Brian Walton

Maybe there is hope they will actually give us the 53 bassman that was at the center of the launch videos. But odd they would release something new when those profiles are clearly already sitting around somewhere.

I have all the PA ones and only use the Amek anymore (the Waves SSL got replaced by the PA one years ago). But the Amek has been on sale for $25 or less with vouchers and sales so at this point it isn't exactly unobtanium. I even bought more than one licence to go beyond 3 installs. Sadly one has to WUP to even transfer a WAVES seat which I'll never do.

Did you grab the Plugin Alliance Focusrite console for free when they had the soundwide intro bundle?

Well I want it to be pretty to look at, resizable and not have WUP attached to it.... so....wouldn't work for me. ?

They are big enough and well known enough that I've wondered why they need resellers whom take a cut at this point. Yes, when I did buy them it was always through a reseller at a price better than Waves offered. Just saying that I think they reached a point where people are willing to pay $30 or not and everyone who produces music knows who they are already. The only problem with the model is if Larry decides to boycott posting their deals here, that move could hurt them. ?

I haven't taken this one for a spin (I will once it hits discount time), but I already have a couple other established options. This one shoudn't be only EQ adjustments as it has a "space" element also to simulate speakers in a room....ala DearVR Monitor. Toneboosters Morphit is more along the lines of adjusting an EQ curve (which you can vary how close you want it to match the reference curve). You could probably see what the Melda EQ can do with it.

The upgrade is for the suite, the regular version most of us have is $200 for the upgrade. I'd also argue that is far too much but not much of a deviation for how this product is treated historically. There just isn't much that can be upgraded and improved upon which makes it a tough sell. They felt pretty slow to support newer technologies, 64bit VST3 support came out 10 years after VST3 was launched I believe.

You are correct.

Yes, they are legitimate and have used them a few times. Be aware of the country you are in. Ordering from the US (like myself) ends up with foreign transaction fees/conversion rates so some sale prices can be negated depending on the scenario.

X3e was pretty solid and I see no reason it wouldn't still be. It is also potentially the last version you can install truly off-line without the need for Cake servers - so the "move on to Bandlab" isn't without giving up some scenarios. Yes, I run the latest Bandlab - and paid a good amount of money for X3 Producer then "Lifetime updates" with Platinum. I don't remember the details of when everything rolled out, but I do know that without some of the Pre-Bandlab stuff installed - I wouldn't have some of the extras that Bandlab didn't give away. (Adaptive Limiter, MB Compressor, LP EQ, etc) I do agree with the notion of using the latest version by Cakewalk as it is so much better than X3 at this point, but I also think that anyone that doens't have regular internet access on a machine and similar - it isn't unreasonable to want to have X3 as an option since Cakewalk will literally stop working every 6 months without it....and 6 months is not a very long period of time. Now still trying to run 2.2 at this point that is just crazy talk. ?

This isn't the first time this happened. They will usually offer a refund - and terminate your serials) to anyone upset if they haven't redeemed the others (by contacting them direclty). I'm sure a few people noted those products were listed but not included after purchase - thus the change.

You give them money, they give you the software listed. There are tiers of price points you have to hit to get the packages, in this case if you give them $25 or more, they will give you a copy of everything listed. Note above that some of the software packages do not include all of the "extras" one might get buying it direct. But you do get the core applciation at the version listed on the site. Some of the money in the sales goes to charity, some to humble bundle, and some to the manufacture of the products that supplied the bundle.

Hopefully not considering I'm convinced less than 20% of the user base would ever touch it (even if it was implemented well). The fact of the mater is the average musician these days - especially guitarists where Cakewalk has long been a target audience - have no use for staff notation editing. And I think even 20% would be far fetched personally. As much as I feel for those that do want this as a core copentency in the program. Cakwalk would be far better served to focus on things that any musicaion can benefit from. We look at Chord/phrase/melody tools like Scaler and this is something that beginners can use all the way up to more advanced users thanks to advanced chord substituation concepts and composition tools. Tools like this can help a beginner to even get started and it would be nice to have this type of functionality built into the DAW itself instead of a plugin. Not sure if the next update will be a biggie or not, but realistically as long as they continue to keep it free and funtional - this is already a mature platform to work on.

My referral code in the event they let you stack, as it seems unlikly to get cheaper than this mistake offer which they are honoring 20% off discount for new customers/new accounts. UP7895328

Bought from a 3rd party but Melda still let me redeem the code and did not provide warnings that I already had it. This would have been helpful so I could have gifted the redemption code to someone else. You are correct that if purchased directly from Melda they give you a warning, thus I didn't even think about it when redeeming a code.

They have so many that are named pretty close together happens to me all the time. In fact I did a double pruchase of one of the EQs becuase of this recently not realizing it was one I already had. Granted it was really cheap.

Well, not on sale at the moment, so don't know if I'd agree with that. But it is a solid choice when it does go on sale (and with discounts). I'd expect Kirchhoff EQ to eventually get to compete in the price point. I grabbed it as a forever 29 deal and I'd imagine some may prefer the interface and arguably the sound.

So which ones do not actually work? It seems he is still in the process of updating plugins little by little. I have most of his plugins running on Windows and I only had an issue with one of the VST3s (which one would consider more updated than VST2). The others seem to work fine and frankly I'm more concerned with plugins simply working out of the gate than bug after bug that needs squashing. So I don't really give much weight to an argument about needing updates unless there are valid repeatable problems....so what are they? I would also like all the plugins to be resizable, for the record - but it looks like this one has that out of the gate based on the photos therefore isn't a deal killer. And yes, I'll take this as an opportunity to say I also still want Pan Knob released as a Pro-Channel module.

I shop at thrift stores every week, but a large portion of that kind of stuff will never make it to the floor. It gets sorted and sent to eBay auction or other outlet where someone is buying it for closer to used market value instead of making someone's day with a find. And the stuff that does make it to the floor, way more than half the time is going to be snatched up by a reseller not a musician. If someone doesn't have family that wants it and doesn't need the reale value of the items, I'd go with donate to school, church, music lesson studio/teacher, etc those are options where equipment can be valued and actually used not just making someone else money.

@Peter - IK Multimedia A little different subject here. When is IKM going to give MAX users more amp profiles? Specifically I was shocked that I don't see the 1953 Bassman that was demonstrated in so many of the IKM materials even before the launch of the product itself. https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/aimachinemodeling/

Same here. The pultec I have and is well regarded among others on the market. This one I had my eye on in previous sales but passed as reviews were mixed and the price wasn't low enough to risk it given I have alternatives. That said, was very happy to pick it up for free to test it out whenever I get the time.

Not sure about skipping versions but the price actually doesn't surprise me. They have always tried to be boutique and given the complexities of the circuit build with that many knobs, switches and faders it puts it in line with pricing of other top boutique places today. I wouldn't buy a boogie but this doesn't surprise me a bit. Now who is going to profile one with Tonex and return it for the team? ?

$15 coffee? I knew the economy was in shambles, but didn't realize just how bad...

This is correct. But given the roll out schedule something doesn't add up with the math here if someone claims to have all but 5 plugins as that would certainly imply spending quite a bit in the last year based on the release schedule. They released more than 5 since october 2022. And given they released at least 10 plugins last year before that...and even with discounts that should get someone to the $50 level.