Chip McDonald

I'm quite sure that's not the case. On their site you download a package and have to do the usual licensing genuflection, so there is no bespoke aspect to it - it would be incredibly dumb to be duplicating the same redundant digital file for every account. I'm not talking about something that is free, I'm talking about a drum library *I paid for*. The problem in my situation it that it never completely worked with the free version of Sampletank - although it was supposed to - so I didn't keep it on a present drive. I did have it on an old drive, but it still doesn't work with the new free version of Sampletank; so either I don't have the complete original download, or it simply doesn't work. I don't know if I have the complete original package. I'd have to pay to find out. [ I've bought a fair share of music software over the decades, have friends that work for these companies - IK chooses to do things differently to their advantage in a way no other music software company does that I'm aware of.

God's Cab has a dry and old-school uncolored sound, kinda. The Revalver "Doc's Best 212" (whatever that means?) has a somewhat similar character, in that it's not super low-treble forward sounding. I bought the Softube 1959 sim because I think it may have the best recorded cab sim - but you can't disable the amp model, which only does one aspect of a plexi sound; the farther you go from every knob being at 12o'clock the gnarlier and less realistic it sounds. Again, like with most modellers, it's like you've got to stay within the sweet spot of what the makers originally *wanted* to hear, and outside of that it goes bad. I wish they'd revise it to let you just use the cabs. Getting a "properly "small", not close ala 70's" cab sound is the hardest thing with speaker sims. It sounds to me like a lot of them are recorded through either cheesy preamps, or they were too hot, or they used a particularly brittle sounding solid state amp to shoot the impulse. There is treble coloration that can't be removed, like on drum samples today - it's like everything is geared towards making something that sounds like a loud NIckelback/pop recording, narrow and for high gain.

IK is ridiculous for wanting to charge you to re-download something you've paid for. I bought a drum sample library long ago from them, it never worked with the free Sampletank at the time, gave up trying to get it to work, went back last year and "you've got to pay". Nope. Ridiculous.

Revalver seems cool, but it always had a slow attack/high ratio compressor effect going on that I could never defeat. Circuit modelling is definitely superior to Yet Another Convolution Package IMO. But their insistence on using Peavey amp analogs is unfortunate/counterproductive for them. I guess that was a Hartley decision.

Can't get it to download from their cloud service app. Which these days makes me think "sketchy", despite their site looking professional, etc...

At this point at the end of the world I'm just glad it's in tune and there wasn't some sort of hyperbolic gimmick involved. I'm quite fine with the political world becoming duller and bland. It's refreshing, I feel like I have more headspace to retreat to while doing music.

The doctors/pas/nurses I know all agree we just saw the Christmas/New Year's surge. Nothing has changed, of course. The people I know have been on 7 day extended shifts. 7 day wait for phase 1b vaccinations - where they have it. All of the vaccine manufacturers are saying they're going to come up short supply-wise. Biden needs to get FEMA and the national guard out to help get vaccinations on track, and this "you don't need the second dose" bs is going to help mutations. The South African variant in in the States, much more contagious, along with other new strains. And the dumb anti-science anti-mask brigade appear to be permanently impaired and ever willing to be super spreaders. It's really worse than ever.

I see the first thing the new Congress has decided to be worthwhile isn't mask mandates, vaccine plans, $2,000 stimulus... but to eliminate gender adjectives from the floor of the House. After a prayer to "the monotheistic god" it was closed with "Amen and a woman". I'm sorry, this is complete anti-intellectual buffoonery masquerading as some sort of neo-puritan philosophy. If a person can't accept nuance in wording with a sense of humor they're mentally deficient.

Is it that "slut" and "House-N***" are not both slurs? Or that one is a petty slur, and the other is a serious slur? I'll assume that's the non-equivalence you are pointing out - let me know if I'm wrong about that. No, you're quite right, thanks for illustrating my point.

You're making a straw man.

