PavlovsCat

You can always be pressured, and according to Cory, he was pressured by being threatened that the developer would sue for defamation and some other details I don't want to get into. But it's very common for businesses to pressure influencers they work with to remove or edit negative comments in reviews. They pressure through using their power to withdraw future free product, advertising dollars, or direct payment, depending on how they're compensating the influencer.

The developer allegedly threatened him that they would sue for his negative review comments. I think she claimed they were defamatory. Those were very frivolous threats -- an influencer giving an opinion about a product or a developer's product quality is not the stuff of a legitimate defamation case. But she was allegedly focused on manipulating and intimidating the guy to do what she wanted. If you go through is channel he does discuss it, and he and I have had discussions about it. In fact, I had touched base with the developer (in this case, the husband of the person who made the alleged threats). While I didn't see emails or PMs, I definitely believe Cory's story. He also told me about bad experiences with other developers-- one I actually had a rather bad experience with myself -- and what he told me was pretty consistent with the developer reputations among the developer and contractor community. Really, no surprises. There's also no surprise in developers pressuring influencers to edit out strongly negative content about their product in a "review." That's very common, even standard. If an influencer goes and points out serious problems with a sample library or plugin, a very high percentage of companies will try to get that edited out or softened. Do you think if I'm a marketing VP from a developer I'm going to pay an influencer-- which may be a direct payment or in the form of buying ads -- if the review is largely negative? Heck no. Your buying the influencer promoting your product and negative reviews don't sell products very well. Of course, even the biggest shill influencers claim they won't do that. That's pure BS. Any marketing professional deals with influencers and will tell you that they're eager to please you -- as the brand you hold power with influencers because you hold the purse strings. That's no BS.

@El Diablo There is one influencer in this space I've gotten to know (personally) that I think is a very straight shooter. Cory Pelizzari. Unsurprisingly, when Cory started doing reviews that were completely honest, he has been taken through the wringer by developers. Including threats of being sued to intimidate him and, of course, pressure to take down critical reviews and being shut out of getting additional products to review. I've recommended to him that he do videos sharing his experience with these developers so that sample buyers can understand the way the system works. Anyhow, the below video was one of the first ones I ever saw from Cory and it blew me away. He's the most honest influencer I've ever known of. If any influencer "reviewer" deserves funding, IMO, it's this guy. That kind of integrity is basically unheard of among influencers. But even if you couldn't care less about Cory and his story, it should make clear what happens to an honest influencer for doing honest reviews.

Absolutely. No question about that one. A number of developers use his videos as a part of their promotions. Influencers work by creating followers that trust them. They then monetize that relationship in various ways. The most basic form of monetizing their influence in the DAW, plugin and sample development world is by using their influence -- basically, their ability to persuade people to buy things they talk about -- to get free products from developers (commonly NFRs). Even marginally successful influencers can do this to some degree. The other means is through affiliate marketing (sales) through links to the products they feature. Successful influencers, like Pro Tools Expert / Production Expert are able to require developers to pay them in order to "review" their products. Of course, if you're only reviewing products that you're paid to review, you're not doing unbiased reviews and you're excluding competitive developers who don't fork over the money for you to "review" their products. Now my expertise is marketing, and the reality is, marketing people in this industry are happy to pay folks like Pro Tools Expert / Production Expert to help them sell more product and are not going to have any ethics problems with an influencer happy to promote their products. The fact that this influencer charges them and doesn't do an explicit disclosure on the page where they have their "reviews" is legally problematic (it violates the regulation that they have to disclose such relationships clearly where they do the review), but no marketer who's using them will ever complain about that. I believe it's important to tell consumers about how things work so that they understand it and don't get conned. My career has been leading marketing at brands and then starting my own company that grew out of my success as a writer and speaker on marketing strategy (writing for marketing professionals). But this is an area where I want to educate my fellow consumers about some very problematic marketing practices that are only focused on deceiving them and profiting from that deception.

