Matthew Sorrels

I got: Ableton Live 10 Suite upgrade from Lite (not sure I need another DAW but the price was pretty good) Sonuscore's Elysion Crossgrade (used some Best Coin's to get a better price) The Toontrack drum and EzKey MIDI packs that went on sale UJAM Virtual Drummer 2 bundle upgrade (from VD Phat which I got for free, so a pretty good deal) More interesting is what I didn't buy (that I was considering): Jaeger (sale price is still too high) Cinematic Studio Strings (decided I really didn't need another string library) Anything from Spitfire Audio

All SSD's have a limit on how many writes they can survive. While it is a high number, you can hit it, just might take a while. https://www.ontrack.com/blog/2018/02/07/how-long-do-ssds-really-last/

Oddly no. The shortcut works, but the Melodyne UI comes up with no blobs.

I don't think I realized there was a short cut, I always right click and wade through the menus. ?

I'm not sure (and I haven't setup any way to roll back yet), but it certainly is a bug now. I'm running the full Melodyne 4 Studio 4.2.4.001 (not sure that matters). After testing it a bit, it looks like the "edit notes" icon isn't enabled/clicked on the track that is opened in Melodyne. If you click on the little blob in the track list, the blobs appear. Here's what the editor looks like when it's opened: Notice the little orange blob icon in upper left doesn't have a white outline. If you click that, the notes then appear: It may be a problem Melodyne needs to fix, I'm not sure. Cubase doesn't work this way (with it's new ARA features) though (the extent of my testing really).

I'm seeing this too with the Hot Fix (don't have the release to test it with). I load in a small audio bit and make it a Melodyne RegionFX and the Melodyne window doesn't show any notes. If you close and reopen the window it does have the notes.

This worked, the Virtual Drummer 1 to 3 upgrade doesn't require your single be version 2 already, you can go from a single V1 to the 3 version 2 drummers.

You should put the request you are making in the subject of this post, that way people will see it.

It does mean you can't share your work in Session Horns Pro with a user that doesn't have it though.

I don't think Kontakt instruments can really do in place upgrades. Even new versions of an .nki won't update your previous projects, you have to do it manually. The bulk of the NKI is stored in your DAW's project file, so changing the disc version actually doesn't effect the project version. But samples/images/some (not all) scripts are loaded from disc, which can create issues if you overwrite an instrument with the new one. So for example if you have an instrument v1.0 and they update it to v1.1, you load a old project and it will still have the v1.0 NKI but be using the v1.1 samples/images/etc. You have to load the new .nki and manually transfer the settings over. (I'd love to be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure this is how it works)

Well I'm going to find out. Worst that can happen is I have to buy the v1 to v2 upgrade also.

So can you go from PHAT 1 to the V2 1 to 3 Bundle directly or do you have to upgrade to PHAT 2 and then do the 1 to 3 bundle upgrade?

I got this email. It says the free choice is "OR, get the ALL ACCESS PASS for $149 and get ANY SLATE DIGITAL PLUGIN (PERMANENT LICENSE) FOR FREE WITH VOUCHER!!" which I'm guessing means only their products, not any of the other 3rd party stuff included in the subscription.

A bunch of the AAS plugins have been updated to include resizing. I gave up trying to figure out what was new and just downloaded the big installer in my account that installed everything.

I got Captain Beats the other day (was included for me). It's kind of underwhelming. It didn't seem to have much in the music composition area (it doesn't auto-magically write new beats). It does have a library of sounds and rhythms but it seemed more like they phoned it in to fill out their product line. I only played with it for a short while though, but I certainly wouldn't recommend paying money/more money for it. And yes looking at the email they sent me they have set things up so they don't have to offer a real Black Friday price. I'm don't think the two aren't even separate product installers. The idea that you can buy one without the other I think is pure marketing fiction. I like Captain Plugins, as for pop/rock/EDM it's one of the best MIDI chord/progression helpers out there. For anything else though (Soundtracks/orchestra) I'm not so sure how useful it is. When I bought it I got it bundled with Odesi (which isn't all that useful but is fun to play with). Both products have a online internet requirement, and when Mixed In Key goes out of business they will quit running. On the plus side the developers have been working to make early purchasers complete, even if their Windows stuff has rolled out very slowly. They also haven't fixed the resizing problem with Cubase (works fine in Cakewalk, doesn't work at all in Cubase). I have mixed feelings about them and the Captain Plugins. I'm glad I have them, I use them, but I can easily see them going the same road a lot of these kinds of MIDI composition plugin companies have -- completely silent and then out of business. To me it's worth $79, but I don't think $79 is a deal. Scalar might be a better long term choice at this point, it's on sale and the dev team seems to be pretty decent.

