Jason Neudorf

No, even some of the newest packs such as "currents" are not available with the freebie.

Pulled trigger. 6h left.

After vast amounts of futzing around, I've placed only the sampletank 3/4, syntronik1/2 "Samples" directories on an external HDD, with the instruments, library resources and info, and presets and multis on my main SSD. This is quite fast; I can select presets/sounds almost instantly (because they're on the SSD). Loading sounds takes a couple of seconds, but seems fine. Move Samples from "Users/Public/Public Documents/IK Multimedia/Syntronik 2 Sound Content" to my f: drive, then mklink /J "Samples" f:\ik_data\syntronik2_samples\ This way I don't need to mess with IK's fragile product manager. 20GB for Sampletank/Syntronik on my SSD, 521GB for Sampletank/Syntronik/Miroslav on my HDD.

My first thought WAS to delete everything and start over. Which I did. Then I went "oops", because the new Syntronik MAX content is *not* part of TS3.5. I bought it during the group buy just a little more than 180 days ago. And my downloads have expired. I needed to reinstall it separately after refreshing my content. Luckily, I hadn't deleted my download directory. And I do grant that the usual experience is much better than even a couple years ago, before the product manager. It's just reinstall that sucks. 120GB in 52 zip files for Syntronik CATO, Syntronik GS-V, Syntronik KW-8000, Syntronik M-12, Syntronik Megawave, Syntronik Obie One, Syntronik OSC-V, Syntronik Pro-VS, Syntronik Sorcerer, Syntronik Syner-V, Syntronik Triptych. (There's also the Resonator, Synth-X and the new Mojo stuff which I don't own). And of course, it wasn't plain which stuff in the download folder could be moved or deleted. But now that I look I can move a lot of zip files into the SampleTank MAX download folder (ie, Alan Parson Piano, Spaceport 77), in case I need to reinstall.

Gah. Spent yesterday installing, decrapifying, reinstalling Total Studio 3.5, including Syntronik, Miroslav, and SampleTank Max. 459GB of stuff. But I think I've figured things out. The downloader grabs a bunch of zip files, and puts them in a directory per product. Which is bad if you had sampletank, then got sampletank max during the sale, because all of the zip files from "sampletank" are now redundant. But still take up umpty gigabytes. You can delete them (or I suppose move them to the sampletank MAX folder). The IK product manager can download, unzip and re-install them for you only WHILE THEY'RE NOT EXPIRED (grrrrrrrr). The right-click "install to" seems to work ONCE, but if you've ever used it before, seems to default to the "C" drive. Or something. There's some bug. I hate it. If you unzip any of the .zip files, they will produce a single directory like "Sampletank 3 Sound Content" or "SampleTank 4 Sound Content", with sub-directories for instruments, library info, library resources, and samples. The installer doesn't seem to do much more than move the files around. To re-install syntronik, you can create some directory "Foo" (or whatever), unzip all the SYN_*.zip files (to put all the SampleTank 3 sound content in one place), unzip all the SYN2_*zip files (to put all the Syntronik 2 Sound Content in once place), then add "Foo/SampleTank 3 Sound Content" and "Foo/Syntronik 2 Sound Content" to the directory path in the SampleTank 4, Syntronik, and Syntronik 2 programs. There'll be a 5 megabyte copy of "Install Syntronik 2 Sound Content.exe" in every single zip (gag), which you can ignore/overwrite. All of the *Update.zip files contain data which overwrite files, so they need to be installed last. I eventually did things on the BASH command line of WSL. Something like: for i in f:/ik_download/Syntronik\ 2?[A-Z]*/*zip; do unzip "$i"; done Arturia V Collection is looking better and better in comparison. DOH, TLDR: In retrospect, perhaps I could manually select a group of zips, right-click and select "extract all"? Documenting my stupidity to maybe save someone some time.

950GB ... needs SSD; 16GB recommended memory (which means I need more than that). I'm gonna need a bigger boat. Maybe next year

I think purchases from IK *do* get registered to your account. Further, none of the "MAX" products qualified for the last group buy. https://web.archive.org/web/20210805162518/https://www.ikmultimedia.com/25gb/#products

Be sure to sign up for the newsletter and get a discount using their "jampoint" loyalty system. You can save up to 30%.

A more beloved "cheapie" would be https://www.audiodeluxe.com/products/audio-plugins/tokyo-dawn-labs-tdr-slickeq-mastering

Sigh. Removed. I should have kept it more secret.

There is a bit of a trick. Last March, Bitwig gave XLN XO for free to people who upgraded. Last September, Bitwig gave out U-He Bazille. If you buy now, and register during a special event, you can "double dip" on discounts and freebies. No guarantees, your mileage may vary.

registered customers of jrrshop can visit "blowouts.jrrshop.com" to receive a significant further discount. $220 from 8-track, $110 renewals. (Doh, Sander beat me too it).

OK, it appears the starter entry points are VSL Synchron-ized Special Edition V1 ( $171 at audiodeluxe) or VSL Synchron Prime ($402 at audiodeluxe). Competitors are Nucleus, BBCSO Core, EWSO, EWHOO and maybe Symphobia?

Note that you can get https://rastsound.com/downloads/eastern-clarinet/ for free with 99eu / 82ishUSD purchase from https://www.bestservice.com/deals/get_a_free_product_with_your_purchase_2022_4618.html

You may consider https://www.sampletekk.com/electric-pianos?product_id=359 for $5. Pretty ancient, but vi-control loves their pianos.

I'm not seeing the upgrade price on Steinberg's site (it's $56CAD there). $42USD on best service. ... ugh. This is country limited, and if I change my billing address to Florida, USA, I get the $37.50USD. Sigh.

FOMO got me, so I picked up Phase Plant. Last year a bundle of presets was released for free; they're excellent as tutorials/sounds. And yes, "Additivity" requires too much CPU. I needed to reduce polyphony to "4" to play chords without clicks.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220408185637/https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/pa-mega-bundle-perpetual.html Didn't realize they'd gotten rid of this. I think I'll just pick and choose favorites when they go on sale though.

Copied from reddit: $131 for bundle with Melodyne Assistant, Nectar 3 Plus, Neoverb, MReverbMB, Royal Compressor Get izotope Neoverb ($25) from AudioDeluxe. For $49, get Nectar 3 Plus (upgrade from any isotope) which comes with Melodyne Essential from PluginBoutique. Get Melodyne Assistant Upgrade from EveryPlugin for $57. For $131, you will get 4 extra plugins instead of just Assistant. You also pick up MReverbMB and Royal Compressor at the same time for free, plus some samples from PB. Or get the $59 Nectar 3 plus and skip neoverb for $116.

usynth deluxe (soul keys) 16.29 at bestservice.

I note that JRRshop has Little Altar Boy for 34.71 and SoundToys 5 for 203.81, with code FORUM. Effects rack is 114.81 (but does not include Little Altar Boy and various others).

On release, I expect TS4 to have a horrible upgrade price that makes everyone complain. It's been a year since 3.5 was released; if 4 is released in March, and 4.5 in Nov 2023, we can expect it to be Nov 2024 before there are deep discounts on TS4. I only did a quick google on timing, but I bought now because my gut tells me this is as low as Total Studio maxgrade pricing will go. There'll probably be a few group buys and sales on SE products after a year though. Please disagree if you think I'm wrong.

Will wait till summer sale, or maybe Black Friday if they're feeling generous.