PavlovsCat

It's just a side note, but it's kind of hilarious when a sample developer does a promotion using a nano influencer (this one has around 2k subscribers) that hawks sample libraries giving a good review. It's the equivalent of celebrating your salesperson giving your products a good review. It's somewhere in between deceptive and the business equivalent of Spinal Tap. Any dev who gives a nano influencer a bunch of free products that normally cost money gets a favorable review; that's how the system works. Sorry to give away the secret formula, but that's it. You give them free product, sometimes cash (and macro influencers always want cash, only the little guys work for free product), and the promise of future goodies and they do what is nothing less than a promotional video for you without the proper legal disclosures to make it deceptively appear unbiased. And yes, I still tell developers to get products in influencers hands, because it's highly effective and cheaper and faster at getting sales than other forms of promotion. I always urge them to try to push the influencers to do the proper disclosures, but, of course, it's not happening, so I, instead, want to do my best to inform consumers how things really work. So let's celebrate a shill promoting us! I call BS. But it's on a level that's also verges on absurdity.

Yes, right after you pay $499 US for the upgrade (as per Doug's above post). That's what has kept me from picking it up.

Yes, to clarify, I was refering to what would occur if someone uses the Waya tool.

I didn't spend time looking over all of the data Waya.deals collects, but I did visit their about us page (it doesn't list any names or any location about the company, which is pretty sketchy, although the contact info did show an address), I think the big concern that people should have with this business is trusting them with your personal and financial data, the sites you go to and what you enter at those sites, and then their data security procedures. Because even if you believe this company is legit, if you're giving permission to collect your personal data, they have to store that data and if their data security processes aren't solid and they end up getting hacked, you may find that data on the dark web. But having tried Muse's libraries in the past, I can say, without question, it's low quality incredibly bloated sample libraries that are not worth the data transfer to your computer. You can do far better with free libraries from respected developers and the best libraries from Pianobook. There's really no need to download this stuff. It's excessively bloated garbage to be really blunt.

Larry is a great part of any music community. But I seriously do understand how a moderator might notice how prolific Larry is and wonder how one person can do all of that or whether it's a team of people and then question if they might be compensated. Hmmm...or is Larry AI? But if that moderator spent a little time and examined Larry's posts -- which this KVR mod clearly neglected to do -- they'd notice that Larry doesn't inject his opinions on developers very often (with IK being the exception years ago) and Larry posts about a very wide range of developers, two things that you don't see from shills. So, yeah, banning Larry was a profoundly bad mistake and Larry deserved a serious apology for that. KVR, Cakewalk, or any forum should be thrilled to have Larry as a member. I know this community-- of course, including me -- is rightfully, enormously glad to have Larry as a member. Larry's irreplaceable. He's the Michael Jordan of deal posting. He literally is responsible for this subforum existing and being such a valuable resource to many people, including me. As far as KVR, I used to be a regular. I mostly enjoyed it, but it would get toxic from time to time. Not VI-Control level toxic, but toxic enough where I didn't think it was enjoyable as it should be and prefer the much friendlier vibe at this forum. We have a much smaller community, but overall --with only a handful of exceptions-- it's a very friendly and helpful group of people. Plus, we've got Larry, which is very nice.

On a positive note, I think the BandLab folks to a great job of operating this forum at a high standard. I realize that probably sounds like I'm schmoozing them (as I'm posting it here), but seriously, people can post whatever they want to say about the brand and its products freely on this forum and their policies go a long way in keeping this forum from being dominated by developers promoting their products and instead making it very user-centric. As much as I call out the troubling state of influencer marketing which I find unethical and manipulative, this forum is, IIMO, a great example of a brand that has gone a long way to create a very healthy environment that promotes the free exchange of ideas, opinions and information. I just hope they'll make an announcement about their Sonar pricing soon!

