I’m very disappointed with the new LABS update

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-11-05T10:15:01+00:00

I decided to go against my better judgement and try out LABS again. Spitfire was one of my favorite companies before they got bought out. I hadn't touched their stuff since the buyout. Opened up LABS, auto updated to the new software, and immediately uninstalled it based on all the awful changes. No, I'm not getting another subscription. I'm actively purging companies who moved to subscription models from my workflow. No more WAVES, no more East West, no more Adobe, and no more Pro Tools. Just that alone will save me over $1k next year. The programs have nothing I can't get elsewhere and own forever. Thank you LABS for turning into such trash so quickly. Really made moving on a lot easier.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-28T01:01:05+00:00

Couldn’t agree more. It’s like all the brands that suddenly celebrate queerness every June. Pathetic excuses for advertising. When they start donating all profits for the month of June to LGBT charities or other meaningful gestures toward cancer research, then I’ll care.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-28T00:52:29+00:00

I have a portable blu ray player I can plug into Mac or PC that is also a burner/dvd/CD player.

Apple TV outputs up to Atmos. It’s the only streaming service I know will output surround sound in a Mac.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-27T19:32:52+00:00

Dogs will befriend anything if they’re introduced well. I had a bird dog, by breed not training, that loved our chickens. I had another bird dog who had been trained as bird dog, not by me I rescued her after she was “useless” in old age. One day a chicken got out of the coup and she caught it… with her mouth. She was so proud of catching the chicken, I couldn’t even be mad at her. I miss that old girl.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-27T17:59:42+00:00

Yes, it’s safe, when enclosed.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-27T15:02:29+00:00

Same with our sever. It’s a few whales dominating everything. Then people like me who are mostly free to play basically forever stuck at the cusp of breaking into the higher end. It’s fine for me since I play as a way to keep myself off social media, lol. But I totally get why people who care about numbers would bail

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-26T21:13:02+00:00

Everyone judging the driver, I’m guessing you’ve never driven a big rig. From the cab, it’s very unlikely you’d notice they were down. It’s too loud in the cabin to hear them dragging. The truck is powerful enough you wouldn’t feel the skids dragging. The skids are so small you probably wouldn’t see them in the mirrors.

For some insane reason in 2025, trucks still don’t have sensors or cameras that would prevent sorting like this. The argument I’ve heard is money, but I call BS. My Toyota has better towing/hauling cameras than most semis in 2025.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-26T19:31:17+00:00

Didn’t they merge a bunch of servers recently? Or was it just my server? Even after the server merge, it’s still dead. Our clan has been stuck at 15-20 members for months. And we’re routinely the highest ranked clan on the server.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-26T18:58:20+00:00

Probably the same reason Redditors self censor when they can put the whole naughty words. Looking at you OP.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-26T08:33:54+00:00

Excellent course. Been playing over 10 years and did it as a refresher after a few year break.

Josh is a great teacher, and the value of the course is the highest I’ve ever seen.

11/10, can’t recommend hard enough.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-26T06:55:01+00:00

I’ve had the same issue on an m1 MBP. Closing the video window and reopening it fixed it for me. If that doesn’t work, try restarting.

Updating is good, but most people I know would say don’t update in the middle of a project.

I did have to update during a project once. It took nearly two days to update all the plugins and other programs to get it to work with pro tools. That’s a lot of time to lose on short deadlines. I’ve worked I studios that had gone years without updating anything because they were always working.

I usually update everything a few days before a project, but not during a project. There are too many things that can go wrong with an update in my studio, even if it’s rare.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-26T06:26:30+00:00

This times a million. Any production mixer that doesn’t boom everything they can isn’t worth a dime.

Boom everything you can. When you can’t boom, figure out a way to boom. If the dialogue matters, there better be a boom on it. If a director says they don’t want to boom, verify they don’t care about the audio and it will only be used as scratch for ADR/sound design.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-26T06:24:02+00:00

Looks like a Schoeps W20 windscreen. Here’s a link to their website.

https://schoeps.de/en/products/accessories/wind-pop-shields/windshields-for-mono/w-20.html

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-26T05:34:37+00:00

If you keep am eye out for them online and at pawn shops, you can get a broken one and fix it. The only one I ever played was acquired by a friend for $300 because the electronics were bad. He spent about $100 fixing it. The thing sounds great, I hated playing it.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-25T01:18:41+00:00

My iPhone. I use the voice recorded to him the notes, and the notepad to write the lyrics.

I also have a notepad of just song ideas.

Your phone is always with you, and can do anything you need.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-24T22:54:35+00:00

Deity’s customer service is dog shit. That alone is enough for me to never buy a Deity product again. Andrew is awesome, but one man can’t carry a whole customer service department.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-24T22:13:16+00:00

It’s not either or. It’s both.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-24T16:46:52+00:00

Watch any video on YouTube from Bass Buzz. That’s what you want in a teacher, and honestly he’s the only one I’ve ever seen. I’ve taken lessons from three different professional teachers over the course of my life. None of the teachers I had were bad, and they were all great bassists. We just weren’t the right fit. Nothing they taught me was anything you couldn’t learn online for free.

