Plugin Boutique 5 for $5 Holiday Bundle

[Larry Shelby]

For a very limited time only, treat yourself to five of Plugin Boutique's finest effects and instrument plugins on offer at Plugin Boutique, for just £5 / $5. The bundle includes powerful noise shaping from denise Audio's Noize Retro, lush and sweeping soundscapes from MNTRA Instruments' Orakle, instant mastering compression from Audiority's PolyComp, complete mixing tools from SoundSpot's Oracle, and small but mighty creative delays from W.A Production's SphereDelay.

This bundle is exclusive to Plugin Boutique and available for a limited time only.
$5

https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/81-Bundle/89-Complete-Collection/8523-5-Plugins-for-5-5-5-Holiday-Bundle

[PavlovsCat]

Okay, five bucks just for MNTRA's Orakle has my attention. I don't know if I have any use for that sound library, but there is something fascinating about MNTRA's libraries and for that price, I'll get it just to hit keys and be fascinated by the sound. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Larry. 

[Brian Walton]

48 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Okay, five bucks just for MNTRA's Orakle has my attention. I don't know if I have any use for that sound library, but there is something fascinating about MNTRA's libraries and for that price, I'll get it just to hit keys and be fascinated by the sound. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Larry. 

Yep, def interested in this one.  The question is can I hold out until Jan 4th when they likely release a new freebie?  

 

As this should last til Jan 9th

 

I've got all the current freebies:

[PavlovsCat]

4 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

Yep, def interested in this one.  The question is can I hold out until Jan 4th when they likely release a new freebie?  

 

As this should last til Jan 9th

 

I've got all the current freebies:

Obviously, I don't know you, Brian, but you're in the deals forum -- and even more you posted about this deal in the deals forum, so can you hold out until Jan 4? My guess would be no. If we had self control we wouldn't be at this forum so often!

[Reid Rosefelt]

For those of you who are new to Mntra, you should know that they always have a freebie named RASA, which is kind of a sampler.  But until 1/15 they are releasing their new library, FRCTURE, as a freebie.  I like that one much more than RASA.  (Maybe Larry already mentioned this, but it's relevant to this thread, I think)

https://www.mntra.io/frcture

I'm going to pick this deal up, but two things I would say about Mntra. 

One, they make really interesting instruments, but the presets only come alive when you mess around with the X,Y, and Z parameters.  You can of course drag the interface around with your mouse, but I advise mapping the three to a MIDI controller in settings.  Three knobs or something with MPE is even better. 

Two, the Mndala engine is not the greatest IMHO.  It would be so much better if these were kontakt instruments.   And you have to jump through a few hoops to get the stuff you need to get up and running.   I have experienced a lot of bugs.  I eventually discovered that you have to wait a while when you change patches or you'll crash it.   I've never been able to switch an instance or close an instance in Unify--it crashes it every time. (Anybody who knows the super stable Unify knows this is very unusual)  It crashed Cubase too.   Of course, maybe you'll have better luck than me, or maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not closing any instances from now on.

What has your experience been like with the Mndala Engine?

[PavlovsCat]

2 minutes ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

For those of you who are new to Mntra, you should know that they always have a freebie named RASA, which is kind of a sampler.  But until 1/15 they are releasing their new library, FRCTURE, as a freebie.  I like that one much more than RASA.  (Maybe Larry already mentioned this, but it's relevant to this thread, I think)

https://www.mntra.io/frcture

I'm going to pick this deal up, but two things I would say about Mntra. 

One, they make really interesting instruments, but the presets only come alive when you mess around with the X,Y, and Z parameters.  You can of course drag the interface around with your mouse, but I advise mapping the three to a MIDI controller in settings.  Three knobs or something with MPE is even better. 

Two, the Mndala engine is not the greatest IMHO.  It would be so much better if these were kontakt instruments.   And you have to jump through a few hoops to get the stuff you need to get up and running.   I have experienced a lot of bugs.  I eventually discovered that you have to wait a while when you change patches or you'll crash it.   I've never been able to switch an instance or close an instance in Unify--it crashes it every time. (Anybody who knows the super stable Unify knows this is very unusual)  It crashed Cubase too.   Of course, maybe you'll have better luck than me, or maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not closing any instances from now on.

What has your experience been like with the Mndala Engine?

I agree with you, their plugin is not very good and KONTAKT would be incredibly better. But there is something fascinating to me about their instruments. I'm not even sure I can use them in my music, but I just kind of dig them and for 5 bucks, why the heck not? 

[Larry Shelby]

I can't get the Interface to show in the Mndla Player.  No matter what instrument I load it's just a 
Black screen with the keyboard keys!  The instruments play fine...you just can see the inteface

Edited December 28, 2021 by cclarry

[Reid Rosefelt]

On 12/26/2021 at 5:01 PM, PavlovsCat said:

I agree with you, their plugin is not very good and KONTAKT would be incredibly better. But there is something fascinating to me about their instruments. I'm not even sure I can use them in my music, but I just kind of dig them and for 5 bucks, why the heck not? 

