# Subscription Service



## José Herring (Jul 9, 2020)

Soooo.....I don't have any subscriptions. Don't believe in them.....but..... I was thinking ( I know dangerous)...unlike sample libraries that I use for forever, yes I still break out SISS on occasion, I burn through fx plugins like tissues. I hardly use the same plugins for a 2-3 years before I'm on to something new. As a result I've got tons of unused fx plugins lying dormant singing "When _he_ loved me"...(Toy Story reference for ya' youngins')

That's when I came across Plugin Alliance subscription. Now what I really really want from plugin alliance is all of about 2 or 3 plugins and I could own them forever for $1000 but then I'm like.....yeah but 2 years from now, when new stuff comes out, will that grand be worth it, sadly, no. So, now I'm thinking for $250/ year I can "rent". I at the end of that time might be buying the one or two I can't do without and then keep or discard the subscription. Hmmm..

Anybody sucesfully doing something similar? Or is it too much of a PIA to try and keep up the subscription?


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## charlieclouser (Jul 9, 2020)

Thing is, there's two main ways "they gotcha" with subscriptions:

1 - Even when you don't use the stuff that often, you figure, "Meh. It's only $2 per day. Might as well leave it running since ya never know...."

2 - You totally forget that you even have the subscription running because it's just auto-renewing and buried in the murk of your credit card statements with some cryptic annotation like "PIA Annual Fee" and, even if you DO spot it on there, you might think it's the fee for your security cams or something and be afraid to turn it off.

I probably shouldn't have bought all the Plugin Alliance plugs that I have, but most of them were purchased before they started doing subscriptions anyway, and they have so many sales, and every month I get a $75 voucher from them, so I've actually never paid full pop for anything from them. Most plugs I get from them are under $50, even the fancy ones. 

By now I have most of them...


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

I agree with Charlie. My biggest fear would be: what if for some reason I decide to let the subscription expire, and of course ten minutes later I have to pull up a mix I did last year and none of the fx actually work anymore. As a hobbyist I would never face this, but for pros like yourselves backup & recallability look like really important factors in the decision making process?


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## Keith Theodosiou (Jul 9, 2020)

Subs to me mean only one thing. You don't own that item and if you stop paying, you stop playing.

I preffer to own an instrument or plugin outright then i would never loose it.

I paid 500 odd quid for Audio Imperia Jeager and i have never used it in a piece of music but at least it is there for that day when i will want to use it.
Once i pay for something, that goes into the 'things i own' part of my head and i like owning things lol


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## José Herring (Jul 9, 2020)

Man you guys make good points. I was almost there. Almost going to do it, I mean really what's $25 a month. But, you're right. The Annual or monthly PIA payments, the plugin not being there if I need to recall a cue, the idea that someday I can't use it. At least now if I don't use say the Voxengo compressor I bought in 2005, it's MY choice because I've moved on to better, not Voxengos.


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## easyrider (Jul 9, 2020)

josejherring said:


> That's when I came across Plugin Alliance subscription. Now what I really really want from plugin alliance is all of about 2 or 3 plugins and I could own them forever for $1000 but then I'm like.....yeah but 2 years from now, when new stuff comes out, will that grand be worth it,



Just buy the plugins you want when they are on sale...

I bought ALL of my PA plugs on sale...and ALL below $49...That was the rule I put on myself....I bought the SSL channel strips first for $49

I was then sent a $25 monthly voucher....Then I bought Townhouse for $4 and over a period of time through sales and email flash 24 hour offers built up a bit of collection....

Most PA plugins cost me around $29 with my voucher some much less and some for free...

This money over period of time I did not miss...24 bucks here or there a month is a price of a few beers and a Pizza....

I then hit the $75 voucher monthly...and because I own other plugs I can buy the new Knifonium for $24 Last month I bought the the two new Fuchs guitar amps for 24 bucks...$12 each...

The summer sale just gone most plugins were ranged from 10 to 39...the rest were 49 with the odd few at $69 only the plugs released with a couple of months were 99 or full price...

Work out what you want then just buy them in a sale....that would be my advice...


