Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982).Roland Barthes, The Grain of the Voice (1972).Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena (1967).Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964).Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944).Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility (1936).Students will find their own texts and technological objects to present.Oscar Micheaux, Within Our Gates (1920) – 79 min.Helen Keller, Deliverance (1919) – 90 min.Lule Warrenton, When Little Lindy Sang (1916) – 10 min.George Veditz, The Preservation of the Sign Language (1913) – 15 min.Thomas Edison, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903) – 19 min.Louis Lumiere, Now that Takes the Cake (1903) – 1 min.James Lastra, “Fidelity versus Intelligibility”.Michele Hilmes, “Radio and the Imagined Community”.John Durham Peters, “The Telephonic Uncanny and the Problem of Communication”.Jessica Kuskey, “Listening to the Victorian Telephone”.Wole Soyinka, “Telephone Conversation” (1962).Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Seven African Romances (musical settings for Dunbar, 1897).Paul Laurence Dunbar, Majors and Minors (1895).Telephone (1876): From One-on-One to Broadcasting Jerusha McCormack, “Domesticating Delphi: Emily Dickinson and the Electro-magnetic Telegraph”.Jonathan Sterne, “Audile Technique and Media” in The Audible Past, pp.Telegraph (1837): Networks and Transmission Robert Aguirre, "Photographing Panama: Eadweard Muybridge and Trans-Hemispheric Modernity".Mathew Brady’s Civil War and African American photographs.Julia Margaret Cameron’s and Lewis Carroll’s photographs of eminent Victorians.Frederick Douglass, “Lecture on Pictures” (1861).John Picker, “English Beat: The Stethoscopic Era’s Sonic Traces”.Jonathan Sterne, “Mediate Auscultation and Medicine’s Acoustic Culture,” pp.Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing (1859).Mary Seacole, The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole in Many Lands (1857), pp.selections from Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey.Smith, “The Garden in the Machine: Listening to Early American Industrialization” Ellen and William Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860).Hollis Robbins, “Fugitive Mail: The Deliverance of Henry ‘Box’ Brown and Antebellum Postal Politics”.Julian Lucas, “Can Slavery Reenactments Set Us Free?”.Henry "Box" Brown, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself (1851).William Wells Brown, Panoramic Views of the Scenes in the Life of an American Slave (1849).Jennifer Wicke, “Vampiric Typewriting: Dracula and Its Media”.Key to readings below (nb: readings are subject to change):īolded texts are literature or primary sources. This module will emphasize engagement with the material archive as a means of thematizing literature and will require students to think deeply about the material archive’s relationship to literature and scholarship. While literature is the dominant focus of the module, we will also examine machines, tools, sound recordings, art, automatons, and other objects. The module’s aim is to investigate how these artifacts contribute to an understanding nineteenth-century literature and culture, especially regarding gender, sexuality, race, and disability. This module investigates what constitutes “technology” and “literature” as they evolve together, and the politics and theorization that inevitably accompany such evolution. Literature, which is itself a kind of technology, existed long before these developments, but treated them as valuable disseminators, rival media, sources of inspiration and lamentation, and everything in between. We will focus on the numerous technologies that interact with and in writing of the period. MA Modules - complete list (Restricted permissions)ĭr Justin Tackett ( nineteenth-century’s fascination with the increasingly mechanical and diverse material culture of the time has become a central concern for literary studies.Staff Intranet (Restricted permissions).Undergraduates (Restricted permissions).PhD in English and Comparative Literary Studies.
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All this is mathematical/geometric and the only approximations should be things like floating-point calculation errors. When you fire a bullet it draws line from your camera (I think? do Overwatch players fire from their head like in TF2?) and traces that to see if it intersects other players. To expand on / clarify this, the engine knows things like your character's position in x/y/z axes and your camera rotation left/right and up/down (yaw and pitch). This is something I hope you will finally understand after my explanation to you, and not fall for any more of r/GlobalOffensive's snakeoils. R/GlobalOffensive is not the most rational at times, evident from how they're easily susceptible to snake oil nonsense such as "resolution-dependent pixel-skipping".