MusicMan

2 hours ago, telecode 101 said:

meh.. same prices as always.

Yeah Softube has the least exciting and most predictable sales ever! Half the time I don't bother as I already know what they will be ?

7 hours ago, tom said:

Weird, it was on for 39 euros like 4 weeks ago

Sure was... They got me then! ?

2 hours ago, John Maar said:

The primary thing making parallel work with a DAW difficult is not having a multi-client ASIO driver. But GP has a nice audio recorder. You can record and save your work in GP and then import the audio to your DAW.

That helps bridge that gap for sure. Can you import a backing track, or stems to play along with so you can record down just the guitar part?

15 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

If you are using it live (not needing the ability to record in the same computer) the benefits are basically:

Lower Latency - you can certainly run more stuff at a lower latency setting without blowing up the CPU

Stability  - as long as you are watching the CPU it seems less prone to crash than a DAW is.

Front end interface to create your own layout for the knobs that are important to adjust in an performance

If you use a midi controller to switch things on/off, etc it might be better in GP depending on your workflow.

New Gig Performer version offers a set of global always on set of plugins.  This can be helpful if you are switching other things out in the rig but some always stay the same.  Possible to do this kind of thing with busses in a DAW but depending on how much stuff you are turning on and off and switching between GP can be a more elegant solution.

In my mind the main real setback is that you can save these elaborate rigs, but then can't use them as a VST plugin in the daw you want to record in.  You have to either run 2 computers or get into more complex routing.  

This isn't a program I'd pay retail for personally, but with heavy discounts it beats the free options such as Element for interface and live use.

 

Hey Brian that makes sense. I can see how that would also be a useful alternative. Agreed that it's a little unfortunate that you can't use as VST as some of those chains could become quite elaborate and end up being some  signature sounds. Maybe in some of the future updates they will look at that. Rewire was somewhat handy for similar external situations, but I see that support for that looks to be getting dropped by a number of companies lately.

I might skip this for now, but keep an eye on how it develops. Thanks for explaining.

1 hour ago, John Maar said:

Gig Performer is a VST host that runs standalone (Windows or Mac). It is not a plugin. What I showed was the Wiring View (the back panel) of the rackspace. The front panel is for widgets to control the specific variables of the plugin(s) you want live control over, not all available controls. You can then map those widgets to hardware or OSC sliders, knobs and buttons (on a keyboard MIDI controller, a MIDI foot controller like the Behringer FCB1010, or an OSC app on a tablet). You can create rackspace variations for each of the amp sim, so one variation for AmpliTube 5 (active; all others bypassed), one for Ampeg's SVT Suite (all others bypassed, etc), or you can create individual rackspaces for individual amp sims if the widget requirements are different. GP4 now has a global rackspace, so plugins used globally don't need to be duplicated in each individual rackspace. For example, MSuperLooper should be in the global rackspace. I haven't moved it there yet. There's a ton of other functionality, including a Rig Manager, that makes using different MIDI controllers with the same gig file a snap (think of studio vs. live).

The Gig Performer YouTube channel is your friend!

Gig Performer YouTube channel

I looked at Gig Performer and almost picked it up when Plugin Alliance forgot to exclude it in one of their sales ?

But I kept on thinking that I can just do the same in Cubase. You seem to know GP well, so it would be great to hear your perspective on some of the benefits over a regular DAW to host Sims/IRs/etc as you could be able to point out some benefits I might have missed ?

1 hour ago, Fleer said:

PA is in the $0 to $15 zone for me. 

I'm the same normally.. there have been a few plugins that I could've easily gotten for $15 if I waited a bit longer, but I just felt like grabbing them! Thinking the 9000J and Amek 200.. I paid $25 for them. But I do really enjoy both of them, so I don't mind too much ?

1 hour ago, Carl Ewing said:

Assuming you paid $20 for each of those plugins...erring on the low side, that's about $1860 spent. Which is about 10 years of subscription which would also give you $2000 in annual sub vouchers, and $1000s in monthly vouchers. If anyone has doubts, this is why the PA subscriptions are a no brainer.

Yes and no.. you get at least 6 or 7 free when you first register. All the sub $19 range most people that have been around for a while have picked up for free, which is quite a few plugins. You also get some more expensive ones free with certain audio hardware.

Some PA plugs also come with an additional plugin when you buy them.

I tend to only buy from about $10 to max $25. Average is probably $15 for me, although I've had some ridiculously cheap scores with bundles and voucher stacking ?

I was adding some of the costs to my plugins sheet the other day and I have a tonne of PA plugs as well and looks like it might end up around the same as 2 years of the subscription.