All he has to do is disclose upfront what his financial relationship is with the developer for the products he's featuring. That's what I do if I decided I wanted to be an influencer in that space. Funny enough, I actually could be considered an influencer in my business and regularly get pitched to promote colleges and various businesses as a business "thought leader."(Of course, that's not as fun as being a musician.) And I recently did sign a few agreements with some companies and I turned down a ton of them over two decades of being pitched (I only accepted a contract last month; this is largely academia, in my case, with universities like Pinceton, Yale, UChicago, etc.). But I'll always operate by disclosing clearly upfront when I have a financial relationship with any business I discuss, not say I'm doing completely unbiased reviews. My rule is that I won't even discuss companies that I don't respect and educational institutions I wouldn't recommend for my own family members. And beyond that, whenever I discuss these relationships, I will always begin by being transparent and disclosing that I have a business relationship. That's all these influencers need to do, but they refuse to do it. That's not ethical and it violates laws and regulations -- but they don't care. If someone thinks when I say, "I find this business training from Yale is worth consideration," after I disclose that I have a business relationship that my opinion is incredibly biased and my credibility on that recommendation is suspect, that's their call. They deserve to be informed that I have a business relationship with a company that I have a business relationship with. Hiding that fact and pretending to do an unbiased review is incredibly sleazy and there's not enough money in the world to get me to do that. Think I'm kidding? I once got pitched a 7 figure deal to lead digital marketing by a famous -- now infamous -- billionaire who called me up after reading an interview with me in Wired or Forbes. His business was the biggest or one of the biggest payday loan companies in the US. Their business model is basically exploiting the poor to rip them off with outrageously high interest rates. The CEO actually boasted to me that they were getting interest rates of more than 1,000% off of these poor people (small loans, giant interest). When I shared the story with an acquaintance he called me "nuts" for turning down the offer. He didn't even appreciate my self-depricating joke, "I'm Italian-American, I've already been a director in the insurance business, I can't go into loan-sharking next, I'll be fulfilling some kind of ugly stereotype of my people!" Three or four years later, I think this event vindicated me (spoiler, he got a 16 yr jail sentence; it turns out that he answered wrongly when I asked him, "Forget about the terrible ethics -- is charging those interest rates even legal?" He told me I was an "idiot" for turning down his offer and hung up the phone pretty ticked off at me and my candor in telling him that I value my soul more than money: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1EV00S/ So yeah, some of us draw lines.

I realize the developer wrote "less than ideal recording quality," but the amount of undesirable artifacts -- the pops, very undesirable sounding clicks when keys are hit and various noises on the solo piano in the tracks called "Improvisation" and "Film" is not what I'd consider desirable low-fi. I love low-fi sample libraries when they go after a retro vibe. But that's about EQ, lower bit samples, etc., not tons of pops, clicks, and other artifacts. This just sounds like a really poorly recorded library. It's not as evident when mixed with other instruments, but once the piano is soloed, it's not something I would want. Pianobook has plenty of free character pianos without all of these problems. I can make a piano sound bad on my own by playing poorly, I don't need help from a poorly recorded sample library. Hard pass.

Interesting. I'm friends with 8Dio's CEO, and she's very passionate that sample library prices as a whole are too high and need to come down, largely due to the 8+% CAGR for the market, and the maturity of the market. Basically, there is a large enough amount of buyers in the market that developers can afford to price libraries lower, as production costs can be spread among the larger group, whereas in the past, developers have looked to smaller numbers of sales to get to the break even point. Of course, that makes high quality sample libraries more accessible, putting them in more hands, instead of charging more money to get higher profit margins out of a small group of customers as has been the historical practice -- and one that a lot of sample library developers don't want to abandon, because it's been the path to high profitability and fast ROI. But we've never discussed any specific new releases, and, as a hobbyist musician, seeing a new 8Dio library released at this low of a price point is pretty exciting (I've been a customer for far more than a decade). The pricing has inspired some competitors to go into attack mode, making defamatory attacks instead of using traditional, ethical marketing strategies in response to 8Dio's past sales. I anticipate that this could end up unintentionally inspiring a new round of attacks. Consider how far prices have come down from effects plugin developers like UAD, Waves, Izotope and other leaders in the past few years. A lot of us -- including me -- have picked up effects plugins from high end developers we never be a consideration only 5 years ago due to prices being far out of our range. But in the past couple of years, you could pick up a native UAD plugin on sale for $29 US that has historically been selling for $30 US. Then look at what sample developers like NI, 8Dio, and Cinesamples (with Musio) have been doing. CineSamples created their Musio line and is selling some of their superb sample libraries like Tina Guo Cello and Piano in Blue for a small fraction of what they cost a couple of years ago (or what they still cost in the KONTAKT format). NI is discounting at unprecedented levels. They previously held to a 50% deep discounting maximum, but last year, they discounted their own sample libraries and third-party sample libraries more than 70%. Their Alicia's Keys acoustic piano library that lists at $100 US is now on sale at Plugin Boutique for $13 US. I have spoken with a number of sample developers about this trend and they're all, rightfully, paying attention to what's going on. and thinking about their pricing and questioning if they too should be adjusting their pricing, contemplating what they might do and how it all might work if they do lower prices. Of course, it means that they're going to have sell more licenses to make the same profits if they're going to cut their profit margins tighter. So, a lot of them are apprehensive. If enough competitors follow this "race to the bottom" as one competitor puts it in long, defamatory attack rants made on another forum, they're not going to be able to maintain their current high prices for their product lines. As a hobbyist musician on a tight budget, I love seeing prices come down dramatically. I want it to catch on for my own sake and for others. I want sample libraries -- and music creation as a whole -- to be more accessible to everyone, but especially to those who simply cannot afford current prices. The idealist in me would LOVE to see music creation to be accessible to everyone (no exceptions). This clearly isn't that ideal, but it is a lot closer than we've been in the past. It's actually a BFD and represents far more than one developer doing low pricing and that is what worries some competitors, but should excite all buyers of sample libraries.

