Patrick Derbidge

3 hours ago, El Diablo said:

Actually, I thought that as a after thought.  I wouldn't been buying it for the harshness removal.  Read on..

I want to do the trick mentioned in the video I first posted.

The trick is using vocal spectrum for ducking instead of using a dynamic EQ bell curve.  Can another plugin do that?

Ozone 11 advanced maybe? I haven't tried it with Ozone yet, but the spectral features look excellent, plus it'll do way more than just that.

On 11/1/2023 at 1:06 PM, El Diablo said:

In the videos for TrackSpacer, I see the vocal lines in blue on top, but the white line below that "carves out space" is a curved line that seems to represent a broad range of frequencies like a dynamic EQ, instead of "carving the jagged lines of the vocal", it's just cutting a half circle... that's what I'm seeing in the videos.

It's G.U.I. says one thing and people say the other.

The amount knob in trackspacer will determine how granular and how much is carved out, which works pretty well.  Also, as mentioned, using match eq, etc... works well, but sometimes it's just easier to grab something like trackspacer and adjust a few knobs, and you're done. If it isn't working on that particular track, then you can do it the hard way. Nothing is going to be perfect, but I do think soothe would not be the first choice for this type of task.

It depends on what you're trying to do, but if it's mainly "harshness" you're trying to remove, then Yes there are alternatives to Soothe 2. This is the one I invested in, and Baphometrix is someone I've learned a lot from. It's also way cheaper than soothe 2

19 hours ago, TheSteven said:

Isn't this the same deal?

 

Looks like it. I did a search for positive grid and bias fx on here but nothing recent came up. Strange.

For those of you that own Bias FX, check your email. I received a free upgrade code to Bias FX2, valid today only. Standard Version, which is what I own.

10 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

It seems the trend is pricing errors.   Buy it for instant gratification, they remove it and expect your instant gratification will be willing to pay the higher price.  This is happening way too much to be considered mistakes.

Ha ha. You're probably right. There is probably a bit of psychology going on there, and I'm sure it works on some people. We always want what we are told we can't have.

On 9/5/2023 at 5:53 PM, Fleer said:

If not for drums …

This? Or XLN XO?

I have both and they are both great. Most of the comparisons you find on the forums are outdated because Atlas has done a good job updating their software. Atlas 2, I would say, is ahead as far as features are concerned. For example, if you want to experiment with randomization, then Atlas 2 is more robust and a bit more like Audiomoderns Playbeat in how versatile it is with randomizing. I believe that XO limits the file length, so Atlas2 might be better for non drum sounds. Keep in mind that I have way too many drum vst's, so I haven't gone as deep as I'd like to with either of these programs to really determine which one I think is "best", but hopefully this helps.

Edit: for non drum sounds, you might be better suited looking at samplers like Waves Cr8

I'm glad I jumped on it when I did. No reason for anyone to feel bad about getting a deal. Izotope has made plenty of money on me. I paid $150 for Breaktweaker only to see it discounted 6 months later for $50.  Nowadays, you can get it as low as $9. And that's just one example. I've overpaid Izotope on a few upgrades, only to find out that I could have gotten it cheaper by getting the advanced version of the product included with other products in production bundles like this for cheaper than my upgrade price. You win some, you lose some.

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

Um, the plugins are $2. I get a 25-cent cut on every sale made from my affiliate link.   

I kid, I kid. I shill for no one and I'm not part of any affiliate marketing programs for any developers, just a paying customer who's never even had an email or PM with the developer (Hornet Plugins).

My goal is to have angry irrational, ill-tempered developers with bad practices lash out and libel me in public forums. Again, I kid. It's completely unintentional. My take is that these forums SHOULD BE for users, not developers. They exert their influence in other forums driven by ad revenue from those developers, so they tend to be heavily moderated/edited in favor of the developers, especially developers who pay and negative commentary about those developers tends to be heavily censored. That's no accident. That's one of the many aspects of this forum that is so great. Bandlab does an excellent job of keeping it musician/user-centric and not developer-centric at the expense of open discussions, and critical discussions about bad experiences with developers. 

