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Your 2020 best purchase ?


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Just now, Christian Jones said:

Yeah that was a rare-ish deal I got and I haggled it down to that too

Can  I take you car shopping? 😉 Heck actually piano buying. They seem to be worse as most piano dealers don't have any meaningful price on the pianos 😲

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I kind of want to say my new PC because that is what all these 2020 purchases run on and it is so much faster than my old one. I'm not even sure how I used to get things done? But instead I am actually going to go with my new mic, the Aston Spirit. It makes my old trusty sm58 sound like a trash can. The mic gives your voice so much body, warmth and air that the vocal sounds thick and legible even when recorded at lower levels.

Also practice takes where I am not giving it the full amount of gusto, still sound pretty decent because of the qualities that the Spirit imparts on the voice. The only downside of this mic is that it captures everything in such an upfront way, that it also highlights mistakes. So if you breathe too hard (or in the wrong spot), or your lips smack together a bit more than usual on a particular part. Then it all becomes a part of the recording with an almost hyper crystal-clearness that makes owning something like RX8 or Spectralayers a must have for editing.

I actually built a vocal booth to help this mic out with room noise. Now I just have to learn not to fidget whilst I am tracking a take inside of it.😉

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I ran into a huge spot of good luck scoring K12 Select upgrade to K12U CE for $320 USD this fall and it updated to K13U CE for free!!!!  That price alone is most of the "why" but in reality, I was just shopping  for Kontakt 6 and couldn't justify NOT pouncing on the listing when it showed up while browsing KVR.  Came with original receipt AND the gentleman shipped me the hard drive.  That was the best...until Amplitube 5, which I will surely use more often than the 5.5% of what I'll use that comes in K13U CE.

Edited by Marc Cormier
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Perhaps not as sexy and new as some of yours, but no contest, iZotope Exponential Phoenix Stereo Reverb, which I got for $9.99 and is currently on sale for that. There's not a reverb I've tried that can touch it as far as making my mixes sound like they are in a landscape, and that includes MReverbMB and TrueVerb, both of which tout their talents at spatial positioning. I just slap the default preset into my reverb bus and that's it.

After that, iZotope Exponential, same price, also now on sale. It's a multieffect.

For advanced sound design glitchy warp sync delay pitch shift sexiness:

Unfiltered Audio's Sandman Pro (with Instant Delay bundled) If you are doing electronic music with any kind of glitch delay sauce, this thing will rock your world, and it's on sale for $15. I bought it when it was at $49 a few weeks ago and used a $25 voucher. I had been waiting patiently for a holiday sale on it, but could wait no more. I do not regret the $9 extra I paid to be able to use this monster (Instant Delay alone is worth more than the $15). It combines power with the ability to get good results quickly depending on which work mode I'm in.

I also took full advantage of the big sale on Glitchmachines plug-ins at PB. I now own all of them except the Subvert distortion, because I already have plenty of weirdo distortion FX. $60 to get the entire Glitchmachines suite of tools! And I bought them one by one so as to savor the dopamine rush of buying a new plug-in and to collect each of the December goodies.

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It's really simple . But swapping my spinning rust C drive for a Samsung Evo SSD. Went from 5 mins boot up to 40 secs. That started the rot. Now all my drives have been upgraded. Just watching the indicator moving when saving within cakewalk has gone from "go make a coffee whilst it saves" to "done!"

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14 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

Scaler 2 update from Scaler 1.  Great value which has seen more updates.

No other plug-in or gear purchase has made me want to create music like that one has.  

Lots of other cool sound manipulation tools but nothing has held a candle to Scaler for inspiration and just wanting to create something.  

Your post finally persuaded me to buy Scaler 2 (didn’t own version 1).I have thought about it for a long time! I have also bought the Producer’s guide to Scaler 2 video series which gives step by step guidance in an extremely clear manner. Just as when I got EZKeys years ago, I’m hopeful Scaler will bring massive benefits to my songwriting! Only an hour in and it seems awesome 😃

Edited by Marshall
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