fitzroy

I had an omg moment when I saw the list price for that bundle, until I realized that I spent more than that on plugins in less than a year, goddammit ??

Thanks, great info! I'll wait until their next big sale then (Black Friday, I guess).

1/2 off on bundles does sound good. How does the referral code work? I got one (from the forum) and it does work if I apply it in the cart, but I got the impression from previous posts that it only works once, for their new customers. Could you confirm this? It's the reason why I was thinking that it might be worth waiting for a more substantial purchase, before I jumped on the Melda train

I'm not familiar with Melda's business model, but I like the (few) plugins I've tested from them. Any guess on whether it is likely we'll see a 50% off on everything soon? Searching through the forum I found a sale like that a year ago. 50% off plus the new customer discount over the range of their plugins would be quite tempting.

Don't fret it, with the number of overpriced, so-so amp sims and plugins around, you got great value there, even at full or close to full price. I've had a blast demo-ing Neural's plugins. I'll definitely get Plini and Cory Wong at the next sale. I also like the bass sims, but find them overkill for my needs.

The free Amplitube Custom Shop is also standalone, so your collections would be standalone as well, even if you don't have the full Amplitube 4. You just need to stay within the menu/options of the collections you own, most of the other stuff will be disabled. That's what I have (the Fender collections, which I bought cheap; as mentioned by Craig, they do come up for sale every now and then). I have no intentions of getting the full Amplitube since I barely use the Fender collections, which are supposed to be among their best amps (they're not bad, I just prefer other sims most of the time).

Still prefer Plini for cleans, though I love the funk tones in the Cory Wong amps. I find that all their amp sims have a few things in common: great, mix-ready tones out-of-the-box or with minimal tweaking, very good effects and hands-down the best interface. But there's a caveat; in order to get those mix-ready sounds, there's a lot of tone-shaping going on by default, and which you can't configure, it's built into their algorithm. I was intrigued by this and tested just the preamp against some of the other plugins I use. Cab/effects off, same IRs and 1-2 external effects. And sure enough, Neural's sims are less transparent to the direct sound of the guitar (tried with strats, les pauls and an archtop) than any of the other plugins (S-Gear, the Nembrini amps, even IK's Fender collections). The easiest to notice is the baked-in compression, but there's more to it than that. This may or may not be a factor to you, depending on your gear/taste. Throughout testing and playing around with them, I came to appreciate the value they provide, even at full price, just for the sheer-quality of the tones and effects. I managed to get very close to Plini's clean tone(s) with S-Gear plus external IRs and a nice compressor, eq and reverb, but that's a lot of fiddling at $200+. On a sale, they're a steal.

Same here. I'm not a synth guy, but I bought Largo and PA's Oberhausen and love them for the analogue sounds. I'm watching reviews of Reason, Iris 2, and a couple of others on sale, trying to figure out if I can use any of this stuff ?

Good point, 'clean' probably means something very different to someone playing through a Kirk Hammett signature ESP and someone playing a strat. But I guess the market is so heavily metal oriented, that I'm happy picking up a Nembrini amp sim with nice clean/crunch tones, even though I'll only use the remaining 80% of the sounds once in a blue moon ? To keep to the topic though, Nolly has some great clean/crunch sounds, even though it's not the main focus. That would be Plini - demo it, you'll probably like it. Very polished, mix-ready sounds, and a great interface.

The Chandler amp is quite a nice deal at $9, me thinks. Very different from PA's other amp sims - maybe less versatile but with a lot of character and a very particular crunch sound. For what it does, it does great.

I'm on the fence about getting it, considering that ... EDIT: Nabbed it, sounds great!

Same here. I was demoing Nolly, Plini and Abasi for many hours yesterday (unrestricted demo through ilok, points for that), and for clean/crunch, Plini is my favorite, even though Nolly's clean amp is also lovely and Nolly is probably the most versatile of their plugins. To my ears, Plini is the first amp sim that I've tried that is in the same category as S-Gear. That 'wow, this is something else' category. For cleans, a clear cut above everything else I own/use, including some decent and probably more popular options (like, say, Amplitube's Fender collections). Add the gorgeous interface, and it's hard not to be hooked.

I'm playing with the demo and I like it. Also not sure about the interface, but it sounds great. Was the $5 personal coupon linked to something specific (purchase, survey, etc) ? I can't find it through my APD emails.

These are awesome. Upgraded to WG2 and 7CG2 and love them. I also love Embertone's 1955 Walker D (lite), which is quite cheap, but these must be the best value sampled piano libraries on the market.

Hmm. Looks like they'll have to run The Real Summer Sale in July, vouchers and all, once they're done with this one.

These are great!! Original and creative enough to also serve as great starting points for further tweaking. Isn't it funny how we're constantly looking for the latest/greatest, while we probably already have the best? Last week I was demo-ing Kuassa's Matchlock, and was about to buy it, before I remembered comparing it, at least, to S-Gear and Amplitube's Fender collections. I needed 10 minutes with S-Gear to give up on getting Matchlock, while making a mental note to stop buying amp sims that have NOTHING on S-gear ?‍♂️

For some reason, plugin makers are slow to catch on to this (but things do seem to be shifting a bit lately), either because they fear losing brand recognition/status or they don't get how rapidly their customer base would grow if they went cheap(er). And this is despite ample evidence from other areas (utility, desktop apps, gaming, etc.). So we're in this funny transition phase now, where you often look at sales with a smile, like "come'on, you can do better than that. In fact, I bet you WILL do better than that, soon enough".

Anyone compared the 'originals' vs MK2? I like the 7CG, so I'd upgrade if MK2 is a noticeable improvement. On the other hand, I also have the White Grand and don't use it much. I find the higher registers a bit harsh sounding; I don't think that sympathetic resonance can do much about that.

That's my experience as well. I used 2/3 monitor setups for years and liked them. For the past year, I've mostly been using my 65'' tv as a monitor. It's 4K but I also use it mostly at 2K. Once you get used to the size, it just feels weird and uncomfortable to go back. Now, it does turn you into a wireless keyboard equipped couch potato, but what can you do?

Well, if you're in that world... a buddy of mine has it, and I told him to stop complaining about the cost of their plugins. If you wanna' be a king, you have to live like a king. ?

I just ordered a digital piano, and still feel a bit bad about spending the money. But it strangely makes me feel better to know that I paid for an actual digital piano the cost of 2 UAD plugins. Wait, they're on sale now. 3! ?

I feel like a sinner just looking at UAD's stuff on regular pricing. When they're on sale, I peek in, and think to myself - damn, that's a nice plugin! if it ever goes on a big sale I'm in! ??

Is this a must (read, so damn nice) have? I only have Big Ceil and Celestial from them and like them. I was looking at Pink 4 which is also on sale, and being sorta' wondering/scared about its size and reported (by some) bugginess, then this hits. ?

Not unless they change their minds. I'm in the same boat, would get the rack if the voucher works. If you want to get the bundle/rack or any of their plugins (without the voucher), AudioDeluxe seem to have the best price, with the 'SPRING2020' discount code.

Yup, the code doesn't work without the free trial. The interface is misleading though, as it does accept the voucher, displays the discounted price, then cancels the voucher during checkout. And the silly upgrade price, that's much higher than buying either the collection or the rack without owning any of their plugins... oh, well. A bit puzzling marketing wise - given how popular Soundtoys are, I imagine a lot of people either have the full collection, or own a few plugins (my case); the offer is good enough to draw you into 'upgrading', which you might not do otherwise, so why limit access to the voucher?