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I already have the single licenses for Exponential Nimbus and R4, that came with an iZotope bundle. Too bad they only offer one license each for the Exponential reverbs. The iZotope branded NeoVerb doesn't have that limitation. This might be a great time to grab a cheap 2nd Exponential Nimbus license for $10.

The EZKeys Dream Machine and String Machine are both on sale for $39. Has anybody got either of them yet? Is that a good deal?

Say what? What video adapter are you running? OpenGL 2 was released in 2004.

Syntronik 1 will receive no further updates. (Says Peter, above).

I haven't seen prices on the Ujam Virtual Basses below the $64 price point before. I think that is what I paid for Royal, and I probably even paid the intro price of $89 for Dandy in 2020. Hard to predict what Ujam will do in the future with pricing... Of the two basses, the Royal sounds more like a smooth fingered Fender roundwound session bass, with neck and bridge pickups, and amp or direct tones, while the Dandy is a flatwound bass, with amp and direct tones, neck and bridge pickups, and picked and thumbed sounds. They both have their uses. Since you like the Royal better, I assume that the fingered roundwound style works better for your music.

Dandy is at v2.1, although the "2" is not in the product title (most likely because it was the latest release in the VB series, when 2 was already the current version). I already own Dandy, so I can confirm this. Review this page and you will see that the v2 features are included, such as MIDI drag n drop, and instrument mode. https://www.ujam.com/bassist/dandy/ More on Virtual Bassist 2.1 released July 10, 2020. https://www.ujam.com/blog/virtual-bassist-2-1/ Dandy, released on July 23, 2020. https://www.ujam.com/blog/virtual-bassist-dandy/

That EZKeys MIDI is also $10 at the Toontrack site. https://www.toontrack.com/product/modern-pop-ezkeys-midi/

70% off until Dec 5th. Only at Sweetwater. MSRP $129. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VBDandy--ujam-dandy

This ^^^

Arturia is one of the "good guys"!!! Sure, some folks may have gripes, or issues with Arturia upgrades. But bottom line is their products are high quality, and they occasionally give away things for free, and also issue free updates for products that you own. So "getting it" is more about supporting the "good guys", rather than always wanting to get over on them. Sure, everyone wants a good deal, but hopefully the "good guys" will stay in business for a long time, with our support!

That makes sense! In any case, I bagged 2 new AAS Ultra Analog packs for $19.

Speaking of included instruments, that is one thing to consider about the Live 11 "Suite" edition. You get a shedload of extra instruments, sounds, and Max devices included that are great for sound design and experimentation... In addition to the usual suspects, a few examples new in Live 11 Suite are: Instruments: https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/#?item_type=software_instruments Tension - in collaboration with Applied Acoustics Systems (String Studio) Analog - in collaboration with Applied Acoustics Systems (Ultra Analog) Electric - in collaboration with Applied Acoustics Systems (Lounge Lizard) Collision - in collaboration with Applied Acoustics Systems (Chromaphone) Sounds: https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/brass-quartet/ (Spitfire Audio) https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/string-quartet/ (Spitfire Audio) https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/upright-piano/ (Spitfire Audio)

I'm seeing the same thing now, even though the current promo mentions AAS packs available as a free gift. Maybe you can only choose that AAS option once?

True, but in the meantime you will be missing out on these 4 new synths for V Collection 8. 😉 Jun-6 V Vocoder V Emulator V OB-Xa V

It's Solid!

I just did that last week when the AAS sound packs were available as a freebie choice. Bought an Ultra Analog AAS pack on sale, and received a different AAS pack as the freebie!

Cloud City, a Unify library that needs no additional synths!

