Plugin Alliance $20 Voucher, No Minimum Spend!

[PavlovsCat]

4 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I know, I declared a moratorium on mixing plug-ins, but gee, five bucks and it was an Unfiltered Audio plug-in that I didn't already have....

Unfiltered Audio's Zip, not only a mixing effect but a compressor of all things, as if I don't have dozens of them.

Oh well, I bought four candy bars the other night at the market and it was $10 and I've eaten the candy bars already. So it's cheap fun by comparison.

I picked up the SPL Transient Designer Plus for $5. I already have several transient designers, but this had some extra features that seemed worthwhile. For 5 bucks, if I even find one song where it makes a nice difference, it was a great value.  

[PavlovsCat]

I was downloading demos of Plugin Alliance plugins and comparing them against my existing plugins over the weekend, which I find the ideal way to decide on whether or not to purchase a plugin -- and even then, I only tend to download ones that friends or forum members have praised (I only wish we could do the same kind of  demos with sample libraries -- I can only imagine how much money I could have saved from buying sample libraries that didn't meet expectations). 

One big finding, I was comparing the Acme Opticom Compressor -- which I absolutely loved on electric bass in the Youtube video I shared on a previous page; when I compared all of my compressors to it -- and I I have around two dozen (I realize that's a bit overboard, but I think most of us are in that category and I bet some of you have a lot more than that!) -- on drums, there was one I never tried, Melda's free MCompressor, that sounded great to my ears. And seeing @Starship Krupa  posts in this thread made me want to again give the man credit, as he's been recommending Medla stuff for a long time. Candidly, I really am only starting to finally figure out the basics of mixing and some of Medla's interfaces can be, let's say, less than user friendly for the less expert mixers among us (AKA me), so while I greatly value Starship Krupa's opinions, I've largely skipped checking out Melda stuff after trying a couple of plugins in the past and finding the user interfaces overly complicated. But that's not the case for this one. 

I'm still not sure about whether I'm going to buy the Acme Compressor. I just used what I think is the last $20 code PA is giving out to buy the SPL Transient Designer. But finding that I had a free compressor plugin that I love on drums was the best deal of all. I'm definitely no expert on mixing plugins, so all I can say is that if you haven't tried MCompressor, you really should try  it out.  

Edited May 30, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Scott H]

Last minute I picked up the Lindell Neve 80 Series channel strip for $20. Unfortunately I had no extra vouchers. I’ve always wanted a vintage Neve channel strip, but I haven’t been willing to sell my first born to Softube to get a good one. The Lindell Neve plugin appears to be excellent.

[PavlovsCat]

15 minutes ago, Scott H said:

Last minute I picked up the Lindell Neve 80 Series channel strip for $20. Unfortunately I had no extra vouchers. I’ve always wanted a vintage Neve channel strip, but I haven’t been willing to sell my first born to Softube to get a good one. The Lindell Neve plugin appears to be excellent.

Plugin Alliance,  and most of all, your first born, thank you for your choice. 

[Starship Krupa]

42 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

I only tend to download ones that friends or forum members have praised (I only wish we could do the same kind of  demos with sample libraries -- I can only imagine how much money I could have saved from buying sample libraries that didn't meet expectations)

If you seek the opinions of heavy hitters in the realm of sample libraries, get over to VI Control and read some threads, ask some questions. I think the place started as being oriented toward use of sample libraries and expanded from there.

45 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

while I greatly value Starship Krupa's opinions, I've largely skipped checking out Melda stuff after trying a couple of plugins in the past and finding the user interfaces overly complicated. But that's not the case for this one.

Heaven knows the MeldaProduction stuff in general is not for everyone. Vojtech doesn't market them as such. He's in a niche outside "the most authentic recreation of console X, complete with drifting resistors,"  "put this mystery plug-in on for fast results," etc. Much of it is for people who want to be able to get under the hood and like to tinker. I don't always want to get under the hood. I don't even usually want to when it comes to mixing FX. Despite having leveraged my referral codes and sale purchases all the way up to MComplete, I only regularly use about 10% of the product line. Once I had MFreeFX, MEssentials and MMixingFX I had all the MeldaProduction stuff I wanted. I think his stuff sounds really good, and it's some of the sippiest on resource usage, which helps me hang on to my trailing edge computer hardware that much longer. And I really respect tight coding. His responsiveness to bug fixing is top notch, up there with Acoustica.

