marcL

9 hours ago, Fleer said:

Kontakt 6.6.1 was fine. 

Didn't work for me! I could not use it on my W7 pc, because 6.6.1 is the last version that can be installed!

Sadly, the offer is only for the whole package! I had bitten into a smaller package (they have some!) for a smaller fortune! 😄

7 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

Depends on the workflow you want.  I don't find it counterintuitive, it is laid out quite logically unlike some other strips.  (Other than gate, which I think plugins where you see the audio are easier to set). 

This basically becomes your EQ, compression, gate, and limiter, and super mild saturation if you want it. It also has some stereo width control - and mono bass.  Other plugins you add to this to problem solve or add extra color.

Think about not having to put multiple plugins on each track and open and adjust them.  This give you the main tools in a single view which 9 times out of 10 is going to save you CPU power as it is surprisingly CPU efficient for what it does.

It goes on every track, and I hit the random TMT button to give the illusion of non-liniarity.  

I completely agree what you say about such channel strips!

But I prefer my CS-3301 channel strip from TBProAudio over the PA channel strips! It has easy value read out and value change by number input, is clearly arranged and has a definable component order. Sadly it is not available anymore, but its big brother CS-5501 is! That one has even more functionality, but it is also larger. It is very affordable and super cpu-efficient!

8 hours ago, MusicMan said:

I replaced the Waves CLA-2A with BRA's VLA-2A and never looked back. They have had that note on their website saying they're upgrading to VST3 for quite a long time, so hopefully it's not far off now...

I'm pondering to purchase the VLA-2A Mark II. Yesterday I was doing some tests with the trial version. Together with your opinion I think I will get it. Though, I already have some great opto compressors, I like the versatility of the Mark II! (And they have real offline authorization, great)

7 hours ago, mettelus said:

One benefit with the GUI that most do not consider is that it also makes the plugins less CPU-intensive. I totally stunned a guy once  (sort of related to this) by saying "Are you interested in [making music] or playing a video game?" After that shock sunk in I said, "People who want to do things are unstoppable and focused.... they use the tools on hand and do great things. Those who don't really want to do things will find excuses or semi-related busy work to rationalize getting nothing done."

Though I totally agree with you (or that guy) that esthetics should not be the major reason to choose a plugin, there are some things for me to be considered to choose a plugin:

• a clear layout (where you can find things quickly, where you don't forget to set something); IMO this improves the time to setup a plugin
• it should be easy to set the knobs precisely (I like to use the mouse wheel and if there is a fine tuning, e.g. Ctrl+wheel or Shift+wheel)
• It is very handy if it's possible to quickly enter a value as a number. E.g. for gain staging: If I know that the output is 1.7dB too loud I like to simply click on the output gain value and enter the new value numberically (though Melda supports to enter a value, it takes too many steps IMHO).
• legibility of the labels and values (yes I prefer if numerical values are displayed)

Hence I think the GUI is still important for music software 😄!

4 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

I usually don't like managers either but once you have a bunch of their plugins frankly I love it.  It takes no time to update compared to the 20 something installers I'd need otherwise and there is a cleanup previous versions button that takes one second to complete.  

It also doesn't force install a bunch of stuff you don't own ala IKM.

Id understand the hate it you only had one or two.  But I've come to love the single download to update...and the updates add actual features and are fairly frequent.  It would be madness doing all those individually like I'm forced to with other devs.

I understand that if you have a lot of plugins of one provider it maybe handy to have a single installation manager. But as you said if you own only 1 or 2 plugins of him and want to install them on more than one machine, it's totally an overkill! Melda's at least does not download.

3 hours ago, mettelus said:

Can you expound on this? The only thing that comes to mind for me is that the installer used to not have options to unselect VST2, etc. But installation paths are choosable. As with most anything, directory junctions can bypass "set" installers so you can just let them go to defaults after the junctions have been made. I only get concerned for this with large installs, and Melda is by far one I do not care about (I own the MCompleteBundle, and the VST2 and VST3 folders are 21.2MB each... they are files updated per cycle). The sound packs are the only things HUGE; the plugins themselves are pretty lightweight.

There are many things that have to be considered with installation managers and I have listed several times annoyances with them:

• In respect to locations it is not only relevant that you can define the VST3/VST2 top locations, but also the folders underneath. I don't like that one provider like Melda creates its own subfolder grouping like EQ, Stereo, ..., another provider stores everything under its company name, another provider uses straight your target folder, and so on. In the end there is only chaos and no organization at all, because this goes on not only with the DLL's, but also with documentation, presets, configuration, uninstall files, ... E.g. I like to have all manuals/documents in one folder with subfolders for each provider, or because I sometimes use DAWs that don't have a plugin manager (they use the plugin folder's substructure) I group all plugins in the VST3 location under EQ, Dynamics, Stereo, Modulation, etc.
• Another thing that annoys me is that most installation managers (and sadly also more and more plugins) do network access.
• Each installation manager requires you to learn how it works, how it is configured, what does it do and so  on. Often a lot of it is not really documented (e.g. how you can transfer downloads to other computers).
• With Melda it is not really documented how you can let plugins of different versions run aside each other (sometimes I don't want to update the whole bunch).
• By the way I found out that with many plugins of different providers it is possible to locate manual or contents in your preferred places and just change a configuration value in the registry. I don't understand why such cool things are not used by the installation managers and why it is not documented! IMHO a good plugin provider should document all the locations where things are stored!

