Patrick Derbidge

I didn't have issues with crashes for a long time using them but as my templates grew it became a regular problem and it kept happening even with my new build. I'm sure it's specific what I'm using in my templates but I just don't have the time to troubleshoot the issue and all I know is removing their plugins from my system resolves the crashes. The good news is it keeps me from spending more money😄

I don't think so on the console plugins. They were $300 regular and discounted at around $150 on sale. I think they look pretty good and I have a couple of PA plugins I love but I don't dare use anymore because they continuously crash my sessions. I have so many plugins that it's probably unique to me where their plugins just aren't getting along with some of the other plugins I use, but still they are the only (ok almost only- here's looking at you sampletank3) plugins I own that give me this kind of grief. I'll have to do another ticket with support and see if I can get it resolved because I really like bx meter and bx stereomaker and I miss using them.

So are they better than these? ... https://www.iskproaudio.com/collections/frontpage/products/aps-klassik I haven't heard the ISK monitors either but they are a company known for some good quality for the money stuff if you want something without the name brand marketing etc.... At this price point there are a lot of good options, even with name brands on them so it will be interesting to hear the reviews.

Looks like your policy has merit. So far Subdivine glitches when I try to play it on my Keystation88 but not with my cheap chinese AKM320. Even stranger it seems to be a combination of using the Keystation88, Reaper, and subdivine together whereas it all works fine if I use the Keystation88 with Subdivine in Cakewalk. I have over $10k of Virtual instruments and none of the other virtual instruments have this glitch so it seems "all" the other Vi companies have this figured out. I guess Diginoiz has some growing pains to figure out when it comes to making Vi's.

I just have to say that their support has restored my faith in these guys. I posted a little while back on this forum how dissapointed I was that they didn't respond to one of my emails regarding a purchase. Well, during this last sale I responded to one of their spam emails about how I was frustrated that I continue to get their advertisements but no response to my email to them a few months ago. They came back with a huge apology and took care of my issue and offered me a free plugin on top of that to make up for their lack of response. I think that shows a step in the right direction and like I posted earlier I've been happy with their plugins so far. I know most are evaluating the amp sims from these guys but I'm actually more interested in their other stuff and so far their XCTR is one of the best Saturators I have, and I have a lot except for the famed Soundtoys Decapitator, which now that I own XCTR I'm not really that interested in getting because I doubt it would be any better. Other than curiosity sake to try out Decapitator I'm quite happy with XCTR. I have a bunch of other Audio Assault plugins I haven't had a chance to use yet but if they are as good as XCTR then I'm excited to try them out.

First off, thanks for sharing. Regarding the memory and CPU usage I didn't notice any issues loading the library. I also have 64GB of ram and a library like this where it's morphing between samples is probably more memory intensive so you'd probably want at least 16GB of ram. It loads waaay faster than my 8dio Adagio (the new one) and Intimate Strings libraries. It is for the full version of Kontakt and since I own KU12 ultimate that is not an issue for me. It is a more ambient sound focused library which is why many have commented on it sounding the same from the video but for the purpose of having different flavors of those ambient and cinematic evolving sounds this free version is really good. I used to be the camp that these kinds of textures all sounded the same until I started experimenting with them in my tracks and now I can see the need for as many flavors of these sounds just as much as needing different flavored Guitar Sims. I find that these sounds work really great for layering in any genre (rock, pop, cinematic, etc...) so it's hard to get too much of these kinds of sounds to add some background texture. I haven't played with it too much yet but I'm impressed at what it is being a freebie.

I was just going to edit my post as I do now remember seeing that change on the EULA last time I looked and the majority of them now seem to follow suite with what most every other sample developer does which is a good thing.

Actually, they've clarified their policy on the forums a while back stating you can email them for permission and they will give it. Somehow they think this kind of strategy will cut down on abuse but it's still a flawed model and also the reason I stay away. Who wants the extra hassle? It's not as if I know I'm going to use their stuff until I start experimenting and composing at which point what a waste of my time if there's even the slightest chance they don't give me permission when I could've been using other samples in my work all along.

Same here but you can find them on Soundcloud.

There are free instruments available with more quality content than this thing.

I can recommend XCTR. The best Saturator I have and very versatile, which makes it unique to the others. I don't own the Soundtoys decapitator but I wouldn't be surprised to see this compete with it and with more versatility. The only complaint I have with these guys is the time I accidentally bought a plugin on one of these sales only to realize I already owned it (doh!) I emailed them about it with zero response so I don't have too much faith in their customer service but so far their plugins have worked without a hitch and at $5 I can't complain too much as long as it works.

