Carl Ewing

Ya - nothing more useful than a sample manager that you can't use inside your DAW where you use your samples. This thing is basically useless without the sampler. And having used it for a couple hours, it absolutely is not better than MediaBay. Except maybe the XO style sample explorer, which is something I thought I'd use XO a lot for, but haven't touched it much since I installed it. Mainly because it's only benefit is sample organizing, and why would I want to load a VST to look for samples when I have Mediabay - that is better integrated into Cubase, and my sample libraries are already organized at the folder level? Although I would like a "sounds alike" feature in MediaBay.

Kombinat DVA is one of my favorite digital distortions. That think is nasty. Actually prefer it over Kombinat Tri which was is its successor. And Panstation 1 is a great freebie.

I once read / heard an interview where they said they wouldn't enable pitch bend on their instruments - like their Labs Peel Guitar - because it made the samples sound bad. I really dislike, but it is endlessly hilarious how much they love themselves at the expense of functional products, that are often vastly inferior to their competitors. Unfortunately, learned that lesson the hard way...with Albion II and III coincidently.

Here's a product we don't think is worth selling or supporting anymore. Give us $225 for it!

Also Reverse for $10. https://www.adsrsounds.com/product/software/initial-audio-reverse/ Always handy to have around.

Yes to both for me. Price is $69 for me as well. I'm guessing that sale comes around pretty often, so no problem waiting.

$10?? Nothing matters anymore.

Beats Opus Strings which is 500GB.

Hmmm. Hmmmmmmmm.

Ya agreed. The only exception for this is gaming, since most game development is on PC. But illustrators / graphics designers are usually on Mac, just the development is PC side. I will likely move to MBP this year, as I'm getting tired of problems on laptop PC (my 8th laptop) while my colleagues breeze along without having to tweak a single thing on 6 year old models. Desktop will always be Windows though. Will never go to the dark side. Although I am somewhat curious how those new MBP's hold up against my desktop system. If it can handle as much as people say - and some of those specs are insane - I may try experimenting with it as main studio system. I just don't believe it's that powerful until I see it myself.

Would need actual data on that. In my experience, most (professional) creative types are still mostly on Mac. It's rare for me to work with a graphic designer or tv editor or music producer that is on PC these days. That's across a dozen cities, many many studios and people constantly coming in and out of offices on various projects. What I see the most are Mac Book Pros as the main machine. I see people working on desktops less and less. This is going to become more so with the M1 Max MPBs. FYI - I'm a Windows user, and am most definitely in the minority. I could see Windows being more popular with hobbyists / amateurs. There's probably 100 million hobby creatives using Windows machines. But for people with creative careers, I mostly see Mac.

If you run an Intel chip - check the BIOS too. There's sometimes a bunch of oddly named stuff that messed with the CPU speed / timing. At least on OEM machines, Intel has stuff like Speed-step and C-states that will cause all kinds of latency problems when it's cycling through power states. Probably not as much an issue on custom built machines, but there are still a lot of BIOS options that mess with power states. And basically, anytime the computer is shuffling through these (on network card / wifi, CPU, GPU, memory, drives) it will likely trip up real time performance. Apple are incredibly good at dealing with this. Their machines run like a calm river. Windows is more like a bouncy castle. And ya - when I first got this laptop I could barely run 5 tracks without it throwing a fit. Was about to return it when I stumbled on the power tweaks.

On my mobile rig, all my problems came down to power management, whether I was plugged in or on battery. I created new power profiles (for being plugged in), ensuring that nothing was being throttled (CPU, PSU, USB suspension, Wifi / network, etc.) and haven't had a problem since. Even on desktop, I find a lot of these DPC problems relate directly to power. Windows does all kinds of funky stuff with power (even beyond windows, at the BIOS level) that significantly mess with real-time performance. Shutting off CPU throttling will do wonders for audio performance. Although that means your CPU is running at 100% day and night. But did that for years on my studio comp and never had a problem. And like that on my laptop as well. Actually - I run an XPS 9500, which was supposedly notorious for DPC problems. I can run 150 track projects with 100 plugins no problem, with 2 4K monitors running out of a Thunderbolt hub. Zero issues. That was only after I custom built my power profile by using some extensive registry hacks. Dell doesn't like you messing with power profiles on their systems - primarily because thermals on their machines are absolute crap. But those forced power profiles are why so many people have problems. I recommend google searching "DPC latency" + "windows power" + "registry edits" and seeing all the stuff you can actually control.

Asio will bottleneck before CPU. You can max out Cubase as well, long before the CPU gets going. But Cubase has a significant amount of tools to help with Asio problems (Asio guard, etc.), regardless of audio interface, so perhaps Ableton isn't as well optimized?

