PavlovsCat

Offhand, I really like his Cloudburst libraries -- which are acoustic and electric guitar harmonics. Bloom, Atlas and Prismatic are also among my favorite IAmLamprey libraries. He has a number of free libraries that you should download and check out to get a taste of what he does. For those wondering about his own player, NEAT, I seem to recall him writing that it's not as sophisticated as KONTAKT libraries. So the libraries in the NEAT format will not have all of the same features as KONTAKT libraries, but are provided so that those who do not have or can't afford KONTAKT still have an option. https://iamlamprey.gumroad.com/

By the time I was done writing the above post, Cody, the developer behind IAmLamprey, sent me off a link. I've interacted with Cody in the past after I bought a bunch of his individual libraries that cost more than his bundle pricing including more libraries and he sent me the upgraded bundle at no cost (I was just hoping for a discount and not expecting that). Just a talented, really nice guy that makes very good sound design libraries that are very inexpensive. I urge folks here to consider supporting him with paid purchases if you, like me, also appreciate his work. It's not a bunch of detailed sample libraries, but it has a really cool vibe, IMO. I really appreciate small indie devs like this one and want to see them do well.

The developer sent a second email stating that he wanted to keep this for his past paying customers only and if you're a past customer to use his site's contact form to request a link to the bundle and he'll respond. I'm a customer, so I did exactly as his email read. Here's his exact email message: "Hello again! It's come to my attention that someone has leaked the free code intended for migration to a facebook group with seemingly thousands of members. While I certainly don't mind giving out free products, the sheer bandwidth strain on Gumroad has necessitated me to restrict the previous code. For those of you that are legitimate customers and haven't migrated, please reach out to me directly using the Contact Form and I'll create a custom code for you. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have compared to the universal code, but some people just can't help themselves I'm afraid. Thanks everyone!"

Thanks for the link. There was no way I was going to shell out the outrageous three dollar price tag for the update. Now two dollars, that's a completely different story! Hahaha! I kid, I kid. SoundIron's Iron Packs are cheap and fun. In my experience, SoundIron libraries have always been super solid; high quality sampling and well scripted. I've found their videos always do an excellent job of representing the libraries accurately. As someone else basically stated, SoundIron videos are no bull, really accurate demonstrations of the libraries. I only wish they had more Iron Packs. Of course, there are certain libraries I want extensively sampled, but for libraries like this one or their metallic library that's more about sound design than detail, their Sound Packs are great.

It's $10 USD, but our own Fleer, not a compensated YouTuber promoting products, recommended the distortion plugin Distinct! by Kiive. Does anyone here use BDE who wants to weigh in? Otherwise, I'm inclined to go with Distinct! I have one freebie from Kiive, Warmy, and I really like it. For anyone who doesn't have Warmy I'd recommend picking it up. Here's the link for Distinct!: https://www.pluginboutique.com/products/8430

Whenever I'm considering buying a plugin, I always look to you and others here for advice, but Bapu is the one person who seems to already own every plugin I look at --and likely, the ones I'll be looking at in the future.

Dead serious. This is why I'm hesitant to buy plugins without seeing a post from Larry, as he often posts extra discount codes. So if someone posts a deal on something that interests me, I'll usually wait up to a day to see if Larry posts a code. He's the man.

So you get why I call my fellow forum members my "fellow enablers." I say it with love, but there's truth to it. We're all hugely addicted to sample libraries and plugins -- especially the regulars. The first time I saw someone share that they bought the same plugin twice, I knew a lot of us have the same habits. Larry is our Heisenberg (AKA Walter White).

Man, these prices are excellent. Thanks for the post Larry!

I love that period of the band! Tony Levin is a killer bass player one of my absolute favs. I really enjoyed Adrian Belew's songwriting contributions to the band and Bill Bruford is one of my all time favorite rock drummers whether it's with Crimson, Yes, Earthworks, Patrick Moraz...

Hahaha! Yeah. Oops! I usually have one to two cups of coffee in the morning by the time I posted that and I'm only having my first cup now, after lunch, so I'll attribute my error to a lack of coffee. Clearly, I need to stick to my regular schedule.

Sounds great! Okay, it's time for me to finally buy another SSD (I have like 1.5 TB total left on theee SSDs). I've been putting it off. The demos are motivating me to finally order one! (I saw Larry's recent posts for 2TB SSDs and I suppose I'll use them to find a good deal on a 4TB SSD). EDIT: Wow. Skipping my morning coffee had a profound effect on me! I originally wrote GB instead of TB.

I concur with Brian and Fleer (heck, I look to Fleer's advice a good deal on this forum, so that should come as no surprise). I picked up Mello-Fi free a while ago and love it. If you don't already have Mello-Fi, I wouldn't sleep on this one. EDIT: Sheesh! I didn't mean to leave out Brian's name, the person responsible for the thread. Fixed that.

Thanks Fleer. I went to Kiive's site and they have a demo of Distinct. I'll likely try it out this weekend. I also realized I have one of their plugins that I picked up free or cheap at some point that Ive yet to try. But candidly, you and others here know a lot more about effects and mixing and mastering plugins than me; so I tend to want to check with you folks first. Plus some of the regulars here -- cough, cough <Bapu> -- seem to own everything! https://www.kiiveaudio.com/distinct

I'm interested. I know we've had a thread or so with deals from Klive but don't recall anything beyond familiarity with their name. Would you, Fleer, or anyone here recommend Klive, or more specifically, this plugin?

I don't know if you knew it or it's just a coincidence, but Troels (the founder of 8Dio) formerly had a sampling company called Tonehammer with the folks now known as SoundIron. I agree with your observation.