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

josejherring said:


> Man you guys make good points. I was almost there. Almost going to do it, I mean really what's $25 a month. But, you're right. The Annual or monthly PIA payments, the plugin not being there if I need to recall a cue, the idea that someday I can't use it. At least now if I don't use say the Voxengo compressor I bought in 2005, it's MY choice because I've moved on to better, not Voxengos.


I am all for the “cloud concept” for tools one can relatively easy migrate from, e.g. video calling etc. But I look at plugins and they are your prime tools. 

I watched the Spitfire Creative Cribs episode in your studio @charlieclouser and if I’m not mistaken you have to keep old Mac rigs stored and up and running somewhat to be able to return to sometimes ten year old cues from the Saw franchise, if the director asks for a ten second call back to some old theme or other. Correct? Try and fit that in a subscription model....

Another thing that would scare me as a pro, is the sheer compatibility problems that an OS upgrade or DAW upgrade can sometimes cause...


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## Sunny Schramm (Jul 9, 2020)

I dont like to rent ... but "rent 2 buy" is a good thing for people who can not afford the whole price right now. like presonus offer it for studio one 5: you can pay 24 months 15€ and then its yours. you can pause or cancel it whenever you want - and later on you can upgrade for a very small amount to newer versions. LennarDigital offers the same for their Sylenth1 (9.99 till the full price is reached).


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## Keith Theodosiou (Jul 9, 2020)

Sunny Schramm said:


> I dont like to rent ... but "rent 2 buy" is a good thing for people who can not afford the whole price right now. like presonus offer it for studio one 5: you can pay 24 months 15€ and then its yours. you can pause or cancel it whenever you want - and later on you can upgrade for a very small amount to newer versions. LennarDigital offers the same for their Sylenth1 (9.99 till the full price is reached).


Rent to buy is a lot better, at least you will own that product after a certain period.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

Sunny Schramm said:


> I dont like to rent ... but "rent 2 buy" is a good thing for people who can not afford the whole price right now. like presonus offer it for studio one 5: you can pay 24 months 15€ and then its yours. you can pause or cancel it whenever you want - and later on you can upgrade for a very small amount to newer versions. LennarDigital offers the same for their Sylenth1 (9.99 till the full price is reached).


Agreed. But I don’t think that’s really what Jose is after here. It’s more of a convenience thing and a means to have access to the latest & greatest by switching on a subscription (“set and forget”), rather than a financing question/solution. At least for him it appears to be so. So yeah, very valid addition, but not really relevant for the OP I feel.


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## el-bo (Jul 9, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Another thing that would scare me as a pro, is the sheer compatibility problems that an OS upgrade or DAW upgrade can sometimes cause...



Will be interesting to see how this pans out, but I’m inclined to believe that there’s far more incentive for sub-offering companies to keep on top of compatibility than those who already have our money from the perpetual licenses bought some years ago.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

el-bo said:


> Will be interesting to see how this pans out, but I’m inclined to believe that there’s far more incentive for sub-offering companies to keep on top of compatibility than those who already have our money from the perpetual licenses bought some years ago.


Hadn’t considered this but yes: very valid point. One drawback of buying something is the dreaded “abandonware” thing. Has happened to me a lot. And another consideration is: paid upgrades that actually sometimes feel like a “hidden” subscription really.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

I guess that’s the reason a pro like Charlie actually keeps entire rigs around. And then there’s praying that one doesn’t need ONLINE authentication schemes of long gone auth servers...

This discussion resembles another one I had recently about so called IOT devices, that rely on “hidden” servers in order to be functional.
Once Philips decides to no longer support your older Hue light you’re basically screwed. Same thing applies to Nest stuff or the older Sonos speakers. “Sorry, your app no longer works. Just buy ANOTHER speaker. Your old one is 5 years old after all”. So much for “owning” hardware. As soon as they are relying on outside apps or servers to work....


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## MartinH. (Jul 9, 2020)

josejherring said:


> That's when I came across Plugin Alliance subscription. Now what I really really want from plugin alliance is all of about 2 or 3 plugins and I could own them forever for $1000 but then I'm like.....yeah but 2 years from now, when new stuff comes out, will that grand be worth it, sadly, no. So, now I'm thinking for $250/ year I can "rent". I at the end of that time might be buying the one or two I can't do without and then keep or discard the subscription. Hmmm..
> 
> Anybody sucesfully doing something similar? Or is it too much of a PIA to try and keep up the subscription?



