What have you got your eye on?

[paulo]

No plug-ins that I'm currently aware of, but mebbe this....

Edited September 29, 2019 by paulo

[lawajava]

This one I have had my eye on, and did grab it.  But if you haven't seen the intro clip on it, it might be interesting to you:

http://www.cableguys.com/shaperbox.html

[backwoods]

waiting for liquidsonics black friday deals. will get any good intro deals in the meantime...

[Wibbles]

The only plugin I've got my eye on is Kylie (no VST adaptor required). The software will still run on my ageing mainframe.

 

[Mesh]

On ‎9‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 12:21 PM, ZincT said:

Waiting for Captain Plugins and Sundog to go on sale (Black Friday maybe?). 

Ozone 9 Advanced.

Also Revalver and Helix Native (if I win the lottery).

We're on a very similar path and those 3 are on top of my list as well. I haven't looked into Revalver, but I believe SoundWise likes it a lot. So, this might be another one for my (growing) list.

Oh yeah, also looking for talent and inspiration...

 

[Kurre]

I tried both chrome and firefox to register an account at plugin-boutique. Never got it to work, no response mail.

It has to be my guardian angel looking after me. It knows of my bad economy. ?

[Zo]

3 hours ago, Kurre said:

I tried both chrome and firefox to register an account at plugin-boutique. Never got it to work, no response mail.

It has to be my guardian angel looking after me. It knows of my bad economy. ?

Run Kurre , run !!

[Fleer]

And don’t look back. Don’t. 

[Zo]

13 minutes ago, Fleer said:

And don’t look back. Don’t. 

I would say close your eyes  , this might comes from side or front !!!

[antler]

I was going to say Output Portal, but then I had a look at their other instruments/effects. Bad mistake: I'm now GAS-ing after the complete bundle. It's already hugely discounted against buying them separately so I don't really see it being in a sale, but who knows?

[Zo]

5 minutes ago, antler said:

I was going to say Output Portal, but then I had a look at their other instruments/effects. Bad mistake: I'm now GAS-ing after the complete bundle. It's already hugely discounted against buying them separately so I don't really see it being in a sale, but who knows?

For the pirce of the bundel i would go omnisphere or komplete ultimate perosnally 

[Fleer]

I know the feeling. 
I even love Movement. 
Go figure. 

[Zo]

1 minute ago, Fleer said:

I know the feeling. 
I even love Movement. 
Go figure. 

i hate that we can only auth in 2 comps only , is supsect portal to be the same !

 

[sarine]

On 9/29/2019 at 4:46 AM, Gswitz said:

Have you checked out MDrummer? Pretty cool. Takes a sec to get everything downloaded and working, but worth investigating if you haven't.

Yes indeed, it was one of the plugins I got before the upgrade. It's part of my standard toolset now, and I dig it very much. Initially it felt bizarre, but now I find it very convenient. It's not as quick to get off the ground as Nerve, and doing simple stutter effects isn't as straight-forward (AFAIK), but for more complex, intention-driven rhythmic composition it is superior to anything else I've tried. It's probably not a coincidence as I understand that Mr. Melda actually plays [actual] drums.

I realize that Melda may not be for everyone, for various reasons. However I would encourage anyone to give Melda a chance in good faith and without prejudice.

I got reasonably lucky with second-hand purchases, someone using my singly shared referral code in a most generous single purchase, the upgrade paths and coinciding sales, and was able to get to MCompleteBundle relatively cheap.

The funny thing is, after the fact I've sold almost every other plugin from the dozen different vendors that Melda rendered redundant, and even after the inflated second-hand prices applied to my sold stuff I didn't just recoup some costs - I didn't even barely roughly break even - I actually made more money from selling the stuff I no longer need, than I spent on getting from no Melda to all Melda since the dawn of history til the end.

