Black Friday Sales 2022

[Stokely]

Sales on upgrades to Komplete (which I think is what you'd be doing) come in the summer.   I kind of like that NI is consistent with their sales.  I'm hoping to go from K12 to K14 Ultimate next summer--I could have done it this past one, the upgrade was half off, but I wasn't sure it was worth it...since then after checking into what's in it, I now think it is.  Barely     If I hadn't gotten Hammersmith from the crazy Soniccouture bundle sale a few months back, I'd be more excited by getting Noire, but more pianos never hurts!  Adding Ozone standard to Komplete is a nice bonus.   Knowing I'm going to pick that up has limited what I'm buying this Black Friday season, especially when it comes to drum libraries (Komplete Ultimate has the abbey road drum libraries.)

[Jose EB5AGV]

8 hours ago, DeltaJockey said:

I was interested in a few NI Komplete apps. I just can't accept separately paying for individual apps, even when on sale, as down the track I would have upgraded my KU11 anyway.

Was hoping K14 may be on sale too, but as it's just been released, I guess not. Well after deliberating on the individual costs, I pulled the trigger and upgraded to Komplete Ultimate 14 Collectors Edition!! It was still cheaper than the few individual apps I wanted. I have so eaten my words, as I was growing weary of the endless apps I would never use in all the padding. Oh well, I guess I just have to pretend they don't exist. Clever psych marketing with their prices, to be sure!

 

My next problem, is my broadband connection 😞 I'm now looking at having to up my ISP plan to something faster, as it's taking me more than a day just to download one of the bigger apps. As the years have gone on, this was inevitable given the increasing large and sophisticated software.

 

I live in a regional area on wireless broadband, and even my fastest available is not like city speeds.

 

There are other Black Friday software deals I'd be interested in this year, but I'm a bit scared of paying for something I may have a drama getting, and more products are coming as download only.

 

Just glad I'm up to date with my computer hardware and storage! 1TB of download....here I come!

 

Now there is an important issue. A crucial one I would say. You ought do it, in fact!

 

Update your signature to show KU 14 CE! 🤣

 

[DeltaJockey]

6 hours ago, Stokely said:

Sales on upgrades to Komplete (which I think is what you'd be doing) come in the summer.   I kind of like that NI is consistent with their sales.  I'm hoping to go from K12 to K14 Ultimate next summer--I could have done it this past one, the upgrade was half off, but I wasn't sure it was worth it...since then after checking into what's in it, I now think it is.  Barely     If I hadn't gotten Hammersmith from the crazy Soniccouture bundle sale a few months back, I'd be more excited by getting Noire, but more pianos never hurts!  Adding Ozone standard to Komplete is a nice bonus.   Knowing I'm going to pick that up has limited what I'm buying this Black Friday season, especially when it comes to drum libraries (Komplete Ultimate has the abbey road drum libraries.)

Yes, my adult voice was telling me to wait until the sale, (winter for us folks )but my GAS voice told me life was short! So far I haven't regretted it.

 

I agree, you can never have too many pianos. I only have Hammersmith Free, but I did buy Noire a few years back. I've gone a little cool on Yamy CFX's, and Steinway D's. They seem to be the common "standard" for vst releases. I've lately decided I like "less cared for" Steinway B's right now. Much less sterile. Might be my attachment to the character of my own smaller Kawai Acoustic. Have also been enjoying some freebies, which are racked with bugs, but the character and sound fields are just so realistic. I really like the Bigcat Iowa Steinway B, and the Ivy Audio Piano in 162. If they were touched up to a paid level, I'd definitely buy them Sadly, the Iowa Uni samples are too poor for that kind of perfection.

6 hours ago, EB5AGV said:

 

Now there is an important issue. A crucial one I would say. You ought do it, in fact!

 

Update your signature to show KU 14 CE! 🤣

 

Done!

[LarsHarner2]

I had gotten Komplete Select 13 for $99 as it filled two major holes for me 1) a bass- Scarbee rickenbacher is great- i use it alongside of the Rowdy free one I had from presonnus    2) Vintage Organs - i use this with the organs suite from UVI.

For pianos I am using mostly Synthogy Ivory II (American Grand- which my idol Billy Joel uses, as well as the Studio grands- I might get the concert grands).

