PavlovsCat

That's a positive for me! Less temptation to buy more stuff I don't need!

I'm just listening on my phone, but that sounds nice and way better than I'd expect for that price! I will be checking this out later. EDIT: When I listened on my PC, the drums didn't make the cut for me. I find my drums from Toontrack, XLN, NI and Drum Drops are more to my liking. I wouldn't mind seeing Gospel Producers Wurli on sale, as I recall, that sounded very nice.

In my experience, VI is a mixed bag. But, at least several years ago when I spent more time at VI Control the KONTAKT developer subforum seemed fairly active and a couple of developers I know referenced it from time to time. A subforum here? Sure, why not. Of course, I'm not a developer, so I wouldn't participate, but why not? But if you want a community that's well established with some very well respected KONTAKT developers, I think VI's worth a look.

@daveiv As an aspiring KONTAKT GUI developer, have you checked out VI's KONTAKT scripting subforum? I haven't seen it recently, but historically, it was pretty popular with some really talented freelance KONTAKT scripting pros (a lot of them dabble in GUI design too) and was a great place ti get help when you're learning. I remember when Evil Dragon came on the scene (an excellent KONTAKT scripting freelancer). You can find him over there. He's very well respected among KONTAKT developers and has always been super helpful to aspiring developers and those just learning KONTAKT scripting.

Same here regarding Have Audio instruments. I have been considering them for a couple of years, but never pulled the trigger until today (it took one favorable recommendations from Fleer; man am I a sucker for strings). I couldn't resist at $33.80 USD. But I still want either their Nordic Cello or the Sonixenima Solo Cello. To be very candid, I don't even have enough hard drive space for this library, so it's time to buy another hard drive.

This purchase is on you, Fleer! I need to curb my GAS. All it took was your posting it's good for folk rock. Thanks.

@Fleer While I posted the sale, I haven't decided if I'm going to get the Kontrabass yet. It sounds great for doing effects, but I mainly want to use melodic patches that I play -- I have no interest in loops either. Basically, if I use this, I would want it to accompany piano for folk rock or rock pieces. What do you think of it for that purpose? I suspect it may be mostly useful for effects than melodic playing. I'd love to get your insights.

@Reid Rosefelt Do you know if the Nordic Cello has ever gone on sale for a similarly discounted price? I realize it's a more recent library. But it's the one I'm really after. It's either that or the Sonixenima Solo Cello -- or both. Since I was a kid, I've been in love with strings, but especially the cello. Also, do you own either library? If so, I'd love to get your thoughts on it.

@Music Software Deals I'm watching for two solo cello libraries to go on sale, Sonixenima Contemporary Soloists Cello and Have Audio's Nordic Cello. Could you add those to your site? I'd gladly set up email alerts. https://sonixinema.com/products/contemporary-soloists-cello https://haveaudio.com/collections/envision-instruments

Same here. I'd love to see them have a similar discount on their Nordic Cello.

NORDISK KONTRABASS reg $169 USD now $33.80 USD at Have Audio with Code: NORD_3YEARS. Requires the full version of KONTAKT. https://haveaudio.com/products/nordisk-kontrabass

It's no surprise that any CEO or investor is impressed with Slate or any software company succeeding with the subscription model. It provides what every software company wants, a reliable, steady stream of income month after month. But I wouldn't be overly concerned about the impact of that related to this acquisition, as Slate was already using the subscription model and I doubt this means that Audiotonix is going to suddenly move everything to a subscription model. My instincts are that, for a lot of companies in this industry, we're more likely to see a mixed model. Personally, I don't like or use software subscriptions for music related software. However, when it comes to my business, we have a number of software subscriptions. If I was doing music for a living or owned a commercial studio, I would be fine with subscriptions. As a hobbyist, I avoid subscriptions.

This acquisition, and similar recent acquisitions in the industry, reflect that investors see growth in the market. Steven did a great job building a very high quality plugin brand and I suspect that this will result in his legacy continuing, with more resources being allocated to the growth of his former product lines. Consequently, I think this is good news for all of us who use DAWs.

Okay, today I made a project file of glockenspiels. I played percussion in the school band from elementary through HS and got to fill in for the kid who played glockenspiel and fell in love with the instrument. So how many glockenspiel libraries did I find I have? More than 20. Even worse, I still have my eyes on another glockenspiel library. So yeah, theoretically, having those project files keeps me aware of what I already own which would seem to lead to less purchases of libraries I already have sufficiently covered. Clearly though, it hasn't stopped my GAS.

Yeah, imagine, PA's head of marketing reads this thread, sees my post and thinks, "That's a great idea!" I'd have to change my identity in this forum after that and hope Fleer doesn't track me down!

