VST MEGATHREAD: It's just so much easier to reach for a sawtooth

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Musician's Lounge > VST MEGATHREAD: It's just so much easier to reach for a sawtooth

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Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Popcorn posted:

Thanks for the tip about Kontakt. I installed it, but it seems to be running in demo mode and keeps timing out. Do you know how I can switch it? I thought it could be run as a "full" product without buying something.

If you downloaded the free Kontakt Player, that doesn't have to be registered or anything, but the "factory selection" sound library, which is a separate download, does have to be registered in the Native Instruments Service Center, which is a separate application that I presume will be installed by one of the downloads.

The full version of Kontakt obviously has to be registered in Service Center, if you bought that.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2012 06:15

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:55

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Popcorn posted:

So I can use the Kontakt Player free, but without any samples to use with it?

At the link I provided in my earlier post you download the Kontakt player and the factory selections library separately, but they're both definitely free. In order to use factory selections, you need to get a registration code from NI (you need to enter a valid email just to download it).

# ¿ Jul 30, 2012 19:28

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Black Friday deals alert:

- Waves is offering some ridiculously low prices on several bundles and individual plugins. (Just double-check compatibility first if you're an Ableton Live user.) I would totally jump on the Native Power Pack bundle if I hadn't entirely tapped out my music budget on some vintage analog stuff this week.

- Native Instruments is also offering 50% off most Komplete products and all Maschine expansions (and also Traktor).

# ¿ Nov 23, 2012 09:09

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Declan MacManus posted:

Does anyone know of a free Mellotron VST? I want to experiment with the sound a bit but I'm not ready to commit money.

SampleTank Free comes with sound set that's pretty much a sampler of their various sound libraries. (Sort of like NI's free Komplete Elements.) The free library includes a few patches from their Sampletron product, which is a pretty awesome Mellotron/Optigan library. They had a great sale on sampletron a few months ago, and I picked it up then. It's $99 now I think.

Even though it's free, you need to create an IK Multimedia account to get the Sampletank Free download.

Sampletank:
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/sampletank/

Sampletron:
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/sampletron/

EDIT: Their website is confusing as hell, in my opinion. Once you're registered and approved, you go to the "User Area" of the site to see your available downloads. It's not obvious, but the plugin and sound library are two separate downloads. 32-bit only.

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Dec 12, 2012

# ¿ Dec 12, 2012 18:36

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

mr_package posted:

Embertone is another great small vendor, just a few instruments now but their solo trumpet is amazing ($30! wtf!?) and their violin demo sounds the best I've heard.
https://soundcloud.com/embertone/embertone-solo-violin

Yeah, good stuff. I just got hip to them this week when I was looking for an Ocarina reproduction.

Progressive Trance cover of Saria's Song in 3... 2...

# ¿ Dec 13, 2012 00:15

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

u-he just released a revamped version of their Podolski freeware synth.

Also, some of the current deals on Waves bundles are really attractive. I keep hovering over the Buy button on the API Collection + V Series bundle, but I'm trying really hard to save for something else...

EDIT: Really pleased with that NI Driver freebie. I hear NI is also sending out vouchers to existing customers, but I haven't received anything yet.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 20:09

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

wayfinder posted:

Edit: On the other hand, I already have Komplete, so it'd have to be some sort of sample thing... Any recommendations?

I've used every one of my vouchers on Maschine expansions. They just released a new one I'll snag if I ever get the Christmas voucher.

Raw Voltage and Vintage Heat are badass if you have Maschine but haven't gotten any expansions yet.

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Dec 18, 2012

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 22:49

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

So, Native Instruments customers were supposed to get voucher emails (and many did), but there must have been some problems because a lot of folks didn't get the mail, including me.

Turns out the voucher code's valid for anyone- but it's only valid til the end of December.

One of the NI forums administrators posted the code here:
http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1123871&postcount=23

Standard $30 USD / 25 Euro deal.

