fitzroy

2 minutes ago, Zo said:

Im talking ozone 7 advanced to ozone 9 advanced ar 99 specifically  , did ya seen some better ?

 

thks

I'm not sure if there was an Ozone 9 Advanced sale at $99 (so $87 at the resellers I mentioned) from anything Izotope. Larry might remember that. We are splitting hairs here though, if you need Ozone 9 Advanced, $99 seems like a good deal from 7 advanced (there seems to be somewhat of an agreement among users that Ozone 8 was a big step forward, so 7 to 9 should be a significant upgrade). 

Also, some sales have the upgrade path from anything Izotope, including the Elements series. Worth keeping in mind if you have a standard version (I have Ozone 8 standard), as you could sell that, making it an even better deal. 

1 minute ago, Zo said:

Better than 99 $ ?

 

$99 for Ozone/Neutron and $199 for the Tonal Balance bundle, but with the usual jrrshop/audiodeluxe discounts on top. If I remember well, discounted price was $87 for the Ozone, Neutron, RX7 upgrade/crossgrade, and $167 for the bundle. 

There were better upgrade/crossgrade deals earlier in the year for Ozone, Neutron and RX 7. Also for the Tonal Control bundle. I'd expect them to be back, unless Ozone 10 is just around the corner. 

For $7, not bad at all. Some annoying UI issues which I hope they'll fix soon:

- clicking on the presets dropdown header pops up the save preset window, instead of activating the dropdown, as it should

- the presets dropdown should close if clicking outside of it, or on the header, not when a preset is selected 

I see it at $49.99. In fact, everything else seems to be on sale, apart from this one. Was it like a 3 hour sale, or does it require a discount code? 

Edit: I see it now, full price on top of the page, discounted on the bottom.

57 minutes ago, Mr. Torture said:

Completely understand what you are saying. Maybe I just don't have the type of brain needed to sit and practice the same scale run or arpeggio 17 hours a day like a lot of these kids do. I'm not trying to win any contests, but being able to do those things certainly opens more doors, even if it's a cover band. 

Over the past few years I have lost a lot of interest, mainly because my generation of over the top music is long gone and guitar rock in general is dying, most people today prefer to go out for a hamburger and be home by 8:30. Perhaps it is time to move on, or at least not watch You Tube anymore. I seem to get more enjoyment watching Dr. Who reruns lately.

Try to figure out what, if anything, brings you real joy in having a guitar, if you take everything else out of the picture (how good you really are, how good others are, what's trendy, what's not, youtube, you get the idea). Maybe it's playing/learning certain tunes. Maybe it's home recording. Maybe it's owning a nice guitar and just staring at it. Maybe it's rediscovering old friendships or building new ones with others who play. Whatever it is, that's what you should do. And if you can't come up with anything, yeah, don't waste your time and don't stress over it, it's not worth it, just move on. 

They're doing this AGAIN? 😄 Surely everyone who downloaded the trial and wanted it discounted bought it the first time around. This is just a repeat F U to everyone else. 

On 7/21/2020 at 3:24 PM, Mr. Torture said:

I've been playing on and off for many years, I am not a bad player and I have some skill but I feel I will never get to the level as some I have seen on You Tube. There are young people out there that just smoke what I can do, the entire process of learning and developing that much skill seems daunting, especially at my age.

You Tube has been a double edged sword for me. Great to learn about different things, but really humiliating when I see kids half my age playing stuff that would take me decades to learn. It makes you wanna quit all together. 

Just rambling some thoughts on a Tuesday morning, feel free to add your .02

 

I used to teach guitar and (easily) the most frustrating thing I experienced with my students was exactly this attitude.

“I’ve been practicing hard for weeks/months/years now, and I feel I’m nowhere nearer to be able to play like you / How many hours/weeks/months do I need to practice to play that particular song the way you do? /I know I’ve made significant progress, but it all seems so little compared to others”

To me, this is getting it all wrong. Music is supposed to make you happy, it’s not a damn chore. If you can’t find the joy in playing the guitar (or any other instrument, for that matter), whatever your level and your audience, you need a full reset and a new approach. Or a different hobby. Life is too short to be chasing rankings, unless your explicit goal in playing the guitar is to win silly shredding competitions.

I watched that video and I suddenly feel ready for the next Spitfire scoring competition. 

7 minutes ago, scook said:

I bought what is now called the MTotalFXBundle years ago.  

I had an omg moment when I saw the list price for that bundle, until I realized that I spent more than that on plugins in less than a year, goddammit 😆😰

5 minutes ago, scook said:

https://www.meldaproduction.com/about/referral?presenter=Html

1 minute ago, scook said:

Another thing to consider -

All plug-ins and bundles offer free updates for life

If a plug-in is added to a bundle, owners of the bundle get the plug-in for free

Thanks, great info! I'll wait until their next big sale then (Black Friday, I guess). 

1 minute ago, mibby said:

Yep, what "scook" said. I picked up 1/2 off plugins over the years with the Eternal Madness Sales. Then during Black Friday (usually) they give 1/2 off everything, including bundles. That is a great way to pick up a bunch of them!  Last year was a special 10 years - I think (?) - sale during the summer too. If you don't own any, grab someone's referral code and get another 20% off whatever you're buying. Also sign up for the Newsletter for a 10 Euro credit...

