PavlovsCat

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.

There's no doubt that like every generation, tastes in music and musical instruments shift. So it's not a giant surprise that there are significantly less accordinists in Gen Z than Boomers. But you stated that there's been a decline in hardware and software sales, when both have actually been growing pretty well (with more than 8% CAGR in music software sales over the past few years). I think you're going off of perception as opposed to research. I did some quick checks for research. I write as part of my living, so I regularly turn to researchers and research studies and tapped AI to find research on this topic. An excerpt: "A 2020 YouGov study found that two-thirds of American adults have played a musical instrument at some point in their lives, with younger adults slightly more likely to have played than older adults. A 2023 Gallup poll found that over half of US households have at least one person actively playing a musical instrument, suggesting continued interest in music making. " Now, you then brought up the MUSIC recording industry. That is and always has been a very different story. The demand for live music definitely appears to be much lower than it was decades ago in the US and Europe. Then we have record sales, which have radically changed (lessened) from sales levels a few decades ago. Radio is no longer the main source of exposing people to new music. Spotify lists and video games are. So once again, technology has changed the game. Because consumers are not buying physical or even online music -- albums -- as they did decades ago, the music recording industry is all about volume. I don't know about you guys, but I have friends who had limited success in the music industry and they're not making much off of Spotify and other streaming services, because the money isn't there, even if you're getting 1 million streams a year. It's all about volume. Consequently, it's driven the recording industry to be risk averse when it comes to signing and promoting artists. A few months ago I remember reading a Billboard article that rock was surging in popularity and had become the number two most popular genre in the US. But I wouldn't expect record companies to be signing the next Beatles, Radiohead, Yes, or Steely Dan. They're more apt to sign the next Nickelback. Pop music is becoming more like simplistic ad jingles and I don't see that changing, as record companies know that simple music sells to a wider audience. But you shouldn't conflate musical hobbyists with record industry signigings and promotions. Look at YouTube and you'll see a wealth of young musicians who play at a level the world hasn't witnessed in pre-web generations. Yes, there are not a lot of accordion players, but there are a heck of a lot of incredibly talented pianists, guitarists, bassists, percussionists, drummers, etc. I come from a family where my mother and eldest sister were music teachers. I was trained on piano, organ, drums and guitar. I have a bunch of friends -- just lost one last week who taught music at a HS and jazz at Purdue University -- whose been responsible for some award winning bands filled with talented young people. My son's college roommate (19 yrs old), is a tuba and trombone player who plays at his college's Big Ten basketball games and football games. Both of my two kids were in school band. My daughter is a talented singer and I go to all of her school performances and one of my friend's daughters is a very talented singer ( a HS freshman) who is doing community theater musicals. I have other friends whose kids play musical instruments. So once again, we have the music recording industry -- which I completely agree with you, they are promoting simplistic, incredibly similar music that sounds like it came from ads. But the doom and gloom you're stating about the collapse of musical instrument companies and musical software companies is incorrect. Both are growing. The recording industry is in trouble. I've worked with a bunch of small record labels back in the day and at least some of them are hanging on, but it's really tough. But that's a completely different story than individuals playing musical instruments, and that is growing. It's not all doom and gloom. Except for the music recording industry, that's toast and all we can do is support live music and the artists we appreciate. But if you're willing to dig a bit, you can still find really talented young acts. I've learned about some really talented new acts from hearing the soundtracks to video games my kids play. I live in Chicago and, sadly, even local college radio isn't play young unsigned acts like they once did back when I was playing with our band. So it is a lot more challenging to find new acts. But if you dig, you can find them. They're just not getting signed with major labels like the way things used to be. It's been a over a decade since I first heard one of this band's songs in a video game my son was playing and googled them and became a huge fan. The singer has the kind of vocal talent Jeff Buckley had, with more control. Bands like this are out there. It's just that we don't have radio stations playing them and people going to record stores to learn about them and buy their music.

Same here. I pick 'em up for the WUP.

I've seen a number of folks post in this forum, now in this thread, a misperception that the digital music software production industry is declining when every study I've seen in the 12 months (a total of two) indicates that the industry is growing. The below linked study indicates a CAGR of more than 8% . The acquisitions in the industry aren't occurring because the industry is falling apart. The firms making these acquisitions do so because they anticipate growth, not decline. Well managed developers I know are doing well, not suffering. For anyone posting doom and gloom, it's not reality -- fortunately. https://www.globalgrowthinsights.com/market-reports/music-production-software-market-100157

Wow, the guy who wrote that has no small amount of venom for NI, which I notice someone pointed out and he reacted -- not well -- as if he was engaged in fair and balanced journalism, claiming he was objective. He should have reported the facts first and shared his opinion afterwards. That lack of ability to write facts clearly and the attack headline harms his credibility and does make one question his ability to present facts without overly injecting bias. I'd heard, but don't know, that Dirk has a pretty strong ego. Could that have been a factor in things not working out in this capacity? I suspect it was a big factor. He went from being the head honcho to a role that requires diplomacy and the ability to influence without direct authority and that requires a very different set of skills than he needed when he was the guy signing employees' checks.

