MOTUnation.com

Hope this link works-- feels relevant:

http://mixonline.com/mixline/beatles_re ... 2009_0909/

I listened this morning to Sgt.Pepper's remastered.

First thing that struck me is that the panning is that old
60's stereo panning style - drums on one side, bass on the other,
vocals on one side, guitars on the other, and so on. I know that's
done on purpose in the same spirit as "stereo" was done on the
other Beatles albums. Just takes a few seconds to get used to it
again.

Everything is indeed cleaned up, and certainly I hear things I
didn't hear before. The horns and strings are really distinct now,
and Ringo's drums (particularly the tom fills) are more present and
sound better. There are particularly cool moments like the very very
end of that final chord on "Day In The Life" where you can hear the
string resonances on the piano and the damper pedal squeaking. I'm able
to hear instruments that were previously buried, including guitars. Paul's
bass is REALLY distinct.

It reminded me that our current technology, all our plug-ins and VI's,
have come a long way since Sgt. Pepper was recorded, but musical ideas
haven't really eclipsed the album. It's still an astounding piece of work.
I don't think it will ever be topped, at least creatively.

Delicious treat for the ears, indeed.

Since it was mentioned in this thread, does anyone know what ever did become of StudioPhonik? I bought it in a group buy... hmmmm

RecordingArts wrote:Since it was mentioned in this thread, does anyone know what ever did become of StudioPhonik? I bought it in a group buy... hmmmm

I wondered who had resurrected this thread. It is about time someone did.

I just answered your question in the other thread...

zed wrote:[Studiophonik] is still coming after a long delay. Squids' has promised some extra stuff for all participants of that GB to make up for the extended wait

I think it will be coming out when SampleTank 3 (which is under development) is released in 2010.

Lots of other Beatley stuff coming from eSoundz in 2010, including Ringo style drums sampled by Ken Scott. I have been assured that they completely nailed that elusive Ringo snare sound. Also some Beatle pianos (also sampled by Ken Scott, or under his direction).

And speaking of Beatles Virtual Instruments, in case anyone does not know it yet... Abbey Road has partnered up with Native Instruments and they are planning to release some instruments as early as January 2010, which I'm guessing are recorded in Abbey Road studios. I'm excited about that, especially since I have fallen in love with Kontakt.

Happy Beatley New Year everybody!

Nice! They say goodbye and we say Hello!

Whew!
I just started looking for some old-new sounds and came across the Fab Four. I've been reading this thread till my eyes started to bounce on the table.

Can anyone let me know 3 things in summary?
1. Do people generally like it? (I know its limitations)
2. Have the installation problems been solved?
3. Are there any new additions to the sounds yet?

These were the main issues I read about in the first bunch of pages. Then I skipped to the end but the answers must be in the middle.
Thanks.

BTW, I'm not on an intel Mac yet, if that matters.

NealF wrote:
Can anyone let me know 3 things in summary?
1. Do people generally like it? (I know its limitations)

Opinions vary. The sounds are good, imho. There is no complex key mapping, but it is pretty straight-forward and quite usable. Effects are decent emus of British vintage gear, especially the ADT (artificial double tracking).

NealF wrote: 2. Have the installation problems been solved?

Yes-- with a small caveat. The installer offers a few "secrets" or previously unknown features in that the window needs to be expanded to see all the install info and options. Otherwise, some important installer setup features can be easily missed. On the other hand, if you have a later version than what is on your DVDs, a manual install will work better, which is a bit of a pain but it works. You'll definitely want the latest installer (downloadable), but then don't use the DVD installer. Just drag the library files from each DVD to their proper location. When you get to that point, I or someone else can help walk your through the installation.

NealF wrote: 3. Are there any new additions to the sounds yet?

Nope, although there was some talk of an expansion being considered or in the works. There has been no word about this for some time now. Would be nice, though!

NealF wrote: BTW, I'm not on an intel Mac yet, if that matters.

An Intel certainly helps. Having more than 5-6 GB RAM also helps, but a well-equipped PPC will work fine, too.

Frodo wrote:

NealF wrote:1. Do people generally like it? (I know its limitations)

Opinions vary. The sounds are good, imho. There is no complex key mapping, but it is pretty straight-forward and quite usable.

I like it, but definitely wish there were more sounds, and more velocity layers and alternate hits or articulations.

After they spent so much money and time to sample these instruments with the aim of matching the original instruments, they did a pretty good job, but cut some corners in the department of making the instruments more easily realistic and playable by increasing the alternate samples and round robining.

This could be improved in an update, and I wish they would do that... especially with the drum kits.

Frodo wrote:

NealF wrote: 3. Are there any new additions to the sounds yet?

Nope, although there was some talk of an expansion being considered or in the works. There has been no word about this for some time now. Would be nice, though!