25 cents would be awesome, count me in on that!(: I kid too, of course. You're always full of good advice on this forum, and it's appreciated. Being an influencer seems like an interesting pursuit these days. You either go 100% Patreon funded, which is pretty hard to do, or you deal with getting paid through affiliate links, or you just plain rely on advertising and try to walk that fine line between selling out and not losing your relationship with these companies. Even just affiliate links can be a mixed bag. I remember looking into some affiliate links where the company required that you had a consistent amount of traffic and conversions within a specific time frame (6 months or so) or you would lose the ability to use their affiliate link, so even going that route can have an influence on what an influencer will and will not say about a product.  I've just found that the only thing that works for me is to find as many walk through videos on the product as possible or, if available, a free trial that I can test myself. Nothing is one size fits all, so I even take forum members advice with a grain of salt. Take 8dio for example. You don't get along with their work flow very well, whereas I really like the workflow of their string libraries. I just wish they weren't so darn slow to load (even after a batch resave)

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

On a related note. I just bought another plugin from Hornet Plugins yesterday after a thread in this forum. I searched Google and YouTube to find any "review" videos of the plugin. Not even one moderately successful influencer had covered the plugin. Some influencers, like White Sea Studio -- whose videos I really enjoy -- have done reviews of Hornet's other plugins. It's easy to see why. He's a small developer of low-priced plugins that aren't going to generate much revenue for these influencers -- either through him giving them free products (that's priced cheap anyhow), affiliate program (I don't think he has one), advertising (I don't think he does much, if any, advertising) or cash in exchange for a "review. In one sense, if you review products like his, they get A LOT LESS searches that Waves or Izotope. However, you could look at it as something you do to build your audience, as few developers are covering his plugins, you can be a big fish in a small pond. 

You must be a schill for Hornet. How much are you making off that $2 plugin?? 🙂 LOL

15 hours ago, Fwrend said:

Again, through chat:

"Actually, only a couple of very specific legatos were not carried forward.  Over 95% of the same content is still there."

They did send me an invoice for Adagio 2.0.  Thanks again for the info!

EDIT: and, Adagietto is now in my account ☺️

I think it's less than 95%. For example, I'm looking at the two instruments side by side and in the Cello ensemble patch alone - The original Adagio has 7 legato types and Anthology has 3.

Here are the names of the ones in Adagio Cello Ensemble patch (the old adagio)

Legato Cantabile

Legato Dolce

Legato emo Slur

Legato Instinct

Legato Perdition

Legato Soft Slur

Legato Village

In the Cellos Anthology Ensemble Patch you get:

Legato 1

Legato 2

Sordino Legato

That's just comparing one patch and the Legatos only in the patch . There are also Arcs and Loure's and sustains and shorts that we can compare within that one patch.

Just to clarify the history of these libraries.

First, there was Adagio. It contained solos and ensembles and multiple legatos and multiple arcs.

Then there was Adagietto, which was just the ensembles from Adagio.

Then there was Anthology, which was a new interface for Adagio to streamline workflow. They kept 2 of the "best" legatos and arcs and dumped the rest. 

Then there came Adagio 2.0 to address the complaint that some of the processing to the recordings in Anthology was too heavy handed and made it more muffled sounding, and so Adagio 2.0 was born and I believe that is the only difference from Anthology but I'd have to check them side by side to be 100% sure but close enough and I'm to lazy to check 😉

23 minutes ago, Fwrend said:

 

 

I just chatted with 8Dio and was told ...

Not True. The history of these libraries is long, confusing and convoluted, however, there is a lot of cool stuff in the "original" adagio. There are many more variations of the arcs in the original adagio, but at a cost of a lot of hard drive space. You may need to clarify with them that you are looking for the original Adagio content, that they no longer sale. That's what I did and for a small charge of $8 they will provide it for you, assuming you already own Anthology. The nice thing about Anthology or the more recent Adagio 2.0 series (an update and cleanup to the "sound" of Anthology - see what I mean about being confusing?) is the interface overhaul to make composing easier and more streamlined. The original Adagio was a bit of a mess in that every instrument was a bit of its own interface without a streamlined workflow, however the number of Arcs were abundant and pretty cool. Anthology and Adagio 2.0 was stripped down to 2 arcs along with only 2 types of legatos, whereas the original had more than that, depending on the instrument. For overall composing, I think the new interface is much better, but every once in a while when you're looking for something unique, it's worth having the old Adagio.

