Craig Fowler

These are excellent, excellent plugs! If you don't have them, I imagine this'll be the best $20 you'll ever spend on dynamics/EQ!

Woo hoo -  have been wanting GoldPlate for ages!

Does anyone have the SY85 set?

I have a dusty old original in my daughter's room, but the convenience of samples would be nice!

1 hour ago, e-cue said:

*shakes dice*  Comeowwwwwwn Black Friday discount....

Damnit e-cue, you got me all excited

I remember reading the SOS review on this and seeing them in shops...I thought they looked the coolest synth ever!

20 hours ago, LAGinz said:

These guys make good stuff, but it would be pretty hard at this point to convince me I need another saturation option.

But this one's "pristine"!

3 hours ago, telecode 101 said:

does anyone have any thoughts on the Alan Parsons piano? 

It kinda depends on what else you've got by way of acoustic pianos. It's not bad, and if it was an 'onboard' sound of a stage piano, I'd be pretty happy with it. With that said, I've got the full set  of VSL pianos, Garritan, Ravenscroft etc, and in hindsight it was probably silly of me to 'waste' a freebie on the Alan Parsons instrument. 

If you don't already have at least a couple of piano VIs that you like, it's probably worth picking up!

Is this a 5150 emulation?

I remember trying to lift the old 2x12 combo up a flight of stairs and getting stuck halfway!

43 minutes ago, ALC said:

Just bought Fuchs Train II for $9.99 after $20 voucher.

I have AmpliTube 5 + all the collections via the group buy.  I now have Suhr, both Fuchs, Chandler, and bx_bassdude.  Thoughts on the rest of the PA amp sims?

If you've got the Fuchss, (plural of Fuchs?) you've got the ones I like best already.

The Ampeg sims are v good, though not massively different from the IK SVXs.

36 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Got the refund, Kevin. 

Replied to their support email with the following notes:

first, your statement regarding the conditions of this sale is erroneous, as the wording of the Sales Special page was changed by NI after my purchase;
second, your statement regarding refunds as a “one-time courtesy” is erroneous, as full refunds during a period of 14 days are part of NI’s general conditions of sale;
third, please note my displeasure with the way NI are handling this situation by covering up their own mistake and not providing a suitable solution towards long standing customers. 
 

(everyone getting their coat)

Geez, why don't companies understand that they just have to own their balls-ups and not make it seem like they're doing you a favour by fixing their mistakes?

7 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

I still don't know exactly what I want to look at here. The organ looks interesting but another maker who will go unnamed just offered an organ that might work for me better. 

Seriously...if you're eligible for the Hammond as a freebie, don't skip it!

42 minutes ago, locrian said:

I too am a tightwad, and was considering participating in the GB.  But the sheer number of alternative plugin providers enables us to indulge our tightwadish tendencies without testing our tolerance.  And that's why I never end up buying from IKM.

Entirely fair. With that said, I think their Hammond and Sunset Studio are top of the tree. Those are so good that for me it would be worth enduring the installer hassle...although it's only with this group buy that I've had any issues. I preferred the old authorization manager.

37 minutes ago, Luc said:

What was irritating about it? I never installed any SampleTank libraries before and wondering if there's something I should know before starting to make the process easier.

Couple of things. The full Sampletank download is upwards of 90GB IIRC, and it seemed that even when I thought I had plenty of hard disk space available (e.g., 150GB+) I'd run out, the download would essentially crash, and I'd have to start over.  Unlike a lot of libraries, the installer doesn't delete the zip files, so it took me a fair amount of trial and error to get it running, even after I'd done what I thought were sensible things (e.g., downloading to an external drive but installing to a separate location). Also, some--most, actually--libraries seemed to install just fine, whereas others won't load and give me some sort of 'things are bad/you are bad' error message. I still haven't got the core Yamaha grand library to work - and because I deleted all the zips after the installer gave me the all clear, I don't have that individual file to reinstall.

Honestly, I don't know how much of this is just user error and how much comes from a wonky installer, but it's certainly frustrating not to be able to just download specific Sampletank libraries. Maybe there's a way to do this (it would make sense - Syntronik lets you download the whole kaboodle or individual synths - so I could have just missed something), but I couldn't find that option.

22 minutes ago, locrian said:

Everytime I think of buying something from IKM I get frustrated by their convoluted marketing and give up.  It's just not worth the hassle.

I guess it depends on your tolerance:tightwad ratio. Mine skews towards tightwad!

I've had a really irritating time installing the main Sampletank library and was getting kinda pissy. Then I thought, 'you know what? I didn't pay for this. I'll deal.'

But I don't blame others for giving up if they've already got what they need. I was going to update to Amplitube 5 at some point anyway and figured I might as well do it when I get oodles of freebies.