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Dec 19, 2012

# ¿ Dec 19, 2012 16:41

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

The Mystery Date posted:

Whoops, I was thinking of vintage compressors. Sorry about that. That's what happens when you post from work and don't check later to make sure.

Yeah the Vintage Drummer's a completely new product. Looks interesting, but I'm holding out for the next Komplete. Will give me time to use all the stuff I haven't spent much time with in K8U.

I've gotta say, though, I'm really pleased with NI as a company. I bought K8U back in May and since then I've gotten what 8 or 9 different free additional products from them (the Abbey Road re-reboots and the Vintage Compressors/Transient Master standalones)? And I've gotten maybe 5 or 6 discount vouchers from them for various things through the year.

Plus their products are mostly solid, have easy installation/activation, and all now available in both 32 and 64 bit.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2012 23:25

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

cat doter posted:

Speaking of Kontakt, I have the free version but while I'm using it sometimes whatever I have docked becomes disabled/blacked out with a button that says demo expired. It's not the demo version, but the free version, and I have to restart reaper to fix it. I've gotten around it a lot by enabling whatever instrument/settings I like and rendering out that track so I don't have to worry about kontakt randomly disabling it, but obviously this is far from ideal. Anyone know what the deal is?

I believe it's Kontakt Player's unlicensed third-party limitation kicking in.

Kontakt Player is only intended to support Native Instruments-licensed Kontakt Instruments. Any third-party instrument that isn't "Powered by Kontakt" certified is subject to demo restrictions.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2013 22:03

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

jesus christ this guy

# ¿ Jan 26, 2013 01:10

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

breaks posted:

I don't blame him one bit, if I could get people to pay me money and give me free gear in exchange for some cheeseball photos and videos and a few choice quotes, I'd be doing it too.

h_double posted:

Rudess has done a ton to promote iOS (and by extension, portable computing in general) as a viable music making platform. Nothing wrong with getting paid in the process.

Look, I'm not gonna begrudge the guy a paycheck. If I'm in his position and Waves is throwin' money at me, you can bet I'd be out there doin' a little tap dance, too.

But when I think about this from the advertiser's perspective it doesn't make much sense. I mean, this guy will endorse anything. It's just a matter of weeks before his face is plastered all over DrDrum.com. The concepts of diminishing returns and saturation definitely apply to celebrity endorsements- and "keyboardist for Dream Theater" is already kind of thin soup as far as that goes. Out of all the hundreds of "how do I sound like X" threads I've seen on music boards, never once has X been Jordan Rudess.

As it relates to the main topic, when Waves released their new Element synth and I saw this...

...I was just like, "Oh man, this thing is gonna be GARBAGE." It was only after some other guys took one for the team and checked it out that I bothered with the thing (it's actually a pretty good VA VSTi). But my point is, I ended up checking out Element despite the Rudess endorsement, not because of it. And that seems pretty counter-productive from a marketing point of view. But sure, if he can make a living putting his face in ads, more power to him. He's just not doing his patrons any favors.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2013 19:15

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Another NI teaser video for another mystery product. Could it possibly be... Battery 4?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1_94H75zkU

# ¿ Mar 5, 2013 18:15

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Some Komplete 9 Ultimate observations:

