PavlovsCat

It's announcements like this that make me glad that I've transitioned away from Waves plugins and have supported a bunch of other, (primarily small) developers with great plugins and much better policies -- developers I feel much better about supporting. Waves, you get credit for lowering the prices for the industry and for having policies that have created a wealth of opportunities for other, more customer-focused developers (of course, that wasn’t Waves' intention, but that has been the outcome of their practices). They've unintentionally inspired greater competition in the marketplace with their less than upfront and customer-unfriendly practices; they've helped lower plugin prices throughout the industry with their always on $29 USD sales to the point where there are now plenty of good, simarly priced (at least during sales) alternatives to Waves plugins. They've even inspired some developers to offer benefits like free lifetime updates. During Waves subscription fiasco, some of their competitors were even bold enough to call out Waves, comparing their practices. So, it's unquestionable that Waves has had an impact just by embarking upon strategies many plugin users find less than desirable. I would say that they've squandered the opportunity the brand has had in the industry by putting profit motives too far ahead of customers' needs and wants. I really can't imagine a scenario where the Waves brand sees significant growth in the near future if the brand continues their existing strategies and tactics. Just look at threads at any forum when you see Waves mentioned to give you an idea of where their brand image is at today. So thanks, Waves, for doing these things to ensure that I will never need to buy another Waves plugin or bother purchasing WUP if one of my old Waves plugins stops working (with a few exceptions, like the Abbey Road line). I'll simply purchase a similar plugin from a developer with better practices and policies.

Considering that this topic involved a discussion on AI regarding singers, rights/licensing, I thought this article I just came across would be of interest. https://www.musicradar.com/news/google-universal-ai-vocals?utm_content=future-music&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2eaCJ4rH-zF7uG_Gy7_Tp54XFVNyP8ePHmiNmx0MEOa1PHT9Nn8bvEWk8

Yeah, I had the same thoughts as both of you, this doesn't sound anything at all like the Game Boy or Nintendo 64. The feedback on it in a Facebook group I'm in has been absolutely brutal.The consensus is to not bother downloading or installing it. If you're looking for Game Boy sounds, Impact Soundworks has a free / donationware library for the full version of KONTAKT that sounds great and is a lot of fun to play. https://impactsoundworks.com/product/super-audio-boy/

It's not my industry, but I know in the US, for American football and other sports, the negotiations go through the players' unions. Either earlier this year or last year there was some issues with the agreement in one of the sports -- that is, there was problems in the negotiations, but I've never heard that EA had used any player's likeness and name without an agreement -- that would be a foolish move, as it would be a slam dunk in courts around the world for the player.

Now that I've been following your adventures (we're all a bunch of GAS junkies here), I'd be interested in your thoughts on the Melda MPhaserMB as I've been contemplating buying something just to get the Melda plugin too.

Sorry to see it go. I enjoyed your writing. It was quite thorough, which I found very helpful. But I completely understand how much work it could be. I had a publication of my own I shut down at the height of its success to prioritize my family. I appreciate the work you and the others did (I think my friend Jay Asher was a contributor, right?) . It was a good publication.

I've been a customer of IAmLamprey for a couple of years. He's a talented KONTAKT developer and he really is as nice as can be do deal with. I've had support interactions with him a couple of times and had very positive experiences with Cody. It's sad to learn that he's closing his doors. I wish him the best in his new endeavors. This is why I've always tried to support talented indie developers (and also why I'm not a fan of small sample developers choosing to stop building for KONTAKT and instead wrap their sample libraries in their own proprietary sample player; as it creates a serious problem for customers if they close shop). From his email today: "Packing Up Shop Hello everyone! After over 4 years of learning, failures and successes, I've ultimately come to the decision to close up shop. I'm not sure if this is forever, but I need to focus my efforts elsewhere at this point of my life and this store, and sample-library development in general just has too much upkeep and for me, is unsustainable. I want to thank you all for the kind words about the instruments over the years. Notice: If you've already purchased anything, rest assured you'll still be able to access your downloads via Gumroad, this change only affects future-orders and is active immediately. I'll leave the Contact Form open as well in case there's still some stragglers from the original pre-Gumroad store. If you missed out on something, the Kontakt versions of the instruments will stay on PluginBoutique and LootAudio, at least for a while longer. Cheers everyone, sorry it has to end this way but I'm excited to move ahead and try something different. Cody"

There is a lawyer or two among us, I'm not one. But there have been a number of high profile lawsuits by actors over the years when companies have used other actors. including voice actors that attempted to look and sound like those actors (the Back to the Future movie franchise is one example). I'd expect that it could be protected by copyright law (if it's part of a copyrighted work), after all sometime's likeness and voice is absolutely their intellectual property. On a personal level, like many others here, I don't have a very good singing voice, but I wrote some decent songs back in the day and the idea of being able to use voices of singers I really enjoy is incredibly appealing. Imagine using the voice of a young Paul McCartney, Chris Cornell, Robert Plant, Paul Rogers, Freddie Mercury, John Lennon, Muddy Waters, Al Green, Jeff Buckley, Steve Walsh, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Peter Gabriel, Billie Holiday, etc on your original song or cover. If that was easy to do, I would absolutely want to do it -- I don't think it's presently very simple. While I doubt that major artists would ever consent to that, I personally think it would be amazing to have that ability. EDIT: I thought I'd include this interesting article on the legal aspects of using someone else's voice, as some have wondered about where law stands on this (of course, it varies from country to country, but overall, it's clear that laws haven't yet caught up to technology in this area). https://www.forbes.com/sites/schuylermoore/2022/10/28/who-owns-voice-and-image-artificial-intelligence-rights/

Cool, and thanks again, Larry. Also, maybe it's just me, but from a childhood that included watching old Bugs Bunny cartoons before school, I couldn't help but think "mirage-ee" when seeing the name of the library. For those who don't know the reference:

While it is certainly a lot of money, I would love to hear it. Also, it's cool to see a bunch of fellow drummers here!