I found it ironic that an influencer who makes money buy doing BS reviews (that is, paid reviews posing as unbiased when the developer is financially compensated) is calling out developers who don't pay them to do reviews for making BS plugins. I'm a businessperson and a writer. So I can fire off something on the topic very quickly. But it's not possible to make this kind of case in 50 words or less and I think it's important to make others aware that influencers like this one are getting financial compensation to write their "reviews." Clearly, you're not one of the people who's interested, so you always have the option to skip it.

We've Been In the Age of BS Plugins and BS Reviewers a Long Time, I Call BS on the Source [People who target me for hate posts and PMs, please skip this --it's literally that easy! Try it.] We reached the age of BS plugins quite a long time ago and I find it ironic that in the age of BS reviewers AKA influencers, we have an influencer calling out anyone else for BS. Let me be more specific. I think this influencer does nice, thorough, but highly biased reviews -- and they're provably biased (I'll show it below) -- and doesn't even bother to comply with UK, US or other country legal disclosures for compensated influencer reviews. They do developer-funded promotional write-ups pitched as reviews and don't clearly disclose that upfront as they're required to do (yes, you can figure it out if you look deep enough on their site, but they're counting on the vast majority of readers / watchers not looking that far -- they won't). There are lots of questionable or BS plugins, but I wouldn't look for a BS reviewer to be the beacon of truth to find who's doing BS plugins. I'm pretty sure that their client list contains a number of developers that some experts would say make some BS plugins. FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO FIGURE OUT THE CLUES THAT A "REVIEWER"/INFLUENCER IS FINANCIALLY COMPENSATED WHEN THEY'RE NOT UPFRONT ABOUT IT One easy way that you can tell that a "reviewer" is unbiased is that they pitch developers to contact them. They do this to discuss their price to promote the developer's products in their "reviews." Legitimate reviewers NEVER do this. It would be a violation of journalist integrity in the journalism world and a violation of ethical standards in the testing world (consider Consumer Reports reviewers asking for money before they review a brand's products). Real reviewers are never considered partners by brands whose products they review. That would though up an ethical question with regards to bias. So here's Production Expert's pitch to developers who want their products reviewed: "Our success in helping brands engage is built on a unique model that partners with you rather than simply sells you ads. We work to get you and your products in front of the right audience and then help them discover them in our own unique style. Over 6 million visits per year, with over 40% of our visitors spending over 5 minutes per visit. Our YouTube channel features more than 6500 videos, watched over a staggering 30 million times by more than 140,000 subscribers. Social Media reflects our influence with: Over 289,000 Facebook fans across our Facebook fan pages. Over 40,000 Twitter fans. Over 6,800 LinkedIn members in our professional group. A Production Expert podcast with over 20,000 listeners per week. Our Email news has over 90,000 subscribers with an average open rate of 22.3% compared to an industry average of 12.6%. Clicks are equally impressive with a list rate of 3.5% compared to an industry average of 1.4%. We generate interesting content that leads to a regular response....If you want to know more about working with us to get your high quality products and services to our loyal fans then click here. " Now take a look at the testimonials and what they state (yes, these are companies that compensate the "unbiased review site to 'review' their plugins and sample libraries" (emphasis added to call out telltale statement): “Production Expert proved to be an invaluable partner to us when we launched our Fresh Air plugin last year. Their detailed, hands-on product reviews and reach helped introduce our products to thousands of music producers.” Sagar Jethani, VP Marketing, Slate “It's always a pleasure to work with Pro Tools Expert. Their proactivity and inclination to always produce quality content has made it very easy for Arturia to communicate efficiently to producers on a wide array of products and updates.” Arnaud Dalier-Lamon, Marketing & Press Relations Coordinator, Arturia “The highly knowledgeable and experienced Pro Tools Expert team did a fantastic job helping us to launch VocAlign Ultra. Their understanding of the product and ability to clearly communicate its benefits significantly contributed to our most successful product release ever.” Joel Heatley, Marketing Director, SynchroArts “LiquidSonics has worked successfully with Production Expert for over five