Reid Rosefelt

I suspect it's a change in marketing approach. "Discovery" is kind of like "Ethnic." It assumes that there is one dominant group (us) and everything in the rest of the universe is "other." So, for example, all the two billion or more Asian people in the world are categorized as "ethnic" (as in Jade Ethnic Orchestra) and their culture needs to be "discovered." By whom? Maybe somebody at NI figured out that the bland category "Spotlight" might be a better term to appeal to their international customers. Or maybe not. I'm doing a video on why I prefer the term "World Music" to "Ethnic Music," so it's on my mind.

I've messed around with this for about an hour. This is amazing. It's worth the $79 for the percussion alone. I have to spend more time on this, but so far it's my favorite among the Discovery series. What makes it great is that it is a combination of China, Japan and Korean instruments. So... when you do drum ensembles you have a Chinese set (Peking Opera), a Japanese set, and a Korean set, with a lot of different MIDI patterns built in. But here's the cool part: you also have a drum set with ALL the drums at once.

See below.....

Actually, it's Free Digital Synsations, a $149 Value!

Thank you Doug. I just got a DM from @mibby who made the same offer. I assume it should work with no problem.

Too late for me. 😡

Here is my report. The Stream Deck XL was $229 when I was about to place my order. But I decided to wait. Today it is $249. 😡 Yesterday I found something else I wanted to buy, so I put it on my wish list. $15 more today. 🥵 So much for Prime Day this year.

Maybe that's true. But it was a bad link. Does this work any better? Let me know. https://www.adobe.com/products/audition/offers/AdobeAuditionDLCSFX.html

There are a lot of arpeggiators out there--including some free ones--as listed in this VIC post HERE Phrasebox is currently $29 (50% off) at Plugin Boutique. It has the feature I want, which is to be able to save 12 phrases. But all these programs are different in various was. I agreed with @Michael A.D. Phrasebox will be an insta-buy for me when it turns up on APD for peanuts.

Okay, I'll download again and report back here. But even if there are more, I wasn't impressed with the selection. I still appreciate you notifying me about this Eusebio, as I missed it on the list. The best things I found are in this video. You can find all the links in the body copy. Definitely check out the Adobe set.

I think we all know the game with ridiculous list prices, and can figure it out. It doesn't bother me. But I'll tell you what does make me mad: Waves will sell you something for $26 or put it in a bundle for $5 or give it to you for free, but tell you its list price is $199 or $299. But that becomes a REAL NUMBER if later on you want to resell or whup it. Ouch! 😡

Got this to pick up two Detroit Chop Shop sound effects sets. The two "General Sound" ones. There are less than 40 sound effects in each one. As they sell for $29.99, Magix is selling them for a little less than $1 each. And the quality is not there. You can do much better with the many freebies about. I am pretty into sound effects and so far this is the absolute worst deal I have ever found. They should be ASHAMED of themselves selling these for $29.99. Even paying $9 each for this garbage makes me angry. Money out the window. There are so many free sets out there that are better. How many sounds in the free Adobe set? Thousands? Live and learn I guess. This was a test for me. If the sets were any good, I would have used my vouchers to buy more. I guess I'll get more Sound Pools as they can be fun.

Wasn't there a discussion not long ago here about whether Xpand!2 was a good deal at $14.95? @paulo Did you include the $$$$$ you saved with the free Fat Channel XT? 💸💸💸

We will talk about the way software companies manipulate you to buy their stuff. If you watch, please write in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCyU8BKLjyI

Yes, of course you can record one pattern this way. My point is that you can't play live an ENTIRE song at once, with multiple patterns and variations. IMO This would be a nice feature and I will ask them about it.

I just did this morning, and so far I like it a lot. First, it's set up in a vertical way so you can see all the stuff you have to drag in at a glance so you don't have to always scroll. It makes it easier to add many plugins and icons. I'm assuming many or even most are free. The store is set up in categories so it's easy to find what you're looking for. I'm going to check out the OBS one--the standard Streamdeck one is very minimal. There are a lot of games, plus music and sound effects. I will start adding some of these to the XL on my music computer, but I will wait to do it on my desk until my new XL comes. That will be awhile because it is always out of stock.

My friend Tatiana did a nice Elfmanesque demo using this:

Explain how that would work. The MIDI patterns would no longer be in Animation Factory, where they can be changed in real time by the modwheel. They'd just be MIDI patterns.

This looks really cool, but it lacks a feature that is pretty common with this kind of thing. It would be nice to be able to save arps and put them into a song. Copying and pasting and making revisions. This works more like a drum machine where you have to drag and drop MIDI into your DAW. But once you've done that, you lose all the features of Animation Station for live playing, like the keyswitches and modwheel. I think these features are the best things in Animation Factory. You can really play these arps. But only one at a time, which is disappointing. If they add that feature, I'll buy it.

The ONLY thing I don't like about Ben Osterhouse's stuff is they are kind of pricey. I also don't know why a guy in Minneapolis only sells his stuff in British Pounds and euros. Couldn't he sell through ONE American company? 😡 I often visit family in Twin Cities. Maybe I will drop in unannounced at his house, and save the currency transfer. 😀 But the firm high prices has changed and we are seeing offers like these. The first big discount was last BF, on APD if I remember. You can get up to 40% off on BF. So get to know his stuff. Watch the videos. Because I expect there will be more of these. All his stuff is great. For me the answer to GAS is to try not to buy anything only because it's on sale. (I admit I often fail, but I try.) I like to keep a list of stuff I want and then wait for the sale. For example, I want Audiofier's Tetrality, but they had a 50% off sale last year on BF. And sometimes they do crazy sales on APD. I have plenty of stuff to play with until then. Although an argument might be made that Ben's intro prices are usually pretty good. 🤔

That is simply not true. You can't generalize from your wish list to everybody else's in the world. For example, I am currently ready to buy a Stream Deck XL for the current price ($229), but I am going to wait until Prime Day. Why? Because I got the XL for $199 on a Prime Day. It may not happen this time, but it's worth it to me to wait until Monday. (By the way, the prices for the $249 list XL went insane during the Pandemic--over $300) To make Prime Day and Black Friday work for you, you simply have to decide what you want to buy and how much you are willing to pay for it. Then check on Prime Day and Black Friday. Of course there may not be a sale on that particular thing, but I have bought ALL my SSDs on Prime Day and BF. It can be a good time for external hard drives too. If you are in the market for some music or computer hardware, like a particular SSD or hard drive or MIDI controller or instrument, then be ready. Know the list price. And this isn't about just checking today. It helps to keep on Amazon prices all the time, because they fluctuate. You need to read up on it. A lot of 7200 drives from Amazon don't come with warranties from the original manufacturer. So in that case it might be a better deal to get it from another place like NewEgg or B&H. I'll post here some of the good deals I find.

If you're in the market for a hard drive, and lots of other stuff... this is probably the best time to buy until Black Friday. So you may want to think about what you might want next week so you are ready to buy if there's a sudden sale. I'm planning to jump on a Stream Deck XL. (I'll sell my regular one). https://www.amazon.com/

There is an intro price of $65 available now on the Audiofier site. I wonder if the price will be lower in the stores. http://www.audiofier.com/tetrality/

Very cool. It's not even up on the Audiofier site yet.

Yes, it will control everything. And the cool thing about it is that it changes the buttons when you switch from one software to another In other words if I change from Photoshop to Premiere, the buttons switch. You can put documents in it, so that it can load a word doc with one button. You can put URLs in it to control your browser. And there are different kinds of switches, like two-part ones. It can type text (like a password) Very easy to set up. Any picture can be drag and dropped into it.