Matthew Sorrels

All of the Zero-G libraries have been re-released by Zero-G without being Kontakt Player Instruments. So they now require the full version of Kontakt and aren't authorized libraries anymore. I assume if you had any of them from when they were full on Kontakt Player libraries you would have to get Zero-G to give you the new version and would be required to have full Kontakt.

Is that serial number entered into the old NI Service Center app? That's what is going away, the server it talks to.

Does the library show up in the library pane inside Kontakt? If it does, then it has to be auth'ed. If it doesn't show up as a library in Kontakt and requires the full version of Kontakt then you are fine. Some Kontakt instruments do a serial number request as part of the instrument (home brew copy protection). I didn't think East West did that though, but it's certainly possible. My Stormdrum and Choirs however are full on Kontakt instruments designed to run in the player version of Kontakt 2 and require a challenge-response auth.

Nope, you won't be able to auth any of the locked East West Kontakt instruments after May 31, 2020.

For GPO5 I think you are safe, but if you (like me) own the Kontakt version of GPO, you are out of luck. Here's the list of products there aren't modern day versions of that I'm losing: Stormdrum East West Stormdrum Intakt East West Symphonic Choirs East West Garritan Personal Orchestra Garritan CM Session Computer Music Future Loops Future Music Vokator Native Instruments NI Spectral Delay Native Instruments Pro-52 Native Instruments Pro-53 Native Instruments B4 Native Instruments B4 II Native Instruments Traktor DJ Studio Native Instruments FM7 Native Instruments Kompakt Sony ACID Pro Native Instruments (Along with a bunch of early versions of Absynth/Kontakt/Battery/Guitar Rig/Reaktor/Komplete as well) Of the list the things that hurt is Vokator and NI Spectral Delay. I bought jBridge just to keep those two. Garritan doesn't offer any upgrade offers from the Kontakt version (I sent them email asking a few years ago), which kind of sucks. Stormdrum I guess I could get the Play version of. The Choirs I have the Play version of. Pro-53/B4 is kind of a loss. I got Traktor DJ Studio back in the day as part of the first Komplete deal but I don't think I've ever really used it (nor even have it installed).

So to set this up, configure you MIDI channel to send MIDI Channel 1 but set the input to the track to Channel 2 on the MOTOR. Then in MT Powerdrums use the MIDI learn (switch at the bottom) to teach it what each of the pads should trigger

The pads come in the main MIDI device but on channel 2 (not 1). So you have to route that/deal with that. You might be able to change that in the keyboard's on board setup panels as well (for example make them channel 1 also, like the keys)

They fixed some of the Windows issues, so it's at least usable. But it still takes way too much memory, loads very, very slowly, unloads even slower. Yes that seems crazy but if you try to exit Cakewalk or close a project with a full set of BBCSO instruments full loaded it may take 5+ minutes to close. The sound isn't/never has been the problem, it sounds great and has very good articulations. The player however is at best two versions (at least 24 months of serious dev work, which it's not clear they are doing) behind being a $1k piece of software. The UI was designed more for style than function and really just doesn't get the job done either. The engine and it's features (or lack of them) is very weak. Unlike when it first shipped you can actually load a full template (if you have a lot of RAM and a large/fast SSD and are willing to wait a long time) and play it inside Cakewalk (or any DAW) without too many problems. I get the impression on Mac it's better, though it's not clear how much. At the end of the day a good full orchestra will cost, but this one at full price is double what it should be. The Spitfire reality distortion field is very strong though. Most people who spend $700-$999 (intro price to full) will avoid saying "Hey, this kind of sucks". But it does. You can use it and perhaps get good stuff out of it, but it's not very good in terms of price/value/quality.

