Magic Russ

This package goes to show how far IK has come in terms of modeling. The Mark III models that have been part of the package since version 3 are nearly useless. The Mark III in the MB collection on the other hand has some really good sounds in it.

At this point most of us know the pattern. Flash sales through most of the year, group buy sometime during the year, mega sale during Christmas season. Plan according to your wants and needs.

20 years ago I would not have expected a sampled product to have this much realism for lead guitar. Now I am wondering how long until they have add ons to recreate various players' styles.

I think it sounds as good as most of the Syntronik libraries. I would never have paid $50 for it, but it might see use. As you can expect, there are a lot of 80s -ish synth sounds. There are some really fake guitar sounds (keeping with the theme) as well as a couple of ratty trumpets and a sax in there as well. Getting back to the topic of IK annoyances, now I have to figure out why half of my Syntronik libraries show up in the Sampletank player but not Syntronik.

Cite?

Yeah, I was disappointed I had to manually authorize the new Synthwave pack after installing it through the product manager. Seems like an unnecessary step.

But they explicitly said "Earth Shattering Kaboom" on their website! Good flanger nonetheless. Everyone should download this. And one final thing, the clip is labeled Q 36 Space Modulator, but it always sounded like Marvin was saying Pew 36. Am I the only one who hears it that way?

Rapture Pro is very cool from the perspective of having all of the Rapture and Dimension Pro sounds integrated. As an editor, though, not so much. I have long said that I use Rapture for patch creation and import to RP. Before the bankruptcy, I set up whichever version they were giving away with CM on my kids machines. I even copied my Magic Russ 30 for 30 patch library over, and it worked fine in RP Lite. My kids never used it but thought it was cool that I had my own patch set.

CA-2A is a pretty complete product. And since we aren't on Mac, maintaining it isn't going to be a drain on resources. Granted, you may need someone to set up shop, but that's not the same skillset. Perhaps they can outsource that to one of Meng's other brands.

You probably want Kontakt, but probably not before BF this year. In the mean time, there are a lot of good samples out there in the sfz format. These samples are usually free as are many sfz players such as sforzando.

I listened to the demo. Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!

Mostly fixes for Apple, Ableton, Cubase. Removed 32 bit target on Windows. I am not sure if that means it will remove existing 32 bit installations, so you may want to back up if you have any projects on old hosts. Run Native Access.

MODO Bass is better than any of the sample libraries I have for bass. I still use Amplitube over Guitar Rig in most cases. The Mesa Boogie collection is really good. I also Like the Princeton, Wampler effects, Fulltone collection and a few others. I use a few of the compressors in T-Racks, mostly the 1176. I don't care much about their samplers and sampled contents, although I will say that if you are doing an 80s production, the Hugh Padgham drums will work nicely.

You can leave a spreadsheet with license keys to your heirs. I can see my grandkids getting emails "Russ, congratulations on having been a NI user for 75 years. Check out these great savings on Komplete 37". Or whatever they use to send messages in the future.

A discount is now a "gift"?

Is there any point in getting Garbage if you already have Trash?

Hi, Ed!

With all that is messed up in the world, is it really worth getting bent out of shape because a software company is not compensating you for already having the product they are giving away?

Studio One has a feature which allows you to use an Apple or Android tablet to control your console. I would not complain if CW implemented something similar.

I do like the turbo delay. Any thoughts on the other two?

You left out the most important part that this is FREE. Also Kontakt 5.4.3 required.

Run Native Access, will be under "Not Installed" tab on left. 150 presets for House music. Hopefully this doesn't get pulled like the Absynth update. Audio demo here: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/expansions/massive-x-expansions/

And they released a new library for Massive X

I was running through the presets, noticed that a lot of these are made by Brian Clevinger, the designer for Absynth who is no longer with NI. This bank is fairly effect heavy.

I hope so too. Most companies don't release patches for products they are going to let die.