Patrick Derbidge

And the sale is back on! Just got an email from them. Must have been a glitch.

1 hour ago, fret_man said:

You'll have to wait for their Christmas sale.

Maybe. I have a ton of Pianos already between Komplete Ultimate, Acoustic Samples, 8Dio, EZkeys, UVI, East West, Sampletank, Msoundfactory and a few others I'm sure I forgot. I figured that Sampletekk would make a nice addition. I have a few Sampletekk libraries that aren't pianos. I just thought it was odd that they would end the sale before the day's end, but still have an advertisement for the sale on their homepage.

Looked at site earlier today, sale price was still there. Went to make a purchase just now and everything is regular price? Still advertising 90% on main page though. I guess I'll have to pass.

Thanks for the post. I remember demoing this one alongside others and really liked it, but the others inched it out for me. Now that it's on a deep discount, I bit. Should be a nice addition to what I already have.

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I realize that this is not new, but just in case anyone else like me, couldn't get Vienna Symphonic Library's player plugin to work on their system, I just ran an update last night and used it for the first time. There are several free libraries, but the piano library, the Soft Imperial,  Bösendorfer Imperial blew me away. I am in love with the tone of this instrument. I have no idea how many layers it has or round robins -- when I played a single note very quickly, I did not notice any machine gunning. I think this is my clear favorite free piano and I have dozens. 

And a short related note. There was a thread at VI Control a few years ago where I made a post to the developer behind VSL and suggested that while I wasn't arguing his use of a dongle requirement for his paid libraries, I had argued that the dongle requirement for FREE libraries, like this one, was a misttake, because, as it's free there should be no concern of anti-piracy measures and it's very unlikely that a prospective customer would purchase a VSL dongle merely to try out their freebies. The guy responded very rudely and arrogantly. So I always thought, this isn't someone I would ever want to deal with. But years passed, VSL stopped requiring the use of a paid dongle for their freebies and Guy Bacos, who I'm connected to on FB, had done a demo and video for VSL and I thought I'd give them a shot in spite of the bad behavior of VSL's owner. However, the app wouldn't load libraries  until the update last night. So, yeah, a few years after my bad experience with the dev, I can get over it and I would be okay buying a VSL library, especially after using this freebie piano. 

There are several other free orchestral free libraries, but I thought piano would appeal to most of us here. I'll update this thread a bit later with recommendations for other recommendation worthy free pianos that run in free players  and invite others to share their favorites. 

https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Product_Overview/Free_Instruments

Thanks for making me aware of this. I had no idea they had "undongled" their freebies. I'll give it a try. Not to derail, but I've also seen Spitfire also act churlish to those who dared give constructive feedback. Nevertheless, they have good libraries and I still own some of them, so VSL isn't the only one. If devs want an example of how they should act towards customers, they should observe Paalo from Fluffy Audio. I've seen him take some very harsh criticism with complete grace. I'm always impressed with how humble he is.

1 hour ago, Lionel said:

Genuinely curious, but what’s wrong with XLN?

Some people don't like the fact that their products aren't constantly updated like other developers, thus making them incredibly stable and usable 🙂 Unlike others.

Songwriting Guitar is terrible but these others are good. Not as good as NI session guitar series but at this price it's worth it.

Great mic especially at this price. The AT2035 is also on sale for $100 and a good step up from this one.

2 hours ago, Paul Young said:

I got sucked into this.

I enjoy all my 8dio string libraries, especially given the prices I got them at. In my opinion, they are right up there with Spitfire and the likes. I own Albion, East West Hollywood Strings, East West QL, Symphony Essentials, Sonokinetic libraries,LASS and a few solo strings from various developers (Embertone, Cinesamples etc...) and I still looove my 8dio strings. The only downside is the load time for the new Adagio Strings is abysmal, however, I may need to go into each individual string arc and do a batch resave. I did it for the full instrument, but that didn't do the trick.