As a drummer, you'll understand what I mean when I say that MCompressor is the Ludwig Acrolite of compressors. Workhorse, no frills, sounds great, might be the first one you ever use, but it might also be the last one. I was surprised when I posted in a thread about MeldaProduction over on VI Control and mentioned that MCompressor was the compressor that most helped me unlock the mysteries of compression, because of the informative dynamics display with the moving line. Prior to that I was just copying settings from tutorials and hoping for the best. A number of others chimed in to say that they, too had the same experience. MCompressor triggered their lightbulb moment with compression. If I had to pick a desert island compressor, it would probably come in second to MDynamics, but only second.

Contrary to MeldaProduction's (deserved) reputation for complexity and initial opacity, MCompressor is very intuitive, just the right amount of controls (with the notable exception of a mix knob, but that can be worked around), and that amazing display. There are others in the FreeFX bundle that are as easy to operate and characteristically powerful, like MTuner, MMetronome, MStereoscope, MAnalyzer, MOscillator, MNoiseGenerator, and MEQualizer. I watched the YouTube video for the PA equivalent of MSpectralPan and the products are about comparable. If MEqualizer and MCompressor were products that sold for $50 each, they would be among the most highly regarded and recommended. There are deeper features in MCompressor that took me years to stumble across, like the detector pre-EQ and the (amazing at this price point) draw-your-own compression curves. Try switching it to M/S mode and listening to the results.

And despite the buttload of saturation plug-ins that I've tried, MEqualizer's saturation knob is still my favorite for that kind of sweetening. It's the only (non-Melda) EQ I've come across that does what it does with harmonics, which is so useful and powerful when making sounds cooperate in a mix, taming cymbal ping, etc. The automatic band soloing is also useful. If you can handle sonible's EQ's, MEQualizer will be no problem, and has features not present in sonible's (or iZotope's).

So, my recommendation is that in their next 50% off sale, use @Brian Walton's referral code and the newsletter sign-up bonus to upgrade the FreeFX bundle for about $11 cash. Gets rid of the nag strip at the bottom and opens up some extra features. And it's probably all the MeldaProduction product you'll ever want or need. More, even.

[Yan Filiatrault]

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I was downloading demos of Plugin Alliance plugins and comparing them against my existing plugins over the weekend, which I find the ideal way to decide on whether or not to purchase a plugin -- and even then, I only tend to download ones that friends or forum members have praised (I only wish we could do the same kind of  demos with sample libraries -- I can only imagine how much money I could have saved from buying sample libraries that didn't meet expectations). 

One big finding, I was comparing the Acme Opticom Compressor -- which I absolutely loved on electric bass in the Youtube video I shared on a previous page; when I compared all of my compressors to it -- and I I have around two dozen (I realize that's a bit overboard, but I think most of us are in that category and I bet some of you have a lot more than that!) -- on drums, there was one I never tried, Melda's free MCompressor, that sounded great to my ears. And seeing @Starship Krupa  posts in this thread made me want to again give the man credit, as he's been recommending Medla stuff for a long time. Candidly, I really am only starting to finally figure out the basics of mixing and some of Medla's interfaces can be, let's say, less than user friendly for the less expert mixers among us (AKA me), so while I greatly value Starship Krupa's opinions, I've largely skipped checking out Melda stuff after trying a couple of plugins in the past and finding the user interfaces overly complicated. But that's not the case for this one. 

I'm still not sure about whether I'm going to buy the Acme Compressor. I just used what I think is the last $20 code PA is giving out to buy the SPL Transient Designer. But finding that I had a free compressor plugin that I love on drums was the best deal of all. I'm definitely no expert on mixing plugins, so all I can say is that if you haven't tried MCompressor, you really should try  it out.  

If you want to learn to mix and master on an affordable way, check these offers, ending in 1 or 2 days:

https://www.mixingwithmike.com/special-offers

Edited May 30, 2023 by Yan Filiatrault

[chris.r]

17 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

On 5/29/2023 at 9:13 PM, PavlovsCat said:

I imagine that there's no solution to getting presets on PA plugins to show up since you made that post, Erik?

(...)

Once someone has bashed all of the PA (or other company's) .vstpresets into the Cakewalk system...

Thanks for heads up. This got me thinking. I wonder whether it's actually necessary to "bash" all PA vst3 presets into Cakewalk first, to make them work. So far I found these paths with VST presets on my system:

Documents\VST3 Presets\Plugin Alliance

AppData\Roaming\VST3 Presets\Plugin Alliance

ProgramData\VST3 Presets [no plugin alliance presets there]

C:\VST3 Presets\Plugin Alliance

also many places with individual plugin or company presets like AppData\Roaming\UnfilteredAudio

some of these presets do load automatically in VST3's preset manager in Cakewalk here, some won't, I wonder if there's maybe an incorrect path somewhere in registry or what makes them work or not?

