PavlovsCat

@MusicMan This video from influencer Cory Pelazzari, who I've gotten to know and like a lot (I'm the Peter that Cory credits on YouTube for inspiring him to return to making videos; so yes, there is an influencer in this market who I really think is an honest person not shilling product; I'm not saying he's perfect, but he's the most honest influencer I know of; if you contrast him with the Production Expert guy/folks, they take money from the products they fake review -- they're really just infomercial pitchmen; Corey is a very honest guy who is a straight shooter who will say if he doesn't like something and it's ticked off a number of developers, unsurprisingly, and it's something that influencers just don't do -- because developers don't like it and won't pay you or sponsor your channel or keep giving you free product if you do that stuff; it burns bridges). Cory is pretty critical of the NI drum sample libraries, but he goes through the AR presets in his video and plays the presets he made that he shares. I don't known AR 50s Drummer -- I own 60s Drummer and Modern Drummer -- but that is one that I think sounds excellent and may buy alone or I might upgrade to KOMPLETE Ultimate when it's time for the next update. Anyhow, you'll want to pick up Cory's presets, IMO, I think he did a good job, but you can hear them and decide for yourself (they're linked in the video description).

On a related note, am I alone in needing a plugin to figure out what I played in original songs where I forgot to write down chord progressions? I'll play something I wrote 30 years ago, record it and later go back and completely forget the progression and parts and wonder, what the heck is that chord? And, of course, I can look at the midi notes but it's so much easier to look at a big display that tells me what chords I played the week before when I played some old song of mine from memory.

Of course, it's all subjective, but I absolutely think there are some really good acoustic rock drums with KOMPLETE and they don't get much love in the forums, they're pretty much ignored. My personal favorite of the bunch (and I only have KOMPLETE standard but have contemplated getting Ultimate so many times that I know what's in it) is Studio Drummer. I love the way the drums are tuned. One of the kits sounds a lot like how I tune drums. The tone is great and that's not always the case with sampled drums. I think Abbey Road Drummer, while the presets aren't fantastic, the drums samples and construction are really good. It's so well sampled and you can go in and create presets to your liking, although I wish you could swap drums between the various AR drum kits like you can with SD3 and AD2. But I find both Studio Drummer and the AR drums are a lot more sophisticated libraries than AD2 kits, fuller and again, if the presets don't inspire you, you can make custom ones, but the underlying samples and the detail of Studio Drummer and the AR kits is really top notch, IMO. Cory Pelazzari has a YouTube video on the Abbey Road Drummer series and Studio Drummer where he gives away some really nice free presets for both. I'm watching a game now, but I can update with a link later. My favorite AR kits are 60s Drums and Modern Drummer.

That kit does sound great. If there was a sample library that had that sound, I'd absolutely want it. It would easily get lost in many loud rock mixes, but I love the sound of the kit. As you probably realize, I love talking drums, whether or not we love the same sample libraries, it's stil fun to nerd out on the topic! Do you play drums and what are some of the drum libraries you think get it right?

One could easily write me off as a fan boy, as I've consulted to the business since their early days and am friends with Greg. But as anyone in this forum can figure out, I'm a hypercritical sample user and former working musician, but my relationship with OTS began because I was a huge fan of Greg's work and wanted to see him create my dream library-- and that is the genesis story of the Evolution line that later came to be. I'm friends with a bunch of developers I've given advice to over the years, but there's only one whose libraries I use nearly every project and never cease to inspire me, OTS.

I figured from our other conversations about BFD Player that you also loved Toontrack. Do you do metal? I'm not a metal player (although I definitely appreciate good metal drumming, some of those drummers are monster players), so I realize your preferences may be completely different, but I haven't found a drum sample developer that is at Toontrack's level. They're masters. I don't love some of their policies, but man, I love their drum libraries.

It's a good post that will be helpful to some forum members. Many Americans aren't very familiar with trade in other countries and how developers distribute in markets outside the US. On another note, if Cinesamples delivers the scripting improvements they're promising for Musio, I think Musio will be a much more compelling product, although Mike Patti has been clear that the sophisticated KONTAKT scripting features that composers love about Cinesamples libraries will not be coming to the Musio versions at any point and that seems a combination of it being more complexity than Patti wants to deal with for the line and a strategy decision to keep a compelling differentiation with the costlier KONTAKT versions. In any event, at this juncture, I think it does look like a cool offering, but to me, great scripting is a huge part of what makes complex libraries enjoyable to play. For you sampling industry historians who enjoy nerding out, the genuis responsible for the brilliant scripting in Cinesamples libraries back in the day (15 or so years ago) was Greg Schlaepfer. His scripts were a major part of what made Cinesamples libraries so beloved by composers and they would rave about the scripts over at VI-Control, and that was how I first came to learn about Greg and took notice when he started his own company, Orange Tree Samples.