years now. Initially in a limited capacity around product releases to quickly pull eyes onto products during launch, but in the last few years we have been able to expand the breadth of our work with the Experts to cover many more opportunities to connect with musicians throughout the yearly cycle. This has become possible as our portfolio has widened and our understanding of what the Experts can do with us has matured. By working with a range of knowledgable content creators on the Experts staff we can show and explain how LiquidSonics reverbs are beneficial to producers working in all sectors of the industry and to any budget which is essential to our marketing strategy of connecting every producer with the reverb they need to deliver an outstanding mix.” Matt Hill, Founder, LiquidSonics “Production Expert is a long-trusted media partner of ours whose popularity and credibility in the industry is evident in its rapid expansion through the years...For the past decade, PE has helped us share our stories and bring our products to market and we look forward to the next decade of news and insights.” Melissa Misicka, Senior Director of Brand Marketing, iZotope "...[Production Expert is] early adopters of new marketing practices and always striving to deliver maximum value and ROI to their partners. During the launch of our EVO by Audient brand and the subsequent interface range, PE played a vital role in helping us communicate our product proposition in a thoughtful and engaging way. They have been and will continue to be an important partner in our holistic marketing strategy going forward." Andrew Allen, Marketing Director, Audient “...I’m honored that Groove3 has been able to partner with PTE over the years...” Asa Doyle, CEO Groove 3 “Pro Tools Expert has been an integral part of our annual marketing activities and a reliable business partner for several years now. Especially in pandemic times they established themselves as a valuable source of ideas. When we launched new products during those challenging times Pro Tools Expert helped to bring those to market and where an important and key partner to help to roll out the news properly.” Kerstin Mischke, International Sales & Marketing, EVE Audio “Launch has gone really well thanks. Best in our history! Your feature was a big part of that.” Giles Farley, Sales & Marketing Director, Sonnox Influencers make money through a variety of channels. If they're on YouTube, they make money through ad revenue. They often make it through affiliate marketing (sales) of the products they do videos about. And the most successful influencers trade on their influence to get money upfront either through direct payment for creating content about the brand's products or through asking them to buy advertising or sponsor a video. FTR, I'm certainly not anti-marketing, (I'm certainly going to take crap for this, but I think next time someone states that I don't know what I'm talking about, I should clarify that this is my area of professional expertise). I'm very pro-ethical marketing -- marketing is my career. What I have a problem with is deceptive marketing practices -- practices designed to deceive its target audience -- and that is what the vast amount of influencer marketing is just and govt regulatory bodies don't have the resources to police it and there are not a lot of marketers complaining about that -- they just take advantage of using influencers reach as part of their promotional plans and budget. It's very often a confidence game where the influencer hides that they're getting compensated to promote a product, deceiving viewers into believing that they're unbiased -- it's a deception. And complying with federal regulations is not in any way constricting or difficult for ethical marketers. I was pushing for regulating SPAM in the US back when, and a fair amount of marketers opposed it. The regulations passed but were far less than what they should have been -- which is almost always the reality due to lobbyist groups influencing politicians. So yes, there are lots of BS plugins, but I wouldn't look to an influencer who doesn't disclose their financial relationships and paid reviews clearly to be a great source of truth on this subject. For anyone interested in learning more about regulations (this is for the US federal regulations, which are often not as thorough as many European country regulations): https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/advertising-marketing/endorsements-influencers-reviews

I own enough Izotope products that they include every product in this bundle and the Mix & Master Bundle. But considering I didn't purchase either of those bundles -- I started with the Music Assistant Bundle and made additional purchases/upgrades after that -- yesterday night, I sent Izotope a support ticket to ask if I qualify for this upgrade bundle. I'm still waiting to hear back.

Excellent developer. I own several of his libraries and they're all superb. Highly recommended.