Īll in all, however, the screen render resolution has absolutely no bearing on the game's internal logic. This causes an issue where the even-numbered thickness crosshairs are actually misaligned, however minuscule it may be, but the odd numbered crosshair thickness always match up correctly with the projection axis. Effectively, the field of view in the top and left side are imperceptibly wider than that of the bottom and right side. Setting an odd-numbered custom resolution allows you to use an odd-pixel thick crosshair with perfect clarity.ĬSGO does something interesting where the game renders asymmetrically with the projection (optical) axis being offset to the bottom-right pixel nearest to the screen origin. This is what results in the odd-numbered thickness being blurry with its alpha split between adjacent pixels. Overwatch always places the optical axis at screen origin, and attempts to overlay the crosshair accordingly, making use of interpolation when the values don't match up to native integral steps (and so the crosshair's position is always correct regardless of setting). There's no "engine approximating the shot to the bottom right pixel" there is no notion of a "pixel" in a 3D engine to begin with. The entire discussion on crosshair and resolution is a matter of clarity and has nothing to do with hit registration. I don't think you actually bothered reading my post prior to attempting to dismiss it entirely, as evident from you completely missing the point (pun not intended). I do use the Lightning Gun beam to assist in tracking targets though, which is why I would like to have a pointer-like overlay for my reticle. As a Quake player I don't really consciously overlay my crosshair on the target, I rely on the motion gradient to get a feel of the screen center. Personally though, I would like to have an asymmetrical custom crosshair like a pointer from bottom right to screen center. The screen don't black out because the image output mode is still the same resolution. Implemented properly, this should be a seamless experience like when you choose different render scales in the menu. Output a 1920x1080 image with shifted projection axis and one-pixel mask at the top and left side when odd thickness is used, and render normally with optical axis at the origin when even-valued thickness is used. I think what Blizzard should do is to automatically offset the render projection axis according to the crosshair thickness value. This makes all odd-pixel thick crosshairs "correct" but in turn all the even-thickness crosshairs are wrong. To be fair, CSGO does a weird thing where the game's optical axis is always universally offset by one pixel down-right. Thorough as heck: It’s better to start with a checklist that has too many items and then remove the items that aren’t important to your project.Easy to edit: No two projects look alike, so your checklist template should allow you to remove items that don’t apply to you and add items that are important to you.That said, all effective checklist templates have these three things in common: (An inventory checklist template will look nothing like a wedding checklist template, for instance.) As such, the contents of different templates will be wildly different. Want to save even more time? Try ClickUp Brain free What Makes a Good Checklist Template Format?ĭifferent checklist templates help you organize different things-from your daily routine to your next product launch. That way, we can save our brain power for more important things, like actually doing the work on our checklist! It makes planning, organizing, and staging our projects a no-brainer. Using a premade checklist template is one of our favorite productivity hacks. Most of us need similar items when we travel, after all: socks, undies, a toothbrush … you get the picture. □īut if you need a packing checklist, you can start with a thorough checklist template that already lists the items you need to pack (removing the mental load of having to list them out yourself). These list templates can be extremely specialized or extremely broad, depending on why you’re using them.įor example, if you need a grocery list, you’ll want to start with a blank to-do list checklist template since the groceries you need will be unique to you. Want to save even more time? Try ClickUp Brain free What Is a Checklist Template?Ī checklist template is a premade list of tasks or items with checkboxes so that you can mark each item complete as you finish it. Computers analyze the strength of the returned pulse, time it took to travel to the object and back, and phase, or doppler shift of the pulse. This reflected signal is then received by the radar during its listening period. Note: it's a small fraction of the emitted energy that is scattered directly back toward the radar. If the energy strikes an object (rain drop, snowflake, hail, bug, bird, etc), the energy is scattered in all directions (blue). The radar emits a burst of energy (green in the animated image). The radar tilts up so it’s never aimed towards the ground or us, but instead through the varying parts of thunderstorms.NEXRAD (Next Generation Radar) obtains weather