Craig Fowler

Exactly. Pay your $80 to get Lustrous plates at a major discount, treat a year's mag subscription as a bonus, and wash your hands of it. If I wasn't chock full of good plate verbs it's probably what I'd do.

The acoustic pianos are very much of Noire's spirit in terms of combining really well sampled pianos with the fun sound generation engine. I like Noire a lot, but I find the acoustic H&W pianos more expressive - and to me the pair of acoustics uprights are lightyears ahead of the maverick. In terms of the electrics, I don't (yet!) have the Skybox duo; only the standalone featuring the rarer 'tube' Wurli. The Scarbee versions in Kontakt still hold up quite well, especially the Wurli (IMO) - but in terms of realism and what you can do with the sound the Skybox versions are, I think, a long way ahead. FWIW, I don't think you'll find Keyscape the best/most versatile based on what I read on the pianoworld forum (in particular, they seem unlikely to wow people who've got the better VSL pianos). For $150 here you'll get a very nice mid-sized grand, two very different uprights, and both main flavours of e-piano. That's hard to beat, and the only thing really missing would be a concert-sized grand piano (or something that isn't a Yamaha, I suppose). Even if you *only* want the equivalent of Noire 'pure' - the straight sampled instruments - these are really, really top notch. Add in the sound shaping engine, and they're a hard package to beat. A many-trick pony that does them all excellently! Obvs, I'm a big fan ?

I know there's been a general post that NI have lots of partner libraries on sale, but this is an especially good deal; haven't seen them this low before. Most of the packs end up at $65 (e.g., the rhodes/wurli combo); the acoustic pack with three pianos still comes out <$90 which is a darn good deal. These are *excellent* instruments. https://www.native-instruments.com/en/pricing/hammers-waves-electric/

Just FWIW, the link you posted says: "Includes Heritage Edition UAD plug-in bundle, featuring Teletronix LA-2A and 1176 compressor collections, 610-B Tube Preamp & EQ Collection, Pultec Passive EQ Collection" So it is the new versions rather than legacy they include. No comment as to whether that matters in terms of sound, but surely it can only be a good thing ?

Good time to get the accordion!

https://www.vsl.co.at/en/EDU If you saved any Christmas vouchers and are eligible, it's a good time to use 'em!

Now I'm feeling ganged up on!

Grrr. You seem determined to make me buy the Famous-E!!

Agreed on both counts...and am now hoping I haven't misremembered "other" Craig's comments! FWIW as much as I know you love the OTS Rhodes, the Soniccouture one might be my favourite - and Black Friday's coming up!

The Ravel is far from being my favourite piano VI and if I'd paid anything like the asking price for it, I'd be miffed. But there are some really good players who rate it (e.g., CGR over at VI:Control), and it has its uses. The reverse sound thing is a weird gimmick - and if you have your screen scaling adjusted, you can't always see that you can turn it off/down...the UADx plugins have some weird relationship with Windows scaling!

Both! I have a few of the plugins in that bundle, but I never know how much that affects pricing at UAD.

It's marked at $99 in the store even without a discount code - If you don't already have a good B3, that's worth it just for the Waterfall Hammond + Leslie!

Yup - when I think back to shelling out for hardware synths on the basis of the onboard sounds, ST4 at $49 is a steal. And there *are* some good sounds in there...but damn, if it doesn't make you work to find them! I've opened ST4 to pootle around with out of curiosity, but the GUI just sucks the fun out of playing. I mean, I hate Kontakt's interface too, but the hatred I have for working with Sampletank is at a different level. I know VSL are on the fancy side of things, but their Synchron player is a thing of beauty as these things go.

Yeah, I don't have ABB, but didn't love the demos. IIRC some of the individual sections sounded OK, but I didn't hear the same level of ultra-realism in the context of full arrangements. FWIW, the dynamic range of the solo instruments tops out around forte - you're not going to get the real 'blasts' you'd probably want. I.e., you'd get the timbre you'd need for something like Moonlight Serenade, but not for the later bits of American Patrol.

This is one of the most jaw-droppingly good VIs I own. If you pipe or play in some midi and listen back in 'regular' mode, it's pretty meh. It's just a sampled trumpet. But flick that smart delay switch and/or start playing with the articulations via the keyswitches/articulation maps, and it's damn near miraculous. The same goes for the trombone, tenor, and clarinet (I haven't had a chance to play with the alto yet even though it's been Bapu'd for months). SAS' brushes and upright bass are good value too.

I like this one a lot!

Nice to have you here, @skybox Audio - love your work!

Thanks PC, very helpful! I really like Skybox Audio as a developer too - I have the acoustic piano libraries which are outstandingly good, even taken as 'straight' pianos. I think I'm in the same boat you describe re your preferences; my ideal would be for the electric pack to combine the Rhodes with the 145b! I'm more of a Rhodes guy than a Wurli one, but I love the 'juiciness' of a nice Wurli!

How much difference is there between the 145B and the 200A, @PavlovsCat? I'm semi-tempted by the offer on the 145B, but I only just bought SonicCouture's Broken Wurli. Which is very nice, although I think the Canterbury Suitcase (their Rhodes) is on a whole different level.

I got all excited by the email seeing $42 each by the electric keys...then realized it meant it was $84 for the Rhodes and Wurli pack. Which is more than reasonable, but I wanted my bargain!

Boo - but I still really want to have my SY85 sounds again!

Wait? You bought a serial that they...won't let you register?! Sounds like they need to be talking to their resellers and having them pull the UVI licenses!

One of the all-time greats. A voice like velvet.

And your point is? ?

Well sure...but can you *play* it? I imagine a half-decent tremolo will take a fair few years to develop! Musical Sampling libraries tend to be very good, although Indiginus wins in the playability stakes.