Black Friday Post Mortem - How'd You Do?

[soundbylaura]

Awesome Deals:
Sonuscore Erhu Phrases: Full price: $99. LT paid: $37.91. Score!!
Sonuscore Trinity Drums: Full price: $179. LT paid: $9.99. More score!!
Noiiz: Lowered yearly cost from $89 to $59. Already spent that $30, lol.

Good Deals:
WavesFactory TrackSpacer: full price: $59. LT paid: $29. A good deal.
Oeksound Soothe 2: full price $219. LT paid: $159. Just an ok deal, but likely the best I'll get.

Freebies:
Slate Digital Fresh Air
Waves CLA EchoSpace
ProjectSAM Symphobia Updates
Impact Soundworks Super Audio Cart Update

Things I Bought And Probably Don't Need (But At Least They Were Cheap):
TBPro Audio Final Loud 2: $29 (full price). I need another limiter like I need another delay.
Loopcloud 3 Months for $3. Not impressed with their offerings so far.

Things I Passed On:
AudioThing Speakers: Sale price is $59. Loyalty price (for me) is $54. So no need to get it now.
Sonuscore Flute Phrases: Just don't need it right now.

Lastly, a shoutout to TimeSpace for combining my two loyalty points accounts, which allowed me to knock $21 off the already-on-sale erhu phrases.

[Thomas Mavian]

Well, apart from the Waves and Slate freebies I didn't get anything at all actually. Nothing.

[kpc]

Nothing for me either. Not even the freebies. I’m being super picky about adding stuff to an already overcrowded hard drive. More constraints is better for me.

Still looking at Project Sam Lumina and maybe the Fluffy Audio Clarinet. But so far, just looking.

[Mikeybabes]

I've got to say, some of the people at VI-C bought an insane amount of stuff. One guy listed getting on for 4K's worth of sample libraries. How can you seriosuly sit down in front of all that stuff and make sense of it in one go ? I think there's likely to be another pandemic shortly, this time it will cases of buyers' remorse.

If there is anything I took from this BF, it was the amount of 'last chance' 'buy now' 'only 2 hours let' emails that plagued my inbox this year. I actually found it rather unpleasant this time. I've been unsubsribing from a lot of mailing lists left, right and centre.

I was also amazed at how many developers there and the number of products out there. It's a really saturated market.

For myself, I bought Turbine for $50 as for giggles, and with a judicious use of stacking coupons, got Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms Pro for $120ish, which I think was a steal.

I have also upgraded to Cubase 11, when it came out, but I wouldn't say that was a BF purchase myself.

I also got the free pulgin called Air, from Slate digital. Seems it might be useful.

Oh, I also pre-ordered the Full Score of James Horner's Aliens. I am looking forward to working thorugh that. I'm sure there will be lots to learn in there. I'll probably end up with a black belt in string clusters.

But this black Friday, I've mainly been watching the feeding frenzy over at VI-C.....

[wst3]

Been quiet here, so far - I picked up Turbine from Boom Library, and Traveler from Tonsturm, I am a sucker for sound design tools! Finally upgraded Reverberate and Studio One too. I was going to upgrade Melodyne too, but not sale price, so I can wait.

I am fence sitting on a bunch of things though. The big ticket items include:

• ProjectSam Pandora core looks awesome, I have been waiting for a sale since I wussed out on the intro deal.
• ImpactSoundWorks/CinemaSound Foley has the potential to make my life so much easier, except for the part where I do not have any projects that would benefit at the moment.
• And the Spitfire Ton Bundle - for $72 I add a harp and Swarm, both of which interest me, and it is a really good deal, but...

And as always there are some less expensive temptations:

• Oddgrooves, Groove Monkey & Toontrack - picked up a handful of MIDI drum patterns, always good for a little inspiration.
• Sonokinetic - will probably buy Tocatta, I love the sound. I have no immediate use for it, except maybe to practice.
• Indiginus - will buy Generation, just a matter of when.
• Bunker Samples - same goes for Off World, that thing sounds amazing
• Cinesamples - I am working on something that would benefit from a harpsichord, and so far this is my favorite. Might still be less expensive to stop listening to Manheim Steamroller, but I am almost certainly going to get this.

