Matthew Sorrels

This isn't a deal, but I thought people might be interested. DSP Motion is a sound effect/Foley generator that works on mouse motion. It's mainly aimed at movies/film/games but it makes wave files which you can use in anything. It doesn't let you load your own sounds, but it has a nice collection of generators (air/fire/metal/paper/etc) some very nice randomization options. About the only thing I didn't like was I can't resize the window. But for $49 it's pretty neat. I have no doubt I'll be using it for my next animation. No demo though. They do use ShareIt for purchasing and adjust the pricing so you pay $49 including what ever sales tax they have to collect. Which is always nice (and yes when you go to checkout it will show a lower price until it adds in the tax). http://tsugi-studio.com/web/en/products-dspmotion.html

I think this has already come up in Deals before, but I would like to add the MIDI included with this free pack is pretty nice. The loops are so-so. But it does have much better than normal MIDI riffs. Worth getting if you are into that (and EDM I guess).

Might want to read the thread at VI https://vi-control.net/community/threads/audio-imperia-ni-sale.97371/ Jaeger has been on my Want To Buy list for a while, so I picked up the bundle. To be honest I'm kind of disappointed in the new boring interfaces. I suspect if these instruments had originally shipped with the new current UI, they would have never made my list. The missing vocal instruments for Jaeger isn't exactly helping them here either (I'm sure it will get fixed shortly). They seem very uninspiring. Video play throughs of the old UI was a lot more interesting. I'm sure the sound is the same but the new UI is actually very boring. I was actually considering getting Nucleus and Areia as well as the bundle (I collect things more than actually use them and hate to not be complete). But after watching all their videos and playing with what's included in the bundle, I think I'm going to pass. Nucleus seems very nice but doesn't really bring anything new or better to my library. Areia just brings some more string articulations, again nothing new or better. I'm pretty sure this initial hot take isn't being fair to Jaeger, but since I already have Ark 1-4 and the entire Albion collection, it is being judged a bit harshly. I still have to give it a bit more of a chance and I might warm up to it. Once they get the missing vocal update out perhaps I'll feel better about it.

I suspect while it needs no authorization, the software was built on it/with it (because it's based on the full software). And it may be what is protecting them from the user's playing non-free drum kits in the free VST? Usually protection schemes never go away, even in demo versions, they are always there at least a little. I've always had a lot of scanning problems with Slate's plugins and iLok which is why I mentioned it. It is possible your SSD5 Free scanning problem isn't related, but I've seen the iLok plugin gets scanned and marked as not a plugin thing a bunch of times over the years with many versions of SONAR/Cakewalk. The fix has always been to force Cakewalk to rescan it (ideally without rescanning other plugins), which can be done a number of ways. Once Cakewalk gets a valid entry for a plugin, usually it will be fine. I have some theories about why this happens more with iLok plugins than others, but iLok doesn't exactly talk about their copy protection system much publicly. Deleting the registry entry will force the rescan. You can also edit the registry entry (as you did with the isVst change) You can move the DLL out of the scan paths, start Cakewalk, let it scan, then exit and move it back. Rename it in place to not end in .DLL and do the same thing. Or use the rescan all plugins option. I think even changing the time stamp on the DLL may work (there are utility apps that can do that). Normally if Cakewalk thinks something isn't a plugin it won't try it again unless you give it a reason. I should also point out the all iLok plugins fail to load after some point in a scan thing has happened on Cubase to me as well, so it's not just Cakewalk. But Cakewalk seems slightly more sensitive to it. The scan in a sandbox option has seemed to help that a bit though.

