Craig Fowler

I keep seeing that Indiginus doesn't do sales. Does this extend to Black Friday? Say it ain't so!

Installed the banjo last night. I already have OTS evolution banjo, but haven't spent enough time with it to get used to workflow - though it has really cool features (e.g., the strum pattern creator).

The Indiginus offering is fantastic. Immediately playable, with a GUI that is cleverly thought out and well-designed. Had a blast playing with the bluegrass harmony (which sounds incredible), and the system of having different articulations set to soft, medium, and hard velocity is really smart and means you can hit the ground running! Thoroughly recommended!

This was my first Indiginus library, but after a few minutes with it I immediately put their Fiddle, lap steel, and mandolin libraries on my wishlist!

If only they'd sell their acoustic pack for $49!

Wow...to think that I doubted them 🙂

Ooooh...I always liked the 5150 (unless I had to lift it). I'll hang fire on this, but it's pretty much inevitable that if Kuassa put out a new amp sim I'll end up buying it. Love their stuff.

3 hours ago, Peter Woods said:

That's interesting.  I have some UVI libraries but nothing with sophisticated scripting like my KONTAKT guitar, bass and string libraries. I've kind of thought of KONTAKT as the only sampler for heavily scripted, highly detailed sample libraries of acoustic instruments and thought of UVI as less sophisticated in that regard, so I've never given the string libraries in that format a serious look (this does have a basis in a sample developer I've advised who has some UVI libraries,  but that was several years ago and things may be different today). 

I'm especially interested because I'm looking for a really nice string/cello library and would definitely be happy to expand my consideration set. Are there some UVI libraries you find very well scripted you'd recommend? 

I have very few libraries that run in UVI, Peter, but my experience has been that the scripting of those libraries is top notch. For example, the VILabs pianos (Ravenscroft and Modern U even moreso) are brilliantly programmed. I'm a VSL fanboy for pianos, but Modern U may be the best scripted acoustic instrument library I own.

Re Cello VIs, have you checked out Bohemian Cello by Virhamonic? It's exceptionally good, and on sale (still pricey) while the next update is still in development. It runs in UVI, though the new version will be in a different format. I have good cello libraries that run in Kontakt (Tina Guo 1 & 2; Blakus) but for what I want it to do, Virharmonic is lightyears ahead. It's truly a 'play like a pianist, sound like a cellist' sort of VI.

https://www.virharmonic.com/bohemian_cello    

Ascend is *really* good!

I've wanted this for ages...partly because I think it has the grooviest GUI of anything!

Ooh, someone wants to pick a fight with VSL!!

8 hours ago, Christian Jones said:

I'd like to pick up some or all of these types for Labor day or some other sale. I like those piano libraries that have something cool/strange about them, often with other additional layered sounds added to the piano sound.. thanks abacab for sending me down this 🐰🕳️ w/ Shipwreck piano the other day. Then Peter mentions Death Piano and Fleer mentions Halfling and now I must own them all apparently. Below is what I know of so far. Is this pretty much all there is or are there more worthy mentions? Happy Saturday! 

Shipwreck Pianos:

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/stshipwreckpiano/?pkey=sampletank-sounds-cinekinetik-shipwreck-piano

The Halfling:

https://www.productionvoices.com/product/the-halfling/

Death Piano:

https://www.productionvoices.com/product/death-piano/

Pain Piano (already own this):

https://silenceandothersounds.com/products/pain-piano/

I'm not especially impressed with the IK pianos. I think they're good for what they are, but they don't hold up all that well compared to dedicated piano libraries IMO.

I have a few cool/strange piano libraries, though, so here are some other options.