That makes sense then. It looks like the ID4 and M2 are the same price here in the US. I think I just like the low latency numbers I'm seeing with the new Motu's and I'm all about low latency when it comes to audio interfaces. ID4 latency got really good after the last driver update though. Before that they weren't that great.

The only reason you would need an exe is if you used it to automatically install those kontakt folders in a location on your sample drive. The EXE would basically be a self extracting program for those files. Otherwise you just manually extract the folders and place them where you want them. For what it's worth, I had the exact same issue as you when V2 came out. After some back and forth with 8Dio it came down to the fact that the downloads loaded into my account were corrupt and they just needed to fix it on their end. They'll still make you go through the standard troubleshooting though before they check to find that out. I've got so many kontakt libraries and use so many of the different downloaders from the different developers that I'm fairly confident in my abilities to troubleshoot any kontakt library install issues on my own so when I get stumped I'm fairly certain it is an issue on the developers end and 9 times out of ten I'm right. From the looks of your screenshot I'll bet it's the same issue I h ad and that it's on their end.

Ok, but the point was at clock for clock speed AMD is pulling ahead. Imagine what they could do if they can get to the point of matching Intel's high clock speed. True and that's really cool but some people are nervous about doing this and run their systems at stock speeds. In that case I'd say AMD has a real value prop. I think the 3600 is a price per performance that's hard to beat. Once you start looking at the 3700x and up then depending on your mobo choice it's a tougher choice and a 9900k is enough in the ballpark price wise to consider. I don't have a 3970x and haven't read much about it but I do know that with a 3700x you can get 4.2ghz on all cores stable with vcore between 1.35v and 1.4v depending on your chip and cooling situation. 1.4 seems high and there's been a lot of debate about this but it seems they are designed to handle such high voltages. True but high clock speeds is not the whole story and neither is core count. What AMD has been able to do with their Performance Boost technology is eek out maximum cpu performance through boosting and throttling the cpu core speeds in conjunction with utilizing the infinity fabric for communication between cores to get impressive results. Intel's speedboost, for example, doesn't come close to way AMD's Performance Boost technology works. The downside to this was at first launch people's cpu coolers were spinning up and down like crazy which didn't make for a quiet system. A bios update released within a month or two after launch took care of this. Of course not. You seem to be fixated on clock speed but that's missing the point of what Ryzen3 is all about. There are other performance benefits as I explained with Performance Boost, not to be confused with Performance Boost Overdrive. I don't know much about the 3970x but my 3700x runs quieter than my i7. That's mainly due to a better case, cpu cooler (air cooler) etc... Your own tests is the only one that matters because that's real world scenario for you. I don't have a 9900k to test against my 3700x but I already know that it will beat it but we're talking beating it in terms of milliseconds. In the real world you'd hardly notice. I will say that you might not have won the silicon lottery with your 3970x. The issue I have with benchmarks is that 90% of them are focused on gaming which is different than audio so I go off of DAWbench benchmarks and according to DAWbench the 3900x beats the 9900k in both DSP and Vi tests. The Vi tests being the most relevant to me because I use Kontakt alot. If cpu performance were my bottleneck in music production then I would have gone with a 3900x but I chose to go with a 3700x and spend the difference on SSD's and more memory where I'd see a bigger improvement in audio production. That's a given with its higher core count and Intel can already do this if they choose to add more cores to their desktop chips. I think the real story is how AMD has been able to compete even though Intel has the advantage of having over 80% of developers optimized for Intel architecture. That's really saying something about the new Ryzen architecture. For me, the only desktop chip I'd recommend from Intel is the 9900k. For everything else I think the cost per performance currently goes to AMD. This is coming from a long time Intel fan. I haven't owned an AMD since the P4 days til now.

I had V1 and then got the V2 update free. If you find a pattern that works then it's useful but it is fairly limited, actually really limited in comparison to newer offerings like NI's Strummed acoustic series. Impact soundworks has a really good one as well called Acoustic revolutions 3 (1 and 2 were just wav loops whereas AR3 is a whole new beast). I was actually so dissapointed in Songwriting guitar that I wrote 8Dio support about it. At the time I paid $100 for it. They were actually gracious enough to let me choose a different product of equal value due to my complaint so sometimes they will bend but I've heard plenty of stories where they weren't so generous to others. For free, it's a great product but this is one 8Dio product I wouldn't pay for.

