MusicMan

Interesting.. my account must fall somewhere in the middle! I don't get all the new stuff anymore, but I did get this... I do have 3rd gen, only solo though, but that was bought a few years ago now and isn't their latest generation.

It's actually not for once 🙂 I almost missed this, as when they first announced it, it wasn't in my account. But I logged in the other day to see if that new GForce synth was available (and it wasn't, but I expected it not to be) and was pleasantly surprised to see these were.

If you dig into that though, it's also not always so clear cut. A lot of what you've mentioned makes some sense for your content drives, but the system drive is what the whole computer runs off and that being faster, allows the OS and everything, including the DAW to run faster as a result as well. Apart from that, it's often just more responsive to use for all other applications and general use too. If the swap file is used, that will also be more performant as well. There really isn't any reason not to use them (apart from cost). CPU is definitely the king in most cases, although as you mentioned RAM at times can be important as well. But often you're more limited with CPU. Changing a hard drive for something better is trivial and normally simple to do. If you use large Kontakt libraries, especially orchestral, using a faster drive just makes sense, so both system and content where possible is preferred. All instruments are only going to get more demanding and larger, so it's often better to just simply do it once and do it right to save doing it all again. Personally I know I'd rather get faster drives and pay a little more. Over the lifetime of a well spec'd DAW, it's worth it to me and I won't remember the spend, but I will appreciate it every time I'm working with large files, or libraries. Cost is a consideration though, so I get the point.

I own all of those synths and wholeheartedly disagree, but of course everyone's opinion and tastes are different. If you listen to any of the professionally made sounds created by it, it easily sounds on par with all of those. You might be very surprised to hear how commonly it's used in cinematic and movies you've likely seen and also the types of high end situations where money is no object and they own all of the synths you mentioned too. None of the ones you mentioned can get as complex a sound without using multiple instances of them. None of them even come remotely close in terms of versatility. Falcon is completely modular. All of those other synths are very limited in terms of architecture. They sound great, but if you can think it in Falcon, then you can create it. I personally wouldn't think of it as a primary sampler, but integrating that with building up patches and layering the "rompler' content is great to have in there. I do think they could work on the interface and UX, but then Kontakt which is probably it's closest competitor I don't think is great in that sense either. I haven't looked at all their expansions yet, so I can't comment too much there, but the one I did get is really quite interesting. I like that and will get some use. I'm not worried about external developers. I purely want it for sound design. The expansions are also more of a consolation in that sense. Agreed on CPU and multithreading, that's what I was alluding to. Back on sound though, I've heard all of those synths in action, created my own presets in them as well as listened to 3rd party ones, seen them in many tutorials and Falcon can easily sound as rich, warm, organic and complex as any of them without a doubt.

It really varies between their expansions. Some are barely a few MB and some are a few GB. Conveniently they state them on the page for each expansion, so you could determine that first if it's a consideration. As a guess, maybe 20GB total, but don't bank on that.. The manual also states what the presets are as well which is handy, so you can see exactly what numbers of each type they include and it's a simple PDF on their site. Calling it a rompler doesn't even come close to doing it justice. You could ignore all of the samples and expansions and it's still an amazingly powerful and GREAT sounding synth for programming your own synth presets from scratch with standard oscillators and much more. The built in effects are probably some of the best sounding across a lot of the main players in well known soft synths. But then of course you can still layer any of the samples over them as well. It's a pretty amazing modular synth. Not perfect. The layout can take a bit to get used to and they could optimize it in terms of CPU. It does appear to have a few quirky limitations. But the sound beats a lot of the main synths / romplers / samplers out there.

Actually it's really not. The performance difference between them is not trivial. It's a massive and noticeable difference in a system. Apart from benchmarks, you can feel the performance difference and during large compressed file extractions, backups, copies, or moves, the tasks are completed much sooner. The 2TB / 8TB is somewhat moot, as you're not excluded from using 2TB instead if you choose, regardless of format. I get the practically and there's nothing wrong with opting for that, but it would be a disservice to anyone reading this thread not to call out what they would be losing by not spending a little more time to work out what is compatible with their system, or even adding a card to extend that compatibility.

The performance of SATA is so much worse though. I'd recommend NVMe instead of SATA these days every single time, as long as the machine can accept it and then simply back it up to a SATA if required and worried about losing the 8TB. Ideally that should be backed up elsewhere as well. The easiest option of SATA definitely isn't the best in this particular situation.

Thanks Stony, I wasn't aware of that! Will update

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I think it may get be ok when you've got enough to make it worthwhile. If he gives me some more I might check it out! 🙂

I've been collecting the freebies, but not installing them due to thinking I needed their control centre too 🤣

That was a huge step in the right direction. It was definitely a blocker for more sales too and it's easier to recommend IKM more now after that. The lack of proper upgrades is probably IK's biggest downside currently for me. Their installer could use some work as well, but it mostly works. Everyone always hates and freaks out about the T Racks processors being installed that they don't own, but I seem to be one of the few people that didn't mind that.. it was easy to randomly drop into one of those plugins and check them out whenever. Caveat being disk space and plugin versions. As long as they don't use a lot of extra space, or force you to install VST2 and AAX and leading to even longer scan times again (Softube = epic fail there), then it's not too bad. I'd never buy Volume from Softube, apart from them not recognising that I already own so much of the bundle, but also because they would waste at least 10GB of disk space by installing VST2 and AAX for everything in the bundle, without a way to opt out.

