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Now they are offering me a Komplete 13 upgrade for $199.50. Conundrum! Need a hard drive upgrade to even make that possible! ?

Well dang. There you have it.

So buy the SM Player on sale for $5, then upgrade from Player to the SM + SM One bundle for $49. So $54 total for both synths!

Been waiting for this deal to crossgrade from Kontakt Player. Missed it the last couple of times, for various reasons... But just nailed the crossgrade to Kontakt 6 for $124.50 plus tax! I had several qualifying libraries, but NI picked out my old Kompakt Sony Acid Pro OEM license from like forever ago as the qualifier for this crossgrade deal, LOL!!! No complaints, but thought that was really funny! ?

Most of the Studio One plugins are locked to the native DAW, especially the virtual instruments. But PreSonus has been releasing some of their FX additionally as premium VST3 plugins, with occasional giveaways. I now have these Studio One plugins running in Cakewalk (just because I can): Ampire, Analog Chorus, Analog Delay, Fat Channel, Pedalboard, RedlightDist, Rotor, Tricomp, & VU Meter. But I rarely ever use them in any DAW, including Studio One 5 Pro, because I also have IK Mixbox, IK T-RackS 5 MAX, & IK Amplitube 4 MAX. Fat Channel had had some good feedback, so that one is probably worth a look. But don't overlook Cakewalk Pro Channel. Ampire and Pedalboard are imitations of Amplitube, TH-3, and Guitar Rig. So a bit redundant if you already have any of those. I believe PreSonus includes these with Studio One to give first timers a good set of effects out of the box. And it looks like it does achieve that. But if you are wanting these just because they are free, you probably already have enough FX in your collection that cover the same ground. Just saying... On the flip side, these would be nice to have as VST3 plugins if you have actually been using the native versions in Studio One. I have not been.

Then you must have skipped a step, because they work fine here in CbB. ?

You have to install "PreSonus Hub" in order activate the PreSonus plugins on a computer. >>> instructions here: https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040222972-Installing-the-PreSonus-Hub

This thing is a bit like a "Light" version of the AIR Structure sampler. There are lots of real instruments in there besides pads. Brass, Woodwinds, Strings, Basses, Drums, Percussion, Vocals, Ethnic, Mallets, Bells... etc.

That's one of my all time favorite tunes! And quite possibly one of the best guitar solos ever! ? But the younger generation probably thinks it's a bit dated now... All I have to say to anybody who doesn't like it: F'em!!!

The controller compatibility with Cakewalk is an ages old question mark. I don't understand why it is so complicated after so many years?

I love Voltage Modular, but it's clearly a bottomless pit! But at any rate, it is less likely to cause divorce than a hardware modular addiction! ?

It's been a while since I fired it up, but my hardware Roland rack JV-1080 had a decent GM set, as I can recall. It blew away any Sound Blaster sound fonts that I ever heard!

Or just use Bluetooth... damn cables...

LOL! Just wait till it goes to $1, or free, again!

RCA audio inputs, LOL! I wonder if they are balanced? ? In all fairness, I should probably cut them some slack... it appears those were designed to primarily connect with i-Things via Bluetooth, with the wired inputs only as auxiliary.

Yeah, right. You can give your company a black eye and lose credibility by doing that. For example, just take a look at the AIR Music Tech "as-is" program. They fell far from the A-list (assuming they were ever on it). They once were part of Avid and Pro Tools. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! ?

That's exactly why I now have 2 copies of Xpand!2, LOL! I bought an Alesis VX49 keyboard that came with a VIP/AIR instrument bundle.

I never open Platinum anymore (or Sonar 8.5). But I do enjoy the Platinum extras in CbB. It would be nice if they were made available to those that never had Platinum. ?

I have only seen it go as low as $9.99 recently. It has been a few years since it was running at $1. That's when I discovered it, LOL! But if I hadn't already paid $1 for it, I would have gladly spent $10 or $15 for it. There is nothing else on the planet that offers such a variety of instruments in such an inexpensive package. It has a light footprint on disk storage and CPU usage, so you can run many instances without killing your PC. You would probably end up replacing many of the Xpand!2 sounds later in mixing, if you had some high quality substitutes. But many of those alternatives are CPU and RAM eaters, and often you might need to freeze some of those HQ instrument tracks to keep things from getting out of hand.

I have Sonar 8.5 Producer installed in a Windows XP 32-bit virtual machine (VM).

Nobody's arguing with you. The regular users here are just like you. We do not have the answers you seek.

Also, if they release all of the plugins, then they are on the hook to support them. Rather the dollars go to Cakewalk core development. For say: a chord track, integrated sampler, new notation engine, etc.

Well my point was that it's not just a Sonar internal plugin. Only the Cakewalk/BandLab devs know why it wasn't released with CbB. Not all legacy plugins were made available for CbB, for various reasons. I agree that it would be nice to have them. But you will have to ask somebody at BandLab for the reason.

I'm seeing it as a proper VST2 plugin here. And I can insert it in Ableton Live. It's been around Since Sonar 8 Producer.

I picked up Waves Flow Motion for $29. That's got me sitting on all the FM that I need at the moment. Very high quality sound, with a quirky interface. Not sure why it never made the A-list. Its pretty, pretty good! Still $29: https://www.waves.com/plugins/flow-motion-fm-synth Probably got dissed by the die-hard FM gurus who like to program operators... Also picked up the FM Station & Poly FM Station oscillator modules for Cherry Voltage Modular. Plenty of FM territory to explore there! $29 bundle with envelope generators and FM presets! https://store.cherryaudio.com/bundles/fm-bundle https://store.cherryaudio.com/modules/poly-fm-station That's a lot of F'em for $58!!! ?