Yes, I agree completely.  Their instruments are fascinating and make me want to explore them.  They are very deep.   I think they could work well with ambient music. For me they are worth the trouble, but the developer should try to work out some of the bugs.  I'm going to write them.  If they can update Mndala and make it function properly, I would probably buy more stuff.

On 12/26/2021 at 5:37 PM, cclarry said:

I can't get the Interface to show in the Mdnla Player.  No matter what instrument I load it's just a 
Black screen with the keyboard keys!  The instruments play fine...you just can see the inteface

Wow!  You're having even more trouble than me!  Keep trying, because the interfaces are great.  I uninstalled Mndala and installed it again.  The thing that's very clumsy about it is how long it takes to load samples. 

Edited December 28, 2021 by Reid Rosefelt

[PavlovsCat]

You guys may totally disagree with me -- that's okay -- but this situation with the really poorly done plugin epitomizes why I wish sample developers wouldn't also try to create their own plugins. I've worked in the digital realm for more than 20 years at a senior level and worked with brilliant user experience and user interface designers and had the opportunity to have budgets in the ten million plus range where you can afford great agencies and hire really talented people with that expertise. When I see what really are amateur level plugin developers looking to compete against experts at NI and other firms, by launching their own proprietary plugins, it can be really frustrating and cause me to stop buying from a developer. There's more than one case of my doing that. And I've communicated with the developers, but it's often an ego thing and not user centric. Having another plugin to learn, update and maintain is a hassle for the user, and it's even worse when it's some buggy, poorly designed user interface done by someone who has no experience in user interface design or user experience. I really usually just opt-out when a small dev makes their own plugin these days. I've gotten to know KONTAKT and really like it and don't want to install and maintain a bunch of other sample players from small devs. Even Orchestra Tools user interface design is incredibly poor -- as is their website design. It took me  a year to realize that they sell the component parts of their libraries-- something you only figure out after you unintuitively click around and accidentally stumble on it,  it has completely kept me from spending any money on their libraries. On the flipside, we have the minimalist approach of Spitfire's interface -- which isn't my favorite, but I love its simplicity. There's no way for someone even marginally familiar with sample players to not understand that interface almost immediately. 

[Fleer]

And don’t forget EastWest Opus. To put it neutrally: a dream come true. But we had been dreaming for quite a long time

[antler]

22 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Even Orchestra Tools user interface design is incredibly poor -- as is their website design.

When I was trying to find out more about their libraries recently, the thing that stood out as being quite annoying was the lack of middle-clickability (for those that don't know, middle/wheel clicking a link usually opens it in a new tab). I was also quite surprised to read that despite releasing their brand new Metropolis Ark Sine bundle, there were bugs in there that were (according to a forum post) around two years old [playing three notes in a choir resulted in different syllables on each note].

[Reid Rosefelt]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

You guys may totally disagree with me -- that's okay -- but this situation with the really poorly done plugin epitomizes why I wish sample developers wouldn't also try to create their own plugins.

It's hard to think of many examples where it works well.  But I understand why people want to get out from the control of NI.   And everybody who is frustrated by buying a library and having to wait for the developer to buy more licenses from NI....

I think UVI is fine, as is the Gorilla Engine that ujam uses (and Virharmonic is moving over to).

It's better I think for companies just to release plugins that don't need to reside in engines. Whatever AmpleSound does seems to work okay. 

But oh boy...  Engine, Play, SINE, Spitfire's player,  I love HALion, but it does not have an easy interface. 

It would be so nice if Kontakt was open source and everybody could build libraries for the free player it without having to pay NI.

 

[abacab]

28 minutes ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

It would be so nice if Kontakt was open source and everybody could build libraries for the free player it without having to pay NI.

Great idea! ?

[PavlovsCat]

Wow, I made my post about liking MNDALA after trying it one time and finding it really cool. Now I just went back a second time and it not only can't remember where to locate samples, but when I show it, it forgets it and doesn't make a sound. I uninstalled it -- and it is a mess when it uninstalls leaving pieces behind you have to manually clean up. I reinstalled it and it still, I need to point it to the samples folder (I guess this is what happens when you don't use its default locations) and it forgets the paths, even though the patch names still show up in the UI but no sounds, because it can't locate the samples. A dialogue pops up asking you to relocate the samples. After you do, it tells you that you may have to restart the plugin to hear the sounds, but that has no effect and it forgets the path you set and you go through an endless, frustrating cycle that ends in you screaming into the abyss and cursing the developer and their wretched, poorly executed sample player (okay, I'm kidding mostly), but it's really obvious that this developer didn't take this plugin through any serious usability testing or even adequate beta testing. This epitomizes why sample developers shouldn't be amateur plugin developers who expect us to pay for what should be commercial level products. This thing isn't even close to ready for prime time.  Now even 5 bucks is too much to ask for this, at least in my experience. 