From the album that made me forever a huge Stevie Wonder fan. Nice reference!

I'm the complete opposite. I only use the manual for a plugin or sample library if I have no option to watch a video! True story. A few years ago one of my musician friends sent me a text to tell me that he just bought a new sample library and saw my name mentioned in the manual. The reality was, that was the first I learned of it, as I never looked at the manual for the sample library -- I watched the developer's tutorial videos! But to people's points about this developer. I bought a a couple of his plugins years ago and have grabbed all of his freebies people post here. I like the Spring Reverb he gave away free several weeks ago. He seems to make decent-quality effects plugins. But I haven't picked up his EQ or any of his more complex plugins that are more likely to require a watch of a tutorial video or read of the manual.

Same. I'm actually more interested in their new pricing and pricing model than new features. I'd love to be able to keep using the DAW without a subscription and access my existing project files a year from now.

No, not at all. It absolutely is unethical and it is theft. I was responding to Satya posting that "we aren't stealing legally" which isn't correct. I think some people when they engage in these practices, they rationalize it as not being a big deal. So, on a legal basis, it absolutely violates the terms and conditions of the company they're taking the codes from and distributing them to a larger group of non-paying people instead of customers. Taking a code intended only for customers and sharing it in a public forum violates terms and conditions and is a form a piracy. Maybe when Fleer chimed in with a little humor you interpreted my response to him as reflecting that I don't have a problem with piracy -- I absolutely do have major issues with piracy and wish it didn't exist. I just thought Fleer was having a little wordplay fun with the phrase "terms and conditions" --and saw it as a very Groucho Marx-ish kind of excursion (we're old enough to know Groucho, right?). But yeah, I've worked with a lot of developers, and given many small ones free advice out of appreciation for their work. I'm a huge fan of the people who make the plugins and libraries I use and the journalists who write about this stuff. I want to see them all thrive and keep doing what they do.

I think Larry should call Larry out on that! (Purely for our entertainment. You know, a post where cclarry does a post showing him that there's already a thread on this -- made earlier by cclarry, showing that even cclarry can't beat cclarry!). To Fleer's point above, the developer behind Librewave, David Healy, is a good/talented developer. I've bought some of his KONTAKT libraries sold under the name Xtant Audio -- I really like his small glockenspiel library and also have one of his Librewave libraries, which is very nice. David has done a bunch of work for other well-known KONTAKT sample developers like Wavesfactory, Bela D Media, Sterzov, Paper Stone Instruments, I think Impact Soundworks (I'm pretty sure his site used to list them) and others. So, if you're a KONTAKT library user, you may have already used a library that he worked on. While I wish he was still doing KONTAKT libraries, I can definitely vouch for his skills as a developer and that he's really nice to deal with.

Hah! It does sound constraining, doesn't it?

No. You're breaking the company's terms and conditions.

@Wookiee , I believe Wibbles means the statement should be revised to encompass piracy that not only comes from magazine subscription codes for subscribers to also include software subscribers. For example, the amended policy could read something like: "It's against forum policy to post any form of pirate software or links and codes that should only be available to magazine or software subscribers." [I only added the bold emphasis to highlight the additional copy.]

I greatly respect that post. That's all there is to doing the right thing, just being an honest person. When people post the codes that are intended for paying customers, it's not only unethical, it hurts small businesses -- businesses that make plugins and sample libraries or content we love. I realize every time I've made the smallest case for that, theres always someone making a hate post directed at me and a claim I'm being a judge and jury. audioschmaudio said it well and very simply. There's no pretense in his statement. He's just trying to do the right thing. I think that matters. Stealing and piracy isn't only through hacked software.

Yeah, he's talented and, of course, incredibly generous. It's hard not to appreciate that combination. I saw this posted at Bedroom Producer the other day and meant to check it out, so thanks for the reminder, @locrian. I've been collecting synthwave patches and synths over the years with the intention to do some very 80-ish covers and originals but have yet to do it. But I really love those 80s era synth sounds.

