pseudopop

From the fine print of the "Buy SD3, get one SDX for free" deal:

Uh, no. If you buy it for $34 from Melda then it counts as $34 x 0.7 = $23.80 towards a bundle. They count only what you have actually spent, not what the plugin costs outside a sale.

Everything is -50% right now, the same percentage as during the weekly madness sales. There are people selling Melda plugins at KVR, but what I've seen they are not much cheaper than what you can get them from Melda directly (and sometimes people are asking more than half of the retail price). Probably because of the transfer fees.

But only if you know for sure you are going to buy most of the plugins eventually. I'm not so sure at this point. They give you 70% of what you have spent. I suppose that can be considered super generous. ?‍♂️ 8 of the 10 plugins in Essential can be found in Mixing, so I think Mixing might be a better choice, for me at least.

If you're new to Melda plugins here are a few things you should probably know about their pricing (correct me if I'm wrong): If you upgrade from a) individual plugins to a bundle or b) from one bundle to bigger one (say, from Mixing to Complete), they reimburse you 70% of what you have actually paid for a) the invidivual plugins in the bundle or b) the smaller bundle. You will not be reimbursed in any way if you crossgrade to a bundle on a same "level", like from Mixing to Mastering. If you have bought a plugin or a bundle from a 3rd party, they assume you have paid 50% of the retail price and reimburse 70% of that, ie. 35% of the retail price. If you want to sell your Melda plugins, they charge you a whopping 20% of the retail price as a transfer fee. Want to sell your MMixingFXBundle that currently goes for €599? Please pay ~€120 in transfer fees. So if you buy MMixingFXBundle during the Black Friday sale for €300 and later want to upgrade to MComplete, you get a discount of €300 * 0.7 = €210. On the other hand, if you had bought the same bundle from someone else for less than €210, you would still get that €210 discount and would actually be making some profit. I've been making a list and I've noticed that buying individual plugins quickly adds up to the point where they equal or exceed the cost of a bundle. I'm probably interested in only 7 plugins in the MCreativeFXBundle (currently €599), but individually they cost €613. Same thing with the MMixingFXBundle (currently also €599) where the six plugins I'm interested in cost €614. I'm not saying Melda is any better or worse than other developers when it comes to pricing, but trying to figure out the most cost-effective purchase plan is giving me a serious analysis paralysis.

I'm torn. On one hand €99.50 seems like an ok price for the Finisher Bundle and you can obviously create really cool sounds with them. On the other hand I'm immensely bothered by the fact that I have no idea what's happening behind the scenes. I understand these are huge timesavers for most people but I feel I'd rather use several plugins that each do just one thing, just so I can replace any one of them if I need to and still get a similar sound out. Still, really cool sounds...

This reminded me of those "Will It Blend?" commercials. Fun stuff, if you're into that sort of thing.

I was planning to buy some of the Efektors. Could you please tell us which free effects you think are better?

Thus spoke Marco from Beat Magazine: So it looks like Larry did get the last one.

Uh... what does the Decapitator actually do? For some reason I'm a bit scared to try it out.

Sadly, no. The business went belly up as its customers rushed to its competitor who offered a sack of soil and a dozen decorative rocks. Selling dirt cheap is a race to the bottom.

There once was an ad in a newspaper with a very special offer: anyone buying a brand new bulldozer would get a 20 pound sack of garden soil - for free!

But at least it's just Kontakt 5 instead of 6.

If you already own some of their products you can get the bundles cheaper. I have Timeshaper 2 and I could get the ShaperBox 2 Bundle for $77.

I can't say about the other instruments but I have Mideast Vocals I & II, Persian Vocals and Balkan Vocals, and I have to say that I'm not very impressed with any of them. I really want to like them but I can't. I don't use loops, so I can't say anything about them, but some of the issues I have with the playable* voices are: With a couple of exceptions all the female voices sound very artificial, like something you would get from an 80's synth. Persian Vocals II is better than the others but that's not much of a compliment. There is just one male singer in the whole bunch. There are quite a few cases where the singer flails around the note until they finally hit it. They honestly don't sound like professional singers to me. The only vocalizations available are "aa", "mm" and "eh", and for the most part it's just one vowel for a voice. The range of the singers is in most cases only a couple of notes over an octave, which isn't enough for me. As if that wasn't bad enough, it sometimes sounds like the highest and/or lowest notes are sampled from other notes, as they sound even more artificial than the rest. As far as I can tell there is no real legato and the scripted one sounds awful. The voices are too weak and breathy for my taste, there isn't much of resonance going on. The exceptions here are the "mm" sounds in Balkan Vocals, which I actually like, and Gulten in Mideast vocals I. What saddens me most is that the playable voices don't have that "ethnic" tone that I was looking for. There are very small traces of something "exotic" but for the most part if I didn't know better I would think these are your (below) average western singers. *) Is this the correct word?

I had to use a new email address, since I had previously subscribed to Beat Magazine newsletter. In the email I received from Serial Center I got serials for Xhun Little One BE, Thorn Solo, T-Racks One and Zampler Ethnic Symphony (I think. It's not really a serial.). As for the rest... FXPansion Geist Lite "Hi guys, unfortunately Geist Lite was removed by the developers. We will find an alternative and let you know when everything is ready." Waves Element 2 "Unfortunately the serial numbers for this product are empty. Register at https://www.waves.com/account/register and use the Waves Central installer to install the plugin" I guess I'll email them and ask what's going on.

Nice. I've been eyeing that miniBit for a while. Megaphone looks like something I might need somewhere. And it's just $9...

I'm really glad I don't make synth music or have a piano fetish. Those things seem like money pits deeper than any other.

I figured since the sale page is still there and there is no deadline mentioned it might still be available...

I seem to have trouble getting this. I've tried three different browsers and all I get is an empty shopping cart. ☹️

I bought this today and have to say that it is GLORIOUS. Very foreboding, full of doom and gloom. Perfect for adding those "the horde is here!" moments to your compositions. You can tune the SFX horns to a specific note and there are also playable horn pads that allow mixing two horn sounds together, which can create interesting effects. A possible downside is that the soundscape is pretty dark throughout which limits where it can be used. Also, even with the pads I think it's best suited (and intended) for drones, risers and slowly creeping simple melodies. I initially thought I might use this to replace some brass parts, but after playing with it I quickly scratched that idea. Still, it's my new favorite library. ?

I just wanted to point this out in case someone doesn't read the descriptions of the libraries at Time+Space. Seems to apply to most if not all of them.

Oh, it's a brand. I was hoping for church bells and creaky cellos. ?‍♂️

Does anyone have the Twelve Horn Ensemble? I need to add some doomsday horns into the background of a song. Not quite to the level of Zero-G's Maleventum but in the same direction. I'm looking for something that is simple, cheap-ish and has character. Rough edges preferred over synthy smoothness. I have Rhapsody Orchestral Colors by Impact Soundworks that has some brass in there that is soundwise pretty close to what I'm looking for. I also have Session Horns Pro by NI, but they sound a bit too "big band" and processed.

I hear you. I already have lots of plugins that I bought only because they were cheap. I can only imagine what it's like for you guys. As an aside, this is something I'm still trying learn so I could avoid the slippery slope. I try to think "I'll buy something only if I need it so I can save money and have a lean but useful library where nothing gathers dust", but then comes along "this slightly interesting thing has never been this cheap before", "that sounds nice, maybe I could use this somewhere", "my ears can't really tell the difference but these old-timers are saying it's great and it's a decent price", and the worst of them all: "what the heck, it's only $9.99". Someone's no-brainer doesn't mean I shouldn't use mine.