Using iLok without a dongle means that if anything happens to your computer hardware (hard drive/motherboard failure) or even some OS upgrades you will lose all your iLok licenses. And the only way to get them back is to go to each company that issued them and get them to give you another license -- iLok can't help you. And companies don't have to help you either (though most will). With a dongle, with or without the zerotime insurance, you can send it back to iLok and they will repair/replace it. It might cost (not sure exactly the terms) and take a while but the companies don't have to get involved. If it's lost or stolen though you're out of luck. Physical dongles don't break all that often, unlike hard drives/computers and as long as you still have it, you'll get your licenses back. With machine licenses that's not true. iLok using the machine licensing may be a time bomb just waiting to go off.

The short answer is yes, people do still use the MIDI FX plugins.

They are doing the same thing they did with other libraries. An intro price with the expansions that haven't shipped included for free. They sent out an email to subscribers with a video (I think the link below will take you there). Says it's going to be $99.99, retail is $139.99 and if you buy this early offer you'll get those paid expansions for free. I did this with Taiko Creator, I suspect I'll be doing it with this. Though PercX covers similar audio ground, I like keeping things in Kontakt. https://insessionaudio.com/products/drumatic-creator/

New version is almost twice as big as old one (8.62 GB vs 4.34 GB). They both can co-exist (the new one has a new file name). Might be why the "upgrade" didn't work. They added a new Electronic and Synth FX catagory on the top level. Many of the sections can now be dragged out as .wav files, which you couldn't do before. But not everything (the Atmospheres and Scenes are still only UVI patches, which is sad because those are the best stuff--though at least Scenes may just be collections of sounds from the rest of the library, not sure. Most of the musical patches aren't drag-gable either). This was one of my biggest complaints about it, I couldn't include it with my normal .wav sound effects library (and search tools). Though single dragging out all those .wav files might take a lifetime.

I gave up on the UVI Portal upgrade and I'm just downloading it from the website directly. Says it's 5.5GB and it's going to take 2-3 hours given how slow the direct download is running (on my crazy fast gigabit fiber). Sigh. Update: On the website there is a drop down for the download link, has a choice of Primary, US Standard Link, Asian Mirror and Torrent. Primary is crazy slow, but if I pick the US Standard Link it's much faster. Says 14 mins remaining...

I've had this for a long time, but the update keeps giving me archive extraction errors. And the change notes aren't really very detailed on what the new sounds and layout are. Still for this price I'd say it's not a bad deal on a sound effects library.

I can't help but think Toontrack's relationship with dealers (the fact they actually have boxes) played a part in their closing the upgrade window for SD2 to SD3. I think they may have did this with SD1 to SD2 as well. The idea that owning a previous version of a product always entitles you to a discount on the next one perhaps isn't great for the companies involved. Yes, I know blasphemy. But it's also a factor in the economics behind the rise of subscriptions for software. This idea that software is constantly improving but every customer wants all that for little to no cost can be a problem. Having to constantly grow your customer base because all your existing customers gave you money years ago and now won't contribute to your income can be really tough in small pro-focused niche markets. What they have done is basically a limited time upgrade discount offer. Along with complete ending of all sales of the previous version. It's not very customer friendly, but I don't think it's that far off field. The product needs to be worth it's full normal retail price, even to previous customers.

No

I don't think it's necessary to go quite that far. I imagine they are in a bit of a tough spot depending on what exactly happened. Could they have done things differently? Yes they could have, but they did fix my issue. Hopefully they didn't loose too much money over all of this. Since businesses don't pay for theft--their customers do. While this will factor into my buying things from Time&Space, this won't totally shut them out. The best deal always has a few factors more than just price involved.

EZ Bass was announced as shipping in May https://www.toontrack.com/news/ezbass-release-month-announced/

Yeah they should have at least contacted me. The serial numbers are still showing on my account at T&S, they know exactly what they sent to me. And I'm not exactly hard to contact, since I spend money there pretty much monthly. Good news is now that I've redeemed all those codes Toontrack is sure to release new super-amazing products, that I no longer have codes to get. 😂

One thing that can be a factor is the option in the Windows Sound panel for how Exclusive Mode works, I never check this box: And I don't let Cakewalk take exclusive control either. And I agree for the money it's a great interface. I needed something to fill in when Firewire quit being reliable on Windows 10 (I got it to work, but it was never as solid as on Win 7) but none of the Thunderbolt 3 interfaces were shipping yet (still true, still waiting), so I went with this as the fill in interface. It's been very decent.