All of our opinions and experiences are valid. I think once you delve into, say ezDrummer and compare it in terms of functionality, stability, workflow, capabilities, realism and quality, it's going to be difficult to keep investing in BFD. I use SD3 and think it's excellent. I sometimes use AD2 and NI's acoustic drum libraries, which are good, but certainly not in the same ballpark as SD3. That experience especially would make it hard to accept the kind of problematic history of BFD3 in the InMusic era. I get that current BFD3 customers are invested , but it's almost like Stockholm Syndrome (I am writing that half serious). They're grateful just that the product doesn't have major bugs at this moment. Expectations should be much higher than that, IMO. But InMusic has kept expectations ridiculously low. IMO, InMusic needs to establish a track record and work on its current negative brand image by creating a track record of non-problematic software that is competitive in their respective categories; they have yet to even start on that (BFD3 is certainly not a competitive product; it's not even VST3 and only recently been getting reports that it's running without major bugs, by the admission of one of their own development team members). They aren't there yet with BFD3. But I sincerely hope they'll get there. I am paying attention.

Yep, that is exactly what I wrote in my earlier post. These were originally in the Gigasampler and Sounddfont formats back in the 90s when they were released under the Sonic Implants name (Sonic Implants later changed their name to Sonivox and were acquired by InMusic, who put the samples into proprietary plugins). But my main point is that these sample library are very, very old and don't really stand up to modern sample libraries. Perhaps you could get away with synth sample libraries from the 90s today, but not sampled acoustic instruments. Even the free sample libraries KONTAKT developers are giving away free these days are far more sophisticated than these ancient relics. I loved Blue Jay Drums back in the 90s, but it's not even a match for any free drum library from a top tier sample developer let alone the paid drum libraries. I'm not crazy about BFD Player, but it's far more advanced than these old drum libraries. You can add Steven Slate Drums Free to that list too. It's incredibly beyond these drum libraries in terms of realism due to the velocity layers, scripting, round robins, mixing capabilities, etc. Same with various free guitar, harpsicord, bass and other libraries. I maintain a list of freebies in this forum. I invite anyone considering this deal to check that list out first before spending 39 bucks on sample libraries from the 1990s that should have been retired decades ago.

I would feel bad for anyone who blew $199 US on this package. I have a lot of the pluguns in there and bought them more than a decade ago. Most, if not all, of this stuff was released around 20 years ago and some of these plugins have been given away free and sold for a dollar (US). They're not bad, they're just not at the level of synths and sampler based plugins of the past decade. If anyone is looking to spend $199 US on this, please first post in this thread and ask others for a list of alternatives for that money. IK makes a far superior B3 plugin. Arturia makes far superior plugins overall for synths. NI currently has Alicia's Keys piano library for $13 US at Plugin Boutique. SonicCouture has the free version of their Hammersmith Piano that's vastly superior to the piano included with this package. SoundPaint also has a free piano that's vastly superior to this. In 2024, selling this for $199 US almost feels like ripping people off. A fair price might be 30 or 40 bucks at most. Definitely not anything near $100 or more. Again. Anyone who's considering this, please post, tell us what you like about this and ask about alternatives. You'll be blown away at how much better you can do with something else at this price range.

