CSistine

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 In the FAQ there is only the outdated explanation with the Authorization Manager for offline authorization and that does not work anymore!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! ?

I'm glad I decided to stay on Kontakt6! And at the moment there is no library I am missing. ?

What a pity! I tried Codemeter, it's a real hassle! Something additional running and using resources, only for one provider! So I stopped using Antares (except the 2 older plugins that still have iLok)! But hey, it's great for my purse! ? And it is not the only developer that gets there (reasons: authorizations, prices, subscription). It seems that the plugin providers achieve what I never could do: Stop my plugin hording!!!?

Subscription!? You too, my son Brutus (Assault)! ?

The Ultimate Audio Plugins Bundle containing 50 P&M plugins. https://everyplugin.com/vip-bundle.html (login account required to see the price!) Even if you don't use all of these simple plugins the bundle is worth the deal IMO! ?

Wow, how generous NI is! ?

Such deals make me aware that I'm getting old! ? There's nothing included that I like and the only pieces that are okay are the ones that I already own!

Their deals are NI-like now! What a pity!

I agree with you that it was/is great that we got 5 years of updates for free! ? On the other hand I think it is not "ridiculous" if someone reminds us of yesterday's promises! It was somehow the same when Microsoft told us that there would be no new Windows after W10! ?

They say "Version 2023.09 currently does not support offline activation"! It sounds as if there will be an offline activation. I am waiting for offline activation as 2 of my systems are mostly offline! Before that I do not install it even on my laptop that is usually online, because I want to have the same version on all of them!

Wise decision!

I have even much more than I wanted, 'cos there were those great deals! ? I guess with their new price/voucher strategy they will lose many customers like me!