MurMan

When I use Omnisphere on a Surface Pro 4, a 500MB patch takes about 1-2 seconds to load from SSD. For those that don't know Omnisphere, it has a Live mode that lets you load up to eight patches. Live mode startup takes a while to load, but you only do it once. You can then layer or switch between patches without losing notes that are still playing during performance. Since an Omnisphere patch can be very complex, eight patches has never been a limitation for me. My Live mode setups use 1-2 GB which is easily handled by my SP4 with 8GB RAM. I use Omnisphere primarily for ambient sounds that are combined with AP, EP, etc from other keyboards. Would the resource demands of Omnisphere become unmanageble by adding Keyscape? I assume that Keyscape patches can be used in Live mode. The question is, how well will Live mode work with huge piano samples that would exceed your physical RAM size? The computer will have no problem managing the huge virtual memory space needed by their samples. The FAQs say that Keyscape requires a 64-bit host, which allows it to natively manage large sample files. This makes sense. Yet, it can also be hosted within Omnisphere running within a 32-bit host. Not sure how well that might work. The FAQs also say that you can stream from SSD. But can the machine swap samples in from SSD fast enough to not affect performance? It will be interesting to get some actual user feedback when running on an 8GB (minimum RAM size) machine.

Hmmmmm ... Flying Saucers??? New synth based on Alien Technology???

Is that an audio bus?

Glad I didn't have to do the sampling on that one ...

That's really depressing. Worse than that, mom's picking me up in a few minutes ...

If this drags out any longer, I'm going to need another charge number ...

I would love to 'pull an Oprah', but it ain't going to happen.

I hereby formally retract my "9:30 Announcement" theory. It was speculative and clearly ahead of its time ...

09:31 .... Sending reminder to Eric ...

We could talk about how at 9:30, the little hand is between 9 and 10 and the big hand is pointing down ... 20 minutes ...

OmniCheese! Auto-accompaniment for OmniSphere

Their daily posts have been made around 9:30 Pacific time. About two hours to go ...

Their FB page has 5.4K likes on the upcoming announcement. Lots of comments with people guessing. Spectrasonics replied to many of the guesses with "Nope". I didn't see any replies to the guesses that involve hardware. Hardware seems likely ...

New and improved DI box?

Mobile devices have changed our perception of audio and video media. And not for the better. In addition to the quality of the media, the attention span of the mobile device user has been reduced to the point where the difference between OK quality and great quality is imperceptible.

Ken, the triangular hills to the left of the falls look like they were terraced to control erosion. Or maybe to provide ledges for wildflowers. Do you know if this is true? Definitely a beautiful spot!

You're welcome, Anne. Glad you were able to swallow a crisp answer without getting burnt.

I have an odd crumb that you won't like. Using the Y cable and two pedals will put the pedals in parallel, electrically speaking. This approach will work only if both pedals are of the N.O. (normally open) type. Most Roland pedals are the N.C. (normally closed) type and will not play nicely when wired in parallel through a Y cable. (I'm pretty sure the VR-09 needs a N.C. pedal and can't be programmed to work with a N.O. pedal.) N.C. pedals would work if wired in series, but that would take a custom cable. I could describe how to wire this, but it's probably more than you bargained for. Sorry this answer is so crummy ...

Nice bird shots, Anne. That's one lonely looking little puffin ... But the seagull landing is my favorite. You might even say that it's got a lot of flare, in the aeronautical sense ...

Thanks for the links. I was posting about the Parachute Band from New Zealand. The song Complete was from their album "All the Earth". Evidently, the original Parachute Band retired in 2006 and a new generation took over. The original band's website used to provide sheet music for their music for free.

Thanks for reminding me about the Parachute Band. We used to play their song "Complete" about 12 years ago. The church loved it and could sing it. The piano part is beautiful. [video:youtube]

The OP asked a simple question about less formulaic CCM. Of course the goal is worship. But is it possible to discuss only the music? Or only our instruments? If not, we might as well go back to Gregorian chants. edit: And while we're dropping our contemporary distractions, we need to drop all those hymns that came from bar songs. Ditch the robes because wardrobe is "performance". For me personally, I am very happy to worship while rocking out with a huge smile on my face on any day of the week!

If I limit this to just the music, my favorite 'less formulaic' guy is Jimmy Needham. Check out how they get to V2 around 1:00. [video:youtube] Hillsongs is a never-ending debate in one band I play in. The drummer hates it because there's very little groove. He's an Israel H. fan. On the other hand, I love Hillsongs because they use so many synth parts. I played "Love is War" from Zion last week and was able to cover three of the four parts.

I'd say that this qualifies as unusual: the Follyphone. An early example of additive synthesis with a pipelined architecture. Roadies hated it. http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lbgn606bYT1qz7siyo1_500.jpg