PavlovsCat

I'm guessing you wouldn't give it to me. But I'd love the EFX Refract.

That's not wrong. It is largely a complaint that is very reflective of Boomers. When I was looking at some related research several months ago, the differences between how older and younger generations view software subscriptions is very different. Also, there's a huge difference in how pros / business buyers view software subscriptions compared to how consumers view it. My business has a good deal of software subscriptions (it's a dot com). But as a hobbyist, in my personal life, my views are very much like that of Boomers. I prefer perpetual licenses for my software.

What in the world were the Don't Crack Plug & Mix guys thinking when they named a plugin "Vibrator"??? Seriously folks, don't search Google or any other search engines -- unless you have safety settings on -- for reviews on it unless you're prepared for finding a lot of undesired results and ads. Plugins + vibrator is a combination that guarantees a search engine will NOT think you're looking for a VST plugin (yes even with semantics, it's impossible to discern that query is for a VST plugin). In the digital age, that was an off the charts, fantastically dumb idea, that was, no doubt, rooted in someone thinking it was clever. If I died tonight, my kids would see a Google search for "plug and mix vibrator reviews" and knobcloud.com (a site where people resell plugins and sample libraries) in my browser history and might think dad had a secret life (in reality I don't). Neither of those things are what they appear to be. Let's try to push developers towards better naming practices. There should not be a Plug & Mix Vibrator nor a Knobcloud. There were unlimited alternative names these folks could have chosen; instead, they chose poorly. https://everyplugin.com/vibrator.html

I have Animate, Levels, Bassroom, Limiter, Expose 2, and Punch -- I picked up all of them free over the years. Mixroom never seems to go below $37 USD. Candidly, I haven't used their plugins that I have, so I'm iffy about picking this up for Mixroom. Does anyone here who owns Mixroom have a strong opinion on the plugin (good, bad, or indifferent)?

Thanks for the insights. I know that I can always count on you to give an honest opinion. I remember listening to the demo for the cello library (like guitars, mandolins, Wurlies, pianos, glockenspiels, celestes, and drums, I'm a sucker for a beautiful solo cello) which didn't sound like anything close to a professionally made sample library or a pro demo, IMO. For strings, guitar, and brass libraries, far more than pianos and drums, there's such a major requirement for detail, articulations, and clever scripting to sound authentic and be good for real time playing, I do pretty serious research before making a purchase. And the opinions from the regulars here mean much more to me than influencers hawking products.

I'll give it a listen. I did write the developer off based on the Wurly library. There's free Wurly libraries on Pianobook that sound far better. Being very candid, based on that library and some of the demos, it does seem to me that this is not a top tier developer. In the past, you've posted that you thought some of his libraries might not be up to my expectations, which reinforced that opinion. So now that you're recommending one, I will check it out.

@cclarry I appreciate you sharing your experience, knowledge, and insights. It clearly was quite a little journey to get to the killer deal on your new interface. On a side note, as a fellow gear junkie, I think it looks pretty cool too.

Wow, that seriously should be another thread, @cclarry. Komplete Standard is easily the most important software for me (I heavily use sample libraries and most of them are in Kontakt; it is the gold standard). That's an amazing deal. I think I paid nearly $600 US for the first version of Komplete many years ago.

Years ago, they gave away the full version of their LiTz Wurly library. I'm sorry to say it was the most poor sounding Wurly sample library I've ever heard, even compared to free libraries. I eventually deleted it. It may be only $20 US on sale, but I'd recommend people listen to the demos very carefully. There are free Wurly libraries like lofi Wurly (on my list of free Kontakt libraries) that are far superior.

Starship Krupa is absolutely right. It's not justifiable to attack or disparage Bandlab because they're moving to the subscription model. Every software developer would love to have monthly recurring revenue from their customer base. That's not inherently unethical. Personally, it's just not for me when I can move over to Studio One Pro and buy a perpetual license. Maybe Bandlab will decide to offer that option in the future too. Who knows. But making the company out to be evil is completely unjustified. They've given us an excellent product for 6 years without requiring us to pay anything and they're still allowing us to use it. To attack them as if charging a price or moving to a subscription model is immoral is irrational. Let's take a deep breath. For those of us who don't like the subscription model for this software, simply vote with your wallet. That's all there is to it. They run their business and if there are enough of us who resist the subscription model, the odds are good that they'll listen and make the appropriate adjustments. If not, there are plenty of other options.

$149.50 US per year subscription fee for Sonar. Subscription only, like Waves short-lived strategy. That's it for me. I'll be updating to the latest version of Studio One Pro the next big sale. Hopefully, someone will come up with a decent, painless way to convert the Cakewalk project files.

