Brian Walton

They jacked up the price to $7. Anything under $5 now they added the Moog Phaser to the giveaway list?

That gave that away at launch, but I like it and would be worth the $3.

I agree the THU is going to have some real limitations especially in the mic realism as you move them around and select different ones. That said, I think if you capture your Amp with Tonex using your high end mics, if done right, you will be able to get insanely close. But, you would need to turn the amp reverb off and use a different reverb on both for the comparison. Having a mic pick up the reverb from the amp does create something different than simply adding in post. The "v2" update with Tonex does bring more life and dimensionality to the capture, and it was already pretty good to begin with.

Sadly these are all ones they have given away for free before. Would have been nice if the "curated" list included something that wasn't in a previous give away. 😁

My experience is, I never read them and find the content worthless (is these electronic music or "producer" type of content isn't of interest to me). I'm only interested in the giveaway stuff, but frankly if I'm paying for it, the interest typically is minimal at this point. I bought a number of issues of the now defunct Computer Music under this same thinking when they had something I thought was worth it (though most issues I'd go the free via library route if the give away wasn't really worth the cost) and they had more interesting giveaways than Beat from what I recall over the years. Hate to say it, but if I'm putting enough down for a subscription, I'd rather spend that money on something discounted that I'd actually use. Of course I'm not at the beginning of my VST journey, most releases don't move the needle for me at this point.

Also a waste because the digital version is free though many local libraries in the USA. 🤣

Nope: License Management: License uses online verification, but can be used for 30 days offline before needing to reconnect to the internet. License can be assigned to two different locations.

While it doesn't have the full MTurboReverb (which is insane) inside, it does have more - and better - options than the average Piano VST available within the plugin itself. Combined with the 7 pic "pair" options lots of room for creating a sense of space. Plus there is additional control under the Resonances:

Yeah, I always wondered why plugin alliance never signed up for that series and the IR loader they have given how good everything they make is.

Beat magazine is also free digitally through many local library programs in the US. https://help.pressreader.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040581231-How-to-sign-into-PressReader-through-a-library You need a local library card and a pin code for that card to access it virtually.

This is what I was afraid of. I still remember their Neural EQ thing they gave away for free being the most resource intensive for a small task thing I'd ever encountered and uninstalled it about as fast as I installed it in the first place.

Product launched today but the free tier is missing PREVIOUS MARKETING WRITEUP:

Yep, until the pianoverse deal I had basically uninstalled a number of other pianos because it not only sounds great there is a ton of variation you can get due to the (7 different) Mic pattern options which can be combined and manipulated into more combinations. That is one of the real reasons the collection takes up the space, but it is worth it. I feel bad for "laptop creators" though, as giving up a port for an external drive is annoying.

Agreed but the other option to get it is MSoundfactoryLE for $40, which give someone that plus quite a few other instruments. But that piano is certainly the standout, and at $10 is a steal for anyone with the storage space it takes.

I remember that fairly short lived product, but never tried it. I need to go back and try again but I did make some of my own IRs years ago with the free tool. Results were not at the level I hoped for. I also have some purchased packs, some free ones l, etc. my best results are mixing some IRs and then exporting that single IR to use I think ML has to give us a better way than just a static IR though. Using an IR never seems to match the actual recording. That said, I'm a big fan as IRs can sound better than some of the best options on the market that try to tweak a piezo source. Dramatic improvement, but I want next level. If it can be done with better IR than what I love gotten that would be wonderful since I already have multiple pieces of hardware to use them.