I was feeling pretty good about Hornet until I used SongKey yesterday and it caused a bunch of weird things to happen on a track until I removed it. But we pay so little for his plugins, it's not like we can realistically expect the dev will be able to afford the resources to do better testing and QC/QA. I suspect this developer is capable of great things if he had the resources and perhaps wasn't also running the business. As it is, I think you have to be pragmatic about the reliability of his bargain basement deal plugins.

Huh? Ghosted means when someone who you used to have a relationship with you cuts off communication with you. While I love the meme, it makes no sense in this case. SEE HUMOR. Seriously, I will take into account that not everyone here is a native English speaker and the nuances may not be understood. I used the term ghosting as a joke. I thought it made for a funny thread title. The idea was that I was heartbroken that I was left off the voucher list after being on it for a long time and the email from the customer support person confirmed that I was not on the list and using the concept of ghosting seemed funny and faux dramatic considering the situation. https://www.healthline.com/health/ghosting#:~:text=If a friend you've,life that's keeping them busy.

This sounds very metal, yet the influencer says how versatile they are, shortly thereafter he says how there's no mixer. Um, no. If you're doing metal or something heavy, these sound pretty good -- at least on my phone. I think if you picked up this, Steven Slate Drums Free and to a lesser extent (simply because I don't think it sounds great), BFD PLAYER, you could be pretty well armed with drums, at zero cost. I'll check this out further later. It's too bad there's no mixer, though. Personally, it's not a fit for me, but it sounds like it will make the cut for my freebie list threads. Cool find, Larry.

I'm not sure what your point is related to re-downloads. Could you clarify? I get -- and totally empathize that slow Internet service makes large downloads a hassle -- which I think everyone can agree on. But I don't see the correlation with a developer's policy to charge customers to re-download a library. FTR, if you're disagreeing with my point, that's completely fine, but I'm not sure if you are or what your point is. Are you just making a side note about how painful big downloads are when you have slow Internet and that you think a lot of people take fast Internet for granted? That's my best guess. If so, I agree.

Right, but if they're no longer giving out the vouchers, which is my point, will you still be as tempted? For me, it is the combination of a sale and being able to use the voucher that was really hard to resist. Without the voucher, it's simply not as compelling. What do you think? Would you be less motivated to buy during the next sale if you didn't see a voucher in your inbox?

Yep. It did. I later went and tried to delete everything manually, but it still shows up on my start up menu. Should I re-download and re-install the library and then try to uninstall it again? I had problems trying to install it on my D drive in the first place and Drew -- who is awesome -- was PMing me with directions, but said he didn't test installing everything on a non-C drive (I used my D drive) in a single folder, like I had done. But after my second or third installation attempt, it worked and was running well. Maybe the initial problems I had with installation have something to do with the problems I'm having with uninstalling?

Those vouchers, combined with their sales and the regular threads here about the sales and specific plugins was responsible for a lot of purchases for me and I'm sure many others here. So, in a way, it's probably not a terrible event to have it go away, as it will mean I'll buy less stuff from them. I mean, how many more compressors and reverbs do we need?! I probably have at least a few dozen of them. Still, I haven't picked up that Kirchoff (sic -- I have no idea how to spell that without looking it up) EQ has been on my mind after so many folks who seem to know mixing and mastering have praised it. But without the killer sales and the vouchers, I wouldn't have bought so much stuff that really just duplicates effects I already own. I suspect that is the story for many others here too.

Wow, you just blew my mind. If the club doesn't let Bapu in, I don't even understand things anymore. You're a GAS legend. You're the GAS GOAT, the Michael Jordan of GAS. If they don't let you in the club, what the heck is the standard to get in the club anymore??? It was one thing to exclude the ?, but Larry and Bapu??? Indefensible! I don't even know you anymore, Plugin Alliance promotional tactics.

Just a heads up. My hard drive space is at a premium lately (I bought an additional drive, but haven't installed it yet), so I went to uninstall BFD Player, because I'm really not crazy about it and I have a lot of drum libraries that I love. However the BFD uninstall script couldn't be found -- probably because I put the player and files on my D drive, not the default C drive. Oh well, now I'm going to need to turn to BFD support or their forum to this off of my PC. Just a heads up. I mainly wanted to try it out because I got to like Drew so much and maintain a list of recommended freebies that I've tried out personally.