It's not about in the same directory. It's about how Cakewalk does the scanning. Cakewalk loads plugin #1, checks it, unloads it, then loads Plugin #2. That first plugin doesn't clean up things correctly it can cause Plugin #2 to fail to load right. Cakewalk's scan in a sandbox option is supposed to help fix this. But it only sandboxes the Cakewalk process. It can't protect system services (like iLok/eLicenser/etc) that not only use loaded DLLs but also actively running services. SSD5free claims to use iLok: https://stevenslatedrums.com/ssd5/#SSD5FREE

When Cakewalk scans DLLs to see if they are plugins if the plugin fails to load it will mark it as not a VST. This happens because some plugin developers mix non-plugin DLL's into the directories that are being scanned. Plugins that do load then have to respond like a VST/work like a VST as well. Sometimes when scanning plugins one plugin will do things that cause later plugins to fail to load. When this happens the later plugins can be marked as not plugins, even though they certainly are. I actually wrote a Powershell script that would clear out all bad plugins so that they would get re-scanned. Otherwise the only way to get that to happen is to use the Cakewalk option to re-scan everything which takes a long time. I suspect the problem with the Slate Drums might be related to iLok libraries. Loading an iLoc plugin can sometimes have issues (not just with Cakewalk). I've seen many a iLoc plugin fail during a scan (multiples of them) but then when reset and re-scanned they work fine. Rather than edit the entry, I'd just delete it and let Cakewalk re-scan it.

It actually seems pretty nice. But isn't exactly novel these days. But has some good sounds. One thing I did notice all the instruments are set to a maximum of 32 voices, for some of the arp presets you can easily exceed that. Upping that number seems to actually be a good thing (computers are much faster these days than when they made this)

I guess I got in before they stopped it. ☹️ I remember the last time they did a blow out people reported the coupons worked, so I decided to risk it.

Note on the product page is this note: "This is the last chance to own this product, don’t miss out!" Sample Logic has been retiring products lately (with blow out sales). I suspect once this sale ends the product won't be available anymore.

I picked up a $50 Sample Logic gift cert from Audio Plugin Deals using my APD Rewards for $30 and it worked on this. NOTE: see messages below they have closed this loophole.

Seems like a nice synth though, just playing through some of the patches. It is a lot like VPS Avenger though. May take me a bit to figure out what it does differently/better.

I kind of regret buying it now. Collecting a standard worldwide 20% tax used for price equalization and transaction fees without telling the customer in advance doesn't seem legal. I also don't think the way they have implemented collecting VAT is legal either, VAT isn't always 20%, it is based on the country. Not collecting and remitting the correct VAT is definitely not legal. I sure hope collecting an extra 20% was worth losing me as a future customer. I wonder if Germany has a VAT fraud report site?

The store implies the VAT is included and separate but they don't remove it if your address isn't EU. Also seems unlikely they adjust the VAT either (if you aren't in Germany/at 20% Vat). I kept expecting them to adjust the cart but they never did. Even though my Parawave account has my full US address and my Paypal account also has that same address.

Kind of bummed, they collected 20% VAT on my purchase. Sure looked like they would/should adjust the final total based on location (I'm in the US) but they don't.

It never goes on sale. The best you can do is one of the 15% coupons at Musician's Friend coupled with Musician's Friend's reward points. But I think that only works if you are in the US., since they have to ship it to you. (Guitar Center does the 15% coupons too but I don't think they have a reward program) I suspect this year we may see some 20% off coupons at Musician's Friend around the holidays. But perhaps with a longer than normal list of exclusions. No idea if Omnisphere will be included, since it really doesn't go on sale. Honestly Omnisphere is kind of overpriced. It does have a nice library and some nice 3rd party extensions. But it just doesn't seem to inspire me very much at all. This year I guess I should pick up Serum or Sylenth. Not exactly jumping at getting either though.

