Carl Ewing

On 4/24/2024 at 10:03 AM, kitekrazy said:

Downside is Kontakt 7 player.  I still use 6 because it's easy on the eyes.

Downside - no direct download and you have to trust a working Native Asshat to download it.  I had success (knock on wood)

 

Kontakt 7's new browser & preview makes it a must use. I can't imagine going back to K6, especially when having tons of boutique libraries. That preview feature is a god send especially when having most of collector's edition installed and almost 4TB of 3rd party libraries.

I've found so many incredible sounds I would never have found or used (without literally loading every single preset in every library and auditioning everything). Now I can just type "female vocal staccato" or "taurus bass pedal" or "taiko" or whatever, and the browser will show me every articulation / preset in every library (3rd party or Komplete) that matches that description and an instant audio preview before loading it (for most libraries), and just double click and it loads. Also great for quickly comparing similar instruments across multiple libraries before making a decision to load something.

Going back to Kontakt 6? Not a chance. The UI changes are hardly interesting. I still use Kontakt 6 for legacy projects and there is no way those UI differences are a deal breaker unless you're absurdly *****. They are basically identical except the browser. (FYI, just adjust preferences in K7 to look and behave exactly like K6) - except K7 blows K6 out of the water on a 4K monitor. 

FYI: RX11 pre-sale just announced.

https://www.izotope.com/en/products.html/

https://www.pluginboutique.com/deals/show?sale_id=16039

Since Plugin Boutique is also offering the pre-sale, that should mean that purchasing of RX 10 Elements now SHOULD theoretically allow the free upgrade to RX11 Elements when it's released.

Edit: Just realized the Elements sale is over and it's back to $50. So I'm curious if someone registers their earlier purchase today / tomorrow, etc. if the grace period will apply. Hmm.

3 hours ago, bsantini99 said:

Bought two from royalcdkeys without any issues. Quick delivery and cheap.

Have used them as well - for Win Pro 10, which then upgraded to Win 11 Pro without issue. I think these guys just have bulk  unused OEM licenses that they sell as single licenses for dirt cheap. I haven't tried yet, but since it's OEM I'm guessing that if I changed my computer hardware or upgraded my main computer it would stop working. 

2 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

With all of the mailing lists I belong to there is never a shortage if getting loops for free.

How many people get screwed out of something using subs vs. perpetual?  The sub model is often all or nothing because they alter a deal without any sense of loyalty. This is happening with streaming services as well.

You never know but maybe some of those who produce loops don't like their stuff given away.  We've seen 2 developers who left PA because pf the race down to zero.

Depends what you're after. I keep an extremely large library of SFX for post work. Something like a high-end CineTools library can cost upward of $120+, with 10-20GB of content and thousands of sounds. I don't like sifting through things from the cloud - it's way too slow. So, I just wait for Loopcloud sales, grab Professional subscription for 50% off (usually around $120), and get 7200 points. With that I can usually grab a full Cinetools library for around 2500 points, or 3 libraries for 7500 points, and save A LOT of money. This is also much cheaper than their own Cloud service. And then I have the entire library downloaded and scan through it an hour instead of 10 hours in the cloud. I'd say I've saved thousands doing this over the last few years - and have multiple accounts to take advantage of 'new customer' promos, which LoopCloud people don't seem to mind, because they often help me merge my accounts / points.

Maybe some developers will catch on to this little racket I have running. Hopefully not! Shhhhhhhh everyone.

Been subscribed to Studio & Pro for years. Didn't even know this was a thing. Then again, I have 14,000 unused points. Ready for any emrgency.

Damn - thought it would be a free RME UFX with purchase of Silk 2. 

Sad.

I've used the subscription specifically so I can cover almost everything mixing / mastering related with one company without having to buy from others. So I use Plugin Alliance stuff extensively. I also switched to a PA sub because of a mobile rig I often use where I didn't have access to Universal Audio stuff prior to Connect. It helped cover some redundancies (BX amp sims, Shadow Hills, etc.) across all systems.