• Piano in Blue by Cinesamples: It's literally the Miles Davis Kind of Blue piano, complete with grime, tape noise etc, and it's *beautiful*. But it's no longer cheap.
• Simple Sam Signature Grand: As with Piano in Blue, it's a Steinway D, and it can be super vanilla/pretty sounding. But its presets are where it comes alive. The developers did a great job getting the recorded sound of some much loved pianists (e.g., Bill 50s/60s for Bill Evans; Tokyo for Keith Jarrett). Usually about $50.
• Ascend by Heavyocity: Another Steinway D but much more in the vein of Noire with all kinds of creative possibilities. Plenty of options for layering sounds (e.g., e-bow) and for 'moving'/evolving stuff similar to the particle engine.
• Woodchester by Fracture sounds: A felted upright with lots of cool swirly stuff. Really interesting sound to it.
• Memoir by Audio Ollie: Has the definite advantage of being free! It's sampled from a nice, thick-sounding old Mason & Hamlin grand. Very distinctive .
• The Oeser by Key instruments: A restored, old baby grand that has a whole bunch of the cool/strange stuff going on! 
• VSL: If you're a student or educator with ID (doesn't have to be in music), VSL have their annual 40% off sale. Their German 1904 (a Bechstein) and the Bluthner are very characterful pianos, though more because the instruments they're sampled from are old rather than because they're really unusual instruments.

Happy hunting!

On 9/3/2022 at 2:52 PM, Peter Woods said:

I just checked out their demo of the Wurli and it sounds great. If it was price individually and a detailed sample library (I don't know whether or not it is) and under $100 USD, I'd definitely be giving it serious consideration. But it's $250 USD for the package where the Wurli is one of many. keyboards and it's another plugin, I'm not biting I think those guys are good at getting the vibe I'm after. Consider that while my mother was a classically trained pianist and organist who taught music and played as a soloist, she also played in a rock and R&B band when I was a boy and she had a 10-12 year old version of me working out keyboard parts for Al Green, Bill Withers, Marvin Gaye and other R&B greats back then (because I could pick parts out by ear really quickly and play them), so I totally fell in love with R&B music, sounds, even though I spent two decades working as a rock drummer.  For me, the absolute end all Rhodes I have is Orange Tree Samples' Famous E (disclosure, I've consulting to OTS and became friends with Greg, Mr Orange Tree himself, over the years, but I am hyper critical and would never praise any library insincerely -- I'm too ***** retentive for that; if I'm not crazy about the work of the products I've worked on that I've consulted to, I don't comment on those products). I've begged Greg to do a Wurli.  But even if he does, that will take a long time before it's released and I really would love to have a great "deep sampled" Wurli that's not too expensive right now! 

Have you tried the Pianoteq pack? It's my favourite for Rhodes (though I don't have Orange Tree), and it has a Wurly in it as well.

5 hours ago, chris.r said:

It's a difficult question to answer as I'm mostly not familiar with their whole offerings, just some singles. From Xperimenta I have La Fisharmonica and it sounds delicious. GG Audio makes an excellent alternative to IKM Hammond organ that takes almost no CPU but still sounds brilliantly well. I've got nothing from Premier, yet, but his Wind Chime is looong past due on my list, I've compared audio demos to a few other options and it just sounds best to my ears so I'm buying it soon. I also have the KeyTone from Channel Robot, quite unique sound. All of them mentioned are mostly one man businesses and seem very dedicated to their works.

The two-piano pack from Xperimenta is really worthwhile, especially for the Yamaha C3 (intimate preset is lovely). I also think it's really cool that the library was produced for a university project!

It's a great freebie but hasn't quite enticed me to spring for the full. Someday, maybe, when I decide I really need another Steinway D library!

I've just been using the vpre-73 this week. It adds a bit of heft/thickness to my scraggly little voice. I like magnetite as well, and although I have most of the IK tapes, the rooster one is relatively light on CPU I believe.

I haven't tried this plate reverb (and honestly, have so many great verbs at this point that I'm even passing on freebies). One that I really, really like is the Goldplate that Kush and Relab did together. It sounds gorgeous, but is *brutal* in terms of processing power!

Sorry, no - I got in miroslav ce from apd. Might be worth emailing ok support to confirm it'll count! I had to follow up, but I did get an answer!