It took around 3 hours 10 minutes to install the K8U -> K9U upgrade on my system.
Before the upgrade, my samples/library drive had 257GB of content. After the install was complete, the drive had 309GB of content, so Komplete 9 Ultimate includes 52GB of additional library content alone. I did not do before/afters on my system/apps drive.
I first attempted the upgrade on my original 500GB samples/library drive. When I attempted the setup, that drive had around 220GB available according to Windows- The Komplete 9 installer said that disk space was insufficient by about 10GB and would not let me install, even though at the end of the day it only increased my content library by 52GB. I presume this is because it doesn't take the fact that there were many redundant packages already installed into account.
Anticipating this, I had already bought a 2TB replacement drive. I did a robocopy of my library drive onto the replacement, swapped the old drive out, and was able to perform the upgrade using the new drive. The takeaway here is that you'll need at least 230GB free space on your library drive just to perform the K9U setup, even if it doesn't end up needing all that space once all is said and done.
Service Center reported that there were updates to these products waiting for me once I registered my K9U: Berlin Concert Grand, Upright Piano, and Vienna Concert Grand. The dates on these updates are all in 2011 and 2012... don't know why K9U didn't install the latest versions.
As has been mentioned on other forums, the Reverb Classics plugins weren't installed, even though they're featured on the K9U box art... I'll probably get a download email from NI in a couple days.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2013 08:33

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

The Battery 4 UI is beautiful. The waveforms have an almost hand-drawn look to them. It's hard to describe. I captured a video of what they look like. Best seen if you pick 480p quality and the "Large player" option (but not full-screen).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJFt5brELhY

The video shows one of my homemade frankenstein kits that I made on Battery 3, but updated in Battery 4 so that the colors indicate which outputs a given cell is using (I pump kicks, snares, and claps out to their own outs).

EDIT: I guess "painted" is more accurate than "hand-drawn."

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Mar 28, 2013

# ¿ Mar 28, 2013 05:57

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

shoplifter posted:

I bought Komplete 8 but have barely had time to scratch the surface. Is it worth doing the upgrade right now, just for Battery and Monark?

I think the argument for K8U->K9U is stronger than standard K8->K9. I love the look of the new Battery, but I personally am not sure I'll need any of the new features. I already use Battery 3 in every single project, and have never found it lacking anything but a sample record feature (which B4 still doesn't have).

Monark truly does sound great; messed with it a bit last night. Consensus I'm hearing is that it's better sounding than some of the other minimoog emulations, but if you already have one, not sure it's worth the price. And really, I don't have much use for monophonic anything.

Would be nice if NI had thrown a few of their new effects in with the standard K9... it would be a must-buy then.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2013 18:31

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Oh man, u-he Diva is roaming into Virus/Massive territory. I know Diva's supposedly a VA powerhouse, but I am seriously daunted by the UI and options.

But with these planned updates... Diva's going to be an absolute monster.

Anyone here use it? I am all about VA, but like I said... I'm kind of terrified by this thing.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2013 01:20

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Quincy Smallvoice posted:

But I must say I find it strange you seem overwhelmed by it. Me an my producer friends always say we love it because a) it sounds better than anything else for what it does and b) the UI is simple and clear.

It's the fact that it seems so customizable; don't you select different oscillator and filter views based on what you're trying to emulate? It's a handsome UI, but I'm just afraid I'd get lost in all the options.

But... I'm almost certainly going to get over my apprehensions and snag that plugin when the update comes out.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2013 03:20

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

WAFFLEHOUND posted:

Can anyone recommend a free bitcrusher?

CamelCrusher, mang. http://www.camelaudio.com/camelcrusher.php

EDIT: Hrm. Or maybe it's just a straight distortion. Been a year since I used it.

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Apr 19, 2013

# ¿ Apr 19, 2013 08:55

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Phraggah posted:

Guitar is super complex, but I guess what I was looking for is more along the lines of a Kontakt library for electric guitar. Sort of like how session strings is for strings and EWQL is for orchestral instruments.

I don't know anything that does a realistic lead guitar, but for rhythm parts, MusicLab's products are pretty good. They have two electric (RealStrat, RealLPC) and one acoustic (RealGuitar) package.

It's sample-based, in that they record all of the most used guitar chords, but you actually trigger all the individual strums and articulations. It also comes with a bunch of MIDI files that have rhythm patterns you can use, and you can of course write your own.

I have owned both RealStrat and RealGuitar for a few years and never really spent the time to learn them. But there are some impressive demo videos around that show how much you can do with these things.

