIN 7, however, there's MANY people that still utilize WIN XP for audio. Not to mention all those folks that have Clavia Nord Modular that Nord seemed to have dropped them off the train and left them for dead as far as any support post WIN XP or past MAC O.S.--anyone ever wonder why Nord dropped such an innovative hardware/software integration synth?

[TweakHead]

Originally Posted by namnibor

Not to mention all those folks that have Clavia Nord Modular that Nord seemed to have dropped them off the train and left them for dead as far as any support post WIN XP or past MAC O.S.--anyone ever wonder why Nord dropped such an innovative hardware/software integration synth?

No clue. But the Nord Modular G2 isn't old enough to justify completely dropping support on the software side of it - and for this particular product, without the software the synthesizer is rendered almost useless besides the patches you have stored into its internal memory. This is what will probably happen to some of our software synthesizers of the old age. For example, just recently support was dropped on Albino 3 - which was still a very good VA software synthesizer on its own right, needing only unisson to stand up against anything in the market even today. It's a sad situation for such a lovely machines that have been used to oblivion in many modern tracks and are still mentioned a lot by many accomplished producers. But it is what it is... I guess, as far as the Modular is concerned, you can always set up a partition with an older version of windows or mac, or even a virtual machine just for being able to use the software to create new patches. But, by all means, Clavia should get a kick in the but for it. And so should Rob Papen being so greedy about his god damn presets - which btw no real producer cares for since they're mostly garbage compared to what you can do with that beast of a synthesizer programming it yourself...

When we buy a product we expect the company to keep up with the promise and at least keep supporting the stuff we paid for. There's also the powercore dsp that was able to run the virus synthesizer that is now dead, right Berni? We should gather all the music folks and kick some serious developers but if you ask me!

[namnibor]

Maybe just place a glass crystal dome over them all and all disgruntled musicians take a group fart in their general direction !!
You are not the first to have grievance toward that sound designer as there's people that own the Microwave 1 in which is dependent on large external memory card to place one's new sounds on or import new waves and sounds in that machine and will just say it's outright highway robbery what is charged for them with a damn disclaimer that they are his sounds and cannot be utilized in commercial realm nor sold in any way or form.
I say just make your own sounds because it's by very nature of trial and error and using one's ears, a person becomes a synthesis or better yet synthesis.
Do not mean to be 'snarky', but Tweakhead's words are very wise in making one's own trademark sound rather than continuing the 'cookie cutter' syndrome.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by TweakHead

No clue. But the Nord Modular G2 isn't old enough to justify completely dropping support on the software side of it - and for this particular product, without the software the synthesizer is rendered almost useless besides the patches you have stored into its internal memory. This is what will probably happen to some of our software synthesizers of the old age. For example, just recently support was dropped on Albino 3 - which was still a very good VA software synthesizer on its own right, needing only unisson to stand up against anything in the market even today. It's a sad situation for such a lovely machines that have been used to oblivion in many modern tracks and are still mentioned a lot by many accomplished producers. But it is what it is... I guess, as far as the Modular is concerned, you can always set up a partition with an older version of windows or mac, or even a virtual machine just for being able to use the software to create new patches. But, by all means, Clavia should get a kick in the but for it. And so should Rob Papen being so greedy about his god damn presets - which btw no real producer cares for since they're mostly garbage compared to what you can do with that beast of a synthesizer programming it yourself...

When we buy a product we expect the company to keep up with the promise and at least keep supporting the stuff we paid for. There's also the powercore dsp that was able to run the virus synthesizer that is now dead, right Berni? We should gather all the music folks and kick some serious developers but if you ask me!

I'm aware of Albino support being dropped, but aside from that most of my soft synths that were purchased many years ago are still getting great support. Recent example includes e-mails I've received direct from Urs (Zebra developer) who is not too busy to care about supporting software I paid for back in 2007. Lennard, developer of Sylenth1 has also been helpful many years after the sale had long transpired.

Overall I would say software support in the soft-synth world is way better than one can expect from mainstream business software. The bottom line there is that software is not just a one-time purchase. It must exist in an ecosystem that is subject to constant change -- OS updates, driver updates, DAW/Host updates, etc will all have some impact on your software's ability to continue operating in the future. This is not a phenomenon specific to music software, but all software in general.

When a software company's revenue stream dissolves, there is simply nothing left to continue paying employees. It's not a matter of ripping off the consumer, it's a matter of survival. This is one reason the industry has gone more toward "software as a service", such that people pay a monthly or annual fee to use software on a per-user license level. This helps rid them of the false thinking that "okay I bought this software, it should work forever".

With all of that said, I think all my VST plug-ins have an amazing record of continuing to work, regardless of whether I update them. I think that says something about the relatively non-volatile nature of the VST specification; it is not something that tends to get affected by Windows or OSX updates for example.

Dedicated hardware that attaches to your computer is another matter, as there is usually some type of proprietary driver or software (i.e. Automap) involved. I'm not sure why the Powercore DSP was discontinued, but I suspect there was a point at which it was clear that sales growth would not sustain support costs (only a guess.... typically when something makes a lot of money it tends to not get discontinued).

I have worked at companies where I've witnessed absolute tragedy with regard to engineering staff cuts. By that, I mean that decisions were made by douchebag bean-counters and upper management know-nothings that resulted in the layoffs of key engineers that were required to keep the product line going. Yes, the layoffs were made without the realization by management and accounting types that they just cut off the lifeline to their own company by firing the only few guys that understood how things worked. The stupidity can be that rampant. So I have seen products be discontinued because of that sort of error in management, but it's not the only cause of course.

Overall, I think we should be thankful at the type of software and gear (or in many cases software INSTEAD of gear) that we can buy these days. When I first got into electronic music, you could easily spend $20k (which would probably be more like 3 or 4 times that in today's money) and still not have enough to produce a professional track. And in those days, a typical synthesizer cost several thousand dollars but was almost guaranteed to be discontinued a couple of years later. I think all products undergo this type of lifecycle.

At the end of the day though, with a software based environment, in theory if you are content with what you have, it's irrelevant that the software has been discontinued. Like namnibor said, some people still run XP!! If they plan to evolve they are kind of screwed because they are sitting on a ticking time bomb.... some software update will eventually come along that will make them regret that, unless they decide to lock down their system, no more updates or new software, and just consider that the last music making box they will need for the rest of their lives. In fact they could just image the hard drive and carry the environment forward to a new PC whenever their current hardware's life came to an end. I've heard of things much more absurd.... I know some people kept their original Atari ST sequencing environments going, as-is without modification or maintenance for something like 20 years! For all I know there may still be some out there doing all their production on them or Amigas.

For me I don't think I could ever just lock things down and fall outside the normal lifecycle of updates and deprecation of products. Trying new things is part of what keeps me inspired and interested in the hobby of synths. And none of my investment in softsynths has required any physical repair .... I've seen guys already having to replace keys in the keybed of their Virus Tis!!