John Maar

A quick FYI on the extra Signature Presets...

They need to be downloaded separately from the main MixBox install in the IKM Product Manager (there's a "Presets" tab). The .zip files are named for the person who created the presets. As is typical of IKM, the file structure varies, with some a level or two deeper. I extracted the lowest level folder. I deleted the Mac .ds and install how-to files if they existed and deleted the "Signature Presets - " part of each folder name, leaving just the producer's name. I then created a "Signature Presets" folder under the MixBus "Rack Presets" folder and moved the 6 signature presets folders into it.

I hate stupid deep nesting that adds zero value or usefulness.

One other cool thing I noticed was that the new Sunset Sound Reverb Collection presets that are mentioned in the "What's New in v1.5" notes as available for purchase were INCLUDED, installed and registered when installing MixBox. I thought I was going to have to purchase them separately. 👍

Thanks for the heads up.

MixBox is currently on sale on the IKM website for 99 € + 20% VAT for 119 € total. At the current exchange rate, that's around $128.50. Even though APD has my address in France, I was able to pay with my USD PayPal account, so I saved almost $100 over IKM's sale price. Purchased, downloaded and installed!

Kontakt 7 supports NKS directly, which is awesome, since I HATE Komplete Kontrol. It reminds me of Waves shells, and not in a good way.

It's actually Analog Dreams.  Ethereal Earth and Session Strings Pro 2 have also been updated.

2 hours ago, ralfrobert said:

https://vstbuzz.com/deals/79-off-diva-bundle-by-the-unfinished/

49€ plus VAT where applicable. 

For 2 weeks. 

Purchased and installed. 58,80 € with 20% French VAT. A bargain. Thanks for the heads-up!

1 hour ago, audioschmaudio said:

I feel that way with Oblivion Sound Labs. In fact, it's more like close to 100%.
Even their free soundbanks are amazing. They really shouldn't be free.
Diva owners have to checked out their free soundbanks:

https://oblivionsoundlab.com/product/radio-waves/

https://oblivionsoundlab.com/product/diva-oblivion/

 

I had Radio Waves, but not Oblivion. Thanks! And both preset packs are FREE!

Hey, Bat!

I just purchased the album and am downloading the FLAC files now. That was a quick 0.5 GB download. LOVE fiber-based Internet access! I live in France now, so the payment system added France's 20% VAT, but only to the original $7 minimum, and not on the extra $3 I tossed in. It kept mentioning euros, but charged me in $. I still have a US bank account and a dollar-based PayPal account in addition to my euro-based one, so I didn't have to pay PayPal's high currency exchange fees.

This song f'ing rocks! Looking forward to listening to the others. We used to be neighbors when I lived in Flagstaff, but we're still neighbors via the digital world.

Keep doing what you're doing!

John

3 hours ago, cclarry said:

$82.27 at Best Service

https://www.bestservice.com/en/ekx_session_organ.html

89 € in France. Includes 20%  VAT. That's full price. Might as well buy direct from Toonzes.

Installed. Only 54 MB, thanks to modeling. Impressive. Now, let's see how it sounds and how well the Leslie works.

I also had an update for the Scarbee Classic EP-88s.

Clicking on the "Release Notes" option yielded this helpful statement:

No release notes available for this product.

11 hours ago, bmarlowe said:

Thanks much to Helios, Canopus, Glenn and John Vere for taking the time to help me.  I have been using SI Drums, Roland Sound Canvas and TTS-1. Will post at a later time what I have decided to do and how it works out. That may also help someone with a similar question.

Going back to your original post, you said that you'd have to pick one or the other. IMO, EZD3 is the better choice for creating drum lines. AD2 may have better sounding drum libraries, but you still need a good drum line to take advantage of that.

Way back when, when I only had AD2, I contacted the devs about the bit depth of their drum kit samples, where they 16- or 24- bit libraries? They told me "neither or both", basically, they used a custom variable sample bit depth depending on the complexity of the audio in the sample. They said it helped them minimize to size of their sample libraries. They get beaucoup points for that.

Concerning bit depth for EZDrummer libraries...check the requirements for each EZD library. If EZD1 is required, it's a 16-bit library. If EZD2 is required, it's a 24-bit library.

I bought Superior Drummer instead of EZDrummer for the SD libraries because of the complaints about the level of processing in the EZD libraries.

7 hours ago, Jeslan said:

Thank you everyone for your replies. I created a support ticket after posting my comment but haven't received a response yet. I am from Europe so I guess it has do to with it. In fact I checked it and even if connecting using an IP from USA as soon as I let the pay service know where I am actually from it just tell me the same error message. So I guess that or this offer is region locked (which would make no sense and there is no message related to it that I am aware of) or the pay service has some kind of misconfiguration/bug when dealing with free purchases involving countries where certain taxes apply (even if the actual taxes are actually zero).

Oh well...

I live in France. I connected from France. I put MCenter in the cart, logged into my MeldaProductions account and then went to the cart and "purchased" it. The 3rd party payment system that MP uses popped up its regular info screen, which had copied the info from my account and then completed the "purchase" for $0 or 0 €, I can't remember which.

Where exactly are you from? If Russia, that would explain why you're blocked by the payment system.  If you're from a country not in the EU, or maybe in the EU but not on the euro, that might be the cause.