Yeah. I'd like to see a more rounded set. They have a nice Gibson J-160 in the Ministry of Rock library, and some other things in other sets that could be added to this library without much extra work. It would also be nice if they included a couple of decent Beatle pianos, and some Beatley-sounding orchestral instruments which they could adapt from EWQLSO

Frodo wrote:

NealF wrote: BTW, I'm not on an intel Mac yet, if that matters.

An Intel certainly helps. Having more than 5-6 GB RAM also helps, but a well-equipped PPC will work fine, too.

My experience with PLAY on a PPC was not all that positive, although others have reported better results than I had. It is workable for a few tracks, but if you start to push it you may find that your projects become very sluggish. PLAY really starts to shine on an Intel.

All in all, I am glad to have the library and hope that they continue to improve and expand on it. But I am certainly keeping my eyes open for what Native Instruments and Abbey Road have got up their sleeve for 2010. Apparently their first instrument(s) will be released later this month.

Thanks guys. That helps. I think I'll wait a month or two and see if anything new comes around. If not, I might go for it anyway. I love the old drums sounds.

It is time to resurrect this thread once again!

NealF wrote:Thanks guys. That helps. I think I'll wait a month or two and see if anything new comes around. If not, I might go for it anyway. I love the old drums sounds.

I can make a perfect segue...

Something new has come around!

Abbey Road and Native Instruments have just revealed the first of their products together: 60s Drums. You love the old drum sounds? Well here you go!

I'm gonna cut and paste some of what I wrote in another thread and embellish it here:

--------------------------

Being the Beatles fanatic that I am I couldn't see any point in waiting to download this product, since I would just spend all my time torturing myself with curiosity if I didn't. I played a little game with myself as I listened to the audio demos on the NI site... I guessed at what the price was going to be, and then decided what the price would have to be for me to buy it instantly, and what price point would make me feel like I should wait for a bit. I was thinking that they would be asking at least $249 for this product. But was very pleasantly surprised to discover that they beat that price by more than half!

There are 2 drum kits with a lot of articulations with up to 30 velocity layers per articulation. 29,000+ samples (and 14 GB+ of data when uncompressed).

Abbey Road wrote:Containing no emulations or acoustic modeling of any kind, this instrument consists entirely of high-quality samples of two vintage kits - beautifully recorded with period equipment in Abbey Road's legendary Studio Two.

One is an early 60s drum kit recorded and mixed through a REDD desk, and the other is a late 60s drum kit recorded through an EMI TG mixer, which includes Tea Towel toms and snares. There are also hand claps, tambourines and a lot of control over all the sounds by using both mono and stereo overhead mics.

Playing along with a Beatles record, the drums sound almost as if they were recorded in the exact same studio and in the same spot where Ringo's drums were recorded. Wait a minute... THEY WERE!!! No wonder it fits in so well with the recorded tracks!

It also has randomize controls so that you can randomize volume, velocity, time, pitch and EQ to really create authentic variation in the drum hits. And the mixing board and all the knobs are fashioned after vintage Abbey Road gear. I wish that DP could have faders and knobs like this!!

A fabulous product for sure, and at a very reasonable cost! They will now be my go-to drum kits.

Only drawback so far, is that you can't get under the hood in the way you can with most Kontakt instruments. The snare rimshots are a bit too loud compared to the rest of the snares, and there doesn't seem any way to alter the volume of a particular articulation within a set. Hopefully this will be addressed in a future update... or maybe I will learn how it is done as I play around a little more. Also, it doesn't come with ready presets for remapping kit pieces. I would like the drum kits in iMap format, and this can be set up, but it has to be done manually because they didn't provide a preset. Again, hopefully this will be addressed in an update.

But I'm a happy camper right now, and thrilled with this release.

--------------------------

This topic is also being discussed elsewhere on this forum, for anyone who wants to read some more about it.
http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 36#p334136" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Quick links for the curious...

AUDIO DEMOS:
http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/ ... ntent=1115" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

SESSION VIDEO
http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/ ... ntent=1116" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

To answer a couple of questions:

I actually e-mailed IK Multimedia after getting involved in this thread and it sounds like StudioPhonik died in vitro -- while I remember it being heavily advertised in Sweetwater's catalog for a while, and while you guys seemed to indicate there was a group buy afoot, I guess it never actually happened. Which is a shame, because I think StudioPhonik would have put the SampleTank engine up there with Kontakt (where it belongs). Controls like mic placement and individual mixing for drums would have illustrated the versatility of the ST programming. I absolutely don't care -- I love SampleTank's stuff all the same and it really has formed the core of my music-making system.

I think the "Abbey Road" thing has become universal, since Reason (Sonik Reality), NI, Chandler Ltd. (for outboard VI gear) and many third-party sample companies have now jumped on the boat. And PLAY's Fab Four seems to have filled in any holes left by StudioPhonik's dissolution.

