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Melda MVibratoMB $9 (80% off) at WA.


Jason Neudorf

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i've seen a bunch of regulars here praise Medla plugins in general, but their interfaces look less than user friendly, so I've passed on them. But this one is pretty straightforward and dirt cheap. Does anyone here who owns this specific Melda plugin want to chime in with your opinion on it?

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I haven't spent a lot of time with it yet since I leveraged up to MComplete.

If you want to try it out, you can download the MeldaProduction installer and demo any product you want for 15 days. Just take care to only install the one(s) you want to demo, because the clock starts ticking as soon as you install a plug-in. After that time, you'll periodically get either a silence or noise burst (can't remember which).

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1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

i've seen a bunch of regulars here praise Medla plugins in general, but their interfaces look less than user friendly, so I've passed on them. But this one is pretty straightforward and dirt cheap. Does anyone here who owns this specific Melda plugin want to chime in with your opinion on it?

"that said, its pretty solid, but something i only reach for after exhausting all my other options because the UX is frankly a pain" -- some guy who goes by "Cinaed" (he also dislikes that Melda is owned by the private equity that owns FL)

In general: extremely powerful, less than friendly, but consistent across the line (the learning curve is steep, but applies everywhere).

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If you're willing to "level up" and put in the time, there are a LOT of things to like about the Melda plugins. (Disclaimer: I am far from leveled up!)

Here's one: https://www.meldaproduction.com/about/technology/plugin-kernel

Also, the MB suffix on the various plugins does indeed mean "multi-band", but the functionality is waaaaay beyond just multi-band.  Once you figure it out, you can apply the same principles to any of the plugins with the "MB" suffix.

https://www.meldaproduction.com/tutorials/video/multiband

Of course, ChandlerGuitar has a video to demonstrate this.  Here's one of them.  The same "multiband" functionality applies to any of the MB plugins.

 

 

Edited by mibby
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23 minutes ago, dubdisciple said:

Never tried this one. Seems like something I would only get as part of bundle or freebie. Does anyone else make a multiband vibrato to compare?

I don't think I've ever seen another multiband vibrato other than the melda one.

Vibrato (not trem) or a more true Rotary Sim isn't exactly a go to type of a sound for me.  I think most of my ground will be covered by the Audiority TubeModulator (which also includes vibe and trem sounds) along with other plugins that focus on Rotary (IKM Leslie, and Melda Vintage Rotary).

Though I expect at $9, I'll cave and grab it to add to the Melda collection out of principle.  

 

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53 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

I expect at $9, I'll cave and grab it to add to the Melda collection out of principle.

Of course for MAddicts who would like to someday get any bundle that includes MVibratoMB, this is a good principle financially. At upgrade time, Melda applies 50% of the list price of any plug-in purchased from a retailer (they assume you got a discount, and it's also an encouragement to buy direct).

So in this case, since MVibratoMB lists for $43, your $9 eventually gets you $21 in upgrade credit. I had a policy of buying any MeldaProduction product that went on sale for under $10, and took advantage of a few intro sales. These added up to big savings on the way to the bundles I got during the 50% off everything sales. Including of course the Mother Of All Bundles.

And BTW, when those bundles/everything go on sale at 50%, if you own any Melda licenses, always check your bundle upgrade prices. I was always surprised by how little the upgrade cost was. Those freebies, $9 specials and intro deals really add up.

16 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Dang, there’s a Melda Vintage Rotary too? The plot thickens. 

Yeah, there's also the basic original MRotary to confuse matters further. I think the MVintageRotary may add saturation and cab simulation?

It can be puzzling to figure out what is what when there's (for instance) MReverb, MReverbMB, MTurboReverb, and MTurboReverbMB. Here's how I understand it, after having been perplexed for a good long time:

"Turbo" means "Deluxe" or "Advanced" and sometimes  "Vintage modeled." In the case of these reverbs, the difference is that the "Turbo" version has the feature where you can design your own algorithms. 🙄 I have no idea who the target market for that level of customization is. More power to them (so to speak). The underlying algorithms in the stock presets for MTurboReverb sound better (to my ears it's the equal of any reverb I've heard). There are so many different "devices" (more about that later) and variations within the devices that I will likely never, unless I end up doing prison time where I get to have my laptop, even have time to audition all of them.