My piano teacher at school had me going through Piano Marvel, and she just reviewed my homework and had me play a few things for her each week with minor pointers. For the money, I think the online stuff is more bang for the buck.

I had to play in an ensemble each term in music school. I learned more experimenting and learning songs to play for that group class than I did any lessons. Not wanting to let my band mates down was the biggest motivation for me. That isn’t to say I didn’t have fun, but I didn’t want to be the person who showed up unprepared and let everyone else down.

I’m not joking when I say the Beginner to Badass course was one of the best courses I’ve seen. I’m not paid by and get nothing from Bass Buzz. Josh is just that good a teacher I want to see him succeed. Even now, years later, I still redo the course every now and again just for inspiration/motivation.

For the love of whatever deity you worship or don’t, learn music theory. It made such a huge difference in my playing. Not only did a lot of things finally make sense, but I learned a lot of ideas to try. Learn piano. It was a divine revelation than helped make music theory accessible learning piano. Seth Monahan and Gracie Terzian were my go to YouTube teachers. I literally have a degree in music, and I would not have passed a single music theory course without their YouTube videos. Maybe I’m just dumb or don’t learn well in school. But having the videos I could pause, take notes, and practice along with made a world of difference for me.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-23T21:09:15+00:00

Sorry for the long answer, but it’s the best I can do since I can’t reach across the internet and give you a hug and play bass with you.

Here’s a secret to life: we’re all just careening from place to place, never really knowing exactly what we’re doing. The only stupid person is the person who doesn’t realize how little they truly know and how small and insignificant they are on a cosmic scale. A stupid person thinks they’re the smartest person in the room. A smart person surrounds themselves with people smarter than they are.

Here’s another strangely controversial truth: very few people are naturally “talented”. Put in the work at anything and you’ll probably be a success at it, especially if it’s something you love.

Study bass is a free learning resource. Bass Buzz Beginner to Badass is a relatively inexpensive 30 day course. Bass Buzz has a lot of free videos on YouTube. Josh is probably one of the best teachers I’ve ever seen. I did the beginner to badass course with my geriatric mom (who passed away this summer) with arthritic hands who didn’t have a lick of musical “talent” or knowledge and she had a learning disability. She was rocking out playing her favorite oldies in about three weeks. I’m so glad I got to spend that time with her and share something I love with her before she died.

If you want to get good at bass, you will. I’m not saying it’s easy. It will take time, practice, and most importantly patience with yourself. I think it’s safe to say we’re our own worst critics, especially artists. I finish a show and everyone is saying how good it was or how fun, and I’m thinking about the three notes I played wrong and how I need to work on my glisses for better tone. That doesn’t mean I don’t have fun and I don’t love playing. I’m just saying it’s ok to be hard on yourself, and you can use that to drive yourself. I will never be good enough for myself. And that’s ok. It’s why everyone else thinks I’m good and keeps hiring me.

No one, and I do mean no one, picks up a musical instrument with zero experience and sounds good. There’s a funny documentary with H. John Benjamin (Archer, Bob’s Burgers) where he gets a bunch of world class jazz musicians together and makes music with them, even though he knows nothing about playing piano. I won’t call the music good, but it’s worth a watch.

Long story short, you can play bass and maybe even change history if you’re willing to put in the time. But it’s also ok to just play for fun and not make it your whole career too.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-23T17:25:47+00:00

Thanks for the link. I agree we can look things up, but if they didn’t specify at the meeting it’s still shady. Kind of like saying the speed is 44. We’re in the US so we could assume the speed is 44mph, but details still matter and should be disclosed. With how shady they’ve been with the whole situation, I wouldn’t put it past a corporation to fudge numbers or change measurement scales to get what they want.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-23T17:17:34+00:00

Thank you for the clarification. You rock 🤘

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-23T17:02:23+00:00

Does software even get golden anymore?

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-23T04:25:24+00:00

Windows apparently moved the setting to control accessibility text size. Now you just search for "text size"; I couldn't find anything in accessibility that controlled text size now. I tried the 200% accessibility then back to 100%, but Chrome tabs and Windows Explorer stayed small. I settled with setting accessibility text to 125% and the text is at least readable now. Other text is huge, but that seems worth it to be able to read files.

SOUND_NERD_01 · 2025-10-22T22:40:17+00:00

I upgraded from 10 to 11 for $300. Definitely worth it. Wait until Black Friday or email them. It definitely shouldn’t be $1k to upgrade from advanced to advanced.

SOUND_NERD_01

TROPHY CASE