Black Friday 2019

[Thomas Mavian]

The free Waves plugin this year is Beserk, a new distortion effect.

Brand new plugin for wild distortion sounds: 10 all-original distortion shapes, plus the unique GO BERZERK feature!

https://www.waves.com/lpn/black-friday-2019/free-plugin

A runthrough:

[Guy Rowland]

Hey on that vocal it sounds like soothe in my TV session!

Cheekiness aside, this sounds sorta promising, maybe a Punish alternate? Can't complain about the price...

[Mikeybabes]

Steinberg Iconica Opus (Full orchestra from Orchestral Tools) is 50% off (£430.00) as it Absolut collection.

[Guy Rowland]

It's not (quite) over yet - Toontrack have their Roots sticks SDX up for 48 euros today, about 70% off. Mildly tempted, I think this one is well liked and sounds good, but I do have similar kits already I think.

[wst3]

I picked up the Decades expansion, almost day one, and thought that might be the last purchase from them for a while.

Shows what I know...

I have the Roots Brushes & Rods expansion, and it is one of my favorite kits, second, probably, only to Decades. I think for $50 I need to add Roots Sticks to my arsenal. Heck, I was thinking about adding it anyway, might as well take advantage of their generosity!

[thesteelydane]

Bunker Samples is having a Black Friday sale until December 6. Get Bunker Strings Vol. 1 for $39 or buy together with the new Harmonium in the Black Friday Bundle for $59 - a saving of 45%, the biggest ever discount from Bunker Samples.

[wst3]

post script - I must getting old, I skipped the Roots SDX, even at $50 I'm just not convinced I need it. If it comes around again at that price I suppose my opinion could change<G>.

[Guy Rowland]

post script - I must getting old, I skipped the Roots SDX, even at $50 I'm just not convinced I need it. If it comes around again at that price I suppose my opinion could change<G>.

I did the exact same thing, Bill.

I'm currently wavering still over Heavyocity's Punish. I have so many distortion / compressors, but damn this one really is fine-sounding and versatile, which I just have a feeling would be my goto for almost everything down that road.

Think I'll do it.

Or will I?

Yes, probably.

Or will I?

[wst3]

I almost feel bad for developers, but over the last too many years I have collected all the tools I really need - libraries, synths, processor and effects plug-ins, even DAWs, editors, and notation.

Not to say I don't keep my eyes open for tools that can help me work more effectively, or do something new I can't do now, but that list continues to shrink.

As an example, I did pick up a few "hybrid" libraries a few years ago, but these days I am more likely to create my own hybrid sounds. Heaven knows I have enough source material!

You'd think that a library as flexible as Roots Sticks would be an easy sell. Especially since I have the companion volume.

None of which means I'll never spend a dime again, just that I am less likely to jump. For example I did pick up the spring reverb and analog delay plugins form u-He. Will they replace SoundToys, PSP, and UA? No. Did I need yet another reverb or delay? Not really. Do they do things that are not easily done with my current tools? It appears so. And since I did not buy any large libraries it didn't hurt as much as it might have.

So what is left to tempt me? 8Dio Liberis was tempting last time it was on sale, but I passed. I love Bela D Giovanni for children's choirs. But children are wonderful voices this time of year, so maybe an alternative wouldn't be the worst thing? In all likelihood I'll waffle till I miss the sale, and then I won't worry, but who knows???

In many ways I feel much better about my purchases now that I no longer feel like I am way behind the rest of the pack. I have choices for nearly every sound I'm likely to use. Not too bad. Never thought it would come to this<G>!

[Guy Rowland]

Last year's purchases were a pretty ho-hum bunch for me, and I thought this year I'd be able to swerve the whole thing. Not so, for better or worse, but the good news is I'm happy with pretty much everything I bought. 90s Retro Trumpets do sound marvellous for what they do, and I think I'll be able to legitimately use them on something next year. Randy's Celeste is very much nice-to-have, but obviously nails that very particular sound perfectly. Nexus 3 is a definite improvement on 2, albeit not one that has fulfilled all that could be expected of it. Picked up a couple of expansions for this and Avenger, useful for genre-work.

But my shining star this time has been XO. Seriously, I've been looking for something for years that I could intergrate into my workflow, feeling that Stylus RMX 2 is always right around the corner, but the corner always leads to another corner. XO isn't anything like I'd imagine RMX 2 will be (RMX 2 being the one product I'd buy in a heartbeat where I've felt a genuine need for it), but it does fill something of the same workflow. With all the discussion here about working with live musicians and how its all too rare for many of us, being able to work with some tech that feels llke its comtribuiting and even giving you something back rather than sitting there like the slab of code it is, is wonderful.

[tack]

I bought Echoboy, which at $49 was finally cheap enough to justify. (I have UVI Relayer which I really like, but Echoboy did a couple things Relayer doesn't. How could I bear to live without cross feedback!)

I also bought the Bohemian Cello after I realized none of the celli I had could come remotely close to carrying this melody at such a high register. Unfortunately Virharmonic didn't have any Black Friday deals, so maybe that's a bit off topic.

[Blake Ewing]

Not sure if this falls under Black Friday or not, but today 8dio has the 1928 Emotive Grand/Scoring Piano as a free gift (reg $198) with any purchase over $99 and Liberis Angelic Choir for $79 (reg $498). The Century Strings general black friday sale seems to still be active, so I bought the Century Ensemble Strings for $178 (reg $448) and got the piano free. Nice deal.

[Markus K]

I finally got sonarworks reference 4 with mic for 180€. I've been waiting for this for month. Installed it right away. Unbelievable what it does. The first impression was it's like someone did lift a curtain from the speakers. This might improve my mixing decisions more than any other plugin ever could do. Didn't believe that my speakers deliver such an uneven curve. Some frequencies up to 6db away from flat.