19 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

I'm in video editor hell right now. I have both Vegas Pro Edit 15 and Movie Studio 16, and Vegas Pro locks up on rendering, Movie Studio doesn't load all the FX I want to use....bleah. Not a fan of MAGIX, at least based on my experiences with these.

There is nothing about my system that is exotic, it's a friggin' Dell with an nVidia card. I'm trying to use their presets for rendering. Just awful.

Never heard of this Movavi brand, but I'm up for something that doesn't crash, lock up, etc.

I've used Movavi for a long time. It's basic but easy...and rendering is an awful lot faster than Magix! For what I need - preparing materials for online lectures - it's perfect.

The 'standard' preset sounds really good...the others are a little heavy handed for my taste, but I'm sure you make 'em sound marvellous!

10 hours ago, Piotr said:

This is showing how much depends on our personal taste

I kind of a liked Vermilion and Creme but  felt still not what I was after. After releasing matchlock I tested it and didn't like. It chopped sounds and I felt as if the amp sim was sick with whooping cough. Probably I could spend more time to adjust settings but my first impression was so strongly unpleasant I just didn't want to use it. Looking something what would impress me from the first touch.

All good points!

I've had the same kind of visceral reactions to other amp sims that I've heard sound good in others' hands. E.g., from the second I opened Guitar Rig I hated it, though I've been impressed with what others can do with it!

I think what I like with both Kuassa and Nembrini is their shift towards self-contained packages. The Nembrini one seems a bit finnicky to me, but I really like Kuassa's 360. It's not unlike Amplitube, but operates more smoothly IMO.

On 9/17/2021 at 2:54 AM, mister_tea said:

Hi Piotr, completely out of interest to demo and not debating -- if you wish to share, which ones would you consider top-tier at this point?

I upgraded to AT5 and have a couple of the Neural/PA/Nembrini ones, but haven't tried things from most newer developers e.g. ML Sound Lab.

I've got all the Amplitube stuff, and most of the Nembrini/PA models.

I really like the PA Fuchs Train II, but the Kuassa offerings are my favourites. The Matchlock is really outstanding for Fender styles. I have the Lancaster (AC30) and Clarrent (Orange) models as well, but haven't tried them yet.

Well, I resisted as long as I could. Trying to work out if it's worth getting duplicates of some licenses. I'm guessing I could all but offset the cost of entry by selling off some old ones at bargain basement prices.

1 hour ago, Zolton said:

As noted in the table, the August signup rate was around 17/hour overall, though there were two distinct periods -- the first 20 days or so, where the rate was around 14.5 per hour, and the "Race to 10k" at the end, where the rate averaged around 26.5 per hour.

The bad news is that the September rate (Ovr Rate above) isn't in the same neighborhood, currently at around 11 signups/hour. That's boosted by two flurries of 20+ signups an hour over 12-hour periods, each coinciding with a mini-race to the next milestone level. Without those, the rate is closer to 8.5/hour in September.

If you're the predicting kind, you could go a lot of ways from here:

If the rate stays as it is, with similar ups and downs throughout the month, the pace is good for 18k.

If the rate jumps back up to ~14/hour as in early August, the total should hit 20k.

If the "bumps" should peter out or the pace slow further, ~8.5/hour the rest of the way would net just over 17k.

If the bottom falls out and the worst 12-hour numbers (7/hr) become the norm, the counter would coast to 16k.

Blimey, once it gets past a certain point I'd just be scrambling for things to add anyway. I'm still not sure I'm going to jump on this GB. If I didn't already have the Hammond and Sunset Studio, I'd do it. 

You need to upload proof of educational status (student/faculty ID etc) but this has always been approved within a day for me.

https://www.vsl.co.at/en/News/EDU

Best conversion rates are usually at BestService...just make sure you hit the check discount button in your cart!

Got my upgrade from the Bosie 280 standard-->full for $96!

Kuassa stuff is top notch; I'd be very surprised if I have the willpower not to pick this up.

That's pretty cool...but I'd have a hard time coming up with stuff of theirs I don't already have!

Sounds like a great time for people to pick up the Sunset Studio reverb or Hammond though!

4 hours ago, Scott H said:

I’ve heard very good things about the Modern U. The only upright piano I currently own is Native Instrument’s The Gentleman.  I hardly ever use it.  90% of my time is spent with the Garritan Concert Grand CFX.  That said, a good upright has a certain intimacy that a concert grand does not have. It seems like the Modern U would be a significant upgrade over The Gentleman.  Any guesses if the Modern U will be cheaper on BF?

I don't think I've seen it cheaper, and Modern U is absolutely excellent...In a totally different league to The Gentleman IMO.

16 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Zo, stop mixing threads 😎

And meds?