I was trying to remember the name of the big sampler back then -- Gigasampler! Thanks, kitekrazy. A trip down memory lane. I just want to give a heads up to our fellow forum members so they don't spend their hard earned money on libraries older than artists on the modern pop charts. Hey, buying vintage physical gear like guitars, drums, synths, effects can be awesome. Sample libraries of guitar, drums and keys from the 90s that were going after realism do not hold up well. I imagine some of the synth ones would still be okay, but not for guitar, piano, bass, drums, harmonica...

Yes, that is as I understood it and Drew, the very friendly developer from the BFD3 team seems like a very nice guy. But my point is that experience and the history of neglect and major software problems and poor support are still important considerations. It's 13 years after BFD3 was originally introduced and most of the years since InMusic has bought the product, they've created more problems with the software and haven't committed the resources one would expect to maintain and improve the product. 13 years without a major update for a software product is a heck of a long time. To me, those are glaring red flags that a company is not committed to a product. The bar should be higher for InMusic than just fixing bugs. InMusic's ttrack record with BFD3 -- and the other software they've acquired -- raise a lot of red flags. Even if they finally come out with BFD4 and price it at say $199 US and make it fairly competitive features-wise, I will consider BFD4, but that history and should be a factor with everyone evaluating the purchase. If BFD4 is released to rave reviews -- and I hope it is, because I'd be happy to buy a great new acoustic drum plugin -- the BFD3 history of problems and neglect gives me -- and I'm sure a lot of the market -- pause. InMusic has the money to make this a better product and support it. But historically, they haven't done that. Even if BFD4 is excellent, the very valid lingering question is, will InMusic support and advance the product or neglect it like they did in the past. One of my good friends, a developer, bought BFD3 early on, but eventually deleted it from his hard drive and urged me not to upgrade to it even when it was less than 50 bucks because of the history of problems and neglect. Again, I'd love to see the product become great. But I'm not willing to take a risk. I'll let you guys tell me about it before I take the leap.

They've had it at this price in the past, even a little lower. It's been on version three for more than ten years, most of them with major bug problems for the software. I bought BFD Eco when it was fairly new and never upgraded to BFD full -- and the upgrade price is $49 US -- because of all of the problems reported with it and acknowledged by the development team -- PLUS the fact that 10+ years without a major update is kind of a red flag. I'd love to see them release a really good BFD4, and I might consider that if it were cheap. But given their history of issues and neglect of their software lines, I still might not buy it.

I have some of those libraries on CDs somewhere that I bought long, long ago. These libraries were literally created in the 1990s by a company called Sonic Implants. I really loved Blue Jay Drums back then, but we are light years beyond that quality level today and you can easily find vastly superior sample libraries for free from Native Instruments, KONTAKT developers, SoundPaint, Spitfire, VSL, etc. If this was a small developer I'd never be this blunt, but this is InMusic, one of the biggest players in the industry -- and company that serially buys and neglects old software (and hardware) brands as cash cows and neglects them, or has even made them worse (I saw that from first hand experience from owning AIR and other plugins that had major, show stopping problems after InMusic bought them and proceeded to make their software buggy, unstable, or completely unusable; BFD has been so neglected since InMusic bought them that they've been on version 3 for more than 10 yrs and have had major issues with stability that the development team has publicly acknowledge, that's made the plugin unusable for many users; even satisfied users don't have delusions that the plugin has stayed up with competitors; so yeah, I'm not a big fan of InMusic's software). So, to anyone considering this, I'm posting this as a public service. I think it's at least 15 years PAST the time that these libraries should have been retired, They're simply relics of the past that aren't anywhere near today's standards. I'm sure if you could find an old copy of the original Cakewalk forum -- and KVR -- you could find a posts from me recommending some of these libraries. But today, even selling them for 5 bucks seems questionable. It's like selling AOL dial up Internet service circa 1995 against free fiber internet service. I don't believe an informed consumer would blow 39 bucks on this. Spending 39 bucks on actual tacos would be a far superior use of that money. Then go check out the free alternatives that are far superior. I created a couple of threads in this forum with my top choices of high quality free libraries. Anyhow, that's my take. If this was 1999, this would be a worthwhile deal, but not in 2024. Not even in 2014.