I really like many of PA's workhorse "does-one-job-well" plugins like Neold U2A, Maag EQ4, Townhouse Bus Comp, etc.. PA excels in that department.

Top plugins for me are: All Neold, especially U2A (i love this thing more than my family), Maag EQ4 & 2, Townhouse Bus Comp, Vertigo VSM-3, SA2RATE2, HGM-MS, Unfiltered Audio (various), Amek 9099 / 200 strips,  SPL (various transient stuff), Elysia (various), Kiiv XStressor (now replaced by UA Native Distressor), Lindell SBC, DS Tantra 2, , analyzer plugins like Metric A/B, and a couple of their synths like Knifonium.

I like PA. They make many fantastic plugins, especially in the workhorse department. Brainworx, Lindell, Neold, Kiive and Unfiltered Audio are excellent developers. I don't mind spending $200 a year (grandfathered into an old plan), to have access to all their stuff...and get to own 10 a year of my choosing.

35 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

Having virtually all of the amp sims is a great example.  TONEX literally made them obsolete in one go.  

Agreed. I also bought an Axe FX III, so I'm done for the amp sim stuff for 10 years hopefully!

10 hours ago, antler said:

But coming from S1, it feels there's a need to be very explicit - e.g. deleting a send doesn't move the sends below it up; it leaves a blank space. Not saying it's 'bad': I expect the concept works well for the user base; it's just seems a bit strange to me at first.

I prefer this, as I use both templates and external hardware FX. Just by taking a split second look at the channel-send section tells me what's being used & the level of each, without having to look at the names. If send 1, 3 & 7 are being used, I know what they are, and if 2, 4 & 8 are blank I know what's not being used. This applies to console view and channel view. This would be a mess if only used sends were stacked on top of one another regardless of Send #. 

This is also helpful from UI perspective when looking at 100 tracks in the mixer...since all send #s are on a horizontal line. I can just scan that line in the mixer and see everything going to Send #7 on a horizontal line. Same as a hardware mixer. If this wasn't the case it would be a nightmare for solving gain staging issues, especially with complex side-chaining setups.

So there are features from hardware that I like having replicated in software. But having it as a simple preference setting would be cool too.

9 hours ago, njm255 said:

Please tell me they don’t charge almost $600 full price and you can’t even rearrange the tracks in the console view. 

Weird! I've never even notice this, and I've been mixing 150+ track scoring projects for 2 decades. Now that you've mentioned it, I want this feature!! Although I usually do all my track arranging in the timeline, which then auto updates ordering in the mix console...but would be very handy to be able to do this from console view.

Having said that - $600 is a steal for a software of this complexity / feature set, regardless of a few strangely missing features. 

As a multi-decade Cubase Pro user (and Nuendo), I find it funny they always offer these essentially hobbyist products for free, when they have an enormous catalog of professional instruments made by themselves that would be appealing to high end users. Especially incentivizing other professionals that are coming from Logic or DP, etc.

So here we have a mixed bag of mostly crap products, or lite versions (i.e. useless) of decent products, or products that routinely go on sale for dirt cheap. And I don't know any pro Cubase users who don't already have Melodyne, Guitar Rig (or a better / full guitar ecosystem), or better synths / effects already.

Is it really that much of a revenue / profit loss to offer something of real value - from their own catalog - to incentivize higher end users? Say, something that will get people into the Halion ecosystem. It seems all these companies cater to one crowd with these bloated freebie packages of mostly useless crap, with nonsensical combinations of "whatever we could get for pennies on the dollar from our partners", instead of trying to build their higher end userbase. That "Pop Guitar 2" sample pack and 1-Month Splice coupon must have taken weeks of executive level negotiations to secure, I'm sure.

/rant

1 hour ago, Bapu said:

I don't get out of bed for Spitfire unless it's minimum 50% discount across the board.

 

😉 

After getting heavily into the Orchestral Tools ecosystem I rarely even touch my Spitfire stuff anymore. The quality difference - and more importantly, the usability difference - is absolutely enormous. Then again, the prices are quite a bit steeper.

Just checked for fun - but the $19.99 plugins do not qualify. (Has worked before with the $0.01 difference, but not this time!) 