information (precipitation and wind) based upon returned energy. It’s a giant piece of machinery, and if a human were to stand in the way of the emitting waves, which is strongly discouraged, the human would feel themselves start to heat up like a microwave. As fast as it physically can,” explains Tony Freund, Electronic Technician for the National Weather Service in New Braunfels. During very violent weather, like tornadoes possibly, it’s really spinning fast, and it’s making cuts in the air very quickly. “During calm air, during calm ’s going much slower. Once inside the iconic “soccer ball” in the sky, we saw the giant dish that spins 360 degrees all day long. KSAT climbed almost 90 feet to get inside the “radome” for a better look at what makes these radar images possible. One near Brackettville and one in New Braunfels. Here in San Antonio, we utilize two Doppler radar stations. The reason? They could see the debris field on the Doppler radar image. The NWS issued a tornado warning that day with the wording “tornado on the ground” without any eyewitness evidence. KSAT Meteorologist Adam Caskey shows the radar image during what is later determined to be an EF-2 tornado in Guadalupe County on March 21st, 2022. Improvements are constantly being made to radar technology. Today, there are 159 weather radars strategically placed throughout the U.S. So, after wartime, some of the radars were donated to the Weather Bureau. It was detecting weather where radar proved to be most useful. “Radar was a boon for air traffic controllers, it was also later developed for radio astronomy, and traffic cops now use it to check for speeders,” adds Purifacto. Radars then really took off, and experiments all over the world began. Of course, it was the Japanese invasion fleet of Pearl Harbor,” said Purifacto. “They spotted a flight of planes, they believed was a flight of planes, 136 nautical miles north of Oahu. On December 7, 1941, the first major example of what radar could do took place. The radars eventually started being used to detect aircraft. “In 1934, they conducted experiments on behalf of the United States Navy because the Navy was concerned again about maritime navigation,” said Rudy Purifacto, Senior Air Force Historian. The Army Signal Corps coined the acronym RADAR, which stands for “radio detection and ranging.” In the early 1900′s, military ships and planes needed radar to avoid collisions in the fog, but the technology became a means of defense for the first time in World War II. In this episode of KSAT Explains, KSAT meteorologist Justin Horne visits the National Weather Service station in New Braunfels for answers, as well as the Bracken Bat cave, a common hotspot on radar images. Meteorologists and weather experts in South Texas rely heavily on Doppler radar technology, but how does it work? How can a giant soccer-ball-shaped tower, known as the radome, detect clouds hundreds of miles away and send them to a computer as rain? And often, these appearances are undesirable, especially in commercial buildings and tourist homes. However, several people see them as a nuisance because of the many layers of webs they can make. When this happens, the cellar spider then attacks the other spider and feeds on it. The other spider would try to catch and feed on it, assuming that it’s food. This is how that happens: when there’s a shortage of food in its habitat, the cellar spider would move to other webs and act like a trapped insect. But, rather surprisingly, they can even feed on other spiders when the going gets tough. DietĬellar spiders prefer to feed on the insects, flies, moths, and mosquitoes they find in your home. And An adult cellar spider can live for about two years. In addition, their journey to maturity takes a year. At this stage, they slightly resemble adults. When the spiderlings hatch, they stay on their mother’s body for some time. The female spiders carry these sacs in their mouth until the eggs hatch, instead of putting them on their bodies as other spider species do. Up close, they look like an unripe blackberry. In its lifetime, the female cellar spider can lay three egg sacs. However, some curl up when they sense danger. This movement is to confuse and unsettle the prey. In most cases, they spin webs in room corners, preferably where the wall meets the ceiling. They do this so they can hang upside-down and wait for their prey.Īdditionally, when cellar spiders sense danger, they react by vibrating their webs. They can build these webs so much that you’ll begin to notice trails of cobwebs everywhere in your home. This differentiates them from other species of spiders. BehaviorĬellar spiders are known for making many layers of loose webs. You’ll notice them on your windows and ceilings in your cellar, basement, damp areas, crawlspaces, and even around your doors. They live mostly indoors because they love the warm temperatures. HabitatĬellar spiders commonly infest warehouses. These eyes are arranged in two groups of three and have two eyes in-between. Therefore, the most common spiders are the long-bodied cellar species. On the other hand, the male short-bodied cellar spiders are about 1.6 mm long, with front legs that are 9.5 mm long. In the same way, the female short-bodied cellar spiders are about 2 mm long, having front legs that are 8.5 mm in length. The male long-bodied spider is about 6 mm long. The female long-bodied cellar spider is about 7-8 mm long, and its front legs are about 45-50 mm in length. Because of these long legs, they’re confused with spider-like arachnids called harvestmen. It’s often said that their legs are about five times as long as their body. They have a long tubular abdomen that has dark markings on it.