I watch and like his videos. And I definitely agree with your premise on the revenue model. You're exactly right. If this is ever going to work, the compensation for these folks needs to come from the buying public, not the seller of the products being "reviewed"developer. I salute you for putting your money where your mouth is. Even so, the problem still exists that we're merely relying on the word and blind trust of the influencer that they're not accepting compensation and gifts from the companies who make the products that they review when they have no clear standards they're held to and no oversight in place. Whereas journalist reviewers of esteemed publications follow journalism principles and ethics standards and have an editor who ensures accountability. I suppose I might be open to sponsoring a reviewer IF s/he he would sign an agreement with rules that s/he promised to abide by, such as not accepting anything of value from a company with a product being reviewed; that the even the review copy was not his/her property after the review was finished; that s/he fully abide by all government regulations; that there will be no discussions of potential future financial relationships or gifts with any of developers whose products are reviewed; and that any personal relationships with a developer or an employee of a developer must be fully and clearly disclosed (e.g., I'm dating the marketing manager). But even that takes blind trust that the influencer will abide by the agreement. Still, it beats where we're at today.

Yes, everyone has bias, but I think we should give credit when a YouTuber does a full and honest disclosure, not for doing videos like this which, if we're going to be candid about, aren't really just about what they appear to be. If you're looking for integrity, I don't think that this common YouTuber video category is it (yes, this video specifically follows a common type of YouTuber video that is pretty successful). I think what would reflect integrity is a full disclosure of financial relationships with the makers of the products being discussed in each "review" video. That would at least mean the influencer was honest or transparent enough to disclose the relationship with the company whose products are being "reviewed" so that viewers/followers would understand those facts and be able to make an informed judgment about the opinions being presented. As long as YouTubers hide the true nature and details of their financial relationship with the makers of the products they feature / "review" -- including products provided for free, sponsorship money for their channel in return for "reviews" and direct cash compensation for "reviews" -- what's going on is certainly in the realm of deception. And that's not just my opinion, that is pretty much how every developed nation's regulatory bodies see it. Still, YouTubers almost unanimously ignore these regulations and don't do full disclosures because they realize that if they do disclose their compensation arrangement with the companies whose products they "review" that it will undermine the credibility and trust that is the foundation of their value to companies whose products they promote -- er, "review." This influencer believed -- rightly -- that this video wouldn't damage his credibility, but result in people thinking he's more honest than most YouTubers because he's being more candid about his selectively disclosed bias. But even this video isn't that straightforward or sincere. The video follows a YouTuber template -- a category of videos that has proven successful. It's literally done for the express purpose of strengthening your perception that this YouTuber is trustworthy. That may seem like reverse psychology, and it definitely has elements of that. But your statement is exactly what was desired. Specifically this statement you wrote is exactly what YouTubers are attempting to do to their followers' opinions: "I have much more faith in what someone says who admits to being biased than someone who pretends not to be." This video is actually a common type of video done by influencers that many do because they tend to get a lot of shares and they get viewers watching for long periods of time, which is gold for YouTubers in terms of cash compensation and the recommendation algorithm (YouTube rewards YouTubers that can get viewers to watch for longer periods and sell more ads). It's also important to note that some of what drives YouTubers to do some of these techniques is speculation about the algorithm, not fact. But popular YouTubers generally try to go after longer videos, frequent releases, and videos that inspire sharing and comments. A video like this checks those boxes and to be completely frank, your reaction is exactly the desired reaction the YouTuber hoped for. To people not in the industry, what I wrote could easily be misinterpreted as cynical. But to YouTubers and the marketing and PR professionals that use them, this is common knowledge.