PS- you migh also be able to get  the newer Adagio 2.0 series as well for a small surcharge if you ask. It's basically the same interface and recordings as Anthology but supposedly more cleaned up "sound" (less muffled) compared to Anthology

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

You've distilled down the essence of the GAS that keeps this forum active and developers happy. 

Which is why I will counter that statement by saying if you haven't mastered every last detail with the Gates you already own, then you shouldn't buy another one. How many times have we (guilty as charged) bought plugins before truly learning the ones we already have?

18 hours ago, Menace said:

I don't buy any more of OTS guitars because of their poor strumming patterns

I used to think this but after doing a shootout of all the strumming engines I own (I have a lot) OTS actually came out as one of the top in the realism department. I was pleasantly surprised because based on forum discussions about OTS strumming engine I was under the impression that it wasn't that great. It wasn't until I took the time to really sit down and learn it that I found it to be quite good. I think sometimes certain things on the internet get repeated enough times and without giving it a proper test, we tend to repeat the narrative ourselves (I know I was guilty of that). I would say that it is definitely in my top 3 favorites out of owning AmpleSound, Indiginus, Pettinhouse, 8dio, Ilya Efimov, Waves Factory, Impact Soundworks and Acoustic Samples. I'm not comparing it to strum engines, like NI's Strummed guitar series. That's not a fair comparison but with those programs you're limited to pre-programmed patterns whereas OTS gives you excellent results playing exactly what you want ,which can be good and bad so learn how a guitar player would strum a pattern first or the lack of realism may not be the fault of OTS.

2 hours ago, TheSteven said:

Quite a few scary recent reviews on TrustPilot...
Avoid the website like a Plague, This is a scam site that takes my money…, Customer support impossible to reach

I've bought from sources like this and never had an issue. I also build my own PC's and follow some of those PC building youtube channels. This one was recommended from one Youtuber who also gave out an affiliate promo code that cut the price almost in half, so ended up paying something like $13 for Windows 10 Pro.

Here is the link that I used, but the current deal is not as good as the one posted right now, but maybe if I could find the affiliate link again, it would be better. https://www.vip-scdkey.com/ms-windows-11-pro-oem-scan-cd-key-global.html

2 hours ago, Jason Neudorf said:

$39 for the upright, last year.

 

I think Black Friday is the only time you'll see a decent sale from them anymore. They used to have good sales when I first invested in EZdrummer 2 and EZkeys but since then, I haven't seen a deal that has been that great, which is why I haven't upgraded to the latest versions yet.

16 hours ago, dee said:

triaz vs drumvolution?

I got drumvolution on a cheap deal, and the con is that some of the effects do not work if you multichannel out to separate tracks in your DAW. I can't remember right now which ones, though. I think certain effects are hardwired to the main output. Anyway, from what I understand Triaz is a much newer and more comprehensive library of drum sounds with a lot of interface tweaks to make it a more efficient workflow. I don't know if they addressed the issue I mentioned above, though. If I were to choose between the two, I'd probably go with Triaz given the reviews I've read about it. Compared to my tinkering with Atlas 2 and XO (which I also own)  I like Atlas 2 and XO better. I haven't used Drumvolution in a project yet, so take what I say with a grain of salt, as my opinion could change once I actually use it. I would have gone for Triaz in this sale, but I am more in need (loosely speaking) of a comprehensive Bass Library, and so I went for Bassynth. Seems to be a much better tool than Substance and cheaper as well, plus it annoys me that I have most of the Output plugins but never see a loyalty deal that's better than a measly $25 off (whoopy) which is What anyone else can get from them on a sale. In other words, I don't think Output understands the word Loyal customer. They're just cash cows ready to milk as much as they can out of you 🙂

1 hour ago, MarcL said:

There is just one single case where it would be an advantage to use iLok: If iZotope would go belly up (I know, it is not so likely for such a big company, but still not impossible), then it would still be possible to use their products on a new machine with iLok, whereas with machine authorization your lost!

This is one point that many here ignore, machine and online authorizations will only work for new machines as long as the company exists or supports this!

Yep, and even with the dongle I wonder how many people know about the time that Pace had a glitch leaving studios everywhere without access to their iLok plugins, including their DAW/ProTools back in 2013  https://sonicscoop.com/ilok-service-breaks-for-24-hours-causes-social-media-stir/ Did any of those people get reimbursed for lost time and business?