Are you suggesting that any quick-transient noises coming from anything other than the drums, in the upper mid transient frequency range, will hurt how the drum kit sounds? I'm not saying it will "hurt" it, it's a generalization in response to a general question of "how to make drums "pop"". "Drum sounds" by nature are percussive - the attack IS the "pop". If you let the guitar pick attack jump through, the fricatives of the vocal, throw in a slap-pop bass player the drums won't "pop" - unless you control the first 100ms of each sound source carefully. It's why 2 bus compression fouls up people, and why drum sounds have evolved into clicks. When tape and slower electronics were used it was less of a problem. When tape was happening transients varied depending on how they hit the tape and came back into the board; now everything has full-speed transients at all levels all the time. In the first scenario you simply don't have the resources to control transients separately, so it doesn't matter. In the second scenario, you have the situation where you've got to prioritize what gets the transient upper hand. For some recordings (GRP comes to mind) horn sections are allowed to be brash, transient. On some jazz recordings, the drums are "slow", dark, and the horn gets to have the transient dominance. In metal you'll hear the kicks have transient dominance, the snare and the guitar will be "slower", or narrower (hence some prog bands trending back towards late 90's piccolo snare sound). Chicago: listen to 25 or 6 to 4: *can you even really hear the kick drum*? Another philosophy would be a phenomenon whereby - whether a producer/engineer knows it or not, the 2 mix compressor is going to let a transient through on quarter notes, or eighth notes (or in metal) 16ths. You don't want to think about this too much, because it will ruin you when you start listening to recordings from a mix compression standpoint; the "drummer" is the mix compression sometimes. Uhm... yeah, listen to "Hard To Say I'm Sorry" the remastered version versus the original. Something I care for on "remasters" - it's louder, but you'll note the fricatives on "Say" and "Sorry" are almost as loud/attention grabbing as the "snare", but on the original it's the snare that comes forward and the vocal doesn't "compete" for your attention as much. The compression has a swing to it as well I think. Then listen to "If You Leave Me Now" the vocals get to have more of the transients, shared with the pedaled hat - until the guitar solo, that gets to have a lot of transients (and the beautiful string gliss as it finishes). The transients on this get shared because - there effectively is no drum kit. (hmm.. it just occurred to me how the arrangement of the middle 8 in Toto's "I Won't Hold You Back" is reminiscent of "Hard to Say I'm Sorry"?) Hmm. If I only had a pair of 81s and a LD, or 3 mics, and I was doing a Chicago style band.. I wouldn't do stereo drums because you'll get more payoff from having the horns in stereo and the drums laying back. I'd put one out in front of the kick, one directly overhead, and... the weird part... an 81 on the hat, because chances are with a Chicago type song the "percussion" aspect of the high hat might carry a recording farther than anything else, and an 81 on hats will come off as the most "polished"/pro sound you'll be able to get - so if it's ("un-traditionally") up front the overall effect might be better. If you listen to the old Chicago recordings, the hat and ride will have as much transient attack as the drums. Regardless, stereo horns will be better than stereo drums. In fact, burying mono drums given your resources might be the best thing to do, since 81s on horns should work fairly well IMO. But in the inimitable words of Miles Copeland I'm just a peasant, you shouldn't listen to me!

Curious that people on Twitter are "praising" the renaming of GS that produce music with lyrics that would be considered porn 10 years ago. Real derogatory intent SHOULD NOT be diluted by casting the net so wide that almost anything humorous is captured. If one wants to go on some Anakin Skywalker anti-comedy idealistic crusade it should be regarded as such. The only thing that could be left over is Joe Pera and chicken crossing the road jokes. Maybe Jules should consider: www.peoplethatlikegear.com www.supergearlikers.com www.proliferategearenthusiasts.com www.superseriousgearpurchasers.com

No. That's not an equivalence. That's ridiculous. No. [align:center] In reality, humans are NUANCED.[/align] [align:center] NUANCE EXISTS. [/align]

Don't let anything else have fast upper mid transients.

...because only men can be "gearslutz"? ...because "slut" as an adjective isn't valid? ...because sluts are an unappreciated, oppressed and misunderstood demographic? WTF. I hate that this know-nothing faction of the left forces me into agreeing with Jordan Peterson, and risks my "commie lefty card" in turn. Reality is, you can't have victimless humor, and the use of a pejorative ironically has to have a subject. I am SO SICK of the median i.q. wanting to ignore context - because they're incapable of perceiving it - as an excuse to support a position. They're insisting something is ad hominem based on syntactical agreement; "common denominator social media jousting strategy". I hate the 21st century.

