PavlovsCat

You know that I think you're a wonderful person Starship Krupa, and I think your intentions are good, but after public conversations even asking whether BandLab has made a decision on whether or not to offer a perpetual license have been completely publicly shutdown by BandLab, I can't say that I want to waste my time jumping through a hoop to give more feedback that I seriously doubt is going to be read. These actions don't reflect a brand that respects its customers' input. It isn't something a customer centric brand would do or permit their employees to do on their public forum. I've never interacted with a BandLab employee before the feedback thread Bapu started the other day. The first time I posted something -- and it was succinct and respectful-- it was grouped with other posts a BandLab employee disparaged and made clear our input and voices weren't welcome or respected. BandLab employees just told us the equivalent of STFU, we don't respect your opinion and they did it on the brand's official forum. So clearly they don't believe their CEO would have a problem with seeing customers being treated so disrespectfully and silenced. I don't think the odds are good that somehow these folks would spend even more time reading a bunch of individual messages. It just keeps the feedback private instead of public and on the forum where it clearly annoys at least some of the Cakewalk employees who have the power to censor threads.

How they treat and communicate with customers is always under their control. If they don't have an answer because management hasn't made a decision or doesn't want them to release information, they can communicate that without disparaging customers as "standing on a soapbox," "complaining," and censoring their customers' voices. It's surprising to see this in 2024.

I just wanted to point out that I mostly liked your post for the use of "hoo har." It deserves a gold star, but all that was available was a like.

Oh yeah, how could I forget Dave Hilowitz. He's awesome and I love the videos he makes too. Come to think of it, I should be looking at adding the best of his libraries next. If you have recommendations, please share!

Thanks for sharing that, @TracingArcs. I removed the impacted libraries from the list. I've been a big fan of Pianobook and have been sad to see how it's died out since the Henson controversy and departure. Clearly, no one replaced him. I suppose we could say the same about Labs. There are still libraries being added, but it's infrequent by comparison to what it once was and I've found that they really haven't been at the same quality level we used to see. There have been some very talented samplists to come out of the Pianobook community, like Dan Keen and Hunter Rogerson (who both have moved on to release commercial sample libraries). It would be great to see the community revived.

Okay, this is the most savage exchange on the forum in who knows how long. I'm just glad it's all in fun! I suppose yo mamma jokes are next.

I already have this plugin, but checked out your demo. Nice job!

I just added a bunch of free sample libraries, some that I really love. The only reason some of them weren't in the original post are that I have so many free and paid libraries on my drives that I forgot about some of them when compiling the list. But I saw something that jogged my memory and I added them. The newly added libraries include a lofi piano, a very cool Wurly electric piano, a harp, synths, and more and I have more I'll be adding in the coming days. If you appreciate this list and finding out about free sample libraries that someone else has already installed and tried out and can recommend (and save you the time from downloading and installing free libraries that don't cut it), please comment and let me know, or even post a Bapu style "installed" to keep this thread going. If you know of some high quality free sample libraries you'd recommend, please post in the thread and share them! I promise that if I don't already know of them, that I'll check them out and consider adding them to the original post if I could also recommend them to a friend. My motivation for creating this list was the idea that it might help someone who loves making music but is short on cash. Of course, a lot of people who come here to spend, spend, spend, have posted in this thread, and it's great that they get some joy from it too. But if this brought joy to even one musician who was low on funds, I feel it was worthwhile. Growing up the son and brother of music teachers, music has always been part of my life and I want to do what I can to help others enjoy the gift of music too. Idealist? Sure. But I feel certain it's helped some people. This list and my free libraries for Kontakt pretty high in Google from people linking to it from other forums and websites. If you know of other communities, especially ones for musicians on a tight budget, please let them know about the list.

In addition to the batch resave tip, I find that even though I have Kontakt 6 installed on my machine for past projects I did with it as well as the latest version of Kontakt 7, when I open up those old projects, a lot of the time (and I'll have as many as 30 tracks with Kontakt libraries) at least a couple of Kontakt libraries will have been updated for Kontakt 7 with new functionality or scripting (especially NI libraries, like Noire) and no longer work with 6. So I have to reload the libraries into Kontakt 7 and try to figure out what preset I used and how I might have tweaked that preset for the song/mix. Seeing this happen more and more in the past year, I've started creating user presets for specific songs -- even if I've only slightly tweaked a factory preset -- in case a future update leads to the same issue.