While CodeMeter is kind of annoying, I think a lot of the complaints are a bit overblown. Yes you do need to refresh your license every (I think) 3 months, which can be done painlessly with their V-Manager app (doing it by hand with the Codemeter apps was kind of difficult but I don't think new users ever need to go through that again). Having to do the refresh does kind of suck, but other than that it's not been a problem for me. I don't have the CodeMeter dongle (nor do I plan to get one). I understand Reason also uses it as well. It seems to co-exist with all the dozens of other copy protection systems I have on this machine pretty effortlessly. VPS Avenger is a killer synth though and is mostly worth the copy protection headaches. Though I know nothing about this next upgrade and what that will entail. My gut feeling is 20% isn't really much of a sale though. Off hand I'd say wait for a better offer. But I do think this one is worth getting, if the deal is good.

Does this for me too. Said there were like 6 products that needed to be updated. It downloaded the installers (you can see them in the Documents directory it downloads to) and it does uncompress them and then the install exits/never starts. If I unzip the download manually and install them they work just fine. I tried running IK Product Manager as admin (just in case) but that didn't change anything. The MODO Drum installer when ran manually claimed a newer version was already installed, but that was a lie. But it did let me continue the install anyway. It looks like I uninstalled Lurssen (I vaguely remember it was crashing due to conflicts with the Intel Math Libraries). So I thought I'd try using IK Product Manager to install it completely (since it wasn't on my machine). But that failed also. At least for it, the IK Product Manager UI showed an error/failure message (unlike all the failed updates which just failed silently). IK Product Manager doesn't seem to have any clean up functionality. So all those installers are now in a sub-directory in my Documents folder. And their sounds/data downloads are still time gated. And I don't see anything that can verify they are complete and installed correctly (something I know us Sampletank 4 Max users could use). I'm not going to open a ticket or work with IK to fix these problems. At this point though I've manually updated everything and I doubt there is much they could learn from me/I could get from them in any case. If I had something more specific and addressable perhaps I'd open a ticket. Though I will try any future updates they release.

Sometimes products will have plugins that only run in a single host (like this Decrackler plugin). Inside Cakewalk's plugin manager you can disable single plugins for this case. Since sometimes it's hard to have fully separate install paths for the "specialized" VST plugins.

Not really and I should know. I currently have installed and licensed on this machine more than 6 major DAWs. Every last one of them has had problems at one time or another over the years. I've had to jump through as many crazy compatibility hoops with Cubase and Reaper as I have had with Cakewalk. The types of problems for each are different, but not one of these DAWs has ever been issue free. And it's not just Windows either. Macs have had (and will definitely have in the future with a CPU change) just as many crazy system issues. And lets not even talk about issues with Linux. The grass is pretty much brown on all sides of the lawn. That said you need to pick your tools and on that score Cakewalk may not be a good fit for you. Nothing wrong with deciding it's not worth it for you personally. But other DAWs all are equally capable of being nightmares. There are no magic bullets.

From the Celemony store: Melodyne 5 studio, upgrade from Melodyne editor (any version), more info...US$349 But Melodyne has lots of sales and can be bought from dealers. So there are lots of better ways to upgrade than the full price store.

Unlike most of those other DAWs, Cakewalk is based on and uses a bunch of Windows software libraries (MFC, C++ runtime, etc). Things other DAWs don't (usually because those other DAWs are more cross platform so aren't tied to Windows only things). Plugins have always used a bizarre mix of system services (and Pace can be seen as a system service too). When the DAW and the plugin both try and use different versions of the same things, conflicts can happen. It has sometimes been why Cakewalk is slightly more picky about some plugins than other DAWs. It's all too easy for some other software to overwrite some shared C++ runtime library with a version it thinks is best and break someone else. Usually it boils down to broken installers. It can be due to a broken installer from a completely unrelated app even. And don't forget the endless Windows updates and driver updates. Plugins also use a bizarre mix of OpenGL/DirectX/GDI +/GDI for visuals which also has to work inside Cakewalk. Honestly it's mostly a huge unstable mess. I'm often amazed it works as well as it does. I install all VST2 plugins into c:\Program Files\Common Files\VST2 and c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST2 (for 32-bit plugins). I respect that VST3 plugins must be installed into c:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 and c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3 and never alter those. I let plugins install their resources and other utilities pretty much where they want (I didn't used to, but that always lead to so much pain and suffering I've given up on it). If they give me options I always move sample libraries/large data directories to other drives. I've configured every known VST registry path entry to those paths, so good installers can default to the right directories (this only helps/works about 30-40% of the time though). If given an option to review a plugin's install paths I always take it and fix anything I can. Never use the quick/normal install. Lately I've just been skipping the 32-bit plugins, if the installers will let me. And I always skip the AAX/Protools plugins if I can. Even with all that it is sometimes way harder to get things to work than it should be. I know lately I've been avoiding buying some new products just because I don't want to deal with getting it installed and keeping it updated.