Exactly! Recommend for anyone to watch a few live stream videos on John "Skippy" Lehmkuhl's YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/PlugInGuruVideo/videos He loves giving sound design tutorials! As a former Korg employee, and long time sound designer, he excels in bringing out the best sounds in any synth, including Spectrasonics Omnisphere. Unify is a two man show, with Skippy doing the sound design, and developer Shane Dunne, PhD Computer Science, https://getdunne.com/ doing the coding. Skippy has done sound design on the following https://www.pluginguru.com/about/: Korg M1 (PCM and Patch Sound Cards) Korg M3R (factory voicing) Korg O1W Series (factory voicing) Korg Trinity Series (factory voicing) Korg Triton Series (factory voicing and PCM Sound Cards) Korg Wavestation (factory voicing, PCM and Sound Cards) Korg Wavestation A/D (factory voicing) Korg Wavestation WSSR (factory voicing and PCM Sound Cards) Korg S-3 Component Drum Machine (factory voicing) Roland JV-1080 (HipHop PCM Expansion card (created of the loops)) Korg KARMA Workstation (factory voicing) Yamaha TX-16W (sample libraries) Roland V-Synth V1 (factory voicing) Roland XV-5080 (factory drum kits) Alesis DM Pro (factory voicing of kits) Korg Wavedrum (DSP algorithm design and factory voicing) Korg Z-1 (factory voicing) Korg OASYS (factory voicing) Korg M50 (factory voicing) Korg M3 (factory voicing) Korg TR (factory voicing) Spectrasonics Atmosphere Plug-In (beta testing & limited voicing) Spectrasonics Trilogy Plug-In (beta testing & 200+ synth bass patches) Spectrasonics Omnisphere (beta testing and limited voicing) Camel Audio Alchemy (beta testing, factory and patch bank voicing) Native Instruments Absynth (voicing on v1 of Absynth (pre-NI) & voicing for Absynth Sounds Vol. 1 )

I recently downloaded a full orchestral track template for Spitfire BBCSO Discover and Core, that were customized for various DAWs. There are stacks for each section and articulation, sends for FX, very detailed. A good tutorial for mixing an orchestra! The Spitfire team started out by providing templates for Logic Pro X, then GarageBand, Ableton Live, Protools, and Cubase. But users have adapted the originals to a few more DAWs. https://www.spitfireaudiothepage.com/templates I compared the versions that I loaded into Ableton and Studio One. There is no way I would dive into that with Ableton using so many tracks and sends, etc., LOL! 😂 BBCSO Discover Templates: https://www.spitfireaudiothepage.com/posts/discover-templates (even Reaper, Bitwig, and FL Studio) BBCSO Core Templates: https://www.spitfireaudiothepage.com/posts/core-templates BBCSO Pro Templates: https://www.spitfireaudiothepage.com/posts/pro-templates

Unify is stable, and fairly low on PC resources. You can load up as many layers as your PC can take, and route various MIDI controllers to various macro knobs. And with the MIDI patterns in the various patches adding arpeggios, rhythm patterns, etc, you can make a lot happen by pressing a few notes and turning some knobs! I've never used it live, but that use case could cover a wide range of workflows, so without knowing how your setup works it might be hard to say if it would work for you. Try the demo for free to assess it for yourself!

My favorite DAWs that I am trying to dig a bit deeper into are Studio One 5 Pro, and Ableton Live 11 Suite. I've been easing into it, and keeping up with the latest versions, but it's a huge learning curve coming from Cakewalk, LOL! I made the commitment to switch DAWs back when Gibson bailed out, but BandLab has made that effort difficult by constantly making Cakewalk better! I still tend to grab CbB first when I want to do something quickly with a few instruments. It's the muscle memory thing... So if I wanted to do some experimental sound design and composing pattern based music, I would start with Live. Or if I wanted to do a larger project with an arrangement using a conventional track template, console view, MIDI editor with key switches, and possibly some music notation, it would definitely be Studio One for me.

Do what exactly? You can layer two synths in Analog Lab. But the V instruments themselves are not multitimbral. However, as far as I can tell, all Arturia V models are polyphonic, even the Moog Mini V3 and the ARP 2600 V3, which were originally vintage monophonic synths. Unify is more like a DAW host, with an unlimited synth rack, but without tracking/recording. When using Unify as a plugin within your DAW, you can utilize the DAW features to accomplish recording.

With Unify, a monophonic synth plugin can even be used as a polyphonic synth within a Unify patch! For example the "Unified" library for the monophonic synth Newfangled Audio Pendulate (free), has some patches that will play polyphonic pads. For example, Unify can do this with a tool included in Unify called "PolyBox" to link 8 mono plugin voice layers (2-16 are available) within an 8 voice Unify layer.