Carl Ewing

They almost always put everything that was on sale over the last month back on sale for a day or two for a final (till next week) hurrah. I always get that "if case you missed it, this is your last chance!! omg, never again!" email every bi-annual sale.

Why would I be mad at cheap plugins? Lol. You can always go buy way more expensive plugins (that do the same thing) from other companies. Shit, if you're really mad, you can buy many PA plugins at the UAD store for 10x the price any time you want.

Ya - going to use my $200 sub voucher on this I think. Can pick up 11 of the 15 that I want to own including 5 amp sims. Crazy.

Waiting for a sale on Hammers. Hopefully Christmas lol. Also - any difference between the 'Labs' Frozen Strings and the 'Originals' Cinematic Frozen Strings? Same with the Labs / Originals Soft Piano?

But I can buy what I need on sale with the $200 voucher I get with the Mix & Master subscription. I'm on my 3rd annual subscription ($600 in vouchers on $450 in subscription fees), and now own all the plugins I actually need while having access to their entire Mix & Master catalog of like 100 plugins + anything new they release in that year. And I know what plugins I actually NEED, because I've been using them for a whole year. On the flip side, I could endlessly waste time scouring sales to buy plugins I've likely never used, or never used for any length of time, likely spending more than $150 a year on crap that'll sit in a plugin folder for eternity, while still not having access to like 100 plugins that cover almost every single thing I could possibly ever need. The PA subscriptions are a no brainer. Anyone not using them, while still spending $150 a year on plugins that are covered under that subscription is wasting their time and money. They are giving you $200 in product for $150, and a demo of 100 plugins... for a year... to decide what you want to own. It's, without a doubt, the best deal on the market. My annual budget for mix & mastering related plugins is $150 a year. I don't need anything else (in that category) with that subscription. That is insane. There are people who still spend $1000s a year on UAD plugins that have equivalents covered under that subscription. It boggles my mind.

I'm very disappointed in this release. The entire library sounds like it's compressed into a tin can. Virtually none of the sources have any body to them, meaning it takes A LOT of work to pull out some power that isn't just relying on the transient. I have to go through multiple transient shapers just to get a percussive envelope where anything but the attack is heard in the mix. First week I used it I was regularly mixing in other drum libraries (especially kick and toms) to actually give it the characteristics it's advertised as having. The kicks are especially horrible. This is the problem with some of these libraries - that tight tone (especially for metal or hybrid) should be achieved through the various tools available in the plugin, not the starting point of the source material. Keepforest seems to be one of the few companies who understand how to produce power that has both strong transients and decay / body - especially in a modern context. Where the source material is so strong you have infinite options to take the sounds wherever you need it to go. Anyway - I'm sure some people love it. But it was a complete waste of money for me.

That is absolutely absurd. Did they even try using the "sophisticated sound engine that took 8 years to develop"? Have they tried programming? Lol. Most of the sounds in that demo could be made in any softsynth without using samples. I.E. How the actual Dune score was made.

For $50 you can get the SoundWide bundle which includes iZotope's Nectar / Ozone / RX / Neutron Elements, Trash 2, VocalSynth 2, Nimbus, R4, NI Massive, NI Guitar Rig 6 LE, and Plugins Alliance's bx_console N, bx_delay 2500, bx_digital V3, bx_stereomaker and bx_subsynth. https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/soundwide-intro-bundle.html ^^ That is a far better deal I think for $30 more.

I don't see "deep discounts" or "no brainers" as valuable, because it's promoting impulse buying. I don't care if a plugin is $4.99. If I have never used it, or only spent a few hours with it on demo then why would I buy it? It's like the current sale. The Soma, LISA and Amek 200 are on sale for $30. I have used all 3 EQs with the subscription - most recently the LISA. Already know I don't need any of them. I'm guessing 99% of people buying one of these this week doesn't have enough experience with them to make the purchase - even if it was $1.99. The subscription is like a 12 month trial of 100 plugins with a $200 voucher at the end to grab exactly what you use. This is a no brainer to me. I've almost entirely stopped buying ANY plugins for 2 years from any company, because this subscription covers almost everything I need - in terms of mixing and mastering. It's saved me $1000s on useless purchases.

Or just pay $150 for a yearly Mix & Master subscription, use 80+ plugins for year, get $200 in vouchers to buy whatever you want on Mega Sale in December, and ignore any and all PA posts till next summer 'cause you already have everything. No brainer to me.

Once the zombie apocalypse is over scientists will discover this is what caused it. We need to put an end this. Immediately.

It sketches me out that so many of these studios look like dust-free museums. It's like the entire spiritual foundation of music has been eradicated, and music is now created by super dull middle class types trying to recreate the ideas of the past...surrounded by dollar store fake plants and machine polished decorations. It's the like End Times are near.

Love the sound of this plugin. I flip back and forth between this and WaveFactory Cassette depending on the material. I think Cassette has more realistic artifacts / stability features though - customized from back panel... ...but I find SketchCassette better for lofi-ing stuff in a way that's more artificial, but still modern / cool sounding. So SketchCassette better for sound design, Cassette better for realistic tape degradation. In my opinion anyway. There's also Audiothing's 'Reels', which has it's own advantages. Why not own them all lol.

I've paid for WUP like one time in 6 years. What am I doing wrong??

He responded fast to a support question I had in December. Responded within an hour.

It's weird they do this a few days after their anniversary sale lol.

Ya - I think a lot of people just want to buy shit impulsively, and these companies are likely making a killing off people thinking they're getting stuff cheap - but likely buying stuff they don't need, buying things often, and spending way more than they need to in the long run. Somehow a once a year purchase, and having all your bases covered, is less preferable than obsessing over vouchers and sales every week trying to nickle and dime a company that knows exactly what's it doing to get your money.