Thought I'll ask before starting experimenting with copying all these presets between all different places on disk or editing registry  

Edited May 31, 2023 by chris.r

[Starship Krupa]

22 minutes ago, chris.r said:

Thought I'll ask before starting experimenting with copying all these presets between all different places on disk or editing registry

Just go to the topic I linked to and follow the instructions. We figured it out. There are .SPP files there that you can import using Plug-in Manager. Between all of us, I think we covered all but a few PA products and a couple others, like McDSP.

No copying files around, no registry editing, just download the .SPP's and import them.

 

Edited May 31, 2023 by Starship Krupa

[chris.r]

57 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Just go to the topic I linked to and follow the instructions. We figured it out. There are .SPP files there that you can import using Plug-in Manager. Between all of us, I think we covered all but a few PA products and a couple others, like McDSP.

No copying files around, no registry editing, just download the .SPP's and import them.

Eryk, but that could potentially lead to some trouble in future. Say I will re-install or migrate Windows in a few years and forget about all this, I'll end up with no vst3 presets wondering what I did couple years ago to make them work.

Wish there would be a simpler solution like pointing to the correct path on disk, but don't know how. For now I see at least 3 different locations. For example Opticon XLA-3 presets are in 'Documents\VST3 Presets\Plugin Alliance'  and they don't show up as most if not all from this path, and there are most of them (50).

Lindell PEX-500 presets are in both 'AppData\Roaming\VST3 Presets\Plugin Alliance' and 'C:\VST3 Presets\Plugin Alliance' and they do show up in Cakewalk so they are read from one of these places I guess.

But... in 'AppData\Roaming\VST3 Presets\Plugin Alliance' there are also presets for Lindell TE-100 and NEOLD BIG AL, Lindell presets do show up in Cakewalk but BIG AL are not... what gives?? I would prefer to read the original preset files from a correct path on disk as that's the manufacturer's 'proprietary' preset system, if I update a plugin and it's presets will get updated too, I want Cakewalk to read the updated presets from their original location. Doubt the '.SPP' way would do it.

Edited May 31, 2023 by chris.r

[Patrick Wichrowski]

1 hour ago, chris.r said:

Eryk, but that could potentially lead to some trouble in future. Say I will re-install or migrate Windows in a few years and forget about all this, I'll end up with no vst3 presets wondering what I did couple years ago to make them work.

 

I have all this .ssp files backed up. In january I had to reinstall my Windows 7 and all the presets that I saved were restored. Very handy!

[chris.r]

Ok I did experiment a bit.. deleting the presets from disk doesn't stop them from showing up in their VST3 plugin preset manager so they must be read from somewhere else. The 'PresetPath' string is empty in their registry. Think this is getting too big for me, at this point I'm clueless .

27 minutes ago, Patrick Wichrowski said:

I have all this .ssp files backed up. In january I had to reinstall my Windows 7 and all the presets that I saved were restored. Very handy!

Guess that's the only way as for now for me too. Only if there will be any updates to the presets in future, I would have to know first when it happens and then update the SSP files each time. Too much of a headache.

[Fleer]

I used the third voucher to pay for an SSL G transfer. 

[Starship Krupa]

10 hours ago, chris.r said:

Eryk, but that could potentially lead to some trouble in future. Say I will re-install or migrate Windows in a few years and forget about all this, I'll end up with no vst3 presets wondering what I did couple years ago to make them work.

If you are reluctant to configure something to your taste because at some future date you could possibly forget how you did it, aren't you sacrificing years of convenience for the sake of avoiding a possible bit of confusion (resolved with a forum search)?

We've been over this ground before, at least I have. I've requested a couple of times that Cakewalk read VST3 format presets from the disk when they happen to be installed by the plug-in's installer in the canonical locations as specified by Steinberg. Which it already sort of does, but it only displays them in the "VST3" menu where you  must load them individually, one at a time, rather than easily browsing them as with the integrated Cakewalk Preset Manager.

With presets for VST3's, we're really talking about three different cases.

First is when the plug-in itself has its own preset management system. For instance MeldaProduction and Unfiltered Audio. Those are out of the scope of this solution. I've never seen a plug-in with a proprietary preset manager use the other two types.

Second is when there are presets encoded within the plug-in's DLL (the DLL of a VST3 has the extension ".VST3") in compliance with the VST spec. Cakewalk can read and display them in its Preset Manager. This was more common back with VST2's, but is still supported if the VST3 in question uses that part of the VST spec. Pretty rare these days, really.

