Some of it will translate very well, other things won't because they are unique to Photoshop CS. The practices are pretty well the same in theory though. Masking is a HUGE part of this vid, and I've not done much of that in PSP so I'm not a good commentator on that aspect. The topic headers for the vid can be found on the http://www.vasst.com/dvdproducts/photoshopcs.htm where you can also watch a 3 minute stream.

> where you can also watch a 3 minute stream

Spot, I’m interested in the “ACID for Nonlinear Editors” but the link to the streaming preview for that seems to point back to the photoshop stream. I’d like to see a sample.

I’m a musician (primarily keyboards with some guitar, & flute) and while I have ACID, every time I fire it up and try to use it, I get frustrated looking for the right loop because I could just play the part easier myself. Maybe I just need to invest in the right sound libraries. Anyway, what caught my eye on this DVD was creating your own loops. It never occurred to me (until now) that I could just make my own loops of the parts and assemble my music that way.

When I first started doing MIDI (i.e., when MIDI first came out) I used a program called Texture that Roger Powell wrote (in Latus C for those who go back that far). Roger was the one who got me started using computers with my Moog synthesizers (which I still own). And what I liked about Texture was that it was “parts based” composition and this is how I tend to write (i.e., a verse here, a chorus there, and then assemble them into a song). It struck me that ACID was like this but with prerecorded loops. I don’t know why I didn’t think of just making my own loops before.

So I think I’ve just been approaching ACID from the wrong angle. Have you seen this DVD and would it be good for a musician (and nonlinear editor) who needs to change their thinking about looped based composition? (i.e., will it break my mental log-jam about the program) ;-)

~jr

Spot,

The wmv at the Vasst site doesn't play for me. Media Player says the file is corrupt. The quicktime plays fine.

I am probably missing a codec or something.

OT:
I watched VH1's Top Forty Hair Metal Bands of All Time. It was greatly entertaining. Rudy Sarzo, of course, played in a few of them. Though it was unclear how much the music counted and how much the hair counted.

Spot, have you heard of/ read the book Fargo, Rock City? It's written by Chuck Klosterman who now writes for Spin and it's his defense of hair metal. He grew up in a small farm town a hour south of Fargo and his thesis is the music that rock critics value (i.e. Televison, Ramones, Patti Smtih) is just snobbery and far less important than hair metal, because folks like him actually got to hear and participate in hair metal mania. It's also kinda of his memoir and he is a very funny writer. He brings up all sorts of amusing things seemed important at the time. For example, If you remember the November Rain video where Axl marries Stephanie Seymour, that was intended as the second or third video in an epic, multi-million-dollar Triology that Axl Rose had planned, but Axl's and Stephanie's relationship was over before they could shoot the three videos. If you grew up in the 80's it's a very funny read.

Yes, you need the latest Windows Media codec to play this. With the turnover of codecs happening right now, we opted for a newer codec that provides greater image quality vs compatibility, because it will be up there for a while. We may end up doing a dialup version in Win7 for the Mac guys. They're complaining because our server can't stream QT or Real, only WM.

Fargo, Rock City is a GREAT! book!!! Rudy and I were laughing about that book and the 'spinal tap' sort of view of that period of time. A funny story is that the guy that was in Tap playing the 'new' big rock star ended up replacing Kevin DuBrow in Quiet Riot, so Rudy's comment about Tap and Fargo was "We are still living in that life sometimes."
Rudy is now on the road with Yngwie Malmsteen. He's happy to be back making real music for a change after the past couple years of doing QR, Ozzy, and Whitesnake. While he's a well known heavy metal bassist, he's also a jazz/pop bassist of repute, and is an ACID fanatic.

He is doing real music in addition to Yngwie Malmsteen? Or Yngvie Malmsteen is real music compared to Ozzy, QR and Whitesnake?