Īs earlier mentioned, these spiders have long, thin legs. Their bodies are oval-shaped and range from pale yellow to light brown or grey. AppearanceĬellar spiders consist of long and short-bodied species. These spiders have some features that distinguish them from the other types of spiders. They’re common in North American countries, especially Canada and the United States. They also love warm and stable temperatures, so you’re likely to find them indoors most of the time. Interestingly, this family has over 1,800 spider species, including carpenter spiders, vibrating spiders, and skull spiders.īecause of their long and thin legs, cellar spiders are sometimes referred to as daddy long legs. What Are Cellar Spiders?Ĭellar spiders belong to a scientific family known as Pholcidae. There’s so much to learn about them, and in this article, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about cellar spiders. If so, you’re in the right place.Ĭellar spiders get their name from their characteristic feature of being found in cellars, damp places, crawl spaces, and basements. Have you heard about cellar spiders? Maybe you’ve noticed some spiders around your house and are wondering if they’re cellar spiders. Having a digital background for your video conferences can be fun, but also beneficial in many ways! It’s a great way to keep your online branding consistent, but also a nice way to spice up your online video meetings. Some nice plants with a bit of natural light solves this problem and keeps things simple! Final Thoughts If you want to keep things professional and clean, why not just go with an aesthetically pleasing backdrop. The desert is our go-to! Aesthetically Clean Background Looking for a change of scenery? You can travel anywhere in the world by choosing a photo of your favorite city and have that as your Zoom video background. Well now you can work with a view with your dream office. Maybe you’re not getting enough natural light into your desk setup or your home office isn’t anything special. In this case we added a frame out of The Office to use as a virtual background! Work With a View Have a favorite television show or movie? Have some fun with your backdrop by adding a scene from the show as your backdrop. Make sure to keep your text on the left or right side so that you don’t block it while you’re on the call. One of the most popular backgrounds would be to choose a simple background image and add your logo or some text to keep yourself on brand while on a video call. Examples of Zoom Backdrop Images to Use Branded Simple Backdrop Once you’re in your Zoom settings, you’ll need to click on the “Virtual Background” tab on the left side menu and from here you will have the ability to add, remove, and edit your background image. Once it’s open and you are logged in, you’ll want to navigate to the gear icon on the top right under your profile picture. Once you’ve enabled the background setting in your Zoom account, you can now open your Zoom desktop application. You’ll now need to scroll down to the “In Meeting (Advanced)” section and from here you’ll be able to turn on the “Virtual Background” for your Zoom video conferencing. Once you’re in your account, navigate to the “Settings” tab on the left side of your screen. You’ll then need to click on “My Account” and head to your settings. First what you’ll need to do is navigate to the Zoom website and login to your account. How to Add a Virtual Background into Zoom VideoĪdding a virtual background into Zoom is fairly simple once you have your background image created. Zoom Room needs to be at least version 7.0620 or higher.Accepted file formats are JPG/JPEG, 24-bit PNG, or GIF.Zoom background photo should be under 5MB in size.Zoom states that using other dimensions may result in black bars cropping out the virtual background image.Ī couple other requirements you should note about your Zoom virtual background include: The best Zoom background image size is 1920px by 1080px. To make things easier, we’re going to use Snappa which gives you the flexibility to customize the image to your liking! What is the Zoom Background Size & Dimensions? Here’s a quick video tutorial we made to help you create and add a virtual Zoom background image for free!