I recently wrote a couple of articles on AI and its impact on marketing jobs. More than two thirds of marketing professionals at companies are using it and 89% of them are worried about their jobs. I couldn't help but connect that with a major study of heads of marketing who late last year 25% said they plan on layoffs in 2024 because of AI. It's impact is huge for online content. Everyone is at least using it to optimize content for rankings, some are using it to create content, or at least use AI as a co-writer. I've found it incredibly helpful to my own business. It's sped up the time it takes to produce content at least 10x and content is a major part of my business. It also has resulted in increasing the competition we have in search results by 10x. AI use has resulted in a proliferation of content -- much of it, not great. Youtubers are using AI in a variety of ways, including to help them gain greater visibility and revenue on YouTube by using AI tools for script writing, topic ideas, and trying to optimizing for YouTube's recommendation algorithm -- the reason Paul's video was more than 50 minutes and he urged people to stay through all of it (believe it or not, just saying that can improve results with viewers). From my knowledge of the plugin and sample library space, I find AI is largely beneficial to us as consumers. I think we're only beginning to see it impact content in this space. The quality of content is not necessarily improving. To give you an example of what's going on in the non video space, more and more, content is not only being produced with the aid of AI. I use AI for research. But then I also use it for analysis to determine how content is likely to rank. Last week I wrote an article I was thought would likely rank well in Google for targeted terms (keywords). Why? Google looks at the Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT) of the author/website/source and we've earned high marks, so our reputation with Google, our site's authority and the reputation of the author in the space (after that, there's a bunch of simpler technical things to nail down). Google's algorithm is smart enough to consider the reputation of the source, not just the article alone. I used AI to analyze the top 10 Google search results and tell me what was missing from my article. It came back with an analysis. I made some tweaks and within a short while, my article was number one to three on target keywords, the featured snippet on Google and the result in Google's GenAI for a targeted keyword search. Although, unlike YouTube, the reward at Google isn't instant cash, it's awareness of your website and visits. YouTubers use lengthy videos and techniques that get comments to get more attention, time, presence and finally more cash from the platform. Both YouTube and Google are incredibly competitive, but YouTube rewards the winners with cash. Consider that a popular YouTuber in this space will pull in 6 figures or more from YouTube and can easily command 4-5 figures from a developer for their "reviews" as well as lots of free products. Why? It's more effective and less costly than advertising to get that same impact. I can tell you -- to a certain point, because I have NDAs -- that I'm personally aware of influencer relationships for reviews that brands have paid upwards of 50k USD for and were viewed by most of the public as legitimate, unbiased reviews. You can probably discern that I'm not in love with influencer marketing and see it as an ethically problematic industry. But the unfortunate reality is that it's a part of business. Thankfully, my business doesn't use influencers as part of our promotional strategies.

I love the Scottish sense of humor. I think this guy's videos are much more informative than a lot of the the YouTube influencers in this space. Although stretching this video out for so long is purely done for financial and algorithm reasons on YouTube. It's kind of twisted irony when the guy is telling you the video is all about shooting straight that he's stretching out the time because watch time is gold for YouTubers, as it's rewarded with cash and YouTube better presence on YouTube, which translates into more cash (the logic of the algorithm is founded in is to reward YouTubers who can engage users for long time periods, as that means more ads, which of course, means more revenue for YouTube and the influencer; consequently, YouTube will reward them with better placement). If anyone here is interested why YouTubers love making hour long videos, you might be interested in this study: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/11/07/many-turn-to-youtube-for-childrens-content-news-how-to-lessons/?utm_source=AdaptiveMailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=11-6-18 Youtube content&org=982&lvl=100&ite=3395&lea=786973&ctr=0&par=1&trk=