Very nice! Jacob is so incredibly talented. Plus, he has an amazing musical imagination.

Hey, it's your first post on the forum. Welcome aboard, @v394!

Everything is now working. The developer resolved the problem. (I haven't heard back from them yet, but I just went through the process, and saw that when you click, it now includes a code that lets Fast Spring know that it's a free product). Give it another try folks.

I like Muse. The band, that is. I don't feel similarly about the developer with the same name. Very candidly, Muse is not a high quality developer as many forum members on this and other forums have noted in their posts. There have been accusations that the developer pirates other developers' libraries. I don't know if that is true, but one criticism I've seen a lot that I know to be true is that Muse bloats up their libraries. For instance, I downloaded several of their libraries that they regularly sold when they were released for free on promotions, and all were excessively bloated, likely only in an attempt to play on the false perception that that file size equals a detailed library. For example, one of their full piano libraries. The library was a larger file size than more detailed sample libraries like Noire, Evolution Rosewood Grand or NI Grandeur (three libraries I regularly use). However -- and I'm going on memory -- not every note was sampled, I believe it was something like 3 keys per octave that were sampled and there were only two velocity layers. Beyond the specs, it simply sounded and played like a SoundFont piano from 20+ years ago. It was unusable. I downloaded and tried other sample libraries from them, included another piano library, and it followed the same template -- ridiculously bloated and not a detailed sample library that one would expect for anything even close to the file size. It's in the realm of what most would consider trickery. Now, this obscure website has a questionable plugin they require you to download that Virus blockers say isn't safe. I put together two lists of freebies on this forum. You can find vastly superior free libraries to anything from Muse there. For piano sample libraries, there are two superb free libraries for KONTAKT -- one from SonicCoture that includes the FREE KONTAKT Player and one form 8Dio. There are Mellotron libraries on my list that are far superior (Muse gave away their Mellotron library before, I deleted it after trying it out). For synths -- there are a wealth of alternatives, just check out my lists. In any event, the more you know about Muse and no one knows anything about WAYA -- the more you see that there really isn't much appeal to the muse libraries and installing software from this unknown small developer and giving them access to your data and what you do on the web -- that, IMO, is a dealbreaker even if the libraries are good, which IMO, is not the case. Hard pass recommended.

Clearly, these folks set this up incorrectly. I'll look for a way to contact them and shoot them an email or use their web form (if one exists) to let them know about the problem. I'm sure they'll figure it out soon and get things worked out and we'll get our freebie soon. One thing for sure, I have really been impressed by the quality of this dev's freebies. I have yet to buy any of their libraries -- but that's only because I've been curtailing my spending on sample libraries and plugins, not because I don't find their libraries compelling. Otherwise, I easily would have bought some of their libraries based on how good these freeibes are (my favorite is their electric piano). Well, I'll be waiting for them to straighten this out. I listened to the video for the library and it sounds very nice, as I would expect from this dev. EDIT: I just shot the developer an email, as I subscribe to their email that they subscribe you to when you get their freebies. I'll make another post in this thread if the developer responds and tells me that the problem is fixed. - Peter

No need to apologize @Fleer. Stuff like this keeps us on our toes, challenged -- someone had to figure out where the discount was from. Kudos to smde for figuring it out! Now the question for me is, do I finally by that Acme compressor I've long considered (feel free to share your opinion anyone who owns it or has a strong opinion). I am intrigued by your list, Fleer. and will check those selections out.

It isn't a processor hog on my machine, but, as I recall, it does use more resources than many of my other professing plugins. I picked this same deal up last year and am very happy with MixBox. It initially caused a crash in a project, but the problem has never happened again. I would definitely recommend this deal.

You're in good company. Most of this forum's regulars are 50ish or more. Some see you as a youngster!

Sounds good. Which train should we get on to get the magazine after you're done with it? I kid. I kid. I still love to read a magazine or newspaper with a good cup of coffee. I mostly do it electronically, but there is something cool about holding a physical magazine or newspaper when enjoying that coffee (or tea, if you prefer).

