PavlovsCat

That's a great price for KONTAKT! There are tons of really good free libraries for KONTAKT too -- if you search the forum, you'll find a bunch of them.

Kudos. I think the prize should go to those who've learned not to get sucked into all of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales promotions.

My small family consists of my wife and two kids all had a nice Thanksgiving. But yes, my wife's family has similar views to Larry and don't like people of my ethnicity (I was told very directly), so the upside is that we don't see them on the holidays. More time for music too. I recorded a cover of "All You Need is Love" with my wife and kids singing harmonies.

I look at it this way, Larry spends a lot of time here. While I very much disagree with his social worldview and political views, I grant him latitude in venting. He spends a lot of time making this section of the forum what it is. And come on, Larry's political post mimicks what happened at a lot of Thanksgiving tables here in the US as families gather together.

We were. Hopefully we'll get back on track.

@cclarry Again, let's stick to music and civility.

We're not supposed to get political here, Larry, and I think that's a good policy. I just want to address some of the far-right misinformation you stated on my thread, which, until you posted had nothing political about it. Some basic facts to clarify on some of the misinformation you posted (and let's get back to not posting about politics, please): 1. An "entitlement program" is the legal definition of a program that is a guaranteed right to Americans. I realize that a certain far-right media network uses "entitlement" exclusively as a pejorative term to refer to racial stereotypes (specifically, a racist trope) of a certain group with welfare, but that isn't how it is used legally since the inception of the Social Security program by FDR. Entitlement programs are fundamentally opposed by the GOP as part of their platform for more than 40 years as they have attempted to pass entitlement reform legislation (which means the phase out of Social Security and Medicare. the two largest socialist entitlement programs in the US; historically the GOP has proposed doing this by first raising the age of compliance and then switching the program to private for-profit corporations using a voucher system). A fundamental tenant of Republican (conservative) ideology is the opposition to entitlement programs, as they are by nature socialist programs, and, as such are the two programs fundamentally opposed by the GOP and all conservatives. They believe the government should not be involved in running such programs but should be only the realm of private business. This is why for decades the Republican party has attempted to phase these programs out, most often referred to it as "entitlement reform." 2. The reason that Biden is looking to raise payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare on people making more than $400,000 is because these two programs are soon to be insolvent. Medicare will be insolvent in 2024. That means it won't be able to pay at the current benefit rate. As the Republican party opposes Social Security and Medicare, they have long fought properly funding these programs when it was clear that they were in trouble. The result is that the age to get benefits was raised and benefits were reduced. Currently, both programs pay out significantly more than recipients collect in benefits. So Trump put through more than $4 trillion in cuts to these programs during his term. I'm a former insurance exec from the largest broker in the world, btw. What will happen if Medicare doesn't get additional tax revenue? Benefits will need to be dramatically reduced. Likely by around at least 30%. Economists say that if you're just retiring, you'll need at least $200,000 to take you through the average retirement. Biden is trying to raise the funds to not just maintain current benefits but to improve them. His plan is to do this by charging taxes on those who make incomes above $400,000. Presently, if you make six figures or more you don't have to pay taxes for Social Security and Medicare beyond your first $135,000 (I think, it might be $136,000, I can't recall offhand, but I'm close). I realize that you have very strong far-right political views from our past conversations, cclarry, and I completely support everyone's right to their own beliefs -- I certainly don't entertain any illusions that I can make some persuasive point to change anyone's position -- but I take issue with your politicizing the forum and spreading hyperpartisan misinformation and have the instinct to correct false information. Let's keep this forum music related and not share your views on politics, BLM, critical race theory, vaccines, masking or undocumented immigrants, etc. There are other places to do that -- places I avoid because of the lack of civility. I love this forum because of how people treat one another. Let's keep it that way and not push political views. More info on Social Security's and Medicare's insolvency (I just skimmed the article just now, but it seemed very fact-based and non-partisan: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2021/09/01/more-than-an-insolvency-date-what-else-to-know-about-the-social-security-and-medicare-trustees-reports/?sh=29084571295d

Another thing that has saved me A LOT of money? Sites with a feature that tells me "you already own this." That's saved me hundreds of dollars. Anyone else with me on that one?

Or maybe this is the analogy I should have used of Larry preparing for Black Friday. Watch and just imagine Larry readying his computer, subscribing to the appropriate emails and social media feeds. It's almost exactly as cool as Rocky preparing for the big battle...

Also, this says more about me than it does about Waves: I visited Waves broken website several times today before I finally got their freebie that I didn't even find remotely like something I would ever use. I watched their YouTube video for their new plugin while their site was down and found I had zero interest in the effect. And yet, I still went back to get it. thinking, well, maybe there's some use I'll have for it that I just don't realize at this moment. This is how the mind of a sample and plugin hoarder works. Someone really needs to do a show on sample/plugin/data hoarders where just about every user of this forum could be on it and Larry -- our Walter White (yeah, I've used that one before, but it's true) would be seen in between our interviews laughing. From now on I'm referring to Larry as Heisenberg (and we're the junkies).

Larry preparing for Black Friday week (okay, really two weeks, the week of and the week after with Cyber Monday) is like an athlete training for the Olympics. That's what we need, a video of Larry training for Black Friday. That actually could be pretty amusing.

