PavlovsCat

I haven't. Initially, I overlooked it because I thought, due to the name, it was some quirky library that wasn't what I was after, but when someone here told me to check it out, I heard the Broken Wurli demos and agree it sounds great. I wish I would have bought it instead of buying several inferior Wurli libraries. But now I have two really good Wurli libraries my favorite from Skybox (bought after two forum members recommended it to me) and second favorite from e-Instruments. So I'm good for a while. I want everyone to join me to encourage Orange Tree Samples sample a Wurli in the same league as what they did with the Rhodes for The Famous E. That would be my ultimate Wurli library. Rhodes are great. But the Wurli was part of my childhood. My mother was a musician and music teacher and we owned an 200A and it was used it in our family band (the point where I left the piano to play drums). So there's some big time memories for me in that tone that no other electric piano will ever have. Okay, another overshare!

@cclarry, your habit of regularly posting hard drive deals is one of the many smart and super helpful things you do in this forum that rookies may not realize is super important. Considering the sizes of today's sample libraries and that detailed /deep sampled libraries have become the norm, the hard drive deal posts are extremely timely. So, thanks again, Larry! I just bought the 8GB SSD. I couldn't pass up this deal.

Seriously, before I make any purchases, I should just send you a PM and ask you your opinion, because odds are good if I like something, you own it (and Bapu certainly owns it!).

The walkthough sounds really good. Do you know if he has plans to do a solo cello library?

Currently at 437. When it hits 500 it will turn to buy 1 plugin and get 4 free. But clearly, this group buy is moving at a snail's pace, especially considering that IK is one of the major players in this business (they're clearly a small business technically, but for this industry, they're a pretty big player). Like just about every company, they have their good and down sides to their software, but over all, I find they make very high quality software. I loathe their installer choosing to install a bunch of plugins I don't want and I loathe that they charge customers to redownload sample libraries for SampleTank and their various sample players. But even with the downsides, I think they're still worth buying from. Plus they employ our friend Peter (Peter and I go back two decades) -- and Peter's a good guy, as most here seem to know. I definitely am not saying people shouldn't voice things they don't like -- they should, that stuff helps smart companies become better companies, plus it informs our fellow musicians of the realities we have encountered as customers. I'm just saying that despite the issues, IK plugins are still worth buying, IMO. https://www.ikmultimedia.com/pickandmix2023/

Just curious to learn about how everyone else uses the Evolution electric guitar libraries... My being happy with the Evolution presets kept me from venturing out and exploring external amp sims and effects for quite a long time. I would tweak Evolution presets a bit, but that was about it. But once I started combining Evolution guitars and basses with external guitar amp and effects sims, it opened up a whole new world of options for me (and costs for more virtual gear!). In the last several months, I've been spending a lot more time using Evolution libraries with external amp sims and effects (I have Guitar Rig, AmpliTube and Electrum), to the point where I really enjoy going through the amp and effects sims presets playing around until I find just the right sound and, ideally, something fresh that inspires me. I mean, I easily get caught up in jamming when going through the various options. I'd be very interested in how many others use these libraries with external guitar amp and effects simulators and any tips or insights.

