MusicMan

14 hours ago, Carlos Iglesias said:

Does anyone understand how this company works? It does some very strange things

I'd say this deal is because everyone told them their new deals were so weak and they're trying to save face. 

I have MC77 and Opto and I like both of them ? I did pay less, but still at that price they're good. (Edit: Actually I thought that were $14.99.. not so good at their current price..)

But seeing how I already have them, then their face is not saved yet for me ?

4 hours ago, Zolton said:

For those interested in the differences between lite and not-so-lite (according to the PB product page):

Thanks ? I actually installed and tested this one out last night. It's in some ways similar to RC-20, which I still prefer, but I still like this.

Even though it's a lite version. It's convenient having them all in one plugin, same as RC-20. You could still do almost all of this with separate plugins, but it's quick and handy to get the sound you want.

Not a bad freebie.

18 minutes ago, satyabrata satapathy said:

instead of antaras if they put this as PB freebie ,it would have been great, they did giveaway lite version but full is better

This is the lite version unfortunately. I still need to look at what the differences are though, to know how that affects things.

Predictably very little for most people that have been around for a while.

Personally I think I'd rather the old vouchers with the original limits than this deal!

Hopefully they get this out the way as an intro and then get into some useful discounts, or otherwise I'll probably just be buying stuff from other developers.

39 minutes ago, satyabrata satapathy said:

Would include Izotope Elements suite, iris 2, shutter edit maybe, maybe the 3 reverbs by exponential audio.

From NI there will be mod pack and effect pack, Analog Dreams, Ethereal earth and Hybrid keys 

Maybe....

Almost word for word what I was thinking ?

It does mention 15 plugins, so I do wonder about what PA will add. Hopefully not a rerun of the giveaway..

I'm sure it's going to be great for new players, but I'm not overly anticipating it being amazing for anyone that's been around for a while and picked up a lot of the usual NI / iZotope freebies..

For some reason I'm sensing these likely include iZotope Elements and other common giveaways we all have already have from IZotope and likewise with NI ?

Hopefully that's not the case though ?

4 minutes ago, cclarry said:

Your code worked for me, too Brian, after I created a new account.  What didn't work was that I planned
on using the referral Credits (12) to purchase Bassment for $8, but it wouldn't deduct the credits from
my purchase...GRRRRR !  However, because I did go straignt back to buy Bassment, it DID allow me us
the referral code AGAIN, so I still go $4 off the $20 price!

Yep, they state you can't use credits on any introductory prices, which would be why.

3 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

The point of the subscription is that I get to use a massive part of their catalog for a year + get $200 to buy whatever I want during a mega sale. Why would I be buying $15 plugins - that I've likely never used much other than a demo - when I already have everything to try out for 12 months? And then buy specifically what I want / use in December sales season.

 I don't understand why anyone debates this deal. It's insane. For $150 my entire mixing and mastering needs are covered for a year - by extremely high quality plugins - and the cost of the sub still goes to permanent buys on heavily discounted super sales. This is the best deal in the industry as far as I'm concerned. Not only that, but 2 years of this subscription has saved me tons of money not having to buy shit I don't need from other companies. I haven't bought a UAD plugin, or a single emulation or mix / mastering related plugin from any other company since I started this subscription  - and I used to spend $100 / EACH on those UAD plugins. My studio's plugin expenses went WAY down these last 2 years.

Personally unless I own a plugin, I'd rather not have it to use, as then if I want to go back into a track to make a minor change down the track, it's a pain.

Most sales, even Mega Sales, the average plugin price is still normally $30 per plugin and stacks of them are higher, as they often have pricing tiers. So when you're forced to buy all your plugins in that one sale, your actual voucher just doesn't go as far.

I don't buy any plugins, just based on price, or hype, I just buy what I personally test and rate. But when I talk about getting plugins for under $25, they're mostly still many of the ones people rave about and PAs most expensive though.  So things like Amek EQ200, 9000J, Opticom XLA-3, Purple Audio MC77, SPLL Iron, Elysia Alpha, etc.

