KuruPrionz Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 Same thing every year. They skip Black Friday and just before Xmas they put everything on sale well into January. They have a free instrument plugin this year, last year I think it was a reverb that sounds great - Raum. This year a sampled Chinese hammered dulcimer, you have to sign up for an account. They are also giving their usual $25 off on anythnig you buy, one time deal. There are some expansion packs for Massive that I am considering - they are $29 so they would be $4. Gotta love a deal! I have way too many plugins already, somebody shoot me!!!!! Quote It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doerfler Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 I'll be the first in line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KuruPrionz Posted December 22, 2020 Author Share Posted December 22, 2020 And then i found the Middle Eastern package and the India package. The demos sound nice. There are some others I'm pondering. They've added a ton of their own plugins and lots of third party stuff too. It takes quite a while to peruse everything. I tend to ignore all the plugins with cosmic hippie names and vague, yet meaningless descriptions. Which seems to be most of them. Quote It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KuruPrionz Posted December 22, 2020 Author Share Posted December 22, 2020 I'll be the first in line. I do like and use NI stuff. Some of it is really excellent. I LOVE Studio Drummer, am figuring out Drum Lab. Over the years I've swooped the sales and taken all the freebies and I have quite a stash for somebody who only runs the free versions of Kontakt Player, Komplete, Reaktor Player etc. This might be a "Yeah, duh.." thing but the MIDI tracks Studio Drummer creates play the same instruments in IK Modo Drum and vice versa. Now I have all the grooves! And it sounds pretty cool to duplicate the MIDI track and play two different drum sets in sync, can get some fat tones that way. Just a matter of choosing something different. India is tempting, I have a few things in SampleTank but this sounds better and has all sorts of stuffs. Quote It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Schmieder Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 The Discovery Series is great. I didn't realize how good at first, because I was using other stuff and wasn't motivated. Then I really dug in, and found that there are usually multiple instruments available for each voice, such as five different conga models for quinto. There are a few minor disappointments here and there, but for the most part, Cuba, India, and Middle East non particular, are now my first choices for most of what they contain. I hadn't noticed that they have a sale on. I hope I saved mob $25 voucher; there might be something I want to grab "for free" (or for $4). The free Yangqin released last night has many of us wondering if Discovery Series China is coming soon. Quote Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1, Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RABid Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 I stopped buying individual sound sets from NI. Too often they end up in Ultimate Komplete upgrades and I end up paying twice. Quote This post edited for speling. My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doerfler Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 I agree with this, however if one would want an expansion pack for Massive X and it sells for $29, use the $25 voucher and you are out $4. This works mostly for Komplete owners. I guess most libraries anre included in Komplete Ultimate. I don't own the Ultimate version myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stokely Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 Yeah, I've got my sight on Ultimate if they do another upgrade sale (I have K12 standard)...and everything I might want to use the voucher for is in that. I really haven't "used" any of those packs or expansions or whatever they are. I've poked around at the drum loops but they are a pain to navigate to, makes me think I may be missing something on how to make use of those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Schmieder Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 I make an exception for Discovery Series products, as I usually need them right away. But a few months ago I discovered what some others here already knew, which is that I can resell them once I have them in some edition of Ultimate. Quote Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1, Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Emm Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 Its all too tempting. I keep my "adulthood" biceps in tone by resisting new gear. Sometimes. Its hard to be honest with yourself when the new releases, even the freeware, are astounding. Pigments beat NI's RAZOR by a hair, followed by a download of DEXED, Roland's D-50 plug and the free Soniccouture Hammersmith grand piano. Then I have to do right by them and Spitfire, buying an item or two, because the latter offers a few superior items my real-orchestra resources lack. Then there's the K1v emulation of Kawai's nice budget answer