Carl Ewing

Sound design has been a primary staple of rock, funk, jazz, electronic, pop, hip-hop, etc. going back 4+ decades. By your saying your "old", did you think The Who, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Michael Jackson, U2, David Bowie, Eurythmics, Prince, etc. were just using presets? Or was there sound the result 100s or 1000s of hours of building these incredible iconic guitar tones, synth tones, drum tones, etc. Now - it's great that they did all this work, made it super famous and nostalgic, and you can just copy it thinking "no biggie!", here's my dime-a-dozen Moog patch that was innovative in 1978, that's great. Just don't complain when others aren't satisfied with what's already been done, and trying to build a fan base of people under the age of 65, and are looking for new tools & ideas....which require actual work. And programs like the ones we're discussing are a big part of that work & innovation.

This applies to Omnisphere as well - which also gets called a rompler. Both Falcon and Omnisphere are extremely powerful sound design engines. I would argue both are far more powerful than most on the market. Most of Cliff Martinez's electronic scores (Drive, Neon Demon, The Knick, etc.) are Omnisphere. The 'Hardware' preset bank that comes with it blows anything Arturia out of the water, and I'd argue it rivals some U-He synths, although Zebra & Bazille are on another planet in some respects. For example, those drums at the beginning of Dune Part 1 are Zebra, as are almost all the synth sounds in The Dark Knight. But agreed, I think many people are missing out on some of the best synth software around by thinking these things are romplers.

I mean - this is a business thing. If I walk into your studio as a client and your using 'Willy's Freebie Daduk', East West Orchestral Gold, and Cubase's stock guitar amp plugins, I'm going to walk out the door lol. If you're a business then you're in competition with the best. That means constantly upgrading and improving what instruments & plugins you're using. You ain't getting Fab Filter quality for free. You ain't getting UVI or Liquidsonics quality without iLok. Also - buying stuff you don't need will put you out of business pretty quickly. It's pretty easy to avoid doing this by running a studio budget...which everyone should be doing if professional, or even amateur to get in the habit. But saying "i'm done with all this" is like a restaurant or factory saying "we ain't buying or upgrading anything anymore". This will end up costing you more in the long run. Make a budget. Identify what you do / don't need. (Use inventory lists that are categorized.) Wait for sales if possible. Demo everything if possible. Don't impulse buy. Avoid free **** as much as possible, because it will just become bloat / clutter...and free **** gets abandoned regularly, is often of much lower quality than paid products, and and often has no technical support or is slow to upgrade to new standards (eg. VST3, Clap, etc.) But if you're buying a lot of stuff you don't need, and can't seem to stop...therapy might be the better option. Not even joking.

Incredible products - it's too bad they have one of the worst sample players ever conceived in the history of software. Actually, that award belongs to Best Service's Engine, but Sine not too far ahead.

It's what always surprised me about Omnisphere. Easily one of the best synths on the market - absurdly extensive modulation options, crazy advanced synth engine, 8 layers, huge effects section, over 500 wavetables, great arpeggiator, great granular synth engine, and on and on. And then on top of that, huge sample library with almost everything instrument you can think of including tons of psychoacoustic stuff, and then possibly the largest analog synth sample database on the market. I regularly prefer it to Zebra, Diva, Repro-1, Serum, Pigments, for patch building. (Not Bazille though - nothing beats Bazille!). But still, people consider Omnisphere mostly a rompler as well, which is bizarre.

Okay now I'm interested. Always need more tablas! But ya, there are a few Falcon libaries I want, I just can't justify getting into another ecosystem. Kinda sucks they don't make a cheap / free "player" version of Falcon so people who are interested in specific boutique libraries can at least buy and use those. I really want those Modular libraries - very specific sound I'm looking for more of - but no way I'm paying for a Falcon license just to use them.

Oh - ya - apologies. Misread your meaning. Totally agree.

I disagree when it comes to iZotope or Native Instruments. It's generally better to upgrade at the tail end of a generation...just before a new version is released when the current version is massively discounted. (Despite knowing a new version is right around the corner.) For example, the best time to upgrade Komplete is usually the summer the year after the new version is released, and usually just before the next Komplete is announced / released. So for me, upgrading from Komplete 14 CE to Komplete 15 CE will be done next summer when it's 50% off. (Or whenever the next 50% off sale is, which is generally the following summer.) The question of course is if you absolutely have to have the new products immediately instead of waiting a year. And clearly, this past week's MPS upgrade was the best time to upgrade to 6.5 from almost any other version, and then just ignore MPS 7 altogether since the iteration gap is basically one upgraded plugin that isn't a flagship (eg. Neutron vs. RX or Ozone).