Are you subscribed to their newsletter? They send out another sales voucher almost every day.




doctoremmet said:


> So much for “owning” hardware. As soon as they are relying on outside apps or servers to work....



Yeah, an absolute no go for me too, if I can avoid it.


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## charlieclouser (Jul 9, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> I watched the Spitfire Creative Cribs episode in your studio @charlieclouser and if I’m not mistaken you have to keep old Mac rigs stored and up and running somewhat to be able to return to sometimes ten year old cues from the Saw franchise, if the director asks for a ten second call back to some old theme or other. Correct? Try and fit that in a subscription model....



Well, the number of times I've actually done that is.... zero. It's just paranoia, really. On tour with NIN I somehow became the "keeper of the files" - for a while I used a D-Drum3 digital drum brain that used PCMCIA cards for sample storage, and I had duplicates of the cards and hung them on the lanyards of the tour manager, the drum tech, myself, and another couple back at the studio and management's offices, so a spare was literally hanging around the neck of three people on stage. Bright orange Pelican cases with hard drives in triplicate, multiple safeties of the Mezzo tape backups, etc. I was so paranoid that the whole live rig would be on a plane that crashed that I made sure I had all of the data needed to rebuild the tour stored in two or three locations around the country. Insanity. 

I never had to use any of those backups, not even once - but if I *hadn't* had them then I would have needed them for sure!

That said, about ten years after I left the band, Trent's assistant called me and said, "Dude, it's a long shot, but do you by any chance have the backing vocal stacks from "The Day The Whole World Went Away"? Apparently they were never printed to tape and were running live in an E-4 sampler during the mix?"

Of course I had them. Got 'em right here in fact. Took me ten minutes to bring 'em up. 

And six months ago I did do yet another SAW movie, and had to bring up that same old ending theme from 16 years ago to do another version, and this time we wanted it to start with the exact original version in all its dry and crusty glory, instead of being based on one of the "super" hybrid versions that came later.

So I went all the way back to the original Logic files, and because it was all audio and EXS24, every single sound, every single plugin, everything came back - except MasterX5. No third-party plugins except that one. 

Since I do still have a 12-core cheese grater with PowerCore in it, I could have booted it up on that, but I opted to just build a new "bare" version of the cue in Logic v10.4.8, by importing the elements into my current template, using L3-LL instead of Mx5. Worked just fine, and was less hassle than dealing with the old boat anchor computer. But I could have if I needed to, I guess that's the point. Plus now I have a nice fresh version in this year's version of Logic that I can use next time.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> I never had to use any of those backups, not even once - but if I *hadn't* had them then I would have needed them for sure!


It’s like the MINUTE one neglects backing up, stuff is DESTINED to crash. Millennia from now they’ll discover some kind of unified theorem in quantum mechanics that explains this. It’s a variation of Schrödinger’s Cat which will then be known as “Clouser’s Dataloss Paranoia Theorem”


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> But I could have if I needed to, I guess that's the point.


That IS the point. Besides, having hardware around that is even older and not relying on data in RAM is also a mixed blessing. A pal of mine still refuses ITB and needs to fire up his OB-Xa and TX816 every once in a while and that’s always “ok pray nothing blows up” 

This is why I sometimes envy guitar players sporting low tech 1972 Telecasters and stuff haha.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> Well, the number of times I've actually done that is.... zero. It's just paranoia, really. On tour with NIN I somehow became the "keeper of the files" - for a while I used a D-Drum3 digital drum brain that used PCMCIA cards for sample storage, and I had duplicates of the cards and hung them on the lanyards of the tour manager, the drum tech, myself, and another couple back at the studio and management's offices, so a spare was literally hanging around the neck of three people on stage. Bright orange Pelican cases with hard drives in triplicate, multiple safeties of the Mezzo tape backups, etc. I was so paranoid that the whole live rig would be on a plane that crashed that I made sure I had all of the data needed to rebuild the tour stored in two or three locations around the country. Insanity.
> 
> I never had to use any of those backups, not even once - but if I *hadn't* had them then I would have needed them for sure!
> 
> ...


