Brian Walton

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21 minutes ago, CSistine said:

Frankly, many of us have that many mixing plugins that this is true for almost any plugin vendor, not only PA! 😆

Yes, as do I.  However - most of those other ones I've bought into were not like the, let me grab that extra channel strip that is crippled or virtually the same as what I have because it is only $15 for the next 2 days purchases.  Thus for my own spending, I think I bought more from PA in particular that is rotting away.  

Having virtually all of the amp sims is a great example.  TONEX literally made them obsolete in one go.  

34 minutes ago, ralfrobert said:

For me, it's ADPTR Streamlinr and Metric AB. Basta. The rest has been replaced and is rotting in my account. 

Yeah, Melda has a replacement for Metric AB.

Streamliner I only find as a fascination, I'm not concerned with the different codecs of platforms I don't care about handle things.  But understand those that do need to cater to the masses.

30 minutes ago, Mark Spooner said:

PA is just not what the use to be when it came to deals. Offder a $20 voucher than can only be used on full price items, that are hugely inflated prices.

Yeah, but I'm starting to envy those that didn't spend close to a grand on $7 - $30 deals during the heyday only to get a bunch of plugins realistically we never use and don't need.  All of which have no resale value.  At least right now there is no temptation.  

At this point, I only value about 5 of them or so.  

Cenozoix Comp (not available during the extreme discounts)

Amek 9099

Kirchhoff-EQ (not available during the extreme discounts)

And I use some others of course, but could be replaced by other things I have.  

All those amp sims replaced by TONEX.

Also this is pretty big news assuming the thing is the garbage tuner that is in Tonex desktop app (or the AXE IO)

I can't possibly see it competing with my Sonic Research Turbo Tuner, but if it is at least part of the way there that is a major convenience.  

From an email:

54 minutes ago, smallstonefan said:

I moved to Affinity and I like their products and the price. That said, I've felt in this day and age their model is a poor one. They should be a subscription model - that's what their competitors do. They would make so much more money than with one and done perpetual licenses. I will continue to use the perpetual licenses I paid for, but I'm not surprised by this at all. As a software company you get about 1x value on perpetual purchases, but you can get a 3x-10x value on recurring revenue, plus you don't have to start at zero every month.

I think it's a no brainer for a bigger company to take them to subscription - so hold on to your installers!

They made tons of money.

90 person company just sold for somewhere between 400M and 1B+

There is zero indication that the pricing model wasn't working for them (and us).  The only reason for subscription here is greed.  The whole point of the company and model - the reason they grew the base was because they did NOT do what their competitor did.  Have you read the posts in reaction to this announcement (the affinity forum, Instagram, YouTube)?   

This isn't a company that sold because they lacked paying customers or turning a profit on those customers.

2 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

Steinberg under Yamaha

WA Production, Melda Production, UVI, under Image Line who vows not to interrupt the 3.  Some FL users were disappointed hoping UVI would be iLok free but not so.

Yamaha didn't kill off Steinberg - but they are also still have "old school" pricing model and just discontinued VST2.  I personally wouldn't view them as a customer friendly company.

Image Line hasn't killed those off, but in what way are they better now?  Melda is the only one that I really use (but own products from the other two) and I haven't seen any material improvement whatsoever.  The positive is simply that they don't feel like they have changed but that doesn't make them "better" now.  Melda thus far as least isn't a case of another company stepping in and ruining everything thus far which normally happens.  

Terrible news for everyone other than Affinity leadership that had an equity stake in the deal (whom can now afford an Adobe Subscription)

On 3/23/2024 at 6:11 PM, Hillmy said:

LOL! This is what people on other forums may be like. But after my disappointment with Sonar then finding a video of a cool layout of Reaper, I decided to check it out. I was impressed by how much more it can do than all versions of Cakewalk. Both in theme customization and functionality customization. And at $60 it was an easy decision. 

Link to video?

While I'm aware Reaper has tons of customizations, I have yet to find anything that wouldn't take a Full time job to make work as easily as Cakewalk in addition to looking as pleasing (I use a custom Cakewalk theme - not the default)

11 hours ago, Kevin Walsh said:

Please clarify. I can't tell if you're questioning my experiences or if your expressing dismay at BandLab's actions. As for me, I have no idea what's going on at BandLab. I'm just adding some insight into how some companies I've been involved with have made product decisions. 

