KV331 Synthmaster One and Synthmaster 2 expansions up to 60% off on already reduced prices

[audioschmaudio]

https://www.synthmaster.com/index.aspx

Currently all Synthmaster expansions are reduced to $6. Regardless if the regular price of the expansion pack is $19 or $39.

On top of that you get 50% off if you buy five and use the code EXP5PACK or 60% off if you buy ten and apply the code EXP10PACK. And you get the SynthMaster 2 Player for free with those offers too, so you don't even need to own Synthmaster 2 to use its expansions. The player already comes with 2000 factory presets.

Keep in mind that some expansion packs have more presets than others, so you might want to take that into consideration when selecting the expansion packs. It's usually the ones with a higher regular price that have 100+ presets. Since they're all $6 now, those are even a better bargain, if you like the presets of that expansion, that is.

You can also buy the bundle, of course, but it wouldn't even be that much cheaper per expansion: The Synthmaster 2 expansion bundle has 38 expansions for $89, that makes it $2.34 per pack, whereas if you buy 10 you get them for $24 which is $2.4 per pack.
 

The synths themselves are also on sale, but I've seen better prices for them. But $24 for 10 expansions - I believe that's rare.

[Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann]

The advantage of the full bundle is that it includes future expansions

[jngnz]

Are they any better than the factory presets? I found like maybe 7 usable ones out of 2000 or so.

[audioschmaudio]

2 hours ago, Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann said:

The advantage of the full bundle is that it includes future expansions

Good to know. I wasn't aware of that. I didn't see that information on their page.

However, for people who don't want to spend $89 on presets, I think it's a nice option to get 10 packs for $24.
Also, with Synthmaster 3 coming soon they might not create a lot of new expansions for Synthmaster 2 in the future.

[audioschmaudio]

2 hours ago, jngnz said:

Are they any better than the factory presets? I found like maybe 7 usable ones out of 2000 or so.

I can't answer that question but I would like to use it as an opportunity to praise Arturia's feature that allows you to test expansions that you don't even own yet from inside your DAW by going to "Store" and clicking on any expansion that you're interested in. I just recently discovered it and it blew my mind. I wish other synths offered that too. Hearing a preset as a single note like in Synthmaster's preset browser that they offer on their website doesn't give you a real impression of the preset compared to being able to test it with your own keyboard or MIDI tracks.

[Fleer]

SynthMaster 3 should be out this year. 

[audioschmaudio]

Crazy. I just realized that as an owner of Synthmaster 1 + 2 I could use the Upgrade to the Everything Bundle for $99 and with the coupon code YMLP10OFF I could even reduce it to $79.20.

Holymoly. $79.20 for 52 expansions plus an upcoming new version of the synth and apparently also all future expansions, that's not bad, I would say.

Edited August 5, 2023 by audioschmaudio

[Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann]

On 8/4/2023 at 5:18 AM, jngnz said:

Are they any better than the factory presets? I found like maybe 7 usable ones out of 2000 or so.

As should be expected, it depends on the designer and what you're looking for. If it's good vintage sounds for emulating synth wizards of years past, Nori Ubukata's Dawn of Electronic Music series does have plenty of nice sounds. I also like Rob Lee's expansions.

[audioschmaudio]

Now that I have the Everything Bundle I've only tested a tiny fraction of all the new presets, but so far I like quite a lot of the presets. I added almost every preset from Bluffmunkey's expansions for Synthmaster 1 to my favs. Big Tone's Analog Basics 1 and 2 for Synthmaster 2 has plenty of gems.

2 hours ago, Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann said:

As should be expected, it depends on the designer and what you're looking for.

So true.
The demo tracks and descriptions give quite a good impression of the expansions, since they're only made of those presets, except for the drums usually. What I like about the expansion demo tracks that they have on Soundcloud is that quite a lot of them have the names of the presets that were used in the track comments, assigned to the track timeline where they're used.

On 8/4/2023 at 11:18 AM, jngnz said:

Are they any better than the factory presets? I found like maybe 7 usable ones out of 2000 or so.

That's astonishingly little. Have you really tested all presets?  After having read what you wrote I had another look at the factory presets and actually found quite a lot usable.

There's a Soundcloud playlist and a YouTube playlist with demos of the factory presets that they've made for Synthmaster 2, with tracks demonstrating their use across various genres:

Expansion playlist on Soundcloud for Synthmaster 2:

Expansion playlist on Soundcloud for Synthmaster 1: 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2023 by audioschmaudio