Reid Rosefelt

What a great way to start picking up the excellent Claire series for so little. All that are left are the Oboe, English Horn, Clarinet, and Bassoon. They'll no doubt turn up in future sales. One of the things that is special about the 8dio solo woods is they add the Piccolo, Alto and English Horn, which are often left out. They sell (!!) the entire bundle for $688, if anybody's interested.

Whenever I see MNDALA, it triggers a weird memory. I was working as Unit Publicist on a movie called "Big Business" with Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler. While we were shooting on the streets of New York, we were followed around by a homeless guy, who kept saying, "MID-LAH... BETT MID-LAH. Over and over and over. After that, whenever "Big Busines" still photographer Andy Schwartz and I would run into each other, instead of hi, we'd say, "MID-LAH."

Hi @Leok85 The thing that makes BIAB great is that they have RealTracks, which are actual recordings by various studio musicians. They are 2 bar and 4 bar and one bar. The program uses Algorithms to make them create realistic arrangements from your chord progression. You can create your own style by taking any of the RealTracks they've released and combining them, for example, two guitars, bass, piano, fiddle, drums, etc. You kind of have to know what you're doing to do that. Each new version of BIAB has more RealTracks and includes styles that show them off. Combinations of Realtracks, perfectly mixed and ready to use. I mainly use the styles that come with the program. The Xtra Styles are just that--more styles. For me, the more the merrier. If you watch my video you will see why. The Xtra Styles PAKs have no new Realtracks. They just combine the Realtracks in different ways. But the most recent versions of Xtra Styles PAKs require the latest versions of BIAB, because they use the latest RealTracks. I've never bought any of the XPro Styles. They are a product directed towards people who have a lesser version of BIAB than the Ultrapack. I hear they are different, but I've never felt the need to buy them. The 2023 Bonus 49Pak is an expensive Xtra Styles Pak. It goes for $49 and they go for $29 during the sale. I used to think you had to buy these bonus packs when the new version is released, but I now am not sure. A customer service person from PGMusic told me that if you don't buy one it just gets folded into the following year's upgrade. Somebody else got a different response. In the future I won't but the $49 pak and how those styles turn up in the following year's update. Of course I'll always be a year behind, but I would like to not waste $49. PGMusic has demos of all the XtraStyles paks, so you can decide what you want. Hope this helps!

The Claire Solo Woodwinds series are one of the only 8dio libraries I really love. This is a great price.

One of the Lunatics just posted that they will have an update for Mini soon, which may have more presets.

EZKeys isn't a tool for helping you create chord progressions. You need to put them in. Scaler is a tool to help you make more interesting chord progressions than you would by yoursef. It also comes with a lot of ready-made chord progressions in various styles made by various musicians, to get you started. Like @Brian Walton I think it's a lot easier to input chord progressions in Scaler. EZKeys is dedicated to keys sounds. Scaler comes with all kinds of sounds from Bass to Guitars to Strings, with patterns to match. Personally I think you can get more out of a copy of Scaler than a whole bunch of EZKeys expansions, but only if you take the time to learn how to use it. EZKeys is EZ. And if you're looking for specific genres, it's nice to be able to buy what you want from the EZKeys library. I can play piano, so EZKeys doesn't interest me that much. It does what it does and it's the same whether you play piano or not. But tools like EZKeys and ujam Virtual Pianos take my playing to a new level. I am a big fan of the ujam Virtual Pianos and I highly recommend downloading the free demos and seeing if you like them. They are admittedly pricey, but you never know when there will be a deep discount on a ujam product.

This is not ironic: Scaler is one of the best pieces of software I have ever purchased. And the price is so reasonable. Amazing value for what you get. There are a few other companies that treat their customers super well, but Scaler is at the top of the list. All these free updates are greatly appreciated. Thank you Dave and all the developers of Scaler. I look forward to what you come up with next. I'm sure everybody here will happy buy Scaler 3 whenever it comes out. It's going to be really something.

No. I was dead serious you guys. I expect at LEAST 40 or 50 updates an hour! And they each should have videos and tons of incredible new features. I've been sitting around for five seconds. Maybe even SIX! C'mon! Let's see some action, Dave! ? They are so fricking lazy.

Okay, we have two answers from PGMusic that say the opposite thing. Somebody is not telling the truth, which doesn't seem like them. I'm going to trust the person I spoke to. I asked her again and again to make absolutely sure.

Thanks, Larry! I only got 30 days, but that's still great. I'm very happy. I will focus on things I need.

Well, I called PGMusic, and boy do I feel dumb! ? If you buy or upgrade to the Ultrapak, you get all the content from 49 Paks from years previous. So the only thing you get for buying the 49Pak today is to be able to use those Realtracks until you upgrade next. Knock yourself out with the Erhu, everybody! I'm very pissed off at myself for never looking into this. I'll never buy a 49Pak again. I can wait a year, even for an Erhu. And this will definitely figure into my decision about whether to upgrade BIAB every year.

Perhaps it could be stacked with an existing pass. But it didn't work for me, because I was a previous subscriber and am not today. Was there something from IK out recently?