Kontakt 4 and 5 actually have a sort of watered-down version of this in the factory library. I can't remember the name of the instrument, and weirdly, mention of it was removed from the Kontakt 5 documentation even though the instrument's still there. But basically it's a RealGuitar-like scripted guitar with a bunch of chords where you control the strumming. I don't remember whether it does all the articulations that RealGuitar can do though.

If I remember right the Kontakt guitar was fairly easy to use. RealGuitar is well-designed, but there are so many chord possibilities that you need to do some pretty complex fingering to get the right chords. (This is a plugin where some music theory knowledge can be a big help.)

EDIT: Some videos from the official site.

This shows what it looks like to strum your own chords:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMtbFDdsPaU

This shows what it's like to use it with MIDI patterns, including a lot of the real-time variations you can do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYZmsb-lcgA

And this dude totally shreds on a piece written for two guitars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6dsTZ0hEaw

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 06:20 on May 5, 2013

# ¿ May 5, 2013 06:08

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Forums Terrorist posted:

I don't see any better thread for this so here goes: I'm having issues with loading VSTs in Reaper. Specifically, it'll see some of my VSTs but not others. This is rather annoying, as it means I can't easily record their output so they're useless for anything other than loving about. Anyone know what could be causing this? I'm using the 64 bit version, but I have both 32 and 64 bit versions of Aalto Solo which loads fine.

Which plugins don't load fine? 32/64 compatibility issues are the most common problem. Do you happen to have a 32-bit version of Reaper to test with? (It should work fine on 64-bit Windows.)

# ¿ Jun 7, 2013 18:43

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Any iLok owners here? PACE/iLok rolled out a new version of their license manager last week. Almost immediately, customers around the world started reporting that their iLok licenses were revoked or reverted to "trial mode." The ilok.com front page is just a great big mea culpa. "WE ARE WORKING TO MAKE THINGS BETTER"

Last night the president of PACE started a thread on GearSlutz, apologizing for the mess- but it quickly devolved to the point where people were making death threats against him; I just noticed the thread has been deleted.

Anyway, do NOT mess with any of your iLok licenses now- just don't touch anything (and probably don't buy anything with ilok requirements?). They are working their butts off trying to fix it, but there is no current ETA for a working solution.

There is a sticky thread where you can track the progress of the problem.

UPDATE: Looks like the PACE president's thread has been re-instated, with some of the violent stuff removed. And looks like people are beginning to turn on Steven Slate for claiming to stick with iLok for future products. Also, some folks are finally starting to be able to recover their licenses...

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jun 19, 2013

# ¿ Jun 19, 2013 18:25

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

The Waves C4 compressor is on sale today for $69 USD (normally $250). Waves sent me a $50 coupon this morning too, and I was able to apply it to C4. Only cost me nineteen bucks. Can't beat that, man.

EDIT: If you didn't get a coupon code already, apparently you can sign up for one now: http://www.waves.com/lp/june13/sign-up.html?ref=ytann

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Jun 27, 2013

# ¿ Jun 27, 2013 18:52

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Quincy Smallvoice posted:

I'd actually say it is the perfect compliment.

Due to its ability to manipulate samples, as well as its rather amazing parameter routing capabilities - it will add the type of organic sounds that Reaktor (and by extention Razor) simply can not do.
In addition to that, the way its laid out simply makes the most sense to me out of ANY synth. It transformed me from a preset flicker to a sound designer almost overnight! (Yeah I filez'd it for a long period)

I actually kind of forgot I had it. I need to pencil in some time to learn Alchemy, because it certainly seems to have some potential.

My main interest in it was the thing where you can import a sample, and it creates a synth patch that synthesizes the sample.

Some demos I've seen make it seem Fairlight-like, which was always a childhood dream of mine, to own one of those things.

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Jun 27, 2013

# ¿ Jun 27, 2013 22:21

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Quincy Smallvoice posted:

I designed a fair few of the patches in this track - in particular that huge stab in the beginning and the similar one that leads into the main riff. Thats just after watching the tutorials and fiddling for max 1 hour!