Not only that, but every plugin has the same idiomatic functionalities, layout and matroshka-like mutual containment possibilities, so instead of feeling constantly disoriented by the various different GUI's from different vendors (sometimes from the same vendor!!), when I'm using Melda's "tool framework" I feel like my mind is set on achieving tasks instead of contemplating what this particular skeuomorphic analog emulating compressor tastes like on the sides of my tongue, and does it smell more like the compressed cushion of that couch from the 80's garage band space where the alcoholic lead guitarist chain-smokes Camels, in contrast to that other plugin with the smell of airborne carbon from the wings of a butterfly that died of radiation burns at Chernobyl while landing on a water lily.

As powerful as the arousal of imagination and the psychoacoustic effect of the more visually "exciting" GUI's may be, I've found that enjoying myself and getting shit done have little if any correlation.

The truth - and this is My Truth - is that more often than not, being productive and having fun are mutually exclusive. Finding a healthy balance between the two, i.e. "sequencing" them in time in a way that syncs with other rhythms of your being, while keeping them compartmentalized but cross-pollinating, seems quintessential to keeping oneself in motion, i.e. getting good shit done. But I never say, after my most productive sessions; "Now that was fun!"  - but rather something along the lines of "Phew. Ain't I glad all that dirty work got done." Then I'll feel good about it afterwards. If I'm just jamming, "tasting", "smelling", improvising, being creative, experimental, not getting shit done... I'll feel good in the moment, then afterwards I'll feel neutral, and the rational thought goes "That was fun and useless." YMMV and so on.

This is not passing judgement on what's more important; having fun or getting shit done. Those are just labels. What is important is how you think and feel about the process, and I realize that ambiguity is a tell-sign of being close to my local optimum, a process which involves alternating between tedious work and hedonism. I feel only that which must be created through pain may give justification to that which gives pleasure. But hey, I'm an average westerner from the Christian Europe, what can I expect?

So just to recap; Since I accepted Melda as the one true God, I have more money, more time, more fun, and I'm more productive. I also sin less. But enough propaganda, I promise. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, and take into consideration that it's a product of mixed feelings of disappointment in the whole audio software industry and its intertwining of un(or anti-)realistic marketing rhetoric, offering form over function, selling people's own creativity and imagination back to them by fooling them to think the magic comes from their factory packaged in a box with a price tag, and disappointment in myself for having chased the dragon for as long as I did buying into that garbage, and feelings of delight from having - after many gimmicky and self-gratifying digressions - [re]discovered my workflow and focus.

To anyone who actually read this ramble: Get back to work. And pay your tenths.

[mibby]

3 hours ago, sarine said:

It's probably not a coincidence as I understand that Mr. Melda actually plays [actual] drums.

Indeed!  https://bitosti.bandcamp.com/releases

Great rant.  Admittedly, I'm a Melda neophyte and still learning the plugins I have. But the more I use them, the more I appreciate how deep these things go.  I am still at the "click through the presets then tweak" stage though...

As @sarine alluded to, Melda is a programmer.  By that I mean, he re-uses programming objects throughout his plugins. So once you figure out his "method" of doing things, it's lather rinse repeat.  i.e. You can generally apply it to the other plugins.  Lot's of the plugin pieces are reused.  

Here's another aspect that I rarely see mentioned. 

https://www.meldaproduction.com/technology/plugin-kernel

BTW, my crappy little i3 CPU can run Melda plugins just fine.

With all of that said, if anyone wants to wade into the Melda universe because of @sarine's expose, here is my 20% Off Referral Code: MELDA2490257  Apply it at checkout.  (I get a 10% credit too.  Or grab a friend's code and give him the credits.) 

Edited October 1, 2019 by mibby

[Jesse Screed]

I did read it, the whole way.

I found it interesting that you can say

21 hours ago, sarine said:

getting shit done

Melda must be as good as you say!

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Jesse Screed

[Fleer]

Dang. Dang. Dang. 

[sarine]

1 hour ago, Jesse Screed said:

Melda must be as good as you say!

It is what it is.

Although the whole post went off on a tangent, even the tangential stuff relates to Melda, and amusingly everything also relates to the topic of the thread itself.

