Brian Lawler

I am not opposed to subscriptions, but if you already have Suite 11, the value is not there (at $20 / month). Honestly, I don't think the value is there for someone who doesn't own a legacy "perma-licensed" Reason either. There are a TON of great instruments and effects, but the DAW is fundamentally so far behind the competition, that they have a long way to catch up. They have also not really shown much interest in bringing the DAW up to speed either. They put their development into plug-ins, which used to bring in the $$, but by pushing subscriptions, they are hurting that approach. It is interesting to spectate and speculate though ?

I sense desperation on Reason Studio's part to keep their subscriber numbers up for their investors. You could still be on R+ since around March for about $1 per month. I quit playing that game and am content with Suite 11.

Hornet makes a bunch of level control plug-ins. It is hard to differentiate them all. Most of the "Meter" plugs also do level control. AutoGain pro will write automation to manage the level throughout a track. AutoGain Pro Mk2 is that with more EQ controls and mid/side. The Meter plugs will go through a track and gain stage to a max level setting.

Kilohearts sent me a $30 coupon code that expires Nov 30. $39 minimum purchase, no sale items etc. DM if anyone can use it. given-

Hopefully someone with experience using Opus will chime in here for @Leizer , as I am barely getting started. BTW I updated my benchmark above with the EastWest supplied Lexar SSD plugged in to a dedicated USB 3.2 port (no hub).

There was a post in their forum (from the developer) that v10 is not expected to be released until mid 2022. There is a lot to like about Mixcraft. I keep falling for the upgrades and remain disappointed with the MIDI routing. (need to use LoopBe to capture MIDI data from VST generators). I hope that support makes it into 10. As @cclarry mentioned, the upgrade prices have always been quite reasonable.

Well- FedEx finally swept out the back room and found my EastWest HOOPUS SSD that was in "delivery problem" purgatory for several days. No fault of EW- they shipped the day I ordered. Caveats- I am running a Microstar X570-A Pro motherboard with Ryzen 3700X proc stock. Win 10 Pro 21H1. Going through a 10 port USB-3 hub. I am not ready to pull the case out of the rodent den and look for a faster connection yet. The EW SSD is an Lexar 1TB My photo below. Case has a USB-C and there are two included one foot cables (USB-C / USB-C and USB-C / USB 3.0A) Of course, EastWest might change the shipping hardware any time. I am not a performance buff, so I just used the first benchmark I could find, called "Crystal DiskMark 8" Sequential read was on par with my internal Samsung QVO SSD on SATA, but random, not so much. It seems to me that write speed doesn't matter at all here. This is a WORM drive. My M2 drive is 4x faster than these, but I can't give all that space to one library! I am happy with the value. Barely used Opus so far, but loading only used articulations rather than whole instruments feels plenty speedy. Time will tell once the track counts increase. LEXAR (EastWest OPUS shipped drive) <<<< ADDITIONAL INFO >>>> Here's a report running the Lexar SSD through a single USB 3.2 port (no hub). Big difference in write speed and a smaller bump in reading. My Samsung 4TB QVO SSD on SATA bus:

Yep- I already jumped. FYI- 22 Gig vs 12 in version 1. More percussive and animated stuff. My HOOPUS on SSD finally arrived today, so my cup runneth over atm.

Upgrade from 1 $39 ? Reg price $249 Crossgrade from The Orchestra $179 https://sonuscore.com/shop/elysion-2-the-encounter/ We started a journey into the future of sound – and we arrived! Encounter ELYSION 2 – our massive and incredibly fast scoring tool. Play simple chords and instantly create overwhelming sound worlds. Move the modwheel and distort time and space. Let the famous ensemble engine, known from THE ORCHESTRA, animate your music. ELYSION 2 is a synth built on handcrafted processed and synthetic sounds ELYSION 2 contains aggressive and powerful new instruments, presets, themes and built-in effects We included every instrument as a single-instrument NKI ELYSION 2 includes our wide, organic ambient synth ELYSION – You can switch between the two GUIs

Which reminds me. AAS has been giving a free Sound Bank around Christmas to newsletter subscribers. I missed out last year because mine was disabled. Check your AAS account!

Exactly my situation. I only just bought BBC Core during the recent brief 50% off sale, and like it enough that I was thinking of upgrading to Pro when it goes 40% off (expected Christmas sale- not a given). HOOPUS upgrade is (I think) about the same $$ that BBC Pro upgrade would cost (on sale), but I decided that it would be more useful to me.

