Brian Walton

You can't fully trust the drop downs or the website. If you have say Dyna-Mu from one of the T-Racks Packages, Dyna-Mu will still show up as an option for a freebie for you in the drop down and on the website. Synths are out of control like this. So there are many potential pit falls unless you really know what you have and want.

I was there obviously mid week, mid day and saw no less than 6 staff members, and I might have been the only customer. No clue how they are still in business. The IKM filled checkout counter (both in display cases and on the wall pegs) used to host a plethora of mics and recording interfaces by numerious brands. (BTW, the website should tell you if something is avaialbe for pickup at a particular location. No need to deal with the call in hassle, just order online and wait for confirmation the item is ready to pickup).

They are $150 each for the software version.

I went to guitar center for the first time in at least 5 years to do the 4th GB buy in thanks to the hardware addition. The kiosk at the front of the store was basically all IKM products, I was shocked to see this. But the stunned look on my face only continued as I brought up the group buy to the sales associates of which none of them had a clue what I was talking about. If I worked there you can be certain I'd be selling that stuff like hot cakes with the promise of buy this and get a whole mess of software for free. I realize GC associates get a bad rap, but this makes me wonder how information is being provided at the corporate level. Point being I agree 25k should have been hit a long time ago but seems like all the available spread the word channels were perhaps underperforming.

Speaking of the Looper in Amplitube. I assume the Looper doesn't show up in the VST version for other people also and is simply a funciton of the standalone? It would be nice to experiment with that Amplitube's version itself inside a DAW providing other VST tracks one might want to use along side it.

That makes sense due to the previous purchaes. I've bought in 4 times now and I haven't done the math on the smaller items, but I'm expecting I'll actually use all of them. Before the GB started I had Modo Drum SE, Bass CE, Mirsolav SE, 670, Black, Clipper, Equal, One, OxA, Amp Metal, Amp SVX, Tape Echo, Memory V, Hitmaker, Fender 2, Tape 24, Cinematic Percussion, Art Deco. It is pretty crazy that a 4 times buy in (Nearly 100 products worth - some of which are "packages" of multiple products) along will all that previusly owned gear is what it took to get basically everything they make (before these new - not part of the GB products are released). Edit: Confirmed - I still won't have everything unless they add in more freebies beyond the stated top tier. All that "Max AT stuff" will nickel and dime selections.

Outside of the resonator and the new tape sims, I'm not aware of products they have that could be added?

Unless you have Amplitube Max, seems like there were a bunch added in there that were (MAX only) options - usually in the $10-35 range. To help with the $49 tier fill up. (Dr Z amp and cabs were worth more to me than many of those low end ST libraries at the $49 spot)

The DL4 brought lopping to a mass market and has managed to keep the popularity, but they also released those delays in the echo park which was less than $150 and regularly sold for about $80. The IK pedals are positioned more in the Strymon, Helix and Eventide market, IMO with the pricing and form

No update to the v9 others in the collectoin were updated to v10 and the ones I did not pay to update to v10 (stayed on v9 stopped working)....worked the day before the Waves Central update. But the v9s really should have just stayed as is, but simply stopped working for unknown reasons.

I've done this as well, but super annoying on mobile machines where USB ports are at a premium (and getting worse with each gen). Even good USB drives can fail, and thus a 1 seat model means you are going to have to wait for a nice rep to get you re-activated. With other plugin makers you could simply deautorize and re-authorize the "broken" seat with the extra. Not only for professional work, but even for side projects, time can be at a premium. Most USB flash drives tend to run really hot with such continued prologed use as well.

In the switch from v9 to v10 all my v9 plugins stopped working. Without WUP, Waves would not support (I manage a large fleet of computers as part of my job, so I'm not exaclty a novice related to sofware installs). To this day I gave up on all my v9s after follwing a number of tutorials on problem solving. This isn't just related to one PC either. Thought things were fine with v12 until one of my plugins (which I have multiple copies of) suddenly would no longer authorize/run across 3 different computers I tried to get it to install on. Note, it worked fine when I first got it, but some Waves Central update made that one plugin stop working (all others are fine). Again, past WUP so support is non-existant. I no longer use WAVES plugins for new projects after my experiences, outside of the occassional use of Silibance. Thankfully, PA, IK Multimedia, Melda, Audority, etc. make nice plugins.

If you use the T-Racks "suite" plugin that allows you to chain the T-Racks modules together it has been a common complaint that you can't hide what you don't own. For those that have everything, no big deal...well until a new collection comes along.