Yngwie doesn't settle for the quarter-note basslines that the music of the 80's demanded.....Yngwie demands very intense musicianship. I guess that ever since Randy Rhoad's death 20 years ago, the music hasn't been challenging to Rudy. While his personal comments are just that, a few magazine interviews have quoted Rudy as saying that Yngwie is a musician's musician, driving him to new heights and chops that he's not experienced in a long time. I'd guess that "C'mon Feel the Noize" probably lost its challenge after being played the first few hundred times. :-)

Do you know the British music magazine Uncut? It's a really excellent magazine. Rock history is one their main focuses in additional to current reviews. They also do a good job on Movies and DVDs.

This month they have an interview with Pete Townshend because Tommy is being remixed for 5.1 SACD. He says somewhere along the line both Keith Moon and John Entwhistle decided to serve their ego more than the song, but that Tommy was Keith and John at the height of their studio powers.

Thanks for the link! I was unaware of that particular rag til now.
BTW, the Link to the stream of Rudy is up now. Sorry for that, apparently our guy copy/pasted the Windows logo from another page and didn't update the link-thru. Thanks for the heads up on that, too.

Being kind'a slow on the uptake, I did a little research on Photoshop CS. It appears to be primarily for digital stills. The few things I do for video outside of Vegas, I use Photoshop Elements 2.0. Would it be more advantageous to invest in CS? If so, how?

Thanks!

J--

"Yes, you need the latest Windows Media codec to play this."

Which codec are you talking about and where can I find it? I've got MP9 installed and up to date and I keep getting the same error message "Windows Media Player cannot play the file because it is damaged or corrupted."

I followed the link from your site to MS and couldn't find anything newer. I even installed "Codecs Installation Package for Windows Media Video 9 VCM" but that didn't help.

I can view the Acid demo wmv file fine, but not the Photoshop one.

Each issue of UNCUT comes with a music CD. Often the CD is related to the cover article. This month's magazine is about the Who's Tommy and the CD is "The Roots of Tommy" which has songs that influenced Pete Townshend. Previous issues have had a lot of today's artists covering, say David Bowie or Bruce Springsteen. Sometimes songs are recorded exclusively for the magazine.

Photoshop CS is part of the Creative Suite, but is also the first push by Adobe to make it a lot more video friendly. It's not a video editor, it's just got a lot of great graphics tools for video editors for titling, lower thirds, etc.

I just reinstalled Windows Media Player, I still was not able to play the Photoshop video.

It also annoyingly hijacked my .avi files which I had deliberatedly unclicked during set up.

So I set my .avis to open in Vegas, but the icon is still hijacked.

Anyone know how to change the icon from Windows Media Player back to Vegas?

Buster, in folder options, you can specify what app opens what types of files.
We've uploaded a new stream, it's slightly longer but is in Win8 rather than 9 for those that don't have the codecs. It's also at 100k rather than 256k.
http://www.vasst.com/dvdproducts/photoshopcs.htm

Spot,

I changed which program opens my avi files in folder options. So now avi files open with Vegas. However the files still show up with Windows media icon which is very annoying when you avi and wmv files in the same folder.

Mine always did show up with the same icon. Interesting...you had a different icon for avi's?

avis had the Vegas icon, now they have windows media player icon

avis had the Vegas icon, now they have windows media player icon

You can change it back if you want. Just hold down the shift key, right-click, and choose "Open With...", pick the program you want, and check the box that says "Always use this program to open this type of file" (or whatever the wording really is)

Spot--

Here's the $99 question: How much of the info. is relevant for those of us that never upgraded from 7.0 to CS?

David.

I, too, would be curious to find out. Been holding back upgrading to CS.
Thanks,
Tom

Spot Do VASST make training Videos for After effects Put me down for one if they do !

We don't have anything for AE at this time, nor have we located a suitable instructor, believe it or not. It's not an app we've been looking hard to find a trainer for, but it is on the list of "search for's."
You can see what we're launching at NAB if you visit the links listed in the first post. There is a special community discount that applies to the CS, and the ACID disk is up there too. Plus a bunch of others I'm not permitted to mention yet, but if you look, you'll find them.
http://www.vasst.com/dvdproducts/community.htm