The Soundpaint app is free, the instruments cost. I bought the Guitar for $20. It sounds great, but the first thing I wanted to do was assign aftertouch to an LFO, and I don't think that is possible (only CC or note velocity). I hope I am wrong- there is no manual yet. There IS a ton of tweak-ability in there, don't get me wrong. As for the "never on sale" pledge, time will tell. The 8 instrument bundle is $300 while the total of them piecemeal is $310.

Sorry I have no experience with Goliath, but do consider IKMultimedia Sampletank. There are a couple threads here that mention a "Group Buy" that will get you some bang for your buck. I think Sampletank was my first foray down the slippery slope of computer software instruments. I started with a Roland "SoundCanvas" hardware MIDI box a few decades and terabytes ago.

Thank you (and @cclarry) for your comments. I singled you out because I remember you extolling HBS in the HOOPUS thread on VI. Boy, we need a glossary for the acronyms. I am watching a YT on the word builder now. Sounds better than I expected.

So @Fleer - Hollywood Backup, or Voices of Soul ? ?

Ye gads- It never occurred to me that it might be an A interface. It would be a waste of SSD if it's not USB-C. I will even run a diagnostic on it and post the results here.

I just "discovered" this about a month ago. Much more useful for keeping your tracks organized than you might think. It's a "must have" Studio One tool for me now.

It is as clear as MUD. I wrote this deal off when they sent out a notice in September and it just didn't look to me like I qualified. After studying the big VI thread "HOOPUS", I found that they actually now accept owners of a single old Hollywood Gold library (like strings or brass) to have the upgrade price of $295. Adding to the confusion, when EW released Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition, there were two versions- Gold and Diamond; similar to the old Play based libraries. They have since dropped Opus Gold and now there is only "Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition". Not with the Diamond tag, but still the big one terabyte library. The two options I see (I assume everyone sees) on the EW site are to 1) Upgrade from discontinued H.O.Opus Gold to "Current big H.O.Opus" for $99, or upgrade from any Hollywood Orchestra Gold library for $295. Confusing? You-betcha! I will say that their support was very fast, so if you are thinking of getting the deal and want to get a confirmation, it should be easy to get a reply. Just an aside. Again based on digging back through the mega-thread, owners of "old" Hollywood Diamond Orchestra had to pay about $500 for HOOPUS less than a year ago. There are some sour grapes about the more recent adjustment$. Certainly a chance of further future discounts at this rate, but I decided to bite.

I contacted EastWest Support and they quickly responded by letting me know that you can download and use instrument sections in the Opus player, but using the Ochestrator will require having everything on disk. More importantly (as far as MY interest), I learned that the $99 hard drive option is now an SSD rather than a spinner, so the library should be quite usable as provided. Order placed. Shipping was about $13 for FedEx Ground. Overnight would have been @ $30.

Thank you for the link! I have been watching YT and reading the VI threads. I have not got to that one yet, but it will be next This is looking (and sounding) like a pretty good deal to me. I bought Hollywood Gold four years ago but just never got "into" it because I didn't like the Play engine.

Holy frijoles... That thing is a terabyte! Comcast would $mack me down if I tried to mix that in to a month of my usual data. Does anyone know if you can d/l "usable" parts of this monster (like mic positions) over time? i.e. be able to use what you have and add more mic positions later. Sonuscore "The Orchestra" is pretty great, so I am intrigued by their involvement in the "Orchestrator" engine.

I just picked up MultiFreqs for 6 €, which I passed on when it came out because I assumed it was just an "LED Meter". Actually you can switch to "analog" graph mode (which I much prefer), and it will show multiple tracks, including a "conflict" mode that highlights overlapping frequency bands. Use the VST 3 version and it will pick up the track names from (in my testing) Bitwig and Cakewalk. Unfortunately it will not pick up track names in Studio One, but I suspect that is Presonus' fault for not fully supporting the VST 3 spec.

It sounds really good to me. I would not mistake it for someone playing a real guitar, but the range of sounds he is getting from SoundPaint with a MIDI keyboard is very impressive. I don't have experience with an SG, but I do have an original 68' LP Custom. Love that tone. I was lucky enough to get the link for SoundPaint from the site (by email) and have been messing with the Steinway. I will most certainly be forking over the $20 to get the SG samples ?

Ahoy shipmate! I would have had every possible pick with my 4 GBs until the late additions were added. Mind you, I much prefer getting the X-pedal emulations rather than redundant cabs. I will miss three (all from the AT5 collection)- the two mics and a cab to be un-chosen later

Everything is as it should be.