Magic Russ

My thoughts here:

10 hours ago, audioschmaudio said:

What is SONAR?

SONAR is what Cakewalk by Bandlab used to be.

Sonar is the upcoming replacement for Cakewalk by Bandlab.

Hope that clears things up.

13 hours ago, audioschmaudio said:

A+Grade Audio now offers the three Massive soundbanks with 64 presets each for free

https://www.a-grade-audio.com/free-presets

I feel a little sorry for him. According to his KVR forum post, nobody ever bought any of his Massive soundbanks. Massive is probably simply too old ?

Audio demos are not available on the site, but are still on his youtube channel.

I'll confess that I usually ignore free Massive presets because it is such an old synth that was never a favorite and in my experience there are a lot of crappy, lazy and underdeveloped presets for that synth out there, even being sold commercially.  

The demos for these sound all right though.  Hopefully he will have better luck with his Serum and CS80 presets.

I notice that they made the bonus soundpacks available for Analog Lab users.

All three of these are made with MiniFreak.  The fist one is Euphoric Grooves.  This is a pack for EDM sounds and it sounds fairly generic with the most simplistic programming of the three.  The second, Deserted Lands, advertises itself for dark soundscapes but could work for a moody pop or rock tune.  The third is called Synthetic Trap, but could be useful for a variety of styles.

While there are some useful sounds there, none of the three packs is going to get me gassing for MiniFreak.  There isn't a sound here that sounds like I couldn't have gotten it with one of the other synths I already have.

48 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

• • User preset banks picture can now be customized
    • This is not new in Pigments (I previously added images to my own and third party banks)

Yes you can, but it requires the manual step of moving your image into whichever directory it goes into.  It would be nice if they could have the images saved and imported with the bank in a way that requires no user involvement.

I got v9 just a year ago.  While the new Augmented instruments seem to have potential, it will be quite some time before I feel like I have exhausted the possibilities on V9.

This has been a bit of a resource hog on my system. 

However, I have been able to get some pretty good results with this product pretty quickly. 

1 hour ago, Soundwise said:

It can be activated to built-in devices. Mine is tied to built-in webcam, and I've been offered to use built-in audio as well. Besides that, now users can easily loose one device and use another.

Mine's tied to my interface.  If that goes I doubt that not getting into Revalver is going to be at the top of my list of problems.

9 minutes ago, Fleer said:

I’ll get K15UCE if it comes with a drive. 

Yeah but you'll end up having to download everything several times for compatibility updates anyway.

It's weird because there are a lot of presets where there is this harsh short ambience, even when it's just the amp engaged.  Also there are a few times where the volume fluctuates as if a slow and shallow tremolo were engaged.

I generally prefer the new Headrush effects over the older ones.  As for the Headrush effects, they mostly are pretty good, except that the Multi Chorus is a bit brittle and the Shimmer Reverb is by far the worst attempt at that effect I have ever heard.

Also, having previously updated from Revalver 4 Producer to the free version of 5, it did load all of the effects I had from 4 into the free version, but not the ACT profiles.

It doesn't seem like there is any new functionality in it apart from the new Headrush components.

It seems that you can import presets from the Headrush floorboard in Revalver 5.   At $79 for the full version (I think it goes up to $129 after new year) that's a lot cheaper than the Helix Native which is $399, half off on BF sale.

https://revalver.headrushfx.com

Includes discounts for upgrades from Revalver 4 Producer pack through end of month

Packages include models from Headrush amp simulators.

ProAudioStar occasionally has some insane deals that make one wonder how they manage not to have their manufacturers dump them.  Or maybe they do that when their vendor agreements expire.  They have been around for years though.  

14 hours ago, TheSteven said:

argh*... and I just ran NA this morning.
*mock aggravation, makes people think I'm doing something useful.

I think they usually put them out at 8:00 or 9:00 Pacific Time.   I usually check after checking my work emails and occasionally find that someone posts an hour later about an update.

GR7 update - only because Plugin Boutique assumed that NI would be selling that at half price and I got in before the fix.

EZ Keys MIDIs

A few MIDI libraries from Cymatics.

Thoughts on the newly discounted EZ Keys MIDI

Already had 70s Pop, and it's good for what it is supposed to be.

Downloaded West Coast Rock.  If you like Michael McDonald, there's one which is based off "I Keep Forgetting" and another based off "What a Fool Believes"

EDM has a lot of arpeggios.  Could also be good for prog maybe.

Fusion - if you don't use super jazzy chords this could be good for late 70s pop/rock too.

What I like about SampleTron is that you can tron-ify just about anything (even Tron samples).  There also is some nice unique original content like the lost symphony and grunge sets.

SampleTank is not my go-to, but there are some good sounds in both of these treated piano libraries.

23 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

My poll idea is dying a very savage death! ? 

Well, how about this, Carl shared his Best Deal (he also shared his worst deal, but I thought sharing the best would be fun and useful), since my poll idea has died a quick death, I'll revise the title and ask people that. 

At least the trolls haven't ruined your thread (yet)!

So far, the best deal I have taken advantage of is the aforementioned NI GR upgrade.

ImpOSCar 2 for the price of a CM issue seems to be a good deal, if not specifically for BF.

The other problem is sometimes you just need to make a decision first thing in the morning.  How many times have we seen deals that weren't supposed to be there, but got fixed later that day?

Case in point: Last week Plugin Boutique offered a $45 upgrade to Guitar Rig 7.  They weren't supposed to do that, and by the next day it was updated to the same $72 that was on the NI site.  

By the time a vote would have gone out, the sale was gone.

I don't know how you would do a straight poll on this, it would be hard to implement.

However, if you are concerned with catching deals before you miss them,  you can filter deals by expiration date on the KVR site.

https://www.kvraudio.com/deals.php

For Kontakt 7, this gives the option to hide the ads.

For Komplete Kontrol, this fixes a problem that some plugins developed using JUCE framework were not being recognized as NKS2.

On 11/15/2023 at 11:00 AM, Magic Russ said:

For me...

I want to see EZBass come down.

I'd like to see Overlouds's vocal processor thing be their annual holiday $30-ish no-brainer.

No joy on these.  However, I did get the upgrade from GR6 to GR7 for $45 on Plugin Boutique while it lasted.

27 minutes ago, mibby said:

PS. I'm waiting for @cclarryto say "it's a pricing error" so I can pull the trigger...  ?

No, they always have one plugin for $29 at this time.

This is a nice set of sounds inspired by indie and pop songs from  the last 20 years or so.   Also probably the only place you will see Radiohead and Taylor Swift in the same sound bank.

Also included, sounds inspired by Bruno Mars, MGMT, Tame Impala, Grimes,  Mac DeMarco, Lady Gaga, and The Weeknd.