Software developers got spoiled by the ever increasing speed, efficiency and lowered cost of CPUs / hardware. Why bother writing efficient software when the consumer can just keep updating their specs? But now...with costs & efficiency plateauing...especially on the price front... I specifically choose developers that maximize existing tech. No tolerance for horribly optimized plugins, or absurdly bloated sample libraries taking up needless drive space on expensive SSDs. (Opus strings is half a terrabyte - I could rant about this specific bit of developer nonsense.). Some of these recent bottlenecks were finally forcing developers to think carefully about software design if they wanted to appeal to a larger audience who can't upgrade their specs every 6 months. Unfortunately, these recent CPUs may halt that progress, although affordable hard drive space is still going to be a problem for a while.

I take it you haven't heard these libraries. And I didn't say they should be free. I'm sure someone out there really wants to re-create circa-2001 Crystal Method and $5 is an absolute steal. But $40 regular for some of these libraries is just typical audio companies trying to mine the naive for as much as possible, and doing the super sales to show what the libraries are really worth, and milk a slow moving dated catalog by selling to sample addicts / hoarders. $5 ain't bad though.

These libraries are super old school. I have some of these on CD from like 20 years ago. You can hear tons of those sounds in the first season of shows like 24 and CSI and movie soundtracks from like 2005. Can't believe they still sell for $40 regular. They've been mined to death. Literally - I think the people that made most of these are dead by now. Should be bundled with Stylus RMX expansions like Metamorphosis, and sold for $19.99.

Awesome! Can't wait.

One feature request is the ability to filter out results - for example, being able to uncheck a developer, or filter out specific plugins that a user already owns. And perhaps even an email alert system for specific developers / plugins. Looking forward to see how this progresses.

It has quite a different sound to RC-20 (especially reverb / echo). And the bitcrush is quite a bit different than some others. I really didn't like Retro Fi when I demo'd it, so I would say VYBZ is superior. But I have a lot of lofi plugins and a prefer a certain sound. For lofi multi-effects I would put in order: XLN - RC-20 (great all around) Unfiltered Audio - Lo-Fi AF (love this plugin), Byome / Triad Freakshow Industries - Mishby, Dumpster Fire, Backmask AudioThing - Wires, Speakers, etc. Excite - Lifeline (just got this - it's amazing) Abberant Audio - Sketch Cassette WavesFactory - Cassette Thenatan - Vybz Neold - Warble Amplitube 5 (underrated for lo-fi) Stock DAW plugins STDs. ... ... Waves Retro Fi. Hehe. I think Vybz is a no-brainer for 10 bucks. Comes in handy sometimes. Edit: Oops confused RC-20 with Lo-Fi AF when it comes to reverb. Corrected.

Anyone know if there is a benefit to RX8 elements over what's already in RX7 Standard? The elements are on sale for $20, but it doesn't seem there's much of a difference with the core modules that are already in RX7. Honestly, I can't even see a reason to upgrade from RX7 to RX9 at all. Hmm.

I'm still amazed how terrible the installation process is for audio software. Obviously some developers are better than others. I've been running the app 'Everything' for file search on Windows, and I can sometimes find a plugin / instrument's files scattered across 20 different folders - plugin formats all over the place, documentation over here, presets over there, samples over there, images over here, files in Local app data, files in Roaming app data, files in generic users, files in admin user, files in 64 bit program files, files in x86 program files. Native Instruments seems to be the worst...and has been the worst since like 20 years ago. And if you...god forbid, delete the 32 plugins, which you sometimes have no choice to install, some manufacturers will consider that a "broken installation" in the installation manager. I think iZotope behaves likes this. "How dare you delete our precious 32-bit files! And did you delete the Russian language documentation! Plugin no longer work. Please reinstall it all again as punishment." It's what I love about the Plugin Alliance installer. Simple UI, can select exactly the format I want, filter by what I own, select plugin, installs in like 3 seconds. Almost no bloat at all. Somehow installing a PA synth takes 3 seconds, uses maybe 3 folders, but a Native Instruments synth takes up 20 folders on my drive and needs to install every single plugin format on the market. Worst offenders: Native Instruments, Waves and iZotope. Anyway. Another rant.

Modobass is a hell of an instrument. Pretty much replaced all of my electric / acoustic bass libraries. Very impressed with that thing. Although bass is probably one of the easier instruments to emulate - and easier to bury in a mix if it doesn't sound 100% perfect. Like Mododrum as well, but definitely limited in its capabilities.

Another sample library platform! Yay! You get a sample player, and you get a sample player! Y'all do the same shit, but hey, why not have 30 of them in various stages of bug fixing and endless updates. To all developers - the second your "fancy new sample player" crashes an important project while on a deadline, I won't touch your software again for 2 years. I'm talking to you East West Play.

I feel I shouldn't answer this, as I my adventures through LimeWire back in the day definitely introduced me to some companies I still use (legimately) today. But that's probably not what you meant.