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Some things actually on sale just don’t show up under specials now, e.g. Bob Brass.

Must be holiday sentimentality. Which is also the only thing keeping me out of that IK Lurssen thread.

Rain Piano is excellent.

Can’t you buy at Sweetwater?

Forgot to say: if you think you’re set because you're using Can Opener, Sonarworks, Realphones, Sienna, Morphit or anything else like that, trust me, you're not. I have tried them all and used Realphones for over 2 years with 3 different pairs of higher end headphones. VSX is worlds apart. All of the above are cute little speaker simulators. VSX sounds and feels literally like being in the rooms.

So I got these about a week ago. Here's some feedback. Please keep in mind I'm known around these parts (and everywhere else) to dislike most things and not being afraid of publicly stating as much. Also keep in mind that, before reading up on how much effort Steven Slate has been and is putting into this, I basically regarded him as a cash grabbing fraud who puts out rushed, uninspiring products and focuses on marketing more than quality (boy, was I wrong. The guy and his entire team are putting their heart and soul into this.) Ready? I don't think you are. I've only done 4 and a half mixes with VSX so far, so obviously, I need a lot more time with the headphones and software, but I can already very confidently say this: this is, to me, the one magic thing that changes everything I've always been looking for. After just a week, it is already definitely, without the slightest doubt, BY FAR the best music related product I've ever purchased. Do keep in mind that I basically own every plugin under the moon, including ridiculously expensive "holy grail" ones (hi Ziad). Using just VSX with a few different rooms and speakers and regularly switching to reference tracks, I can suddenly hear everything clearly and in detail, I can hear what's wrong with a track or mix and know what to do because it is SCREAMING at me. I can suddenly, quite honestly almost magically, make EQ, compression and reverb/delay related choices with ease and confidence and it actually sounds right and translates to other devices afterwards. If you research this product, you will find almost exclusively overwhelmingly positive feedback (like >99%), and that is, for once, because it ACTUALLY IS just that good. I would pay almost any amount of money for this. I would trade all of my plugins for it and mix with stock effects if I had to. And my mixes would still be better than ever. $399 and especially $349 (see post above) is a R I D I C U L O U S bargain for this. If you do any mixing at all, do yourself a favour and buy it immediately, no matter how much doubt you have or how much you believe that "you can't mix on headphones". Because you really can. And you WILL.

Synth or rompler?

The crossgrade coupon is also saved in your user account.

Damn, missed it at 39€ 😭

Yeah, this **** takes up half my free time every year from November to New Year’s at least. But then for the rest of the year I have all these new tools to scroll past on my way to not ever making any music, so it’s worth it.

Sounds like the moment from a documentary about penguins when momma penguin and daddy penguin are finally reunited after daddy penguin has been away for a year looking for food and momma penguin has relentlessly sat on baby penguin's egg trying to keep it warm against all odds and then they hug and kiss and eat and baby penguin is being born and they all snuggle forever. 😭😭😭 I might have to get this now only to never sound half as good as Simeon.

Any good?

I've only owned these for like 2 weeks, but let me give some feedback on some of them I've actually used. Cinematic Rooms is incredible for placing things in a real place. IN-CRE-DIBLE. It's almost surreal how real it sounds. It can be completely transparent if you want it to be like few other reverbs I've heard. Actually probably only VSS4. Seventh Heaven is more "coloured" and not necessarily meant as a room or glue reverb. It works well on vocals if you don't mind noticeable reverb. Somebody on VI-C said it's the only reverb that works really well on percussion. I've tried that a bit and love it, but that's almost the only thing I use it for. Tai Chi is even more colourful. Works great on synths and sometimes on guitars. Definitely an "effect" reverb. Lustrous Plates is the best plate reverb I've heard and has a ton of parameters to work with. Replaced ValhallaPlate and SuperPlate for me. Absolutely incredible on horns and snares. Wondering why this isn't mentioned more. I had practically never heard of it before buying it (without demoing, of course). HD Cart is an emulation of an extension module of the Lexicon 480. I haven't used it much, or really at all beyond trying it quickly, but it seems very much like an effect reverb. Very niche sound between real and dreamy. Don't care about Reverberate and Illusion. So yeah, the "must buy" here is Cinematic Rooms Pro, but obviously it's ridiculously expensive on its own. The non-pro version is more affordable, but people generally go for pro because it has like 5 times as many presets (and they are amazing) and a lot more parameters to work with. All of that having been said, I would imagine Valhalla or whatever else your favourite is can get you to about 90% of that quality, but as almost always in life, if you want to get the last 10% of quality, you need to shell out the big bucks.

Very good point, actually! My point about the EDU discount is still valid, however, since I paid $300 for everything stacking EDU and loyalty coupons.

I haven't tried (because I just bought all of them), but people on VI-C are saying it doesn't stack with loyalty coupons, so it's really only worth it if you for some reason insist on only buying 1 or 2 things. Done right, you can get almost 50% off the sale prices in total when you buy every plugin. And for the lucky people with an EDU discount, that one DOES stack with the loyalty coupons.