Zolton

I've taken Peter's direct quote of "Eastern" (many pages back in this thread) as official, which would make the "end of September" the rest of today and all of tomorrow away, around 36 1/2 hours now. I've seen others use the "Days Remaining" counter on the website as a guide, but (a) I've never seen Peter or the site itself claim that's an official "day-turnover" clock; (2) if it were, the GB would end mid-morning on a weekday (aka a "heavy" buy-in day) in the target time zone, which seems unlikely; and (iii) I've assumed they initialized the fancy website numbers at start-of-business on the day they announced it (August 5th), so the countdown counter started countering down then, but they didn't think to readjust it to reflect an end time of midnight.

The pace slowed a bit overnight (from 30+/hour to 20+/hour), but has usually picked up a bit midday (Eastern time). If things stay roughly on course, it looks like the count should hit 20k around midnight tonight, with a full day to spare. If things jump unroughly off course, then it's already down to less than 9/hour needed, which is basically "coasting speed": There are 37 hours to go. If the run-up at the end of August is any guide, the count added 1200+ in the final 36 hours of the month (though it was 700 away from 10k at that point, so there may have been a little more "oomph" behind the final push). At any rate, it seems fairly likely the count may be halfway to 21k by the time October rolls around. Huzzah!

Welp, that's how you flatten a curve (and then twist it backwards like a paper clip): From noon yesterday (hour 84) to noon today (hour 60), a cool 720 signups went in, good for 30/hour. Hitting 19k by midnight tonight would've been a nice pace; as it is, there are 10 hours left to pile the numbers on. The rate needed now is ~16/hour and falling fast. Even if the influx wiggles a bit, going from 18k to 19k took 46 hours and didn't pick up the pace until around 18 hours in. There are 58 hours left for 20k, and a ~5% head start on the last thousand. Numbers are fun!

It's not just you. (At least, I hope it's not just you, or you'd have earned several thousand freebies to sort through today.) Since 9am this morning, the count has averaged about 27/hour. In total, 499 signups were added on the 27th. That's excellent news -- the beginning of the 27th marked four days left in September, with a little over 18.1k signups at the start of the day. So if 500/day is repeated (or 499/day, if you're truly bean-counting) on the 28th, 29th and 30th, the count would coast over 20,000. Here's how things look from the "amp cab half-empty" point of view, where higher values are actually bad: When the "race to 20k" was announced on the 21st, there were 225 hours left in September. From then, a signup rate of ~14.4/hour (blue line) would have reached 20k by the end of the month, but the actual rate was lower than that through this morning. So the "rate needed" crept steadily up, passing 20/hour early this morning. The number of signups "short" of that initial 14.4 ideal rate also grew (orange line), topping 500 additional "needed" signups to get back on course. With around 87 hours left (i.e., 9am this morning), the rate jumped, and by noon was higher than the needed average-- so those lines took a steep turn down. When/if the orange line reaches zero, it means the count has "recovered", and ~14.4 signups/hour the rest of the way would suffice. If the orange line goes negative, the rate needed is even lower. If the blue line hits zero, the count is 20k -- and if it goes negative, then it's bonus time and the count is working toward whatever milestone is revealed for the 21st freebie. TL;DR: As of this morning, the "bump" has arrived. Time to strap in and see how fast -- and how long -- the carousel spins.

Peter said Eastern in August, and I'm assuming it's still the same. I don't think he ever nailed down midnight/11:59PM as the final deadline, but I remember at least one post where his counting logic (e.g., saying "four hours to go" at 8pm Eastern) made it seem that's the case. I haven't seen any official-ish info that's inconsistent with that theory, though there are people who appear to be counting down differently based on other (non-Peter-provided, to the best of my knowledge) hints.