Luckily my Mix & Master subscription renews this month (grandfathered in) and they sent me a voucher to get the XXL sub for the same price. Niiiiiiiiice. 

1 hour ago, Lionel said:

I was so mad when NI discontinued Pro 53.  It was one of my fave VIs.  Never knew NI released the source code... awfully generous.  Good on them.

Hoping they do the same for Absynth - or perhaps hand the source code over to Rhizomatic / Brian Clevinger if he's interested in evolving it. Although Plasmonic seems to be the focus now.

Ya- $200 for a plugin. Lol.

I just spent $200 for Salu, which is close to 100 GB of some of the most beautiful instrument recordings I've ever heard in a virtual instrument. And it required a couple hours of walkthrough videos to convince me it was worth it.

The price vs. value in this market is totally out of whack. And people advocating $200 for a plugin that just hit the market.......I have words for these people. 😡 

Promised not to buy anything new till the summer. Promised. Myself. This has been on my list forever. Can't reneg on promise, especially to self. Will not buy. No buying anything till summ---

Bought it. 

17 hours ago, Canopus said:

288GB.

O.M.G.

I've reduced many of their libraries by deleting many of the MIC positions. Not sure how Century is set up (don't own), but it seems they have Two Mic Mixes in version 2.0, and up to 8 mic positions on top of that. It should be possible to reduce that footprint substantially if you have no use for the extensive mic arrays. 

The list on the product page is: Close 1, Close 2, Close 3, Close 4, Mixed, Decca, Close (another one?) and Wide. 

I've reduced a couple of their other libraries down to one close mic, mixed and decca and sometime the wide. Or just the Decca if I didn't like the close mic(s).  Has reduced those libraries by 50% or more. This one seems a bit more complicated as the site mentions the close mics vary depending on articulation.

This is a problem with convincing people that music / audio production is a science and not an artform. It ain't just music either. This is the problem in graphic design, animation, videography, photography, etc. as well.

These industries are about selling you gear. Everything centers around this objective.

I would love to see a video where a review for an overpriced or redundant piece of music / audio gear was "You don't need this. What you DO need is to go outside and have life experiences. Then you'll actually have something to say using the gear you already own."

4 hours ago, Sistine said:

I wonder why? Here wages have almost not increased and I think that's the major cost factor for them!

Here where? You have the wage trends for the company: 500+ programmers, engineers, UI / UX designers, cloud / SAAS, marketing, accounting, etc? Rent, taxes, electricity, computers, software, servers, etc. in Israel & US? 

I'm looking at their employee list on LinkedIn. Virtually all these jobs are technical and will have seen significant inflation pressure on wages over the last 10 years. Unless they are losing substantial talent, which is, of course, entirely possible.

But you seem to have the numbers. I'd love to see them. 

9 hours ago, Sistine said:

It's interesting that in a time where many people have less money to spend, the prices of several plugin providers have raised significantly (>20%)!

It's 100% guaranteed that their cost of doing business has gone up significantly, and the previous 'race-to-the-bottom' plugin price bonanza was never sustainable  after years of extremely high inflation. 

11 hours ago, Zo said:

Last universal audio with kids was creepy , one had 6 fingers , the other 3 arms ....

Nothing creepy about 6 fingers and 3 arms. I match many ladies on Tinder because of these attributes. Although in my case, it's not technically an arm. But it plays piano. 

17 hours ago, Moon OverSea said:

Seven Days after new year could mean the end of Christ

Isn't that Easter sales?

21 hours ago, jngnz said:

World Suite is very hit or miss. Very few instruments (like, around a handful, if even) are deeply sampled and suitable as lead instruments. Some are borderline unusable. It’s very much a „let me put that in the background to fill out some empty space“ kind of library. If you're looking for that, go for it. If you’re looking to add blazing sitar and oud solos or head-on percussion to your music, look elsewhere.

Do you (or anyone) know if there is a way to export the one shot / loop samples (vocals, percussion, etc.) as .wav files? Looking at the World Suite walkthrough, there are some cool vocal one-shot performances, but much prefer to have these as raw .wav files in my sample / loop  drive. This can be done with Kontakt, but not sure about Falcon.