It's now at 1493, only 7 left to go. Although, I feel confident it's easily going to make it to 1,500, it's still a good time to post about any Orange Tree Samples libraries you really love, to bring out those fence sitters. I'll start. I love the Evolution Flatwound and Roundwound Bass libraries, but my go to bass library since it was introduced is Evolution Vintage Violin Bass, a Hofner. The tone is gorgeous and it's a surprisingly versatile bass guitar. For electric guitar, the Evolution Rock Standard library, a Gibson Les Paul, is my go to, but I use the full range of Evolution electric guitar libraries and commonly use two or three different Evolution electric guitar libraries in a project. For acoustic guitar I don't have a clear go to. I often vary between Songwriter, Steel Strings and Old Relic. I love Acoustic Slide and come up with riffs every time I use it. It's really inspiring to me. The Mandolin has a beautiful tone that I love using, often along with acoustic guitar. The Famous E is easily the best quality electric piano library I own and is my first choice when I'm looking for a Rhodes. That said, I'm obsessed with the Wurly and would absolutely love a Wurlitzer electric piano sample library made at the same level of detail/quality. Disclosure: I've consulted to Orange Tree Samples and I am friends with Greg. But I'm a marketing and branding consultant, not an influencer and I've never made agreements to post / shill for any developer. In fact, I've always made agreements that my posts are entirely independent of my consulting and I reserve the right to post critical comments. Still, my affiliation is a fair reason to be skeptical of my posts for bias. I've also consulted to more than two dozen other sample and plugin developers, including other developers that make guitar and bass libraries. I pretty much avoid posting about them because I don't use those libraries as much and don't consider them as vital to my productions and I feel ethically obligated to post a disclosure and that can ruin a post. But I use Orange Tree Samples libraries in nearly every single project I have that have that is more than solo piano, so it's very different for me. I started out being a huge admirer of Greg Schlaepfer's work that ended up doing paid consulting. But in the beginning, I was merely providing free advice because I wanted to see an innovator of guitar sample libraries, which I regularly use, succeed and do more.

Good Penguin!

I don't think your analogy with a phone works for the situation as this is the latest version change for a line of software where the developer has removed significant functionality. It's not a different product, just the latest version. I have the full versions of Izotope's plugins, so this situation doesn't apply to me personally. Still, I can completely understand disappointment from users of the entry level Elements versions who are disappointed that the developer removed major functionality of the plugin in the new version. Also, stepping back, as a former marketing director who has advised many software companies, it's also expected that many consumers will upgrade to the latest version of a product not anticipating significant features of the software to have been removed. I believe the company should have reflected these significant reductions to the product in a change to the product name to give consumers a signal that there has been a major change in the software functionality; specifically, major features have been removed and the consumer will know need to make additional purchases to have that functionality. That is significant.

In case anyone is looking for the link (it's in the original post, but that was 4 pages ago): https://www.orangetreesamples.com/group-buy

Hahaha! You have an outstanding memory. I would looooooooovvvveee to have a Wurly library at the level of The Famous E. If anyone wants to petition for an Orange Tree Samples Wurly library, I'm on board! I may have even begged Greg to consider doing one in the future. I'll never tell.

I know, but I can't tell. (Seriously. ) But I know I'll be using it a lot.

I rarely go to VI Control, but I was perusing the forum and checked out the Orange Tree Samples thread there and came across a post made by Greg with a really informative update regarding Evolution. Here it is in its entirety: "There's an update for the Evolution engine coming out pretty soon. It contains a ton of improvements under the hood, but here are some of the most notable changes: - New NKS parameter layout with 18-19 pages of controls. For comparison, currently there are only two pages of controls in the NKS layout. - All Evolution libraries can now share the same NKR resources file. That will make it a lot easier to apply updates in the future, since most of the time it will just be a matter of downloading a single new NKR file that will work for all the Evolution libraries you own. - New collection of deluxe spring reverb options, including stereo spring reverbs. - New option to have separate slide ranges from the standard legato ranges. - New pick position variance setting for when the pick modeling feature is enabled, adding an adjustable amount of randomness to the pick position. - Added the ability to create custom tunings rather than being limited to the tuning presets. (a few of these additions are already in our very latest releases, but the update will add them to all the rest of the Evolution libraries) There will probably be a couple more updates like this to the current iteration of the engine before the next major version, where we'll address more fundamental improvements: larger UI, better strumming pattern editor, making all the libraries inter-compatible when it comes to patterns/mappings/effects/etc., adding the fretless/slide capabilities, better effects routing capabilities, and much, much more. I'm really excited for everything we have planned for this next generation of the Evolution engine. There will still be a couple more libraries released in the current iteration of the engine (we have two coming out soon that have already been encoded for the Kontakt Player, if that gives you any indication of how imminent they are). At the same time, we have this massive library that's been in development over the last eight years, so that's admittedly been taking up a lot of our bandwidth. However, we're at the point where I can see the finish line for that one, so I'm both excited to be able to finally share that library as well as be able to focus entirely on the Evolution engine's next major version."

