CSistine

This is difficult and I think it's dependent on what genres you do. I think SSD is best suited for harder rock styles. Not only it is dependent on the genres, but also on your taste! I can't argue about BFD, but what I like with SSD are the kick sounds, much better than in AD2 (their kicks are all too boomy)! Also I like the straight mixing console, not too much fancy stuff. I prefer to mix the drums mostly in the daw and not in the drum plugin. I usually export the drum plugin tracks as audio and import them into my mixing projects. In respect of the current Steven Slate deals I am really disappointed, because I purchased Trigger 2 and found out that there is only 1 lousy iLok activation for this one, for SSD 5 I got 3 activations back then! Thus I had expected the same for Trigger 2. Regret my purchase!

As it was expected that this gets on sale, I was looking what price it was yesterday. I am sure it was already reduced to $99 and I could swear the MSRP was $199! Hell, how they play with us!

Just 2 days ago I had something similar with a clip Gain automation. The first Gain segment was beginning before the instruments first note and I made it with a slanting line coming slowly from 0dB to the Gain change (2 points only from 0dB to -2dB). Accidentally when I zoomed in I saw that the bounced audio had suddenly a very ugly spike in the beginning of the first note! I had to shift the start of the gain change much more to the left to avoid this. I also had noticed that the visual gain change differed a lot from the bounced audio. In some places I had to remove it, as it was unusable. I had to split those areas and use a compressor instead. After all this I regretted that I had chosen CbB instead of Reaper to do this! By the way the visual clip Gain change is one of my preferred CbB changes over Sonar Platinum. It is such a pity that it is not really reliable!

Yes I know! But it's interesting that there are quite a couple of developers that implemented the possiblity to define the location of the configs, the manual and for other stuff in the registry, nonetheless this configuration is not available in the installer, strange! But manually (zip files) I can use it. Frankly if the installers would give more configuration possiblities I would also use them (e.g. if you want menu items, if you want a Windows uninstaller, the VST3 subfolder definition, the document location, preset location, ...) and it could have a default value for those who don't want to define it. Also, most installers don't tell you where they install stuff, except some exemplary developers.

That's only true if you like (or accept) the cluttered directory structure of Melda! ? E.g. I have already such a structure (Dynamics, EQ, ...) in my VST3 folder for all plugin providers and I don't want Melda to be an exception! So it takes a lot of work to move all the stuff! This is the crux with all those Installer Managers: Every provider has its own crazy idea of file organization (vst3 folder/subfolders, vst2, docu, presets, menu entries, program data, ...). IMO it's a terrible mess (except if you just use a single plugin provider)! ?

It seems if you don't own MSoundFactory and MGuitarArchitect, then you could skip the last updates and also this one! This is why I dislike plugin packages, there are too many relationships to new added stuff! I mean this generates a lot of installation work for nothing, if you don't have that new stuff!

This is exactly the reason why I prefer zip files for plugin installation! And because this is a lot handier, I create my own zip files out of the installer exes, if this is possible. Like that I safe a lot of time afterwards when I install the plugins on another computer or on re-installs. Also for removal I really know what is where. Additionally, I skip for me useless installation garbage (like AAX, menu entries, icons, ...).

The last years I get more and more updates that are none! Apple Silicon support, wow how important for Windows users! Other bells and whistles? I am not interested in. And new internet gimmick! How I like if I click on the wrong position of a plugin that my browser is being started, just to see a fu..ing home page, help page or check the current version! In what an absurd and pointless world, time do we live??? My DAW would suppress any internet access of plugins! I want to make music and mix songs! I don't want a Facebook or whatever social network in my DAW!

Sorry, I did not mean to blame you! I just wanted to give a hint! My fault, probably not the right way to tell!

Please fix the link (has 2 backslashes at the end)!

The problem is that the above link has to backslashes at the end! Remove one and it runs!

Frankly, IMHO their pianos and other instruments are not so bad as some mention here! The thing is that if you open them in Kontakt only the Close Mic is being activated. To get a nicer sound you need to blend other mic positions in the mixer panel! Though I agree that they are somewhat bloated, but that's caused by too many (IMO) microphone positions!

Great idea, I wanted to do the same (though here it is 29 EUR)! But when I put it into the cart, then it chose exactly the Essential 4 license as base that I want to keep for my W7 recording pc! There was no chance to choose one of the other Essential 5 licenses as base! The only solution had been to contact support, but this was too much hassle for me, thus I purchased it from everyplugin for $41.11 ! Okay, this is $9.00 more, but like that I keep my other Essentials (worth 20 EUR) for future updates!

I can recommend StandardGATE. I was looking for a full featured Expander for a very long time and this one has it all (sidechain, hold, rms, ratio, look-ahead, ...)!

That's even better with Reaper, it runs on XP, Vista, .... Windows 11, also 32-bit, Linux and Mac !

How does this compare to the PA Ampeg emulations? Is it any better?

The advantage of Reaper and Mixbus over Studio 1 Artist is that they have an authorization that you can copy to a new system without trouble, if you once change your computer, i.e. your work will not be a hostage to the developer company (no mercy required then).

Still they did not fix the offline authorization! In the FAQ there is only the outdated explanation with the Authorization Manager for offline authorization and that does not work anymore! Bad, bad IK! ?

Cool, for a long time I was looking for Sharine and Suspended Cymbals to go on sale! ? Though I don't know yet if I can afford both at the same time! ?

Except with EU taxes!

Okay, it is not so new! But it has a user-friendly authorization and works great!

If BFD3 had offline activation, I had bitten long ago! ? I wonder that in the drum plugin market there is almost nothing with it (except SSD).

IMO it is not amusing if the big companies misuse the software they sell for marketing purposes! ? I mean such things like misusing the internet connection to download advertisement, to include additional trials in the plugins that cause a big size and permanent updates (e.g. IK) a.s.o. And I wonder that many customers don't realize this! ? This is also the reason why I am against online authorization! They can do a lot more than that with an available internet connection! And we can see it in other areas, each possibility to fraud is being misused sooner or later! We are losing control over our computers. When we start the system to work on our music, first Windows is loading a bunch of updates (I can hear the fans suddenly going up). Then when I start the daw with my project, itself and 30 plugins are checking authorization and version update. Who wonders if we have slow startup time?

Terrible! The plugin scanning/handling gets worse and worse! There is no possibility to define plugin paths (e.g. remove standard paths) VST3 makes it even worse, because it automatically adds the standard path that also includes instruments that audacity cannot handle If you have a lot of plugins the scan runs forever and it runs on every start I used it to quickly open a wave file to look into or to make quick, small changes, because the file open was very fast with Audacity. This is all gone, with the new plugin scanning and 64-bit/vst3 support it is terribly slow. In version 3.1.3 I was able to define a portable config to reduce the plugins to be scanned to the ones I really need. This was quite okay! But now!!???? Also in the 3.1 64-bit version I had to remove the sorting by provider, because it was that slow. After that it ran almost okay. I don't know why, but in older 32-bit versions this was really no issue, even with a lot of plugins!

Regrettably there is no offline activation! ?