PavlovsCat

Thanks guys. And yep, I did mean SE! I'll revise my earlier post.

@Brian Walton Brian, I am (correctly) ashamed to ask this question, but I own Guitar Rig 6, Ampitube 5SE (edit: I originally wrote LE instead of SE), Bias FX and Electrum and I mostly either use the presets or use presets as a starting point. I've never even explored to see if any of them allow the use of IRs. You listed Amplitube, hopefully the LE version takes IRs too.

Oops, you're right! I'll fix my earlier post. Be sure to post your thoughts after checking it out.

It's a KONTAKT Player library [edit: I originally mistakenly wrote that the library required the full version of KONTAKT]. I realize that it's confusing that they call it an expansion. It doesn't require anything else. I'm in love with Wurlis and this is the only 145B I own. It was recommended to me by two people in this forum, I think it was Chris R and Bad Penguin. I did a thread about my love of Wurlis and both of them strongly recommended this library and the developer and it was a fantastic recommendation. They have a 200A that also sounds great and it comes with a Rhodes that sounds great. The only reason I didn't get that is that I already have a 200A (from e-instruments) that is really versatile. But I think Skybox's 200A sounds superb. If I wasn't watching my spending, I would definitely grab this offer. While the 200A is my only library from Skybox, it's so well done that it reflects a developer that does exceptional work, IMO. The UI allows you to easily create your own presets. The 145B is one of my favorite electric piano sample libraries.

I picked up the Lite version after a nano influencer named Reid hyped it up in this forum as if it was groundbreaking. It's okay, but I definitely feel he greatly over hyped it. But that is what influencers do. A couple of weeks after I spent 10 bucks on it, they were giving it away free. No great tragedy, but I'd recommend that anyone considering buying the lite version should wait for it to become free again.

The big question is, is it worth having? I've picked up a number of WA Production's freebies, but haven't found anything worth keeping.

Wow! That's a great deal. I'm already over my meager budget, but from the one library of theirs that I own, the 145B (a Wurli), Skybox Audio is a top notch developer and I'm sure every library in this collection is similarly superb.

Haha! Drinking less beer (or any alcoholic beverages) can save a lot of money! You can (and I once did!) go through $50 USD at pubs! A tip from my performing days -- just tell the servers to charge everything to the bass player account. But I don't want to encourage you to spend when money is tight; I understand that situation very well. There are plenty of free alternatives. If you're looking for specific instruments, you can always PM me and maybe I can help you avoid the temptation to spend by pointing you towards free alternatives.

It's Arturia, so I downloaded it right away (they make great plugins, IMO). Only afterward, I looked more closely at the landing page for the product and went through the various demos. Wow! Arturia does a great job at presenting its products in a useful manner for anyone conducting product research. There are some very useful and interesting interactive demos. Other developers can learn a lot from Arturia's approach to product landing pages. As locrian wrote above this post, it is indeed (another) great freebie from Arturia. Everyone should grab this. https://www.arturia.com/products/software-effects/efx-refract/overview

Check your email, or sign up for Fracture Sounds emails, if you want a $10 USD voucher (min. spend is $20 USD). I only have their freebies, but they're excellent quality KONTAKT libraries, so I would expect their paid libraries to be excellent too. If you're not familiar with them, they are a KONTAKT sample developer and offer several free KONTAKT Player libraries that I can enthusiastically recommend. https://fracturesounds.com/

I don't think you could possibly regret getting KONTAKT, Joe. I have a thread full of my recommendations for free sample libraries for the full version of KONTAKT. There's a wealth of high quality instruments in there. Pianos, synths, brass, strings, drums, percussion -- it's there. The included Factory library with KONTAKT likely also includes some libraries you'd enjoy. I don't think I have a single DAW project with multiple instruments that doesn't include KONTAKT. I use it far more than anything else.

Capitol Chambers sounds really good to my ears. I'd love to get the thoughts of the more knowledgeable mixers here.

I put in a support question to SoundIron yesterday. This is SoundIron's response in its entirety: "Hi Peter, Thanks for reaching out. This library is from 2010 and is on the cheaper side of piano products. It only includes four velocity layers, so there is some "jumpyness" in volume between velocities. For comparison, Emotional Piano has 10 velocity layers and is triple the price. There is a velocity limiter built in to the montclarion GUI, so you can dial in the higher velocities to taste or use a compressor to squeeze some of the velocity jumps. If you're comfortable with the backend of Kontakt, you could also reduce the volume of the higher velocity layers easily in the groups. We do not have plans to update this library any time soon. Please let me know if you have any other questions."

I own and love the Embertone Walker, so I think that's a mighty fine recommendation and one I have recommended many times.I just love the vibe of this library, especially after watching Simeon's video. I think I'll ask the dev about the velocity issue and see if they're open to fixing the issue or not. Because if they even promise to fix that, this library is a no-brainer, IMO.

Simeon found the velocity issue in a video he did last year (posted above). Do you know if they fixed it? Granted, with your backing of it and laglag's code making it only $20.80, I'm probably buying this anyhow. I was actually considering getting the MFactoryLE for the Meldaway Grand, but it's 40 GB, and this one is 7GB and I've never been disappointed by SoundIron yet. More and more, hard drive space is becoming a factor for me with sample library purchases.

