Soundwise

The only Softube plugin I'm not ready to give up is Celestion Speaker Shaper (granted, room is turned off). Just for the sake of convenience. All other plugins by this company that I own or have tried don't come close to competing products in terms of ... well, every aspect, from tone (aka processing results) to CPU optimization (AS IF!).

Might be useful to watch this video before you buy the plugin.

3 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

While Revalver 5 has a free license, you have to use a physical USB dongle to activate it.

It can be activated to built-in devices. Mine is tied to built-in webcam, and I've been offered to use built-in audio as well. Besides that, now users can easily loose one device and use another.

I don't need another Silk, but Antares Choir freebie looks interesting. Any first hand experience with it? Anyone?

I tried the new version and was shocked by the difference between the older RV4 models vs the newer Headrush ones. The older stuff is so full and detailed in every aspect, I can't believe I'm playing my guitar using virtual gear. The newer amps, however, feel very generic, OKAY at best. Definitely, not what I expected from the product with this kind of pedigree.

2 hours ago, Greg said:

Also no VST3. Hmmm. 

During installation process, I noticed VST3 and AAX versions being installed.

There is one thing that turns me away from Softube products - load time. Particularly, AmpRoom is so slow on initial load and so bulky on each UI opening, that it makes me steer away from their plugins. Fortunately, this does not apply to every plugin they make. Just make sure to demo their stuff before buying.

If quickly snapping your favorite IR after amped signal is your thing - go with any free IR loader. However, if you are never satisfied with a single IR or tired of going through your collection of IRs to pick the right one, or, worst case scenario, overwhelmed with endless IR picking and matching - get WoS by Two-notes or Celestion Speaker Shaper by Softube. They simplify an otherwise complicated IR setup process and can become a huge time-saver.

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I have a machine that was built for video editing and DAW use a couple of years ago. My concern is that $200 or 300 USD is nothing to spend if the difference is the more expensive product is easier to use. If a product is free, but not easy to use, I'm not going to invest the time. I'm a business owner who has very limited time to do the videos.  If it takes off, I might have an expert handle things and just write the scripts and do a voice over. So having talked with one friend who told me about DaVinci and having found every review cites that it's not easy to use, takes it out of my consideration set. I don't plan on dedicating my life to video. I want something easy to use to get really good results. If that means spending a few hundred bucks more,  that's a good tradeoff for me. It's for my business anyhow. 

Since you are looking for something easy, try Filmora.

23 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

The one thing that is a bummer with the Abbey Road Drummer series and the NI Studio Drummer library as compared to SD3, EzDrummer3, AD2 and BFD3, is that all of those players let you swap and layer drums and cymbals between libraries and the NI libraries do not permit that. Other than that, I think the NI stuff is great to have (NI Studio Drummer, Abbey Road 60s Drummer and Abbey Road Modern Drummer are my favorites of the NI acoustic drum libraries; I play rock and singer/songwriter music). 

If you need to be creative - flexible libraries to the rescue, and if you need a time saver - just use whatever preset or patch you like. And even though NI Drummer libs are meant to be time savers (at least, in my book), you can still go a long way adjusting mixer settings with built-in effects and/or route each channel to your DAW and process it individually.  By saying "you" I mean any user, of course.

14 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

I agree, and I never see anyone posting anything about Abbey Road Drummer when people discuss sampled drums. I also like NI's Studio Drummer too, as one of the kits reminds me a lot of how I used to tune my own drums. If you anyone wants a really nice set of additional presets, my late,  very talented friend Cory Pelazzari made presets for the entire Abbey Road Drummer series that you can find along with his related video (sorry, I'd link to them, but I'm running out the door on a trip to take my son back to college after the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US) . 

Thanks for the tip! Here's the video with Cory's custom presets:

With the Synthwave Drums bundle you get both:

The Modern 80’s Drum Kit for Halionsonic and Halion

The brand new Claps Vault - POP with fully customizable claps for any modern production from Pop, Synthwave, Trap, R’n’B.

The Claps Vault - POP comes both as a Halionsonic library AND as individual clap samples in Wav format.

https://domsigalas.sellfy.store/p/synthwave-drums-bundle-by-dom-sigalas/

AFAIK, what is great about BFD3 drums is that they are meticulously sampled, don't have round robins for the same level of velocity, and use neighbor samples to simulate round robins, which essentially means, that you can program your drums, using your mouse or computer keyboard, or pattern editor and not worry about humanizing velocities afterward.

This made me chuckle.

I was on the verge of buying it, quite excited and inspired by online demos. Fortunately, I decided to test it before paying and was disappointed with some oscillating background artifacts (not sure if it's a correct way of describing it), audible at the signal decay. FWIW, I don't mind the overall tone feel a bit artificial, which is the case here, as it stands out in a good way in an otherwise traditional color palette.

Can be cheaper at Thomann. Check your price:

https://www.thomann.de/intl/fxpansion_bfd_3_download.htm

At Plugin Boutique you can it along with a FREE copy of Drum Synth, MELLOW 2, Dawesome LOVE, VISION 4X Lite or LA-2A Compressor:

https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/1-Instruments/64-Virtual-Instrument/848-BFD-3

JRR sweetens the deal with Free INSPIRATA Lite reverb:

https://www.jrrshop.com/bfd-drums-bfd

https://www.bfddrums.com/

3 hours ago, jngnz said:

This is honestly surprising coming from someone who considers themselves a former semi-pro drummer.

To me, SSD5 feels like a toy compared to BFD. It's like having a sampler with a bunch of half-decent one-shots available vs. having actual drum kits available.

Sure, this can come with the "disadvantage" of actually having to mix a drum kit from scratch, but I guess I've never understood that factor at all. I'm still a beginner mixer (an audio engineering student, in fact), and mixing drums has always been the easiest and most fun AND most rewarding thing to me. It's the foundation of every song. And I don't want someone else to decide for me what the foundation of my song sounds like.

And even if you can't or don't want to mix drums, even if you can't be bothered to mix and match kit pieces and make everything your own, BFD3 also comes with "mix ready" presets that still feel and sound a million times better than anything in SSD5.

I'd love to hear your opinion on NI drums, like Abbey Road Drummers and Session Drummer.

18 hours ago, Bapu said:

Those are by far the lowest prices I've seen for both SSD5, Trigger and all those expansions.

I think, SSD5 cost me around $50, and I recall seeing extensions for $29 at JRR, but that was long ago.

1 hour ago, telecode 101 said:

quick question for the TT expert, if i still have EZK 1 and I get one of these EZK expansions, will they work, or it all not for EZK 2?

They should work with your EZKyes 1. Just make sure to check system requirements for each library.

I highly recommend Reaxis. Enormously versatile, capable of recreating easily recognizable legendary tones as well as dialing your own signature sound.

Updated.

23 minutes ago, satya said:

They removed the end date

Still there.

Tomorrow is here, yet certain things cling to the past.