There can't be responsible gigs until the numbers are below what they were in March, combined with a majority having been vaccinated. Otherwise you're providing an event for people to possible infect other people. Certain nations may meet that criteria by June, possibly. The U.S. definitely won't. I don't think Biden can meet his goal of 100 million by May, but if he does it would be well after August to get 1/2 of the U.S. population I believe, and then another 3 months for the numbers to come down. I think that could be advanced many months if we had a serious 3 week lock down at that 100 million mark. We could knock the R0 down significantly. But I don't think the above will happen. I don't think we'll hit 100 million until the end of the year at best, but we'll over a million dead, many new variants, and in turn questions about the efficacy of the vaccines. People will refuse the vaccine on political and anti-science grounds, and continue to be jerks about wearing masks and distancing. Meanwhile, a number of other nations will start recovery both socially and economically. You won't be doing shows in Europe because Americans will be frowned upon, even with vaccination records. But certain acts will start limited touring again, and they'll find replacements for American musicians. I think there is a good possibility America could find itself literally cutoff from the rest of the planet, if it turns out by the end of the year new strains are originating here and the population still coddles the anti-science anti-mask faction. The rest of the world won't be having it. as it becomes more and more clear having a responsible doctrine in place means maintaining a semblance of living life like "the old times". It will mean new financial/geo political partnerships will arise. Brexit may be subsumed by agreements similar to what New Zealand and Australia/Guinea have, along the lines of agreed tourism based on mutual institutionalized precautions. The United States will be a physical pariah if Biden isn't successful, and if attitudes don't change.

Those are not "facts", they're anecdotes. Leadership was briefed in January. "I still like playing it down because I don't want to create a panic". The WHO *reported* that China *reported* there was no evidence of human transference - when obviously there was. *It's why I started taking precautions in January*. Does the U.S. government take it's strategic health cues from China, or from U.S. scientists? Dr. Fauci - who is under an agency that oversaw a program to study zoonotic virus in bats at the Wuhan lab in 2013 - had reasons to play it down because of that, and being part of the adminstration's political circle. [ Meanwhile there was plenty of footage of Chinese workers in full PPE decontaminating buildings, everyone there wearing masks, people in hospitals dying. "It'll be over by Easter". We didn't "shut down the borders", we restricted travel from *only certain places*. While at the same time playing down the threat, not informing the public to take precautions, AND having "leadership" proudly going around flaunting wearing masks.

"Drugs" are not all the same. Thalidomide is not the Moderna vaccine, the Pfizer vax doesn't make your body make "GMOs" like people started babbling about yesterday on Twitter. Recalled spark plugs doesn't mean you shouldn't get your brakes fixed because the new pads might get recalled; let your brakes continue long enough and you'll have no brakes and a wreck. It won't matter it the new pads were recalled or not. Here's the problem: Lyme disease wasn't highly communicable through the air, and while bad wasn't likely to kill someone over the age of 75. That's a false equivalence; this is, unfortunately, a novel, bad situation. You can't logically cite long term worry when it's highly likely without it you're going to get infected, and have potentially very drastic consequences from it. I hoped to get the Oxford vaccination around "now". That looks impossible in the States until April (which is ridiculous). If something holds that up, or for some reason it's not a choice, I get one of the other, or the J&J. Let me tell you: I am the most OCD detail-conscientious person you'll ever know. I research everything, consider PCBs in the dirt around my house versus planting vegetables, try not to let gasoline get on my fingers at the gas station, don't microwave plastics, on and on - and I'm the crazy person that has religiously used hand sanitizer at my since getting swine flu back in...2008? I absolutely hate the notion of taking a vaccine, as it introduces another question mark I don't want. BUT, *it's easy to comprehend the ramifications of getting infected, as well as the *likelihood*. Which totally nulls the previous mentioned question mark. It's very simple math that unfortunately I can't change or beat. The universe will win this round. I have no problem with the efficacy of their product, but their actions to suppress their competition is another unrelated issue.

Yes it does. Having the parameters of a scale that spans from ignoring it (the U.S.) to doing what it takes (NZ) points to the leadership of each nation as having been responsible for the resulting state. It was obvious "this" was going to happen. I started taking precautions in early January, to the ridicule of those around me. Had the U.S. government announced the milquetoast suggestion of "everyone wear a mask, make a mask if necessary, and stay distanced, wash your hands" in January, *without a doubt thousands of lives would have been saved* Thousands. And the U.S. wouldn't be in this ruinous state we're in now due to the *necessity* for lock downs (even though we didn't really do it...). January was an inflection point, the initiation of the predicament. December was an inflection point, the initiation of a possible mitigation. Both should have been handled on a federal level, prioritizing the stock market over the people was/is evil. Optimistic, given how slow vaccinations are happening and the lack of cognizance of taking the precautions of wearing masks and distancing religiously.

I haven't owned one since the Rocktron Juice Extractor. The Suhr reactive load seems the best in my experience, but that's probably because the impedance curve is steered towards a greenback loaded 4x12, which I prefer.