I stumbled on the developer maybe 4 years ago via Triple Spiral Audio. I love the libraries they sell. Have I ever used one in a production? Nope. But I fell in love with the sounds! https://www.triplespiralaudio.com/

Beautiful Void Audio is discontinuing some of their libraries and discounting them up to 90%. They require the full version of KONTAKT. I own a number of this developer's libraries and really love his work. I suppose they're best classified as ambient, lush, sound design synth patches. From the developer (posted in a Facebook group I'm in): "I will be discontinuing a few Kontakt libraries after February 29, 2024. Most are discounted for up to 90% until that time! (sorry I'm late on posting this). I've created a dedicated page so you can browse these instruments. They all require the full version of Kontakt - version info is in the product title and the product description: https://www.beautifulvoidaudio.com/soon-to-be-discontinued/ These libraries all use the free photosynthesis engine. My plan is to bring most or all of these libraries back in a dedicated UI and engine, with newer sounds as well. Thanks!"

jngnz feels strongly against this dev's plugins. Personally, while I have a couple of plugins they gave away free, I've never actually tried any of them yet (although even if I did, I definitely don't feel I'm qualified to have a really knowledgeable opinion on compressors, I barely know what I'm doing with them). Any other opinions? I'm definitely not discounting jngnz. He's going to school for audio and knows a lot more than me. While he can be pretty savage, I think he's knowledgeable and I take his opinions into account when I look at plugins and sample libraries. His post also reminded me that a YouTuber whose videos I enjoy -- White Sea Studio is the name of his channel -- did a video on a Tone Emporer compressor a while back where he recommended against buying it because of undesirable artifacts. So, with both jngnz and the White Sea Studio guys negative critique of their plugins, I am hesitant to download and install it. (I don't blindly go on others' advice, but I don't have sound engineering expertise, so I tend to check to see what more knowledgeable people have to say about plugins before I buy them, and if they say something isn't good, I pass on it).

I take too long to write posts, so I rarely make them (and then I post it and find grammatical errors -- I really need an editor). I should just stick to my freebie threads and leave everything else to the fastest typists. It seems every time I see something in an ad, an email or a Facebook group I'm, it's either up here, or up in minutes. At least I have my freebie threads! I suppose I need to stay in my lane! Hahaha.

Are you sure? Look at the time. I'm pretty sure we tied. Could it be??? In any event, it's no big deal if the mods delete mine. But I'm kinda amused by the possibility that we could have placed it at the same time. I scanned page one, then did a search and nothing came up before posting. I noticed yours before one hour and it showed the identical post time as mime. So I'm calling it a tie! But I know cclarry, and you and I will never match cclarry! Anyhow, if the mods see this, you can kill my thread. No problem.

Tone Empire SoulSquash Soul / Funk Vibe Vintage Audio Compressor Pedal - Reg. $39 USD Now FREE (Not certain of sale end date) Introducing the SoulSquash Vintage Audio Compressor Pedal: A sonic time capsule brimming with retro allure and modern finesse. Sampled and accurately replicated with Tone Empire's proprietary NM2 Neural Network technology, this pedal embodies a pristine and clean solid-state sound, adding a touch of nostalgia to your audio. Its intuitive design and minimalist controls channel soulful and funky vibes, ensuring effortless integration into any setup. From pianos to clavinets, orchestra to bass, vocals to drums, the SoulSquash pedal delivers an enchanting compression that enhances every note with a touch of soul. Elevate your sound with a pedal that captures the essence of vintage punch and versatility, inviting you to infuse your music with a dash of timeless charisma. Controls Compressor: Control the input gain into the compressor processing . Output: This is the control for output attenuation after the compression processing. Thick: This switch adds a Lo Eq Bump post compression for a "thicker" sound! Input Adjust: Use this control to further adjust the input signal gain before processing. Output Adjust: Use this control to trim the final output of the processing after the dry mix . Dry Mix: Add the original unprocessed signal to the mix as parallel processing. System Requirements Mac macOS 10.13 or later (Intel / Native M1 supported) (64-bit only) VST3, AU, or AAX Intel i3 / AMD Ryzen or equivalent 2 GB RAM / 300 MB HD Required Screen resolution - 1024 × 768 Note: M1 Mac users running Logic Pro (10.7.2 and above) or Ableton (11.1) please use the 'M1' installer. For all other DAWs please use the regular 'Mac' installer. Windows Windows 10 or later (64-bit only) VST3 or AAX Intel i3 / AMD Ryzen or equivalent 2 GB RAM / 300 MB HD Screen resolution - 1024 × 768 https://www.pluginboutique.com/products/11093-Soul-Squash