Armageddon wrote:I actually e-mailed IK Multimedia after getting involved in this thread and it sounds like StudioPhonik died in vitro -- while I remember it being heavily advertised in Sweetwater's catalog for a while, and while you guys seemed to indicate there was a group buy afoot, I guess it never actually happened.

Actually it did happen, a couple of years back. We got StudioPhonik Prelude, which is most of the StudioPhonik library, with the promise of the full product when released.

It has gone through a bunch of delays but is supposed to be unveiled very soon with the launching of SampleTank 3, which has got a tonne of new features and effects, and very likely some of the editability that you become accustomed to in Kontakt.

I'm very excited about ST3. Since Amplitube 3 is including convolution reverb to enhance the realism of all the amp emulations, you can bet that there will be convolution reverb, and numerous other of the newer great sounding IK fx in SampleTank, plus there have been hints of this mic blending (or sample blending) thing you are talking about which SampleTank does already with StudioPhonik Prelude. Supposedly the new implimentation will be more elegant and versatile.

StudioPhonik is either going to come included with the new ST3 library or will be an add-on. I'm not sure which.[/quote]

If you are interested in suggesting features for ST3, IK was asking for input in a discussion they started on Facebook. Feel free to join in: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=3 ... opic=11298" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

zed wrote:Actually it did happen, a couple of years back. We got StudioPhonik Prelude, which is most of the StudioPhonik library, with the promise of the full product when released.

I had no idea they'd released StudioPhonik in any version. When I e-mailed IK a few months ago, they seemed to indicate it was a dead product, and, of course, you only find the one mention of it anywhere on IK's site.

zed wrote:It has gone through a bunch of delays but is supposed to be unveiled very soon with the launching of SampleTank 3, which has got a tonne of new features and effects, and very likely some of the editability that you become accustomed to in Kontakt.

I'm very excited about ST3. Since Amplitube 3 is including convolution reverb to enhance the realism of all the amp emulations, you can bet that there will be convolution reverb, and numerous other of the newer great sounding IK fx in SampleTank, plus there have been hints of this mic blending (or sample blending) thing you are talking about which SampleTank does already with StudioPhonik Prelude. Supposedly the new implimentation will be more elegant and versatile.

StudioPhonik is either going to come included with the new ST3 library or will be an add-on. I'm not sure which.

If you are interested in suggesting features for ST3, IK was asking for input in a discussion they started on Facebook. Feel free to join in: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=3 ... opic=11298" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Completely insane! I had no idea they included convolution in Amplitude 3! And yes, convolution would be a great asset to the ST family (I assume these enhancements will also show up in the next incarnation of Philharmonik and Sonik Synth). Maybe the only major enhancement I could think of that ST needs to include, aside from the release of StudioPhonik, would maybe be a mixer-style console window for all sixteen channels. It's not completely necessary, and I could see how accessing the part effects and sends and inserts could get a bit confusing in that context, but it would be nice to access all the major mix controls in that format when you're doing a score and you want to mix ST (and, especially, Philharmonik, which is most likely the VI you'd be mixing multiple instruments in within one instance) without the hassle of going part by part. Toontrack's EZ Drummer, for example, features such a console window. If they're including features like mic placement and bleed, maybe they'll also have an "ST mixer" that allows you to mix all the instruments within one instance by using a control surface?

Frodo wrote:

NealF wrote:
Can anyone let me know 3 things in summary?
1. Do people generally like it? (I know its limitations)

Opinions vary. The sounds are good, imho. There is no complex key mapping, but it is pretty straight-forward and quite usable. Effects are decent emus of British vintage gear, especially the ADT (artificial double tracking).

NealF wrote: 2. Have the installation problems been solved?

Yes-- with a small caveat. The installer offers a few "secrets" or previously unknown features in that the window needs to be expanded to see all the install info and options. Otherwise, some important installer setup features can be easily missed. On the other hand, if you have a later version than what is on your DVDs, a manual install will work better, which is a bit of a pain but it works. You'll definitely want the latest installer (downloadable), but then don't use the DVD installer. Just drag the library files from each DVD to their proper location. When you get to that point, I or someone else can help walk your through the installation.

NealF wrote: 3. Are there any new additions to the sounds yet?

Nope, although there was some talk of an expansion being considered or in the works. There has been no word about this for some time now. Would be nice, though!

NealF wrote: BTW, I'm not on an intel Mac yet, if that matters.

An Intel certainly helps. Having more than 5-6 GB RAM also helps, but a well-equipped PPC will work fine, too.

OK. Got the disks. And guess what. Tried to do it myself and now have a good reality on what the problem is with the installation. So I've got everything on my system drive.
Frodo, I tried what you said in an earlier post (Do the install again, but do a custom and uncheck "Library". Put the rest of the data on the system drive, then do another custom install with ONLY the Library checked on the drive of your choice.) But still ran into trouble.
the second custom install wouldn't let me pick a drive so now it's running the installer and putting things, who know where.

Help! (Detailed please).