Edited December 27, 2021 by PavlovsCat

[Reid Rosefelt]

On 12/27/2021 at 7:00 AM, PavlovsCat said:

 I reinstalled it and it still, I need to point it to the samples folder (I guess this is what happens when you don't use its default locations) and it forgets the paths, even though the patch names still show up in the UI but no sounds, because it can't locate the samples. A dialogue pops up asking you to relocate the samples.

Default locations?  ?   According to Mntra, anyplace you put them is fine.

After writing about my issues with the Mndala engine, I felt bad because I like to support small developers, and I truly love the Mntra instruments.  I searched on VI:Control and found this thread where people talk about using Mndala with no issues.  Also, they say the customer support is first-rate.

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/introducing-mntra-instruments-vst-au-sound-sculptures-40-off-until-august-16th.112905/

There is a lot of info in here about how to use the instruments and even a link to a manual. 

So I will engage with customer support and see if they can help me. I've already got it working a lot better.  But I hope I can get my problems sorted out, because I may take advantage of this sale. One good thing about the long VI:Control thread is I can find out what libraries people like. 

Edited December 28, 2021 by Reid Rosefelt

[PavlovsCat]

2 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

Default locations?  ?   According to Mntra, anyplace you put them is fine.

After writing about my issues with the Mndala engine, I felt bad because I like to support small developers, and I truly love the Mntra instruments.  I searched on VI:Control and found this thread where people talk about using Mndala with no issues.  Also, they say the customer support is first-rate.

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/introducing-mntra-instruments-vst-au-sound-sculptures-40-off-until-august-16th.112905/

There is a lot of info in here about how to use the instruments and even a link to a manual. 

So I will engage with customer support and see if they can help me. I've already got it working a lot better.  But I hope I can get my problems sorted out, because I may take advantage of this sale. One good thing about the long VI:Control thread is I can find out what libraries people like. 

Okay, Reid, maybe I'll contact them this week -- shoot them an email and see if they can help me resolve the issue. I just found the plugin frustrating and as I wrote earlier, I'm getting tired of small sample devs who really don't have the depth of experience, trying to be plugin developers and creating poor plugins instead of focusing on sample libraries and using a solid sampler that has a large installed base. It's not customer centric. But yes, I also like small developers. I've given around two dozen consulting advice over the years -- a good deal of free or exchange for them giving product free or at reduced costs to forum members I identified as struggling financially.  

[Reid Rosefelt]

Anybody who's decided to get this because of ORAKL, get it now.  I'm waiting for my serial.

[PavlovsCat]

I downloaded an updated Mndala player. The sample player played a patch and then crashed. I'm in Cakewalk, This absolutely is not ready for prime time regardless of excuses. I put in a ticket with the developer, but it's definitely not a good early experience, and Reid, whether you state something nice about the developer or not, you started with issues too. If a developer is going to release a commercial software product, they really need to get things ironed out better than this. This doesn't appear to be a product that was well designed and well tested. 

Edited December 28, 2021 by PavlovsCat

[Brian Walton]

On 12/24/2021 at 7:32 PM, PavlovsCat said:

Obviously, I don't know you, Brian, but you're in the deals forum -- and even more you posted about this deal in the deals forum, so can you hold out until Jan 4? My guess would be no. If we had self control we wouldn't be at this forum so often!

 

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

I downloaded an updated Mndala player. The sample player played a patch and then crashed. I'm in Cakewalk, This absolutely is not ready for prime time regardless of excuses. I put in a ticket with the developer, but it's definitely not a good early experience, and Reid, whether you state something nice about the developer or not, you started with issues too. If a developer is going to release a commercial software product, they really need to get things ironed out better than this. This doesn't appear to be a product that was well designed and well tested. 

This thread is helping me with the Jan 4th target of aquisition date (if at all).    ?

[PavlovsCat]

On 12/28/2021 at 6:00 PM, Brian Walton said:

 

This thread is helping me with the Jan 4th target of aquisition date (if at all).    ?

So far,  no response from the developer. After I submitted my support request, I noticed a link to a YouTube review of the plugin. You know the plugin has serious problems when an aspiring YouTube influencer hawking the plugin -- um doing what influencers call a review (SPOILER: they're really salespeople) -- streams himself using the plugin and it has major problems. At that point,  the developer calls on the phone and acknowledges that he can't solve the problem then and there and that the plugin has a number of known bugs.  Hopefully,  the developer will get things worked out, but it really shouldn't have been released in its current state. 

Edited December 30, 2021 by PavlovsCat