That track is dope. And kudos on goin' legit!

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 07:56

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

IrvingWashington posted:

I picked up Komplete Elements, which gives me all the post guitar effects I need (it was a tossup between NI and IK Interactive, and IK's software validation decided to hang on the connecting screen forever), so now I'm wondering what to use my $30 voucher on. I'm leaning towards the Maschine drum selection, partly because it's cheap and partly because it'd give me some more live kits to play with as well as a bunch of drum machine-type sounds to layer on top. I'm also tempted by the Scarbee Rickenbacker, though - has anybody used either of these much? most of what I do is live band style to back guitar and vocals, so anything that would fit that would be neat (bass/piano/drums), especially if it comes in at under $100.

I didn't know you could buy Komplete Elements as a retail product; I thought it was only an OEM pack-in, but there it is on their site!

I remember being pretty unimpressed with the Maschine Drum Selection thing, and I took a look at it again this morning when I saw your post. I've got Komplete 9 Ultimate installed and for currently unknown reasons, my install's only showing 5 kits for Drum Selection, and they are not that usable for the kind of stuff I do. But on NI's site it says the thing comes with 20 kits. (?!?!) I need to figure out why I'm only seeing 5. I think these kits are pulled straight from the Maschine library (rather than being new kits composed from Maschine's samples), so they only have 16 sounds each. Each kit instrument includes a pattern editor too, which may or may not be helpful to you. As it is now, I wouldn't pay for this thing; but I obviously haven't heard the 15 other kits it apparently is supposed to come with. Battery 4 has a solid modern library (mostly urban and EDM focused; not a lot of traditional or world music sounds in B4), but it's $199 retail like most of NI's standalone instruments.

I've used the Rickenbacker Bass on two recent projects, and I really like it. (The bass part in this song is Scarbee Rickenbacker; it comes in at the end of the 8th bar... the part's pretty low- might not be too audible on earbuds or computer speakers.) You definitely need to learn what the controls do in order to make it sound realistic, and if I remember right there are some things you can only do if you've got a sustain pedal (I happened to have one, and my MIDI controller has a pedal input)- although it's just CC64; you can manually input foot commands in automation lanes if you don't have a physical pedal. I watched a tutorial video on MacProVideo I think, and that got me most of the way there.

I'm using the Alicia's Keys Kontakt instrument in something I'm working on, and it's a drat nice-sounding piano. Also benefits from having a sustain pedal. And it's just a single piano Kontakt instrument. No experimental/cinematic stuff like with The Giant. I also really like the Modern Drummer and Studio drummer packages, which are both $99. In those cases you're only getting 2 or 3 kits each, but if you're doing more traditional music, these things have pretty impressive routing, mixing, and processing capabilities built-in, with groove libraries that have MIDI loops you can drag into your project to use as a seed for your own rhythm parts.

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Jul 1, 2013

# ¿ Jul 1, 2013 20:03

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Radiapathy posted:

I remember being pretty unimpressed with the Maschine Drum Selection thing, and I took a look at it again this morning when I saw your post. I've got Komplete 9 Ultimate installed and for currently unknown reasons, my install's only showing 5 kits for Drum Selection, and they are not that usable for the kind of stuff I do. But on NI's site it says the thing comes with 20 kits. (?!?!) I need to figure out why I'm only seeing 5.

I just hadn't had enough coffee yet, apparently. The kits are divided into 6 genre folders and my Kontakt browser was already inside one of the folders when I was looking at the kits yesterday. I do have the whole product, but I still find myself unimpressed. A lot of the standalone samples are nice (NI sounds are almost all very well-recorded/produced), but as kits they're just not that useful. Like one kit might have a great kick/snare combo but no open hat, or a bunch of sounds that aren't tuned to work together.

