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bayswater wrote:Tempting. I like to trash Waves, but I never found good alternatives to the Ren plugins I use all the time. I could get Diamond for less than half of what I originally paid for Ren V3, and less, ironically, than I've spent on disappointing alternatives so I could drop Waves.

There are a lot of useful plugs in that package Bays! I was just playing with the Vocoder tonight; pretty simple to set up and quite useful at times. It is a current Flavor of the Month Club favorite, too. I have been using H-Comp for some time; allows parallel compression without any fancy routing, and L3 is a key tool to get mixes LOUDER while still sounding tolerable. Also, if you don't have izotope RX, Diamond include the Waves noise reduction tools and their convolution verb as well.

All the Black Friday deals are upon us, but this one might stand out: Wavesfactory has everything at half price, including Trackspacer and their Mercury piano. No coupons or codes needed.

www.wavesfactory.com

Rick Cornish wrote:All the Black Friday deals are upon us, but this one might stand out: Wavesfactory has everything at half price, including Trackspacer and their Mercury piano. No coupons or codes needed.

http://www.wavesfactory.com

You beat me to the punch—this was the only one I was going to mention. I’m thinking it’s time for the Mercury more and more. It’s the first piano VI that I really like.

The big pianos are great for many purposes but, if buying a new piano for a studio, We’d be looking at a Bösendorfer 225 or a Steinway B (214cm) having recently played great examples of both (ok, she plays and I imagine the possibilities while I listen). I’ve never heard a Fazioli 228 in person but this sampled piano blows me away.
https://www.wavesfactory.com/mercury-piano/

There’s also a Mercury Lite
https://www.wavesfactory.com/mercury-piano/#lite

We’re big piano fans around here and I have a few VIs but how many Ds and Imperials does one need?

If someone ever sampled the Steinway A in RCA Studio B that Floyd Cramer played, I’d buy it. Heck, I’d like a nice VI of the Bösendorfer 200 in my house so that I don’t have to wait for someone to play it.

Rick Cornish wrote:All the Black Friday deals are upon us, but this one might stand out: Wavesfactory has everything at half price, including Trackspacer and their Mercury piano. No coupons or codes needed.

http://www.wavesfactory.com

I ordered Track Spacer as well. Not sure how useful it will be for me but, at $29, if I use it once, it will pay for itself. I like the idea of it.

One thing I noticed is that Mercury ($75) can use the free Kontakt Player while Mercury Light ($29) requires the full version of Kontakt.

mikehalloran wrote:

Rick Cornish wrote:All the Black Friday deals are upon us, but this one might stand out: Wavesfactory has everything at half price, including Trackspacer and their Mercury piano. No coupons or codes needed.

http://www.wavesfactory.com

I ordered Track Spacer as well. Not sure how useful it will be for me but, at $29, if I use it once, it will pay for itself. I like the idea of it.

One thing I noticed is that Mercury ($75) can use the free Kontakt Player while Mercury Light ($29) requires the full version of Kontakt.

I also went for Track Spacer, as the idea is quite appealing. (I can chop holes in audio using other audio in Spectralayers 4, but it is definitely not "automatic" and on-the-fly like Track Spacer!)

I have so many pianos now, I really don't want to sink another $75 for one, but is the "lite" version worthwhile? For $29 I can see dropping for that, perhaps. (Just upgraded Komplete to Ultimate, so I have to wear-out Alicia's Keys now before I get piano-lust digging in again!)

Actually, I've been using NI's "The Grandeur" quite a lot and like it very much.

Terry

As mentioned, Wavesfactory Mercury is part of their 50% sale, and well worth it -- though I compared head-to-head with TrueKeys Italian this past weekend and retained the latter on tracks that were already done with it to start with.

I am finding that Mercury is a better match for pop/rock, and TrueKeys Italian for certain jazz styles. Only, of course, when I want a Fazioli! They are different models though;l Mercury is from a baby grand vs. a full grand.

Meanwhile, the East/West pianos can be had a la carte or in a bundle for dirt cheap prices this week. Even $150 for the full Gold bundle. I might review the four they cover and see if there's any reason I should consider the Bechstein or Bosendorfer, if I'm not happy enough with my current top choices amongst my too-man-pianos sample libraries.

I am finding that Mercury is a better match for pop/rock, and TrueKeys Italian for certain jazz styles. Only, of course, when I want a Fazioli! They are different models though;l Mercury is from a baby grand vs. a full grand....

Does anyone consider 228cm (7’5”) a baby grand?

but is the "lite" version worthwhile? For $29

I don’t know. The demo for each is long enough to get an idea and I would listen to both. It only captures one mic blend that I find a bit strident in the lower treble. OTOH, it is only 20% the size and CPU load of the full version. Mercury Lite is also included in the full version.

They call it a baby grand, or small grand, I forget which. It seems that many consider a full grand to be 9'.