Fair enough regarding the deleted posts I never saw. I thought perhaps you were referring to Bapu, my or other posts I saw in the thread, which were respectful. It was my first time voicing my opinion to BandLab and it appears that you're characterizing all of the comments in the thread -- which includes Bapu's and my very civil, respectful comments -- as "standing on a soapbox" and "complaining" and that is a surprisingly offensive communication to customers from someone representing a brand. If there was some window where customers were invited to give their feedback that has closed, I was unaware of it. But the idea that customer feedback is now unwelcome is problematic, IMO. All I'm trying to determine-- as are many others as well -- is whether BandLab has made a definitive decision to go subscription only or not. It's disappointing that a discussion on the matter was censored. I'm simply trying to decide if I should continue starting new projects in Cakewalk or transition to Studio One Pro based on whether or not Sonar is going to be available with a perpetual license. I have no ill will for BandLab if they are only offering subscriptions, it's simply not the right model for me as a customer. UPDATE: The below video was in my Facebook feed, an influencer's video wondering if BandLab is going to provide clear messaging on whether or not they will offer perpetual licenses. I suppose the closest thing to an answer we have is customers being criticized for bringing up the question of perpetual licenses. But, nonetheless, it's still unclear if that reflects that BandLab has decided to go subscription only or hasn't yet made a final decision.

Who was disrespectful? I didn't observe a post that I was even mildly disrespectful in that thread.

Still. seeing BandLab -- or one of their employees representing the brand -- close that thread, in effect, censoring reasonable customers' voices, was disappointing and unexpected (I never saw any other threads on that topic outside of the deals forum, and I've never seen a BandLab employee respond to any of those threads). Even Waves didn't censor its customers voices when they objected to their going subscription-only. Seeing BandLab censor that conversation damaged my trust in the brand. Maybe it was just one employee shutting out the customers' voices, but customer centric brands don't do that and have policies against their employees doing it. I didn't see it coming and it's changed my opinion of BandLab.

Bandlab heavy handedly closing that thread where @Bapu posted that he isn't interested in a subscription but wants a perpetual license and sought information from BandLab was disappointing, ending my perception that they are a company interested in listening to customers. That wasn’t the reaction of a customer-focused company. Maybe it was just the reaction of an annoyed mod, but it doesn't reflect well on the brand. My only challenge is converting over a bunch of Cakewalk files to another DAW (Studio One Pro).

Baby Audio is legit. They make high quality plugins and are well established with a number of high profile engineer endorsements and positive reviews from the media, like Sound on Sound (linked below). A fair number of the forum regulars have their stuff (I own some of their plugins, but I'm definitely no expert on mixing and tend to turn to friends, acquaintances and knowledgeable forum members for advice before buying mixing and effect effects plugins). https://www.soundonsound.com/manufacturer/baby-audio

Yep. Folks who complain about Native Access, Steinberg brings a whole other level of complications to installations. I've bought some Steinberg libraries in the past, but more recently, I tend to avoid it.

I love Evolution Bluegrass Banjo, Evolution Mandolin, Slide Acoustic and Lap Steel. While I don't use them as much as regular electric and acoustic guitars, I love incorporating them into songs. I'm using the banjo, mandolin, and lap steel on a new recording of one of my original songs from the past that I'm currently working on and find them inspiring to play. I used a factory preset from the acoustic slide guitar library for the riff in my original song. "Every Day" and find it's great for riffs (I probably should do MIDI editing; the riff was just me playing the library in real time; consequently, if someone plays with better technique or does MIDI editing, it wouldn't be difficult to improve on what I played).

I often watch Simeon's videos just to enjoy his playing and creativity, even when I have no interest in the library he's playing -- always well aware that if I buy the same library, I can't play it at a level anywhere close to Simeon's playing. Maybe we can petition Simeon to add a segment where he plays at a more attainable level for most of us that would go something like this: "Now that you've heard what it sounds like when someone very talented plays in our 'Joyful Journeys' video series, we're going to be introducing a new series called 'Questionable Quests' to reflect performances closer to how most of you will actually be playing these libraries." Then Simeon can either scale back the quality of his playing significantly, bring in someone in with no chops (I'm your guy!), or just let his cat walk across the keyboard! Also, darn, I just gave away a great April Fools Day video idea!

It's Bapu, the world record holder for most installed plugins and sample libraries. "Installed" is his catchphrase. Whereas cclarry is the GOAT for posting deals, Bapu is the GOAT of installed sample libraries and plugins.