Just a few examples are picking up Unfiltered Audio BYOME & TRIAD Modular FX Bundle with Opticom XLA-3 for $24.99 total for all of them.

Plugin Alliance Mastering Bundle 3 which was really only for Vertigo VSM-3, but also included bx_dynEQ, bx_hybrid V2, bx_limiter and bx_meter all for $24.99.

Even Purple Audio MC77 was only $9.99

When you do the simple math, it's much cheaper than spending the $200 voucher that often gets you one super deal plugin, then the rest $30+.

I mean even in those examples, that all costs only $60 and even to pick them all up in a Mega Sale you likely just blew your entire voucher. That's why people debate it.

Additionally, I really have no need to spend anything with PA and can just keep using everything I have now, so no ongoings. When the subscription stops, many can't say the same.

Some people the subscriptions suit, but for anyone that looks at the math, they often find they just aren't as good as a total cost. But if subscriptions work for you, then that's the main thing. ?

6 minutes ago, cclarry said:

Ah...apparently it considers "Autoformer" for FREE as a "purchase"

That's strange, because I think I picked that up through them too.. although that was the second copy from memory..

11 minutes ago, cclarry said:

I spoke to them, and the upgrade prices are based solely on the most expensive plugin you own of what's contained in the "group",
and not "how many" you own, which is completely ridiculous.

I'm not sure I can actually think of any developer that looks at upgrades in that way.

Even with the United Plugins bundle I bought today, they even gave me a discount for the one they gave us for free! Plus of course a credit for any others if I owned them too, which I didn't..

Seems lazy on Softubes part and their website developer.

Not much of a loyalty discount..

I picked up this bundle as well. Some very nice plugins and great value ?

I may as well add my code here too, which gets the 20% and credits for your first purchase. They only class the first purchase as something you brought directly through their site, not something that you just redeemed there. So Even if you've gotten freebies in the past, you still qualify for the discount ?

UP9198165

Thanks for sharing your code @Brian Walton. I tried to use yours, but that didn't work for me unfortunately, whereas I was able to use Fleer's for some reason.

17 hours ago, telecode 101 said:

oh man. its still too steep. waiting for that new Volume collection to see whats in there.

Yeah I can't see myself buying anything Softube until that's released.. just in case.

Their upgrade/loyalty prices suck basically.. You might have half of the plugins of the collection, but the upgrade price is only based the most expensive one that you own, so there's no benefit picking them up outside of the volumes.

10 minutes ago, Carl Ewing said:

It's not really a typical subscription model. I gt a $200 voucher every year for spending $150 on Mix / Master subscription.  It's a complete no brainer if you already plan on buying $150 PA plugins in a year, which is quite easy to do. I'm curious how many people will blow $150 on the Forever sub in a year, get 5 plugins, and realize they totally wasted their money.

Before this loyalty voucher change it wasn't so clear cut. Yes, with the sub you get a voucher which is higher than the sub, but you can only spend it in one go. From cherry picking the weekend warrior sales and a number of the crazy periodic sales that came up, most of mine have been between free and about $25. Plenty around $10 to $15. That simply isn't possible with a single use voucher, so it might take an extra year, or two of subs, which then makes it less attractive.

Not sure what the new deals will be like though, but I'll wait and see how things pan out. PA have been pretty good to us in the past, so they can have the benefit of the doubt for a little bit from me, but otherwise there are a lot of other companies that I like. I also have pretty much all the PA plugs I really wanted now (and own, not sub), so whatever way it lands it's going to be fine either way ?

If they push everything subscription only, I'll just stop spending money with them.. not entirely a bad thing for the credit card! ?

16 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

$125 min for the most loyal $75 tier.

I almost thought it might be worse!

I wonder if it's because of some new deep bundle pricing between PA/NI/iZotope..

I'll be sitting on the sidelines to wait and see how it all pans out I think, before I get rash and make any judgement.

I can't imagine PA doing a complete 180 without at least some logic behind it that doesn't completely shaft their customers ?

5 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

Generic 

And the higher tier loyalty vouchers have an even higher min spend.  

I was wondering how bad those limits might be... $75 min for the $25 voucher is an extreme increase!

