Freyja Grimaude-Valens

I got it. 5 mins in and i am already in love. ❤️

I broke down and got the Fusion Modeling Electric Violin and Cello duo.

As someone who had a chance to play around with Phoenix, this is a fantastic addition.

I got the New Forgotten Voices - Cait. They were cheap enough for my current budget, not disappointed so far.

Are these any good? I've been hearing things about their libraries being inconsistent in quality, and I am worried about dropping cash on something that may not be better than what I have.

You're barking up the wrong tree there, because even if you may be right about it being non-essential. That doesn't mean that anti-consumerism shouldn't be pushed back against, and well, souring deals in the middle of a pandemic-induced economic recession is just not a smart idea.

I have a Fender Jazz Bass, maybe one day I will pick that up for real beyond noodling for just a few minutes.

...and I feel that with every song I work on, I get better at playing on the keyboard. There were also times when I just fire up a standalone synth and play some the instruments for practice and to grind out some musical ideas. One of the things that really stood out to me is that prior to all this, I had absolutely no experience playing on keyboards, and yet playing it for the first time, it just felt like I had done this in a past life. There's also the bittersweet memory that I flashbacked to of my abusive mother flat out saying no to helping to save up and helping to purchase a keyboard. I've always had a passion for music, and all this time I had been expressing it through manually entering notes on a sequencer, until now. It feels really good. Does anyone here have had one of those moments when they held an instrument for the first time?

I mean, my HRT is doing me well, but I don't think my boobs are that big...

Yeah you're still leaving a lot of details out there, and since we've been at this for a while it's safe to assume bad faith here. You can keep believing that a company that is doing its layoff cycle, and a change of ownership, while making anti-consumer decisions for the sake of gaining more money, because they needed it is doing well. I am going to continue helping my colleagues get better deals for what they need. I mean what is it, are they doing well enough that they do not need to change their model, or are they doing so poorly that they are resorting to pulling anti-consumer moves in order to squeeze more money out of prospective customers BeCaUsE dEvElOpMeNt Is ExPeNsIvE? And companies aren't entitled to more money out of a prospective customer's wallet than what the market can bear. If hearing the complaints of poor folk gets under your skin that much, then chances are, you're well off enough that worrying about making ends meet is something you'll never have to think about. You'll get over it in time.

Look, you can save the excuses. The fact is, we're in a global pandemic, less people are able to afford things. Sure, people can throw in $130 during the summer sales, but if people have been using free libraries to get to that during the summer instead of having to pay $199, and that is suddenly taken away because they "need money" that is not a good look, and it is one that erodes consumer trust. That was my point. For the record, I already own the full version of Kontakt. This isn't about me, don't deign to make it about me.

Now that's just quitter talk. I have been seeing more and more developers creating their own bespoke engines, and move to engines like UVI Workstation/Falcon. And keep in mind, the restriction to use 3rd party libraries with the free Workstation isn't as rough as with Kontakt Player and the whole demo thing. And you know, sometimes, you don't really need the massive glut of features that Kontakt offers, and it would be better to use something simpler.

Again, you're missing the point. The point is that they are resting on their laurels, and this move is just going to remind producers that looking for alternatives is a good idea, actually.

...and chopping off $150 from that gate would help get more people started. Far less people can afford $400 compared to $250. (If people could just fart out $400, they'd be buying Omnisphere sooner than Kontakt anyways)

This is less true this year than it was 5 years ago.