Craig N

Damn haha the code working repeatedly convinced me to buy the Lindell TE-100 tube EQ, as well as Metric AB and Knifonium... $70 USD spent. 

I got Vertigo VSM 3 and if the code is refreshed I'm going to get Metric AB. Happy days. 

Hmm I just downloaded the 3 gig demo (!) and if I didn't have dSoniq Realphones maybe I'd think it was something special, because I certainly thought that about Realphones when I first got it. But having done some A/B comparisons, I definitely prefer Realphones. The Sienna rooms don't offer a huge amount of variety to my ears, the forward stereo image is less convincing, the low end less solid. The rooms sound less like a real room does. And there's no system-wide option. Sure, Realphones might glitch out systemwide occasionally but at least the option is there. Also the CPU usage in Ableton Live 11 goes to 10% on my old i7 4790K vs 6% on Realphones. 

This tool is essential for me. I use headphones so as to keep my meandering and mistakes to myself until I'm ready to share a tune with others. Since purchasing dSoniq Realphones at the end of January, I have found time and time again when I start composing a new tune but forget to put Realhones on the master bus from the start, I end up with a huge task on my hands to fix the mix later on. Plus, it makes listening to music much more pleasurable with all of my cans using this through the system-wide app. Only negative is the systemwide app occasionally glitches out so the audio becomes choppy and I have to switch audio source back and forth, or reboot, to get it working smoothly again. But I cannot imagine ever going without this application again. 

I'd just like to chime in to agree this is not a deal, specifically because I only just bought Cubase 11 and an eLicenser a few weeks ago!!! Lol. But I don't mind the dongles. I like the certainty of knowing my software isn't going to go down with the Titanic. My PC is nearly 7 year old but it's still fast enough and works a treat. The true "not a deal" would be upgrading it unnecessarily, out of fear it was getting old and I'd lose machine-locked licenses when it died. As I acquired more and more iLok plugins that fear grew day by day. Now I have these dongles I'm footloose and fancy free. 

5 hours ago, Sander Verstraten said:

This month's Beat got  IKM Syntronic Bully and a specced down version of Best Service's Halls Of Fame.

Hot damn, now I'm really tempted. I have the free edition of Best Service's Halls of Fame with 50 meg of impulses and while the presets are limited, it sounds amazing, up there with the very best ITB reverbs IMHO. I see the full version is 5.2 gb and the one offered via Beat magazine is "over 1 gb". While it's not the full Halls of Fame 3, it's a lot closer to it than the Free Edition.

Edit: Aaand ... if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. The 1 gig of free impulses are not Halls of Fame impulses at all, but a mixed bag of free impulses from around the internet such as the Big Gee LX480, Airwindows, a few of the Samplitude Bricasti M7 etc. Bit of a bait and switch, since they want you to register and activate the damned thing as if it's something special they have to protect from being pirated. If you've never gone on a hunt for all the best convolution reverbs that you can find online, this might still be worth picking up because the software just works without needing to find a good convolution reverb plugin and spend the time downloading impulse responses yourself. 

I found a promo video from XILS Labs on Facebook which has an audio demonstration, gives a glimpse of the graphics which look really good and lists the features of this FM synth if anyone else is curious like I was 🙂

https://fb.watch/3X1_2gYKrY/ 

Everyone's talking about Ableton Live with Version 11 around the corner, but I think credit where it's due, Steinberg shipped version 11 of Cubase in the 11th month of 2020.  

Regular price of $332 for crossgraders with a valid competing product, stacked with President's Day coupon "ABE15" and I think at $282.20 it's a compelling price point to get into the Cubase ecosystem in the Pro playground where the big boys play.

Please note you will need a Steinberg e-Licenser USB key to run Cubase Pro and this is not included in the crossgrade offering so it will need to be purchased separately. 

https://www.proaudiostar.com/cubase-retail-cubase-pro-11-crossgrade.html

Per ProAudioStar's site: 

Quote

A copy of the original purchase receipt for the competitive product needs to be provided with the customer purchase order.