I could list a lot more of inconveniences, but I think in respect to Melda this is enough.

What stops me the most expanding my Melda plugin collection is the installation process. I think most here on this forum may know my aversion to plugin managers. Additionally Melda adds its on under-structure for the plugins (that I always have to undo manually) and inserts a bunch of shadowy configuration files. It's an atrocity to me! The UI's are also not very inspiring for me! Other than that I agree that it is a great company 😆! Yeah, indeed!

Some time ago I compared DeClick2 and DeClip2 with the ones of RX7. In most cases the results were about the same, but in some special situations I found that Acon's plugins worked even better. But as @Brian Walton said, the Restoration Suite contains only 4 modules, although DeClick2 can be used in a broader range. An absolute advantage of the Acon plugins is that the authorization is totally offline!

31 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

I paid actual money for it previously and honeslty think it is "meh."  The bassman Nembrini redid under his own brand is better.  For free it is just fine though.

I'd also suggest external IRs with it to experiment.

Buxom for $10 is lightyears better 

Frankly, I don't pay attention to someone's judgement about an amp sim! It is merely a taste thing, very individual, depends also what/how you play and how you prefer to do the setup. It is the same as it was/is with the real amps! I remember our bassist trying to convince me to buy a Mesa Boogie or a Trace Elliot, but I came back with a JCM800 2x12 combo! He was really disappointed, but I liked this sound! 😄

First, I had been sceptical (it's my nature 😆), because I didn't like the v2 version over v1 (it is tedious to set the frequencies with the mouse).

But I really like this new version v3! Now you can enter values for all the sliders including the frequencies. Great addition!

I can recommend DynaRide2 of TBProAudio as alternative for Waves VocalRider and BassRider. DynaRide2 is much more flexibel, 'cos it allows more control over the riding process. By the way, It is also very good for vocal levelling!

21 minutes ago, Patrick Wichrowski said:

My Peaks are now True

Great idea! I didn't know that the voucher could also be  used like this.

5 hours ago, Fleer said:

Cherry Audio rock.

For me they don't rock at all! I don't like that they do not support any offline authorization. Recently I came even to the clue that I should not add any plugins anymore that have some kind of machine authorization, I had so much trouble with that kind of sh... (PA is an exception, never had trouble with them and their auth is for all plugins at once). Thus my target are plugins/libraries that don't have authorization (e.g. full Kontakt!), that have an offline key/file or iLok authorization.

3 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

As of 2023, roughly 20% of the $40 trillion dollar credit card processing market is subscription processing. That keeps going up, and up, and up. It will eventually take over virtually everything involving distributor-to-consumer sales. This applies to companies with near monopolies (Microsoft, Adobe) or industries with multiple subscription models competeting against each other (eg. what will now happen with Plugin Alliance and Waves, etc.). 

Do you think this happening because subscription models are bad for businesses;  a one way ticket to bankruptcy, and consumers hate it? Or do you think it's because it's enormously profitable and something consumers clearly want / use? One answer is correct and is proven year after year by revenue / profit models for (almost) every company that switches to it.

Sorry, but this description really scares me! It reminds me totally of feudalism in the Middle Ages where many people didn't own anything, they were only working for the leaders (almost like slaves). It seems history is returning! Everything is very similar, but not that obvious!

47 minutes ago, smallstonefan said:

Like it or not, subscription is the future.

I'm guessing I'm the only guy on this board that took a perpetual software company to a subscription model - this is a topic I'm absolutely a subject matter expert on. I'm also rather proud that we navigated those waters successfully without institutional investment (thought we did almost run out of cash).

With predictable revenue from subscription we were able to staff up and increase the pace of releases - creating a LOT of value for our clients. Our software is used to run entire businesses, so the the constant innovation and support makes sense. It's been a great thing for our company and I think it's been good for our customers overall, but I know many of them have a different opinion - and I respect that.

Something else everyone here misses is that most businesses are valued on a multiple of their EBITA (ie profit). Software companies are usually valued on a multiple of their recurring revenue. So, a traditional business doing $10 Million in revenue with $1M in profit might be worth 3x or 4x their profit - a valuation of a $3M-$4M. The same company that does software with that $10M being subscription revenue (what we call recurring revenue) is worth closer to $30M (a 3x on recurring).

Which would you choose if you ran a company?

The reality is that a CEO's #1 job is to increase shareholder value. PERIOD. If the shareholders of Waves are thinking about a company sale, then moving to subscription is absolutely the right course of action.