I did last week

Just FYI, Modo drums--which was an APD deal (like this)--did not qualify for the promo. Miroslav CE--which was in the shop but not on sale (though you could use wallet points to get it to a sale-ish price)--did qualify for the promo.

Well, now you're getting into soothsaying territory!

Yep, it was the CE edition, this one 'ere!

https://audioplugin.deals/miroslav-philharmonik-2-ce-by-ik-multimedia/

On 8/19/2022 at 4:24 AM, telecode 101 said:

Did anyone try the IKM Miroslav from Sweetwater deal yet?

I bought it from APD as I had a bunch of wallet points plus the credit note they issued for the value of ModoDrums.  Of course, I checked with IKM before buying! It qualified for the $149.99 tier.

I say this every time, but if you don't have Matchlock...get Matchlock 🙂

On 8/9/2022 at 1:28 AM, Mark Downer said:

Oh - and AudioPluginDeals. You on the other hand know how to look after your customers. I complained to them. In literally a couple of minutes I got a credit note for the full price for my troubles, and got to keep the non-working Drum SE.  See IK - that's how you treat customers. It's not rocket science.

Agreed; kudos to APD who issued me a credit note almost as soon as I contacted them last night.

1 hour ago, LAGinz said:

I would push back on this, hard. Why should you have the responsibility for persuading their licensed vendor on this? If IK’s licensed vendor screwed up, IK is the one who should be taking charge of the solution, since it is 1) profiting from this, 2) could have easily drafted its own terms to avoid this situation; and 3) has much more leverage with APD than you would ever have. This “not my problem” attitude is just totally unacceptable coming from a company that claims to value customer service. I’m actually astonished by how long they are allowing people to twist in the wind over this. They are burning way more customer good will with all who are observing this than they will ever save in $ from the relatively small number of people affected.

Sorry to hear your response wasn't so helpful @Paul Cohen. My assumption all along has been that if we hadn't registered the serials, APD would probably be accommodating with refunds. Of course, some of us are in the communal boat because we did register the serial only to find it didn't qualify us for the promo. And I'd be surprised if APD could/would refund in that case without assistance from IK to cancel the license registrations.

It kinda sounds like the customer service folks aren't singing from the same song sheet. And @LAGinz is right on; individuals have virtually no leverage in cases like this and rely on companies involved to fix things .

I'd be very cautious at this point about entering any future group buys/promos other than by buying the qualifying product directly from IKM's webstore.

An update from my support ticket: "Our team is working with Audio Plugin Deals to provide you with a refund. This should be distributed in the coming days."

I'm satisfied with this as it doesn't leave me 'out of pocket' for a product I wouldn't otherwise have bought.

On 8/4/2022 at 8:57 AM, Peter - IK Multimedia said:

I don't know, or I can talk to people here too but note the choices I mentioned above would be 39.99 or less.

Peter, have you been able to raise the discontent here back at IK HQ?

Despite what's been posted here in this forum, and in support tickets, these are the T&Cs as stated on IKM's own website.

I know you've cited the 'sole discretion to terminate or modify the promotion' clause, but essentially what's happening here is that IK is simply saying 'nah' without a valid reason. Literally the only two criteria stated for a product to be eligible for this promotion are that:

a) the product must be registered between Aug 2nd and Aug 31st

b) only new purchases, not transfers or giveaways are eligible.

Those of us who bought ModoDrum at APD have fulfilled both of these criteria: There is still no indication either on IKM's website, or on APD's that people who buy ModoDrum from APD will not qualify for the promotion. And, given that it is listed as a $149.99 entry point, nor is it easy to see any justification for why it would suddenly only be counted towards a $39.99 tier product if IK decided to accept it as a qualifying purchase.

I'm not a lawyer, but this seems incredibly sketchy. I simply don't see how IK has a leg to stand on in not honouring this. And from a business perspective, it seems astonishing that a company that just gave away what? 50+ products for the price of one in a group buy isn't willing to make some effort to retain customers' goodwill.

Please understand that I've always appreciated you here Peter and don't want to shoot the messenger. But something stinks here, and customers are being hung out to dry.