Qualifying products:

• Ableton live 8 or higher (standard and suite / excl. Intro)
• Apple logic 9 or higher
• Avid pro tools 9 or higher incl. Subscriptions (pro tools and pro tools hd / excl. First)
• Cakewalk sonar x2 or higher (platinum and professional / excl. Artist / cakewalk by bandlab is excluded)
• Cockos reaper (commercial license only / excl. Discounted license)
• Imageline fl studio 11 or higher (signature and producer / excl. Fruity)
• Magix samplitude pro x 1 or higher (excl. Music studio)
• Magix sequoia 9 or higher
• Motu digital performer 7 or higher
• Presonus studio one (professional / excl. Prime and artist)
• Reasonstudios reason 6 or higher

 

While I have not shopped with ProAudioStar before, I have just purchased it through them and can confirm it all went through very smoothly. I have not yet been asked for proof that I own a competitive product, even though I do own Reason 10 and FL Studio Producer edition. 

Damn, just when I thought I was finished spending for a while haha. Oxium and miniSyn'X are going to be tough to resist. Who am I kidding? Resistance is futile...

This is my first Black Friday since getting back into music making this year so I suspected it was going to be expensive. Very pleased with my haul so far:

• Edifier S2000mkiii active bookshelf speakers - wanted something decent so I didn't have to use headphones all the time. A cheap(ish) no hiss monitoring option.
• Synapse Audio Dune 3
• Synapse Audio Legend. I already had Arturia Mini V and NI Monark but Starsky Carr on youtube reckons Legend sounds better. Blame it on the GAS. 
• Polyverse Music bundle. No idea if I am ever going to use these, but Infected Mushroom! Haha
• Wavesfactory Trackspacer
• XILS Audio PolyKB III
• Samples From Mars bundle
• Late entrant - PPG Wave 3.V and a little bit of buyers remorse for this one
• Still considering - Upgrade from Producer to FL Studio All Plugins Edition. Do I really need it given that I have Omnisphere? Probably not. But when it goes back to full price will I regret not buying it when it was cheap? Probably!

I don't really know how the sales cycles normally run, I just figured there'd be a lull in the lead up to the Black Friday sales so people don't get discount fatigue.

I too have been eyeing off VPS Avenger, Parawave Rapid, Dune 3, Diva and Zebra 2... yes I have a major case of GAS!!!

The prospect of an upcoming but costly V2 upgrade is making me hold off on a purchase of VPS Avenger. That and a lot of users seem to take umbrage at CodeMeter protection. I have no issues with iLok but I don't know whether I should be concerned about adding CodeMeter to the system. 

Re Zebra, I'm just a geek who has been obsessing over synth purchases for a few months now, not a paid shill 🙂 but that said: 

U-he upgrade fees are not exorbitant eg Hive 1 to Hive 2 is only 20 Euro, and users who purchased Hive 1 in the previous 4 months before v2 came out received the upgrade for free. This is the kind of upgrade policy that makes me want to support a company, although I recognise it takes a degree of financial success to be able to do this for your customers, and not every company is going to be able to do so. 

People have been talking about Zebra 3 coming out soon for years. I came across a thread on another forum last night where a user in 2013 mentioned waiting for Zebra 3. Maybe this time it really is just around the corner, but it may be better to plan around whether Zebra 2 in its current guise meets your needs. 

3 hours ago, myfragileego said:

Does anyone know if the free version on offer can be installed alongside an older version of Reason? Or would I have to surrender/uninstall the version 10 suite in order to install this cut-down version 11 rack?

To answer my own question if anyone else is interested; Yes you can install it alongside an earlier version of Reason. 

Although there are not many instruments, its worth it for the Chord/Scales utility (found in Players) alone. I had really missed this being built into the DAW after making the switch to Reaper. 

Having seen enough of these "get you in the door" offers over the past couple of months... here come the upgrade offers haha. 

2 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

Yeah, that is what I thought to. I can't imagine there would be an issue based on this fact. But don't know, my version of reason is older than that and I never use it.

I don't use it anymore either, biggest issues being the dated and unscalable UIs, and the layout limitations of trying to show everything at once that makes it all look cramped on a 34 inch ultrawide monitor. I don't know if those are addressed in version 11 (I don't recall seeing mention of it) but the VST version of Europa they offered with version 10 had a scalable UI. 

1 minute ago, Brian Walton said:

The Rack is here is a plugin.

Does Reason 10 come with a VST plugin option?

No, the VST option came for the first time in version 11, and that's the motivation for me to install this 🙂

I own Reason 10 Suite but don't plan to upgrade until at least version 12 because of the cost. 

Does anyone know if the free version on offer can be installed alongside an older version of Reason? Or would I have to surrender/uninstall the version 10 suite in order to install this cut-down version 11 rack?

Wow this is really tempting! It also seems to be cheaper than it's ever been before, as far as I can see. Maybe due to increased competition from Roland Cloud?