Actually, go look at the DAWbench results. That's another place you'll see a 3950 beat the 9900k so I assume the same would be true of a 3970x and it's not just the multithreading that's creating those results. Edit: It's actually the 3900x, not the 3950x. The 3950x had not yet been released. The 3900x beat the 9900k in both the DSP Vi tests.

This is highly dependent on the silicon lottery and cooling with AMD. Some have successfully done this without any issues. I was able to do this after going through 3 cpu's. The first 2 would not. With Intel there is almost 100% chance you can hit at least 4.9ghz on all cores.

Unfortunately, the Ryzens don't overclock well but when comparing 9900k and Ryzen running at the same clock speed, every review and benchmark test I read showed that they did outperform the 9900k and the only reason the 9900k pulls ahead is because you can overclock it. The results also depend on the memory speed and type of memory used since AMD's Infinity fabric benefits from faster memory. I have not benchmarked this myself, I'm only going off of the reviewers I followed during the 3rd gen launch. Perhaps newer tests have been done to show differently but like I said, the memory modules used will have an effect on those benchmarks. I haven't paid attention since I built my system. Nevertheless, for DAW use I doubt you'd see much difference between a 9900k and a 3950x. Your money is better spent on SSD's and more memory.

I think the M4 is cheaper than the ID4. The M2 is even cheaper.

Ouch. Gotta love that. This is where RME has excelled. They continue support way longer than anyone else. Nevertheless if you don't need that many inputs and outputs then I think the best bang for the buck right now is this one https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/M4--motu-m4-4x4-usb-c-audio-interface The M2 is also good but I don't like that it lacks the monitoring mix knob between playback and direct.

The case looks familiar. If it's a mesh front to allow airflow straight through then I'm a fan of cases like that. I'm picky about the case I get and price has nothing to do with it. I look for a case that allows a lot of airflow with nice big fans so that I can get a lot of airflow with as little noise (big fans running at slow speed) as possible. If the cooling is compromised then so is your performance so I would make sure to max out all the fans. I tend to look for cases that allow at least 2 front 120mm fans, 1 back 120mm fan, 2 ceiling 120mm fans. I would also be curious to know which B450 motherboard they use. I also prefer the Corsair RMx and HXi power supplies for Studio work since they are the most quiet and yet still reliable that you can buy.

Should be a decent interface. I think mine was working fine but degraded over time which started causing issues. I had read that there was a subpar chip in the first gen Scarletts that do in fact go bad and I think that's what happened to mine. For normal use it works fine but once I started to have larger templates it crapped out. If yours works fine with an updated PC then you'll know it's still working well.

If you don't need thunderbolt then I think this is a good option. If you want to put a new Ryzen cpu in a B450 then you'll need the latest Bios and that may require using and older Ryzen CPU to update the bios before putting in the new one. Luckily AMD has a program for this that is free to sign up for where they will lend you a cpu for the upgrade. I usually build my PC's from scratch which gives me piece of mind that every component is up to the standard that I want it to be but with that comes it own set of headaches like having to exchange my first CPU which came with bent pins and getting the wrong CPU cooler that covered my first PCIe slot, doh! I probably spent around $1500 for the build but that included 3 SSD's and a windows license and a Video card (cheap video card since I don't game). Point is, I think you could build a very nice system for 1K. Even the Ryzen 3600 would be a great option as you can see in the DAWbench results. I'm surprised that the Intel 9900K's haven't really come down in price much because that could've been a good option. Actually if you compare the price of a 3900x vs 9900k (at least if your building your own) they come pretty close. The main advantage of the 3900x is multi threaded applications like video editing but in everything else they are neck in neck with Intel coming a little ahead if you overclock the 9900k. What's your audio interface? Sounds to me like that might be another bottleneck for you and not just the CPU. I was surprised that at first I was still having loads of crashes with my new build til I was able to discover it was my interface.

