joeletters

Works on Originals, though, which isn't always the case in more general Spitfire sales. Epic Choir is now mine!

I use MTM's too (the originals ones, not Precision.) In short, I totally agree with @jngnz, they're freakin' awesome. The built-in ARC is magic - I do own the full ARC plugin but I've never felt a need to use it on the MTM because they are doing a great job on their own. Although I spent the my first couple of weeks with them queueing up album after album to rediscover new parts of music that I knew well, these days I kinda forget the speakers are even there - easy to do since they are absolutely not-imposing sitting on the desk (I have them mounted on tiny mic stands, which, depending on your desk setup, I would strongly recommend getting to have the tweeters at your ear level.) When I say I forget they are even there, I mean it in the best possible way, that is to say, they just get on with presenting whatever sound I ask them to, in glorious detail and with surprisingly low bass extension. I don't use them particularly loud, so I can get away with leaving them on the 40hz mode. I did try them with a Presonus subwoofer but I didn't enjoy the disconnectedness of that arrangement, and have settled for being happy with just the MTM. Before the MTM I had the iLoud Micro, also very good speakers but the MTM are so much better at creating a phantom centre that I wouldn't go back to the Micro's.

Wow, that's amazing, I'd never heard of Element before! Thanks!

I have BBCSO Pro too (I know, I'm sick.) I got it a couple of years back when Christian Henson had a one-day "choose any library at 50% off" deal. I do like it, but I recently got SCS Pro and have fallen in love with the sound of the Air Lyndhurst hall. So now to have the full orchestra alongside it is amazing. BBCSO Pro is £900 full price, but now the SSO "Pro" (ish) is £499 full price. It will be interesting to see if they shuffle the prices of their entire lineup now.

Astonishing deal. Bought it last night, woke up this morning and still couldn't believe it was true. Looked at my computer, happily downloading. Amazing. (By the way, the Spitfire downloader/installer is a complete joy, especially compared to the IK Product Manager that I've been fighting with for weeks, as I try to download all of Total Studio Max.) They've discontinued the old Spitfire Symphony Orchestra, which used to come in "core" and "pro" flavours. Now there's just this one unified version, which is better than core and includes the highly-prized "outrigger" mics from the Pro version, but drops some of the other extra mic positions that used to be found in pro. It's unknown if those extra mics will be offered as an upgrade sometime in the future. But it also includes the percussion, harp, grand piano and "Spitfire Masse" (giant orchestral ensemble patches) that used to make up a product called "Spitfire Symphony Complete", and if memory serves that bundle cost about £2000 even just a week ago. So to get everything for the intro price of £399 is crazy, even at the new normal (post-intro) price of £499 it's still phenomenal. I wouldn't have been able to get it without Paypal "pay in 3", which I've never used before but luckily for me it was accepted, so I paid £133 now, then will pay £133 again in a month's time, and a final £133 in April.

To me it always felt clunky. But I'm a Pianoteq snob

This is the way.

@Lionel @Moon OverSea @Craig Fowler There's plenty of "I regret buying this library" on VI-C about this one. The general consensus being that it's very inconsistent across the mics/articulations, and badly scripted. I own Spitfire BBCSO and can tell just from the demos of this "London" library that it doesn't compare favourably at all. If you're new to orchestral libraries I would say save your pennies for the next Spitfire sale. If you just want to dip your toes into the world of string libraries, I would strongly recommend one of their £29 "originals" libraries such as Originals Intimate Strings (which is truly gorgeous).

Great deal for anyone who might envisage getting a bigger Melda bundle at some point later - owning MTurboDelay will take a big chunk out of the cost

When Joe did the Syntorial 2 intro stream, I'm pretty sure he asked the chat what synths people would want tutorials on, and if I remember rightly it was Omnisphere and Pigments that were the most requested. edit: I remembered that Syntorial has a forum, so I went to check it out for any news, and found this! https://www.syntorial.com/community/topic/the-future-of-the-lesson-packs/

A couple of years back I bought iZotope MPS 4-point-something, and they let me in for free to MPS5, which was nice, and it was a curious release where they said, look, we're giving you only some of MPS5 now, and you'll get the newer versions of some things (I think Ozone and RX) later in the year. It was kind of a cool situation because it avoided the one you describe now (I'm also in the same boat, with 14CE.). If they said buy 14CE now and get everything that's released up until 15CE comes out... like build in a year of upgrades into the price maybe...? But then again, I've been on Komplete since v9, and the longer it goes on the more I kinda realise that it's like a lump-subscription, although, as you so accurately point out, it means that people "waiting on the next Komplete" have to play this weird waiting game...

I can't find anything to support this notion now, but my memory was that they reset the demo period when a new "number" update is released? i.e. it's v16 now, so if you trialled v15 or below then you can use the trial again by downloading v16. But I don't have a source for that! I *think* I'm right in saying that you can demo Melda plugs in demo mode indefinitely, but after any 15-day "full trial", they output occasional noise.

Not sure. But maybe not, since on the MAmp and MDistortionMB pages on the Melda site there is no mention of an upgrade path, whereas for something that *can* be upgraded, for example MDynamicEQ (to MAutoDynamicEQ), it explicitly says so at the top of the page. Out of curiosity I just tried MAmp, but by the sounds of things you have plenty of other stuff to mean that MAmp would just be a waste, even of $9. It's not very deep. MTurboAmp is a whole other thing. Remember you can demo some/all of the Melda stuff for 15 days if you've never tried it. (edited, for further guitar-related ramblings: I think a lot of the fun I was having was using MCabinet in conjunction with MTurboAmp. The Cabinet "devices" are very "Melda", ha, by that I mean, there are custom GUI controls that are kinda like unique inventions, I suppose I could go behind the Edit button and find out what they are doing but it goes back to my original point that I find the Melda stuff inspires me to experiment. I feel lost, but in a cool way. It's fun. And also, as MrFigg noted a few posts back, there is MGuitarArchitect that combines the two and adds potential for an MXXX-like playground if you happen to own some of the other Melda FX plugins. I should confess, I'm spoiled, I have everything from Melda and so everything is fun for me... but as for looking at a separate purchase, I kinda feel like saying that you need to go all-in on it, (TurboAmp and Cabinet, or even GuitarArchitect) or don't bother at all. Especially if you have loads of other stuff already. Rant over!)

I've been playing with MTurboAmp and MCabinet this morning, had great fun... the funny thing is when I use my Neural amps it always sounds "very good", that is, it's hard to make a bad tone... But I also find it hard to make those plugins sounds unique... Yet when I'm in Melda land, everything is so random and open to experimentation, I feel like the plugin encourages me to tweak and try things, since there are so many cabinets and even after selecting a cabinet they are "devices" meaning they have their own further controls. I added MDelay and ended up going into exciting territory I'd never find myself in sitting with my Neural plugs...sometimes I make very odd sounds and then soon I strike gold and find I can really "dig into" my playing, very expressive... highly recommended...

At the time of posting, this Universal Audio ad is what hits you on the front page of Audiodeluxe. 90% off plugins sounds nice, but I don't know if I want an LA2A from a kid with six fingers, or an EQ from a kid with four hands...