For the NI folks, I think Izotope is great add- I have used 8 and 9- they either give you presets in Ozone or have you analyze- 

I was thinking of the IK Multimedia to fill some of the abouve things out- but might wait.

 

[RABid]

16 hours ago, DeltaJockey said:

My next problem, is my broadband connection 😞 I'm now looking at having to up my ISP plan to something faster, as it's taking me more than a day just to download one of the bigger apps.

I upgraded to Komplete 13 Collectors Edition this summer during the %50 off sell. With my rural DSL connection I was a week getting everything downloaded. At least they are finally running cable to my section of the subdivision. Looking forward to upping my connection speed.

[DeltaJockey]

19 minutes ago, RABid said:

I upgraded to Komplete 13 Collectors Edition this summer during the %50 off sell. With my rural DSL connection I was a week getting everything downloaded. At least they are finally running cable to my section of the subdivision. Looking forward to upping my connection speed.

I'm in the throws of working through what I'm going to do. I've managed to get the main big apps I upgraded for, so the pressure is off. The thing which niggles me is that my large downloads are sporadic, from then on my current bandwidth is adequate for the rest of the time, and I'm paying for speed I'm not using until the next purchase.

I'm also considering that if I go with a different ISP, my life is turned upside down changing my hundreds of email contact details! Should have used Gmail or similar from the get go I suppose 😞

 

I used to live in an urban area with fast fibre, and didn't think I'd miss it when I moved rural for retirement.

[bill5]

18 hours ago, DeltaJockey said:

I agree, you can never have too many pianos.

Then you really need to check this sale - 90% off everything!  https://www.sampletekk.com/   Their prices are great normally but with this sale the prices are insane.

 

I have their Rain Piano, which is my go-to upright. Going there now to check on a few other things.

[Stokely]

The combination of wanting a new hardware keyboard and knowing I'll likely be paying 300 or so to upgrade NI Komplete--with a bunch of cool stuff coming my way from that--has taken the wind out of my Black friday sales, so to speak.  So far my only purchase has been 8dio's Blackbird drum kit for 5 bucks after the refer a friend deal, 15 bucks off the sale price of 20   

I'm feeling strong and good, for once.    So far I'm not tempted by channel strips, compressors or EQs.  I don't have enough to mix is my main issue, I've got more than enough tools but not enough to do with them   Reverbs on sale (like Liquidsonics) will be a stiffer test, I'm a sucker for verbs.   Soniccouture would be another, and I'm sure there's some that will pop out and really tempt me.  That BFD3 for 50 bucks deal would be a no-brainer IF I was sure it would be stable on my system.   Spitfire's The Ton might be good, all depends on what they put in there!

[ElmerJFudd]

3 hours ago, bill5 said:

Then you really need to check this sale - 90% off everything!  https://www.sampletekk.com/   Their prices are great normally but with this sale the prices are insane.

 

I have their Rain Piano, which is my go-to upright. Going there now to check on a few other things.

Wasn't Nord including some of these in their format at some point?  I see their MkII updates add some details like pedal noise and all perspectives included.  

[Shamanzarek]

If you get the Guitar Center VIP sale invitation for Nov. 19 and 20 you can get some good deals. Last year I got a Martin guitar for 15% off and 4 years to pay with no interest.

[DeltaJockey]

6 hours ago, bill5 said:

Then you really need to check this sale - 90% off everything!  https://www.sampletekk.com/   Their prices are great normally but with this sale the prices are insane.

 

I have their Rain Piano, which is my go-to upright. Going there now to check on a few other things.

Ah yes! Forgot about them. I will be sure to sift through their offerings. Might find myself a nice vst with the money I was going to spend on a morning coffee at the cafe

[bill5]

7 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Wasn't Nord including some of these in their format at some point?  I see their MkII updates add some details like pedal noise and all perspectives included.  

Honestly don't know, that's an interesting idea though (I would think if so, ST would tout that on the site, but as you can see, they aren't real gung-ho on the marketing side of things). 

[Stokely]

Any thoughts on the various products that supposedly help you mix better (as if you are in front of speakers) while on phones?  I haven't really looked into this idea that much, but I've seen various products that are related to this (slate vsx, sienna etc).   I spend most of my time on headphones mainly due to the fact that my room needs help sound-wise.   Reason I'm asking is that the "Realphone" products are on sale right now:

https://www.dsoniq.com/shop

As they say on their technology page, in very simple terms it's "headphone frequency response correction".   I know some products (IK and others) have microphones that you purchase with the software.

