Reid Rosefelt

Last Black Friday, the store was 50% off and they had two flash sales: Solid2 drums at 75% off and a deal at Plugin Boutique for Hustle at $9.99 The marketing strategy of ujam is pretty clear. They are proud of their products and feel that if people try them, they'll want more. They aren't afraid of deals and freebies. You can try everything out in a free demo. They give out a lot of stuff for free in places like Plugin Collective (Iron) and Plugin Boutique (Carbon). They have regular markdowns at places like VSTBuzz. I think they will have a deal at some point on one of the Finishers. Of course you could say that the freebie Micro was that. I'm working on a video now but after that, my next one will be on the Finishers.

I wonder if Toontrack will add an acoustic to EZBass?

At this point, my policy is to never consider buying any vocal library that isn't vocal only.

Generally when there are roundups of the best acoustic basses on VI:Control, this gets mentioned. The problem with acoustic basses is that there are so many of them that are very good, and a lot of them are relatively inexpensive, like OTS's Core Bass, Modwheel's The Lowdown, and Fluffy Audio's Simple Jazz Bass. And with BF coming up, a lot of the $100 basses are going to be discounted, like my beloved ujam Mellow, and ArtVista Back Beat. Then there's the next tier, like Amplesound, Premier Sound, etc. I would be interested in this, but I'm more than happy with Mellow and The Lowdown. I have been thinking about Trilian for a long time, but that is a lot more than an acoustic bass.

I let the Ultra Analog and String Studio upgrades go by because I figured this was coming. When the next half price sale comes around, it will probably be the best offer ever for me. I don't have Lounge Lizard, so all four may end up being $99. That's what it used to be for three of them. On the other hand, Strum GS-2 is going to be updated at some point, perhaps in 2021. Maybe I'll wait for that.

If it turns out to be AmpliTube 5, what do you think it would be? A new GUI? All the AmpliTube expansions that came out since Amplitube 4? New expansions? Or what?

Neo was a big step from the Finisher in Carbon and Voodoo was a big step from the finisher in Neo. Fluxx looks like the best one so far. I'm pretty sure they will add finishers to the inevitable guitar updates, as they have to the basses. But I could even see ujam adding Finisher to the Beatmakers and even drums. The others had presets, but this one has modes, which is a new concept and IMO makes Finisher useful in a more focused way. I wonder if they will go back and give modes to the other two in a future upgrade? Doing a video on the Finisher series is on my to do list. Don't forget everybody that ujam had a store-wide 50% off sale last BF.

Hahaha. A typo. I meant TC-11. But it is one of the very best. On the Apple Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tc-11/id488577050

I remember the days when my only forum was the Audiobus Forum and I did all my music on my iPad. Those were the days when $20 apps were considered insanely expensive. $20! Are you nuts? $10 was pricey. GeoShred is awesome, and there are so many other genius iPad apps. Borderlands, TC-11, Nave, Fugue Machine, Gestrument....

For the record, Auddict's Celestial Voices "Ceres" is free. I think it has an excellent legato, better than many that sell for a lot of $$$. https://www.auddict.com/celestial-voices-ceres I am seriously considering this. Ceres is ethereal and this is, as they describe it, "soaring." I think it can have uses beyond epic.

If I had to find the epitome of the kind of library I absolutely don't need but still want it would be Aura. Next summer, when I get KU13, I'll have three or four instruments like this. Which I probably won't ever use.

I got off the Wavey train a long time ago. I don't even download free plugins from them. I'd rather buy plugins from companies like Fabfilter and Sonible and IK and Melda that I don't have to worry about the eventual WUP Day of Judgment. ? Rightly or wrongly, I believe the bell will toll one day for all my V9 Waves plugins. So I've accelerated the process by saying goodbye to them now.

Yes! I can't wait to get the new RealTracks and the new Xtra Styles PAK! ? I have that $129 budgeted so I won't spend it all during Black Friday.