Third is what we're discussing here: where the plug-in installer installs a folder containing files with the extension ".vstpreset" that comply with the VST3 spec. There are a few companies who do it this way in lieu of having their own plug-in manager, most notably the brainworx and Lindell-developed plug-ins. These presets are the ones that you see when you load a preset from the Cakewalk "VST3" menu. It does not, despite appearing to in a couple of cases, automatically import presets from any of these locations to its own Preset Manager. If there are .vstpreset files in the canonical locations and their names show up in the Cakewalk Plug-in manager, either the manufacturer is using both the second and third methods or a user has put them in.

A plug-in, if the developer chooses, may use any combination of the above (or none) to deal with presets. The Lindell T-100 is one of the few that does this. Also Millenia NSEQ.

Is all that clear?

The following are the canonical VST3 preset locations, from the VST3 spec, by type:

• User: [Users/$USERNAME/Documents]/VST3 Presets/$COMPANY/$PLUGIN-NAME/ (this is the location Cakewalk uses if you save a preset from the VST3 menu)
• User_Factory: [Users/$USERNAME/AppData/Roaming]/VST3 Presets/$COMPANY/$PLUGIN-NAME/
• Shared_Factory: [ProgramData]/VST3 Presets/$COMPANY/$PLUGIN-NAME/
• App_Factory: [$APPFOLDER]/VST3 Presets/$COMPANY/$PLUGIN-NAME/

What we want is to get these third type VST3 spec presets to show up in Cakewalk's internal Preset Manager, which is easier to use, may be quickly browsed, etc.

The brute force way to do it is to load them one at a time from the VST3 menu and then save them by name in the Cakewalk Preset Manager. I used to do this while watching TV. It's what I call "bashing" them in. Less tedious is to use a Windows scripting program to perform the same operations. This is harder to set up and get working of course, as it requires programming something to emulate precise mouse movement, etc. I got the one Steve and I worked out to function correctly about 2 out of 3 tries.

Easiest of all is to let someone else handle the bashing or script babysitting. To do this, they must first get the presets in to the Cakewalk Preset Manager by whatever means, then use the Cakewalk Plug-in Manager to export the Cakewalk Preset Manager presets for import on the target system.

It would be best if Cakewalk could do the importing automatically. It obviously knows where to look for .vstpresets as it displays them in the VST3 menu.

 

[satya]

15 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

If you seek the opinions of heavy hitters in the realm of sample libraries, get over to VI Control and read some threads, ask some questions. I think the place started as being oriented toward use of sample libraries and expanded from there.

 

How do u write such long leters, looks like u r experiened in writing love letters to o

[kitekrazy]

17 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

If you seek the opinions of heavy hitters in the realm of sample libraries, get over to VI Control and read some threads, ask some questions. I think the place started as being oriented toward use of sample libraries and expanded from there.

Heaven knows the MeldaProduction stuff in general is not for everyone. Vojtech doesn't market them as such. He's in a niche outside "the most authentic recreation of console X, complete with drifting resistors,"  "put this mystery plug-in on for fast results," etc. Much of it is for people who want to be able to get under the hood and like to tinker. I don't always want to get under the hood. I don't even usually want to when it comes to mixing FX. Despite having leveraged my referral codes and sale purchases all the way up to MComplete, I only regularly use about 10% of the product line. Once I had MFreeFX, MEssentials and MMixingFX I had all the MeldaProduction stuff I wanted. I think his stuff sounds really good, and it's some of the sippiest on resource usage, which helps me hang on to my trailing edge computer hardware that much longer. And I really respect tight coding. His responsiveness to bug fixing is top notch, up there with Acoustica.

As a drummer, you'll understand what I mean when I say that MCompressor is the Ludwig Acrolite of compressors. Workhorse, no frills, sounds great, might be the first one you ever use, but it might also be the last one. I was surprised when I posted in a thread about MeldaProduction over on VI Control and mentioned that MCompressor was the compressor that most helped me unlock the mysteries of compression, because of the informative dynamics display with the moving line. Prior to that I was just copying settings from tutorials and hoping for the best. A number of others chimed in to say that they, too had the same experience. MCompressor triggered their lightbulb moment with compression. If I had to pick a desert island compressor, it would probably come in second to MDynamics, but only second.

Contrary to MeldaProduction's (deserved) reputation for complexity and initial opacity, MCompressor is very intuitive, just the right amount of controls (with the notable exception of a mix knob, but that can be worked around), and that amazing display. There are others in the FreeFX bundle that are as easy to operate and characteristically powerful, like MTuner, MMetronome, MStereoscope, MAnalyzer, MOscillator, MNoiseGenerator, and MEQualizer. I watched the YouTube video for the PA equivalent of MSpectralPan and the products are about comparable. If MEqualizer and MCompressor were products that sold for $50 each, they would be among the most highly regarded and recommended. There are deeper features in MCompressor that took me years to stumble across, like the detector pre-EQ and the (amazing at this price point) draw-your-own compression curves. Try switching it to M/S mode and listening to the results.