Ĭreating a background image for Zoom is very simple and once you have the proper sizing and requirements, you can create one in less than 5 minutes. How to Create a Zoom Virtual Background for Free We’ve included everything you need to know about Zoom virtual backgrounds in this article and even provide some examples for you to reference! You can easily customize your video background image to include a scenic photo or even add text to brand yourself better to clients. It can get repetitive to showcase the same backdrop in your house so adding a virtual background can really spice things up.īeing able to add a Zoom virtual background gives you the freedom to be creative with it. Zoom video is probably your best bet for reliable video calling.Ī cool feature that the application offers is the ability to add a Zoom virtual background image to your video. Whether you’re a business running remotely, a student, a teacher running an online class, or an individual reaching out to friends or family. With the surge of individuals working from home and the increase in demand for virtual communication, Zoom video has really emerged as the go-to video conferencing application. We committed to continuously strive to conduct business with professional product knowledge for all the smallware equipment we offered.ī2B marketer and wholesaler offering OEM, ODM service, includes Bar Supplies, Tabletop Service, Kitchen Supplies, Bakeware and Pizzeria Equipment. We also provide various types of the Self-Serve Set including Cutlery Box or Bin and Cup & Lid Organizer for food court, cafeteria or buffet restaurant.įurthermore, in Food Display part, we provide our product series, including Shell Salad Bowl, Wire Ham Holder and Pizza Stand.īased in Taiwan, Trendware Products has been a B2B service provider of Smallware in Commercial Foodservice and Hospitality business since 1986. This device is a variation of Dusinberres original crocodile clip design Crocodile clips, also called automotive clips, on a set of jumper cables Three crocodile clips: a bare standard-sized clip a miniature clip in a yellow plastic boot a large red Square D multi-function clip. In the Sign Clips category, we offer Reservation Stand, Low-Profile Menu Holder, Alligator Sign Clip, Place Card Holder, Displayette and Plastic Table Numbers for banquet and wedding ceremony. Alligator clip A crocodile clip manufactured by Mueller Electric. Production lead time: 45~60 days after order confirmedĪlligator Sign Clip is one of the essential tools in Sign Clips under the Buffetware section. They are constructed from materials with low electrical resistance such as solid copper and are insulated.Description Alligator Clip Menu Card Stand with Wooden Square Base Plier clips can be used for jumper cables, battery chargers and welding applications. They can also be referred to as plier clips, plier style clips or battery clamps. They are also utilised by hobbyists to hold things together for gluing or modelling.What are automotive clips?Larger sized crocodile clips are typically used in the automotive industry. 25 Pack - Bulk Premium Black Retractable Badge Reels with Alligator Swivel Clip & Vinyl Card Holder Strap by Specialist ID - Bulk Premium Black Retractable Name Badge Reels with Alligator Swivel Clip. They are often used in educational settings to help demonstrate light bulbs, circuitry and batteries.Crocodile clips and alligator clips can also be used for holding identification badges onto lanyards, or for dentistry bibs. They are incredibly useful in laboratories or experimental circuits. Clips can be used to connect two wires or to connect one lead directly to a device. Gold plating wears fairly easily, so you should only use this type of clip in situations where a large number of cycles are not required.Copper crocodile clips are suited to applications that require excellent electrical conduction.What are crocodile clips and alligator clips used for?Crocodile clips and alligator clips are most commonly used for making temporary electrical connections. Gold plated steel crocodile clips are typically more expensive than other steel counterparts but ideal for applications that require a low level of resistance and a high level of conductivity. However, stainless steel can be a difficult material to solder, which you may need to take into consideration when choosing the right crocodile clip for your application.Nickel plated steel is also suited to a wide range of industries and (like stainless steel) provides you with excellent corrosion resistance. Discover more about the different types of crocodile clips and their uses in our crocodile clips guide.What are the benefits of crocodile clips made from different materials?Crocodile clips can be constructed from a variety of metals, but the most common are steel (stainless, nickel plated or gold plated) and copper.Stainless steel is incredibly hard wearing and resistant to corrosion, making it a popular choice for crocodile clips. Crocodile clips are typically serrated and have small teeth. SALE Van Gogh Art Photo Retractable ID Badge Reel - Alligator Swivel Clip ID Badge Holder - Teacher Nurse Badge Clips - Best Gift Idea. Crocodile Clips Crocodile clips, also known as alligator clips, are spring loaded clips made from metal. 