7 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Considering the new libraries, NI is clearly more heavily pursuing younger musicians playing more current genres as opposed to the dad rock and older genre folks like many of us here (me included).  I was an Absynth fan from day one,  but frankly,  I haven't used it in a long time. 

True. Ni could have kept it relevant by adding more standard FX to make working with Absynth a little easier, while still taking advantage of all those great envelopes. On the plus side, this probably means we'll see a price slash for those who don't own it. If you add plugin guru's sound-sets, you'll have some fairly modern patches to keep it relevant for a while longer.

I have a love hate for these guys. On one hand these are some of my better sounding amp sims but on the other hand, what you get for what you pay sort of feels like going to a fancy restaurant and spending $100 for a tasty meal but still leaving hungry.

2 hours ago, Brian Lawler said:

Most of the XO love focuses on the sound selection, which IS cool.  I think the beat editor is my favorite feature.  No brainer at that price.

I agree. You really have to decide what your purpose is when it comes to these purchases. For me, organizing samples was one, but the other was the fact that I don't consider myself a seasoned beatmaker so when I do music like that, I need a tool that can adapt. I don't want static loops without flexibility, but I don't want to bang out beats on my keys or my pads either cause it would just sound amateurish. Having the extra sample library and the built in grooves and beatmaking tools like you get with the traditional EZD and AD2 software is what these types of software were missing in the past. Of course there were the drum machines but it wasn't probably til Giest that the groove and beatmaking software started to get a facelift and even then I'm surprised that it has taken so long to see products like Atlas and XO. The idea is to have instruments that are bit like having a band mate where you give them an idea and they know what to do with that idea. I still use battery quite a bit but only when I know exactly how I want the groove to sound and when the beat is not too advanced for my puny brain.

3 hours ago, John Maar said:

Once I bought Superior Drummer (v2, then upgraded to v3), I stopped using AD2. Never gone back. Never missed it.

I have no doubt there is truth to that but the price tag!!!!  It better be stomping on AD2 for what it cost.  The great thing about AD2 is that you get quite a bit for what you pay. I have just about every drum program out there except SD2 and I still use AD2 in my rotation.

1 hour ago, John Bradley said:

I don't understand NI's thinking. 50% off everything except KOMPLETE itself. It's great that they have a sale on the update/upgrades - though not a full 50% - but never (as far as I've seen) on the getting the product to begin with.

I'd think they'd really like to have another Upgrade Cow they could milk for annual updates, but at $599/$1199/$1599 to get on the train in the first place (he said, switching metaphors midstream), that ain't ever going to happen.

iZotope, they understand how to rope 'em in. I won a free copy of Breaktweaker years ago from SonicState. But because I 'bought' one of their products, they gave me the too-good-to-pass-up pricing on one of their bundles, and I've thrown many hundreds of dollars at them augmenting and updating that bundle since.

There used to be a way by getting a qualifying cross grade product (there were some free ones) and then crossgrade to komplete for around $250 from there but that seems to not be an option anymore. I suppose it changed when they introduced Komplete Select. I think there may still be a deal on select ($99) and from there you can upgrade. If you do this the best thing to do is wait to upgrade til the next big upgrade sale.

There are basically 2 main types of yearly sales, not including the nks update sales done with developers. These are the  komplete update specific sales for previous komplete owners which was earlier this year which is where I updated to KU13 for $199. Then there is the 50% off everything which is this current sale. Usually it makes sense to just wait til the next version of komplete and the update sale to get the latest but sometimes there is something you want right away, that you can sell later when you decide to update. Since Electric Vintage is not in KU13, I'm going to get it now and sell it when KU14 comes out after upgrading.. 

For me, the first thing in deciding on a library like this is it's sound. This one definitely has a good sound, comparable to more expensive strum libraries. I own a lot of these types of libraries and it seems the only limitation is the number of strum patterns but it doesn't seem any more limited than what you get with the 8Dio  guitar strum libraries and at this price I think it's hard to pass up, unless you are already a decent guitar player which of course there is no substitute for.