to the D-50, because my ear somehow likes some 8-bit graininess in the mix. I'm glad I'm NOT a Native Instruments user. Their sound quality is impeccable, but following their version-of-the-week sleight-of-hand is as complex as everything else combined. Madness! Here's the K1 emulator, if you're interested. Kawai K1 emu Quote "Let there be dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons and necking in the parlors! Play, Don!" ~ Groucho Marx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stokely Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 New to the free scene is Vital, which like Pigments is a wavetable synth. It's by the dev who wrote the (also free iirc) Helm plugin. There are several paid versions, the feature the free one is missing that I particularly want is text-to-speech into a wave that then becomes a sound source. It's super cool. It uses an online service to generate, which does cost the dev money. I've used it a bit so far and I really like the gui. Anyway, I still have yet to REALLY dive into all the stuff I have in Komplete. Kontour for example is a really cool synth and I forget that I even have it..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KuruPrionz Posted December 23, 2020 Author Share Posted December 23, 2020 I find myself gravitating more towards the India plugin. I have West Africa and like it. Alternative sounds to the classic American rock drum kit sounds of most plugins are very welcome around here. Middle East looks cool too, maybe next time. Unless I win a Metapop remix competition I don't see myself ever owning Komplete and I'm not sure I would want to, it's freaking HUGE. You'd never have time to even briefly sample test half of it. Quote It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danstein Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 You'd never have time to even briefly sample test half of it. Very true. I bought Komplete Ultimate a while ago (KU 9), and at some point used the sale to upgrade to KU 10. I use a lot of NI stuff, but even so I think there's probably 50% of KU 10 that I have never even opened. Every time I'm tempted to upgrade again, I remind myself of that. Quote Some tracks on SoundCloud Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElmerJFudd Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 Its all too tempting. I keep my "adulthood" biceps in tone by resisting new gear. Sometimes. Its hard to be honest with yourself when the new releases, even the freeware, are astounding. Pigments beat NI's RAZOR by a hair, followed by a download of DEXED, Roland's D-50 plug and the free Soniccouture Hammersmith grand piano. Then I have to do right by them and Spitfire, buying an item or two, because the latter offers a few superior items my real-orchestra resources lack. Then there's the K1v emulation of Kawai's nice budget answer to the D-50, because my ear somehow likes some 8-bit graininess in the mix. I'm glad I'm NOT a Native Instruments user. Their sound quality is impeccable, but following their version-of-the-week sleight-of-hand is as complex as everything else combined. Madness! Here's the K1 emulator, if you're interested. Kawai K1 emu On a side note, I just dug my K1 out of storage. Very nice semi weight synth action. I"ll probably use as a controller, but if you want to hear how it compares I can share a few patch examples. Quote Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KuruPrionz Posted December 29, 2020 Author Share Posted December 29, 2020 Well Plunkedy Dunkedy. I went over all of Native Instruments offerings and didn't find any bargain offerings that I connected with. And that was perfectly fine, I have plenty of Native Instruments plugins. I have plenty of plugins period. And then... I took a look at Soniccouture's website, not really thinking about buying anything. I listened to the Array Mbira demos and I thought it sounded awesome. I LOVE the bass notes. I heard that instrument playing on at least one of the songs I am recording. No discount coupon but marked down to $44.50 until December 31st. I went away. That was yesterday. Today I looked again at NI's sales and then I went back to the Array Mbira page and bought it. It is installing right now, Native Access is chonking it on down. Download is 4.2 GB, it will expand when it installs. I still think it sounds great and I don't have another sound quite like it. Very good samples, organic sounding. https://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/26-percussion/g22-array-mbira/ Quote It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KuruPrionz Posted December 29, 2020 Author Share Posted December 29, 2020 I just "played" it with the "keyboard" in Kontakt Player and the mouse. Had headphones on. It is a great sounding plugin, the demos do it justice. This will be fun and get used. Quote It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Schmieder Posted December 29, 2020 Share Posted December 29, 2020 The Array Mbira is awesome; you made a great choice. There's a smaller version of it in Box of Tricks from SC. Quote Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1, Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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