In case anyone's interested in a more "holistic" view of where we're at in the plod toward 20k, here's a picture of the absolute nerdiest way I've looked at the September data: It's sort of a poor man's probability map. The rows represent 12-hour intervals from midnight on 9/1 to midnight today, and the columns are rates -- from 6/hour to 24/hour. The grid itself shows the projected total, given the count at each time point (e.g., 10537 at the top, or 18132 at the bottom), if the signups average each rate for the rest of the way. Each color represents values within intervals of 1000 -- the light green is 18k, medium red is 19k, medium yellow is 20k, etc. I've put a little box around the range where the September count has been -- from around 9/hour to 14/hour. If that rate doesn't change, there's a good chance the count will hit 19k (i.e., most of the values in the bottom row are colored red for 19k), but not 20k. Right now, reaching 20k would take an average of at least 20/hour. If the rate falls back to 9/hour or less, the count is in danger of falling short of 19k. Anything outside those possibilities is currently literally off the map -- or outside the 6/hr - 24/hr range shown here, anyway. It's interesting (to me, at least) that a 14/hour average -- the last column within the box -- would have been enough to reach 20k until just a few days ago. The rate hasn't changed so much since then (other than not being "bumped" for a while), but those yellow 20k squares have been veering off to the right of the chart of late. It'll be pretty cool if they get dragged back in the eight time windows left.

It's not quite that dire, if I'm tracking correctly. We've got about 100 1/2 hours until 11:59PM on the 30th -- four full days, and four-plus hours tonight. That means just a shade over 19/hour to reach the mark. We haven't been very close to that rate (for a full day or more) since mid-September, but things are trending upward a bit, which is encouraging for the weekend: The last number gets an asterisk because it's 256 so far -- there are still the remaining four hours to top that off. The "Per hr" number in the table above is for each day separately, though the cumulative rate since the "race to 20k" was announced (around 10.6/hour) is close to the high water mark so far. Using just the latter data (from the afternoon of 9/21 until now), the total would currently project to around 19,150, if nothing changes. The count has been over 20 at least three hours today, but it'll need to get there and stay there for most of the week to hit the 20k mark. (Edited to correct that we did hit 19+/hour for a full day in September -- actually, twice. Just not since the 15th.)

For anyone curious how the group buy signup rate is looking as we wind down the workweek, the answers are "better" and "not (yet, at least) better enough". With 150 hours remaining in September, the signup rate since the "race to 20k" announcement on the 21st has crept up to just about 10/hour. Two days ago, it was only around 8.5/hour, so that's good! On the other hand, the pace needed from the 21st to hit 20k was around 14.4/hour. Since the rate has been consistently below that so far, the rate needed now is 16.6/hour. In terms of individual signups, the current count is around 330 "behind" that 14.4/hour pace. So that's bad. If history is any guide, the weekend is likely to be a little slower -- though there's a good chance the count will hit 18k sometime before Monday. That would leave around 100 hours to gain 2000 signups. In the last 100 hours of August, the count rose by 2875 -- or nearly 400 more than we need right now, with an "extra" 50 hours to spare. So that's... inconclusive? But pretty fascinating, if you're into that kind of thing.

The (educated) guess in another forum, based on other recent SampleTekk sales, is that the 90% voucher will work for the first stage of the sale (maybe until 9/26), then for the rest of the sale (which may go to 10/26), everybody will get 80% off. No guarantees, but that would fit the recent pattern.

So, the numbers from the first day-plus chasing the 20k carrot are... not superb. If there's to be a bump, or a multi-bump bump, in the numbers following the extension teaser, we haven't seen it yet. Here's the average number and rate per day since the last big surge on 9/15: Starting around 3pm on the 21st, 14.4 signups/hour would have reached 20,000 on the 30th. The actual rate of signups since then is 9.1/hour, and it would now take an average of 15.6/hour the rest of the way to hit the mark. The news isn't all grim, though. Since the website glitch around 11am yesterday, when the "20k race rate" bottomed out below 8/hour, it's been steadily, if sloooowly, rising. And 15/hour -- even 30/hour -- has been achieved over the course of a whole day. Over the last three days of August, in fact, and twice in September. Another, possibly better, way to look at the current state is that the count has fallen "behind" the pace needed to reach 20k by around 220 signups. A smallish surge in the next day or two would close that gap. The bigger question is whether the between-surge rate would stay high enough for a final push to the finish line. But first things first, assuming the weekend will slow a bit as others have.

