Please share your thoughts. The ultimate objective of Black Friday for me is....

[PavlovsCat]

To spend until I'm completely broke / my wallet is empty / my credit card is maxed? 

Here are some tactics I'm engaging in to try and curb my urge to spend more. Of course, visiting this forum is not the wisest strategy to avoid spending more, but I enjoy it and am always eager to find a freebie or something under $15 USD, but anyway: 

-Searching for free synth presets. I've recently been searching for and finding some excellent Vital presets.  This free synth sounds better to me than a bunch of my paid soft synths. 

- Organizing all of my sampled instruments together. A while ago @Reid Rosefelt made a post and YouTube video that made a GREAT point. Many of us (certainly me) have GAS and accumulate so many sample libraries and plugins, we literally get to the point where we don't even know all of the sounds we have. Literally. There are tons of presets I've heard this week of sample libraries and synths that I own that I never heard before -- and I found some of them absolutely inspiring. In some cases,  and I've seen people make jokes about this, I have bought the same plugin or sample library twice. Just another good reason it's incredibly useful to organize and group all of the plugins you have by important characteristics. For example, largely inspired by Reid's video, I've created project files containing all of my favorite upright pianos, grand pianos, felt pianos, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, electric basses, glockenspiels, organs, acoustic drum kits, etc. organizing them according to their characteristics (e.g., ambient, character pianos, etc.). I was inspired to do this from a post in this forum made a while back by. 

- Go out for a little bit. I have to run some errands with my teenage son. That's also a good diversionary tactic!

Please share your suggestions for dealing with not going for broke on the Black Friday weekend. 

 

[Grem]

I have been thinking about the BF for a few weeks now. I have so much, but recently got into the Kontak world and don't have very much in the way of libs for it, other than a few third party libs and the ones that came with Kontak ( all all the free Kontrol stuff.) So I thought I would be having a fit trying to decide what to buy. But reading the posts here by Larry and others, I ain't seeing much that's peaking my interest.

I just came into the studio and sat with a cup of coffee to see what was going on, and so I am after a few "No-Brainer" deals!!

Time now to browse the forum.

[Larry Shelby]

1 minute ago, Grem said:

I have been thinking about the BF for a few weeks now. I have so much, but recently got into the Kontak world and don't have very much in the way of libs for it, other than a few third party libs and the ones that came with Kontak ( all all the free Kontrol stuff.) So I thought I would be having a fit trying to decide what to buy. But reading the posts here by Larry and others, I ain't seeing much that's peaking my interest.

I just came into the studio and sat with a cup of coffee to see what was going on, and so I am after a few "No-Brainer" deals!!

Time now to browse the forum.

You might want to get the Komplete Select Half Off offer...it would be $99
and includes several decent Kontakt instruments and a LOT more

Use codeSELECT21 

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/bundles/komplete-13-select/pricing/

[kitekrazy1]

Looking at the title I really can't share my thoughts since I have my head up my *****.

[PavlovsCat]

Also, this says more about me than it does about Waves: I visited Waves broken website several times today before I finally got their freebie that I didn't even find remotely like something I would ever use.

I watched their YouTube video for their new plugin while their site was down and found I had zero interest in the effect. And yet, I still went back to get it. thinking, well, maybe there's some use I'll have for it that I just don't realize at this moment. This is how the mind of a sample and plugin hoarder works. Someone really needs to do a show on sample/plugin/data hoarders where just about every user of this forum could be on it and Larry -- our Walter White (yeah, I've used that one before,  but it's true) would be seen in between our interviews laughing. From now on I'm referring to Larry as Heisenberg (and we're the junkies).  

Edited November 27, 2021 by PavlovsCat

[PavlovsCat]

Another thing that has saved me A LOT of money? Sites with a feature that tells me "you already own this." That's saved me hundreds of dollars. Anyone else with me on that one? 

[Grem]

58 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

I have my head up my *****.

Why would you do that!!?? : )

[Promidi]

........To find that elusive "talent" plugin...

[Fleer]

… to focus on what I really need. 

[Grem]

6 minutes ago, Fleer said:

… to focus on what I really need. 

That's hard to do!

Looking like I want a lot of stuff. But may only get what is the most bang-for-the-buck!!

[Bapu]

19 minutes ago, Fleer said:

… to focus on what I really need. 

Lightweight ? 

[Marc Cormier]

2 hours ago, Fleer said:

… to focus on what I really need. 

...and focus on what I already have.

...and maybe a little of what I want.

[Doug Rintoul]

2 hours ago, Fleer said:

… to focus on what I really need. 

Of course, I need everything.

[Doug Rintoul]

I am waiting for the Black Saturday deals, known in other circles as Black Sabbath.