That's great to know! There's a bunch more I'll be adding in the future. I know there's a lot of more obscure free libraries I like that I didn't put in. I tried to start with the more bread and butter stuff and plan to add the more unusual libraries in the near future. I again want to invite others to post their own favorite freebies for KONTAKT and we may find even more free libraries we enjoy. There's a ton of freebies out there. There's a ton of talented people out there. It just takes time to sift through them to find the real gems. While I don't have the patience or talent to make a great sample library, I do enjoy finding and using them and then sharing my experiences and what I've found inspires me with others. It's like finding a new great band or musical artist and sharing them with friends. It's truly enjoyable to share libraries that have brought me joy and inspiration with others in the hope that they'll also find the same.

You're not alone. The rest of have the same experience, so don't be upset. If there's only a couple of bucks difference, that's not bad. It happens, especially in recent years when developers are starting to do outrageous discounting during sales. I've bought a number of plugins right before sales and some on sale right before they were a better sale. I bought Cube Light for $10 USD a couple of weeks before they gave it away free! And did it again with something else shortly after that. Us regulars are mostly addicted to sales for this stuff. I've been trying to slow down on it and focus more on the freebies and sharing what I know with others instead of buying more. But we're all pretty much in similar boats with regards to what you're posting about. You're not alone and I don't think you've chosen unwisely. Don't kick yourself. You're doing fine.

I just added several additional libraries to my list, along with a track of mine I used the free libraries on as an example.

Chris was an amazing bassist. While I loved all iterations of the band with Jon Anderson in them, Chris Squire and Bill Bruford are among my all-time favorite rock musicians.I love their playing and I think Bruford is a really underrated rock drummer. RIP, Chris Squire and Alan White.

Favorite presets everyone (played in the video)? I am blown away at the ratio of presets that hit it out of the park. My picks: Army Buzz, Back on Track, Bass Battle, Bite Body, Dynamite Bass Stereo, Grain Fed, Ironing Board, Kaleidoscope Eyes, Lemonhead (a distorted Rick bass always gets me), Organic Fat, Rock Giant, Rock Ostinato, Rocky Fingers, Rubber Fingers, Saucy Chorus, Sergeant Rick, Snappy Slap, Snarling Punk, Syrupy Ballad, The Rasp, Thumper, and Wormwood. Constant Crunch has the bass part that reminds of Spinal Tap's"Big Bottom." Also, I can't help but want to steal licks that Greg played in the video! Dead serious.

My favorite rock bass players from my youth were Paul McCartney and Chris Squire (later on add John Entwistle, but as much as a I was a huge fan, I needed to see them live to realize how amazing of a bass player he was). Of course, they have in common that they both played Rick basses (of course, McCartney also played the Hofner, which I adore). So, I am really excited to see this new library. Most realistic, playable and configurable guitar and bass libraries on the planet, IMO. On a lesser note, there was a part being played in the video that reminded me of the great Derek Smalls bass line on "Big Bottom." Was that just me?

The fact that they're forcing users to a new version by stopping activations (CbB activations presently last for 6 months if your system is offline) on the previous version gives me pause. There's no reason to de-activate. They're soon stopping all support for CbB. Their use of using de-activation (or not allowing the most recent version to be activated so that users are forced to the current version) is a heavy handed strategy that leaves me with a concern that they will employ that strategy again with the final version of CbB in order to push users to their paid product. Just imagine this very possible scenario: Bandlab gives the activation of the final version of CbB a window, a time limit, where they eventually cut it off, like they're now doing with the version before the final release. Let's say it's 6 months or even a year until the software no longer works as a strategy to push these users to the paid new SONAR available only by subscription you would only be able to open all of your CbB project files if you had a currently paid subscription for that month. Otherwise, you could no longer access those projects in CbB or SONAR. This possibility makes me want to cease all projects in CbB until the company clearly communicates their plans regarding the activation on CbB and their pricing for SONAR.