PavlovsCat

So, what do you guys who've  tried the beta version think of it? 

I'm a Synthmaster 2 user and curious, but I likely won't have time to try this out, at least for a week, plus, a heck of a lot of you guys are far more knowledgeable on synths than me. 

It's apparently a free update for owners of the first version (at least it was when I checked my downloads). 

Also, great job of posting deals this week, Larry. I'm doing my best to reign in my GAS (I almost bought something from PB the other day just to get the April freebie,  but then decided to let it go), but I still check here regularly and see a ton of your deal threads. You remain the GOAT! 

Minimum spend is $75 US. 

2 hours ago, MrFigg said:

Hmm. I didnt see anybody writing anything other than the facts. Nothing cruel, mocking or toxic. That’s said maybe I missed something. 

It wasn't your post. It was posts like this (and guys, I'm looking for arguments, just that we can keep it to facts and personal experiences. not cheap shots, mocking or trying to humiliate someone): 

"THIS MAN GOT GUTS , even after so much resistance hes still fighting"

"nah, he's a grifter relying on noobs who don't know his rep"

It's one thing to state the facts of our experiences, which is helpful for the community. But this thread has become a pile on a person that has gone far beyond facts into character assassinations and mockery. I realize that some of you disagree, but when the guy publicly shared that he has bipolar disorder and has struggled -- of course, that impacts the man's business behavior and can account for bad decision making. I actually bought one of his synths years ago and never got it to work or heard back from him when I emailed him for support. But it cost me a dollar or two and I just avoiding his business since then.  I have a friend in the UK -- from Germany -- who knows the guy and says he's a pretty nice person who struggles with mental health. I think the developer is named William? He's sent me a Facebook request earlier this year out of the blue, likely because he saw I'm connected to his friend. 

In any event, I'm just trying to say that I don't think this guy is deliberately malicious or unethical -- and there are definitely developers who are and I have a huge problem with that. I think this guy just has mental health issues that, unsurprisingly, are reflected in his one man business. I lead a business and don't have bipolar disorder, but I have friends and had one friend with biploar disorder who took his life. It's a very serious illness that can make pretty difficult for someone and I would hope people would take that into consideration and stick with the facts of their experiences and not turn this into cheap shots, defamatory remarks, mockery, and ridicule. 

Us long timers from KVR can recall when the developer behind Melda was making all sorts of sleazy sock puppet posts and got banned from KVR for it. I avoided buying anything from him until Starship Krupa persuaded me to give him a try,  In fact, the Melda developer recently did a YouTube interview where he acknowledged that he did that stuff. Completely unethical and completely acknowledged by the guy recently. We allowed for his rehabilitation. And maybe the Wusik guy isn't rehabilitated in the eyes of some. Okay, but still, I don't think he deserves the attacks. Personally, I don't like seeing anyone mocked/ridiculed. But I think, given his disclosure of his mental illness, I think we can find a way to share experiences without the personal attacks. 

This is getting ugly and turning into VI-CONTROL lite. Just to be fair and have some humanity, the developer has publicly shared that he is bipolar and has been inconsistent in running his business. 

I'm not aware of the guy being intentionally dishonest, just erratic. 

But this is a cruel, toxic, over the line defamatory pile on and I hope we can be better than that. People aren't merely sharing facts, they're just here to make vicuous defamatory attacks. If you have facts, assert them. But post after post just mocking someone isn't just against any decent forum's policy, we all can do better. 

Just a reminder. 

1 hour ago, Brian Walton said:

I had issues with the vst3 version not allowing nodes to be added or adjusted on some computers with Cakewalk.

Id go for TDR Nova, Melda EQs, Toneboosters EQ4 as affordable alternatives.  The latter doesn't go on sale but the first two do, and they both also have very capable free versions.

You can use izotope without the AI in the free one.

Or buy a forever 29 from  someone and grave the three body technology EQ

Thanks for the advice. I admit, I've picked up at least a couple of dozen Hornet's plugins because he discounts them so low and a bunch of folks here have praised them. I actually have contemplated the Tonebooster's EQ, as it seems really user friendly and the price is very low (and it has AI too).  

I've read positive comments about this plugin in forums and the White Sea Studios influencer made a very positive review about it (and I seriously doubt this developer paid him anything to do it). I'd be interested what anyone here thinks of it as I'm contemplating picking it up. I've been very reliant on dumbed down AI EQ tools (Sonible and Izotope) and wanted to get something non AI that I could learn more on and thought this might be a good choice. 

53 minutes ago, CSistine said:

Ah, you mean the submission subscription Sonar (currently)!

That isn't literal is it? Has BandLab released details on the pricing for Sonar? I don't see anything at the Cakewalk site that has pricing. 

I'm at the point where I have probably two dozen paid synths and a ridiculous amount of free synths. I still haven't tired of Vital. But having all of those soft synths has led me to a very unusual place where I no longer have serious GAS when it comes to synths (I still have it for sample libraries-- especially pianos, guitars, basses, drums,  strings, etc.) -- with the exception of the freebies from Beat. They've had some pretty nice freebies and this one definitely seems like one of those occasions. 

Support music making related publications, friends.  A great deal of publishers are struggling these days. Beat really doesn't cost much for what you get out of it -- the helpful articles and the free plugins and samples. It also helps make me feel satisfied that I've gotten some new cool sounds every month so I buy less of the stuff I see on the forum! 