A lot of you might have considered buying BIAB, but didn't know exactly what it was or how they might use it. Most musicians see Band in a Box as software that should only be used for accompaniment. It's great for singers or solo instrumentalists, but not for using in compositions. While many people are fine with employing drum programs, guitar programs, EZKeys, etc to make their music, BIAB is a bridge too far because it does EVERYTHING. One button push and there is an entire arrangement, fully mixed. It bypasses the myriad choices you make when you use and combine various kinds of software. I'm basically in agreement with that, but I use the arrangements I generate with BIAB to help me make my songs better. This video shows how I take a simple song and develop it using BIAB. Also, it's expensive and there are a lot of versions, plus add-ons like Xtra Paks. So it's a little complicated for a noob to figure out what they need to buy. I talked about that in the video and it didn't fit, so I made a separate video about that. It mentions that there are sales when the new versions come out, which means PC at the end of the year and Mac in the Spring.

Not to rain on this deal, but Bela D Media vocal libraries are always 50% off on their site ? That said, as many of you know, I did a video on SORA and am a huge fan of the company. The second installment in their Native Voice series after Sora, Maya, is coming out soon, as per their Twitter feed. I expect larger discounts come BF.... And if you all are nice, maybe Dawn from Bela D will pay this forum another visit...

There are also a zillion DX7 patches available for free on the net, all of which can be loaded into Dexed. Too many, actually. Who has time to go through all of them? http://bobbyblues.recup.ch/yamaha_dx7/dx7_patches.html https://homepages.abdn.ac.uk/d.j.benson/pages/html/dx7.html

This Ting is also cool. My kind of ting.

Isn't this always free? https://www.softube.com/saturationknob

As I said, you'll get two months to spend the 100 euros. I bought directly from UVI, so that's why I got the email about the 100 euros right away. You don't need any expansions to get busy with Falcon though, so no rush. It has an excellent preset library, and you can get lost in the thing forever. Start with all the sequencer stuff, like the Step Arp shown above and the Euclidean Drum and Tonal Sequencers. Just playing the presets is fun. Plurality was a good choice IMO. The other Simon Stockhausen expansion, Ether Fields, is also very good. I'm going to pick up LoFi Dreams the next timer there's a sale on expansions. Maybe during BF. The only one I ever bought after the six I got at the beginning was Voklm, and I got it for 30% off or $27. I don't know if they sell them for less. I really like Atmospherics, Analog Motion, and Voklm. But it's pretty personal. What kind of sounds do you want? If you want big bass, then Subculture. A few of them are heavy on sound design. I just listened to the demos a lot before Black Friday came along.

Let me know what you think of the EZBass MIDI. Toontrack only provides demos of the EZKeys/EZBass mix. Maybe I'll wait until there are 6 of them and Toontrack offers their discount. I bet it won't take them long. There's a second one coming this month.

I bought my third ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB NVMe. It lists for $149, sells usually for $135--I got it for $108. Lowest price I've ever bought it for. If there's something you want to buy anyway, these sales (including BF) can be useful.

I checked and you select your two free expansions when you buy Falcon. So you need to know the ones you want before you check out. After your payment is received, they send you an email with a code for your 100 euro voucher code, which is good for two months. You have to use it all at one time. I waited until the end of November and got four more expansions. 108 euros during the BF sale. It cost me 8 euros. Starting out with 6 expansions that retail for $39 each was pretty cool. Falcon is less than a GB. It's actually pretty lightweight, in size anyway. Still, I bet all the factory patches--that only use what comes with Falcon--would run fine on your laptop and you could tweak them. Some of the Falcon expansions have a lot of GB and are very demanding, though.

I like em too, but there was an APD deal in August 2019 for the first three Riffendiums for $43.99. So... I'm holding out for a better deal.

This is great news. I love Audiority's stuff, particularly Grainspace and their guitar pedals. Will definitely pick this up.

I've always wondered why everybody put their sales up on Black Friday. Or worse, in December. People only have so much money and you're competing with everybody. Aren't we all broke before Sonokinetic's "12 Days of Christmas" and the Spitfire Christmas Wish List? Since I've gotten into this mass spendage in 2016, I've seen more and more companies do sales all the time. That has been a trend. Also there's a bunch that go for October. UVI with the annual Falcon deal. Output always has a sale around now. Anyway, if you can believe Amazon's hype, they are going to put their best deals for this sale. I'm looking at SSD, RAM, Stream Deck, etc. I know what I want and what the normal prices are, so let's see what they come up with.