1 hour ago, Rational said:

$159.60 for their everything bundle. Not bad actually.

Isn't this the same guy that had the Loop Loft years ago? Just doing the same thing?

If so, smart move. Money is likely flowing in with the volume approach.

As I was considering buying eventuallly at $199. If I had the cash now I'd probably bite at $159.

But I'm way overspent this holiday season. Maybe next year.

And does 'everything' really mean everything? That's what I wonder. If so, does waiting till next year get me all the 2024 stuff too in the everything bundle?

Just checked - and anything released since November - when I bought the bundle - has been added to my account. Only a couple new things, but it's definitely getting added. As for 2024, have no idea. 

One thing I'm disappointed with are the Battery Kits. There aren't even enough velocity layers to make them useable - for me anyway. Quite unfortunate, as they clearly did a lot of recordings for each of these kits (loops, multi-tracks, kits, etc.) so you'd think they'd spend a bit more time making them playable.

On 12/29/2023 at 6:25 AM, Peter - IK Multimedia said:

299.99 is the full MAXgrade price.  Larry's post contains the $50 and $100 off options.  I understand that you feel the addition of 30 new products (including TONEX MAX, a new and sought-after flagship product among them) since Total Studio 3.5 MAX is worth $99 to you, maybe we'll have something that hits both your preferences and your budget at some point in the future.  Thanks for your input and consideration.  I will look into what the ***** is wrong with us pronto, though, as that sounds very concerning.

Since November 9, 2023.

Don't blame @jngnz for IK devaluing all their products to the point of absurdity. By your own logic, the ~140 products in TS3.5 are now worth ~$1.50 each, and the 30 products in TS4.0 are worth ~$5 each. Of course, some products are more valuable than others. For example - I completely understand that TONEX MAX is 50% the cost of the TS4 $199 upgrade, since it's so indispensable and ground breaking, and will absolutely not be abandonware in 2 years.

But, let's be honest here. Like most developers these days, milking existing customers for upgrades is highly profitable. Whereas, attracting new customers is expensive, and incentivizing them with dirt-cheap "total catalogue" products is where profits are lost. 

iZotope and Native Instruments have perfected this method. Get people into the ecosystem for cheap. Then milk them for upgrades. IK might be slightly better at this when it comes to "group buys", which is another dirt-cheap way to get new customers in and prepped for the milking.

It's smart business in the short term. 

On 12/29/2023 at 7:21 AM, jngnz said:

While you're at it, try looking into some other things wrong with IK:

- an installer that installs the full content of plugin packages every single time you update and bombards hard disks with trash in 6000 different places
- absolutely atrocious quality control on your hardware products, specifically the MTM speakers
- SE products, or anything below MAX, really, being incapable of not displaying presets with modules you don't have licences for, making you click some pop up every time
- your online shop adding VAT to prices that are the prices with VAT ALREADY INCLUDED in every other EU place where you can buy IK
- your support taking literal MONTHS to solve my extremely simple request to re-assign a licence to my account

Oh wait, that's right, you only came here to sarcastically talk down a bargain hunter for bargain hunting and boast about "30 new products" of which, by the way, like 2 are actually interesting.

That 3rd point is intentional. Has been the case for years in products like Amplitube. Crippling software with "missing product" prompts is a sales tactic. Doesn't matter what it does to the user experience. You must be constantly reminded of what products you don't own. I'm sure IK borrowed this from mobile gaming. And, unfortunately, it works gangbusters in the gaming world. Surprised more audio devs don't use this tactic. Then again, those other companies probably care about their customers' experience lol.

49 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

Mine wasn't.  Can't install Lores.  Wonder how long till support comes to the rescue.  Thanks Native Asshat.

Had this problem with Omnia. Even the ISO download links they sent failed during download. Had to install a better download manager (Chrome extension) that would re-connect the download fragment / queue, as it would not resume once connection failed.

Took 2 days.   But eventually worked.