53 minutes ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

I strongly disagree with this.  Mike is a terrific guy.  He was beloved in the community for Realitone before he ever got officially involved with VI:Control. That is because  he has always treated his customers well, including a no-questions asked refund within a month.  How many companies do that? 

VI:Control exists for one reason and one reason only.  There was a previous composers forum and the conversation got so toxic there that most people left.  And that was  that.  That kind of thing was beginning under Frederick Russ, so Mike came in.

If Husker thinks that VI:Control has any chance of lasting a year without moderation, he is simply uninformed about its history, and about how mean the people can be who go on it. Most people are really nice and supportive, but a few are really not.

I myself have been treated very poorly on numerous occasions on VI:Control.  (In fairness, it happened once here too).  In those occasions I questioned whether I wanted to keep going on there, and I stayed away for quite awhile.

Mike tries to be very fair about who he kicks off, but it is not an easy thing.  If he leaves nasty people on the site, people  leave.  Too much of that and the forum is over, as the previous forum was.  If he kicks them off, @husker gets mad at him. He does his best, but you simply can't please everybody.  I follow these things carefully and I've supported him on every thing he's done. So if you hate Mike, Husker, then I guess you hate me too.

If @husker doesn't like Mike that's his business. But to compare a super nice guy like Mike to a North Korean dictator is a bit over the top.  I hope the rest of you will not listen to him when you consider a Realitone product. 

I also disagree with the comment about Mike being a bad guy. Quite the opposite. When he took over VI Control things were very toxic and I think he did a very fair job of balancing the desire for open and honest discussion and still helping developers feel welcomed. Maybe the person complaining tried to have a negative discussion about a product in the developer deal section instead of posting in the discussion board section? That's the only way I can see Mike kicking someone out unless the person was just out of line. I've seen Mike let discussions go way further than other members would like. Many in that forum can get pretty tribal about their favorite developer. Anyways, I've always found Mike to be pretty easy going.

Here is a good video that explains what I mean at the 12:50 mark. 

1 hour ago, Canopus said:

There are two patterns, A and B, both of which contain 16 notes so you have effectively a 32 note grid. If you activate the FOLLOW button, XO will automatically update the GUI to show the current pattern. Also, the Chain switch can be set to either OFF, AB or AAAB which makes it possible to chain the A and B patterns up to 64 notes.

Your misunderstood me. I'm not talking about the number of notes but the duration of the notes. The grid falls on a 16th note pattern so if you want 32nd fills then you have to use your DAW.  

1 hour ago, Mesh said:

I'm not a beat maker either, so I really enjoy using XO and I can highly recommend getting all the drum samples from here: https://samplesfrommars.com/  

 

Good resource. I have to admit that XO does make me feel better about the samples I've collected over the years that haven't been used much. Now I'm willing to consider adding more drum samples knowing that they won't get lost in a black hole anymore.

I finally pulled the trigger on XO during this sale. Although it is over, I'm sure there will be another during BF (probably better than what I paid). I just wanted to give my quick thoughts on XO. First, I would NOT pay full price but for around $100 it's a good deal. Battery 4 is much deeper as far as manipulating with FX goes but XO has grooves built in for inspiration which is invaluable these days but also has the effect of making us all more lazy and sound the same by not learning how to lay our own beats. I don't see it as a replacement to my other drum machines like Battery or Breaktweaker etc... but it's a nice addition. One of the OBVIOUS benefits is the browser and the ability to find sounds quickly. Even if you don't use XO for making beats, using it to find sounds you forgot about is very cool.  There are a lot of things to like, especially the fact that it is easy and intuitive to learn. One major downside but not a deal breaker is that the built in grid is only 16th note capable. You would think a software at this price would give you the option to go to 32nd notes or more. You can, however just drag the midi to your DAW and work around this limitation that way. For me, the main draw was the ability to let it organize my sounds so I didn't have to and access to more drum patterns since I'm not a beat maker.