Btw, as a huge NIN and Clouser fan, I just need to get this off my chest: it is really cool to have you chime in here with your interesting war stories. I guess I’m slightly starstruck hehe. Liked your recent talk with Christian Henson on his YT channel as well. Much appreciated!


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## sean8877 (Jul 9, 2020)

Echoing what most others are saying here, sign up for the PA newsletter and eventually you'll get any of their plugins for cheap. I own about half of them, I don' t think I've ever paid more than $49 for one, usually $29 or less.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

sean8877 said:


> Echoing what most others are saying here, sign up for the PA newsletter and eventually you'll get any of their plugins for cheap. I own about half of them, I don' t think I've ever paid more than $49 for one, usually $29 or less.


Unbelievable as it may seem, I own exactly ZERO PA plugins. Excuse me while I go subscribe (to be clear: to the newsletter hehe). Thx


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## NoOneKnowsAnything (Jul 9, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Unbelievable as it may seem, I own exactly ZERO PA plugins. Excuse me while I go subscribe (to be clear: to the newsletter hehe). Thx


Just be patient if u decide to buy PA plugins then don’t pay more than $29 per plugin.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

NoOneKnowsAnything said:


> Just be patient if u decide to buy PA plugins and don’t pay more than $29 per plugin.


I think I really have all the ones I could ever need and have restricted my GAS to just Aaron Venture’s Infinite Strings. Which as it seems will see a 2021 release.

.....

Yeah right haha.


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## charlieclouser (Jul 9, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Btw, as a huge NIN and Clouser fan, I just need to get this off my chest: it is really cool to have you chime in here with your interesting war stories. I guess I’m slightly starstruck hehe. Liked your recent talk with Christian Henson on his YT channel as well. Much appreciated!



Why thank you, it's my pleasure. To go very off-topic, here's a classic tech-war story:

We were playing Dusseldorf, in some really hot + sweaty club/theatre type venue, just a big concrete box really. Somehow we jammed our whole production in there, although it was a really tight fit. It was so steamy in there that the DA-88's that we used for click track and sequenced bass playback started throwing the "dew" indicator, which means that moisture is condensing on the rotating head assembly, and this is a disaster as the machines will shut down once it gets to a certain point.

We had two machines in the playback rack, so John Van Eaton, the tape+drum tech, could build the desired set on the fly by sticking the appropriate tapes in the machine and manually cueing them up (!!!). We'd play a brick of three or four songs from machine A, then one completely live song, during which JVE could cue up the next three-song brick on machine B and fire it off after the live song finished.

So JVE is crouched in his position by the rack, sees the dew indicator, and is praying that we'll make it to the end of "Brick A" before the machine shuts down, which would result in Trent breaking every piece of gear in the building. We make it to the junction, and while we're playing the live song he gets Helen (the wardrobe girl) to find a hair dryer. He spends the rest of the show holding the hair dryer, blowing hot air into the DA-88's tape slot, hoping that nothing goes wrong.

Fortunately, this was the right move. Hot, dry air works wonders. Which is good because that was the show that Florian from Kraftwerk came to, and we did NOT want to screw up in front of our idol!

(Florian hung out after the show, and was gracious and kind, and his only comment was something like, "I could see you were using ze zynthezizerz, but ze guitars were too loud to hear zem". Classic.)

After that brush with danger, JVE got one of those portable air conditioner / de-humidifier units, some of that silver flexible dryer vent hose, and a bunch of plexiglass sheets, and fabricated an enclosure for the DA-88 rack so the air conditioner would blow cool, dry air into the enclosure, and with little doors on the front so he could reach inside and swap the tapes, while the machines stayed cool and dry. It was a hell of a contraption, but it worked like a charm for the rest of the tour. No more "dew" indicators. Climate-controlled racks FTW!

(pic below = Trent, Danny Lohner, Florian Schneider, and me backstage after the show in Dusseldorf)


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## jononotbono (Jul 9, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> 2 - You totally forget that you even have the subscription running because it's just auto-renewing and buried in the murk of your credit card statements with some cryptic annotation like "PIA Annual Fee" and, even if you DO spot it on there, you might think it's the fee for your security cams or something and be afraid to turn it off.



Hilarious. “Buried in the murk of your credit card statements”. So accurate!


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> that was the show that Florian from Kraftwerk came to


As soon as I read Düsseldorf I was like “Kraftwerk”. Great story!!


