abacab

16 hours ago, William Wave said:

Okay, it's definitely worth trying an electric guitar, but first it is interesting to know your recommendations about what plugins in particular will suit the most (both main and bass guitars, free options only).

While there are some decent free acoustic guitar plugins, I cannot think of any really GOOD and FREE electric guitar plugins.

Examples of some (paid) high quality electric guitars can be found at: Ample Sound, Indiginus, Native Instruments, Orange Tree Samples, and others...

https://www.amplesound.net/en/purchase.asp from $119

https://www.indiginus.com/renegade-electric-guitar from $59 (full version of Kontakt required)

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/catalog/komplete/guitar/ from $99 (works with FREE Kontakt player)

https://www.orangetreesamples.com/products/categories/guitars $179 (Evolution guitars work with FREE Kontakt Player)

I would include the UJAM Virtual Guitarists as well, but they are more designed to use on-board FX, and are difficult to get a fully "dry" guitar signal output from that you can use with an amp sim. https://www.ujam.com/guitarist/ from $149

If you compare any of these electrics played through your amp sim compared to that Ample acoustic, you will surely notice a difference.

While there are a few free electrics available, they don't stand up to these... in this case, you do get what you pay for.

4 hours ago, John Maar said:

Hey, this is a free direct download on the Overloud site. It's totally bogus that JRR shows a $79 list price lined out.

Hybrid Free for REmatrix

I wasn't able to drop it into the VST3 plugin UI. I had to drop it into the standalone version of REmatrix to install it. Didn't try it with the VST version.

Yup! Don't bother with going the JRR route for this freebie! Use the Overloud site, which is painless.

And if you already have the REmatrix Player installed, just skip down to step 5 for the Hybrid free download. Then drag the file into the REmatrix UI.

Done!

5 hours ago, Fleer said:

Yep, the piano was also $29 crossgrade. 

I passed on that piano one. It sounded cool, but already have plenty of layered piano & pad sound making thingies...

Wonder if Arturia has a WOODWINDS version in the pipeline? That would be interesting!

2 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

I'm trying to avoid impulse buys, but getting Augmented Voices and piano for $29 seems too good a deal to pass up.   $14.50 each!  Less  the price of many preset patch sets.

But those ARE only preset patch sets!

The only instrument crossgrade available right now for $29 is Augmented BRASS...

6 minutes ago, Magic Russ said:

With all of their other patch sets, when you download them in Analog Lab, they offer a handful of presets that you can load to demo.  With these three, when you download the bank none of the presets are playable.

That's strange! I own Augmented STRINGS and just downloaded what I expected to be the demo of Suspense Strings, vol 1 of the new trio, but all presets remain locked!

Never saw that happen before... 🙄

1 hour ago, aidan o driscoll said:

Found Augmented Strings to be a bit of a resource hog on my core i5, 16GB Ram SSD system. Augmented Brass etc the same I assume?

Same synth engine, so I would assume so. Try the free demo ...

11 hours ago, Brian Lawler said:

Sounds pretty good.  The other two "Augmented" do eat a bunch of my CPU though.

I have the Augmented STRINGS and VOICES, and this one sounds good. I am really tempted by the $29 offer!

Also am not surprised by the CPU comment. I have Pigments, and that has gotten a bit of a reputation as being heavy on resources. The Augmented series instruments appear to have taken a lot of the Pigments synth engine under the hood, once you look into the advanced mode.

With 4 layers, you should pay attention to how much processing is going on in a preset, especially if you are not running a strong recent model CPU. Just playing back samples is not CPU intensive, but heavy synthesis and effects will eat your CPU.

It's a dandy, Jim!!!

10 minutes ago, TheSteven said:

How do these show up?
As an instrument update or ?

I don't have these banks, but I've normally found and downloaded my banks for Arturia instruments in-app using the "Store" browser in Analog Lab V. If you own them they should show up in the "owned" category, from where you can install them. Once the sound banks have been installed they should show up in the instrument, as well as Analog Lab.

I'm pretty sure they can be found on the website somewhere, but I've never done it that way. Others may know how to do that.

I am a UJAM fan! I have all of their VB basses, a few of their VD drums and VG guitars, and a couple Beatmakers...

And one Usynth (Drive).

I just don't get the Usynth? It could have potential if they had included a real step sequencer/arpeggiator, but instead only included a relatively small custom set of sequences that you can tweak a little without any visual feedback regarding the steps and lengths, etc. Whazzup with that?

I'm just guessing that this product was designed to "keep it simple"... well it is that!

Augmented Brass is $29 for me too!

Cinematic Trio for $29 also!

"a pack of 3 epic big-screen-ready sound banks for Augmented STRINGS, VOICES, and GRAND PIANO, discounted for existing owners of these 3 instruments or Analog Lab."

Augmented STRINGS & Augmented VOICES Release Notes

V 1.5.0

New features and improvements:

• A New Simpler engine implemented
• By selecting the "+" icon located in the knobs' upper right corner, modulation sources can be added.
• Vibrato and tremolo can be assigned freely to any part/engine
• Pan controls are now available for each part/engine
• Keyboard Offset feature implemented, allowing the keyboard to playback samples in a different range
• Polyphony voice number menu added on the bottom toolbar
• Loading icon now present pn the main page when loading in the samples for a given preset
• Articulation range feedback is now displayed on the layer pages
• New Ring image (Augmented VOICES only)

Bug fixes:

• An issue with the Arpeggiator has been resolved that was causing some user presets to behave differently
• Custom types creation issue has been fixed and is now operating as intended
• Multiple presets can now be saved using right-click + save
• Playlists made in earlier versions now function correctly
• FL Studio now supports V Col plugin automation from a controller

Hey, this thread was started over a year ago, and is still not marked as resolved.