@Starship Krupa You know that I really value your knowledge and opinion. I'm eager to get this freebie and was trying to decide between what to buy. I am a big fan of Izotope, but I've never really considered Stutter Edit because I mainly do rock music. Do you think it's still worth exploring for an old rocker?

Okay, I'm not writing this with a musician hat on, but as a business and marketing strategist, largely in the hopes it will make you feel less regret. So those who are uninterested in such topics will want to skip this! It was rather obvious from the lifetime deal that Cinesamples was looking to bring quick cash into this business. Of course, that can be read as a sign of desperation -- it's not exactly a sign of a healthy business (or new venture), Lifetime deals are a sales tactic to raise cash fast that are primarily employed (with some very rare exceptions) by cash strapped businesses -- often SaaS startups) looking to generate revenue quickly. That strategy is rarely sustainable. Consequently, I wouldn't see the lower subscription prices as a "slap in the face." Instead, I would see it more pragmatically as reflecting that the business's former pricing wasn't bringing in enough revenue, so they made adjustments. Is it a sign of desperation? Perhaps. But as a lifetime subscriber, you bet on this new venture surviving, at least for a couple of years, and this is the company trying to survive. It doesn't harm those who bought the lifetime deals. If Musio stays around for a few years -- assuming you're satisfied with the service -- you have a very good deal, but if they stick around for a decade or more, you have a tremendous deal. I really like the fact that they addressed the concerns prospective customers are likely to have about the business's health -- that is, what happens if Musio/Cinesamples closes its doors -- by letting you know that they will ensure that your software and sample libraries will continue to function (of course, that would mean the end of software updates, so for a proprietary format, the libraries will be of little use once the software no longer works on your system; of course, if the libraries were, say, formatted for KONTAKT, that would be far less of a problem as we ASSUME the company is more stable). To those with strategy backgrounds, these are very elementary points, BTW -- none of what I just wrote is controversial or going to get quoted in HBR, but I wanted to share the insights for someone feeling remorseful over new subscription prices. If I were a lifetime subscriber and happy with the product, I'd be letting people know and hoping the new pricing was successful. The alternative, that the new pricing is not successful, is the result a lifetime subscriber should least desire.

I'm definitely picking this up and want to use it on the Famous E (Rhodes electric piano from Orange Tree Samples).

Yeah, I have several Mastering the Mix plugins, but I always end up reaching for Izotope and Sonible/Focusrite plugins for mixing and mastering. In fact, the more time I spend with Izotope and Sonible/Focusrite plugins the more satisfied I am with the tools and Sonible and Focusrite (specifically their FAST bundle) has had some incredibly good deals lately. If a mixing newb was asking for advice, I would definitely steer them towards Sonible / Focusrite plugins first for their ingenious interfaces, AI and delivering an excellent user experiences . I realize that it's all subjective and there may be others who feel as strongly about Mastering the Mix, but for me, Sonible in particular really delivers a great user experience for musicians who are not mixing experts and their tools are great to grow with (allowing the user to get in and go beyond the AI recommended presets, in the case of FAST and Sonible's Smart line), which I think is less true of Mastering the Mix's plugins.

Majetone is a really talented and underappreciated KONTAKT developer, IMO. HIs truck drums kit has a fantastic, very Bonham-ish vibe to it and it's really underpriced and only 10 US bucks right now. 50% off everything using the code SPRUNG. Sale ends today. https://www.majetone.com/ Truck Drums -- only $10 USD on sale: Kensal Drums

Welcome back, Larry. Looks great, I'm glad you had a great time!

Thanks to my new enabler, MusicMan, after he shared that he also has the Focusrite Fast bundle it was basically my excuse to also pick it up! But it took seeing Leizer's post and the clock showed seconds left when I realized I still needed to pull the trigger, so thanks for the reminder, Leizer. Really, this was an amazing deal. I love Sonible ( including the Focusrite the Fast series) and Izotope plugins, they're great for musicians like me who are not very knowledgeable on mixing and mastering and to pick Sonible plugins up for less than Waves initial cost (that is, not including WUP and the unknown costs of using plugins that may or may not be usable in the future if Waves makes another move to subscription only) was too much for me to resist. I often will try my Sonible and Izotope plugins on a track and compare each and use the one I get the results I like best and it often leads me to making unanticipated choices. Here's hoping PA offers other Sonible plugins in the near future. Frankly, considering that Plugin Alliance is owned by the same company that owns Izotope, a major competitor to Sonible, I was pleasantly surprised PA offered Sonible. Hopefully, if this sale was a success, they will continue to sell more Sonible plugins in the future.

Wow, thanks so much for taking the time to listen and comment and the very kind words. It's appreciated.

I shared my cover of Electric Light Orchestra's Can't Get It Out of My Head a while back and had received suggestions for improving the mix. Most of the suggestions were around the artificial double tracking that I used on my vocal -- which I often use and funny enough, I get feedback that I sound Lennon - ish (I don't think I do, it's just that ADT on a vocal gives a male voice that kind of quality). Anyhow, this is a remixed version without the ADT, although I did use Nectar to do a fake lower and higher octave harmony. I also changed a bunch of things in the mix and changed effects and EQing. However, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm finally starting to grasp how to implement some of the suggestions folks have made. So thanks everyone for the insights, the suggestions and the encouragement. I'm sure there's a ton more I could do to improve this -- like replacing that terrible singer! But I am listening to the advice I'm receiving and slowly but surely, I'm learning. Baby steps, friends! I turned up the vocal louder too -- as the feedback I often get is that my vocal is too low in a mix (probably because I'm embarrassed by my vocals and would prefer it's buried in the mix rather than up front). I'm very interested in all of your critical feedback to learn more about mixing (I rely on Izotope's AI tool for mastering and don't do any adjustments).