All good questions. First, that's a great playlist. You've been busy. I need to get a playlist up there like that. So far the 3700x is working great for me. Most of my projects have well over 100 tracks loaded with a mix VST's and VSTi's, and I mean a "lot" of them. The truth is that a CPU these days is hardly the bottleneck. Your DAW should have a "performance Meter" of some kind, at least I know that Reaper does. I suggest loading up your most demanding projects and open the performance meter and observe where your system is being hit the most. What I found, before I even upgraded my system this last year, is that my CPU was not being taxed all that much but my memory and hard drives were. This is why I didn't go with a high end Intel or AMD CPU ( I have no loyalty here, both are good.) I found that the 3700x met the sweet spot for me while giving me extra cash to spend money where it really counts, which was in SSD's and more memory. You asked: Can I ask which speed of DDR4 you went for ? My response: I actually don't have the fasted memory. I have 64GB of 2400Mhz Corsair memory. 4x16gb sticks. Although it's true that AMD benefits from faster memory, it's not as significant as you would think. I think the best bang for the buck memory right now are 3200MHz sticks. I am more interested in upgrading to 128GB right now rather than faster memory and currently with only 4 slots for memory sticks the fastest 32GB sticks I can find are all 2400MHz but large Kontakt templates will benefit from large memory more than it will from faster memory. Kontakt just needs a place to quickly access all those samples, which is also why SSD's are great for Samples. Read speed being the more important feature in an SSD for samples than write speed. You asked: And did you get an NVME SSD and was it PCIE gen 4 as that's and advantage of the X570 chipset as I understand it ? My response: I did get an NVME SSD for the OS drive but it was not PCIE gen 4. I honestly don't notice much of a difference in speed with the NVME drive from when I had my OS on a standard SSD Samsung drive. Maybe a gen 4 drive will make it more noticeable but I'm skeptical that it's worth the price of admission right now. I would rather get more memory and more SSD's for Samples or spend money on Studio gear than spend money on that. On a side note, when it comes to X570 boards, only Asrock is currently supporting Thunderbolt so if you want Thunderbolt on an X570 platform you are stuck with Asrock. Good news is I like Asrock and that's what I have. You said: Currently I have an i5 2500 which must be coming up to 10yrs old with 16gb ram , a 240gb SSD for Win7 and Cakewalk and couple of 2TB spinners one that holds my Kontakt Libraries and samples and another for backup / archive stuff. It's been good but I can't run enough Kontakt instruments at one time with low latency My response: Even with your current CPU I think you'd be surprised how much faster things will run if you upgrade your spinners to SSD's and your ram to 64GB if your motherboard is capable of it. You may know this but in Kontakt you can set the settings to favor SSD use over ram use if you don't have as much ram, so even if you just upgrade your drives to SSD's and not your memory you can tell kontakt to take better advantage of those SSD's. One of my biggest bottlenecks was actually my first gen Scarlett 2i2. I was getting a lot of DAW crashes and having to bounce more tracks than I thought was necessary and kept having the same problem when I upgraded my PC so after a bit of trial and error I could tell that something was going on with my interface. I believe it was something failing inside the interface and not the drivers. I decided to do a cheap upgrade for the time being while I make a more permanent decision and bought a cheap Behringer UMC404HD. Despite the really crappy metering on this thing I'm really impressed with the drivers and latency. I actually prefer this over my old Scarlett and although at first the preamps don't seem as warm sounding as the old Scarlett, they are actually more detailed and precise sounding so I prefer the "midas designed" preamps over even the new Scarletts, which I believe are still using the same preamps from their first gen but with a little more gain. So far the drivers have been rock solid. It is a bit pickier though about allowing multiple audio sources at a time, for example if I have Youtube up first and then load Reaper then my Youtube audio will cut out in favor of prioritizing Reaper but if I load Reaper first and then pull up Youtube they will both work just fine. Just a small quirk but hey it's ASIO and it's cool that the new ASIO drivers these days even let you use more than one audio application at a time whereas in the old days that was just not an option. If I were looking for a budget interface today I'd probably look at the new MOTU's "Look at those meters!" I'm more concerned about Latency so the Presonus Thunderbolt interfaces interest me the most Since we are sharing, here is a project I worked on ( that used a lot of Orchestral libraries that gave me a lot of crashes on my old system ( Intel i7 4770k with 32GB DDR3 and 7200rpm HD sample drive) but with my new system ( AMD 3700x, 64GB DDR4, SSD Sample drive) ran just fine. I still had to buffer it at 512 to keep it smooth but it worked just fine. Would I want it to be better? Of course, but I think the issue is more in the programming than in the hardware and we'll just have to wait for that side of things to get better. This is not the final version where I had to revisit the vocals for sounding a bit too tinny but good enough for sharing purposes. Hopefully your not too tired of Christmas music(:

It's probably oversimplifying to say that this plugin is more useful to Genre's like EMD and Trap and Pop etc... although I'm sure it could be used elsewhere but those are the Genres where most will find it useful. I did watch a tutorial where someone used it to "thicken" vocals with it as well, which can be done with any Chorus or Doubler plugin but still another use that can make it worthwhile.