All software companies over time that want to have a big exit and not stay a life-style business will move to subscription. The only question is how will they do it - and I think Waves has shown a great example of how NOT to do it.

I think this represents only the company and investors view!

IMHO you're missing one important thing: Competition that serves the customers! Most subscription services today reduce competition substantially. They bind the customer and thus remove the possibility to influence the business target (e.g. if you only use the plugins of 1 vendor). Like this there is the risque of overpricing and idleness. In the end this leads to something comparable with the former soviet system.

Just look at music streaming services, they have ruined the music market. The big ones in music business (with a lot of money in the background) can issue whatever they want and newcomers have almost no chance and the audition has not a lot of influence! Or if I look at the food market in Sweden where the 4 biggies define the prices and what is available, or the do-it-yourself shops, or ...

I did the survey, too. Immediately got the 670 in my account (👍).

But the authorization on my offline machine did not work at all 👎! Furthermore the installation takes up about 3GB and that is a lot for the 2 compressors that I own (Vintage 670, Black 76). It's the same crazy philosophy like with Amplitude, they always include everything in their packages! Totally idiotic! Will remove it again!

By the way I also got "Orchestral Percussion" in 2021, but I never succeeded to authorize it (offline). I give up on IK, I hate their installation/authorization circus. Syntronik I don't like it, it is so slow to change presets. The only thing I will keep alive is Amplitube for the collections that I own!

4 hours ago, abacab said:

The thing I really like about Reaper is that a track is a track. It can route MIDI or audio as needed. It's all up to you what you do with a track. There are no dedicated track types such as instrument tracks, MIDI tracks, or audio tracks. Very flexible!

Yeah, that's great! But on the other hand I miss that there is not a dedicated Mono track setting, i.e. it is more complicated to set it up using mono plugins.

I use mostly CbB, because I prefer the totally zoomed in audio view, the Radius stretching and I am also more fluid in working with it.

On the other hand I am absolutely a fan of Reaper's

• great batch processing (can even be used on a folder outside the daw)
• light installation (I like the portable install, no Windows hassles)
• performance (very light on cpu, run's even on my old i5 laptop without issue)
• user-friendly authorization
• super-fast plugin scan
• absolute reliability (I never had an issue for years, except with plugins)
• possibility of tape-like stretching (naturally affecting the pitch; I used it to fix old tape recordings)

4 minutes ago, cclarry said:

Look up "Klaus Schwab".  He's the "Leader" of the WEF (World Economic Forum).  He has a book called "The Great Reset"
and in it is stated the "You'll own NOTHING...and you'll be happy" motto.  Their GOAL is to
RESET the World Economy under which you will own NO PERSONAL PROPERTY WHATSOEVER! 
It's not funny in the least, and they are DEAD SERIOUS!

You see, nowadays leaders do not differ to the despots of the history! It's no joke, it's also dead serious!

I guess that there will be a winner! It's the other plugin providers like PA ... For them it is great that Waves leaves such a saturated market, it's those other companies that will make the future business!

Sadly ADSR applies European VAT! That raises the price awfully for me (25%)! ☹️

8 hours ago, kevin H said:

My Apple defender laughed at your Windows defender issues haha

Maybe it ignores any threats! 😆

I use TB_Equalizer from Toneboosters and IMO it is excellent! It is absolutely enough for my purposes. And then again, I also have the dynamic EQ of Ozone! I think I'm covered!

17 minutes ago, chris.r said:

What's their focus on in the questions?

How you use T-Racks and sub of course! 😄

8 hours ago, Grem said:

If they still sell perpetual licenses after the 26th,  I will still probably buy more of them.

However, if it's sub only, I am outta here. 

Ever since PA started really I pushing thier MegaDeal sub, I have bought very little from them. Very little. Only reason I buy anything from them is I get a perpetual license.

I ain't doing no sub, don't want no sub, ain't down with subs at all. They can take that sub and stick it....

I totally agree!

But I still wonder how many companies try to go the sub-way 😆! Recently I had 3 surveys and all were more or less about "subscription"! This is crazy, if I look at the reactions here on this forum! There are not many who are sub-enthusiasts!

4 hours ago, msmcleod said:

The only time I've seen this happen is when using a project with only MIDI tracks that are exclusively using hardware MIDI outs - i.e. no soft synths or audio at all.

By default, the clock timing is derived from the Audio source:

4 hours ago, msmcleod said:

However, if you've no audio tracks / soft-synths, there's no audio to sync, to which causes the timing issues.

Thanks Mark!

I have checked my recent projects, all have source set to "Audio" (and of course all do contain audio, cos it happens during comping with a lot of takes).

One thing that I have noticed:

If I stop the audio and wait until the meters go totally down before I restart play, then the metronome runs fine. It is only when I stop and very quickly restart playing (spacebar) that the metronome is sometimes not in sync. Another thing is that I always have an active loop selection during this procedure, maybe this has an impact, too?