Did @Byron Dickensget a new laptop yet? Inquiring minds want to know!

No sound? When using the free MT PowerDrumKit you will need to "skip" through the donation pop-up (nag) in the plug-in UI every time that you load the plug-in.

16 hours ago, jesse g said:

Have a great time there Larry.   Come back bearing DEALS for ALL!!

Dealio!!!

Vital is awesome! I upgraded to the pro version shortly after trying the free version a couple years ago, to support further development!

2 hours ago, Magic Russ said:

Abandonware refers to software that is neither sold nor supported by its creator, so that term does apply.  Of course just because something fits that definition does not mean intellectual property law doesn't apply.

What Native Instruments did recently with Absynth is a close parallel to where z3ta+ is at in that regard, where the owner has stopped public sales and distribution of their product. But the software is still under copyright, and they continue to make it available to users who purchased a license.

In these particular cases the owners have not gone out of business, but have deprecated their products. Not sure if this technically qualifies as "abandonware" or not, or even if that matters as it's not really a legal definition, at least in the US.

"Abandonware is any software still under copyright when the copyright owner either doesn't or can't enforce it. Regardless, since the copyright still exists, hosting and downloading abandonware generally counts as piracy in the US, making it illegal."

• abandonware remains under copyright protection.
• abandonware is not software that has passed into the public domain.
• In the US, there are no laws using the term “abandonware,” but since what we think of as abandonware exists outside the public domain, its distribution meets the definition of software piracy, which is certainly illegal.

https://www.howtogeek.com/829307/what-is-abandonware-and-is-it-legal/

The Cakewalk Control Surface has added a new Mackie Control option since the OP: Mackie Control Universal [Cubase Mode].

This seems to play nicely with controllers that have a "Cubase" mode.

3 hours ago, InstrEd said:

my wifes

Is that plural? How many you got?

9 minutes ago, Fleer said:

They are thinking of a tiered approach, though. Maybe 2.0 will bring a (cheapo) standard version and a pro one for us early adopting geezers. 

That might work.

But if John started giving away Unify totally free, he would probably have to lay off the lone developer, Shane, who happens to be a high-level brainiac PhD in Computer Science.

1 hour ago, JT music said:

OK, so if one day Unify will become free.. everyone would not acquire it until they charge it back to the value it is really worth.... 🤔 We would have an empty forum thread instead of exploded comments....

This forum thread is slam full of freeware instrument suggestions from the forum members here. Worth a look while you are waiting for a free Unify!

I added the reference to Unify here to stay on topic!

Kilohearts has a free Pitch Shifter (+/- semitones) audio plugin in their free "Essentials" collection. https://kilohearts.com/products/kilohearts_essentials

"Are you out of tune? Do you want to be? Either way, Pitch Shifter uses grain delay to bring the pitch where you want it to be. Or at least somewhere else from where it already is. The Pitch Shifter will adjust the pitch of the input signal up or down."

https://kilohearts.com/products/pitch_shifter

The collection also contains a Frequency Shifter (in Hz). "Frequency shifter will shift all the frequencies in the input signal up or down by a certain amount. This kind of shifting will ruin the harmonic content of the input signal, making it sound dissonant."

https://kilohearts.com/products/frequency_shifter

21 minutes ago, JT music said:

I think that a good business and commercial gesture would be for pluginguru to put the Unify standard as a free Player to encourage the purchase of different expansions, personally it is expensive for me to buy a player that only incorporates instruments and effects which by default are free... Does anyone think the same?

Because everyone is entitled to the labors of others for free?

Just FYI, Unify standard is the only edition, and by default the standard library contains 647 patches, which other than the "free" instruments includes 3.2 GB of factory samples for the "Guru Sampler" created by John. They are high quality. John has a decades long history of creating libraries for Omnisphere and other instruments. He is an ex-KORG sound designer.

So by default you don't need to buy anything else, just combine your existing soft synths with the factory patches and you have unlimited sound combinations. There is really nothing else comparable available, and it would make no sense to just give it away!

I have the previous library from Bob Dedes, Renegade for Unify.

7 hours ago, Mister Cakewalk sonar said:

I'm asking about being free, because I wonder if these products are free or not, good products that no one will ever install, it would be great if they were free like the current product, the same about plugins, I don't understand why they are not free and it would be great if they became free, if you don't buy and download them, then no studio will use them and a good product will simply never be available to anyone, it's a pity if so, not all people have powerful computers, the old versions were also gorgeous.

I understand what you are saying, but that's just the way it is. Feel free to contact BandLab directly with your concerns if you wish to pursue this further. We are just ordinary users like you and there's really nothing we can do about it. Just sharing the available info where we can.

7 hours ago, Mister Cakewalk sonar said:

I respect the law, I respect people's work, and I think I follow all the rules.

That's a good attitude! For better or worse these old products are still the property of BandLab, and not orphaned "abandonware".