Matthew Sorrels

No

I don't think it's necessary to go quite that far. I imagine they are in a bit of a tough spot depending on what exactly happened. Could they have done things differently? Yes they could have, but they did fix my issue. Hopefully they didn't loose too much money over all of this. Since businesses don't pay for theft--their customers do. While this will factor into my buying things from Time&Space, this won't totally shut them out. The best deal always has a few factors more than just price involved.

EZ Bass was announced as shipping in May https://www.toontrack.com/news/ezbass-release-month-announced/

Yeah they should have at least contacted me. The serial numbers are still showing on my account at T&S, they know exactly what they sent to me. And I'm not exactly hard to contact, since I spend money there pretty much monthly. Good news is now that I've redeemed all those codes Toontrack is sure to release new super-amazing products, that I no longer have codes to get. ?

One thing that can be a factor is the option in the Windows Sound panel for how Exclusive Mode works, I never check this box: And I don't let Cakewalk take exclusive control either. And I agree for the money it's a great interface. I needed something to fill in when Firewire quit being reliable on Windows 10 (I got it to work, but it was never as solid as on Win 7) but none of the Thunderbolt 3 interfaces were shipping yet (still true, still waiting), so I went with this as the fill in interface. It's been very decent.

So back at the end of 2018 I purchased a Toontrack Drum MIDI 6 pack and a EZX Expansion Value Pack (3 EZX expansions) from Time&Space. I had used 3 of the drum codes and one of the EZX codes and was generally just waiting for more interesting releases to show. This weekend I tried to redeem one of the drum codes and was told the code was an "Invalid Serial Number". I contacted Toontrack with receipts and the codes as sent by T&S and they told me: "The serials have been voided at the request of the retailer and they ask that you reach out to them with further questions. We appreciate your understanding." So I sent email to T&S and they did give me replacement codes, though one of the replacement EZX code was already registered in another account and I had to get them to send me a second one. I asked for an explanation and they said (and I quote): "There are other issues regarding some codes at the moment. " that was it. I've gone ahead and redeemed all the codes they sent me (more drums!), since I'm not sure I trust them anymore. By invalidating codes they sold to me I kind of see it like they stole my property (it wasn't theirs anymore after they sold it). They did fix the issue but I'd say strange things are afoot at the Circle-K. If you are sitting on Toontrack codes bought from Time&Space you might want to check them.

I am using a UMC204HD (the smaller version). I'm definitely not having any driver disconnect issues. But I do have Windows configured to use 48khz just like all my ASIO projects in every daw. There have been driver/firmware updates last year, so I'd make sure you get those. I'm running version 4.59.0 which I believe is the last version. Download it from here (for the 404HD) https://www.behringer.com/Categories/Behringer/Computer-Audio/Interfaces/UMC404HD/p/P0BK1/Downloads When some Windows apps change the sample rate to 44.1 things can sometimes get stuck, doesn't happen often. Oddly enough this doesn't happen to ASIO apps (they keep working at any sample rate), they seem happy to change the sample rate. But native Windows apps will stop being able to make sounds. Usually when this happens I hunt down every app that has the audio device open and kill it/restart it. Which fixes the problem. But this doesn't happen very often, assuming you have Windows configured to use the 48khz sample rate you use for audio. Worse case I have to unplug and reconnect the box. But that isn't very common at all (every 3 months or so maybe). And this is on a computer that is on 24x7. Note it's important to make sure you are powering the interface correctly. I'm using a full tower ATX desktop with a full power USB port and I've configured it to never do any power saving. A laptop USB port might not be able to put out enough juice to run the interface. A high-quality powered hub might help with that.

All the deals are exactly 50% off for me. But I already have Smart:EQ 2, which is the only one with extra upgrade discount I guess. Odd my Smart:EQ 2 price is64.50 (50% off) and not 85% off (since I also own Smart:EQ+ but not frei:raum). If they made me a deal on frei:raum or a complete my collection deal I might be interested, but I guess they think 50% off single prices is deal enough. I'll wait for APD or VSTBuzz to do a deal for frei:raum or smart:comp (the only 2 I don't have)

They tell me there isn't a 1.09 update file for Windows. That's a Mac only thing (and it doesn't update content, just updates the software only on the Mac). I think their Mac installer isn't quite like the Windows one. For Windows users if you just run the installer it will update you. They have merged the content into one guru file (used to be 2), but it hasn't changed if you already installed it you don't need to download and reinstall it.

Doesn't look like the 1.09 content update is included with the Windows installer, like the email said. Does look like it's in the Mac package though, a packing mistake maybe? I picked up Freestyle last week (and Nuance). From a make your own point of view it's a lot better than Unify. Unify's big strength is the patches that come with it. Making your own patch in Unify is a bit difficult. The VST scanner in 1.09 is much better though.

I'm not sure I trust the CbB new plugins count. I'm am pretty happy about this update. Since I jumped on version 11 thinking I could use the generators inside CbB and was crushed when that wasn't included. While certainly not worth full price, I'm pretty sure I didn't pay all that much for it (less than $200). For that it's a pretty good deal. A ton of instruments and now MIDI generators. The only complaints I have left is the non-configurable install data directory and the loss of rewire (which I really never used but I hate losing things).

That's odd. MIDI Output is enabled on mine with the new version. But I have auto-plugin scanning on startup enabled. If you don't perhaps you need to do a manual scan to update the settings for the Reason plugin (since they changed with this release)?

Upgrades (on sale upgrades of course) is a great way to WUP AND get more plugins, since Waves doesn't require the product you are upgrading from be in WUP (another thing that isn't obvious). There are lots of upgrade paths for almost all the bundles.