NI really figured out the kits thing in the Maschine expansion packs, but all the kits in this package are from the original factory library.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2013 15:43

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Your Computer posted:

For those of you who still hasn't checked out TAL-NoiseMaker, it's the gnarliest VST I've ever come across. Combined with TAL-Bitcrusher it's pretty much the best thing since sliced bread!

I haven't tried that one yet, but TAL is one of my top 4 plugin vendors, alongside Blue Cat, Voxengo, and Valhalla. (Yes, I finally came around to Valhalla. VintageVerb is just plain great.)

I am kind of annoyed to admit that the Precisionsound MKS-20 sample library + TAL's free TAL-Chorus-LX chorus plugin sounds better than my hardware MKS-20.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2013 18:01

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Just logged into my Native Instruments Service Center to grab the Razor update, and there are freaking 43 updates for my NI products waiting for me, all released in the last two months.

What the hell, man. It's like Windows 7.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2013 05:39

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

IrvingWashington posted:

Free copies of UVI's Mello VST with the code MFUVIMELLO400.

I haven't played with it yet but it sounds pretty.

Thanks for the heads-up on this. I wouldn't have even heard about it otherwise.

I have IK's Sampletron, but it's 32-bit only. This will come in handy.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 21:26

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

In case you're not on NI's mailing list (yet) they're giving away a pretty cool new compressor plugin called supercharger, plus some Traktor remix sets (which unpack a bunch of FLAC format loops that you can use outside of Traktor), and a $25 e-voucher.

Get on it.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2013 08:02

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Agreed posted:

NEXT on the "holy poo poo this is less than $20, are you loving with me?" list: Clip Shifter 2 Pro. I don't think it's actually called that, I'm calling it Pro, but really it's just the unlocked version with all the otherwise pay-wall'd features. This gem is the follow-up to ClipShifter, which was a KVR Dev contest 2012 entry that a lot of people quite liked at the time. The developer still has an excellent free version for you to get your feet wet and see if what it does is for you and I do highly recommend checking that out before you buy it, it's useful and you can definitely see what's going on with the freebie before you lay down the massive sum of "moderately under $20."

Good post. I'm on KVR a lot, no idea how I missed thing. Literally just last night I was wondering if something like this existed. I've fully converted to multiband for bus compression, and a limiter like this seems like the next logical step for me.

I got SoundToys Decapacitator a couple months ago for saturation magic. I'm very pleased with what it does, but annoyed that I could have bought Klanghelm's entire product line plus ClipShifter for less than I paid for that one plugin.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2014 19:58

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

the wizards beard posted:

I'm going to ask a more "meta" question than just bringing up a specific plugin - do you people find that as you learn more you have less interest in trying out different VSTs?

I buy the most gear and plugins when I am least musically productive. It can be a form of procrastination where I can say, "Well I was gonna work on that song, but perhaps I'll pick up this new synth and learn how it works. That will make this song-I-have-yet-to-start sound better."

I believe I can see this pattern in the worst of the music forum hardasses. Even though GearSlutz is mostly about hardware and KVR is mostly about plugins, you will find that for every GS guy who says you can't make good music on anything but an actual Jupiter-8 you'll find a KVR guy who responds to EVERY non-u-He plugin thread with "this doesn't do anything that Diva can't do better." In 9 out of 10 cases, these will be the same guys who never have SoundCloud or BandCamp links, and never post any audio examples to back up their claims. They're just stalling by prioritizing gear over all else.

Thanks to SA RockStar and some personal exercises I was already doing to keep my head immersed in actual music making, I only buy new stuff now if I am in the middle of a project and I have a specific sound or effect or processing technique in mind that I don't know how to achieve with my existing stuff. Also, before I start looking to purchase new solutions, I'll take a look at what I do already own- and I frequently discover new features or components of Cubase, Guitar Rig, or Reaktor, for example.

So to come back to your question, at least in my case, it's not so much when I LEARN more that I buy less, but when I DO more musically.