It appears the Multimedia Mothership is back online. The downtime, sadly, does not appear to have been a result of hordes of users signing up to the group buy at once, though.

Wednesday should provide a big hint about how realistic hitting 20k by the end of the month is. If you compare the situation to the "race to 10k" at the end of August: On the afternoon of August 26th, the "10k by 8/31" promotion was announced. At the time, the August signup rate was around 14.6/hour. To hit 10k in 5+ days, the rate needed to increase to 22.3/hour. The rate didn't change much until the morning of the 27th, but jumped to > 28/hour the rest of the way, coasting past 10k. On the afternoon of September 21st, the "20k by 9/30" promotion was announced. At the time, the September signup rate was around 12.6/hour (but around 9/hour since the 17th). To hit 20k in 9+ days, the rate needs to increase to 14.4/hour. The rate hasn't changed much (as of midnight on the 21st), but... we'll see what happens. The 64-thousand-VST question is: who's left in the tank? Without a surge or two, it looks like the rate would fall short. The pace is currently 50 signups behind the required average, and (counting just from 3pm Tuesday) projected to come in under 19k. On the other hand, the rate didn't jump last time until the next day, and the goose needed this time is far smaller -- or put another way, there's almost twice as much time (9 vs. 5 days) to get about as many signups (3150 vs. 2925). If the 9/hour recent rate is the "baseline", reaching 20k requires just about 1100 "extra" people to come out of the woodwork in a week-plus. Are they in there? And do they need oodles of amp sims? Will someone octuple up? We may find out soon.

Unfortunately, the possible "bump" turned out to be just a decent hour or two that inched the PM count a little higher than this morning: There's still time for another flurry or two -- and it seems likely we'll see one in the last day or two, at least -- but the trends have settled over the past few days such that the total projected with 10 days left would be somewhere around 19.6k (if you use the rate from all of September, with four major bumps included) or around 18.5k (if you expect the current lower rate to coast to the end). In graph form, it looks something like this: Maybe those emails will help over the next couple of days. The time, she will tell.

Things appear to be picking up a bit tonight, after a slow-ish weekend. Not yet back on pace for 20k, but inching upward. For anyone concerned about the really important number in this group buy period, though, don't fret. Things are going just peachily:

Sounds right to me, if the going rate holds up. On the downside, things do tend to slow down a bit overnight. On the upside, every time in September the count needed for the next level hits around 250, there's been a bump up to 20/hour or more -- except for the 14k level, which rolled over on a Sunday. Both weekends and hitting a level tend to slow things down, based on the handful of examples of each, so maybe the best-case scenario would be if a boost rolls the count to 16k in the afternoon tomorrow, and maybe there's a little juice left to squeeze toward 17k before the weekend rolls around. That's a big ask without another signup-alanche, though.

Nope, holding pretty steady since midnight: That's good for about 13/hour, though. Keep up that pace and the count would just edge over 20.1k by the end.

I'm also interested to hear about WS2. I use (well, fiddle with, as a learning hobbyist) a lot of the world music packages from EW (Ra, Silk, Gypsy), but I'd like to eventually wean myself from Composer Cloud with a couple of strategic replacements. In the interest of trying to offer something useful to the conversation, keep an eye on this similar thread over at VI-Control: https://vi-control.net/community/threads/uvi-world-suite-2-40-off.114531/ Only one opinion on WS2 itself so far, but it's another pool of people who may have relevant experience.

Halftime! With 15 days gone and 15 more on deck, the group buy has so far added 4,899 September signups. The count is currently 15,436, so if another 4,899 sign up through the 30th (at the current average rate of 13.6/hour), the final count would be 20,335. That average rate was goosed significantly this morning-through-evening by a ~10 hour surge of signups, to the tune of 766 total today, best of any day of the group buy not named August 30th. If you ignore the "goose" and use the going rate when today started (12.3/hour) to project, the total would be 19,864, or 20k with a slight nudge. If you're thinking "DAW half empty", the lowest rate for a full day in September (the 8th) was 7/hour -- at that rate through the 30th, the final count would be 17,956, call it 18k. If you're more optimistic, you may note that while this latest signup surge was the largest, it's also the 4th in the first 15 days, as shown by the bumps in the average signups/hour line here: The current rush seems to have died down for now (around 13.5/hour since 8pm, after 60/hour for half the day), but there may be more on the way. Looks like some more low-guessers may be knocked off the list before things are done.