1/2 off on bundles does sound good. How does the referral code work? I got one (from the forum) and it does work if I apply it in the cart, but I got the impression from previous posts that it only works once, for their new customers. Could you confirm this? It's the reason why I was thinking that it might be worth waiting for a more substantial purchase, before I jumped on the Melda train

I'm not familiar with Melda's business model, but I like the (few) plugins I've tested from them. Any guess on whether it is likely we'll see a 50% off on everything soon? Searching through the forum I found a sale like that a year ago. 50% off plus the new customer discount over the range of their plugins would be quite tempting. 

On 7/10/2020 at 6:44 AM, kevin H said:

I couldn’t wait and bought Plini with the 20% loyalty discount....I don’t regret it and will use it enough that if it goes 50% eventually the extra $20 I paid will make up for itself 

Don't fret it, with the number of overpriced, so-so amp sims and plugins around, you got great value there, even at full or close to full price. I've had a blast demo-ing Neural's plugins. I'll definitely get Plini and Cory Wong at the next sale. I also like the bass sims, but find them overkill for my needs. 

2 hours ago, Tezza said:

But you do have to run these from within Amplitube? They are not standalone amps, so you would have to buy  Amplitube first and then the fender packages after that, is that correct.

The free Amplitube Custom Shop is also standalone, so your collections would be standalone as well, even if you don't have the full Amplitube 4. You just need to stay within the menu/options of the collections you own, most of the other stuff will be disabled. That's what I have (the Fender collections, which I bought cheap; as mentioned by Craig, they do come up for sale every now and then). I have no intentions of getting the full Amplitube since I barely use the Fender collections, which are supposed to be among their best amps (they're not bad, I just prefer other sims most of the time). 

Still prefer Plini for cleans, though I love the funk tones in the Cory Wong amps.

I find that all their amp sims have a few things in common: great, mix-ready tones out-of-the-box or with minimal tweaking, very good effects and hands-down the best interface. But there's a caveat; in order to get those mix-ready sounds, there's a lot of tone-shaping going on by default, and which you can't  configure, it's built into their algorithm. I was intrigued by this and tested just the preamp against some of the other plugins I use. Cab/effects off, same IRs and 1-2 external effects. And sure enough, Neural's sims are less transparent to the direct sound of the guitar (tried with strats, les pauls and an archtop) than any of the other plugins (S-Gear, the Nembrini amps, even IK's Fender collections). The easiest to notice is the baked-in compression, but there's more to it than that. This may or may not be a factor to you, depending on your gear/taste. 

Throughout testing and playing around with them, I came to appreciate the value they provide, even at full price, just for the sheer-quality of the tones and effects. I managed to get very close to Plini's clean tone(s) with S-Gear plus external IRs and a nice compressor, eq and reverb, but that's a lot of fiddling at $200+. On a sale, they're a steal. 

2 hours ago, Anxiousmofo said:

Wonder what the best cheap deal is that is actually useful kit.

Same here. I'm not a synth guy, but I bought Largo and PA's Oberhausen and love them for the analogue sounds. I'm watching reviews of Reason, Iris 2, and a couple of others on sale, trying to figure out if I can use any of this stuff 🤔

2 hours ago, RSMcGuitar said:

Whenever I see these posts I think "These seem metal-y and not for me." I'm wondering, when people are saying good clean sounds, are they talking like breakdown in the middle of a metal song or can these do Fender-y tones?
Mostly I just don't really like/play metal. I get a strong BROOTALITY vibe from the website as well. Am I totally misjudging here? I play more like Indy-rock-ish/Classic Rock/funk style.

Good point, 'clean' probably means something very different to someone playing through a Kirk Hammett signature ESP and someone playing a strat. But I guess the market is so heavily metal oriented, that I'm happy picking up a Nembrini amp sim with nice clean/crunch tones, even though I'll only use the remaining 80% of the sounds once in a blue moon 🤕

To keep to the topic though, Nolly has some great clean/crunch sounds, even though it's not the main focus. That would be Plini - demo it, you'll probably like it. Very polished, mix-ready sounds, and a great interface. 

The Chandler amp is quite a nice deal at $9, me thinks. Very different from PA's other amp sims - maybe less versatile but with a lot of character and a very particular crunch sound. For what it does, it does great. 

 I'm on the fence about getting it, considering that ...

EDIT:  Nabbed it, sounds great! 

2 hours ago, kevin H said:

I’m hoping they do a flash sale for Plini now. I may be hooked....

Same here. I was demoing Nolly, Plini and Abasi for many hours yesterday (unrestricted demo through ilok, points for that), and for clean/crunch, Plini is my favorite, even though Nolly's clean amp is also lovely and Nolly is probably the most versatile of their plugins. 

To my ears, Plini is the first amp sim that I've tried that is in the same category as S-Gear. That 'wow, this is something else' category. For cleans, a clear cut above everything else I own/use, including some decent and probably more popular options (like, say, Amplitube's Fender collections). Add the gorgeous interface, and it's hard not to be hooked. 

I'm playing with the demo and I like it. Also not sure about the interface, but it sounds great.

Was the $5 personal coupon linked to something specific (purchase, survey, etc) ? I can't find it through my APD emails. 

These are awesome. Upgraded to WG2 and 7CG2 and love them. I also love Embertone's 1955 Walker D (lite), which is quite cheap, but these must be the best value sampled piano libraries on the market. 

Hmm. Looks like they'll have to run The Real Summer Sale in July, vouchers and all, once they're done with this one.