Sergio

4 hours ago, Greg said:

I used to the have the hardware version. Cool.  

It looks that only the name is the same. I never had a HW Finalizer but this pack appears to have a lot more than I remember from the articles I read back then. The ad says that it's been ported from their System 6000 high end audio processor.

Anyone knows the deadline for the $99 price?

Hummm.... Unfiltered Audio's Lion synth was removed from the catalog. Probably they'll not meet the deadline.

Also, Byome and Triad are on sale for $179 and $149 respectively on the UA's site and this deal is not available on the PA site.

It probably means nothing but... I remember when Vertigo split with the "Alliance" their new plugin (VSC-3) was not included in the PA catalog.

Edith: I found the page. It has been rescheduled to September

Since synthesizer where invented they never got a more flexible architecture than modular. All the fixed architecture designs are, in a way, an attempt to simplify the task of dealing with synthesis. And, of course, the modules themselves grow in complexity from the first simple oscilators, filters and envelopes. Modular synths are my fave and they can go in and out of fashion but never will go away.

And there are tons of resources online to help aspiring modular programmers like this one, for instance:

https://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~clark/nordmodularbook/nm_book_toc.html

It's geared toward the Clavia's Nord Modular HW synth  but the concepts are valid for any modular synthesizer.

Core > Ignite > Nucleus

Core+Electro Drums for $49 is a steal. I got it for $84 some months ago and have no regrets.

I'll probably get the PSP Ultimate bundle for $80 to compliment it in this sale and, after that, I'll stop buying modules and I'll try to put that thing to good use.

Rudy thought that all plugins comes to those that wait
But recently he could see that it may come too late.
Too late, too late…

Now I got that!

Rudy was a Heavy Hitter!!!!  ?

I finally decided that I'll not sign the PA sub. I'll buy their plugs if and when I find the prices are worth (not much hope, though).

The only sub I have and I'll keep is the Groove3 for $15/mo as it saves me a lot of time almost every time I need to learn a new tool.

50 minutes ago, Zo said:

Is people actuallybuying new PA plugins ?

Don't know. With this month's voucher I could get Mono Upmix for free, but I will wait until the end of the month to see if any more interesting item go on sale.

I'm also still considering the subscription for $17/mo but each day I'm less and less interested since I narrowed the list of PA plugins that I still don't have and I'd be REALLY interested to 5 more or less, all too expensive or unavailable right now (oberhausen, Iron, DearVR Pro, LION, Shadow Hills... hmmm... and maybe the Focusrite channel strip).

Oh... and after compressors maybe the most saturated plugin market are the amp simulators (pun intended)  ?

Riffstation?

33 minutes ago, Piotr said:

Cheap is often an illusion 

That's why I put it in quotes ?

33 minutes ago, Piotr said:

I believe it depends on type of workflow you are preferring. Some/(many?) guys after finishing their job for a client bouncing all tracks to archive them as set of stems not depended on any particular plugin. After all if they are forced to remix something after longer time they could use other plugins for the same purpose. How often after finishing pay job and getting money for it there is an order to do it again?

I don't do paid jobs; my pretension is to produce my own creations. And there are tools that can be (IMO) more or less easily replaced like compressors, EQs, distortion/enhancers/degraders/etc, and even reverbs in most cases, and others that aren't,  like synthesizers (unconventional or not), modulation intensive effects and the most recent AI based plugins for instance. I'd do my best to ensure that I have a permanent license for, at least, those later types of tools *.

* Of course there's no remedy for the obsolescence. But this applies to everything in life, isn't it? Unfortunately even to life itself ?

10 minutes ago, Piotr said:

Sergio, it is in fact  great offer, especially if you have not a lot of PA plugins already owned which you would like to use and making money by music (it could earn by itself).  Also no dongle needed. And yeah... I believe any of us waste more money that 17$ every month for things we don't need

In my case I already have LOTS of PA plugins and, paradoxically, this is the reason I was considering the "cheap" subscription in my last post.

Think about it: If I had only a few plugin or none at all I'd be a little worried to produce anything with PA tools because, if for any reason I could not keep the subscription, I would lost almost all the tools I used before and would have a lot of work to replace them if needed.

OTOH, as I said before, there are only a few remaining plugins I'd buy/use from PA. If, for any reason, I have to cancel a subscription it would be only those few I'd have to retool/replace.

I got an email offering me the subscription for $17/mo. I confess that, as much as I hate the idea of a software subscription, there's a threshold value that would made me think. I just cancelled a $10/mo usenet subscription that I was not using. I'm downgrading my cable tv plan to a bare minimum because I mostly use Netflix (and will also get Amazon prime eventually).  In the end I will be saving more than $17/mo with those changes.

Right now there are ~20 PA plugins that would interest me and I still have not bought. And now I betrayed me thinking: why not get the subscription for that value and use it until I can buy those remaining plugins if/when they go on sale for a reasonable price.

I'm a confessed synth freak but the Roland Cloud subscription, f.i.,  at $20/mo never tempted me. I don't know... maybe $17/mo is my threshold ?

I'll think about it.