That said, in my case getting shit done of course isn't attributable to Melda alone, but discipline first and foremost. Melda's stuff (and many other things, for the record) just perfectly complements the kind of work ethic in which the "fun" and "inspiration" are the slaves and getting shit done is their master. That's not to say I'm not inspired by and having fun with Melda's tools, but when after all the doodling the big picture starts to emerge and suddenly I know exactly where the project is going to go, i.e. there's a vast amount of focused work ahead (and very little "fun"), then I find solace in knowing that Melda will enable me to seamlessly switch into that mode and keep my racing thoughts on rails. Put it this way... Melda is an environment where I like to be, to do most of the things I like to do in audio, the way I do them best.

I could mention a bunch of other individual tools, even vendors, that I would recommend for specific tasks. But none of them are as total about creating an entire internally highly cohesive workshop environment around the processes as Melda.

[sarine]

I want to point out something else that is super important, and on topic, kind of.

I've realized the quest for branded, packaged inspiration hasn't increased my creativity. The more I hoarded different plugins and sounds, the more it distracted me from making music. Sure, I've been inspired, and I'm not arguing that the million billion Kontakt libraries out there don't have some aesthetic and sense-tickling sound material in them that can be put to very practical use too.

But it really is mostly snake oil if you're a hobbyist, and if you're a professional then you're not hoarding and looking for inspiration - you already know what you're doing and what you might want to be doing (or trying to do), and you can't afford to waste time and money on the silly activity of trying to acquire every single sound-emitting digital apparatus on offer out there. The software vendors have realized the hobbyist segment is a gold mine because they don't know what they're doing, and they don't know what they want, so they can sell us anything with enough marketing effort, even the same thing over and over again.

I'm arguing that all this might not actually be helping you in the way you think it is, and that pretty much the opposite is true. I say this because I've realized that - in my case at least - inspiration is not a thing that "comes to you", it's not a thing you must wait for, comes and goes on its own whim, or is purely sensual or emotional in nature. One of the most important realizations I've had in my creative endeavors was that inspiration can be labored, and I think realistically you can't be a professional in the creative industry if you can't beat yourself to inspiration when needed, by all means necessary. The most significant function of all these distractions around us that pretend to be our muse, is actually just diversion from the types of activity that would allow us to develop the habits, discipline, focus and mindset that are pre-requisites for the ability to conjure up inspiration and creativity by will. Those things, which involve a lot of not having fun, are the most solid foundation for injecting into the fun any value above and beyond the hedonistic sensations in the moment, and personal fulfillment - but they also cultivate those solitary aspects of enjoying art/creativity, by heightening the sense of continuity and connectedness between your own individual creative experiences, by virtue of the discipline and focus allowing the produce of your imagination to have more of a narrative.

You know how in some disciplines the artists/craftsmen dedicate a certain month of the year to specific techniques or mediums, the same could benefit a computer musician. For example, go a full month using nothing but single primitive waveform oscillators in your music, plus just one model of each type of processor, and use only raw, unprocessed samples to overlay with them. Dedicate the whole month to learning how to express your finest emotions using the most primitive elements, and master using the tools you have. Not only would it make you a better producer technically, it might help find or cultivate your style, and in the end you would have a clearer picture of what you actually want.

[Mánibranðr Studios]

I have a rule for these things, which has saved me from a lot of GAS. I ask myself "Will I ever find myself using this? Will this be useful for my project?" If the answer is yes, then I'll consider it.

Another question I'll ask is "Can I do better?" If the answer is yes, then I'll skip the deal. Part of why I ignore the Sonivox deals, I know that If I get an orchestral library, I want it to be useful to me in the years to come, and not have to worry about it breaking and not being able to get support for it. So I hold out for something that will serve me in the long run, and it had paid off. Today, I managed to pick up the Palette Orchestral Sketchpad, and it has most of everything I need. (Melodics is gonna be something I'll pick up later, since I really can use the solos.)

Edited October 1, 2019 by Freyja Grimaude-Valens