I registered with them but didn't see anything worth buying. They are based here in PA, though their mailing address is a mailbox place in a shopping center. They appear to be yet another "random" retailer. I'm betting these guys are all getting their products from the same distributor. Black Octopus Sound seems to be sourcing the same products (for example).

PrecX is pretty cool. I bought it after watching some of their videos the other day. It has potential. But the USE violin I bought a few years ago was a mistake. It's really not that good.

I've not bought any of their stuff, so I can't really say. But Embertone is half pricing their ISS instruments, including the Blakus Cello. So $49 bucks (price changes when you put it in the cart). I think I'd go with it vs Karoryfer. Though I'll admit I've been tempted by their Secret Agent Guitar, but it's kind of a one trick thing, so I've passed. https://www.embertone.com/instruments/blakuscello.php

The full version is hands down the most playable solo violin on Kontakt. It's really amazing. This essential version doesn't seem that bad, but I don't think I'd give up all the articulations and features the larger one has. The larger one hasn't had a whole lot of sales/discounts, but it has had some. I'm not sure what the upgrade deal is, but if you buy this you are very likely to either never use it at all (not everyone needs a solo violin) or actually use it and find yourself pretty much drawn into getting the upgrade. GAS is a horrible thing.

It still says v1.5 when you click on the credits (after clicking on Global Settings). But the file is different (binary compare) to the old one. Oddly enough almost all the instrument NKI compare the same, which means they aren't using anything different. So technically there may be no v1.6, since that would require them update every one of the NKI files and I'd imagine would be a huge amount of pain (which is why the whole way they designed this instrument is just bad). So maybe they modified just the (LOAD THIS PATCH FIRST).nki, forgot to up the version number and left everything else the same. Technically a handful of the instrument NKI have changed. ST - Sausage Sustains Swell.nki FX - Quickscratch.nki FX - White Falls.nki PR - Safeties Off.nki SY - Acoustic Saviour.nki And there are new ones for the new wav files: ST - Synth Staccato.nki GT - Acoustic Infinity Pad.nki GT - Real Mutes.nki FX - Pumping Noise Rise & Fall.nki PR - Infinite Cymbals Menu.nki PR - Infinite Shaker Menu.nki PR - Infinite Tamb Menu.nki PR - Split Snaps.nki PR - Synth Taiko.nki PR - Tom Clicks.nki SY - Cauldron.nki And one NKI was removed between 1.5 and 1.6 FX - Noise Riser.nki

Morphestra 2 by Sample Logic It's what you really want vs Underscore. The new Underscore v1.6 version isn't really that much different. They added a few more wav files and some presets to use them. They also now include the manual and ARP presets they left out before, but it still expects you to edit the Kontakt instrument by hand to select things/etc. Morphestra 2 is a monster of a cinematic synth.

I have all of the Ton except the piano, so it's $12.34 for me. Not sure it's worth it to be honest, may have to look at the videos/audio samples a bit. I have too many pianos now. eDNA was my first Spitfire purchase and also (before BBCSO) the one I regretted greatly. It is the prime example of "amazing Kontakt instrument with lots of controls and sounds that can't be used to make any music". I'm sure there are musicians that can work on it's level. They can find some way to blend it with other instruments to create something amazing. I'm not one of them though. I picked up BDT last year. It's kind of the opposite of eDNA. It's pretty much can play itself and everything that comes out of it is musical. It is kind of hard to layer with anything (just like eDNA). But if you need underscore, background music for film/video/games, it's pretty cool. I think I paid $99 for it and haven't regretted it.

I sent a note to VSTBuzz and they sent me a dropbox link for the 1.6 version of Underscore. I don't think I'll have much time to look at it though until later.

Underscore's big problem is the UI/Script/GUI doesn't really lend itself to being productive unless you are the guy that made it. SampleLogic instruments cover the same ground but are far more usable. Same with Output. But none of them are <$25. Underscore has such a long history (it was announced as being worth $1000 way back in the dark ages with more than one forum flamefest over that claim) but the instrument itself is now kind of dated. If you have to stay with the low priced Kontakt full instrument bracket I'd say anything by Rigid Audio or Audioifer will get you a far more usable instrument. SEQui2R might be available cheaply. The DRONAR stuff is very usable for underscore. CL-Projects instruments on Kontakt Hub are also very usable in this space even if they don't have all the arp features like you'd get in a SampleLogic/Output instrument. Perhaps this v1.6 version is better. The v1.5 version of Underscore is one of the most confusing Kontakt instruments. The sounds aren't bad, but if the GUI/script isn't very usable it's just too hard to get at the sounds.

1.0.7 of the BBCSO plugin is out this morning. Big improvements in playback and load times. Memory usage is still kind of high and closing Cakewalk/Cubase/Project still takes way too long (to free all that memory I guess). But I'd say 1.0.7 is at least usable by normal people if you have enough RAM. If you are using Cakewalk be sure to get my template package, will save you some time on your quest to get your own.