Yep, it's the worst I've seen in the audio plugins industry ever. Even if other companies went subscription only, it wouldn't be so bad, as you would likely have free compatibility updates for a while and things would keep working. Waves knew that their plugins would break for many, that they wouldn't provide any free updates once your current WUP expired and would've left those users with no alternatives but to subscribe, or not use their plugins they already paid for. Total disregard towards their customers.

Yeah there's definitely some people it hits harder than others. Mac users frequently complain as OS upgrades more commonly break their Waves plugins, so they need to pay to get the updates to even get them working again. I'm on PC, so like you, I never have needed to pay WUP. But they're also a bit shitty in that they only grant two seats if you have active WUP. So if you have a studio computer and a laptop, without juggling licenses, or USBs, you're sweet out of luck. Even McDSP has passed them by, with allowing more than one activation now and that's saying something! Apart from the subscription fiasco though, Waves just don't care what customers say. That's part of the reason they were ignorant enough to even try to move the goalposts to subscription only. For the most part I've replaced all my Waves plugins with alternatives that don't require WUP, still get updates and allow more than one activation and there's no ongoing costs. But I do still like a few of the Waves plugins. And yeah individuals are always possible to WUP, but once people upgrade using the Waves enticing upgrade offers and hit Mercury, there's no real upgrades, so I'm pretty sure to use any of them with active WUP, even if they only want a few is either pay the WUP cap price of $240 or buy the plugins again. That's their ploy.. is basically people go, oh it's cheaper to upgrade to the next bundle than paying WUP as it renews WUP and they get some new plugins, but then they get to a stage, where WUP is $240 every time from then on (unless discounted / reseller / etc. but it's still bad)

Waves looks after you by offering cheap discounts on the bundles until you upgrade to the largest ones and then you're locked in to paying the max WUP I believe, as you can't WUP the individual plugins, only the total bundle. Someone can probably jump in and correct me if that's not right. So if that's the case, they're probably still better than IK, UA, Softube, etc. in that regard, but leave lot to be improved.. that and they gave everyone with perpetual licenses the middle finger by trying to go subscription only, which meant that users who didn't pay an ongoing fee would never be able to WUP again.. Glad that play crashed and burned 🤣

I see this a lot as well.. new customers are so often treated better. When a company does that. I just stop buying from them. There are a lot of great developers out there that don't do that, so I just start spending my money with them. Even that Total Studio Max offer from IK I didn't bother with, as I own the majority of it. If the upgrade for me was half that price due to owning almost all of it, I may have bitten. But the deals pass, new things turn up and often I'm glad that I didn't fall for that no loyalty trap and I get something new from a completely different company that often adds more variety than I would get by buying from the same companies that don't reward my loyalty. Often they re-use algorithms, so you don't get as fresh / new sounds. UA, Softube.. These guys don't have any reasonable upgrade offers generally.. I'll never upgrade to Softube Volume for that reason. Signature 2 from UA I won't even consider. The thing is, by the time they work it out (if they work it out), I've been buying more stuff and even if they offered it for a reasonable price, I might not need / want it any more. That's happened a lot too. Some companies have held on to prices that were too high and while I was waiting, I found alternatives that were often better and then when they've dropped the prices, I haven't even bothered to buy, so they've totally lost a sale altogether. Greedy developers, or no loyalty developers often lose a lot of sales.

That's a shame. I don't think I necessarily would be considering upgrading it, but I would've been a nice perk to have the option.

The price isn't bad, but I thought it's been in some of the cheap bundles where you get quite a few of things with it for not much more money from memory. Not a bad product and if you need something now, it might still be worth it.

Welcome back Lars!! 🙂 Insane price.. I decided I'd skip TS4 as I already own almost all of it.. but that price is making it harder to resist...!

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Well that was the gift that kept NOT giving... at least for me.. no big deal, although it would've been nice grabbing something..

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Very similar to me! I gave Tai Chi Lite a demo last year I think it was and it didn't wow me and I didn't buy it. I gave it another demo this year and felt the same. It wasn't terrible, but I have plenty of reverbs and it didn't add a lot in terms of sound and features. Then I tried the full version and I understood within minutes what people were saying and why they liked it and bought it. I grabbed Cinematic Rooms Pro which is amazing and I knew that was an insta buy for me in seconds and a few others as they stacked with EDU discounts plus loyalty so the prices were really good. If you buy the lite versions, or cheaper ones and then use the loyalty codes on other products to get the full versions, it's drops the prices down quite a lot.