Amicus717

I think that was the only way to go. Get it done now, before the next price hike, and then coast with this new build until prices get back to normal -- if they ever will. Hope the build goes well!

It's going to get MUCH worse: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/12/after-nearly-30-years-crucial-will-stop-selling-ram-to-consumers/

From what I've read and heard, prices will stay high and maybe even keep climbing until the A.I. bubble pops -- and who knows if that will actually happen anytime soon?

I have both, and for my purposes (and to my ears) Forest Kingdom 3 is better. I'm referring to the wind instruments in FK3, just to be clear. FK3 also has percussion, string, vocal and soundscape patches, which Ancient Kingdom doesn't really cover. But Ancient Kingdom does have some nice stuff, and for $61 I'm satisfied with what I got.

So I don't need this at all - I have about 20 libraries that cover this ground in detail; and I've made a really deliberate effort the last few years to slow down my buying because I've already got more libraries than I'll ever be able to use. But hey, why not? $61 is kind of a ridiculous price, and there is bound to be a few things in this library that will make it worth it. So I grabbed it this afternoon. Took a while to download, but I've been playing around with it for a couple hours... I think it's ok. Frankly, I'm not a huge fan of Opus, nor EW's overall design philosophy and patch breakout, etc. But there is enough unique stuff here to make it worth buying (for me, anyway). I like the Double Shepherd Flute, and the three Duduks; and the Viking stuff is pretty good. I will find them useful. The Lithuanian bagpipe has a power-drill-to-the-earhole kind of vibe that I quite enjoy (for real, it's the kind of sound that can cut through a dense orchestral mix if you want to give the proceedings a nice little touch of ethnic edginess). There are some things I don't like. I found the overall sound of the library to be a bit...I dunno, foggy? Kind of hazy, to my ears, and with a certain lack of focus. A lot of messing around with the mic and built-in reverb settings was required to get a sound and vibe that worked. I also found some of the instruments to be a bit inert and drab. Eg: The Native American Flute in this package is just not very lively sounding, compared to, say, the Native American flutes in Eduardo Tarilonte's Forest Kingdom 3. The EastWest patch is not bad. It's basic and decent, and would work fine for a lot of projects; but Eduardo's patches are so much more interesting to the ear. So, overall Ancient Kingdom is certainly a decent value at $61, but so far I'm kind of glad I didn't pay more. As always, YMMV.

"John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars" - I reviewed it for Sun Media way back in the day. So bad you can't even enjoy it as unintentional comedy.

Albion Orchestral Selects was available to me at $129 because I already own AlbionONE and Loegria. With this code, it was $64! Pretty good deal

Their Facebook page is still showing a little bit of activity, and they responded to a request yesterday for clarification on their status -- but only with a copy-and-paste of the website message. I've invested a chunk of money in their libraries, and that just makes me nervous...

I totally don’t need this library. I’m totally going to buy it. Of course.

My turn...men's league hockey tournament in Montreal in 2008. I don't remember why my men's league team chose Philly colors. And we were too cheap to put on a logo. But man, did we have a great time playing together! More than a few of my team-mates were dudes I played with since we were in grade school. I don't think any of us are limber enough to get back out there, these days. The Leafs won the series against a really pesky Senators squad tonight, and it took longer than we all hoped, considering we were up 3 games to 0, at one point. Whew! I'm thrilled, but now we get the Florida Panthers, and that's gonna be a tough hill to climb. They're basically the Sens on steroids. This one's gonna be a grind.

Thanks, Rain! A good start so far, but this is going to be a tough series. I dunno if the Montreal can handle the Caps this time around, although I think they should be able to make it hard on them. But the future is bright for the Habs, and Hutson, Demidov and co getting some really valuable playoff experience.

Heck of a game, too! Max Domi OT winner.

You will find no who here agrees with you more than me. I played a lot of hockey over the years, but my body can't handle it anymore -- too many accumulated hurts, although nothing as dramatic as a broken nose or lost teeth. Just a lot of wear and tear on my knees and shoulders, and one really bad ankle tear. But I did almost get into a fight with Dave "The Hammer" Schultz at a Pro-Am tournament in 2006. That was fun.

Info here: https://projectsam.com/bundles/the-sound-of-adrenaline?utm_source=email&utm_medium=newsletter

Info here: https://www.strezov-sampling.com/products/view/arabian.html