And despite the buttload of saturation plug-ins that I've tried, MEqualizer's saturation knob is still my favorite for that kind of sweetening. It's the only (non-Melda) EQ I've come across that does what it does with harmonics, which is so useful and powerful when making sounds cooperate in a mix, taming cymbal ping, etc. The automatic band soloing is also useful. If you can handle sonible's EQ's, MEQualizer will be no problem, and has features not present in sonible's (or iZotope's).

So, my recommendation is that in their next 50% off sale, use @Brian Walton's referral code and the newsletter sign-up bonus to upgrade the FreeFX bundle for about $11 cash. Gets rid of the nag strip at the bottom and opens up some extra features. And it's probably all the MeldaProduction product you'll ever want or need. More, even.

I have mixed reactions about them. Usually the heavy hitters are making music and not posting.  It's great if you like DAW drama.

[chris.r]

8 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

If you are reluctant to configure something to your taste because at some future date you could possibly forget how you did it, aren't you sacrificing years of convenience for the sake of avoiding a possible bit of confusion (resolved with a forum search)?

Yes, that's exactly what I do and way too often mainly because I still forget about the perfectly usable forum search. Silly me! 🤪 But more seriously it's mostly about future compatibility with any upcoming updates.

8 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

We've been over this ground before, at least I have. I've requested a couple of times that Cakewalk read VST3 format presets from the disk when they happen to be installed by the plug-in's installer in the canonical locations as specified by Steinberg. Which it already sort of does, but it only displays them in the "VST3" menu where you  must load them individually, one at a time, rather than easily browsing them as with the integrated Cakewalk Preset Manager.

I'm really glad that you at least tried to request that. Apparently I missed any threads and posts about it!

8 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

With presets for VST3's, we're really talking about three different cases.

First is when...

See, my initial enthusiasm has come from not understanding the mechanisms behind the ways of how it's working in VST3. Now it's clear to me why I failed with my own tests 😂.

8 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

What we want is to get these third type VST3 spec presets to show up in Cakewalk's internal Preset Manager, which is easier to use, may be quickly browsed, etc.

(...)

Easiest of all is to let someone else handle the bashing or script babysitting...

Oh yeah I like that best!  

8 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

It would be best if Cakewalk could do the importing automatically. It obviously knows where to look for .vstpresets as it displays them in the VST3 menu.

If there is an citizens' initiative form or a letter of intent I'll gladly fill in and sign 👍

[Starship Krupa]

4 hours ago, satyabrata satapathy said:

How do u write such long leters, looks like u r experiened in writing love letters to o

Full disclosure: I currently I have very little social life except online, which is one reason I'm not that bummed to be moving away from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Not that I'm blaming the location, necessarily, but this place has changed a lot demographically in the past 10 years. In the past 5 years I went from having 3 close friends in the small town where I live to having a few "see you once or twice a year" friends in the entire region.

It's not a place where boho types who prioritize creativity over income can afford to move to anymore. My friends move away and they don't come back. And new potential friends can't afford to move here either.

More power to younger folks who want to have solid, serious careers and raise their families, but it ain't where I am.

And yes, I am experienced in writing love letters. 😄 Damn lot of good it's done me. 🙄

So it's a way to be a (I hope) useful part of a community, which is a basic human need (with exceptions).

[PavlovsCat]

3 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Full disclosure: I currently I have very little social life except online, which is one reason I'm not that bummed to be moving away from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Not that I'm blaming the location, necessarily, but this place has changed a lot demographically in the past 10 years. In the past 5 years I went from having 3 close friends in the small town where I live to having a few "see you once or twice a year" friends in the entire region.

It's not a place where boho types who prioritize creativity over income can afford to move to anymore. My friends move away and they don't come back. And new potential friends can't afford to move here either.

More power to younger folks who want to have solid, serious careers and raise their families, but it ain't where I am.

And yes, I am experienced in writing love letters. 😄 Damn lot of good it's done me. 🙄

So it's a way to be a (I hope) useful part of a community, which is a basic human need (with exceptions).

With your helpful and kind nature, Erik, you're the type of person that is a valuable part of any community, whether online or offline. I hope you find somewhere where you're fully appreciated. 

Edited June 1, 2023 by PavlovsCat