I was just researching the Montclarion Piano and watching @Simeon Amburgey's video and enjoying his great playing (both Simeon and I can play the piano at a level that would make my late piano teacher mother cry, but for very different reasons!). Simeon pointed out that there was an issue with velocity layers and I was wondering if SoundIron ever fixed that. I'd love to get insights from anyone who has this library. I own several SoundIron libraries and have been very happy with them, but even though this library is very inexpensive, I'm not sure if I want to buy it if the developer hasn't fixed the velocity issue that Simeon pointed out. There is something about the vibe of this piano that I love. When Simeon started playing some Vince Guaraldi, I think he nailed it. It sounds like a piano you'd hear on an old jazz recording.

I'm surprised the developer didn't put audio demos of the reverb on the landing page. I've been picking up their numerous freebies over the years and only recently tried one out recently and found it to be meh. I'd be interested in the opinions of more experienced (than me) mixers regarding 2BPlayed effects. Are there any gems in the bunch that are worth considering?

You know, after reading your post, I went back and listened to the demos for Chromophone, and I agree with you. I do like the sounds in some of the demos for Chromophone -- especially the demo called "Desperation" (a lot of the synth patches sound like reverses and I love that effect). Subsequently, I'll edit my original post. Is $99 USD the lowest price you've (or anyone else reading this) has seen it for?

I really think Venus Theory / Cameron has a lot of talent as a sound designer and he's been very generous with freebies (yes, I realize that they're a way to gain awareness for his paid versions and paid libraries, but it still means giving away a good quality libraries for free and I appreciate that).

AAS has great customer support, but I don't really love the sounds of [EDIT] most of their synths. I have a couple dozen and I don't think I've ever used them in a track. I would trade all of them for Vital or Synthmaster 1 or 2. or just about anything else I have Of course, it's completely subjective and I realize that's not an apples-to-apples comparison, it's just that I've never seen anyone post anything but fondness for AAS until the above couple of posts. AAS completely deserves praise for their customer service -- it's superb. But on a completely subjective level, I have yet to hear a synth from them that really inspires me.

I completely understand where you're coming from, David. While I own Studio One 3 Pro, which I bought when it looked like Cakewalk was closing their doors, I really only use Cakewalk by Bandlab and I've been hoping Bandlab would announce their pricing for Sonar soon so that I can decide whether to upgrade Studio One or go with Sonar. Of course, I'd prefer to know the new Sonar pricing while Studio One upgrades are on sale. My hope is that Bandlab doesn't go subscription only, as that would be a deal breaker for me. I have a lot of Cakewalk projects and the easiest path for me is to still be able to use that format moving forward as opposed to having to convert everything to Studio One. EDIT: I largely agree with mettelus point that, at least some, Sonar competitors are likely to make special offers to Cakewalk users after Bandlab makes their pricing announcement.

I don't use loops and I used to be a drummer, so I especially want to play drums on my recordings. But I've had ads for Yurt Rock loops in my Facebook feed so many times and saw that they mentioned one of my all-time favorite drummers since my youth who was very influential on my playing, Mike Clark, that I ended up checking them out. His loops sound soooo good, I just enjoy listening to them by themselves. The Clyde Stubblefield loops are also very cool. Clyde was a legend. Most famously, Cylde was James Brown's drummer and is most known for his playing on Brown's track, "Funky Drummer." If I were to start buying drum loop libraries, this dev would be at the top of my list, just for those two legendary drummers alone. https://yurtrock.com/products/mike-clark-vol-1

Hi @John Maar. I saw your post and recalled recently doing a search on pianos at Knob Cloud and seeing several VI Labs pianos come up as results. Consequently, I just did another search to see if I could find the piano you're looking for and found that someone is trying to re-sell their license for Modern U, asking €100. I've only made two purchases on Knob Cloud (both from the same seller and everything went smoothy). I paid his asking prices, but I have read posts on this forum that people have successfully made lower price offers. I did make a lower offer on one item and the seller came down €15 on their asking price. You can always ask the seller if they'd accept a lower bid and offer them what you think is a fair price, say €75. It is a license transfer and should sell for significantly less than a direct sale price from the developer. Anyhow, I just thought it was worth sharing. https://knobcloud.com/item/99321

I'm not very familiar with the Keyscape (I've heard people mention it, but I don't really know anything else), but the demos for the AcousticSamples Wurlie sound amazing to me. If I would have heard that earlier in my research process, I definitely would have bought it.

I listened to all of the audio and demos on the page. It sounds cool, but it's definitely is not an authentic 200A. It's especially noticeable in an audio file of the instrument playing alone. I think sample libraries are still the winner. Skybox Audio and e-instruments make my favorite Wurli libraries; both also make it easy for the user to create their own presets. SonicCouture and AcousticSamples demos sound excellent (but I don't own those). What I love about AcousticSamples Wurlie is how they captured the clunk of the keys that you hear when you're playing. I'd guess that they recorded the keyboard turned off and mixed that in. e-instruments also has that clunk sound and lets you easily mix in as much as you'd like using the controls on the GUI. For that reason, I have to hand it to e-instruments for making a library that makes it easy to get any kind of sound you can think of out of the sample library. Skybox Audio's 145B starts out as a really pristine sounding library and also has controls that let you alter the sound well. It doesn't have that clunk to it, but I think the combo of the 145B and the e-instruments Electric W are a great pairing. I can thank, I believe, chris.r and Bad Penguin for recommending the 145B.