[felis]

20 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

50% at Steinberg on Dorico, WaveLab, Cubasis, Instruments, etc.

 

https://www.steinberg.net/promotion/?mobile=1&utm_campaign=399850205872_cyber_weeks_22_sale-release&utm_content=various_usa-eu-row-ja_en-de-es-fr-ja&utm_medium=promo&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=55KOSPLJ-53OSHLF4-BW8F6I

 

I'm waffling a bit on this.  Currently have Absolute 3, and can update to 5 for $125. 

The problem is that I still have to use the dongle for it, I mainly only use Halion from it,

Halion is way overdue for an update, and Absolute should also be getting an update soon.

 

I'm planning on waiting until both Halion and Absolute are updated and Absolute can be used

dongle-free.  If the price of Halion at that time is less than the Absolute update, I'll probably

just buy Halion again outright, and skip the stuff I don't use.

 

Just airing my thoughts, and won't mind hearing about any flaws in my reasoning.

[Mighty Motif Max]

2 hours ago, Stokely said:

Any thoughts on the various products that supposedly help you mix better (as if you are in front of speakers) while on phones?  I haven't really looked into this idea that much, but I've seen various products that are related to this (slate vsx, sienna etc).   I spend most of my time on headphones mainly due to the fact that my room needs help sound-wise.   Reason I'm asking is that the "Realphone" products are on sale right now:

https://www.dsoniq.com/shop

As they say on their technology page, in very simple terms it's "headphone frequency response correction".   I know some products (IK and others) have microphones that you purchase with the software.

I am a fan of using a combination of Waves Abbey Road Studio 3 and SoundID Reference (formerly Sonarworks), in that order on the mix buss. SoundID flattens the frequency response of my various pairs of headphones, and then I use Abbey Road to get a better idea of low end and overall balance, to cut down on the acoustic elements inherent with using headphones like low-frequency perception and panning. It’s made a huge difference - if I can get a mix sounding good on that system (and editing a bit to entire it’s translating well to few other speaker systems (car audio, earbuds, phone speaker, maybe  a CD player), it will work well on anything.

[Irena]

2 hours ago, Stokely said:

Any thoughts on the various products that supposedly help you mix better (as if you are in front of speakers) while on phones?  I haven't really looked into this idea that much, but I've seen various products that are related to this (slate vsx, sienna etc).   I spend most of my time on headphones mainly due to the fact that my room needs help sound-wise.   Reason I'm asking is that the "Realphone" products are on sale right now:

https://www.dsoniq.com/shop

As they say on their technology page, in very simple terms it's "headphone frequency response correction".   I know some products (IK and others) have microphones that you purchase with the software.

I've test-driven a few of these. You might want to check out Goodhertz' CanOpener, which has a 30-day free trial, and provides a pretty good idea of how these things work and what they sound like.  Goodhertz rarely offers deals on their cult-ish greatest hits (esp Vulf Compressor), but might do something interesting for BF. 

[felis]

If you have an Arturia account, log in here to see some very good deals:

https://www.arturia.com/

 

Even if you don't have an account, it looks like everything is 50% off.

My update offers are better than that because I have some of their products already.

[RABid]

On 11/14/2022 at 9:22 AM, bill5 said:

Then you really need to check this sale - 90% off everything!  https://www.sampletekk.com/   Their prices are great normally but with this sale the prices are insane.

For $5 you can bet that I will get the INIL Choir.

[LarsHarner2]

4 hours ago, felis said:

If you have an Arturia account, log in here to see some very good deals:

https://www.arturia.com/

 

Even if you don't have an account, it looks like everything is 50% off.

My update offers are better than that because I have some of their products already.

I was going to post about this and then saw yours-

As I have a Keylab MKII ; I was thinking of getting the offer for V Collection 9- for $200.

Can't decide between that and Total Studio MAX 3.5 from IK for $161 with tax after Jam points.

- I do know the Arturia things already run smoothly on my mac

[ElmerJFudd]

Ableton Live 11 20%
 

https://www.ableton.com/en/shop/

[ElmerJFudd]

Arturia 50%
 

https://www.arturia.com/black-friday-22

 

 

[Pianoman JC]

Not a Black Friday sale but Uhe just released Zebra Legacy.