Listening to East/West audio demos now -- better than I remembered, for the Bosendorfer 290, to the point I can even see myself using this for impressionistic stuff and jazz. I typically only use a Bosendorfer in the context of a dense orchestral mix, as it cuts through like no other.

Meanwhile, Pianoteq just went on sale, but I have all of their expansions already.

I did decide against the East/West stuff as I only liked the Bosendorfer demos and not so much on more careful listening. I own so much EWQL stuff and have never gotten realistic phrasing out of any of their libraries. Besides, Sweetwater does not yet list them as being High Sierra compliant, so I don't want to bet the farm on future compatibility.

Hello Guys, http://www.amplesound.net is having a Winter Sale until January 1st....Do you need a virtual Guitar or Bass? Don't forget to check out our download section if you want to try our Trial or Free products.

Full bundle (17 plugins) - 61% off.
Full guitar bundle (10 plugins) - 56% off.
Full bass bundle (6 plugins) - 50% off.
Electric guitar bundle (5 plugins) - 49% off.
Acoustic guitar bundle (4 plugins) - 48% off.
Metal bundle (2 plugins) - 32% off.
Electric bass bundle (3 plugins) - 46% off.
Acoustic bass bundle (2 plugins) - 32% off.
Single products - 20% off.
Expansions - 20% off.

Harrison Mixbus is $29 right now. It does have a particular sound, and can be used with DP via Soundflower or JackOS, or standalone for simple mixes. At V4, it has become reasonably stable and usable. I still think they could do better by just selling the channel strips and bus strips as plugins in AU and VST formats, but they have a plan and they've stuck to it.

http://www.chocolateaudio.com/products/ ... ies-bundle

I am listening to the audio demos once again, as Chocolate Audio's drums are in my opinion the best recorded of any on the market, and I see they used the best mics (e.g. Schoeps CMC6's) for the piano recordings.

You can buy them a la carte as well.

The main problem is that these are overdone models, and I doubt these are as good as the latest (but only the latest) competition. Too bad they didn't do a Fazioli, Mason & Hamlin, or Bechstein.

They cover a Steinway D, which there are already so many good ones of -- though perhaps this one is the best. Also Yamaha C7, which I have too many of and only use for rock anyway. The upright is a Steinbach and sounds annoying to me. Then there's a CP-80, which might be the best but probably the most current ones from UVI and whoever else (I forget) are better.

The Steinway is a 1939 Hamburg D274 -- just a bit newer than the late 1920's D274 chosen by Galaxy for their Vintage D Piano, which I was using as my main Steinway library until finding that Soniccouture's Hammersmith is now usable on my 2017 iMac (I couldn't use it on my 2010 MacPro).

Galaxy doesn't list their mics, but the Chocolate Audio one is considerably brighter, and not to my liking, but perhaps tamable via mic blend and EQ. It seems quite articulate, which matters most, but doesn't have una corda samples like Galaxy does.

Maybe I'll take a chance on the Steinway D though, and possibly even the CP-80 if I really feel one more isn't too many -- after all, they each make different choices about the ratio (or presence) of the electric vs. the acoustic part of that hybrid electro-acoustic piano.

BTW Chocolate Audio are the only ones to have sampled a Yamaha BB-Bass -- though I don't need that for late night mock-ups anymore now that we have the modeled MODO Bass from IK Multimedia. Even so, this remains my favourite sample-based bass, along with one or two of Orange Tree's.

50% off Lexicon until Dec 31st.
I bought the Native verbs last sale and am glad I did.

http://lexiconpro.com/en-US

philbrown wrote:50% off Lexicon until Dec 31st.
I bought the Native verbs last sale and am glad I did.

http://lexiconpro.com/en-US

Buy at https://www.audiodeluxe.com/products/le ... erb-bundle and save even more. Remember you have to sign in and add to cart to see the discounted price.

A referral from John “Skippy” Lemkuhl d/b/a “Plug-in Guru:”

Here is a deal you should consider if you would like a synth with a different personality added to your sonice toolbox - for $1 !!!!

Hybrid 3 has 2 layers which can be 2 different presets - each layer has a SEQ and the sounds are really nice. Decent Effects and over 1200 patches included - Tough to pass up for $1 !!

https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/ ... 5-Hybrid-3

Rick Cornish wrote:A referral from John “Skippy” Lemkuhl d/b/a “Plug-in Guru:”

Here is a deal you should consider if you would like a synth with a different personality added to your sonice toolbox - for $1 !!!!

Hybrid 3 has 2 layers which can be 2 different presets - each layer has a SEQ and the sounds are really nice. Decent Effects and over 1200 patches included - Tough to pass up for $1 !!

https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/ ... 5-Hybrid-3

Already got it. Be forewarned that it neither the AU not VST (if I recall) will pass initial examination, however, if you enable it anyway and ignore the warning it will work properly.