To spend until I'm completely broke / my wallet is empty / my credit card is maxed? Here are some tactics I'm engaging in to try and curb my urge to spend more. Of course, visiting this forum is not the wisest strategy to avoid spending more, but I enjoy it and am always eager to find a freebie or something under $15 USD, but anyway: -Searching for free synth presets. I've recently been searching for and finding some excellent Vital presets. This free synth sounds better to me than a bunch of my paid soft synths. - Organizing all of my sampled instruments together. A while ago @Reid Rosefelt made a post and YouTube video that made a GREAT point. Many of us (certainly me) have GAS and accumulate so many sample libraries and plugins, we literally get to the point where we don't even know all of the sounds we have. Literally. There are tons of presets I've heard this week of sample libraries and synths that I own that I never heard before -- and I found some of them absolutely inspiring. In some cases, and I've seen people make jokes about this, I have bought the same plugin or sample library twice. Just another good reason it's incredibly useful to organize and group all of the plugins you have by important characteristics. For example, largely inspired by Reid's video, I've created project files containing all of my favorite upright pianos, grand pianos, felt pianos, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, electric basses, glockenspiels, organs, acoustic drum kits, etc. organizing them according to their characteristics (e.g., ambient, character pianos, etc.). I was inspired to do this from a post in this forum made a while back by. - Go out for a little bit. I have to run some errands with my teenage son. That's also a good diversionary tactic! Please share your suggestions for dealing with not going for broke on the Black Friday weekend.

Same here! I'm only on coffee number one for the day. I just thought the image of the Red Bull cans sounded amusing. But I'm totally a coffee drinker too.

Do you sleep? I imagine computers and music equipment all over your house and lots of empty cans of Red Bull!

Their site has been down all morning. It really is beyond ridiculous when a company that sells software can't maintain their website for easily anticipated spikes on well known major shopping days. If this was 1997 I would understand. But 2021??? Their business is mainly transacted on the web. Do better Waves. Your website is in need of a better Waves Update Plan. Don't ever be shocked if these guys get hacked and our data is stolen. They clearly don't have their act together. This is why I always use services like PayPal on transactions at their site.

I know that a lot of legendary rock keyboardists I like, for example,Rick Wakeman, use the M-tron Pro. Right now the M-Tron Pro is only £49.99 and it has -- just guessing -- probably 10x the patches you'll find on the UVI Mello. I own A LOT of Mellotron libraries -- a lot -- including the first version of the one Dave Kerzner made for IK in Sampletank format (Sampletron?) and in KONTAKT., Puremagnetik's tron library, Tronsonic's tron library and a bunch of others. But time after time, the M-Tron Pro is the one I reach for when I need a tron sound, you don't even need the expansions to be happy, it comes with 700+ patches derived from 200 tape banks. Personally, I only purchased on expansion, the M300, because I love the strings from that model. I don't know how many patches are in mellow, but I seem to recall that it's a really small number, I believe under 20 (I'm sure that someone will correct me if I'm wrong).

To be fair though, I did pick up 8Dio's Deep Solo Cello and Viola for less than $40 each and Fluffy Audio's Trio Broz Viola was only $29 USD and sounds really nice and is very playable (unlike 8Dio's libraries, which I think I may not bother with anymore, the scripting is just not where it should be, IMO; it's when I picked up Fluffy Audio's library that it really struck me how disappointing 8Dio's inferior playability is -- and I like Troel's, but he oversells everything and his company really doesn't put as much effort into scripting and optimizing libraries as do many of their competitors; still, I got the libraries so cheap, I'm not unhappy, I just wish they were more user friendly).

I have Mello. It's meh. But I really haven't used it since buying GForce's M-tron Pro, which I think is superb and currently on sale for half off. Highly recommended. https://www.gforcesoftware.com/products/m-tron-pro/

Just in...cclarry Dealometer news reports...Black Friday 2021 rated thumbs down.

I have Digital Synsations and a few other UVI synths I've had for several years and I never use them -- but the user interface / user experience is awful. I went to UVI's site after seeing this thread to see what's new there and saw they had a Black Friday sale with 16% off a synth. Come on. I think I'm going to do a thread to counter @Reid Rosefelt's extremely useful Black Friday thread at VI Control thread. But mine is going to be called, Stingy Friday. The worst sales -- the worst discounts -- of any retailers and developers this weekend. Seriously, I'm a marketing pro -- if you're doing a 16% off sale on Black Friday weekend, you either have an extremely coveted brand consumers are dying for or you really don't know WTF you're doing with promotions.

The upright piano for KONTAKT is going for only $5 USD. I picked it up in a previous sale. It's very bright and while I'm not crazy about it, for 5 bucks, I thought it was worth getting. I interacted with the developer after my purchase and found this developer is a class act -- and I only made a very small purchase. They have a number of free libraries too. I was contemplating getting the synthwave library at some point. https://splashsound.org/free.html

Wait, wass that actually on their page or just an off color joke?

I just caught the tail end of your playing that Westwood Lost Piano. It sounds beautiful. However, on a practical level, I don't know if I would actually use a piano that plays its own parts for me, as I think I might find it often doesn't fit. Perhaps someone who is doing ambient music would appreciate that. As always, it sounds very good in your hands, I love the parts you were coming up with.

I take it that "gelato action" is a Fluffy reference because they're Italian? I ended up buying 8Dio's Solo Cello and Violin, but I keep going back to Fluffy Audio's page. I really like the 8Dio cello -- but the tone of the cello is a bit rough/harsh. I think Fluffy's cello is significantly less harsh and a friend of mine told me that the scripting is a lot more user friendly.

I only have the free version and that's fantastic. It's truly amazing that he gave that away free.