Wow, I was just hurt and feeling left out for them ghosting me, but for leaving cclarry off the list -- I'm highly offended!!! Those monsters!!!! *Okay, I'm posting that tongue-in-cheek for anyone who doesn't pick up on it and takes it seriously. However, I do kinda feel like I was dumped, and Larry is our guy, so out of anybody, I think Larry deserves that voucher. In fact, if anyone has any discount codes, if there's anyone who deserves it in this group, it's Larry. Remember that when you have an offer you can share with someone! Larry makes this forum what it is, packed with great deals and I know people at other forums who've told me that they don't post here or use Cakewalk, but they come to look at deals because they think the forum does a good job of staying up on them. And you know that means Larry.

I didn't know he was still actively making libraries. He is one of the legends of the sample development world. While his well-known libraries are very old now, I'm guessing that his libraries in KOMPLETE have been around more than 15 years. But when he released those libraries, they were, to my knowledge, the best on the market and I know that among KONTAKT developers, he was very highly regarded. They sounded and played great. They still sound pretty good today, but they're, of course, alternatives that are more sophisticated and I'm kind of surprised NI hasn't replaced the Scarbee libraries in KOMPLETE by now. Not because Scarbee didn't make excellent libraries, but because they're so old, that some modern sample libraries have far surpassed them. I find the electric piano libraries especially uncompetitive by modern standards. But again, in their time, they were superb. It's cool to see him turning out new libraries.

I've been ghosted by Plugin Alliance. Confirmed.* Last week someone -- sorry, I can't recall who, but one of the frequent posters in the group -- created a thread about a new mixing plugin sold at Plugin Alliance that got a lot of people interested, including me. So I searched for my monthly voucher for $25 USD. I always seem to get it and, while I'm no Bapu or Fleer, I've bought close to 50 plugins from PA. So after searching for my monthly voucher among my emails and finding nothing there -- and then posting that I didn't get a monthly voucher, I posted in the thread to share that and found others also didn't get the latest voucher code this month. So I sent PA support a question asking if they were still sending the vouchers and perhaps there was some technical issue (hoping I might find there was a voucher waiting for me, so that I could buy the coveted plugin). One week later, I received my sad reply. PavlovsCat was ghosted by PA ?: "Hi Peter, Thanks for reaching out. I am sorry to tell you that you are not on the voucher code list for this month. Best regards Lukas" So for the other folks who posted that they also didn't get a voucher code this month, apparently we just didn't make the cut. I have no idea what the criteria is, but I feel rejected. On the positive side, this also kept some of my GAS in check, as I couldn't get myself to buy without the voucher code! [EDIT: *After some trolled me later in the thread insisting that I'm misusing the term ghosting, I thought, in the case of people whose native language is not English it may not be apparent that I am making a joke about PA ghosting me and it getting confirmed by customer support person's email. Yes, I enjoyed getting the vouchers, but no, I am just joking around by using the term ghosted. Maybe everyone got that, but just in case, I thought I would insert this little message.]

I thought that way more than a decade ago, when it was more common for developers to not have anything setup so customers could easily re-download libraries, but in the last decade its become the norm for developers to allow customers to re-download libraries on demand, at any time at no cost. Offhand from developers I have libraries from or are fairly well known that let you re download for free on demand include NI, Orange Tree Samples, Toontrack, XLN, SoundIron, Impact Soundworks, 8Dio, e-instruments, Kirk Hunter Studios, Karanyi, Musical Sampling, MNTRA, Audio Ollie, Xperimenta Project, Waverinner Audio, Minimal Audio, Loot Audio libraries, Simple Samples, Straight Ahead Samples. Have Audio, Sonora Cinematic, Handheld Sound, Majetone, Red Room Audio, Spitfire, VSL, Orchestratools, Splash Sound, Sound Dust, Edu Prado, Hideaway Studios, Muletone Audio, Rigid Audio, Triple Spiral Audio, Virharmonic...even Pianobook. You get the picture. For the past decade, most developers have moved to having systems that allow customers to re-download at no cost (I've consulted to more than two dozen sample and plugin developers over the years, so I'm pretty in tune with practices, plus I've spent way too much money on sample libraries and plugins). So it's caused me to no longer spend money and time on doing sample library backups. Now backing up Cakewalk projects is a different story.