10 20 pcs Reels Retractable Badge Holder Alligator Clip ID White Black. More flour or starch will almost certainly make the cake crumbly and inedible. To accomplish this, replace white sugar with brown sugar, or add fruit such as applesauce or pumpkin puree rather than vegan butter or oil. Because of the dry nature of gluten-free baking, adding moisture is critical. It is possible to achieve a fluffier and more elastic end result by adding unflavored gelatin, xanthan gum, guar gum, or eggs. Gluten-free baked goods can be flavored with extra liquid to provide a less dense, dry texture, as well as to hydrate the flour blends. White rice flour is the most common source of gluten in gummy gluten-free cakes. Be careful not to overmix when you’re making a gluten-free cake – otherwise you’ll end up with a tough, dense cake. And finally, over-mixing the batter can also result in a denser cake. This means that gluten-free cakes often require more eggs to help the ingredients bind together. Another reason for dense gluten-free cake is that gluten- free flours don’t have the same binding properties as wheat flour. So, if you’re using a gluten-free all-purpose flour blend in your cake recipe, that could be part of the issue. For one, gluten-free flour is heavier than all-purpose flour. But there are a few reasons why your gluten-free cake might be on the heavier side. Otherwise, the cupcakes are made with cake mix from a box, just like we like it.When you’re used to the fluffy texture of traditional cakes, a gluten-free cake can seem dense in comparison. cookies! Make sure to use gluten-free ones. Add a crunch! Use chocolate chips, M&M's, roasted & chopped walnuts, pecans, or almonds. You can also use spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, or even orange zest to put a twist on an old dessert! Add some flavor! You can use vanilla or almond extract to elevate the flavor of the cake. You can also use part oil and part melted butter to balance out the texture! Oil makes gluten-free cakes lighter but butter will make it richer. Take part of the water and replace it with coffee. Add more eggs! Eggs provide flavor, moisture, and a better texture for your cake. Milk adds extra fat, and flavor, and allows for the cake to hold moister in better. Some people ask how you doctor a gluten-free cake mix! I didn't know you can doctor it! But since it is a thing, let's talk about what you can add to a cake mix to make it taste BETTER. Some of the best brands for store-bought gluten-free cake mixes are King Arthur, Betty Crocker, Bob's Red Mill, Simple Mills, Pamela's Products, XOXO Baking Company, Pillsbury, and Cup4Cup (here is the post that goes into detail about each of them). If you skip this step, you run the risk of having gritty texture that feels like you are eating a mouthful of sand. Generally, a lot of gluten-free box cake mixes will have rice flour as the main ingredient because rice flour is cheap! One tip is to always let your batter sit before baking it in a cake pan so that the rice flour has time to absorb the liquids. You still can use your gluten-free yellow cake mix as a base but in this recipe collection, you will find ways to customize your desserts made with a premade mix. Do you want to learn to make cakes using cake mix in a way that no one would be able to tell?! Read on! You will find some quick gluten-free cake mix hacks to help you elevate the flavor and texture of the dessert. Urbans are so strong that when they are upgraded that they can counter almost any infantry in a head on fight.Īnd when attacking enemy flanks or the enemy rear, they are even more deadly! If you use urban cohorts for flanking actions you will win against any phalanx unit.įrom the front against you dont use their full potential. Urban cohorts: They are the strongest sword unit in the game with great defense and stamina. However, Arcani only have "good morale" as opposed to the much stronger gladiator units who have "excellent morale", and should not be used in multiplayer battles, as Arcani are not cost-effective units. They are also powerful warriors, though units of Arcani include very few soldiers, as a result. They are able to hide anywhere on the battlefield and can have a frightening effect on enemy units. These units are, in effect, "roman ninjas". Samnite Gladiators are can be recruited once you build an Amphitheatre in a settlement.