I picked up all of the 8Dio drum libraries last year when they went on sale for, I think, $15 each. It's completely subjective, but I find the processing of the 8Dio libraries really over done and very dated. I have and regularly use SD3 and maybe a dozen SD and ezDrummer libraries and definitely prefer them over the 8Dio libraries as far as presets and GUI. But if you like the heavily processed sound of the 8Dio libraries you hear in the walkthough video, it's a good quality library. I just think Toontrack is better at drums, but that's purely subjective.

I didn't test the VX, but last night I spent more time with the Goyo and found that it was fooled and dramatically lowered the volume of the vocal I applied it to on two notes that were low, very breathy notes. I imagine that the VX would probably get fooled by the same thing, but I'll try it out this weekend and share the results here. To Brian's point above, he's right about this basically being an extended trial. The startup has raised a good deal of cash and I would expect they're going to be charging for this plugin as soon as they do an official release, and we have no idea what their pricing would be like. If it's under $50, I'd very likely pick this up. If it's $100 or more or is on subscription, I'm out. But after using it, I really like it and want to check out the Waves plugin for comparison. One thing that surprised me was that I found Goyo pretty light on resources and I wasn't expecting that. I believe my RX8 is more resource intensive. I put the Goyo on a vocal track in a project with around 32 instances of KONTAKT libraries and was still able to play keys without much latency. I don't think that would be the case with RX8. Did you compare Goyo vs VX in terms of computer resources?

It's not going to my spam folder, it's just that I get a ton of emails and it's in my Gmail promo tab and I often don't bother checking it and instead rely on Larry.

I have a couple of this developer's paid libraries and think he's quite creative and talented. But once again, while I get his emails, I would never have noticed this one, so thanks again, @cclarry. You rock!

Thanks for weighing in. I briefly tried the Goyo on a guide vocal with a lot of background noise and I was impressed with the job it did, but I haven't compared it to Clarity VX. When you wrote that Goyo doesn't "change the sound of the file as much as the Clarity VX," do you mean that Goyo doesn't alter the vocal part you're trying to remove background noise from as much or that the Goyo doesn't remove background noise as well? I think you meant the former, but I just wanted to make sure. Again, I appreciate you doing the comparison.

Yep, it looks extremely likely that this plugin is only free during the open beta. I'd be interested if anyone who has the similar plugin from Waves could compare it to this one.

This post!!!! This is exactly why it may be a good idea to wait a day or two before pulling the trigger -- as Larry will beat his own deals! Also, if you have Jam Points at IK, they work for this sale, so you can reduce the price a little lower than JRR's price if you have enough Jam Points to take the maximum 30% off from the sale price. I know, because I tried and am still contemplating whether to pick this up or not.

Hahaha! Every time I think someone younger is in the group, it turns out they're at least 40! Hey, I'm in my 50s too. I just like the idea that our group has at least some members from different generations. But I'd still say give it a try. Even if you're doing EDM -- I didn't catch what genres you do -- it may have a use in some capacity. But I'm biased, I love retro and lo fi stuff, including B3s, Trons, Wurlies, old drum machines...

Wait, there's someone in the group who's not at least middle aged??? B3's are used in rock, blues, R&B, neo soul, country, house and jazz (there's probably more, but this is what I know off hand). But you're unlikely to hear a B3 upfront in many modern rock songs with exceptions for Coldplay and Muse. But you will hear them in modern country, neo soul, blues and R&B songs.

I only have their freebies -- and they're very nice. I have a bunch of tongue drums, but theirs sounded really nice in the demos. What are your thoughts, @Fleer? I'm trying to watch the budget. So while this dev does seem very good, I am limiting my spending. Do you have the tongue drum and what libraries of theirs stand out for you?

Some day Larry is going to post a plugin or sample library you don't own. I'm just kidding! That'll never happen.

Sad that I know this bit of trivia, but, it's actually not a cover. Neil Diamond wrote the song and sold it to The Monkees; he didn’t write it to record as a solo artist. Diamond even played acoustic guitar on The Monkees hit. Diamond did record his own version of the song. But that was more than a decade later. File under useless knowledge...

I'm not on my PC right now, but I had it happen on two projects. I'm almost certain what they had in common was that I was using it on tracks with KONTAKT 7 -- and large sample libraries. I use KONTAKT sample libraries in just about every project. I will test it out and see if it always happens when I use KONTAKT 7 -- and if it's related to that or not. I'll share what I find in this thread. I was wondering if anyone else had any issues. When I have more time I'll try some different scenarios and let IK know about the issue. But those issues aside, I really do think that deal on MixBox posted here last month was a great deal and hopefully the issues I'm having will be resolved.

Getting the full Mix Box for $29 USD a couple of months ago was probably the best deal I've seen this year, but it crashes in Cakewalk when I load more than one instance in a project.

@skybox Audio, just a small thought, but if you sold the 200A and Rhodes libraries separately, I suspect you'd bring in a good deal of first time customers.