For me it's worthwhile. The standouts for me are a new Erhu instrument, plus a funky horn section. But there's a nice mix of genres I like, including folk and progressive rock. To get the most out of Realtracks you really need to spend more time with BIAB than I do. I rely on presets, but if you know all the different realtracks you can roll your own. On another note, I freaked out about how much I spent on BIAB this year. It turned out I was missing three Xtra Styles Paks. So after the $99 plus the $49 and the three Xtra Styles at $29 each,came to $235 and with NY Tax it was $255.88. Usually I get an Xtra Styles pak sometime Aug/Sept so in December I only deal with buying one. I'm starting to wonder whether you really need to buy the $49 paks. I don't think I always bought them and, according to the program, I'm not missing any realtracks.. Do they roll the 49paks into the next year's upgrade? Take that $49 pack out and it wouldn't matter if you upgraded every year. I need to ask their customer service. But I sure do have a lot of stuff in my BIAB now.

Thank you for this, @abacab Terrific stuff. Right up my alley.

My family and I will gather around the tree while I unpack my shiny new iLok. And then we'll sing this thread in its entirety.

I'm fine. Those two reverbs were nice, but I have way too many reverbs already. It caused me no pain to delete them. But I've lost all respect for iZotope and they'll never get it back from me.

Through the iLok software, I requested a system reset from all my licenses. All the companies but one responded quickly and it was very easy to reactivate everything. The company that didn't was iZotope as they no longer support their Exponential Audio reverbs. Their position seems to be is that those reverbs will still work as long as you don't change your computer, or have an iLok. When I had this problem essentially all my iLok companies thought I had changed computers. In order not to have the EA reverbs trip up loading KK or Cubase, I deleted them. I've ordered an iLok and it should come soon. I had a problem with Neutron before that it stopped working. It was too bad, because I loved Neutron. I loved it so much that I used it on every track in projects, which were then effectively unmixed when I went back to them. I'm not putting any more iZotope plugins into my tracks. I still will use RX7 and Ozone. Anyway, a lot of my iZotope stuff were purchased years ago for $99 or more and then turned up for $9.99. Easy come, easy go.

FYI, I had a bit of trouble installing Vibe. I made the mistake of making some changes in folder locations for the ujam downloader when I downloaded it. Make sure that all your Virtual Pianos are installed in the same folders. i had to delete both of them and then reinstall.

I think it's pretty clear on the site.

Please note what I added above about the way the pitch wheel and mod wheel work. That's the special sauce of these instruments. That's how you can make each performance unique and musical. Everybody wants direct MIDI out on all the ujam instruments. They have heard this over and over. I fear there may be something built into their design that make it difficult to add. But it could be that you are right and they are saving it for V2. It's never turned up on any previous ujam V2 that I'm aware of. For me I have no problem just playing into my DAW and having the performance play back. I can then revise my chords and edit the cc. There is also the drag in MIDI option which I find acceptable with the Beatmakers but not acceptable for this.

Also, there is a bundle price of $199 for both VOGUE and VIBE. But if you wait for a 50% off sale to get both, the bundle will be $149.

I'd been thinking about the Vogue Virtual Piano for a long time. I'm a pretty decent pianist, so I lean towards instruments that take my keyboard playing and add to it. So, for example, the EZKeys series is not that useful to me, because it's faster for me to play what comes to my mind (and fix the MIDI) rather than sift through a bunch of presets, like I have to do with drums. Scaler and Picked Acoustic are perfect for me, are some of the ujam basses. I just had a feeling that Vogue might be that kind of instrument. So on the last day of the ujam BF sale, I gave in and downloaded the demo, even though I had already spent too much. I played it for a few hours and I quickly decided it was going to be my favorite ujam instrument--and more importantly, my most used ujam instrument. Not only did it add to my jamming, it was inspiring. The best way I would describe it is that if you are a passable piano player, Vogue can make you sound like @Simeon AmburgeyOf course you won't be able to play everything he plays, but it will take your playing to a whole new level. Another way is that it's like the Cubase FlexPhraser, but with a better piano sound. So I would strongly recommend that you all download the free demo and see if it is something that works for you. It does work with one finger playing. The demo is free, it is fully functional and lasts a month. It am basically sold on anything ujam brings out from the Virtual Piano series. So when I heard about VIBE, I didn't have to watch the video. I've spent much less time with it than Vogue, but my impression is that this will be more useful for the kind of music I make now. It's great, but in a different way. The two instruments load in the same Virtual Piano instrument. It's a player, like the way the Usynth series works. You just choose one. One thing you can't do is use the patterns from one on the other--I hope they add that someday. I also hope they add what everybody wants from ujam instruments--direct MIDI out. Drag and drop is not anywhere as useful. EDIT: IMHO, The most important feature of these instruments is that the pitch wheel handles velocity and the modwheel makes the patterns more complex and intricate. This is where you can take a performance to a whole new level. way above mere pattern playing. And of course it's easy to revise the cc later. I wish that the Session Guitarist series worked like this. But absolutely don't trust me. Get the free demo and see for yourself.

It's hard to tell whether or not all these instruments will be free forever. They--including Vivace--are listed as such on the Sono home page. I forgot to mention Carousel. The other thing is that all the instruments have been optimized for Kontakt Player 7, as per the manuals. Quite a good deal for people looking to upgrade to full Kontakt.

I think this is the best Sonokinetic 12 Days of Christmas sale ever. There have been four freebies this year: Vivace, EMP, Sleigh Bells, and Hurdy Gurdy. I already got EMP as a freebie in a previous 12 Days, and I actually paid for Sleigh Bells once! Now I have three copies of those bells. As time goes by, I've picked up Sonokinetic stuff in their sales... there's less and less to buy!

I love Scaler, but it’s essentially abandonware. They rarely update it. Sometimes days, or even weeks go by without a free update. ?