While I wouldn't recommend engaging in such hyper intensive discounting like they're doing -- it wears out consumers and trains your market to only buy during sales. I think it shows that the new ownership is very hungry to grow Plugin Alliance's market share. Which, as a customer who wants these companies/brands to stick around, is a really good sign. As long as they don't introduce PAUP (that's a joke -- I hope -- Plugin Alliance Update Plan).

I just bought this library last week. It was only the second time I've ever bought a sample library from a person reselling a library (Larry was previous person I bought a library from). It was only ten bucks. But I like it. It's not great, but it's nice.

Basically, I'm trying to do the same to stop my endless stream of acquisitions. I could be fine with everything I already own and I still don't know how to use a heck of a lot of the effect plugins I own. So, of course, I'm no one to give advice in this area. But one thing I've done that helps is creating Cakewalk project files by instrument category and I drill down. For example, I have a file with all of my upright character pianos so that if I'm tempted by a new upright character piano, I'll go open that project file and spend time with those pianos to really understand if the library I'm looking at really would fill a need or not. That's mostly been effective this year. But the one thing where I've broken the rule? The inexpensive libraries along the way and figuring out how to create my own programs in SoundPaint. I think all of us regulars in this forum have the same buying habits.

It wasn't my market analysis that I shared, it was from an industry analyst. I am a former strategist, so I definitely think like one. When I referenced Slate hiring, I was referring to adding new staff, not replacing turnover -- and that was earlier this year. Just a strategy 101 point that is a basic part of due diligence. Yes, the global economy is definitely straining right now. But tech is still strong. Hiring in the US is still strong right now and is forecasted by major analysts to remain strong into 2023. The "lack of enticement a the PA sales" is not something I would make the leap to the assumptions you're making such as reflecting the industry slumping or PA in trouble. PA was recently acquired by Soundwise and their new ownership clearly has a belief that they can grow their marketshare, like many acquired companies. It's very typical to see management of a newly acquired company expected to grow to adjust and try different sales, pricing, distribution, partnership and promotions strategies -- these are the very obvious, simple things you commonly see in the short term. So when you see a newly acquired company having these changes, it's not surprising under any economic conditions so you really can't make too many assumptions beyond that, particularly in the first year after an acquisition. I would add to that, that the competitive forces are a major factor in PA's strategies that you're looking at. Aggressive pricing and deep discounting is becoming increasingly common in the competitive environment, so that's the battle they face for marketshare, and especially for acquiring new customers -- and as the market is growing, that's especially critical, so it is to be expected that Soundwise wants to see PA focused on growing their marketshare. One might see it as a very extended bunch of rounds of penetration pricing that eventually became the norm. The fact is, when multiple competitors began doing deep discounting, it can put major pressure on a company, especially if sales are stagnating and the deep discounting competitors are grabbing the new consumers in the market. Okay, there might be three people here who enjoy strategy discussions. I used to have a publication on strategy and a forum where lots of business people and academics enjoyed deep discussions on strategy and really enjoyed that part of it. I just didn't love having to write about it every day, so I don't anymore. Consequently, it's more enjoyable to discuss strategy now that it's not something I'm obligated to write about regularly. Back to our regular programming. And whatever your thoughts on PA, one thing that's nice from a consumer/buyer perspective is that high quality plugins and libraries are more affordable than ever.

Umm, I have another interest that takes up a lot more money. A son going to college next year and his younger sister who is going to follow in 5 years. So I definitely have some other things to spend money on! And yeah, Taco Bell was just used as a joke. I live in Chicago and we have really good Mexican food out here. Taco Bell was fine when I was in HS -- once in a while -- but I think I've been there maybe a couple of dozen times since HS. Okay, that said, I can really go for a burrito right now.

