Canopus

I just noticed that 8Dio has made the free sound library Free Radicals available again for download. I actually looked for it just a few days ago by the time Free Angels was released, but couldn’t find it anywhere on their site (or anywhere else). It was originally released as a free library back in 2012 and was presented as having an "unhealthy cluster of cancerous and asylum friendly sounds". As with all libraries from 8Dio, Free Radicals requires full Kontakt. Download this scary and ghostly Kontakt library here - if you dare...

Depends on what time span “Black Friday” covers, but if confined to the month of November: Native Instruments K12U CE (upgrade) KV331 SynthMaster (crossgrade) + some additional expansions AudioThing Frostbite 2 (update) Toontrack EZKeys New Wave and Hooks & Chords MIDI Packs (already had Dream Machine) SampleTekk S.S.G. All the Samples from Mars Now let’s see what December has to offer…

Among other things it's said to contain sounds from "Fluffy Creatures". Yup, that's a definite hole-filler.

That’s because it's not a VST and as such directly visible to Cakewalk, but a sound library that runs inside Plogue sforzando. Assuming that you have previously installed sforzando and the sound bank is installed correctly, you should be able to see it in the sforzando Instrument bank menu.

I couldn’t agree more. Whenever I need some orchestration in a song I always book Albert Hall and LSO for a day or two. Kontakt is for lazy people.

Thanks husker! The code worked perfectly and I've just bought it so now I'm on my way to Mars. 🚀

Sent you a PM.

I honestly don’t care what other people think when it comes to virtual instruments. I only ask myself whether I like them or not. If I don’t, I won’t buy them no matter how must hype there is. And if I do, I might just buy it. But already having so many virtual instruments, the threshold for yet another purchase keeps getting higher and higher and the threshold for a true no-brainer price keeps getting lower and lower. One recent example: a week ago I bought the SampleTekk S.S.G (Small Studio Grand) for $7.90 on their Black Friday sale. I immediately loved the sound. I think it’s based on a Yamaha C3 or G3 but I’m not sure as SampleTekk won’t say. So while price is an important factor in any purchase decision, it has nothing to do with how you personally perceive the sound coming from the instrument. As for Toontrack EZkeys I have quite a few of those as well, and in particular the Upright have had very good reviews for being able to cut through the mix ever since it was released. Whereas for e.g. Alicia’s Keys (which I got as part of a bundle) I just can’t understand the hype – after a quick play-through I’ve never ever used it. Of course, there will always be people trying to motivate their high-priced purchases by claiming they are supreme. And I've never heard anybody doubt that Superior Drummer is better that EZDrums. But if something sounds good to your ears and the price is right, what else is there to ask for? As I said in another thread a few years back, not everyone needs a Mercedes Benz. For most people a Toyota will suffice. So be your own judge. I certainly try to be.

In the bottom right corner of the status bar of the Theme Editor it says "Version 1.2.0.14". I must assume that is the latest version.

This year’s 8DIO Black Week offers have so far been one great disappointment chained to another, nowhere near the great $18 and $28 deals they have so generously been offering recent years for individual instruments.

Hey, that code actually worked! At first I thought it was a joke, but I just saved $599 and I’m downloading now! But I won’t say at which discounter because I may want to use it a lot more before I’m done and I can’t risk them running out of stock. Ok, so let’s sort by price and select “Highest to Lowest” this time…

My unplanned upgrade to K12U CE was partly because I’m not entirely sure there will ever be a K13U or K13U CE available to buy, and I absolutely hate subscription plans. I still to this day regret that I didn’t buy Adobe's latest and greatest CS bundle while it was still possible. So I guess I’m a man of reason after all. Or possibly a man of uncertainty.

My strategy this year was to buy next to nothing, but here I am just having ordered an update from K10U to K12U CE. Oh, well. The best-laid plans of mice and plug-in hoarders.

My guess is that it wouldn’t be commercially viable to include all AD2 sounds, as that would make it possible to get all sounds in all ADpaks for the price of one XO. Unless, of course, it would only import those that you have actually bought and have present on you local drive. I haven't found any way of doing it though.

It looks like Kroma version 1.5 is free for owners of version 1.0 (like me). Yeah, I can live with that. Free is even better than a sale.

The S.S.G. Small Studio Grand was the one that caught my ear. Not too niche but still with a nice distinct character I’m going for it.

According to their Facebook page, XLN Audio is apparently releasing XO version 1.1 tomorrow Nov. 19. Here's a short sneak peek: https://www.facebook.com/xlnaudio.music/videos/2457272994520323/

I finally upgraded my SynthMaster Player bought four years ago to the full SynthMaster. Already having SynthMaster One, I made a cross-grade for just under $17. That’s the lowest SynthMaster cross-grade offer I’ve ever seen. And not buying directly from KV331 means you don't have to pay extra in order to use PayPal. Funny that KV331 ended their $4 expansion sale yesterday. I think the overall effect would have been greater if these offers had run in parallel.

Could AudioThing possibly have made that new GUI a tad less sparkling and vibrant? This is like so over the top.

Thanks. I would never have found that coupon if you hadn't mentioned where it was. Actually, I didn't even know I had an account to log in to at KV331 Audio.

And now you’re feeling veeeeery, veeeeery, veeeeery sleeeeeepy... When this clip ends you will go to the Cakewalk Deals forum and buy plugins you don't need and will never use, until your credit card limit is seriously overdrawn or someone hits you in the head with a persuader.

Um, yeah, thanks, but if you read my previous post I was actually trying to remove any links or string references in this thread to that instrument, in order to verify whether the sudden increase of views has been caused by an attempt by some SEO service to increase the number of hits relating to that piano. Public forums are known to be used for manipulation of Google search results like that. The only two reasons I can think of that may have caused many thousands of views of this thread for the last week are either a bot, most likely SEO based, or some madman without a life, vigorously hammering the refresh button. A few days ago I sent a PM to one of the BandLab support staff, asking if they could look up the referral or otherwise the source of these views from the server request logs. I haven’t yet received any reply, but hopefully they’re looking into it. It’s all there, so it shouldn’t be hard to do.

No, not very likely. But maybe the two octave Kindergarten version in genuine plastic will.

The number of views for this thread used to be between ten or twenty each day. For the last week or so I’ve notice that the number of views without any apparent reason has jumped to maybe ten times that. Today I found that there must have been over a thousand views for the last 8 hours!? And as far as I can see they keep rolling in. I’m totally baffled. This is actually making me feel uneasy, as it might seem as if I am boosting the number of views on this thread, which I’m definitely not. The most logical reason for this to happen would be if some big site suddenly posted a link to this thread, but I’m unable to find any such reference through Google. Or, optionally, if some words in a recent post would stir some massive interest. But I can’t understand what those words would be. However, being aware of all the more extensive use of SEO in user forums – could that have something to do with it? As this sudden increase of views seems to have occurred in the last week, one obvious suspect would be the reference to an Italian made musical instrument. However far-fetched that may seem, I have obscured the name of that instrument in the last post to see if that makes any difference. And, @Michael Fogarty, if you read this – would it be possible for you to do the same change in your post above as well? Additionally, I’ve placed a reference thread in another corner of this forum for easy comparison of user statistics.

Fazioli F308 is an Italian made grand piano. With a size of 10’ 2” x 63” (3.08 x 1.58 m) and a MSRP of $224,600, it's not for everyone.