The Turbo ones have more  "devices," which is where they've taken various controls and grouped them together and put a more conventional GUI face on them. These grouped controls are what MeldaProduction calls "multiparameters." Confused the hell out of me for years until I finally figured it out: "multiparameters" are just controls that are tied together and may be operated with a single slider. The "devices" take those and use skeuomorphic knobs instead of the sliders. Skeuomorphic buttons to select different algorithms and such. Nice for people who like the way the MeldaProduction stuff sounds but are put off by the complexity and look of the UI's.

3 hours ago, Jason Neudorf said:

"Cinaed" (he also dislikes that Melda is owned by the private equity that owns FL)

Wow, that's a new one (to me). I wonder what his problem is with that. Unlike Steinberg, MAGIX, Avid, Waves, Apple, Microsoft, etc. I've never heard anyone say that Image-Line does evil (not that I'm saying any of the aforementioned companies do evil).

Of course, it seems like no matter what their policies, any company can raise the ire of any individual. I've seen people rail against MeldaProduction's upgrade policies. They can seem weird at times; in the last go-around, the cost for me to upgrade to one of their bundles was about $400, where upgrading to the MComplete bundle (everything they have made or ever will make) was $120. But who cares? It's not as if they were trying to cheat me somehow. They credit for license purchases that are part of the bundle. Since every product is part of the MComplete bundle, well, of course, I got credit for every single thing I already had.

But I've seen people just fume over that.

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I like Melda. Probably not going to get this though. Even at $9. I have a loooooot of vibrato/ rotary/ Leslie plugins. One of my favourite effects on guitar. IK probably the best. PSP although not a direct emulation are also good. I got the Martinic scanner for $9 a month or two ago and it's great. So accurate an emulation in fact that Roland Japan wanted to license it.

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8 hours ago, Fleer said:

Dang, there’s a Melda Vintage Rotary too? The plot thickens. 

It is basically a Leslie sim and costs more (including outside the sale but does cost less than MRotary which has Multiband) I think the IKM one sounds better/more like a Leslie specifically.  

I haven't checked CPU usage on both though.  

 

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Vintage Rotary excels at dirty Leslie sounds. For organ my usual go-to is IKM's Hammond, which has its own (very good) Leslie sim. But when I'm looking for raunchiness I'll turn off the IKM Leslie and use the Melda Vintage Rotary. I have also used it as a vocal effect.

I picked up MVibratoMB, because for ten bucks, why not? It won't be replacing my other Leslie sims, but it'll find a use, I'm sure.

The coolest thing I've done with it on so far was a bell patch with delay that serves the song as more of a percussive element than a melodic one. I made the upper mid frequencies swish from side to side, which was a pleasant effect. That led to trying it out on other higher-pitched percussion, such as the 8Dio bongos and SoundIron's bamboo ensemble. Makes them sound like the players are dancing around the room while playing. This might end up being an alternative to tired ping-pong delays.

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15 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I've seen people rail against MeldaProduction's upgrade policies.

I find that a little ironic, but have heard there was a predecessor to MComplete that was replaced and didn't count. Some choose to be contrary to everything though, so those are the ones to watch out for. Once owning MComplete the price of all future upgrades (future creations)/updates are free, and Melda tracks what you own, so much so that they will warn you about trying to buy something you already have (if bought from them directly).

In general, the non-MB plugins are in the free bundle when two variants exist, and for some MB isn't going to get used extremely often. One of the features that is rarely talked about (and probably not used by most or even known about as a result) is the multiparameter capability embedded into Melda, which allows one to customize functions in ways other FX simply cannot (or are baked into other FX and your editing choices are limited). The tutorial series on multiparameters I never liked the format of (more the droning monotone of the presentation), but is worth reviewing if you own any Melda plugins. Even folks reviewing or demonstrating Melda plugins rarely ever go into that facet, but multiparameters also allow you to dynamically adjust parameters rather than just be a static FX across an entire clip/track.

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