Soundwide ( NI + Izotope + PA)

[Brian Walton]

49 minutes ago, marled said:

This sounds very complicated if I compare it to simply have a proper folder with all individual installers of several versions (as I do). Almost all installation managers have the following issues:

• You cannot revert to a previous version (only with the old Cakewalk installation manager you could do this properly!)
• You have to download on all machines again, or at least have to follow a complicated way to copy installation packages.
• Often you can't really configure the installation processes, target directories all the same, targets (vst3/vst2...) all the same, ...
• For each installation you have first to download and install the newest installation manager.

Thus I still have an aversion to all kind of installation managers!

It does have some drawbacks without question.

But once you become addicted to PA it feels like the convince out weighs some of the limitations.  At this point I would NOT want to be installing about 80 individual plugins!  Or individually updating them.  

Granted it is annoying that it can't even tell you what you already installed, inability to roll back (yes we did see some bugs in the last update for a few plugins), and the cleanup of plugins is unfortunate as there isn't a system lead uninstall process.  The new installation manager seems really infrequent for PA from what I remember, this isn't like WAVES.

[Doug Rintoul]

55 minutes ago, marled said:

This sounds very complicated if I compare it to simply have a proper folder with all individual installers of several versions (as I do). Almost all installation managers have the following issues:

• You cannot revert to a previous version (only with the old Cakewalk installation manager you could do this properly!)
• You have to download on all machines again, or at least have to follow a complicated way to copy installation packages.
• Often you can't really configure the installation processes, target directories all the same, targets (vst3/vst2...) all the same, ...
• For each installation you have first to download and install the newest installation manager.

Thus I still have an aversion to all kind of installation managers!

It is a lot less complicated than downloading individual installers and running them one by one. There is no way I would want to do that with the number of PA plugins I install and use. Really, the PA Installation Manager addresses almost all your concerns, except the last. And Installation Manager's update process makes the last concern pretty painless.

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, marled said:

I still have an aversion to all kind of installation managers!

I hear ya.

From my POV, they're surely not all created equal. I like iZotope's,  it checks for updates and downloads them, also keeping individual installers in your Downloads folder. Arturia's seems to work similarly.

IK Multimedia's Product Manager is about the worst. Since they instituted it, I don't think I've had a single experience where it worked smoothly; I still have to fire up Authorization Manager and dance around to get everything to work.

PA's is fine, but it doesn't do update checking, which is odd. Native Access would be okay if it didn't insist on spamming my drive with redundant copies of the plug-ins. I can delete the 32-bit and VST2 ones by hand, but then it complains that the installation is corrupt.

I suppose that for safety's sake I should download and archive all of the individual installers for my PA stuff, but that's getting to be a pretty long list.

[antler]

Don't forget Kilohearts when mentioning good installation managers!

[Brian Walton]

Just now, antler said:

Don't forget Kilohearts when mentioning good installation managers!

Melda seems pretty reasonable too.

[Fleer]

Arturia’s got a good one too, but I wish it was M1 native already. 

[abacab]

4 hours ago, Walter Cruz said:

NI hasn't done anything enticing in the last.... 8-10 years? Besides Massive X, now they mostly do Kontakt Libraries, right? Kinda meh.

And iZotope is not that different... All the latest updates of Ozone and RX seems to add very little upon previous versions...

I was kinda skeptic about the NI-iZotope partnership, but adding PA to the mix makes it interesting again.

It seems that the new "investors" have decided to drop an entrepreneur into the middle of the mix. It's been years since NI or iZotope have shown any real signs of innovation. They have apparently just been satisfied with their existing cash cows, and the profits trickling in each quarter. This move is probably intended to light a fire under them!

For reference, consider Apple after Steve Jobs left, and the Apple after he returned...

Edited April 12, 2022 by abacab

[locrian]

8 hours ago, Walter Cruz said:

BTW, Francisco Partners acquired Plugin Alliance and Brainworx too (I suspected this, but it was confirmed by a Dirk post).

From Dirk Facebook:

Excerpted:

New creatives do not typically spend thousands of Dollars on hardware equipment and software when they start, but they want to have access to large collections of inspirational software, samples & services. Software as a service and subscriptions (seen by many aging, established professional producers as some form of evil) are a beloved reality for Millions of up and coming creatives & creators! For a few bucks per month you can use everything you need, and once your new song is on Spotify and Apple Music, who cares about "owning" all the tools and sounds...?!

I'm glad I already own all the plugins I need/want (said the petty, aging producer who sees the world through evil-tainted glasses).  ?

[Craig N]

As much as I might like PA's installation manager to automatically update plugins, I have a folder structure based on categories rather than companies so all the installers that want everything installed to a single folder don't work well for me - I have to move the plugins to their true homes which takes a bit of doing. That includes Arturia, NI, Melda, but XLN is the worst - they refuse to work if you move the plugins to a different folder. Ugh. 

Softube's allows you to override automatic installation to download installers and run them manually so that works well enough. But PA's just works. 