It includes Zebra 2, Zebra HZ and all of the sound sets for $99.

If you already have Zebra 2 and Zebra HZ you get all of the sound sets free.

 

 

JC

[felis]

Sorry if posted already, but good deals here:  https://gforcesoftware.com/

[Stokely]

1 hour ago, Pianoman JC said:

Not a Black Friday sale but Uhe just released Zebra Legacy.

It includes Zebra 2, Zebra HZ and all of the sound sets for $99.

If you already have Zebra 2 and Zebra HZ you get all of the sound sets free.

 

 

JC

I think--please correct if wrong--that the downside of Legacy is that you don't get the free (or almost-free, depending on whether you have dark zebra) upgrade to zebra 3 when it comes out.  I got regular Zebra 2 a while back on a sale and that was one incentive.  I think I read this from Urs on kvr forums back when legacy was announced.

I ended up buying something out of the blue, as I knew might happen.  One of the "studio vocals" from 8dio went on sale for 20 bucks ("Jenifer").  It's a solo voice instrument that you play and control, works in Kontakt I think.  Back when I first got Kontakt I was really looking forward to getting one of these, hasn't really happened until now (this is a really good price.)   What I'll do with it I'm not sure, I don't exactly make a living writing video game soundtracks or anything  

[vonnor]

On 11/14/2022 at 11:24 AM, ElmerJFudd said:

50% at Steinberg on Dorico, WaveLab, Cubasis, Instruments, etc.

 

https://www.steinberg.net/promotion/

Fixed Elmer's link to remove the tracking info...

 

~ vonnor

[ElmerJFudd]

VSL Synchron Prime Edition

 

https://www.ilio.com/synchron-prime-edition

 

 other offers from ilio 

https://www.ilio.com/deals

[dsteinschneider]

On 11/12/2022 at 12:29 PM, ImproKeys said:

I am interested in the B-3X for desktop (already own it on ipad). Would you recommend buying the Studio Max bundle? I think I would not need at least half of the stuff which is packed; many of them tell me nothing, I am no guitar player, ... I only have experience with the Sunset Reverb and I remember downloading and activating was more of a PITA.
Thanks for your advice.

I understand your perspective, installing and activating IK products used to be an ordeal. A couple of years ago they rolled out the IK "Product Manager". It has made downloading, installing and activating a breeze if you're ok with your music computer being online.  Not sure how they do things "offline". 

[Pianoman JC]

8 hours ago, Stokely said:

I think--please correct if wrong--that the downside of Legacy is that you don't get the free (or almost-free, depending on whether you have dark zebra) upgrade to zebra 3 when it comes out.  I got regular Zebra 2 a while back on a sale and that was one incentive.  I think I read this from Urs on kvr forums back when legacy was announced.

I ended up buying something out of the blue, as I knew might happen.  One of the "studio vocals" from 8dio went on sale for 20 bucks ("Jenifer").  It's a solo voice instrument that you play and control, works in Kontakt I think.  Back when I first got Kontakt I was really looking forward to getting one of these, hasn't really happened until now (this is a really good price.)   What I'll do with it I'm not sure, I don't exactly make a living writing video game soundtracks or anything  

Yes , you don't get Zebra 3 for free with Legacy. If you bought Z2 before you get it for 29.99.

If you bought Z2 and ZHZ you get it for free.

 

 

JC

[dsteinschneider]

8 hours ago, Stokely said:

I ended up buying something out of the blue, as I knew might happen.  One of the "studio vocals" from 8dio went on sale for 20 bucks ("Jenifer").  It's a solo voice instrument that you play and control, works in Kontakt I think.  Back when I first got Kontakt I was really looking forward to getting one of these, hasn't really happened until now (this is a really good price.)   What I'll do with it I'm not sure, I don't exactly make a living writing video game soundtracks or anything  

That voice sounds great - I might buy it also. You could make your own  Dune 2021 sound track 

[LarsHarner2]

19 minutes ago, dsteinschneider said:

I understand your perspective, installing and activating IK products used to be an ordeal. A couple of years ago they rolled out the IK "Product Manager". It has made downloading, installing and activating a breeze if you're ok with your music computer being online.  Not sure how they do things "offline". 

My Mac would be online- do you think it would be a pain to install Total Studio Max 3.5? I heard there was a 6 month limit to get everything loaded on your computer- I was thinking I would just load what I was interested in for now.