The point of the subscription is that I get to use a massive part of their catalog for a year + get $200 to buy whatever I want during a mega sale. Why would I be buying $15 plugins - that I've likely never used much other than a demo - when I already have everything to try out for 12 months? And then buy specifically what I want / use in December sales season. I don't understand why anyone debates this deal. It's insane. For $150 my entire mixing and mastering needs are covered for a year - by extremely high quality plugins - and the cost of the sub still goes to permanent buys on heavily discounted super sales. This is the best deal in the industry as far as I'm concerned. Not only that, but 2 years of this subscription has saved me tons of money not having to buy shit I don't need from other companies. I haven't bought a UAD plugin, or a single emulation or mix / mastering related plugin from any other company since I started this subscription - and I used to spend $100 / EACH on those UAD plugins. My studio's plugin expenses went WAY down these last 2 years.

It's not really a typical subscription model. I gt a $200 voucher every year for spending $150 on Mix / Master subscription. It's a complete no brainer if you already plan on buying $150 PA plugins in a year, which is quite easy to do. I'm curious how many people will blow $150 on the Forever sub in a year, get 5 plugins, and realize they totally wasted their money.

My last concern when subscribing to a sample / loop company is how well their software manages my existing sample library. I'm paying money for their catalog of sounds, not for their management software. I subscribe to Loopcloud Professional and Splice because of the sounds they offer. But their DAW integration & sample management features will ALWAYS be shit, because you can't build a software that is A) a massive e-commerce service B) an account / subscription service C) a data / library manager D) an integrated DAW sample player / editor / tagger, and, well you get the point. It will always be a shit experience. These platforms are built to sell you more shit. Not to make your workflow better. Honestly. Why would people spend money on a sample / loop subscription and make "how well does this software manage my entire sample catalog" as their priority, instead of "does it have any sounds that I actually want"? If you need a sample libary manager, get a dedicated piece of software that isn't a bloated mess of e-commerce. Most DAWs these days have excellent dedicated options anyway.

Okay - checked some forums on overclocked 5950x and audio problems and most of the discussion was over RAM speed / timings. Specifically when using DCOP to auto overclock. Many needed to set their RAM back to default speed, or manually adjust timings (FCLCK) until they got stability. Seems the auto overclock was creating timing or voltage issues for both the CPU and memory. Do you get the same audio problems when not overclocking? If not, this might help narrow the problem down to overclock settings.

Definitely check power settings. Any sort of power switching (i.e. throttling, minimum / maximum power states) will cause tons clicky weirdness as the computer tries follow power states. It's the source of many many problems with both Intel and AMD processors. Even if you're OC'd from the motherboard, the OS still has lots of control over the CPU (and CPU, GPU, etc. power). Go to Power & Sleep Settings, then to "Related Settings / Additional Power Settings". Switch to "High Performance" and then "Change Plan Settings". Then go to "Change Advanced Power Settings" and see what's available. You should see a setting for "Processor Power Management", and under that "Minimum" and "Maximum" processor state. Set both to 100% and see if that fixes anything. (Consumes more power, but ensures CPU is rock steady.) In the same window you'll see "USB Settings / USB selective suspend". Disable that. Also grab all updates from your MOBO manufacturer. Especially chipsets, BIOS, hard drive controllers, and USB controller drivers. Also check for power options in your BIOS. Not sure about AMD, but Intel geared motherboards often have a lot of weird power settings. Intel Speed Step, Intel C-States, and other crap that mess with CPU throttling / speed. AMD may have the same. Try to get rid of anything that's messing with CPU speed / power. And check temperatures regularly when doing all this.

Yep. Do lots of mobile work on laptop. The only thing I tweaked were power settings - eg. to stop the CPU from throttling or cycling through power states, and a couple USB power settings. Battery / AC power switching is really the only problem I've found. Run 150 track projects no problem now. On my desktop it's maybe 2 tweaks to power settings and it runs 100% without issue. Actually, the Steinberg Power Profile is probably just fine, but I like to customize a little bit because I max overclock my CPU 24/7. Windows 10 is very efficient in my experience.

One of my favorite plugins. Still not sure what it does exactly, but used in every project for probably 15 years. I would call it a filtery-phasy-panny-modulation-thingy. Great for ambient stuff - specifically giving movement to overly static pads and background textures. If you use the "hold" function and use "manual" to sweep through the phase positioning, you can get some very tight control over a sounds placement in the mix. "Hold" shuts off phase modulation, so it's like static phase control - especially good for taming harsh frequencies to position something in the background. But the oscillating sweeps are really quite cool on the right material. But everything it does is heavily colored. Not transparent by any stretch. Great in combination with Waves' "Mondo Mod" for stereo imaging coolness. For $11 it's a no brainer imo. EDIT: Just checked the demos on that sales page - I have never used it for those agressive modulation / phase effects. I've mainly used it in ambient, with very slow speeds, or static speed for stereo imaging effects. It's quite a cool psychoacoustic plugin. But seems they're advertising it for extreme phase modulation fx. Interesting.

I feel the PA giveaway is totally out of balance with NI and iZotope stuff. That's a crazy PA giveaway now that I think about it. HG-2 is possibly the best premium saturation plugin on the market. Shadow Hills is also a premium mastering comp. Oberhausen is an absolutely excellent emulation. It would be like U-He giving away Repro-1. Crazy. Then iZotope with some Neutron Elements which is on PluginBoutique for $20 on the regular. Lol.