Īrcani: The Arcani are a unit unique to the Julii. Samnite Gladiators: Every Roman faction has its own unique type of gladiator. In multiplayer battles the Romans can mix pre-Marian and post-Marian troops at will. Despite these slight drawbacks the Romans after the Marian Reforms are certainly one of the strongest rosters in the game. Their only weaknesses are that their Spearmen, Auxilia, are not the best by a longshot and that they have limited ranged cavalry, only Cavalry Auxilia who are armed with javelins. They get a very solid long range archer unit as well, the Archer Auxilia. Both their light cavalry and heavy cavalry are very strong. They also have some excellent cavalry options that are only defeated by the ultra heavy Cataphract Cavalry from the East. These men can overpower virtually any infantry opposition, and can form a tourtoise formation that makes them practically immune to arrow fire. Their late roster has extremely strong heavy infantry, among the best in the game, units such as Legionary Cohort, Praetorian Cohort and Urban Cohort. After the Reforms they are still Infantry focused, but have much better core and support troops. Any older units will not be automatically replaced, they will continue to exist, but you are not able to train any more or retrain them. After the reforms they lose access to their old roster and get a heavily improved new roster. The Marian Reforms happen when a Roman faction controls a Huge City somewhere in Italy besides Rome. They also get a strong Spear unit, the Triarii. They have good infantry armed with big shields, Pila, which are heavy javelins, and a gladius, a short sword. Before the Marian Reforms they are an Infantry focused faction with limited cavalry and some archer and javelin support along with strong siege weapons. The Roman factions all have a very strong roster. The Komplete bundles come with a fairly large selection of instruments, all of which are well-designed and capable of great sounds. It seems appropriate to start with Native Instruments, the developer of Kontakt. But all these instruments hit the last point, and it can be argued that that’s the only one that really matters. I will admit that not everything listed below checks every box above. It sounds great, it’s is fun to use and gets me the sound I want super fast.It sounds good immediately! When you’re looking for a sound, you want to get there as fast as possible, and clunky or unfriendly interfaces just make the process that much more difficult.The library should be searchable by keyword or search matrix with presets easily and quickly loaded.The library sounds should be unique and well-conceived. Sound design and hybrid instruments should allow for significant user customization.Electronic and sound design instruments should have a modulation section that might include LFOs, envelopes and step sequencers.The closer you can get to the perfect sound using a minimum of external plugins the better. More advanced instruments will also include customized routing capabilities. Robust effects collections will typically include EQ/filtering, distortion/saturation, compression, limiting, delay and reverb. Sound design-based instruments especially need to have an onboard effects section.So the existence of a morphing XY pad or other intuitive GUI control that can be MIDI mapped is a desirable feature. The interface for sound design and electronic-based instruments is important for playability, since with these sorts of sounds it is often more about texture and timbre rather than tonal content.If the instrument is based around sound design, it should include a large variety of samples and means to combine them to ensure the possibility of unique results.The instrument is playable with a variety of controllable parameters such as dynamics, expression and vibrato that can be mapped to a MIDI controller and automated.But this refers to each note being sampled with various velocities, articulations, playing techniques, round robins, various mic choices & positioning, etc. The instrument is “deep-sampled,” a term that might be used a bit often lately.If applicable, the instrument has a wide assortment of articulations, including standard and extended playing techniques.Orchestral instruments and ensembles are the most challenging and expensive libraries to produce, hence the associated prices. The sounds sound real (if they are intended to, that is).I base these recommendations on 12 criteria: But what is here I can strongly vouch for. Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to play everything available on the market, and there are many I hope to try in the future that are not on this list. I have assembled a list below of my current favorite Kontakt instruments. But if you want access to the largest variety of 3rd party libraries you really need to get Kontakt. Check out my article “The Fundamentals of Sampling Instruments and Libraries” for information on samplers in general. If you choose to make your own sampling instruments these are great choices and are definitely more user friendly. There are of course many other options for sampling instruments and libraries including Sampler & Simpler from Ableton and Sampler (formerly EXS24) & Quick Sampler from Logic Pro. The full version also comes with their entry-level bundle, Komplete 13, currently selling at $599. There is a free version that has limited functionality and the full version which sells for $399. Kontakt, the sampling instrument from Native Instruments, is arguably the most used sampling platform on the market with hundreds of 3rd party sample libraries available. |
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