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> Why thank you, it's my pleasure. To go very off-topic, here's a classic tech-war story:
> 
> We were playing Dusseldorf, in some really hot + sweaty club/theatre type venue, just a big concrete box really. Somehow we jammed our whole production in there, although it was a really tight fit. It was so steamy in there that the DA-88's that we used for click track and sequenced bass playback started throwing the "dew" indicator, which means that moisture is condensing on the rotating head assembly, and this is a disaster as the machines will shut down once it gets to a certain point.
> 
> ...


I am now wondering whether you guys played my hometown’s rock club or not, maybe in your early career... a lot of huge bands have (Joy Division, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and many more) and the venue can pack maybe 200 people but of course 10.000s “were there” hehe.... <club Vera in Groningen, the Netherlands>


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## wst3 (Jul 9, 2020)

back to the question - the only subscription plan I used was Cakewalk Sonar, it made sense for the customers, and I can't help but believe that is part of the reason Gibson shut them down. (The other part is pure incompetence in the boardroom, but that ship sailed!)

For those that don't know, Cakewalk offered a subscription deal where you committed on an annual basis. At the end of the year you owned the version that was current at that time. They also promised monthly updates, and I have no idea how they did it, but they did it. Some monthly updates were a little more meaningful for me, but I'm sure the months that did not impress me made someone else happy.

The thing that cinched it for me was the fact that I lost nothing if I dropped the subscription. I kept that version forever. And if I decided to renew I could catch up with a minimal penalty. It worked well for customers, it provided some level of recurring revenue for the company, it allowed them to spread development resources around... it seemed brilliant.

And then they were gone.

I own too many plugins from UA and PA, I use a lot of them, but I'm certain there are some that don't get used. Like many others, I don't think I paid full price for any of them, not sure I got the price down to $29, but I'll bet $49 would be a realistic maximum for PA, not sure about UA, but it was probably a little more.

Thing is, I own them, and while they do cause some clutter, I don't have to worry about swapping them out because I stopped the subscription. Even at my semi-pro rung on the ladder that is important to me.

I get the reasoning Jose, really I do, I've considered that myself on many occasions - how can I take advantage of subscriptions? Ironically, the fact that I own so many means the subscription has almost no value for me anyway.

I did briefly consider the new Presonus subscription model, but I don't use their plugins or libraries. Their plugins are good, and their libraries aren't bad, but why use something that is tied to a specific DAW? The risk is just too high. I stick with unlocked libraries and plugins.

One day someone will find a subscription model that benefits developer and consumer, but it hasn't happened yet... at least not for me.


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## charlieclouser (Jul 9, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> I am now wondering whether you guys played my hometown’s rock club or not, maybe in your early career... a lot of huge bands have (Joy Division, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and many more) and the venue can pack maybe 200 people but of course 10.000s “were there” hehe.... <club Vera in Groningen, the Netherlands>



Hmmmm..... doesn't sound familiar, at least not during my tenure. When I was in the band we played Amsterdam a number of times, but that's the only place I remember from the Netherlands, other than maybe some summer festivals which always seemed to be in some muddy fairgrounds out in the middle of god knows where.

Tradition dictates that every American band that plays Amsterdam stays at The American Hotel on Marnixstraat, right near The Bulldog, and every time your bus pulls up to the hotel around noon, whatever band played the night before is just loading up on their bus, so as they file out of the hotel they hand off whatever is left of their weed and hash stash to the next band. The next morning you repeat the process and hand off your stash to the next band.

Except James Wooley (R.I.P.), who was the keyboardist before me, decided that he just couldn't part with that last chunk of the awesome hash, so he brought it onto the bus. As we approached the German border, the bus driver started calling out warnings to get rid of whatever stash we had left. "Border in five minutes, customs agents will search the whole bus, so toss it out the window boys!" etc. James couldn't bear to just discard the chunk, so he ATE IT.

Bad idea. He got VERY high, and for the next two days his left eye wouldn't open more than halfway.

But the funny part is that this was in '92 or '93 or so, just as the Euro Zone was coming into being and borders were opening up, and as we approached the frontier, the bus driver turned around and said, "Gotcha!". The border was now open and we did not have to stop for passport control - just breezed right through at 100kph. James didn't have to eat that chunk after all. He was not pleased.