I have a bunch of plugins and libraries from AudioThing and I really like the developer, but they've historically not been a developer I'd turn to for an instrument I want to have a great deal of detail. I downloaded their Wurly demo and found it was fun, but I didn't find it to be sonically in the same league as Sky Box, SonicCouture, AcousticSamples-- or even e-instruments -- Wurlies. IMO, it sounds thin. AcousticSamples, SonicCouture, Skybox Audio, and e-instruments all did a good to excellent job (excellent in AcousticSamples' case) of blending in the clank of the keys in the notes. AudioThing attempts to do the same, but the clank sounds thin and tin-ey to my ears (AcousticSamples clunk is very rich and bassy) and the overall samples just don't sound great to my ears. AudioThing uses a combination of samples and physical modeling with their Wurly. It sounds decent, it just doesn't sound as rich and full as the sample libraries I've mentioned. Especially considering that SonicCouture currently has their Broken Wurli on sale for close to the same price as AudioThing's Wurly, I find the Broken Wurli is the easily the superior choice.

Haha! I'll have to check out the plugin demo! I enjoyed the guy's playing in the YouTube video.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA), surely. Hilarious though.

Sadly, that's not even a joke. It's happened a number of times. Technically, selling free/giveaway software is a form of piracy by the express statement of the major software developer's association (the name escapes me at the moment). But if you visit the various forums where people resell software, there's no shortage of people doing just that.

Detailed sampling comes with a price, even when the libraries are heavily discounted, that price still exists --- drive space.

When you look at how massively prices have come down on detailed, high end sample libraries with SoundPaint and Cinesamples stuff (I've been watching, but still haven’t bought the latter; no doubt, they make some great Kontakt libraries) -- Sampletekk too if you buy during their 90% off winter and summer sales -- it's been significant for me, budget wise and caused me to limit the type of libraries I'm willing to spend more on too a much smaller amount of categories (like drums from Toontrack, which I wish came down in price, but I find the quality so good and like the ecosystem so much, I will pay the premium). As a sample library user / hobbyist musician who is long past my days of professional work as a musician, the pricing of these developers has greatly impacted how much I'm willing to spend on sample libraries. I wish other developers would follow their lead.

I thought he stood for New Zealand too.

I mostly do rock music and from Komplete, here's what I enjoy the most (this is from the regular Komplete, not the larger Komplete packages): - Pianos: Noir Piano, The Giant, The Grandeur, The Maverick, The Gentleman (upright piano), - Vintage Organs - B3, etc. - Acoustic Drums: Studio Drummer, Abbey Road 60s Drummer - Cuba, Middle East, and India Libraries - Session Strings, Session Horns, and Session Guitars -- through these aren't the most realistic sample libraries and I often don't use them in final prorductions, they can be a lot of fun to play around with I maintain a list of free sample libraries for Kontakt, and a fair amount of them require Kontakt 5 (full version) or later.

I'd recommend you take a good look at all of the libraries in Komplete. They span a lot of genres and it's a tremendous value over buying even a couple of those libraries individually. The latest version of Kontakt has a completely new factory library that's far superior to the earlier one. If you were to only update Kontakt for $50, I think you'd likely be very happy. Many Kontakt libraries from the last several years require Kontakt 5 or better, so that update will enable you to use them, including many free libraries.

I'm getting close to having everything from Hornet. I appreciate and support talented, hard working devs like Saverio, but he gives away so much stuff free and cheap that I hope his business is making enough for him to enjoy his life.

I'm calling on my fellow Wurly aficionados to help me with this one. I own e-instruments Wurli (a 200A), Sky Box Audio's 145B as well as a few other commercial Wurli libraries that I wouldn't consider as good as those two. I think the e-instrument's Wurly is good, but dynamically, it's slightly lacking life -- which is a key part of what makes a real Wurly so special. The Broken Wurli demos sound A LOT better to my ears. Does anyone own the e-instruments W and the Broken Wurli who can weigh in? The only other Wurly libraries that I think sound fantastic (just based on their audio demos, I haven't been able to actually try them out) are Sky Box's 200A and AcousticSamples' Wulie -- the latter having the best sounding demos of any Wurly library I have heard (of course, that's purely subjective; but this developer captured the tone and dynamics beautifully and, IMO, put in the perfect amount of key noise). The only downside of the AcousticSamples are that I really don't like the UVI user experience; I find Kontakt vastly superior (once again, that's completely subjective). From my experience getting to know developers and learn about the craftsmanship of some of their work there's a pretty vast difference in the skill sets and the recording skills and equipment used to record sampled instruments that I rarely find acknowledged by sample users, but I find it's very significant to the end result. Developers like SonicCouture are craftsman and perfectionists and I don't think that all of the developers and the libraries we discuss here are in their league. The co-founders have great backgrounds, having worked together making sample libraries at Yamaha back in the 90s. Take a look at the equipment they used to record this library -- Neumann and Siemens preamps to the AKG, Sennheiser, and Shure mics to capture a that iconic vintage sound from this instrument that many of us love. When I rethink all of the libraries I've bought over the years, I think I would have been best off focusing my spending with maybe a dozen or so great sample developers. SonicCoture would certainly be among that group.

Come on, you can't talk about the Wurly and that deal and not share the link! Fixed it. https://www.bestservice.com/en/broken_wurli.html

We're just saving potential WUP charges. I have a bunch of these too. But I think I'm going to try using it this weekend for the first time! Have you tried it? It had some heavy hitter testimonials.

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