But they're all owned and I have all I really wanted. Now I'll just pick up a couple of nice to haves occasionally and I have no annual ongoing costs ?

I'm not saying their subscription is bad and I think it's probably the best I've seen, but in the long run the subscription option isn't always the best way in my opinion.

I like his plugins ?

Given he's just updating to x64, I'm not holding much hope for VST3 versions anytime soon though..

7 minutes ago, Carl Ewing said:

Curious - for those into Amp sims, which do you feel are the better sims from PA? I have BX_Rockrack V3 and BX_Bassman but looking for some guitar sims geared towards metal / heavy tones.  Already have Amplitube 5 and most collections, but the CPU hit is enormous on mobile rig, so trying to find decent stand alone sims. Also have the Mix & Master bundle, but it excludes all the amp stuff of course.

Currently looking at Suhr PT100, Diezel VH4 / Herbert and Friedman BE-100. But have heard good things about the Fuchs as well. Anyone recommend these or others?

 

 

Diezel VH4 is great and has a really nice sounding clean channel as well. 

6 hours ago, Fleer said:

Pretty pretty good freebie. 

Agreed. I own the Rule Tec Heritage Pro from NoiseAsh which also includes this module along with the EQ5M and F3C. The EQ1A from them holds it's own very nicely against the other Pultec emulations I've tried.

If I didn't own Heritage I'd snap this one up.

1 minute ago, cclarry said:

Well, that wasn't the one I was waiting for, or supposed to get...in fact, the LE upgrade is 4 weeks early.
They said 8 weeks after launch for the LE upgrade to be available...

I didn't realise that. I had thought they released them all at the same time.. I quite surprised they're early in that case! ?

1 hour ago, cclarry said:

Well, I did get my FREE Upgrade to 12 LE this morning....so there's that...LOL

Gee.. they certainly took their time!! ?

Glad you get there in the end. Hope you enjoy 12  Lars?

20 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

I'm kinda skeptical on all-in-one mastering plug-ins, but I do think they are great for getting decent-sounding roughs. I've found myself throwing bx-masterdesk classic on works in progress more than TRacks One or Ozone Elements lately, and I noticed that during this sale at least, I had a $10 off chit for masterdesk in my account that could be combined with the $20 voucher to get me the full bx_masterdesk for $9.99. Ye who like masterdesk classic, go forth and go pro. For me it strikes a good balance between "too EZ" and "might as well just use my full master chain."

Unfortunately, I didn't test BASS-MINT before my March voucher expired, and  that'll cost me an extra fiver. Ho-lee shmo-lee  that thing make the bass sound good. At first I thought "but I already have multiple bass management FX, like RBass, Fundamental Bass, and Barks of Dog I and II" and then I had to go and try the demo. Makes sense, I guess if you're going to drop into a market that already has so many other products, your stuff better have it going on. The thing makes my ears happy.

I think Masterdesk has a place for people who don't want to get too involved in the mastering process, but still don't want it left at just the mix stage. Some of the elements in it can actually be used separately quite nicely on tracks and busses as well.

Bass-Mint is good. I tried it ages ago and really didn't think much of it.. they had reset the trial statuses since then (I love and hate them doing that! Hate because there's more chance of me demoing something again and buying.. like I did ?) and I gave it another shot and I get it now, so that's what I went with.. so far ?

7 minutes ago, Tony Carpenter said:

I went S1 when I bought my StudioLive series 3 mixer. Definitely no regrets, and I went Sphere because I learned with Izotope too, subs overall are cheaper.  And yes I know I won’t own passed my last full purchase, but that’s not bothering me anymore.

my .0200

Nothing wrong with subs in my opinion.. but only ever as an option. I don't go for them personally, but they work well for many people, so why not ?

I am against the aggressive sales tactics of some companies that limit certain features, or new features only to the subs version when there's a perpetual equivalent of that product.

If they only have subs and no perpetual, I'd either not start using them, or stop using them too.

12 minutes ago, John Maar said:

I know that Steinberg is working on a new licensing scheme, but I avoided Cubase specifically because of the eLicenser dongle.

I had dealt with iLok's various dongles going all the way back to the Centronics port app-specific dongles. You could "supposedly" chain a couple of them in series, but that never worked. Only the dongle physically connected to the port worked. The others in the chain never did. And iLok NEVER provides any assistance, always referring you back to the app provider.