Osterhouse libraries are very good, IMO. Watch the walkthrough videos by the developer. They deliver on what you see and hear in those videos. Some are straightforward sample libraries and some are more creative/unusual (in how you use them and the string techniques they use).

Haha! Same.

The offer was only for the month of June, ending on June 30, 2023. Note that the original post in this thread is dated June 1, 2023. AudioThing Things-Crusher is the current freebie with purchase.

Thanks for the advice, Brian. It was very considerate of you to explain that and I appreciate it.

I actually had the Melda Dynamic EQ before the freebie, but I've never used it. I will check it out. I know Starship Krupa, who's given me mixing advice from time to time, has strongly recommended the Melda stuff.

I haven't seen that developer mentioned in ages. I bought their Les Paul library, probably more than a decade ago. While it was a well sampled instrument, it was a ton of articulations without scripting to make it possible to achieve a realistic performance in real time; you had to go into midi by hand to create authentic sounding performances. So I gave up on it and never bothered with the library even a month after I bought it. For me, the game changer for guitar sample libraries was when the scripting became sophisticated enough that you could play on your midi keyboard in real time and it sounded realistic. But it's been a long time and I'm an old customer of theirs and I don't recall seeing an email from them in ages. By now their scripting might be a completely different story.

I don't think just because an effect has been around for a long time that it suddenly becomes worthless. If a commercial developer makes a plugin that was once paid free, the odds are good updates and support for the plugin will end. In this case, if people still desire a good spring reverb -- which is true for a lot of musicians / producers -- and the developer has kept their plugin up to date, it's still valuable and maintaining a good plugin and providing support still costs money.

Funny, I was certain that I owned a plugin from Toneboosters that I got from some freebie deal, but I didn't have a saved login at the site, so I searched my emails and found a developer friend --- a very well respected developer -- telling me in 2011 that he just picked up a plugin from Toneboosters that he loved. I completely forgot about that. So apparently, I do know someone who uses their stuff and has said nice things about it. I need to check in with him. But I absolutely will check out the demo. I just don't trust that I have the knowledge to assess it compared to other alternatives to know how well it stacks up, so I rely on audio expert friends and folks here to weigh in before making a purchase. But absolutely, demos are a step I pretty much always go through before a purchase and I really like that Toneboosters has an unending demo period. Again, 29 bucks to get an EQ that is really high quality -- and no Update Plan -- sounds great to me.

I own it and agree with Fleer. It is very good.

I have only seen some YouTubers talk about Tonebooster and here in the forum, opinions on the developer seem to be less than enthusiastic. But for 29 bucks, that's pretty intriguing. I don't know enough about EQs to assess this stuff myself, so I rely on those with expertise and would love to see people more knowledgeable on mixing and mastering weigh in on this one, because it's so affordable, it is, of course, something I can easily pick up IF it's really good.

Thanks for posting that, Brian! No, I don't have FabFilter. Their stuff is beyond my meager budget. I was hoping to pick up the Kirchhoff EQ next time someone shares a $75 code and its on sale (I've been trying to catch one, but I'm always too late!).

There has long been a lot of positive buzz around the Kirchhoff EQ. Eventually, I'm going to pick it up (I'm still a total novice with this stuff, despite making multitrack demos for decades and recording in pro studios as a drummer). Although, while I've heard friends who really know audio talk about Kirchhoff EQ, they've only said they'd heard really positive things about it, none of them actually own it / use it. My two audio expert friends I regularly turn to for advice both use and love the FabFilter stuff. I'd be interested in hearing from forum members who own and use Kirchhoff EQ, or who, at least, have demoed it.