Edited November 27, 2021 by Doug Rintoul

[Starise]

I am glad to see plug in and instrument makers putting their wares up on BF. Some makers have sales all the time and others almost never have sales. I am at that place now where I am in no hurry to get anything. I do look though and if I see something I think I will use I'll especially look at the BF sales because for SOME makers it's the best deal you're going to get all year for their products or they are updating their stuff and offering a nice deal on a soon to be phased out generation of the product which gives us all the opportunity to buy into a product right before the next revision at a better price than we would have paid say six months ago. 

After awhile I think we know the makers who will have sales all year, so unless what they offer is way over the top I probably don't look very close at them. They will surely have another sale next month and the month after that etc. For items under 100.00 offering 20 or 30% off yeah its a good deal if I use it. If I won't use it and suddenly find myself in need of it I will just spend the extra 20% later in the year to buy it, that is after I've checked all around for coupon codes for it.

For the higher priced things, say if a thing is 500.00 - Ok they trim a buck off of it to make it seem like much less 499.00....even so, a 30% discount is amounting to some serious pocket change for anything 500.00 and over. Yes retail price is often exaggerated , so a product retailing at 5 bills might only sell at 375.00 making a 30% discount at 499.00 more narrow if we look at the actual selling prices of the item.

Some items though almost NEVER or seldom go lower and wouldn't you know, they are often some of the most sought after items. Take Artura instruments and plugins for example- They are commanding fairly higher prices as compared to some of the competition. I mean, I have nice low priced tines in my  AIR library that when put into a mix you would not know if it's Arturia or a cheap Air instrument......so I'm not sure why some of their stuff is so sought after right now ?

In the end value is in the eye of the beholder ( and buyer). Many of these manufacturers have gained more visibility over the years. Doesn't necessarily mean they have a better product. Sometimes they DO have a better product. Sought after by the pros. They know it and charge accordingly. Fabfilter is one such example. 

Melda's business model seems to be geared more to the working studio since they offer a rather steep price point for their total packages. Yeah we will buy one or two plugins but not 2500.00 dollars worth to record our girlfriend singing in the extra bedroom studio. The exchange of course is lifetime free updates, something Waves doesn't offer.

 

 

[abacab]

Very humorous, and enlightening regarding the need for accumulating endless libraries... ?

 

Edited November 27, 2021 by abacab

[Byron Dickens]

The ultimate objective of Black Friday for me is....

 

Survival.

[bitflipper]

8 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Another thing that has saved me A LOT of money? Sites with a feature that tells me "you already own this." That's saved me hundreds of dollars. Anyone else with me on that one? 

Amen, brother.

I recently bought a plugin that I already owned and have never used. Still haven't used it.

This will likely be the third Black Friday in a row where I haven't bought anything. I just can't think of anything I really need, regardless of price. That includes both software and hardware.

Too bad you can't buy motivation. I'd pay full price for that. Wisdom, though, I'd wait for a sale.

[Starship Krupa]

10 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

well, maybe there's some use I'll have for it that I just don't realize at this moment.

That's why I download any creative/sound design freebie. I am a hoarder of physical objects, too, my other interests/professions include audio electronics repair and woodworking, so I have the requisite collection of tools, parts, and scraps.

With me at least, the "use I'll have for it that I just don't realize at this moment" comes true often enough to reinforce my behavior. This is, of course, both good and bad. Good because hey, I have a useful tool or I happened to have something a friend needed, or I spent some time puttering around with a plug-in and it opened new possibilities. Bad because it reinforces hoarding behavior. I suspect that if you're into sound design (as I am), you check out every oddball that comes along. I have almost every product in Glitchmachines', Freakshow's and Unfiltered Audio's lines due to this. These companies' FX are ones where I don't think people read the descriptions and think "yes, this is precisely what I need." They're too weird and deep to describe verbally (other than "you can use this to warp sounds past all recognition"). I just snag everything they come out with when it drops it to $10 or less.

My musical goals and interests and skills are always changing and evolving. Every so often I hit the plug-in browser and go through the forgotten oddballs to see if they might be of current interest. I also get rid of the ones that have sat too long without finding a use.

As for strategies, I have so much stuff already that just browsing through it satisfies my desires to mess with something novel. I've defined categories where I'm already satisfied (compressors, EQ's, delays, basic modulators, limiters, ROMplers, synthesizers). Patch collections for synths I already own are most useful.

The things I'm going to buy this year are (at long last) Chromaphone 3 for $89, which is probably the most money I've ever paid for a single plug-in, Glitchmachines Tactic (seems to be the Glitchmachines' Breaktweaker, a sample sequencer with special processing) for $5, and a set of new patches for Vacuum Pro for $5.99. Coming in at just a penny under $100.

[sarine]

Objective was to not buy anything. In the last moment I crumbled and ordered a battery for a wireless Xbox 360 controller.