It should be able to: DeNoise 2 is a plug-in designed to reduce noise such as hiss, wind noise, buzz and camera noise. The noise can be reduced automatically in the adaptive mode or after measuring the characteristics of the noise in the noise profile mode

I don't think you will find people that say that sound like garbage, but they do not have a friendly customer model and I have personally found them to have more problems over the years than any other major developer with the authorization and install system. That said, even "mid-tier" engineers I know that you have never heard of get massive "artist" style discounts.

If I buy iRig HD 2 to enter the goup buy for a 4th time, what is it that is registed? The device itself or the software? I ask becuase I already have AT5 as one buy in from the group buy, and according to the marketing it sounds like you can't buy into the group buy with something you already have. If it is the device that is registered, I should be fine as I don't have any IKM hardware.

I think they could have done a little bit better job with the marketing around explaining the X-Gear pedals. I can confirm they do not sound like the older Amplitube Effects, algos are clearly different. Most people also associate Amplitube with the Amp Sims, of which are entirely missing from the line up (and is honestly the only physical pedal I would have been interested in), though I'm liking the Software versions they did relase of effects - I just think at that price point they have some real competition and I already have a high end pedal board that doesn't feel lacking to me. Tape Sims you have to be careful with, and I'm the first person to jump on the bandwaggon of things like "vinyl isn't better than CD, becuase it has a smaller dynamic range, introduces distortion at multiple places and almost always has a more limited frequency response" that said, Tape style saturation doesn't by nature have "limitations" other than the inherant creates distortion property, and potentially has compression. But both of those can be in flavors that are pleasing and musical to the final product. Even on a clean guitar tone, just about everyone actually wants at least just a touch of saturation truly clean tone tends to sound sterile and I think of recording in this same way. Absolutly pure and clean tone usually doesn't sound as good as a little harmonic warmth going on for just about any style other than classical. As for these tape sims, I wonder what the market perception will be for these. I think many pepole associate Tascam with porta-studio and consumer grade gear, even though they made some legit studio machines also.

Yes, 30% max, but you can buy 200 gear points (enough to get AT5) for $160 and use 30% of JamPoints off of $160.

Make sure you read threads about buying gear points to purchase AT5 (and jam points you might have). If you have enough Jam Points it can bring the $200 tier down to $112 with this method.

I'm not exactly sure how the cross grade works (as I was able to get each of those at the $199 level myself - but did have a number of related and semi-related plugins already). I can confirm the cross grade on on Miroslav 2 and T-RacksS 5 MAx is $299, as I wasn't able to get either of those despite having a number of T-Racks Plugins as well as the Lighter version of Miroslave already and I bought in at the $200 level as one of my group buys.

I'm not going to say Sunset Sound Reverb was the best thing I got out of the group buy, but I might say it is the one that perhpas exceeded my expectations the most. I was skeptical given all the other reverbs I have. I'm not suggesting it sounds "better" but setting it up as say adding some reverb to an amp plugin (AT5 or otherwise) has a very autehntic way of sounding integrated into the original sound to add the verb. It is certainly more limited in tweakability to other (if not most verbs I use) but it does sound quite nice and so far, is easy to get pleasing results out of quickly on a few things I tried.

Adding to the post above - There are a few if you don't have prevoius things that drop your cross grade type of price down. Mixbox, Modo Drum, Modo Bass, Hammond are all $300 at multiple retailers

I think it is marketing speak, unless Windows 11 broke the VST3 standard (which we would all be in deep trouble) it isn't like WAVES plugins are highly dependent on a specific version of the OS. It is more like scare tatics to make us question if we need to upgrade for fear of incompatibilty. This isn't like MAC where "native" M1 upgrades are related to coding changes.

That must have been short lived, I'm in 3 different tiers and when they released the new options I checked sometime that first day starting at the lowest tier and worked my way up to see which tier I could potentially get them on. Wasn't until I got up to the $200 tier that my account saw them as available. I agree $150 is quite steep for an effect plugin that is locked inside an echosystem (and an echosystem where the host is rather resource heavy. But they also have T-Racks units I'd say the same about $100+ for a plugin outside of group buy territory is basically madness in this market. But having them in the group buy makes it more palitable. Wish they were in the $80 tier and I'd grab all 4 of them. Got Vibe and Reverb, have to decide if I think Time is worth if for one of the very few remaining selections I have at the $200 tier. Because with the other Delays I have (think MTurboDelay, Audority Echorec, Boz Imperial, Obliq Delay, Unfiltered Audio etc) the only thing I'd be getting out of it is really the ability to put it in the effects loop within AT5.

Nice! Note you can drag the Space into the FX Loop of the amps too instead of in front of the amps (but also not after the CABS like the traditional FX Rack)