So figure out what's different with your Cakewalk setup vs those others. I don't have Lexicon PCM but I do have Lexicon LXP and MPX and both work fine in the current Cakewalk. Start with what reproduces the error. If you Start Cakewalk, new empty project, add single audio track, track single Lexicon plugin to the audio track. Does that generate the error? What exactly is the error? Then look at how Cakewalk is configured to load VSTs. Don't use the plugin manager, instead use the Edit->Preferences then File->VST Settings. Check the paths that are listed as VST Scan Paths. What's different about that list vs those other DAWs. Then look at those different directories and see what's actually in them. Cakewalk will often load different/wrong DLL's (usually older versions of things) from directories you didn't expect. Since iLok uses shared DLLs it's very possible it's loading something that's installed to the wrong place. What is your Windows PATH set to, does it contain any directories that might effect iLok plugins? The last step (if nothing obvious shows up) is to use a debugger and or process monitor (like SysInternals Procmon) and have it log every file and look and see what exactly it's loading and from where. Then do the same for Reaper or Samplitude and compare the difference. That may be harder with Lexicon plugins though since they won't load if they detect a debugger attached. iLok is always a tricky shared thing and Lexicon hasn't been shipping updates like mad either (do make sure you are as fully updated as you can be though, the last update to PCM effects was May 03, 2019) https://lexiconpro.com/en-US/softwares/pcm-native-effects-plug-in-bundle-aax-vst-rtas-v1-2-6-windows-64-bit Is it possible Cakewalk is trying to load the 32-bit version and not the 64-bit version? Again check your Cakewalk VST Scan Paths and what is actually in those directories can help work that one out. Are you running Cakewalk as Admin (never a good idea but a lot of people do it to get things to work). My Lexicon plugins load lots of resources from various directories. Access rights to those files may be an issue. Do you have any compatibility flags set for Cakewalk? Again not a good idea, but does happen. You can remove any compatibility flags you have set on Cakewalk (google for how to do it). Sometimes with iLok issues the best answer is to uninstall the iLok software and then reinstall it. I think Lexicon only supports hardware authorizations so there could be issues with Cakewalk and your USB ports. Try moving the key to another USB port maybe? Do you have any MIDI control surfaces configured in Cakewalk but not those other DAWs? And yes I realize this is mostly a list of things you might be able to check, not a "press this button and it will fix it" kind of thing. The problem you are reporting is pretty much going to require some serious detective work on your part. But there is a reason it's acting the way it is, the trick is figuring out what that reason is. Good luck.

Worked on ProjectSAM Symphobia 2. Which is also on sale. So that's a pretty good deal, about $100 less than I paid for Symphobia 1 and 3 during the NI NKS sale. I wonder if that is a mistake also? I do hope they aren't losing money on this extra discount.

The way Steinberg's handles crossgrades is kind of super painful. Expect a whole lot of suffering to get that extra crossgrade discount. I did the crossgrade to Nuendo from Abelton Live 10 Suite (so I could keep my Cubase license). It seemed easy enough at first, the problem was once they approve it, actually finishing the purchase is near impossible with their not running the store. I finally got it to go through (several emails later), but the experience was so annoying I doubt I'll ever try crossgrading anything with Steinberg ever again.

..DELETED..