There is a free version and a paid version of the NAVIA Harp, a concert harp sample library formatted for HALion Sonic 7 Player, which is free. The paid version is currently on sale for $39 / €39. From my experience, this is a really talented developer who makes excellent sample libraries that sound beautiful to my ears. While I have yet to install this library, my guess is that it will be very good, based on the demos, which sound excellent to my ears, and from my past experience as a customer who has purchased some his other libraries. His libraries are geared towards cinematic music, which I don't do, but I find the libraries inspiring to play and will eventually use one in something I complete. I also want to share an experience with the developer and a policy he communicated to me that will matter to some here, but not everyone, as I feel the most helpful thing that we can do in this community is to share our honest experiences -- good and bad -- with developers as this information can be very useful to our fellow forum members, and we're certainly not going to get any honest experiences from watching influencers shill libraries and plugins, so I really feel it's important for all of us to step up and share our experiences as we're not sharing for the benefit of developers, we're sharing for the benefit of our fellow users. Anyhow, this really isn't controversial, but I think it will be important to some sample library users. I had a hard drive crash several months after purchasing a couple of this dev's libraries a few years ago and I didn't have a backup. The developer has no automated way to re-download his libraries, or at least he didn't at that time. So I sent him an email asking if I could re-download the libraries I purchased several months prior. His response was to lecture me about not having a backup (which I totally get, but his response seemed clearly annoyed and insulting, like, "another stupid customer" bothering him and it appeared very much like he was venting at me, okay, there's no doubt, that's what it was, I was trying to be diplomatic). Anyhow, he sent the links to re-download and added that if I ever need to re-download again he will be charging me. Consequently, I found the interaction less than ideal and also, I wasn't fond of his policy. I have a very large sample library collection and don't have backups for much of it, because I can easily redownload most of those libraries and it would take up a huge hard drive or a couple of them to have the libraries backed up. So considering that someday I might need to re-download again and that I wasn't happy with his attitude, I have not purchased anything from him again -- even while really appreciating his quality of work. Anyhow, I realize that some of you will agree with the dev that I should have had a backup and agree with his policy, others, like those who disagree with IK's similar policy will disagree. In any event, especially because I'm sharing this library and praising this developer's work, I felt I should also be sharing that information. It's the kind of thing you do when you're not an influencer, because you can be certain the developer likely wouldn't be overjoyed to know that I shared that experience, but it is something a paying customer who wants to be helpful to other paying customers will share. At least this one will. https://sonicatoms.com/navia-harp/

I've seen numerous posts from people who seem to know their stuff when it comes to mixing praising Analog Obsession, so I'm definitely giving this a shot (even though I'm fairly incompetent at mixing and largely rely on automated tools and presets -- I'm still trying to get beyond that stage). Thanks, @satya.

Sounds cool and it's only 30MB. Installed! Thanks, Larry! This dev has turned out some gems!

"That's pretty much it...subscription dead." I called it (see my earlier post predicting that this developer would fail at subscriptions and soon announce that they were dropping it). The only thing I couldn't accurately predict was how long it would take (I'd guessed probably a lot shorter than 3 months; I believe I originally guessed Waves would take as long as one month to retreat on subscription only shortly after they announced they were going subscription only). Considering they have a full-time "strategy executive" at this dozen person sized small business, it is pretty ironic, as this does not reflect a company that is even marginally good at strategy and execution of strategy; it reflects a company that doesn't properly research and think through strategy prior to execution to so quickly do a 180, backing out of a strategy they just rolled out. It's just not a formula for running a successful business operation. To those quick to compare Minimal Audio to Waves, I'd say, don't do it. Waves execution of their change to subscription-only was on products for which they had long been selling using perpetual licenses. It was done "in the night" and felt underhanded to customers, like trickery. Minimal has been shooting straight with customers, there was nothing deceptive or ethically problematic in the way they introduced and rolled out their subscription service that I have observed. They just made an ill-advised strategy decision regarding pricing. And you can't blame a developer for wanting a steady, consistent income stream, as subscription sales provide. So, I think this is a very positive outcome for consumers and I don't think anyone should be penalizing Minimal Audio for making a mistake. In fact, I like them a lot after this video. I think doing the video was a good idea that will likely resonate with many customers and prospective customers. If you like Minimal Audio products, but you didn't like the idea of them going to a subscription model, I think you should still continue to buy from them, to support what appears to be a pretty good developer. I have at least one of their libraries, maybe two (okay, yeah, I have way too many libraries) and like it.

I have a ton too. I just found this review on the Firewood Piano from Music Tech, and sure enough, they find that there is an issue switching between velocity layers and also conclude that Spitfire really should have included more velocity layers. Even for cheap, it makes me hesitant to buy it, and I do like the sound of the demos, but having dynamics issues is a bit problematic. I'm not doing cinematic pieces where I only need the piano to be soft throughout an entire composition, I want a piano that allows for the different dynamics that I'm going to have in a song; for example, I might want to shift from a really mellow verse to a very lively chorus. Even for $17.40, it's still money wasted if I end up realizing I like the piano but the dynamics stop it from being the right tool, which I suspect will be the case. Anyhow, I wanted to put that out there in case anyone has it and could share their experience and perspective. https://musictech.com/reviews/software-instruments/spitfire-audio-firewood-piano-review/