We did play a festival in Kristiansand, Norway at one point, and the sun only "sort of" went down for about two hours - not ideal for NIN to play in sunlight, even if it was "midnight sun". The venue was an outdoor stage that backed up to a lake, and the backstage was a floating barge-like deal. Somehow me and Robin commandeered a rowboat and rowed out to a rock in the lake to smoke out, but we had poor boat etiquette and forgot to tie the boat up. While we were getting baked it drifted away and we had to swim for it, in full stage clothes with the big heavy boots and all, and hit the stage soaking wet. Even in the summer that lake was freaking cold. As the saying goes, there was "shrinkage on an epic scale."


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## method1 (Jul 9, 2020)

If there was a way to implement subs like EW does, i.e when the sub expires your projects can still open and play back, just no editing of the instruments, it would make it a lot easier to take the plunge. 
In general though I avoid subs wherever possible when it comes to software. 
PA is always hit & miss for me, like others in this thread I have a lot of PA stuff but almost always reach for something else.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 9, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> Hmmmm..... doesn't sound familiar, at least not during my tenure. When I was in the band we played Amsterdam a number of times


You’d have remembered Club Vera. The guy that runs it makes a point of treating bands extremely well  ever since the early eighties postpunk days up to the present day. Speaking of Norway... the band that I’ve seen there play most is Motorpsycho. Extremely talented bunch of musicians and very nice people...

This is Vera’s manager, Peter:






And had you guys ever played there, there would definitely have been pictures up in the club’s “gallery”. I’m guessing Amsterdam might have been Paradiso or Melkweg (if it is was cool clubs) and / or the larger venues (Heineken Music Hall).

Again, thanks man - love those stories. Maybe write a book. Because that Bulldog story sounds.... familiar hehe.


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## el-bo (Jul 9, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Unbelievable as it may seem, I own exactly ZERO PA plugins. Excuse me while I go subscribe (to be clear: to the newsletter hehe). Thx



Some great stuff to be had. And despite them having tightened things up a little, there are still some crazy prices to be had. And the vouchers can bring things down to close-to-nothing, or even zero


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## charlieclouser (Jul 9, 2020)

el-bo said:


> Some great stuff to be had. And despite them having tightened things up a little, there are still some crazy prices to be had. And the vouchers can bring things down to close-to-nothing, or even zero



I've definitely found some surprisingly good plugins in the PA line, and usually not the ones I expected would wow me. Besides all the guitar amps and console emulations that grab your attention at first (and are quite good), some less visually impressive plugins like bx_XL_v2 and bx_subsynth have made it onto my A-list.

They recently did a deal with Dmitry Sches, and are selling his Thorn synth (which is very nice), and soon will have his v2 update to Tantra, which I love. It's a one-stop shop for sequenced and trance-gate type effects, with a really great sequencer for drawing controller curves which can affect any parameter of six effects engines. While the effects themselves seem pretty ordinary at first, once you start messing with the thing it's really quick to come up with cool sounds. I'm looking forward to whatever v2 brings, so keep an eye out for that one.


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## charlieclouser (Jul 9, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> You’d have remembered Club Vera. The guy that runs it makes a point of treating bands extremely well  ever since the early eighties postpunk days up to the present day. Speaking of Norway... the band that I’ve seen there play most is Motorpsycho. Extremely talented bunch of musicians and very nice people...
> 
> This is Vera’s manager, Peter:
> 
> ...



Peter looks like someone I'd remember! We definitely played Milkveg and maybe Paradiso? Concertgebouw? Been a while, and memory-erasers were in full effect.

On one tour we only stayed a single night in Amsterdam, arriving around noon day of show and leaving super early the next morning. Our main security guy always kept it professional and never indulged, but we had some days off immediately after and so technically he was allowed to indulge starting the morning after the show. He woke my ass up at the crack of dawn and was like, "Dude! Let's go! We have an hour to get our bake on before lobby call, show me your favorite coffeeshops!" It was so early in the morning that none of the coffeeshops we wanted to go to were open, but we finally found a tiny one with this wrecked-looking dude behind the counter who sort of looked like John Hurt's character in Midnight Express:






By then we were almost out of time, so Jerry pointed to an item near the top of the menu and said, "One gram please."

