Craig Fowler

Grrr. You seem determined to make me buy the Famous-E!!

8 hours ago, Fleer said:

That’s good news. CGR is quite trustworthy for piano advice over at VI Control. 
Wish the bundle would include their new Electra 88 though. 

Agreed on both counts...and am now hoping I haven't misremembered "other" Craig's comments!

FWIW as much as I know you love the OTS Rhodes, the Soniccouture one might be my favourite - and Black Friday's coming up!

19 minutes ago, MusicMan said:

I haven't tried that one yet, so that's great to hear ? I love Moogs, so I'd been using that a bit and it's pretty decent. I already liked Polymax when I got that and the Waterfall B3 organ can make some really nice sounds too. Haven't installed the piano yet, but some reports I read aren't super positive. I'll still try it at some stage seeing how it's paid for.

The Ravel is far from being my favourite piano VI and if I'd paid anything like the asking price for it, I'd be miffed. But there are some really good players who rate it (e.g., CGR over at VI:Control), and it has its uses. The reverse sound thing is a weird gimmick - and if you have your screen scaling adjusted, you can't always see that you can turn it off/down...the UADx plugins have some weird relationship with Windows scaling!

10 minutes ago, MusicMan said:

Are you logged in seeing that price Craig and do you already have UAD plugins? For me it was  showing $399 but I only owned one freebie.

Both! I have a few of the plugins in that bundle, but I never know how much that affects pricing at UAD.

It's marked at $99 in the store even without a discount code - If you don't already have a good B3, that's worth it just for the Waterfall Hammond + Leslie!

1 hour ago, Jesse Screed said:

For the person without much cash this would be a good price to get a lot of stuff.  It comes with a bevy of t racks effects, but you can't use them outside of the platform, and there are usable sounds.  I am not sure it compares at all to Kontakt, though others may have different opinions.

 

At $49 I would recommend this for sure to someone who just wanted to stick their toe in the water when it comes to sample players.

Yup - when I think back to shelling out for hardware synths on the basis of the onboard sounds, ST4 at $49 is a steal. And there *are* some good sounds in there...but damn, if it doesn't make you work to find them!

I've opened ST4 to pootle around with out of curiosity, but the GUI just sucks the fun out of playing. I mean, I hate Kontakt's interface too, but the hatred I have for working with Sampletank is at a different level.

I know VSL are on the fancy side of things, but their Synchron player is a thing of beauty as these things go.

Yeah, I don't have ABB, but didn't love the demos. IIRC some of the individual sections sounded OK, but I didn't hear the same level of ultra-realism in the context of full arrangements. FWIW, the dynamic range of the solo instruments tops out around forte - you're not going to get the real 'blasts' you'd probably want. I.e., you'd get the timbre you'd need for something like Moonlight Serenade, but not for the later bits of American Patrol.

This is one of the most jaw-droppingly good VIs I own.

If you pipe or play in some midi and listen back in 'regular' mode, it's pretty meh. It's just a sampled trumpet. But flick that smart delay switch and/or start playing with the articulations via the keyswitches/articulation maps, and it's damn near miraculous. The same goes for the trombone, tenor, and clarinet (I haven't had a chance to play with the alto yet even though it's been Bapu'd for months).

SAS' brushes and upright bass are good value too.

I like this one a lot!

Nice to have you here, @skybox Audio - love your work!

Thanks PC, very helpful!

I really like Skybox Audio as a developer too - I have the acoustic piano libraries which are outstandingly good, even taken as 'straight' pianos. I think I'm in the same boat you describe re your preferences; my ideal would be for the electric pack to combine the Rhodes with the 145b! I'm more of a Rhodes guy than a Wurli one, but I love the 'juiciness' of a nice Wurli!

How much difference is there between the 145B and the 200A, @PavlovsCat? I'm semi-tempted by the offer on the 145B, but I only just bought SonicCouture's Broken Wurli. Which is very nice, although I think the Canterbury Suitcase (their Rhodes) is on a whole different level. 

I got all excited by the email seeing $42 each by the electric keys...then realized it meant it was $84 for the Rhodes and Wurli pack. Which is more than reasonable, but I wanted my bargain!

Boo - but I still really want to have my SY85 sounds again!

Wait? You bought a serial that they...won't let you register?! Sounds like they need to be talking to their resellers and having them pull the UVI licenses!

One of the all-time greats. A voice like velvet.

7 hours ago, TheSteven said:

Drawmer 1973 ...   
Do I want it? YES 
Do I need it? No, not really.
 

And your point is? ?

4 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

 I think you can buy a real one or close to it for that price.

Well sure...but can you *play* it? I imagine a half-decent tremolo will take a fair few years to develop!

Musical Sampling libraries tend to be very good, although Indiginus wins in the playability stakes. 

1 hour ago, cclarry said:

UAD is Native now...maybe not all the plugins, but most I think.

Only about 40 are native at this point

My upgrade price would be $799 which isn't bad. A few years ago I'd have seen this as a killer deal (and for someone coming in cold, it is).

Seems fairly pricey given the alternatives available from UAD and IKM...anything to set this one apart (asked as someone who has only ever picked up freebies from Arturia).

It's hard to beat PA for the sheer scale of what they offer.

I believe there are deals where you can get a year of Spark for $99 which isn't bad. I think I actually like their B3 emulation more than IKM's, which was already stellar. And IMO the UAD reverbs are the best out there; all excellent and covering tons of ground (spring, capitol chambers, hitsville, Lexicon, plate etc).

The UAD 160 is the only plugin of that model I have, but I've always liked it

Looks like this is prob related to these going native tomorrow!

airgigs