The PR35 is one of the best dynamic mics you can buy and can be used for just about anything.  The PR28 Looks like is focused on Toms but reviews indicate that it is an excellent tom mic 

5 hours ago, abacab said:

Right. It's an issue exposed by Microsoft, but you would expect that by now the XLN devs would have adjusted their activation scheme to account for it. Who knows, maybe they have?

Luckily, I have not experienced any issues with XLN products but if I had a constant issue with them that would definitely deter me from using XLN products. For example, I used to love using Brainworx BX Meter in my projects but inevitably the more plugins I added the more my project would randomly crash. I narrowed it down to this plugin. Even after building a new PC it caused the same issues so sadly, as much as I liked it, I had to retire it. I would do the same with XLN or any of my other VST's cause frankly, it's not like there isn't decent competition. It's great that we have all these choices.

4 hours ago, chris.r said:

I don't doubt the XLN guys can do a contemporary GUI, just look at XO, and I can easily imagine AD3 given similar modern GUI plus added more expanded songwriting tools in vein of the ones like ED2/SD3. Would I be happy with such updates? Heck yes! Would I want to shell out another $100/200/whatever for it? Errrm...  

I have no problems whatsoever with getting quality drum tracks from AD2 and the adpaks that I've chosen. And I do not miss anything much from the sound of their kits, especially the more recent ones, even when I try to compare and listen to the Toontrack alternatives. Should I ever miss the songwriting features there's always Toontrack at the reach of my hand (and for another $100-200). Last thing I'd be looking for are bugs and/or breaking compatibility with old projects.

Now I'm off to listen to this Claustrophobic kit  

Just be aware. It's not a rock kit. It's a unique kit that can be used in Rock when needed for effect but it's got a sound you just don't get with other kits. Definitely more for old skool hip hop although I don't use it that way.

One person's trash is another person's treasure is all I can say. I own AD2, SSD4, EZD2, all the drums programs that come with Komplete Ultimate, Melda Drummer 2, Jamstix 4 and probably some others I'm forgetting. I'm a fanboi of all of them but mostly AD2 and EZD2.  One thing that I still find appealing about these two is that the midi grooves are from professional drummers. This, of course, means that you have to invest a bit more to get as many packs as you can to have the options you want but this also makes the drum parts sound professional with the ability to still tweak them to your liking. Jamstix and Melda drummer, on the other hand are getting better with their programming to come up with natural sounding drum parts based on your input. Because of their learning curve I haven't given them as much time as I need to in order to compare but that also is another boon for AD2 and EZD2 since musicians need to be focused on making music rather than learning all the time. It's a catch 22, because without taking time to learn you don't make very good music, but spending all your time learning keeps you from making music. It's a balance.

Saying that AD2 isn't good enough for pro music is BS. Saying that you don't like it due to it's workflow or other issues is fair. What I like most about AD2 are the drum kits, especially the Fairfax kits. They sound amazing. The good news is that If I want to use some of EZD2's stellar songwriting tools, I can send the midi out to AD2's fairfax kit and have the best of both worlds. Don't underestimate AD2's own features though. The Grid search is not quite as good as EZD2's tap to find but it still works fairly well. The beat transformer feature also works pretty well. I have used these features with great success. The Mixer features in AD2 is far superior to EZD2's mixer but it's not even close to SD3 or BFD2. Since I always set up separate tracks in my DAW for each drum  and prefer mixing them with my own plugins, this is not a huge deal for me.

I guess, in the end, if I'm being honest, the biggest selling point for me is the Fairfax Kit. I own almost every EZD2 kit and I still go back to the Fairfax often. I do, however really like the Claustrophobic kit in EZD2, even though it's old. It had a sound that you just can't find in any other kit I've tried and blends well with others as well.

To each their own but I am at the point where I know what I like and don't like so a good walk through video and trial run convinces me much more these days than peoples opinions.  Other than looking to find out if there are stability issues, I generally don't put much stock in opinions since we are all so different in how we compose.