Ya - the $88 upgrade to 6.5 was a much better deal, especially if you dont need Neutron 5. The upgrade from MPS 1-6 to MPS 7 is $209, and I think @Pluto Gabo is correct that the only difference is Neutron 5 vs. Neutron 4, so that's an extra $120 for that difference. Glad I pulled the trigger. For anyone wondering - upgrade from 6.5 to 7 is $99. Hopefully that's it for upgrades for me, as between Komplete CE, Plugin Alliance subscription and occasionally keeping MPS up to date, the amount of crossover products is getting ridiculous. They need one bundle or subscription that just put everything together. Maybe call it "Komplete 'Super Collector's Edition' Collector's Edition Ultimate MEGA XL MPS 1.0"

Says on website that bundle deals end today (October 27th). I'm guessing that includes bundle upgrades as well.

No mention that the magazine never innovative over time? Music industry journalism is maybe one step above gaming journalism these days. And that's not a compliment. It's no surprise most of the media side has been co-opted by serial killer looking influencers in their basement. This months CM highlights are "Becoming A Software Guitar Hero", a 'sick pulsing bass line' masterclass, dime a dozen software reviews, Sara Simms on the "future of trance", which follows the hard hitting previous issue covering some 'experimental' artist's first use of her own vocals, musings on Reason Studios legacy, some other artist finding "magic" somewhere in her computer, a 'hair-raising' workshop dissecting Prodigy's No Good circa 1994. And of course a bunch of 'freebie' loops that are 10% quality you could get in a loop site subscription for the cost of a CM subscription, and software freebies that, well, most software is dirt cheap these days and few people want the clutter / headache of mostly low-tier future abandonware. They should have put their resources into social media. Their Youtube channel is surpringly dull af, with endless thumbnails of software screenshots and monotone tutorials / reviews that sound like they're read from a teleprompter. This is not a company that was going to make it much longer. And that includes Music Radar, which isn't much better.

Ah - you're right! Didn't notice the pulldown for version number in my PB account. Yep, I see 1.3 available for my full Console & Expanse plugins. Both are "upgrades" from the Lite version, so perhaps I have it before you because of that path. Thanks for the heads up - the default pulldown option really should be the latest version. Weird. And 100% agree. Would be great to have all modules in one plugin. Hoping for that as well. I sometimes avoid inserting them if I know I want modules from both and don't want the added time of dealing with both plugins separately. I'll usually reach for a different multi-fx that has the right specific combination (eg. RC-20, Tantra, TR5 suite, etc.)

Okay - this is weird - I own the full Lifeline Expanse and trying to figure out how this works. It seems to be not only the individual Space module, but also a huge update to the main plugin (that has all modules in one plugin), but also now has all 5 modules (Space, Format, Dirt, Re-Amp, Width) as individual plugins. What I did was buy the Space module (for free with code), then downloaded that file. It installed all modules, plus updated my full plugin (from version 1.1.2 I think to 1.3) , with everything registered to my old serial. What's weird is that the full Expanse plugin file (downloadable from my Plugin Boutique account) is still the older version (v. 1.1.2), and this "freebie" thing seems to be version 1.3 for the full plugin in addition to the individual modules. SO! If you own the full plugin, you should get this freebie, as it seems to be the only version that also updates the full plugin. And you get all 5 individual modules, not just Space. Even more confusing because Expanse Audio doesn't have account / login, so all files have to be downloaded from Plugin Boutique and I never received an email from anybody about this update, nor does it mention anything about the individual modules. Anyway - hope that helps anyone that has full version. Cool update. Just confusing af.

I've hesitated on a lot of uJam stuff because they seem like the kind of company to do a 99% sale on a bundle of their entire catalog during Black Friday. Watching their sales it seems more about getting as many people into their ecosystem than having any logical pricing strategy. For example, a few these plugs were 8.08 recently. So is $29.99 for three random instruments a good deal? Or will you be able to get 20 for $99 in a month. Probably.

Ya, this is a no brainer. Also on MPS 3. Been hesitating on upgrading since there's now crossover between Komplete CE and also have Plugin Alliance sub, and also got some v11 elements stuff for free. But that's $88 bucks to upgrade RX from 7 to 11, and Ozone 9 Advanced to 11. Very reasonable imo. But it kinda sucks having so many duplicates of various plugins. They really should offer additional "loyalty" products to people who are inside all 3 ecosystems - for example Komplete CE should come with Ozone advanced (instead of Standard) if you already have advanced Izotope products or a PA subscription. But clearly I'm still giving them money, so what do I know. lol