ToneDeF

The reports of their demise were greatly exaggerated... by the vendor themselves. "Like a phoenix from the ashes, Rigid Audio are back in business – and they're back with a bang! They've been acquired, undergone a stunning transformation, and are ready to unleash a new era of cutting-edge cinematic KONTAKT instruments."

The vendor is now currently having a sale on a bundle of just the version 2 presets that I wanted to complete my collection. This more concise bundle is being offered for the exact same price as the last bundle, and you get less product for your money than you did with the previous bundle that was on sale (i.e., in addition to the version 2 presets, the previous bundle that was on sale also included the main product and all of the presets for version 1 of the product). Apparently, there is a price point that the vendor is unwilling to drop below for bundles of this particular product. Once again, there is no extra loyalty discount for existing customers. To recap: the sale price is the same for everyone, and it is the same price for a bundle of lesser value.

It has been three days since the support representative accepted my thanks for sharing my feedback with the team, and the vendor has not yet reached out to me, so I can only conclude that the vendor is NOT interested in treating existing customers better than brand new customers, any time soon. By the way, the sale price for that product bundle has since GONE UP in price by another $20 USD, despite being advertised as a 93% discount off of the regular retail price; most folks in their right mind would not pay the full bundle price.

I am only now realizing the rope-a-dope of owning a Waves bundle versus the individual plugins that comprise the bundle. Also, it looks like there is no way to install just individual plugins of a Waves bundle from within the Waves Central application. If you do not have enough disk space, then the bundle is unusable. 🤔

I'd like to personally thank you and your colleagues who advocated for us customers to get rid of IK Multimedia's sound reactivation period/fees; I really abhorred that practice and was quite chuffed to see its demise.

Yes, I can confirm from personal experience that Impact Soundworks is indeed one of the vendors who generously offers loyalty discounts for the products they sell, just as you described, along with a points loyalty program to earn discounts and free product. There are quite a few vendors who fall into the "et al." part of the list I initially provided. The few vendors I name-dropped were just a small number who quickly came to mind; looking back, I probably should not have name-dropped any, as my intention was to be objective and not to give any impression of favoritism.

I personally contacted the vendor (through customer support) and presented the case for a loyalty discount. Over a number of back and forths, I was regularly thanked and appreciated for my interest, but they would not budge on offering me any form of compensation for my existing purchases. While I appreciate the vendor's appreciation of my interest, I would much rather prefer a loyalty or courtesy discount on the all-in-one bundle. I don't want to bash the company, as it has done right by me a number of times in the past (e.g. compensated me for change in upgrade policy; compensated me after a better deal was offered shortly after I pulled the trigger on the deal that was current at the time; rewarded me for notifying them about inconsistencies and mistakes on the website). Perhaps the particular employee handling my most recent inquiry is a proud stickler ("sorry... the price is the price"). 🤷‍♂️ Update: I just heard back from that employee who is handling my query and was told that my concerns would be relayed to the team for consideration. I guess I can wait a bit more to see if anything productive comes of it.

What I am specifically referring to is the reduced price I received when I upgraded to one of Wave's larger bundles (e.g. Horizon). I was able to customize a discounted upgrade price based on the existing eligible Waves plugins I already owned. I got a slightly better discount (and a free bonus) by letting AudioDeluxe process the upgrade.

I am curious what other folks think about audio software vendors who seem to be dead set against offering an exclusive loyalty discount to existing customers who already own most of the items in a bundle offering. It seems wrong for an existing customer to be expected to purchase the bundle offering at the same price as a brand-new customer (who would be getting every item in the bundle for the first time) and re-purchase the majority of items just to pick up the remaining items at a discount. Am I simply spoiled by the software vendors (like Kilohearts, Cherry Audio, UJAM, Waves, et al.) who will offer a customized discount based on items already owned by the customer?

I see. Toontrack said what they meant, and they meant what they said.

For posterity, the final Day 5 deals for Friday, December 20th are Progressive Metal EBX and Fusion EZbass MIDI.

At least one individual at the Toontrack forum backed the idea. Between that person and myself, that makes two; with one more person, it will be a crowd (as the saying goes: "three's a crowd"). UPDATE: Another backer makes three, so it is a "crowd" now. 😅 I also heard back from Toontrack Support that my suggestion has been forwarded to the marketing team. I have seen other vendors adjust their sale plans after its initial launch (e.g. "Due to popular demand, we have extended our sale another day yada yada yada..."), so maybe Toontrack Marketing could make it happen. 🤷‍♂️

Here is the AAS follow-up from a prior year; in terms of generosity, they are unquestionably top-shelf:

Applied Acoustics Systems is very generous and also very gracious. From a prior year's experience, I know for a fact that AAS will indeed make good on their promise:

That's a capital idea, although another possible outcome of this query is no reply at all. For now, I have submitted a suggestion to the Toontrack's forum -- I have no expectations:

After the reveal of the last day's sale, Toontrack could reprise all of the previous day's deals for one day -- if they wanted to -- but I would not bet on it happening.

For posterity, the Day 4 deals for Thursday, December 19th are Area 33 – Origin SDX, Progressive Patterns MIDI, Latin Cuban Drums EZX, Latin Cuban Percussion EZX, and Latin Rhythms MIDI.

Thank you Tom for sharing the screenshot with the community for posterity. I presume that each was offered on sale for $9 USD? I would have purchased all four of those Monster MIDI packs, had I known about the sale. Unfortunately for me, Toontrack does not send me emails about their flash sales. Also, the one Best Service Wish List notification I received for MMP 4 came over too late for me to notice. I could have sworn I had all four of those Monster MIDI packs in my Best Service Wish List; I wonder if three of them had been silently removed from my Wish List because they had been perhaps re-catalogued in the Best Service product database. 🤷‍♂️ EDIT: Apparently, I needed to re-enable my newsletter preferences in my Toontrack account to receive updates about offers.

For posterity, the Day 3 deals for Wednesday, December 18th are UK Pop EZX, UK Pop Grooves, Post-Rock EZX, and Post-Rock Grooves.

Do you happen to know which MIDI packs were offered on Monday? It is odd that there is no record anywhere of what the past deals were.

Cinematic Pads EZX and Movies Scores - Sci-Fi EZkeys MIDI were the deals for Day 2, Tuesday December 17th (see below). What were the deals for Day 1, Monday December 16th?

I'm still waiting for UVI to provide a torrent link for SA 4, because a large soundset like that can take hours to download. The UVI Portal app has been taking forever to download the String Machines 2 soundset update (I should have used the UVI-provided torrent link for this one). Perhaps UVI is waiting for the SA 4 product to stabilize (there have been two updates already) before making a torrent link available.

And again. There are now two patched versions since release: 1.0.2 ------ - Fix: potential silent presets 1.0.1 ------ - Fix: missing sample error - Fix: resource not found error in UVIWS - Add: shade overlay on disabled FX in Edit page

I believe the feature you have depicted here is the layering of a sub oscillator waveform, which was a feature unique to the Synth Anthology 3 sound engine; the new Synth Anthology 4 sound engine is all about layering two complete synth patches instead. The sub-oscillator waveforms from SA3 (https://uvi.s3.amazonaws.com/SC87-Synth_Anthology_3/synth-anthology-3_manual.pdf) are not included in SA4 (https://uvi.s3.amazonaws.com/SC117-Synth_Anthology_4/synth-anthology-4_manual.pdf). There are some layers included in SA4 with names that sound basic (e.g. CCK-NTS Saw; CCK-NTS Sine; etc.); likely some custom patches which simply used a particular synth hardware's basic waveforms.