Mr. Midnight Express looked us up and down, and said, "Do you seriously mean to tell me that you two are going to smoke (looks at menu) White Widow at (looks at watch) seven-forty-two in the morning?"

We're like, "Uhhhh.... maaayyyybeeee. Why? Is that a bad idea?"

"No... as long as you don't have anything to do for the rest of the day... or... week.... or... life."

We downgraded our order.


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## jononotbono (Jul 9, 2020)

“Mr Midnight Express!” 😂


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## sean8877 (Jul 10, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> Peter looks like someone I'd remember! We definitely played Milkveg and maybe Paradiso? Concertgebouw? Been a while, and memory-erasers were in full effect.
> 
> On one tour we only stayed a single night in Amsterdam, arriving around noon day of show and leaving super early the next morning. Our main security guy always kept it professional and never indulged, but we had some days off immediately after and so technically he was allowed to indulge starting the morning after the show. He woke my ass up at the crack of dawn and was like, "Dude! Let's go! We have an hour to get our bake on before lobby call, show me your favorite coffeeshops!" It was so early in the morning that none of the coffeeshops we wanted to go to were open, but we finally found a tiny one with this wrecked-looking dude behind the counter who sort of looked like John Hurt's character in Midnight Express:
> 
> ...



Haha, loving these road stories


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## el-bo (Jul 10, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> I've definitely found some surprisingly good plugins in the PA line, and usually not the ones I expected would wow me. Besides all the guitar amps and console emulations that grab your attention at first (and are quite good), some less visually impressive plugins like bx_XL_v2 and bx_subsynth have made it onto my A-list.
> 
> They recently did a deal with Dmitry Sches, and are selling his Thorn synth (which is very nice), and soon will have his v2 update to Tantra, which I love. It's a one-stop shop for sequenced and trance-gate type effects, with a really great sequencer for drawing controller curves which can affect any parameter of six effects engines. While the effects themselves seem pretty ordinary at first, once you start messing with the thing it's really quick to come up with cool sounds. I'm looking forward to whatever v2 brings, so keep an eye out for that one.



Yup! Very good recommendations. I tend to go for their more creative efforts (I seem to have ended up with most of Unfiltered Audio's catalogue), as I'm one of those Philistines who can't really tell the high-end stuff from 'stock', in most cases. Even when I can, the one-click instantiation of LPX's CH-EQ and Compressors is a workflow-sweetener I find hard to avoid. That said, I do have the 'Brainworx bx_digital V3'. Not quite got to grips with all it's secrets, but love me some of that 'Air'. Am also interested in the 'bx_console N'. One day, perhaps.

Your recommendations for Dmitry Sches' plugins is also solid. I have Thorn and Tantra, and enjoy them both. Having fun trying to coax more subtle stuff from tantra, currently...mainly inspired by some of the sounds I hear from this guy's sound-set:









Dmitry Sches Tantra & Tantra2: Weave - emptyvessel


Tantra (Sanskrit: तन्त्र; literally "loom, weave, system")Weave is a 65 preset expansion pack for Tantra & Tantra 2 showing its ability to introduce a huge range of movement, rhythmic glitches and complex modulated craziness to any kind of audio. Weave's patches make use of all of Tantra's effec




store.emptyvessel.co.nz





Will probably buy it soon, along with the Thorn sets he's created 

And yes! Very excited to hear what Tantra V2 will bring to the table. Seems we won't have to wait too much longer.


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## jononotbono (Jul 10, 2020)

I’ve been using the UAD-2 BXSubsynth and it’s an amazing plugin. I haven’t tried the PA version but if it’s anything like the UAD version then I’d say it’s a must buy for sure!


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## sndmarks (Jul 10, 2020)

sean8877 said:


> Haha, loving these road stories


All that's missing is getting lost on the way to the stage!


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## Rasoul Morteza (Jul 10, 2020)

I never quite understood the idea behind software companies turning towards subscription based models. I mean it makes sense to pay a monthly fee for your electricity, you're getting the same resource every month. But with softwares it is rather different, at least I personally prefer purchasing the ones I want. I'm sure part of it has to do with the newer online based protection/activation schemes. Although I do see the appeal of subscribing when you want to use many of a company's softwares for a period of time, it will cost a lot cheaper in the short term.