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Feb 11, 2014

# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 16:19

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

On the Steinberg forum someone started a thread asking which plugins people like to use. Today, a user named OveKarlsen created a forum account so he could post the following reply:

OveKarlsen posted:

I use a lot of my own DSP. Which after seeing the level of unseriousness in the DSP and mastering environment, makes a lot of sense.

On KvR people slandered me because I did not support their gayactivism. That was their qualifier, not if one had optimal algorithms or not.
Mastering-engineers on Gearslutz talk about analog, and try to ridicule "the guy with the plugins", and claim 1950s "unobtainium" has magic qualities, and it is even from before the era of Hi-Fi, which started in the 70s.

And people who complain about digital, and think the right dither is necessary, is ofcourse completely unaware, that their amp probably has higher saturation levels, and even probably use a 1-bit D/A, which is like a compressed format, since it cannot perfectly reproduce the signal. One famous masteringengineer even said "they listened to blank CDs" to see if the "digital" was right.

The internet brings a lot of "rock and roll" opinions. The kind of attitude that one does not need to be learned. One thing good about the 1950s is maybe trained vocalists, trained artists. Which ofcourse went away with Elvis Presley, and did ofcourse not help with the LSD-slur of the 70s. With some of these still using reduced frequency-range amp-designs from the same time.

There is no need to emulate poor transistors or power supplies. But one needs to understand that a lot of what goes on in analog units, are simple things. 1 pole envelopes, output saturation, etc. Something you do NOT want in an EQ. And even the simplest of analog filter emulation, will sound correct with gradually lower clipping before each stage, and this will also remove the bad keytracking of analogs. People who think this is more complex than it is, and has mythologized analogs, will make extremely poor emulations taking much CPU due to emulating obscurities.

Ofcourse if one wants softclip one can separate that from the rest of unwanted analog qualities like noise and distortion. And it will be the quality one wants. With a good softclip on each channel, driven to "no objectionable distortion" it does sound like an analog mix. And many used mixers this way, or limiters, and ofcourse when recording to tape.

What I did was simply make some sensible DSP, based on my wants as a musician. And also avoiding arrongant nerdyness, that reads the wildest myths into something. Simplicity is ofcourse not good enough, for someone who needs to conjure their own status, or have inane marketing-gimmicks.

And also "the loudness war" was not relevant with Nirvanas Nevermind. Infact the master sounds better than the live performance, and they should be happy they sold at all. Now masters are twice as loud, and even sounds cleaner. The reality of that argument is that one does not need more transient than necessary. At some point that ofcourse is an argument, but many loud masters does indeed sound very good, and when played back loud, good limiting should ofcourse be done, to remove unecessary loud transients from the ear. This simply makes sense. Some analog engineers will ofcourse not be able to do such a loud sound, on outdated gear, without objectionable distortion.

And if people want, actually perfect limiting can be done. Manybands zerocross limiting, would do the loudest limiting possible, without distortion. It does use much cpu though, but many would probably buy a necessary graphics-card if one were made to run on the GPU.

In the mean time, I am using my own DSP Which is quite good, and can do quite low-distortion processing (Drums here are saturated ofcourse).

I am going to make it available for purchase, sometime in 2014.

Peace Be With You.

Ah, but when you click the YouTube link, you are greeted with:

What are you brewing, OveKarlsen, and when can we buy it???

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 02:09

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

For my personal use, I like the dongles, because I can switch between computers and operating systems without burning through activations (for example, I am not able to install my legally purchased copies of Ableton Live 8 or 9 anymore at the moment without begging Ableton for more activations). I also prefer it to several challenge/response methods I've had to use. It took me an hour to register the Korg Legacy Collection plugin bundle because of their Rube Goldberg activation scheme. The reason I'm still using my 4-year-old DAW PC because I don't want to have to re-register all my non-dongled software again.

