simon

black friday

I agree with you - and I willing to bet that PA didn't see the increase in sales they were hoping for. There's no other explanation why the would u-turn. Although maybe they are a fan of UK politics, where the u-turn has become very popular There is yet another saturator/mojo box released today too - Larry's already posted the 'deal' - personally I pass.

The last loyalty one for me was 6th Oct plus the seemingly daily - super sale - ANY (not ANY) plugin for ( insert random amount) - definitely the last chance (until tomorrow) - you might be able to stack vouchers (or maybe not) - note we've actually increased the prices for the purposes of these voucher - minimum spend is random amount that's slightly over what would make the voucher useful, etc etc at least you know with waves it's basically $29 or buy two get one free.

they have been getting a bit useless in the last year or so. PA pricing is a total mess in my opinion. Worse than Waves ! Totally random and huge prices when released, then on offer with various (infinite?) combinations of different vouchers. Fortunately I've got most of the PA stuff that I'm ever gonna buy. They now seem to be just releasing various slightly different versions of EQ or mojo boxes. Very unimaginative IMO.

absolutely 100%

It would be great for those of us waiting until the upgrade price is much more attractive but I can't see them rushing to discount it further any time soon. The fallout from those who have already bought the upgrade would be too much....and I would feel the same.

yes - the website went down for a bit as everybody checked...and then found that the upgrade price hadn't changed

yes - I agree. I personally hate software subscriptions. some kind of subscription where you get to use the products even when the subscription ends would be a good idea.....and without the subscription you don't get 'support' or updates. the thing is - that sounds exactly like Waves' WUP and many don't seem to like that model either !

I think their own player has improved and the GUI on the Kontakt instruments is appalling (IMO) Obviously you get many more options to tweak with Kontakt under the hood.

I very respectfully disagree with Dan - he's just spinning the 'official' line. He, like many others at pianobook, work for Spitfire Audio - who sell excellent although overpriced and VERY poorly supported libraries. (where are the fixes for all the issues in AR2 ? after a year ! - same with lots of other SA libraries, check out Vi-Control forum) I've spent £1,000s of pounds at SA - I think they can afford to give something back to the community, hence pianobook. Spitfire have an 'Artists' series - why not market them there - why not let people just link to their own commercial products on their own website. hence I'm not buying from Pianobook EDIT - one other thing - lots of people have built up the pianobook 'brand' for free. Spent lots of time developing libraries. In many ways those people 'own' the brand......now they are a few people to profit from that 'brand' - are they going to share the profits between EVERYONE who contributes to pianobook and built the brand ? nope of course not.

I saw this and it's sounds great I'm still annoyed about the pianobook project now charging for some libraries so I'm going to pass.

yes I think it's way to expensive as an upgrade price - fairly unjustifiable in my opinion.

version 3 ! - I'm still on V1 and not being nagged to upgrade

exactly ! more is always better

in the UK that's £51 or the kontakt (full!) version for 50 euro https://cinematique-instruments.com/pages_instr/inst_colors.php not sure why they think the Halion one is worth more ?

horrific

see also

^^^^ yes, nothing wrong with XLN at all. Patrick is right and they are very stable. The 'joke' is that they don't really release anything new - X0 was the last thing I think - but the AD/AK lines has remained stagnant for year upon year upon year. I think the 4 AK instruments are over a decade old. I know people love XLN but even when released they were seen as 'budget' options and I think in 2022 they are really starting to show their age. Much better options today (in my opinion!) I'd love to see them do something new (just to be clear - any 'joke' was meant with affection and frustration at XLN - not hating on them )

but fairly old in audio software terms

I know people expect software to be frequently updated - but if it works and does what you paid for why should a developer update it for free ? In the olden days you bought an external effects unit - or a guitar amp - or mixing console ....and you didn't expect the manufacturer to keep popping round and adding updated ICs or generally fixing things for you....UNLESS you paid extra for a service contract. I think it might be unreasonable us to keep expecting developers to keep improving things, year upon year, for free (after all the major bugs are ironed out) Izotope always do discounted upgrade prices for new products so is it reasonable to say that they should keep supporting or updating R4 or any of the other 'legacy' plugins ? (sorry I know that's not a popular opinion)

any new products ? . . . . oh sorry, you said XLN nothing to see here

I don't disagree - and had a long and VERY boring reply typed out but I think it best to summarise it by saying : There are no guarantees that any of the companies we spend our money with will be there tomorrow. Unfortunately audio software is not an 'investment'. Buy what you want and use it today and hope it continues to work. Genuine support is rare in the audio software world. (IMO!) Mac users have it even worse - they cannot even guarantee their hardware will work with the next generation, never mind their software. I also understand Apple will be dropping Rosetta 2, probably sooner rather than later. I'm not saying that this is 'A Good Thing' but we have to be realistic about the software we buy

Those izotope/exponential plugins haven't been updated for years anyway. They were already legacy. Bad news if current ones stop working (eg you buy an new mac ) - but for most I don't think it makes any difference. Current izotope products have bugs too - and it's not like you get actual technical support from Izotope....although customer services are good IMO basically nothing changes

anybody seen this at the discounters yet pluginboutique have it but works out more £££ for me than buying direct