6 minutes ago, mettelus said:

iZotope has the option to pair with iLok, which I also have never used, but once paired I am not sure how much effort it takes to unpair them. From that post it seems quite a bit unfortunately. I do have a few VSTs that forced iLok to use, but only use one of them as a result. The "phone home" feature is outrageous for some programs (Adobe is notable for this, as it has dozens of DLLs with that embedded to ping numerous servers).

I thinks it's fairly easy to unpair it but it's just the fact that there's wasted time involved trouble shooting an issue like this. In the end it was an easy fix but still unnecessary in my opinion.

5 hours ago, Fwrend said:

For the record, I have zero iZotope products in/on my iLok system.  Ozone 10 Advanced (VST3) opens fine in Reaper.  I've been using iZotope products for a very long time and have never authorized to iLok - don't know if that is why??

I'm sure the dongle is the reason. I'd be willing to bet that if I deauthorized my Ozone 10 Standard from my ilok then I wouldn't need to authorize my advanced version to the dongle and will work fine being authorized to my PC but my point is whyyyyy? These types of glitches are completely due to copyright schemes. There are enough bugs and issues developers deal with just in creating a stable plugin, why spend the extra time and support costs dealing with this copyright crap that does nothing for sales (my opinion) but aggravates paying customers?

Just a quick rant about the ridiculous copy protection that companies continue to use that does nothing but cause aggravation for paying customers and does nothing for their sales, but apparently they are too inept to realize (not just Izotope) this.  This also may help someone else, so I'll post it not just as a rant, but in hopes of helping someone else. I recently upgraded to the Production Suite 5.2. I already had Ozone 10 standard, so I was looking forward to playing with the Ozone 10 advanced. When I installed all the new products that came with production suite and loaded up my DAW (Reaper) I searched for Ozone 10 advanced but all that came up was standard. I was able to, however, load up the advanced individual modules that Ozone 10 advanced gives you (pretty cool) but the VST3 that is supposed to contain all the modules in one app was still showing standard. So I mistakenly thought that maybe there was a conflict between having both Standard and advanced installed on my system, so I uninstalled standard but yet again, only standard showed up. After further investigation, I noticed that most of my Izotope products were licensed through my iLock dongle but when I installed the Production suite I chose only to authorize to my pc instead of my dongle. Apparently, the pace dongle trumps my pc, and it was causing my DAW to only see the standard version of Ozone, and I can only assume that those standard VST3 files still exist somehow within the advanced installation- given I had uninstalled the standard version. Once I moved my Ozone Advanced authorization over to my iLock dongle, it showed up. Honestly, how much more annoying can we get with all this copy protection nonsense! I promise you Izotope, You are not losing customers to piracy (those people won't pay anyway) but you will and do lose customers to this copy protection nonsense for people less patient than I am.

On 5/9/2023 at 1:05 PM, MrFigg said:

Fair enough. Of course I can't be sure but I don't reckon Positive Grid are in it to hack your private files. Again, I may be wrong. I just activated it in any case and it's great. Positive Grid are welcome to access all my Swiss bank accounts and Dark Web side projects if they want.

I doubt they are doing anything nefarious either, however, they are, like many developers these days, fooled into believing that somehow they are making a positive impact on sales by fighting piracy (an industry of nefarious people who will never be customers anyway and just cost developers money wasted fighting piracy rather than giving customers extra savings or putting that money towards improving the development...) but I digress.

Sunbird is the one in this collection that is so unique that I haven't found another Vi with the same grit and tone. Definitely worth picking up if you enjoy virtual guitars. I actually paid more than the bundle price for Sunbird alone when it came out, so it's a shame I still don't own the other instruments. You guys don't know how lucky you have it these days.

1 hour ago, smde said:

I was planning to upgrade to the collector’s edition but missing PA vouchers fiasco seems to have dampened my enthusiasm. I hope they fix it soon.

I've been in this game for a long time. I've spent over 10k on virtual instruments alone, not including the other plugins I've spent money on. NI is a reputable company, Thomman is reputable, and Best Service is reputable. Every company is going to have a glitch once in a while but as long as you're patient with their customer support they will get you sorted out, if by chance you end up with an issue like this. Most of the time the people complaining online either haven't waited a fair amount of time for customer support to resolve the issue, or they never even tried, or they're just trolls. We live in an instant gratification culture today, and people seem to have lost the ability to think reasonably anymore.