I'm sure it was sarcasm as Bandlab has been able to pull stats for YEARS now on end users using Cakewalk and having to re-authenticate every 6 months.  

15 minutes ago, Heath Row said:

You have tried vst 2 and a different, earlier version if you are on the latest?

I don't use Cakewalk so I can't check.

Nope, haven't tried VST2 yet as I always avoid installing both when there is a VST3 option.

Given that Steinberg Discontinued VST2, I figure the emphasis from devs should be VST3 (even though it can have some "quirks")

1 hour ago, RSMcGuitar said:

I don't even know how I have this, but the update is free!

They gave v1 away for a while years ago.  It was the introduction to the brand for most of us I'd imagine.

46 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

He will fix it instead of  "cakewalk is not supported"

Well Tape MKII has been out for a while now and certainly wouldn't recommend dragging a corner on it

These are not special routing functions, with basic VST3 compatibility they should all work fine in Cakewalk.  

1 minute ago, kitekrazy said:

That's more common than not with just about every developer.

I don't mind giving this developer a few bucks. There's more positives than negatives.  I get the impression he's not really into it for the money.

Sadly the last few releases I've purchased had issues with Cakewalk....this being one of them.  Hope it gets sorted out.

I don't really have such issues with other devs.

Its nice that I qualify, considering I already own multiple serial numbers for both TONEX and Amplitude

4 minutes ago, 53mph said:

Wait! Is Tonex from ik multimedia?

I used to use IK plugins years ago but I moved away from their ecosystem because I found them too resource heavy and glitchy.  

Have they improved any?

Well it is a 4 GIG program.

But TONEX is far less resource intensive than something like Amplitube used to be.  (check CPU hits below).

I'm not noticing any deal breaking glitches.  There are some occasional UI things, but this is also the best sounding Amp in the box (and pedal) out there, competing and beating boxes that cost 3-4x the price.

This might be pretty good but with only 2 Forever 29's left I'm hoping we will see another Three Body Technology release that once again makes other plugins obsolete.

These, "another saturator" plugins don't move the needle at a $31 price point.  YMMV.

9 hours ago, JT3Jon said:

Yeah I was going to ask if anyone reaches for these over tonex? 

No.  Own most of them and the only use they got was seeing how much better tonex is if you have good captures.

9 hours ago, mibby said:

I was thinking that too, but I'm still seeing those prices.  Did you guys try it logged in?  

And now the +10dB Bundle is $10!  Weird!  I sure hope he wasn't hacked!

That is pretty normal if you own v1 of the bundle.  That is the upgrade price.

Now if you don't own v1, then it is an error.

2 hours ago, psionx said:

Did you get Manic Compressor? 

I really like this Compressor!  So versatile. 

I never use it because I had some VST3 issues with it in Cakewalk that never got resolved.

Hopefully he re-writes it for a V2 with resizable UI and gives an update for free on it.

10 minutes ago, ralfrobert said:

But with stacking and special offers combined with vouchers, there were many unwanted events caused by a stoned intern. Or these were super smart moves I don't understand until now. 

Yes, sometimes that happened and they would course correct, but those low cost UA ones they were well aware of being offered for free 1 at a time.  When they would reset the vouchers it became common for people to get all of those within a year for free.

They did this many many times and therefore was not a mistake.  

I considered these the entry point to buy their other products that never were free, of which I do have a few.

And good luck getting anyone to actually pay the $20 transfer fee for them even if you gave away the license, let alone try to sell them

10 minutes ago, ralfrobert said:

Generosity? I think they were just completely clueless. 

Well other than the Lo-Fi one the rest listed could be picked up one at a time for free when they did $20 coupons with no min spend.  They knew people would utilize the coupons for the free-bees.  

At this price, I can't imagine going this route over TONEX.  

Granted there are not that many Eden specific captures, but there are other brands out there:

7 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I'm contemplating getting this for voiceovers in videos. I'd love to get some opinions from the experienced / knowledgeable mixers in the group about Vox Ducker and other, similar plugins, that are worth exploring. 

It is useful if you have dialing and a music/sound track separately.  make sure the DAW or NLE you use is compatible with the routing it requires to function properly.

Give it a trial, pretty sure they run fully functional ones for a few days or similar.