All in all the least GAS experienced in a very long time. If anyone has thoughts about the Ton bundle or Pandora Core I'm all ears.

[Luciano Storti]

Oh, I also pre-ordered the Full Score of James Horner's Aliens. I am looking forward to working thorugh that. I'm sure there will be lots to learn in there. I'll probably end up with a black belt in string clusters.

Nice.

The standout for me this year was Hofa IQ-Series Reverb v2. Works really well for my 'orchestra-placement' project, per some tests. Then I spent way too much money on an actual instrument (gasp!!) I'm utterly unqualified to play.

[Ashermusic]

I did great!
Things I Passed On:

Everything.

[ok_tan]

I have everything i need, except a good plate reverb. so: the plates from LiquidSonics, with a lot of coupons.

[Guy Rowland]

Bought too much really, given that I supposedly find it hard to buy things. Hmpfh.

The Cream Of The Crop
Fluffy Dominus
Best Service Ancient Era Persia
Sonuscore Lo-ki (and free)

Very good
Spitfire Harp
Pettinhouse Acoustic Guitar 2.0
Slate Fresh Air (and free)

Solid
Spitfire Mallets
Spitfire Swarm
Best Service Accordion
Boom Turbine
Fluffy Solo Woodwinds

A little disappointing
Pettinhouse Classic Guitar 2.0 (wish he'd given this the same great treatment as the steel string, still waiting for my ultimate nylon library).

[richhickey]

Highlight
Afflatus

Decent
Cineperc
Ample Sound guitars

Just ok
CSSS

Regret
8dio Studio saxes and winds

[Farkle]

I did great!

Didn't buy any libraries, but my 6 year old PC gave up the ghost, so I just dropped 2 grand on a brand new custom rig. It's being built at a Micro Center about 5 miles from here, and I pick it up tomorrow. <drool>:

Specs are insane.

Amd Ryzen 5900x Processor (12 core, 4.8gHz core speed)
64 GB Ram
2 NVMe SSD drives for samples, each one 1 tb
1 legacy SSD drive (500 gb) for more samples
Passive 2 GB Nvidia graphics card (no fan, silent running).

Can't wait to play around with Adventure Strings and Brass with it!

Mike

[trumpoz]

Happy:
Keepforest Devastator Full Edition
Keepforest Ferrum

Free: Sonuscore Lo-ki felt piano

Tossing up: Liquidsonics 7th Heaven - have till Dec 7th to decide if I am going to buy.

[Ashermusic]

Free: Sonuscore Lo-ki felt piano

Oops, I forgot, I did pick that one up and it sounds really good.

[mickeyl]

Turned out I became aware of my additional tax payment for 2019 (and 2020 as well), which is quite a mouthful, hence I had to ignore all offers.

[Guy Rowland]

How appalling, I forgot too and it was one of my absolute highlights. Fixed my list. Both Lo-Ki and Slate's Fresh Air were extraordinary free gifts this year.

[Thomas Mavian]

Yes of course! Lo-ki found a home on my drive. Great little library.

[Guy Rowland]

Dagnammit, I'm weak - just caved to Toontrack's Brushes, Rods and Mallets SDX on a Cyber Monday deal.

[Piet De Ridder]

(...) still waiting for my ultimate nylon library.

You may disagree with anything else I say on any other subject, Guy, but please, trust me on this one: get the Efimov Nylon — there's still 12 days left to get it at half the regular price. Absolutely the best virtual nylon guitar in town and I seriously doubt any other developer — not any of the virtual guitar developers I'm familiar with anyway — will come close to this achievement any time soon. Here's a little something with the Efimov Nylon.