I wasted a bunch of money on Steven Slate's plugins which required the iLok USB dongle, which was unreliable on my desktop DAW and used up a precious USB port. Slate added cloud support, but that's worse than a physical dongle. They refuse to: a) support iLok's soft licensing (to the PC), and b) respond to any attempt to communicate with them regarding the issue.

So, I swore off physical dongles. The fact that Steinberg is working on some kind of soft licensing process is no longer relevant to me. I'm past the point where I'd make a major investment (learning time and money) in a new DAW.

Oh they're not working on it .. Cubase 12, including 12 Artist and 12 Pro are dongle free ?

I hate wasting USB ports on stupid copy protection devices personally and had not upgraded to Pro for that reason as well.

So no dongle for me and C12Pro is miles in front of any DAW I've ever used for my tastes/requirements.

Agreed on learning another DAW though.. Cubase was too slow to move when all the competition didn't have a requirement for a dongle and I think it hurt them and people like you may never either go back, or consider them now as they have a DAW they like.

Will be interesting seeing a wave of new users that can now demo them without having to buy a dongle.. that was the crazy part.. who wants to buy a dongle to even demo something?!

So glad they're gone ?

49 minutes ago, abacab said:

The only shortcomings for S1 that I have seen others express is possibly the MIDI hardware support, and post production abilities. Those users claim that Cubase excels in those areas, and would switch to S1 if they were covered more comprehensively

To this day, I still think Cubase has the strongest MIDI offering. That was also a huge reason why I never bothered with Protools when it was holding a huge market share. Cubase just covered both Audio and MIDI so well. I think that most of the DAWs have some very cool unique features, but when I think about what is most complete for what I do, Cubase sits on top and Cubase 12 in particular I think they've just got so many things right.

N.B.. not the grace period license conversion process... But the DAW ?

48 minutes ago, mibby said:

Less than $10 for a dynamic EQ?!  This is a pretty good deal!  (BTW, TDR's Nova is still FREE.)  Savero has been very active and busy developing lots of plugins over the last few years and has built some nice features into this plugin.  This one looks great!

I really don't need this, but I am a bit intrigued about the analogue emulation as he does alright with that side sometimes and the constant volume I do like too. I also like his reasonable pricing and he tries to be helpful, so I don't mind supporting him by buying his products and at that price, it's barely a cup of coffee ?

If I was looking for a new DAW I'd definitely be considering Studio One as an option.  But after upgrading to Cubase 12 Pro.. I'm really loving it, so there's 0% chance of me jumping to it right now!

3 hours ago, Fleer said:

And maybe I’ll finally get Elysia Alpha for a tenner too. Won’t get SPL Passeq, mind you, as PQ is in the make this year. 

For mastering, Alpha is quite possibly my favourite compressor ?

I thought the same about PQ, but then it's likely another 9 to 12 months for a reasonable price. So I might still pickup Passeq. I do already have Acustica Audio's: Coral which is the SPL PQ in the interim.

I was all set to get Passeq, but picked up UA Bass-Mint instead for $14.99. I didn't like it the first time I tested it, but I tested it again after watching a video on it and understanding it a bit more and it added a more unique offering than another EQ for right now. Tried it on some kicks, synth bass and 808s to get a feel for it and it was really nice. It can change the sound a lot if pushed and sometime I liked that more and sometimes I didn't. But the times I didn't, I backed off the intensity and even tried some other algorithms and it generally enhanced/sweetened the sound ?

Bass tools are always handy as sometimes one EQ and saturation might work for one instrument, but not another, so having options doesn't hurt ?

4 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

Already have the TE100 which I was shocked at how much I like it. 

TE100 is very good ?

12 minutes ago, Fleer said:

I’m thinking Acme Opticom XLA-3 

Very good call. Love that one ?

46 minutes ago, Sander Verstraten said:

How many of those can one person need ?

Hard to say, but all I can be sure of, is that I needed one more than I had yesterday it seems ?

Looking forward to seeing SPL PQ as I quite like PA's SPL Passeq.

22 hours ago, ALC said:

You can track the releases here: https://forum.harrisonconsoles.com/forum-9.html

Here’s the download site: https://harrisonconsoles.com/harrison-software-downloads/
 

This is really helpful! The forum in particular makes it really easy to see what versions there have been previously and what's current. I'll save/remember that page as well.

Thanks ?

On 3/24/2022 at 4:40 PM, cclarry said:

There have been point updates and you'll get an email to tell you (or you can continue to watch this forum LOL)

Haha... thanks Lars and seems there haven't been any point releases since I bought it, which is why I haven't seen anything from them.

I currently have Mixbus 32C 7.2.0.