EZDrummer 3, hands down. Nothing wrong with AD2, but it hasn't been updated in years. No new drum kits. No new MIDI. EZD3 has much better tools for creating drum lines, not just playing them. I have EZBass, EZKeys 2, Superior Drummer 3 and EZMix. All great for song creation. I have AD2 and Addictive Keys installed, but haven't used either in years.

17 hours ago, Glenn Stanton said:

i have several - synth-weight M-Audio Keystation 49 (sits in the "keyboard" draw of my desk), a Komplete Kontrol S49 MkII Pro  (which has a semi-weighted feel) and i use it with the Komplete Kontrol app so i can simply play around switching up my libraries to get ideas.

and my preferred one: Kurzweil 88 stage piano which has properly weighted keys and some nice built-in sounds but mainly it's used for MIDI. like Roland and a few others, it's heavy duty, replaceable parts, as well as highly maintainable. i have an older Roland 88 (weights about 90lb) but many keys are busted up (lent to someone who kind of beat it up), and it really needs a whole new set of keys (~$300), however, to replace them looks pretty easy as they're all on a long rod that they can slide off and back on to. so my son has it as a project 🙂 

a properly sized 61, 76, or 88 key should have sufficient width on the keys (they generally mirror the key sizes on a regular piano), whereas the smaller # of keys then to shrink them all a bit. the MIDI controllers are nice but require something to play with, whereas a keyboard with sounds & MIDI can be useful for quick access for writing (without firing up an audio app). and budget-wise figure $150 on the low end (like the M-Audio) and up to a few thousand $ (like a Nord etc).

I have two NI Komplete Kontrol MIDI keyboards, an S61 MkII and a new S61 Mk3. Both are excellent. The new Mk3 keyboards support Aftertouch. I also like their simpler control layout. I don't use Machine, so I never used those controls on my MkII. They are really well made. One thing with the Mk3s...they are USB-C port powered.  If you only have USB-A ports and use a USB-A to USB-C cable, you need to make sure that your USB-A port is the type designed to supply full power. Mine didn't. Easy to fix. You don't need to buy a USB power supply. One of my spare Samsung fast charge thingamajigs for cell phones worked great!

11 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said:

You need to purchase my styles  

(Self-serving plug)

 

Notes ♫

Notes didn't give you a direct link, so I will. I highly recommend Power User Style Disk #17 that offers all Expanded Styles. I'll let Notes tell you what that means, but you want it!

https://www.nortonmusic.com/contents.html#biab

I really wish that the UVI installers would ask me if I wanted to install the iLok License Manager, so I could skip it and the time and extra clicks when I know it's been installed since forever and is up to date.

I usually wait for new Toontrack instruments to go on sale, but this one will be a Day 1 purchase for me. It will be VERY interesting to compare it to IKM's, which I have. I also have the Leslie Collection, with all of its presets, for AmpliTube. It's very good.

One thing I noticed while checking my AmpliTube install after your previous post (I have the latest version) was that the VST2 .dll and VST3 .vst3 files were dated from 2021. I thought I had a problem. But what I think is happening is that the plugin files actually get their data from the two .pak files in the C:\Program Files\IK Multimedia\AmpliTube 5 subdirectory: AmpliTube 5.pak and AmpliTube 5.app.pak dated 8/9/2023 in France, so probably 9/8/2023 in the U.S. That's the same date as the .exe file, so the latest version. The .dll and .vst3 plugin files much just be loaders.

It also works with Ableton Live Lite.

The price to upgrade from v1 was 11 € (incl. VAT). The upgrade was locked, so I had to go to Plugin Boutique where I bought v1 and get the serial number and then register is on the W.A. site. The upgrade price then unlocked. I also registered SphereComp, also purchased via Plugin Boutique, while I was at it.

Target market:

Also for Windows and Mac. Same release notes.

Yup...

11 hours ago, jeffdrawscomics said:

This looks like an interesting update.  Looking forward to playing with the color mode.  I like how it changed the saxophone in the demo video. 

+1. The color mode sounds like a ton of fun to play with. It might actually get me back to spending some time with Soundpaint. I moved the standalone program icon to a seldom accessed folder and forgot about it. Maybe it's time to bring it back to the desktop.

1 hour ago, DamienF said:

As an amp sim, probably not ; it's mostly interesting as a multi FX imo

Exactly. Like getting Hank Marvin's Apache sound. Based on this video, I created the attached Guitar Rig preset with Guitar Rig 5, but it worked fine in GR6 and works fine in GR7. On my Windows laptop, that file is located here:

C:\Users\johna\Documents\Native Instruments\User Content\Guitar Rig 6\Rack Presets.

I had GR6 installed when I bought my new laptop. I just copied the file from my old desktop PC. There's an equivalent GR7 folder where you could also put it. GR7 found it here, no problem.

Hank Marvin Apache.zip

1 hour ago, Doug Rintoul said:

Yes, this is the third time this deal has appeared on the deals page.

In this case, the third time is NOT the charm. I just watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3 on Canal+ (not on Disney+ yet here in France). It SUCKED. So disappointing. It was so bad, it made the GotG Christmas Special look good in comparison...but that's not saying much.