Brian Walton

I get that, I think it depends on which kits you have. If you only have the studio kit, $40 might make you want to actually use AD2. If you already have Fairfax2 or similar you might only view another kit as an alternative flavor.

Pretty sure EZ Drummer (primary competitor is at $90 vs AD2 at $80). AD2 with a 50% off sale will come in at $40. Not sure what other major players are at this point with a similar model that hit a noticeably lower price point on an extra kit.

This is exactly the surprise I was expecting. Though I honestly expected more than 1 kit. I'll say it again, I don't want a paid v3 upgrade. They can keep making little changes here and there for the next 20 years on v2. And if they want to add in an AI based drum mechanism (which is really what such programs need at this point) I'll gladly take that in a v2 instead of a paid upgrade. I can control it with JamStix until that happens (and hopefully one day we will see JamStix to continue to develop again).

haven't used it yet, but seems like it should have some daw sync feature instead of press play on the daw and then hit record in the plugin. I'd think that would make for some pretty messy "line things up" as you put it on other tracks or use the MIDI file elsewhere. I'm also in the boat that expected Melodyne to do a better job than it does. I mean look at Jam Origin Midi Guitar, that does a better job in real time than melodyne does in offline mode for Guitar sources.

Did you install it and start using it or just a commentary on the preview? I've seen far worse and I think the Kit view is a clear improvement. Edit tab is also better, though I wish the cream color was a bit darker for the insert effects section. FX tab is a bit bright for my taste, but the knobs, fonts, etc are improved. Beats section I need more time with, but looks like a dark theme there to me - so I'd think that should satisfy. The explorer view will take time to get used to and the "audio preview" dialog box feels "buggy" in the sense that it says audio preview on packs you actually own until you click play on one of the preset playlists. IT should have a clear (demo) box on this page IMO if you are previewing a set you don't own.

The only reason I cared about the publication was the software they bundled with it. Not only did they have the "archive" but sometimes they would have an exclusive full product give away for the purchase of the magazine. I've had access to a lot of the issues over the years (could get them free digitally through the local library) and I don't think I read a full article in the decade I've been accessing the content (both when paid and when offered for free). I don't care about "producers" for the vast majority of EDM style music which the articles seem catered to. They also had an odd business model at the physical print copies back when I was looking at them were crazy expensive compared to other normal magazines. I think they should have sent out a poll to the readers years ago related to if they actually read the magazine or if people are there for the software itself. I always thought of them as a magazine version of the plugin boutique free with purchase. You look for a deal on the magazine which never gets used to get the VST you wanted.

Lets just say there are less deals posted on a daily basis here than there used to be. A lot less.

They all sound and operate differently. I own all of those except for the Amek 200 one. The only one I actually still use is the AMEK 9099, but I can see why someone would also use the SSL 9000 one. The others I find too limiting. I would have bought the Amek 200 one except for the crazy high cpu usage for an "on every track" plugin. Have to say this is actually a pretty good deal if someone doesn't have any or want to get the two Ameks plus have the others for options.

There are and I have a lot of them. None get used once the collection was built in TONEX and they released corresponding pedals though. I've tried the Neural plugins and do not think they are in line with the price of what they offer at this point. The Neural QC has respectable capture tech, so I think they will carry on and do ok. Some of these others, even if good compared to other "modelers" I expect are in for loss of market share unless they go the dirt cheap route. Nembrini + Plugin Alliance + Universal Audio (many of which were designed by the same guy) simply are not on the level of sound/feel/response of Tonex. It is amazing the number of options out there now that are far better than what we had 15 years ago.

I can't imagine they are bringing in many new users given the lay of the land. It has to be legacy people that want the latest version. I also don't expect the product takes much dev work at this point as it doesn't have many amps or effects under the hood. Given TONEX entry point has been in the $40 range a few times, hard to imagine getting much attention from those that know the whole market. Overloud is about the only other player in this space doing something interesting but that is specifically tied to profiling specific iconic gear owned by legends. If IKM had the same access to that gear and added it to the stable for a small price, Overloud also wouldn't be anything other than a footnote in a conversation due to price and lack of hardware to run it even if the capture tech has more focus on having the range of controls.