2 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

Convinced me to buy HY-Plugins HY-SeqCollection2 https://hy-plugins.com/product/hy-seqcollectionwinmac/ which is on sale at KvR and ADSR for $39 (try the demo)

It's crazy complicated and perhaps not a good comparison to HATEFISh, since simple can sometimes be better.  At least for me the demo of SeqCollection2 sold me that the more expensive and powerful MIDI sequencer was the better choice.

Thanks for this tip. I found a youtube demo video for that:

Is this a new (recent) voucher with this specific value? If so I have not received it.

When it was sent?

Thanks for any info.

I remember having a little talk here about modular synth VST's (I think Jeezo was interested).

Well, I received from my regular NI mailing list this article with some excellent freebies from the Reaktor user library:

https://blog.native-instruments.com/evildragons-top-10-reaktor-user-library-picks/?uuh=151da95e6954d3673b976d0dd489d6f8

I'm just not sure if all of them are compatible with the free Reaktor Player though

Enjoy  ?

I have almost all Waves plugs that I'd like, including those. One that I'm waiting to get in the $20-$40 range is the CLA MixHub but this one is showing to be a little resistant to the twenty-nine-ish fever ?

Thanks for the tip. Already have Metafilter (and I think it's great) but I got a new license and, better yet, upgraded my 2 copies to v10.

Thanks for all replies; the access looks normal now.

The Synthex is an absolute classic! I was a little sad after the past week 'cause I'd now (probably) not be able to get the bx_oberhausen synth for less than $100, even with my current voucher value and during a super PA sale.

But now comes XILS-Lab to the rescue, with another great classic synth for 29 bucks ?

Nothing like one day after the other.

3 hours ago, artturner said:

Not opening for me either.

Thanks for that. Well... the price is good until Aug 21. Up there I hope they'll fix the site ?

I'm trying to open the XILS-Lab site since last friday with no success. Can someone try to access the link bellow and report if you can open it, please ?

https://www.xils-lab.com/

6 hours ago, cclarry said:

New Major Update for Our Plugins (released July 10th)
This free update includes various bug fixes and improvements as well as compatibility with the macOS 10.14.5 Update & Windows 10 1903 Update. For more details visit our News-Page. If you have downloaded our plugins before July 10th, just grab the improved new versions now.

Maybe I'm getting a little paranoid but, regarding PA and after their recent changes, I'm a bit worried to read expressions like "free update" in their announcements.

What does this mean? Since I started buying their plugins years ago I don't remember seeing this kind of remark since ALL their updates were always free.

I hope this does not reflect a possible change in policy regarding users that opted for the subscription plan and those who did not.

12 minutes ago, antler said:

It's not really fair to compare iLok with a subscription scheme.

I personally hate both. It's true that if your PC goes down or you want to use another one, you can relocate the iLok; if your iLok goes down, that's when you have to buy all of your software/plugins again. Not only that, you end up installing a few background services to use an iLok: if you're lucky they play nicely, and they probably do play nicely in most cases. I myself am perfectly happy that not every developer uses iLok.

For $30 bucks/year you can buy an insurance for all your licenses in a specific iLok device (the Zero Down Time or ZDT). That's $2.50/month and IMO is pretty reasonable, specially if you have thousands of $ in software licenses on the device.

I also like iLok and would like to have this option for every single software I ever  bought. It'd save me a lot of headaches (f.i I already lost one Arturia's Collection license the last time my system HD went south).

Better than that would be serial numbers that you can type as many times as you want/need but, unfortunately, this kind of SW registration belongs to the past.

26 minutes ago, rasure said:

On the plus side I did get an upgrade to Dynamic Spectrum Mapper V3 for about £23 with my voucher.

As my voucher doubled this month I could get this upgrade for free ?. A small consolation because, between this and the "New PA", I guess I'll have to thank Dirk 'cause I'll probably save some money in the next months (by NOT buying as many PA plugs as before, I mean).

Also I'll save the $29 I'd otherwise pay for the pick pack I was planning to get 'cause I can bear rent-to-own monthly payments but I don't want no stinking software subscription. Thanks a lot.

58 minutes ago, Fleer said:

So would this beat AB Magic or is it entirely different?

AB Magic is just a tool to make it easy for you to compare your mix/master with reference tracks. Any adjustments in your track must be made by you, by ear.

This plugin actually allows you to analyze a reference track and apply the results to your track in order to get a similar "sound".

6 hours ago, chris.r said:

I smell a subscription plan is coming!

I'm sure it'll be a subscription since Dirk wrote "we are about to launch a totally new system, which will enable each and everyone of you out there to USE large numbers of our titles at really affordable pricing!".

Note that he did not wrote "...to BUY a large number of our titles..."

I'm sad because I was also planning to get a pick pack as soon the new releases where all announced. I'm also sure that I'll NEVER pay for any software subscription, unless I can keep the software after some time.

I guess I'll have to live with what I already have and, maybe, buy some new PA plugs if the coupom/promo sales are kept and the bargain prices still come from time to time.

1 hour ago, Piotr said:

Another example that commit at early stage is rewarding

Hummm... I can think of some... *cough*... Arturia... *cough*... counter examples ?