The iLok fuckup last year WAS enormous, but for most of the time it only affected people who migrated to PACE's new license manager or were attempting to transfer licenses to/from other users. If you had the previous iLok version installed and your products were already activated, you could still use your products. I don't remember hearing that anyone actually permanently lost any licenses from that. So, yes, it was terrible while it was happening for many iLok customers, but not as bad as I guess it could have been.

Also, almost certain iLok doesn't have to be online all the time. This requirement would kill many DJs and gigging musicians (or force them to use cracked versions of software when playing live at some venues). PACE also offers non-dongle/soft licensing now, but whether it's available is at publisher discretion, on a per-product basis. UVI offers it on some of their newer instruments.

At the moment my only complaint with the dongle method is that there's not one universal type. I have an eLicenser, an iLok, and a generic thumb drive (for Waves) hanging out the back of my primary DAW box.

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Feb 28, 2014

# ¿ Feb 28, 2014 16:35

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

From Waldorf's Facebook page:

quote:

(German) Gute Nachrichten f�r Largo- und PPG-User: Die 64-Bit-Versionen sind jetzt im Beta-Test und zur Musikmesse als final angek�ndigt - Markus (Hinweis: Tippfehler ge�ndert)

(English) Good news for Largo - and PPV (PPG Wave 3.V) users: the 64-bit versions are now in the beta test and the Musikmesse than final announced - Markus (Translated by Bing)

Hell freezing over, pigs flying, etc.

Radiapathy fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Mar 3, 2014

# ¿ Mar 3, 2014 21:20

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

ynohtna posted:

Not that anyone but professional mastering engineers should attempt mastering, but Ian Shepherd's Perception plug-in sure is the bee's knees for accurately assessing the impact of a processing chain for those of us who happily ignore best practices :

http://productionadvice.co.uk/perception/

Sold! Nice find; I'm familiar with MeterPlugs but this thing's not listed on their site- you can only get it through that link you posted.

For A/B comparisons, I've been using Sample Magic's Magic AB: http://www.samplemagic.com/details/184/magic-ab

The first version had trouble with MP3s, but they just released a fix for that. Anyway, you can load up to 9 different reference tracks in it and strap it across your master bus. You can set repeats and loops in each reference track and switch between your DAW source and the reference tracks really easily.

I'm curious to try Perception for this as well, although the real value I see in perception is removing the guesswork from level matching when trying to determine whether your processing is really making a positive difference. Love it.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2014 18:22

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

wayfinder posted:

The website is too snake-oily for my taste � it reminds me of nothing so much as the Dr. Drum scam. edit: http://meterplugs.com/perception better

Yeah, I don't know why they're marketing it this way- that meterplugs.com link you found isn't accessible from meterplugs' own front page. I would have felt the same way, based on the presentation, but I use their K-Meter plugin so I knew they were legit.

And if you watch the video it is nowhere near Dr. Drum levels of idiocy- even though that landing page is admittedly startlingly similar.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2014 20:01

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

wayfinder posted:

I find the price a little steep for what it does, too. Even at 30% off it's a hundred bucks for a slight gain in convenience...

$100 is my "impulse buy" threshold. Any more than that and I won't buy something unless I feel I have an immediate use for it.

But as far as this Perception thing is concerned, it's something that I've actually been wishing for the past couple of years- a way to A/B my master chain settings that eliminates volume bias.

I've got a couple tracks in progress at the moment and will use it on both. Will report back here if it doesn't work out.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2014 18:38

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:55

Radiapathy: Dec 3, 2011; Snooping as usual, I see.

Some online vendors are selling a "special edition" of FXpansion Geist (which includes an expansion pack) for $50 USD, which is $200 off MSRP. Musician's Friend sold out, but I've seen it other places, including Amazon. FXpansion claims the deal is legit.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2014 22:57

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Musician's Lounge > VST MEGATHREAD: It's just so much easier to reach for a sawtooth

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