Brian Walton

What, no one wants to give IKM credit for now giving away the Studio Kit for Free? (and yes I own what was the full product until they released the 3 new kits...so it means little to me directly)

This kind of thing is always interesting but doesn't prove that all guitar strings sound the same by a long shot. I haven't done these tests in over 5 years but when I did there were clear differences in tone as well as feel using the same size strings from different makers. And some strings keep that sweet spot of tone far longer than others (and I'm not talking about coated strings). That said, these differences are going to get lost in the mix so to speak. But are interesting when obsessing over tone playing alone or in the studio.

I haven't installed it on a new computer in a while. But, yes I'm sure the license file/software is tied to your email address.

Nope, liscense file.

As many as you want that are yours.

I was surprised the Amek deal didn't get more bumps and fan fare yesterday here. It is a solid deal and I personally think it has a great workflow. The Lindell 50 is cool too but could use a mix knob on the compression section, and it is a deal I think we will continue to see again. It was also $50 in Jan. Honestly if they give us a great deal on the Amek Console again and I have a good voucher the Lindell 50 will certainly see a lot less use after that day.

Who knows what the deal was here. Perhpas an employee made it and Kia clamied the IP if it was developed on a company machine or partially during company hours. Lots of companies basically make you sign an agreement that says anything you develop is "ours" Just one of the first things I thought about when I saw the announcement, no idea if that is the situation here.

Subscribed, but you might want to take a look at what the goal of being a youtuber is. I have one account with under 1000 subs and about 400K views. This content of 200+ videos generated zero income and took a whole lot of work to create. If the goal of being a Youtuber is to make money figure out what that looks like, if it is simply to create entertainment becuase you enjoy it, focus on that.

The paid v4 stuff is, but doubt the v3 was updated for that https://www.toneboosters.com/support.html

I like Klanghelm too but it seems like they stopped development years ago and just keep selling the same stuff. TB are constantly updating and evolving with the times. Your post about v3 now freeware shows how much of that they are doing that v4 is such a massive leap that he can simply give v3 away without fear of lost revenue.

They basically never run sales otherwise I'm sure they would get much more love from the deals forum. The pricing model is very reasonable and lots of people would consider them to be a deal at the normal prices. EQ4 is IMO among the best on the market. Beautiful UI and features somewhat similar to Melda AutoDynamicEQ, but easier to use, i.e. nodes are active by default, no need to double click on things). And Barricade has long been considered a go to Limiter

You have more than me, I didn't even bother downloading it in the first place. I just grabbed it for free and left it right there on their servers. Maybe I should grab the few midi files as they don't take up much room though.

There is a lot to be said about the right mic for the source. An SM57 can sound a whole lot better than a SDC on a guitar cab in a live band room as an example of a cheap $100 mic beating out an expensive one. It is just better suited for the job generally speaking.

I'm not suggesting you need to pay $1500 for a good mic, but a $99 Sure SM58 and even a decent $700 consensor mic create a very different sound. This isn't so say you can't make a good sounding recording using a SM58, if you are in a terrible room you might "need" to. But the difference in sound can be dramatic. Plenty of mic shoot out videos out there which suggests that even with terrible youtube quality the differences show up.

Make sure to remove the freebie thing they auto put in your cart. After that, worked for me.

Plugin version finally seems to work in Affinity Photo. For all the talk/hype about them building a new platform to make the edits faster, I encourage everyone to give it a test spin before buying. It is improved over AI in that department but it still feels like a failure to me based on how slow it remains. Perhpas it only sees this speed difference on mega core monster machines that I don't have but other RAW processors don't need that. Certainly useful for some of the AI functions that would take a lot of manual work to do. But basic stuff, it feels really slow compared to something like Capture One or Affinity Photo.

Hardly perfect with its limited EQ and less than ideal UI (the frequency "ring" around the gain knob). Don't get me wrong, I think it sounds great and really like it, but I also think it has a number of shortcomings for using it across all types of tracks and the general workflow. They type N also sounds quite a bit different as does the Focusrite (which is also a Neve design). The type N also doesn't have the greatest UI but for different reasons as many of the controls are "backwards" to one might be typically used to.

Mentioned in post 3 as I also find this annoying. However, with my one physical ilok, I've kept it around as it isn't something I've found a direct replacement for.

Cakewalks Channel Tools? It doesn't cover the same ground for me. That frequency combined with the pan functionality is what makes the pan knob special.

And is "X-Phase" actually any better than MFreeformPhase from Melda Production which is free?

I'm always curious on these in the box emulations on the HiWatt how they handle the super high headroom of the actual thing. Haven't found a plugin yet that captures that, they all seem to breakup too easily and not get that super loud clean thing going just right. Nembrini is responsible for some of the best Amp sims out there so I'm not sure I want to demo it in fear of GAS I really don't need.

I might be missing something but I think there are only 2 $20 plugins in the offer at SSL, so the best case is $45 to get X-Phase (i.e. $25 - assuing this works, wasn't on the landing page but is on the home page), Saturator, X-Valve Comp. X-Comp $30 EQ2 is $40

Yes, the Slate one offers the highend boost one is looking for but in a more pleasing way. I had hoped the Bertom would do the same thing, but side by side the difference is obvious. Not that the Air Shelf is bad, it just isn't a natural, warm or whatever positive attribute you want to give it as the Slate is. The Slate one is pretty unique in its ability to boost the high end but not introduce harshness. WIth the limited authorization thing with Slate, I was expecting to use the Air Shelf as a replacement on other machines, and while it is usable, I personally don't think it is in the same catergory.

Yeah, nice to get two seats (for those of us that grabbed it last time) but the problem is unless they changed the authorization system you actually need two physical iloks to do it - or an active internet connection for a "cloud session" which is really lame. Just give us multiple seats and let up authroize to the ilok computer manager. This one is very usable.

You can't re-use the generic $25 in the same month it was issued. The survey voucher was set to expire on Jan 31st. Unless there is a glitch that is over.