You're making some incorrect assumptions. There are a lot of businesses hurting in the current economy. But not the DAW, sample library and plugin market. There was a recent market analysis I shared here a couple of months ago. The market is doing very well and growing. It's an attractive market. You can't make a connection between companies doing deep discounts and financial issues. Traditional (brick and mortar) retailers have been in trouble for years and the pandemic magnified those problems. But that hasn't translated into the digital music making world. 8Dio has been deep discounting for many years, so has Waves. Probably a decade for Waves by now. As a strategist and marketing professional (okay, I'm a business owner now, but even now, my business is a job site that focuses on marketing jobs that was a result of my publication on marketing strategy), a company like 8Dio and many others, that are clearly growing, offer sales because this is a growing market that is increasingly competitive. 8Dio is attempting to grab as much of the market as it can, and aggressive pricing is a big part of their strategy (I don't necessarily agree with how aggressive their pricing is, as I think that deep discounting too greatly all of the time, undermines your brand image to the point where consumers are being trained to no longer buy at regular prices but instead they wait and anticipate major discounts). So, 8Dio and many other sample developers -- and Waves on the plugin side (a much older, long established player) -- are pursuing aggressive growth strategies. Think of it as that they're buying these customers by giving away products very cheaply because they know that most of these buyers spend a lot of money over their lifetimes and want to grab them before the competition sells them an alterative. Years ago, when Troels started Tonehammer, he called me for some strategic advice on branding and marketing. He was a composer out of the UK with big plans to take his knowledge of sample libraries and build his business to appeal to film and games composers, hobbyists and a large amount of folks who aspired to be pros. Of course, most of the money is in the amateur market. So Troels' now uses very aggressive penetration pricing, deep discounting, especially on older libraries and libraries near retirement. These aren't new strategies or strategies done out of desperation. These are aggressive strategies to win over buyers in highly competitive growth markets. This industry is doing very well right now. There's hiring going on. I recently saw Steven Slate (who I also spoke with in his early start up days) was hiring additional NEW STAFF for a number of roles in the US and in France earlier this year. From the analysis I recently shared, it appears that the pandemic has not hurt the DAW/plugin/sample markets and may even have benefited the market. Of course, that doesn't mean that all companies are doing great -- it's highly dependent on many factors, including the skillset of the management of a company. But the industry overall is doing very well right now.

It's all relative. I'm only making music for me. I'm a middle aged guy who is trying to play for a few minutes at a time due to tendonitis that stopped me from playing professionally, so I'm looking for what I believe sounds good. But for pros, I think it's all dependent on what you're doing musically. If you're doing film and game composing, you absolutely better get top notch string libraries. Your clients expect that and audiences expect that. But for a hobbyist -- which is what I am -- it's only about my personal standards. And I have two school age kids and need to budget, so if I can spend 50 bucks and get a really beautiful sounding string library, I'm all over it. Does it matter to the maybe 50-100 people who will hear my music? Probably not a whole lot. But it matters to me. It helps me feel more inspired when I play. Back when I played professionally, I was meticulous about my playing and tuning of my drums (I was trained on piano, organ, drums nd guitar, but played drums professionally for 12 years , but played publicly since I was 4 1/2 starting with a family band playing around Chicago). When my drums were tuned to what I thought was perfection, I was inspired to play better. It greatly impacted my playing, which was always very spirted and emotional. Now, due to physical issues (tendonitis) and the fact that I haven't played or practiced in 22 years and can't realistically practice, I have zero technique. And it's really frustrating as someone who was once a perfectionist about my playing. I didn't play simple stuff like Beatles music back when much, but today, I do because I can't play anything too difficult. But if I have some low end piano or string library, I just don[t feel inspired and my playing would never share anything. If I have a sample library that inspires me -- like Noire (NI piano library), Orange Tree Samples guitars, Toontrack and AD2 drum libraries -- I feel inspired and can crank out an inspired performance that I could otherwise never do (although technically, it's still mediocre playing, but I would otherwise not even be at that level). So, it's completely subjective, but for me, it's all about what inspires me. For strings, a lot of times I'm inspired playing the free Pocket Blakus cello. In fact, I did the first demo I've ever done recently, for a developer, and I used Mellotron strings with the free Pocket Blakus Cello. The version I use is for KONTAKT. I'm not sure if there is an SFZ version, but I think there might be. But I've passed over my 8Dio Deep Solo Cello and 8Dio Intimate Solo Strings cello for the freebie Blakus cello because it inspires me and it's audio quality is up there. I suppose what I'm saying is, if you're doing music professionally, yeah, absolutely fidelity makes a huge difference and out of all of the sample libraries you could pick, string -- and guitar -- libraries are the ones where there rarely are no cheap substitutes if you're a pro. But if you're doing music just for your love of music, like most of us are, I think the only criteria that matters is what inspires you. If you're inspired by a free or cheap sample library, I think that's the best one for you. But I wouldn't conflate that with pro standards when you have clients. Even for my demo, if I used poor quality libraries, my demo wouldn't cut it -- and that's merely an unpaid demo. The bar for paid, commissioned work is much higher.

As are good drums, good guitars, good basses, good pianos, good electric pianos, good organs, good percussion, good tuned percussion, good brass and woodwinds...I just picked up Xperimenta's harmonium, so good harmoniums.... Yeah, and I started this year thinking, I'm not even sure if I should spend another cent on music stuff, that my playing is so poor it was time to throw in the towel. Then I was asked to do a demo for a developer and I'm back to buying stuff.

Funny, I have been trying to the same. But this is a terrible place to be if you're trying to reign in your gas. It's as effective as trying to reign in the gas at Taco Bell. I suppose it's possible, but it's just not likely.

I don't want to give details from private conversations, but the takeaway for me was that there are some nice changes. If you don't already use it, I know that some KONTAKT developers use VI Control's sub forum, so if you can always check there.