It's not exactly a compelling testimonial for their quality and reliability. It's also strange in 2024 how a seller of hosted software does a 1990s era link at the bottom of a client website (back in the 90s this practice was common, but clients came to see it as less than desirable and even a little bit in the realm of SEO spam by the early 00s; consequently, you don't see that practice often these days).

Thanks for the info. I was curious when I saw the Firewood Piano on the page of libraries, as I own a license for the Originals library and couldn't figure out if they're including a full version of the Originals library (and other Originals libraries) or a cut down version. It does appear that what they're doing is a bit half baked. While they're large for this industry, they're still a small business, so we can't always expect great strategy or even UX design. While it costs a little more. I think EastWest and Musio offer far superior libraries as part of their subscriptions (I'm not knocking Spitfire libraries, which are excellent; Im just referring to what they're including for this subscription). If I were considering a sample library collection subscription, Composer Cloud+ and Musio would be the front runners for me.

I was planning on posting that one! Good call. Written by the late, great Harry Nilsson.

17 to go to reach the highest discount level (60% off)!

I liked Bapu's post and added my own post explaining that I wouldn't be giving Bandlab my business if they remain subscription only and would instead be moving to Studio One Pro exclusively. In my college days, a professor had encouraged me that if I liked a brand but wasn't giving them my business, to write them a letter and tell them why. Smart brands will listen, ones that aren't smart will ignore it. I've kept that idea and even have written about it for others to consider. I think it's the best gift you can give to a brand that you're not buying from is to tell them why. From my business experience, it can be invaluable feedback and I felt that I owed something in return for Bandlab giving me / us a completely free product for several years (Cakewalk). If enough people send the same message, there's an opportunity to influence BandLab's strategy. and see them introduce perpetual licenses. As an example of how consumers' voices are taken more seriously by brands than in the past, 15 or so years ago, a handful of consumers saying that they were doing a boycott didn't worry most brands, unless those consumers were part of a very large, organized group. In the past decade, even major brands tend to listen to consumers stating opinions in social media because they realize that those ideas can reflect how many consumers think and ideas can catch on and spread very rapidly. In this case, of course, there's no boycott -- unless you consider me and others not buying a subscription a boycott of subscriptions. I'd say it's simply a group of consumers who wants to give the brand our business telling them what they must do to gain our business. Bandlab can choose to listen, and earn our business and loyalty, or ignore our voice and lose our business and loyalty. If you're also interested in seeing Bandlab offer a perpetual license for Sonar (and Next), I recommend posting at the link in the original post and letting BandLab's management know. It just might make a difference. It did with Waves and some other brands in this space that recently went subscription only and then quickly reversed course after consumers let them know they were going to leave without a perpetual license option. To date, BandLab has been great to customers -- they haven't even charged us for Cakewalk. So I'm hopeful. I'm not ready to switch over to Studio One Pro for at least another month or so, to see what BandLab will do. I'd be happy to give them my business if they offer a perpetual license. If not, I told them why I left instead of just disappearing.

I regularly search YouTube for videos that go through all of the presets of a sample library or synth when I'm researching it. Even when the people who create these videos doesn't play well, it's still really helpful to hear all of the presets for a library when I'm deciding. I'm certain that a lot of other sample library users do the same (anyone reading this who agrees or disagrees, please share what you look for when researching guitar and bass libraries). As I wrote earlier, in my mind I have certain tones, characteristics, and purposes that I've assigned to each Evolution guitar in my mind. While Evolution Vintage Gent is positioned more for country guitar and sounds great for that, I really don't do anything close to that. For me, ai think the library is perfect for the crunchy presets. I can't think of another virtual guitar that comes anywhere close to that -- it's very raw and realistic. A lot of virtual guitars go after slick where they sound like the developers are largely mimicking each other and only going after the most well known Les Paul, Strat or whatever tones. There's not a lot of authentic indie organic vibe sounding virtual electric guitars out there, IMO. It's perfect for a Neil Young, Jayhawks, Damien Rice, Wilco, folkish indie rock with a raw electric guitar edge sound. I don't know of that's what you had in mind when you created the presets -- it may not be what you had in mind -- but for me, that's what it's great at for my purposes.

From the demos, that Hearth and Hallow library sounds excellent. Hunter Rogerson's free Pianobook libraries showed us how very talented he is. For anyone who doesn't know what I'm referring to, head over to Pianobook, search on his name and download and install his libraries.