fret_man

Hmmm, soundbetterxar1 brings Abbey Road One: Orchestral Foundations from $450 to $220. Maybe this is the orchestra I seek.

I can't tell what the differences are between Savihost and VSThost. Anyone else?

I just now got a license key. Took me about 5 hrs to get the process completed due to server overload.

I have the old Nine Volt Audio's version of Shimmer & Shake. Files are dated 2010-2011. Is there any advantage to get the In Session Audio's version? It's on sale for $90, including the expansion, for 2 more days (I think). Thanks!

And now I just found Infinity Samples has a folk violin. It didn't sound very real in the Celtic demo but the acoustic jam sounded pretty good. But it's only $43 and I worry a little I'd get what I pay for.

CLA Nx studio model for headphones using Waves Nx system. $30 intro offer. Not included in ANY bundle, including Mercury. Description: Mix more reliably on headphones: The CLA Nx plugin replicates the three-dimensional acoustics of Grammy®-winning mixer Chris Lord-Alge’s Mix LA studio control room – on any pair of headphones. Precision head tracking with the Nx Head Tracker Bluetooth device enhances the plugin’s immersive realism.

So far I'm liking Bolder Sounds and Taylor Davis. Embertones Friedlander sounds really good, too, but I may have to play with it to get a better feel for its folkiness.

I use OBS Studio to record the Webinars I give. It's flexible, free, open source, and gets updated regularly. I know it has a lot more features than I am capable of using.

Finally picked up Sharine.

Man, you're not joking! I don't know HOW many cups of coffee I'm gonna go thru...

Does anyone have a recommendation for a solo violin / fiddle VSTi suitable for folk/bluegrass/Celtic/world music? I'm not (necessarily) looking for orchestral/classical sounds, but it needs to be convincing. I'm not a keyboard player so not so concerned with how accessible it is for keyboardist to achieve live realism. I'm not afraid of steep learning curves and used to digging into details to fine-tune the articulations, although something easier to get useable sounds is better than harder. This would be used in both supportive and solo roles, so sound quality needs to be quite high. My must-haves are: Win10 No iLok There are so many violins available. I'm having a very hard time knowing what to invest in. Any recommendations? Thank you! Paul

FYI, I found it was cheaper for me to buy these directly from AmpleSound's website even considering Best Service's discount. Maybe they gave me a "loyalty discount"? I got 13 instruments (their electric guitars & basses) for $650. That's $50 an instrument! Highly worth it. These are very high quality instruments. I'm a fanboy.

On sale at the Microsoft store, too, for Windows. Sale good until July 31.

But that was back in Oct 2020. I don't think there's been an update in the last 2-3 months.

Apparently that's very hard to do. There's specialized software that will convert PDFs, but it's not cheap ($39 to $179 depending on how many staves you have).

A wireless iRig. Guitar -> wireless link -> audio interface -> computer -> Amplitube.

Use promo code FINALE2021 at checkout for a $50 discount. Promo code expires 11:59 p.m. Eastern time, July 23, 2021.

FYI, a PC version is "coming soon"!

And you can keep coming back with more purchases as you decide "Hmm, maybe I should have gotten this, too."

I am fully vested in the AmpleSound workflow. I've used all of their acoustic instruments. But I needed a mandolin so I got the OrangeTree Acoustic Bundle. I posted a rant about their mandolin here. After that, I didn't really bother with the rest of their acoustic instruments. So I can't really compare the two very well. That being said, I am quite happy with the sound and programmability of the AmpleSound acoustic instruments. I am a guitar player, not a keyboard player, and everything I can do on an acoustic instrument I can do on the AmpleSound instruments. I do NOT use it live. I program the MIDI in my recordings. I do not have a tracking room quiet enough to record my acoustic instruments, so I reverted to MIDI - sometimes using Melodyne to convert my (noisy) recorded guitar to MIDI (keeping the dynamics and timing but losing articulations that I have to manually put back in). I can recommend AmpleSound without hesitation. OrangeTree may be very nice. I just can't say. However, with this sale I can fill in some gaps that OrangeTree provides. I'm looking at the Slide bundle, Rick 12, Rick Bass, and the Sitardelic for that 60's-70's psycho vibe.

Sorry, I already have both sets of acoustic instrument bundles so I didn't do those. But there's a great deal of overlap: OrangeTree -> Ample Sound Modern Nylon -> Ample Guitar L Flatpick 6 -> Ample Guitar T Steel Strings -> Ample Guitar M Songwriter -> Ample Guitar SJ Jumbo 12 -> Ample Guitar 12 Bluegrass Banjo -> Ample Ethno Banjo Mandolin -> -> Ample Ethno Ukulele

The Acoustic Slide is tuned in open D in case that helps.

Same as above but with Bass libraries:

In case some of you are like me and not sure what libraries to get between this OT sale and AmpleSound products (the two best guitar VIs in my opinion), then you may find this chart useful. I have attempted to find where the two libraries have sampled the same (or similar) guitar. If you can't afford both, then choose whichever ecosystem works best with your workflow and fill in the gaps with the other. Similar products occupy the same row. Please note that: I tried to use the same metrics for uncompressed sample size but this was not always easy to find. So I may be off. The general assumption was that a larger sample size gave you better emulation, but that may not always be true. So maybe this is meaningless. Still, there are some rather large differences here so you'd think there's got to be something special included in the very large libraries. I tried to find the original introduction date to get a feel for how old some of these samples are. Again, the general assumption was that newer products were better than older products. However, I couldn't always find the original release dates. Plus, most (all?) of these have been subsequently updated - some several times. The updates may be engine/GUI updates. Some may include sample updates. So I'm not sure how important these dates are.