_

[Guy Rowland]

I actually have the strumming version, Piet and its pretty good but still feels quite steel-ish at the higher velocities, and can never figure out how to globally edit their velocities. But not for the first time, your superb example makes me think I should get the other half because that does indeed sound like the kind of thing I'm after. I bought the Orange Tree one last year but it was quite the disappointment, the tone just didn't sound Nylon enough.

It's the one real guitar I don't have and really don't have the physical space for yet another one. As well as a real steel string, my Variax has a steel string, but not a nylon.

[Tanuj Tiku]

(...) still waiting for my ultimate nylon library.

You may disagree with anything else I say on any other subject, Guy, but please, trust me on this one: get the Efimov Nylon — there's still 12 days left to get it at half the regular price. Absolutely the best virtual nylon guitar in town and I seriously doubt any other developer — not any of the virtual guitar developers I'm familiar with anyway — will come close to this achievement any time soon. Here's a little something with the Efimov Nylon.

_

It’s a nice library for sure.

Piet, does your strumming work normally? I got it a few years ago but none of the strumming patches work on my system.

It starts fine but cuts off and comes back in on every chord change on any tempo and any pattern.

Was this an earlier bug? Have there been updates? Unless, I am doing something wrong.

[Daryl]

I did great!
Things I Passed On:

Everything.

Yep, I didn't buy anything sample related. Bought a load of paper, ink and stationary though. Sessions really eat through paper.

Oh, and added a couple more languages to my online learning.

[Guy Rowland]

Piet, does your strumming work normally? I got it a few years ago but none of the strumming patches work on my system.

It starts fine but cuts off and comes back in on every chord change on any tempo and any pattern.

Was this an earlier bug? Have there been updates? Unless, I am doing something wrong.

I might be wrong, but I think Piet used the regular library not the strumming one for that. My strumming seems to work fine, but I haven't touched it in anger for a while. Mine is v1.52 according to the file name of the .nki.

[Piet De Ridder]

Guy,
Yes, I agree that at higher velocities (from around value 80 actually) a distinct metallic snap can creep into the sound but, especially for solos, I avoid the upper velocity layers as much as possible, and it also helps to learn to manually override the scripted default string selection — there’s keyswitches for that, as I’m sure you know — because that metallic snap increases in unpleasantness higher up the fretboard, so if you can select a different string (this depends on the actual note of course), there’s often a less aggressive sounding alternative available.

But you’re certainly right, and it’s the one thing — and perhaps the unconvincing vibrato would be a second thing — I would have liked to be different too about this otherwise splendid library.

Tanuj,
I don't think I ever used the strummer. Well, no, what am I saying. That's not true. I did spend quite a bit of time, I recall, hoping to make it obey my wishes, but I was never successful enough, so I gave up. The first versions of the library also had memory-related problems, yes, meaning the longer you used it in a single session, the more notes started to disappear and the more unwanted things started to happen. I don't actually know what caused it, but it certainly affected the reliability of the strummer.

Since then, I only use the Nylon for things like the example above. Or for wistful solo lines. Where, in my estimation, it really does quite well. Also worth keeping in mind that that entire solo introduction of the first example, as well as the 'wistful solo line' which I recorded just now, was played live in one pass (excepting a few edits to correct a couple of mistakes). Not mentioning this to brag, only to point out how playable the Efimov is once you learn to play it.)

_

[Guy Rowland]

A lot of the attacks on that solo line are less convincing for me Piet, especially nearer the start. I think I hear the tell-tale same-sample-stretched-across-several-notes thing. But I realise being this exposed its a worst case scenario, and at the asking price of 60 bucks, my expectations shouldn't get too stratospheric.

[Piet De Ridder]

Back on topic: after some deliberation, I decided to give Spitfire another chance. I got both BBC and Abbey Road. And something which they threw in for free but which I haven't looked at yet. (The BlackFriday-price plus the VAT-reduction made this a less indefensible purchase than I first thought it would be.). Both libraries are downloaded and installed already — super-smooth, super-fast, super-problem-free process —, but I'm still a long way away from saying anything about it.

_