Sorry Craig, I'm just going to have to take issue with that statement. (In the nicest possible way, of course.) A virus has no brain. It has no feelings, it has no motives. It just mutates within a changed environment or, as the article suggests, some human being changes its structure. Craig's obviously using "smart" as an allusion, and it's a good one. In the case of SARS COV2 it's been very smart: be able to be infectious 24 hours after infection, while not causing any symptoms for up to 14 days. On a contagion scale that's "smarter" than most.

It depends on whether enough get vaccinated in time, and whether it mutates beyond the vaccines. Figure 6 months for the first mutation. As the number of people infected goes exponential - explaining why we've got 2 more in the past few months - there will be 30+ mutations by the end of the year (another "wacky" Chip prediction). The South African variant apparently deviates about 5% sequence wise, and likewise is still recognized by memory t-cells post-vaccination. If we don't get the R0 down into the .5 region. given 5% every generation... then we'll potentially have a strain that's unrecognizable by... the middle of 2022? Which is why we must get vaccinated herd immunity by Sept-October if we want it to be something akin to getting the flu. Otherwise by next year we're in the same boat. Maybe forever. We'll need to wear masks in public, distancing because of the 5% the vaccines won't protect at least until 2023, presuming the best of circumstances. It will be dumb to have people gathering in rooms, even outdoors until then, it's just prolonging it. It's like assembling a 100 people in a room, knowing someone is going to fire a gun; it might not hit anybody. It might ricochet and wound someone, cripple them for life. Or it might kill them. At R0=1 on average 5 people will be affected *if everyone is vaccinated*. If people could imagine that, nobody would gather in public.

Rubbish. When a hurricane hits New Orleans, is it left up to them to get out of it or is it not a NATIONAL DISASTER? There was a "corona virus task force" that has all along kow towed to a political message to the detriment of the U.S., and dropped the ball on logistics there as well. This is not a *State* emergency but a national one - WTF are FEDERAL agencies like FEMA and DHS supposed to be for if not to assist in NATIONAL EMERGENCIES such as this?

The time has been compressed because the bureuacracy has been stripped out; a lot of the paper work has been streamlined/put to the front. But most importantly because *unfortunately there are plenty of volunteers and a very active sample control*. It's much, much faster when you don't have to wait *months* to get 30,000 volunteers; and then months to have enough people get sick in your control to demonstrate enough time has elapse to *prove it's efficacy*. Nothing is rushed in the process, these trials are statistically sound, and because of the time base for the data set if anything more robust than a lot of trials. Tertiary concerns have been addressed; the mRNA is fragile to begin with, and mRNA left over is destroyed by rnases and proteomic processes. I'm favoring the Astra-Zeneca because if anything, I would be concerned for mishandling of the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines rending them ineffective due to temperature fluctations over *and* under. {quote]The big issue seems to be uncertainty about why the 1/2 dose patients (which may have not been intentional) had a higher degree of success than those who took the full dose. Neutralizing anti-body conditions are thought to be the cause. The Oxford vaccine is different than the Pfizer/Moderna, you don't want your body destroying the messenger before it's delivered the message - the initial dose has to be able to "sneak in". I'm not worried about that at all, if anything the 3 week wait for the boost may not be optimal in the long run, I suspect what is 1/2 the original dose for the prime inoculation may turn out to be right for the boost as well. Either way, *I* will not be hesitating. If there is a double standard it's in publicity. I found it curious (I think I pointed this out in this thread pages ago) that the Pfizer vaccine was being reported in the mainstream media almost as if it were the *only* vaccine, and the Oxford hardly ever was referenced. AND, when the Astra-Zeneca results came in effectively all "news" outlets *only reported the part of the story that said the full prime dose resulted in 70% efficacy, leaving out the 95-98% result with the half dose. Or they reported that "they did the trial wrong - look, they messed up, you can't trust the results" (para). Which all points to *MONEY SPENT BY PFIZER TO CAMPAIGN FOR THEIR PRODUCT AGAINST THEIR (cheaper, easier to make and distribute...) COMPETITION.

So they'll make the mom and pop dealers be required to do gargantuan opening orders of guitars AND amps now I guess? Gibson should just make a GA-40 clone, sell it for Hot Rod Deluxe prices, and then voila - they're competing. This is not even going sideways, it's just Mesa owned by someone else. Unless they decide to start tinkering with Boogie's design aesthetic, which would be dumb.