[abacab]

And FYI for any Plugin Guru fans, many of the bx_oberhausen factory patches were created by John "Skippy" Lemkuhl (PluginGuru.com).

 

Edited April 12, 2022 by abacab

[mcmd]

...already had Ampeg SVT-VR, ...but ..Wow...that was a boat load of nice PA plugs for free!

[husker]

1 hour ago, abacab said:

For reference, consider Apple after Steve Jobs left, and the Apple after he returned...

I'm no Apple fan (quite an Apple and Steve Jobs "hater" actually), but no one can argue that he did not have an incalculable affect on that company and technology as a whole.

[Fleer]

Sure wish I could hate Apple. Would have saved me lots. 

[abacab]

36 minutes ago, husker said:

but no one can argue that he did not have an incalculable affect on that company and technology as a whole.

Exactly! Hopefully the new blood at NI and iZotope will shake things up in a positive direction!

[abacab]

Just a question here about Black Box HG-2...

The HG-2 manual references these presets, but I'm unable to locate them, and the documentation offers no further details... Appreciate anyone who can provide some further insight into this!

INCLUDED PRESETS
Presets 1 - 28 were contributed by Eric Racy, co-owner of Black Box Analog Design. A
platinum selling Recording and Mix Engineer, he lives and works in LA in a wide range of
genres and with clients ranging from indie bands to Grammy winning pop artists.

His clients and credits have included Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Pharrell, Tyga, Jonathan Davis,
2NE1, Troye Sivan, Alessia Cara, Kelly Clarkson, Divinity Roxx, Kelly Rowland, J. Cole,
Janelle Monáe, Mario,Missy Elliott, Zendaya, Lil Wayne, Big Sean, Busta Rhymes, Photek
and many more.

Presets 29 - 38 were contributed by Trevor Case, an industry veteran of twenty years. He
got his start composing, remixing and producing music for artists and corporate clients. His
focus over the last decade has been mastering.

Trevor has had the pleasure of working with indie artists such as Friends of Foes, Embracing
Abomination, Divinity Roxx, Flatland Sound Studio and Jesse Brown as well as mastering
projects featuring Missy Elliot, Troye Sivan, Kelly Clarkson, Mario and more.
 

 

Edited April 13, 2022 by abacab

[Marc Cormier]

In S1 I have to go to the "Load Preset" option in the plugin window; once you select it, it opens up the PA preset folder.  Select all and click Load or whatever the prompt is and it tells me "X# of presets were uploaded."  Not at my DAW machine at the moment - sorry for the lack of detail; not sure what DAW you're using.

[scook]

2 hours ago, abacab said:

The HG-2 manual references these presets, but I'm unable to locate them

All PA VST3 presets are in your "Documents\VST3 Presets\Plugin Alliance" or "%appdata%\VST3 Presets\Plugin Alliance" folders.

I believe they are all supposed to be in Documents, but I found a few in appdata so I moved the appdata folders into Documents and created a directory junction in appdata.

[Anxiousmofo]

Blackbox and Oberhausen are rocking my socks as freebies. I had most of the rest. 
 

Nervous and suspicious about this flocking of birds, but they drop nice feathers. 

Edited April 13, 2022 by Anxiousmofo

[Starship Krupa]

4 hours ago, abacab said:

Just a question here about Black Box HG-2...

The HG-2 manual references these presets, but I'm unable to locate them, and the documentation offers no further details... Appreciate anyone who can provide some further insight into this!

I've posted about this in a few Plugin Alliance threads. Except for the Unfiltered Audio stuff, which has built-in plug-in management, the way to access presets for most Plugin Alliance plug-ins is via the "VST3" menu in the plug-in UI in Cakewalk. Up there at the top, usually a bit left of center. Click on that and select "Load Preset" and it will take you to a standard Windows file dialog where you can load the presets.

It was a great day when I discovered this, because I thought all of their stuff just didn't come with any presets. Most of them do, though.

I did some research on this, and they actually use the canonical locations and format specified by Steinberg.

3 hours ago, Marc Cormier said:

In S1 I have to go to the "Load Preset" option in the plugin window; once you select it, it opens up the PA preset folder.  Select all and click Load or whatever the prompt is and it tells me "X# of presets were uploaded."

Aargh, once I discovered the preset situation with PA, and the fact that they were in the canonical locations (and format), I posted a feature request asking if Cakewalk could get this feature. I didn't know that S1 already had it because all I have is Artist 4, which of course does not allow 3rd-party VST's, with certain exceptions.

I think nobody else knew WTH I was talking about, so my feature request sank like a stone. Now I sit and watch TV and bash PA presets into the Cakewalk system the hard way, one at a time. Go to Load Preset, copy preset name from file dialog, paste into Cakewalk's preset list, save, repeat 15-30 times.

[Heath Row]

In Studio One if the PA plugins don't have any presets after installation, which happens alot with PA plugs, all you have to do is open the preset browser, right click/refresh done, from then on all your presets will be available from within the plugin window where they should be.

Edited April 13, 2022 by heath row