The motivation for influencers is foundationally about money and free stuff--from YouTube and developers for this industry, as well as the ego aspects of it. They are solopreneurs. It's a business. It's not about charity or a mission to help others. I'd put in the realm of a grift. An influencer works to build up trust and confidence in their integrity with their followers for the specific purposes of selling that trust to brands for money and products. They're really just salespeople for hire pretending to be journalist reviewers to gain and then sell people's trust and confidence in them; some are fairly entertaining and, I think, as long as you understand that it's a grift, that they're not going to be honest about what they're doing that there can be a level of value to what they do. That is, we can hear them demonstrate plugins and sample libraries like a salesperson would do in a demonstration. That is, what they're really doing. A sales presentation, an infomercial disguised as an unbiased review. I think if they just followed regulatory bodies guidelines, like the FTC in the US, and gave an upfront full disclosure of their relationship with the companies making the products that they're discussing it would make things much better. That is, more honest. For example, imagine if a popular influencer started their video with, "Today, I'm going to be reviewing XYZ''s Smushtopia Compressor. XYZ provided me with a free license for this compressor and 2,500 USD worth of their plugins and $5,000 in cash compensation for making this review video." That is legally what American influencers are supposed to be doing. But virtually none of them do it. Why? Because they realize that if they tell the truth they'll lose credibility with their followers. So they pretend to be unbiased. It's unquestionably dishonest. But it's the norm. Even nano influencers are looking for both free products and cash and getting it. I don't want to say his name, I like the guy, but one of the most popular influencers in this space was asking around 5k USD to do review videos 5 years ago and now his rates are a multiple of that. Small ones generally will work for free product with the hopes of making cash for doing paid walkthough videos for devs of products they "review. " So there's an incredible amount of bias to the point where you can literally call influencers freelance product promoters. That is exactly what the business is about.

Thanks for the post, @Hillmy. I bought MixBox last year and got the Sunset Sound Studio reverb modules too and was wondering what the difference was with this plugin. Now I need to check out the demo for studios 2 and 3.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean regarding Chopin and Debussy -- would you mind clarifying? Are you saying that Polyphia was a poor choice as an example? I realized that you might have been familiar with them; they've been around 14 years. I used them as an example that great musicianship is not only still around, but these are some very talented musicians out there doing well despite the current state of pop music not being welcoming to much beyond incredibly simplistic pop. Their last album did reach number one on Billboard's top 100 hard rock chart. BTW, I find that video you shared pretty amusing! I'll share this video as an example of some true talent doing well today. I actually met and had a nice chat with one of the song's writers years ago, Dan Wilson, about songwriting and our mutual appreciation for Carole King, who Dan had recently worked with on some songs at the time.

Hey, I think you know from our conversations, I was enjoying nerding out on this stuff. And you can poke fun at me! I do it all the time. I don't think there was any drama. I was just trying to provide some friendly encouragement that despite both Soundwise and I being in agreement that most pop music today is formulaic, over- quantizatized and over-tuned, that young people actually still are playing music, that physical musical instrument sales and music software sales are both up. That while the music getting put out by major labels may not be to our liking, that there is still some good to great music being made by young artists and some of them are innovating and pushing instrument performance and technique to new levels. Yes, they're not getting signed on major labels or played on the radio or top Spotify lists or getting millions of streams per month, but they're out there. As Soundwise pointed out, what was once mainstream is now niche. I think that's a true statement. Although, the truth is, great music often historically hasn't been the popular music of the day. Look back at the charts from whatever you consider the golden era of music and you'll find that some of the best music of the era wasn't the most popular and things have gotten worse in that respect, IMO. So I agree that the best music being produced today is more difficult to find then in past generations. I suppose I'm a bit inspired to have posted, coming from a family of music educators and having recently (last week) lost a friend who was a music educator and musician I used to perform with. It makes me tuned into what younger generations than me are doing musically and informs my perspective and keeps me from being jaded. My points weren't about drama or tension. They were to encourage based on Soundwise and I sharing a mutual love of music. Hopefully, @Soundwise sees it as such. Despite not loving my sentence "not to go sour"! (Which, BTW, meant "let's not be too negative about things," as there's a lot beyond pop music to be positive about. I suppose it is a bit risky to use slang in the forum as terms can have different meanings and connotations depending on regions and country.)

Also @Soundwise, as an example that great musicianship is still alive and well, just not as popular in live venues and in record sales, I present to you, Polyphia. TIm Henson (the guitarist) represents an astounding level of virtuosity and he's savvy enough to write catchy hooks. Don't go completely sour. Go explore some of the amazing young musicians out there today, you'll be blown away. And I'm sure that you and I can find tons of musicians from the past that we both love too. But the art and craft of music and musicianship isn't dead and gone. Sure, great forms of music aren't popular, but that's been the case for a long time. Young musicians like Tim Henson are taking things forward from a musical standpoint (as a virtuoso guitarist, in his case). I'm certain Jimi Hendrix would love what Henson is doing if he were still around.