Yeah, if you happen to leave the browser tab or there's a network hiccup, the animated counters tend to stop in inappropriate places. It's either a preview of the "new new" math they'll teach in the schools soon, or a sign to reload the page and try again.

The last eight hours have averaged more than a signup per minute, or roughly 5x the rate for the rest of the month: I don't know whose buttons got pushed this morning, but it looks like they got stuck and set to "turbo" mode. That already beats any 12-hour span I've tracked, including the rush at the end of August. Who are these people? Where did they come from? And how many more friends do they have who need 15 free goodies?

Even better -- it's actually 7.

On the subject of pace: the current thousand is clipping along at a pretty good rate, compared to most of the earlier September milestones. I have data for 16 "X hours post milestone" points in the 48 hours after the counts reached 11k, 12k, 13k and 14k, including how many signups were added since the previous milestone was reached: The 13k data is a little crazy -- with the big push, it didn't take much longer than 48 hours to hit the next level. But among the "normal" tiers, the 14k rate is consistently better than the others, from the jump. Maybe even without another huge boost right away, the rates are slowly creeping up over time.

September is 40% finished, and here's where the group buy extenderation stands (short version): In 12 September days, there have been 3,616 signups, an average of ~12.6/hour. If the current average rate holds for the next 18 days, the total count would hit ~19.6k. With any last-minute rush in this scenario, 20k seems reachable. If the rate drops back to ~10/hour on average, the count would hit ~18.5, disregarding any final push. At the lowest rate of any observed 12-hour September period (6.7/hr) the rest of the way, the projected count would be right around 17k. For the more nerdily inclined, in 12-hour increments, the distribution looks like this: For the first week, the pattern appeared fairly clear -- the "base rate" of signups was around 7-10/hour, with a "boost" up to 20/hr or more when the next milestone was in reach. After hitting it, the rate fell slowly back toward the bottom of the range. On the 9th, though, the signups exploded, pushing through 13k and 14k faster than expected -- and the rate hasn't dipped as quickly this time, either. A rate of 10/hour gives 120 signups per 12-hour period. In the table, those periods with total signups far from that "norm" -- under 90 or over 150 -- are highlighted in red and green, respectively. The highs are higher than the lows are low, but it's hard to say how high (or how often) those highs will jump. To reach higher levels, the average counts would need to jog up to about 14/hr (20k), 16/hr (21k), 18/hr (22k), 19.5/hr (23k), 23/hr (24k) or 25/hr (25k). Could it happen? Does the current rate hold? Are there more bumps in store? Will SampleTank ever learn the real identity of the father of her baby SE? Tune in next time to find out on DAWs of Our Lives.

Actually, likely sometime tomorrow, unless things drop off a fair bit. In the past 17 hours, the count has gone up by 208. That's a little over 12/hour, and the last four hours have all beaten that. (Edit: Depending on the time zone, 17 hours from now could be Monday, I realized. But by the "official" time zone, it'll probably roll over on Sunday.)

Nearing the 1/3rd marker of the IK September GASathon, the pace seems to have settled back to around 10-12 signups/hour since around noon. But yesterday was downright loco: By far the feedingest frenzy of the extended deal, the sustained average rate of a signup every two minutes served to: a. push the count over 13k at least a day before the previous rate would suggest, 2. goose the overall September signup rate from around 10/hour over the first eight days to nearly 13/hour and iii. accumulate enough numbers that if only the "baseline" 10/hour rate holds the rest of the way, the count would comfortably top 18k. I don't know whose buttons Peter pushed to coax an "extra" half thousand folks into the fold, but if there are more statgasms like that in store over the next three weeks, it should (continue to) be a fun ride.