Free Virtual Studio Technology At It’s Best
Making the most from free VST Applications
With Virtual Studio Technology, you can play, mask on a wide variety of sound effects, edit and record on a computer with any musical instrument. This technology is has been around since a very long time and has been highly appreciated for it’s capabilities.
Screenshot of Guitar Rig VST Application
VST plugins are generally run within a Digital Audio Workstation, providing the host application with additional functionality. Most VST plugins can be classified as either instruments (VSTi) or effects, although other categories exist. VST plugins generally provide a custom GUI, displaying controls similar to the physical switches and knobs on audio hardware. Some (often older) plugins rely on the host application for their UI.VST instruments include software simulation emulations of well-known hardware synthesizer devices and samplers, emulating the look of the original equipment and its sonic characteristics. This enables VSTi users to use virtual versions of devices that may be otherwise difficult to obtain.VST instruments require notes to be sent via MIDI in order to output audio, while effect plugins process audio data (some rare effect plugins do require a MIDI input too though, for example they might use MIDI sync to sweep the effect in sync with the tempo). MIDI messages can often also be used to control parameters of both instrument and effect plugins. Most host applications allow the audio output from one VST to be routed to the audio input of another VST (known as chaining). For example, output of a VST synthesizer can be sent to a VST reverb effect for further processing.
VST plugins are generally run within a Digital Audio Workstation, providing the host application with additional functionality. Most VST plugins can be classified as either instruments (VSTi) or effects, although other categories exist. VST plugins generally provide a custom GUI, displaying controls similar to the physical switches and knobs on audio hardware. Some (often older) plugins rely on the host application for their UI. - Wikipedia
The bottom line is you need a VST host application and VST plugins together to make use of this technology. There are some applications that have host as well the plugins with them. Either you can buy them or you can use the freeware versions instead. It’s obvious that free VST plugins won’t have a complete feature set, but is great for you if you are just looking for some fun with your musical instrument.
When you are done downloading the VST plugins, you need to run them from the host application. But first, you need to download and install the tiny and freeware VST host application. Download Link
These are some of the web links where you can find and download plenty of freeware VST plugins:
Then, run the host app.
Click on the File menu — New Effect — Browse To the destination where the VST plugin in installed — select the .dll file and you are almost done.
To finish the process, open the Effect Menu — Click on Edit — This will open up the GUI of the VST application.
You can now have fun, make demo tracks and all that can be done with the VST technology.
That Annoying “On Behaf Of” Notification In Gmail
Interlinked Gmail Accounts
I use two Gmail IDs and have interlinked them to make things more convenient i.e I receive and reply to emails from my regular ID that have been sent to my blogger email ID. This is because i have configured my Gmail account to forward all the incoming conversations to my regular ID and also allowed it to send and reply to emails in the name of my blogger email ID. This is one of the coolest features introduced by Gmail. But, this feature comes along with one inconvenience. Gmail adds the Email ID of the original sender in the email header which is easily readable by the recipient, which makes the feature useless for professional and business conversations.
On bringing this issue to the notice of Google. They justified that, Gmail needs to authenticate the Emails sent using it’s SMTP servers to avoid the sent emails to be flagged as SPAM in the recipient’s mail box. Hence, the “On Behaf Of” can be easily seen in some of the Email clients.
The feature is expected to be fixed in near future due to a large volume of user requests.
(Post Updated as on 25th Sept 2009)
Dont Let Scareware Fool You
Scareware On The wild
Ryan Naraine and Dancho Danchev, Zdnet Bloggers have posted a must read and a comprehensive guide to deal with the single most profitable monetization strategy for cybercriminals, the “scareware business”. They say:
Due to the aggressive advertising practices applied by the cybercrime gangs, thousands of users fall victim to the scam on a daily basis, with the gangs themselves earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process.
Not surprisingly, Q3 of 2009 was prone to mark the peak of the scareware business model, whose affiliate program revenue sharing scheme is not only attracting new cybercriminals due to its high pay-out rates, but also, is directly driving innovation within the cybercrime underground acting as a reliable financial incentive.
This end user-friendly guide aims to educate the Internet user on what scareware is, the risks posed by installing it, how it looks like, its delivery channels, and most importantly, how to recognize, avoid and report it to the security community taking into consideration the fact that 99% of the current releases rely on social engineering tactics. (Read More..)
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