I reckon a few people are going to be pretty unhappy seeing the new minimum spend on the $25 loyalty vouchers  ?

18 hours ago, Fleer said:

Yeah, still very much into Slate Digital when I’m not using FabFilter. But the PSP strip looks pretty damn interesting too. 

The PSP does look good ? I don't use Slate really, so can't comment too much there, but as for Fabfilter, I do think they're a bit overpriced, but I also really enjoy them as well. They're all very good options..

1 hour ago, Pollux said:

I bought the ultimate channel strip during a sale, never really used it. I didn't find any actual difference with Slate's VMR or IK's mixbox.

I found these handy when you don't really know what you're looking for, so you can easily move things around and change stuff or load multi FX presets. But most of the time I end up with my usual go-to plugins

That's kind of what I do now! I have IK and quite like it, but I tend to cherry pick specific compressors, EQs, effects, etc.

I just thought it might be a good way of getting a taste for theirs. Although last time I looked at it, I also saw the PSP one and I really like some of their stuff.

Thanks for sharing those perspectives.

17 minutes ago, TheSteven said:

Never cared for McDSP's business practices and prefer to give my business to other developers. 
 

That's somewhat the feeling I've had.. but I did wonder about some of their "Ultimate" strips, or EQ, or Compressors, as you get quite a few options to use different flavours in the same plugin.

But they seem like one of those companies that was overpriced and stuck back in the ways when there were few quality competitors.

Luckily these current sale prices for them don't tempt me anyway ?

14 hours ago, mister_tea said:

Yes, this made me hesitant to use them frequently even if I'm mostly on one machine and not my laptop much in practice.

However they just released v7 which includes 2 ilok activations per license.

But v7 is a paid upgrade. Some users seem a bit upset at some aspects of this: they held M1 compatibility behind it, it costs $29 per plugin, and there is limited loyalty discount for upgrading multiple plugins, gearspace is suggesting it starts at 10% off if you upgrade at least 5 plugins.

In my case upgrades for 3 of my 4 purchased mcdsp plugins would cost more than what I paid for the plugins originally.

note this doesn't affect the deal the original post is talking about; those would probably be v7 licenses from the start

That's interesting. I didn't know that about the change to 2 licenses in V7. With even some of these old guys and Waves at least providing 2 licenses while WUP is active, hopefully we're almost past the single license days..

That's pretty crappy about the M1 support. Probably not alone there, but most companies I've seen just provided updates for free.

Shame about the update prices too.. some companies just really don't know how to reward loyal customers!

8 hours ago, Bapu said:

My bad. It was heavily discounted because of the plugins I owned but I'll need at least one more $60ish free plugin to be pretty much even. ? 

That makes sense then. Thanks and fingers crossed for a new freebie soon for you ?

2 hours ago, Bapu said:

Very cool. I recently went Premium Mebership (all new plugins are free). So, this one at the intro price almost covers my membership fee.

I thought the membership was quite a bit more. Or did you get a deep membership discount based on products you already owned?

1 minute ago, Zo said:

Prices are super high !!!

Only one license with these guys too which puts me off them a little... I had been considering picking up one or two of their plugins, but I'm not a fan of that..

Thanks ? I'd been waiting for this one to come on sale and had just been demoing it.

At first I didn't like it not having an output gain post EQ, until I opened up the PA11 part of it and discovered it had that, along with a few other goodies, including Drive! It really is a bit of swiss army knife EQ this one.

It can do stereo, or mid/side, but I love being able to hit the x2 button and get more EQ bands, just in case the 3 bands don't allow you to shape the sound enough, or you want some boost and cut somewhat close to each other. Very nice and simple monitoring options for M/S/L/R/LR too.

Surprised this doesn't get more attention.. it can get a really nice warm richness to the sound. Looking forward to using it more ?

13 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2019/06/23/friday-free-plug-in-royal-compressor-2nd-hand-edition-from-united-plugins

 

Thanks Brian, I've been meaning to give it a demo at some stage anyway, so it might still be worth having with those limitations. Of course given recovery time is fixed, then it's likely it's not going to work with everything, but I guess I'll see how it goes ?