The developer was very talented. It must be a decade since he passed on. But these synths were pretty good for pads, back in the day.  I'm not sure if I'd try them on a modern PC.  I'd be interested if anyone is running these on a Windows 10/11 PC with Cakewalk and if they run without issues. 

Thanks so much for the encouragement, everyone.  It's especially nice considering that most of you have much better quality performed songs on this forum that I really enjoy. 

8 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

It's one of those libraries I cant devote disk space too.

Although this library is 1.15GB, which really isn't that large, instead of making that same post in every 8Dio related thread, you seriously should send them an email. I know that the 8Dio folks don't spend a lot of time on forums. If you contact them, there's a real opportunity to make your case -- and, as you know,  I'd love to see you succeed. I think it would be valuable if 8Dio offered "standard definition" versions of all of their larger libraries (they do this with some SoundPaint libraries, and frankly,  I've personally used that option). 

The 8Dio brand has always focused on "deep sampled" libraries -- AKA highly detailed libraries. For example,  their piano libraries contain pedal down samples and a good deal of velocities.  But that focus on detail also means these libraries are very large. I think now that they've lowered prices a great deal, and made their libraries much more accessible to hobbyists, there are many hobbyists who would trade the detail to have smaller file sizes. 

On 4/26/2024 at 3:00 PM, TheSteven said:

That's a hell of thing to get offended by...

 

 

 

At least nowadays. 

Yeah, one might think that real spiritual concerns would be more along the lines of lying, injustice, exploitation, cheating, stealing, fraud, deception, hate, intolerance, abuse, discrimination... but yeah, say the word "demon" and, well, I'll just quote the words of JI Packer, "...three thousand miles wide and half an inch deep." But there it is. I hear that Henson sacrifices one goat for each Demon Drop 😈 that's downloaded. 

3 hours ago, MrFigg said:

Yeah. What?

They're offended by Henson's use of the word "Demon" in the product title.  

2 hours ago, Fleer said:

Yeah, I still quite like him. Here’s hoping his new endeavors succeed. 

Controversy aside. I have no idea if Christian cashed out his investment in Spitfire or  if he remains a silent partner, but one would assume that considering that, at least until recently, he owned half of a business that generates more than 20 million pounds annually and has a net worth in the tens of millions of pounds, he's easily able to fund this new venture for as long as he sees fit. Plus, there's not too many people in the sample development business that know how to create a successful brand in this business at the level he does.  I think it's probably just a question of what his goals are for this new venture. It does tell you a lot about what he was responsible for at Spitfire (based on what he's doing now and what Spitfire hasn't been doing since he left), and we can see that a lot of other orchestral sample developers have followed Henson's path in doing the freebies to get attention and bring new future customers in the fold.  I think some folks naively see that as altruism -- just as they saw Pianobook as altruism, but it really isn't. It's putting future customers in the pipeline and was a very wise strategy -- but one that it appears his partner at Spitfire wasn't totally on board with, or hasn't found the right person to lead the effort in Christian's absence. The Labs+ teaser was a great example of fantastically bad marketing communications. A sub brand that gives away free product is silent for the better part of a year and its first communication is a cryptic message that tries to excite its target audience that they're now going to have to pay for future product. Really, really bad idea. Even if they were going to launch this new Labs non-free product, that isn't a good way to do it. 

20 hours ago, GoncaloL said:

It really is annoying and pretentious

and this other video

 

i was not able to reach the end of it, the piano sounds great but i dont get this kind of communication

If we're going to be really candid, the Spitfire co founders were always proudly arrogant, and pretentious in their early days. It was very much on brand for them to alienate people as sport. But Christian cultivated a much more likeable,  approachable persona in his YouTube videos in the past several years when he realized the importance of growing the Spitfire brand.

With the exception of his infamous tweet, I thought Christian really did well with the video format.  I'd say he was probably better with the medium than any other sample developer I can think of (with apologies to my sample developer friends). I think this video is a bit meandering. But Christian is certainly capable of doing masterful YouTube videos for his business. I think it's been a factor in growing Spitfire to be one of the biggest players in the industry. 

Another very nice freebie from Fracture Sounds. This dev produces some very lovely sampled instruments. I've been meaning to update my free sample library thread and this one definitely will be added. 

Sounds great -- the song, the performance, and the production. , but that's no surprise coming from you.  Great job! It sounds very original and I sincerely like it a lot. I get Neil Finn solo vibes with a bit more edge (which is a good thing, as I'm a big fan of Neil Finn). It's both melodic and has a great groove and strong riffs. 

Nice. Marty Balin vibes on the vocal. 

There's something strangely compelling about this. Cool and very different. 

Great job! 

Wow. I hear stuff like this and want to take down any of my songs. This is awesome. Great job. Gorgeous track. Well written, well performed. 

Mike/Creative Sauce is a very likeable guy who does a good job at making helpful and entertaining YouTube content. I just hope that Sonar doesn't go subscription-only with Sonar, so that they'll be plenty of reasons for me to enjoy Mike's new channel (if not, he also has a Studio One channel...). 

This is my cover of Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale.  I welcome any advice on improving the mix (unfortunately, I can't do much to improve the vocalist or musician). 

Thanks, Peter

NI changed the licensing for KONTAKT Player several years ago and they did reduce the costs for a developer to release free Player instruments (I can't recall the specifics,  but I'm pretty sure NI negotiates prices with developers anyhow). Their revenue model employs a cut of the sales for instruments that use the Player, so if a developer decides to dramatically reduce the list price of a library,  they'll want to renegotiate with NI.