I'm not a power user with either Painter or Rebelle (I'm a professional level photographer / editor) but not digital painter/artist. Painter seems a little more features for the photo to digital art process, but some of the Rebelle paint things perhaps feel more realistic to me. At this price, fun to mess with both.

I also didn't see an end date. Last time they ran a promo it ended up being fairly fluid and they extended it. At this price I don't see why anyone interested would hesitate.

Hmmm • CodeMeter handles the actual cryptography and checking of licenses For your plugins to work properly, this application must be running in the background. Note that this is a lightweight application that places little or no demands on your computer and stores all information locally (no personal data is transmitted to the cloud).

https://www.escapemotions.com/shop

Yep, every time the "IKM hate" starts up I have to point out to others that TONEX is literally one of the best music products to hit the market in at least 10 years. It isn't perfect but it is a wonderful product that has made great tone available/attainable to just about anyone not in a 3rd world country.

I wonder what the Expression Pedal input will be able to control here. Having a full blown midi controller is going to make this unbelievable, but that is also a pretty big investment in both cost and figuring out how it works. Being able to turn on and off effects with a simple expression pedal input would have a lot of value in a potentially small space. And if it could use all 3 buttons on say a FS300, that would be mind blowing.

Tonex runs more efficiency than most amp modelers and sounds better than all of them. Amplitude in the other hand...

We don't need updates to the algos, anyone on the dev team can keep it updated for os changes. See the note above about the two EA plugins that are the same thing that are getting updates. They chose not to and charge absurd upgrade fees for features we don't need.

Well I own at least 3 seats each of R4 and Nimbus (and also have at least two seats for Excalibur - which don't have a new home). They will no longer make any updates to keep these operational with future OS updates (hopefully not an issue on Windows, but who knows) The cost to upgrade 6 seats to a different product that is "compatible/updated moving forward" is an absurd amount of money and therefore I'd call them abandoned.

NeoVerb is a resource hog, would need some real world tests to know if this is close to Exponential audio efficiency (and sound).....and a lower price point given they abandoned the EA plugins.

I just ran back to back to back tests on my machine opening stand alone version of each app TONEX loaded in less than 2 seconds Amplitude 5 took an entire minute This is on a very high spec machine.

Sorry, the product is in the FREE category and therefore it doesn't need to be an end all be all for everyone. It just needs to be stable and have some solid core features. Most people need it to support 3rd party effects and instruments. Record, Route audio, Input and Edit MIDI, Edit, Mix, Export and that is about it. UAD has long been for the traditional producer that wants analog gear but is working in the box. If you are doing advanced things like Wwise and expression maps you can expect to be in a esoteric paid platform. There is plenty of room for a rock solid Free DAW now that bandlab left the field.

Tonex is tied to hardware it would be a massive mistake to abandon the current ecosystem that quickly. Tonex one just hit the market a few months ago. Amplitude offers the Tonex plus effects playground. It feels like they are a ways off to get Tonex plus better than X series effects in one package for all effects. Tonex2 is going to need to be full blown fluid capture tech were it grabs every knob tweak and interaction. Given tonex1 takes an hour for one static capture of an advanced setting on a supercomputer we should be looking at years away. Tonex is hardware and needs to have a long "pedal life" and not be driven like a next version of software to make the old obsolete.

Already had Sampletank 4, but got the $1 deal and added it to my account because it was too good of a deal to pass up. (no it didn't add any jam points though)

This one seemed fairly simple, you login put it in your cart and at checkout there is either a discount code you can apply or not that seems to factor in how many plugins you have. I've got ~45 T-Racks things and it only gives $50 off Max. No sure how they came up with the you need 50+ of them to get the $99 price as that seems fairly outrageous given how many plugins 45 is, as at that point it isn't like you need more and you have already acquired the vast majority of what makes up the "$200" full in price. I would agree most retailers these days seem to just apply the discount code for you at checkout though.