Soundwise

To me iLoud MTM Pair + Total Studio 3 MAX Bundle seems like a solid deal. MTMs with two measuring mics, AT5 and ARC3 and Hammond and, maybe, TR5Max for that price is still a little too steep, but with Jam Points it's tempting. I don't really care for other products in the bundle, as I find them not worth the disk space. And then, again, I still have AT4, ARC2, nice Hammond VSTis and almost complete TR5 as well as a pair of good monitors. So shelling out almost a thousand Euro for an alternate take of what I already have... Sorry, IK, no soup for you.

AmpLion 1 is kinda long in the tooth. Back in the day I used to like it and prefer to other amp-sims. Will definitely check out newer version.

CLA GuitarHub? Abbey Road Guitar collection with authentic Beatles era guitar cable simulation? Schepps MultiAmp?

I thought this topic is about a serious low-end. Where is all that? Where is Alembic Bass?

What's that supposed to be like? It seems like Overloud's Rig Player explores the same idea - amp profiles with weird digital EQ, barely usable. At least, TH-U rigs have multiple snapshots, pretty much like Kemper. What do you think we need to expect from GTR4?

My SSL is v10. No soup for me.

Essential Keyboard Collection any good?

I'd rather listen to your playing, if you don't mind.

I think this sounds pretty darn good. Honestly, I'd be hard pressed to tell it's a VST instrument. In a blind test, that is.

Tamed to sound pleasant at all settings, including extremes. Normally, gentle and smooth, with carefully selected frequencies and curves. But essentially you get just a digital EQ with a fancy GUI.

Superior Drummer 3.

Or experiment with piano roll data and controllers to make it sound interesting. Anyway, that's not the point. This instrument is so exceptionally good and easy to use that anyone with basic computer skills can dial in an impressive guitar performance. The same is true for other great software instruments that make session musicians a thing of the past.

I hope to get Komplete CE and TT Bass ASAP because, let's face it, the world has changed and the way we make and distribute our music has changed, too. Great tools for any aspiring hobbyist, no doubt about that! It's just sad to see so many people being replaced by virtual tools. I don't like the trend but can't fight it.

I love Superior Drummer 3, and my (former) drummer - amazingly talented musician - hates it. Well, he still thinks it's an awesome software product, but he started getting so few studio recording calls that he had to quit playing drums for living and work in the office instead. Nothing negative, just a life story.

Maybe I'm amazed or maybe it's very sad, that people don't need to master real instruments any longer as they can simply draw and readjust rectangles in the dadgum piano roll.

I'm happy with Filmora, as it enables me to get same quality results faster and easier than Vegas Pro or Magix Movie Edit Pro.

Izotope is notorious for releasing major versions every year. Eventually this rent-to-own model becomes a subscription model. FWIW, had I been a fan of iZotope plugins, running a professional studio, I wouldn't mind paying a monthly fee to keep my business and theirs afloat.

I see normal prices, logged in or out. What kind of sorcery do you use to turn them down?

They are very nice indeed. Also, consider Engl E765 RT. My favorite PA ampsim so far.

Thanks, Olaf! I'll check that little buster against the big boys. Overloud plugs, especially, GEM series, are top-notch. These guys know to code.

For Buttterworth.

Drum notation is displayed in treble clef. Changing clef to the correct and even specifying that this is a drum track doesn't help. If MIDI keyboard performance isn't quantized, notes that are slightly off the beat look funny and there is no setting to "quantize" the displayed notes. Haven't checked TABs, because the "score" , although it looks beautiful, is not really useful. I understand that. Score editor is supposed to make piano roll data humanly readable. Both Cakewalk's and SO's viewers leave a lot to be desired in that area and are more like toys than tools.

Just demoed SO5. It's definitely not worth the upgrade price. Pretty much the same functionality as SO4. No jacket required No new bells and whistles have had any use in my mixing/recording workflow. Channel monitoring is buggy as hell. I had to toggle its state between takes just to be able to hear what was recorded. For some reason the Tape style monitoring setting has no effect on its behavior. Score view is a joke. Recording to takes works fine, but why on Earth the last take is not selected automatically? Why do I have to hear all takes playing back simultaneously? The only thing I liked is the mix scenes feature - it resets mixer settings instantly, smoothly, without any dropouts. Huge disappointment overall. I'm glad I demoed it first.

Thanks, mibby! I wouldn't have missed that sale had I been able to walk and talk. That's a good question! In my case, it's different workflows and sets of tools. Like Laravel vs Vue.js, for lack of a better example.