So back at the end of 2018 I purchased a Toontrack Drum MIDI 6 pack and a EZX Expansion Value Pack (3 EZX expansions) from Time&Space. I had used 3 of the drum codes and one of the EZX codes and was generally just waiting for more interesting releases to show. This weekend I tried to redeem one of the drum codes and was told the code was an "Invalid Serial Number". I contacted Toontrack with receipts and the codes as sent by T&S and they told me: "The serials have been voided at the request of the retailer and they ask that you reach out to them with further questions. We appreciate your understanding." So I sent email to T&S and they did give me replacement codes, though one of the replacement EZX code was already registered in another account and I had to get them to send me a second one. I asked for an explanation and they said (and I quote): "There are other issues regarding some codes at the moment. " that was it. I've gone ahead and redeemed all the codes they sent me (more drums!), since I'm not sure I trust them anymore. By invalidating codes they sold to me I kind of see it like they stole my property (it wasn't theirs anymore after they sold it). They did fix the issue but I'd say strange things are afoot at the Circle-K. If you are sitting on Toontrack codes bought from Time&Space you might want to check them.

I am using a UMC204HD (the smaller version). I'm definitely not having any driver disconnect issues. But I do have Windows configured to use 48khz just like all my ASIO projects in every daw. There have been driver/firmware updates last year, so I'd make sure you get those. I'm running version 4.59.0 which I believe is the last version. Download it from here (for the 404HD) https://www.behringer.com/Categories/Behringer/Computer-Audio/Interfaces/UMC404HD/p/P0BK1/Downloads When some Windows apps change the sample rate to 44.1 things can sometimes get stuck, doesn't happen often. Oddly enough this doesn't happen to ASIO apps (they keep working at any sample rate), they seem happy to change the sample rate. But native Windows apps will stop being able to make sounds. Usually when this happens I hunt down every app that has the audio device open and kill it/restart it. Which fixes the problem. But this doesn't happen very often, assuming you have Windows configured to use the 48khz sample rate you use for audio. Worse case I have to unplug and reconnect the box. But that isn't very common at all (every 3 months or so maybe). And this is on a computer that is on 24x7. Note it's important to make sure you are powering the interface correctly. I'm using a full tower ATX desktop with a full power USB port and I've configured it to never do any power saving. A laptop USB port might not be able to put out enough juice to run the interface. A high-quality powered hub might help with that.

All the deals are exactly 50% off for me. But I already have Smart:EQ 2, which is the only one with extra upgrade discount I guess. Odd my Smart:EQ 2 price is64.50 (50% off) and not 85% off (since I also own Smart:EQ+ but not frei:raum). If they made me a deal on frei:raum or a complete my collection deal I might be interested, but I guess they think 50% off single prices is deal enough. I'll wait for APD or VSTBuzz to do a deal for frei:raum or smart:comp (the only 2 I don't have)

They tell me there isn't a 1.09 update file for Windows. That's a Mac only thing (and it doesn't update content, just updates the software only on the Mac). I think their Mac installer isn't quite like the Windows one. For Windows users if you just run the installer it will update you. They have merged the content into one guru file (used to be 2), but it hasn't changed if you already installed it you don't need to download and reinstall it.

Doesn't look like the 1.09 content update is included with the Windows installer, like the email said. Does look like it's in the Mac package though, a packing mistake maybe? I picked up Freestyle last week (and Nuance). From a make your own point of view it's a lot better than Unify. Unify's big strength is the patches that come with it. Making your own patch in Unify is a bit difficult. The VST scanner in 1.09 is much better though.