Sampletank 4 crashes can often be a fault of video card drivers. Sampletank uses OpenGL for it's UI and that is controlled by your video card driver. The other common Sampletank problem is due to versions of the Microsoft C/C++ Runtime. This can be a bit of a tricky subject though. You may need to update a bunch of versions to get everything right. Sampletank may also be using some Intel math libraries (that are shared) which again can cause some issues (depending on what CPU you are using). (I seem to remember yelling at IK over this in the past but my memory on this is pretty hazy ). The solutions to those problems are a lot harder to pin down (developers are supposed to ship the libraries, there aren't practical stand alone installers for end users). Usually re-installing Sampletank should fix this.

WUP if you're re-selling. WUP if they add new things to a bundle (and it's cheaper than buying them). WUP if your OS changes require it (Mac users get this more than PC) WUP if you want/like to have all your plugins running the same version number. WUP if you need direct support. None of those reasons are the same as a subscription though. Now that the sudden V11 release is out of the way (due to the Mac OS upgrade) I am hoping there will be many years before V12 ships. You can still update plugins with the same major version number even without WUP (which I think a lot of people don't understand). Which means it's not a subscription.

Looking at the Wayback machine they seem to have evolved a few plans over the years. I see some rent-to-own plans ($149/month for 24 months for Mercury, $49/month for Platinum) last year. Before that they had some $9.99/month just rent Silver and $149 Mercury. This current Silver/Gold/Platinum at $6.99/$9.99/$19.99 is still a bit off I think (especially the yearly cost which is pretty close to what you can buy the packages outright for if you wait for a sale) I can't imagine any pro users seeing a Platinum subscription even with the additional 5 bonus plugins as being good enough for a one-off job. Maybe Horizon+5. The real problem of course is that unless you have the plugins day in and day out you'll never be good enough using them to warrant a spot subscription. I'm not sure I believe there is a market for plugins on demand. Certainly not among the non-pro users, but even professional users seem unlikely to swap in and out toolsets. Mostly they stick with the same handful of plugins, day in and day out. They may replace those pieces (for newer better plugins) but I'd bet they aren't often finding themselves needing some random Waves plugin out of the blue. And if that was to happen I doubt it's in Silver/Gold/Platinum. If Wave's wants to get into the subscription game they need to make a Mercury+Studio Classics+Inspire for $50/month. And that'll never happen since they want to claim Mercury is $7500 full retail.

They have had a subscription option for a while now, not sure these new terms are much better. I'd label this as "not a deal".

Kontakt 6.2.2 - 2020-02-17 FIXED Using Super Audio Cart by Impact Soundworks would cause hangs and crashes in certain cases FIXED The effect of having "Unwind Automation" On was reverted after saving and recalling a multi or host project, when the assignments were made through KSP FIXED There were still hangs and crashes when batch re-saving certain instruments FIXED Kontakt would crash when trying to load NKM files directly from the operating system (Finder / Explorer) FIXED Kontakt would crash when trying to load certain NKI files directly from the operating system (Finder / Explorer); only reproducible with NKIs from Kontakt Player libraries that were not activated on the affected device FIXED Overwriting an NKI through the "Save as..." menu did not work correctly on macOS 10.15 Catalina FIXED Kontakt could crash when adjusting LFO Retrigger across multiple groups FIXED Button hover states would not appear as expected in v6.2.0 and 6.2.1 when controls where overlapping FIXED After using the Creator Tools Instrument Editor on Windows, file paths would sometimes be corrupt when saving and recalling an NKI using Kontakt FIXED KSP Arrays loaded from NKA files were erroneously populated from fallback data on snapshot recall

I was told they would fix it too (in chat). Considering it has been broken since Wed I'm guessing they aren't actually in a rush. I really don't need it (I already have one of the Q25 keyboards I got years ago for free with something) but Studio One 4 Professional and the BlueCat plugins for $120 seemed like a reasonable deal.

You can't actually order these. The site will give you an "Order contains item(s) with unavailable or undeliverable status." when you go to checkout. Their chat agent says they aren't available. I know there is another post here of someone that managed to get them to fill it with phone calls but short of doing that this offer isn't really available.

Yeah I was surprised about the download option too. So I opened a chat with them before I ordered. The support rep said they just made the decision to start offering Diamond downloads this week. My upgrade to Diamond took about 3-4 hours to download and uncompress. But it took them more than a day to process the order (they have to do upgrades manually I guess), so don't do it expecting you'll be able to start downloading right away.

Unlike most of the East West sales this one includes upgrades (only on their site though). And they are now offering Hollywood Diamond as a download (so you save money on the hard drive and shipping). Was a good enough deal for me to finally upgrade from Hollywood Orchestral Gold to Diamond. It's downloading now, pretty quickly (I have Gigabit FiOS).

I really don't like the noise in the woodwinds and brass, my default mixing chain's compressor+limiter really make it sound like bacon sizzling and wheezing especially on the shorts. The strings are pretty nice though and a really good size. The sound design bits are actually better than most of the Albion's. If I could have demoed it, I would have skipped it. The woodwinds and brass are a major let down. The strings and the rest I think I will use though. With smart mixing I think you can use the woods and brass, but you have to keep the volume down a lot.

He confirmed it's 32-bit Windows only: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7659944#p7659944

This post was from back in early Feb last year. Right now it is on sale at Audio Plugin Deals. Either as part of "the deal" or you can buy it separately. It's also in The Shop with an even lower price if you have reward credits. Deal $99.99 for just it or $174.99 for it and Spotlight Strings 4D https://audioplugin.deals/deal-1/ The Shop: $69.99 if you have Audio Plugin Deal Reward money: https://audioplugin.deals/virtuoso-ensemble-kirk-hunter-studios/