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## blackzeroaudio (Jul 10, 2020)

The nice thing about the Plugin Alliance subscription however is that if you get the annual pass for $250, you get a $250 voucher that you can use to buy any plugins that you like when they go on sale. 

Something to at least consider.


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## José Herring (Jul 10, 2020)

blackzeroaudio said:


> The nice thing about the Plugin Alliance subscription however is that if you get the annual pass for $250, you get a $250 voucher that you can use to buy any plugins that you like when they go on sale.
> 
> Something to at least consider.


Yeah, that's what I was looking at initially. A legal way to try before you buy. Plus $250 considering all the sales that come up will probably get me all that I'm looking for......right now. 

But, the question is at the end of the year, will I give up all the others? They'll undoubtedly put new things that I may want in the future? So it's like Charlie's original point it's only $4 per day that will mostly be an annoying reminder of hey, you don't really own these at the end of the year and will I be like, hmmmm should I cancel, what if xyz? 

So in the end I'm managing without them. I want them but I'm willing to wait for the sales and snap them up when they go on sale and set aside that $250 for the deals.


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## MartinH. (Jul 10, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> Hmmmm..... doesn't sound familiar, at least not during my tenure. When I was in the band we played Amsterdam a number of times, but that's the only place I remember from the Netherlands, other than maybe some summer festivals which always seemed to be in some muddy fairgrounds out in the middle of god knows where.
> 
> Tradition dictates that every American band that plays Amsterdam stays at The American Hotel on Marnixstraat, right near The Bulldog, and every time your bus pulls up to the hotel around noon, whatever band played the night before is just loading up on their bus, so as they file out of the hotel they hand off whatever is left of their weed and hash stash to the next band. The next morning you repeat the process and hand off your stash to the next band.



We made a school trip to a museum in Amsterdam once. In front of the museum a bunch of unsuspicious looking teenagers handed us printouts of some kind of underground city guide, that had a map with strip clubs, brothels and places to buy drugs marked on it. Surreal...





josejherring said:


> A legal way to try before you buy.


They have regular trial versions for download I think. At least for a Neve console emulation that I bought there was a trial.


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## charlieclouser (Jul 10, 2020)

MartinH. said:


> We made a school trip to a museum in Amsterdam once. In front of the museum a bunch of unsuspicious looking teenagers handed us printouts of some kind of underground city guide, that had a map with strip clubs, brothels and places to buy drugs marked on it. Surreal...



When we were in Prague, staying at a nice hotel (might have even been a Hilton or some other international chain) the concierge handed out nice, glossy, printed maps with little "sexy woman" icons on them to indicate "good" prostitutes, "old crone" icons to indicate "bad" prostitutes, and little "bandit mask" icons to indicate where you should go if you wanted to be robbed. The icons appeared next to each other in some locations...

The show in Prague was at some incredibly ornate opera hall, all marble and gilt with opera boxes and all that. The punters were absolutely trashing the place - the marble floors were slick with vomit and spilled beer before we even started playing. Zero safety measures. 

We had randomly run into the promoters at a McDonalds on the way into town, and because we had no Zlotys or whatever the local currency was they bought our lunch. These promoters were in their early twenties and were positively giddy because they were making a fortune putting on shows, bribing officials, and just generally running roughshod because their hard currency could open any door and smooth over any violation. (They asked us if we wanted a ride in an army tank or helicopter but we declined). The after-show party was in an amazingly ornate and beautiful Soviet-era officer's club below the opera house, with oak panelling and portraits of big-hatted communist generals all over the walls, while the young promoters danced on the bar and rifled through the cabinets looking for souvenirs. Crazy. The early nineties, pre-Euro era definitely had a bit of a wild west feel.


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## charlieclouser (Jul 10, 2020)

blackzeroaudio said:


> The nice thing about the Plugin Alliance subscription however is that if you get the annual pass for $250, you get a $250 voucher that you can use to buy any plugins that you like when they go on sale.
> 
> Something to at least consider.



That is actually a pretty cool side effect of the PA subscription model, I didn't realize they gave out such a big voucher with a subscription. 

By the time they started with the subscription model I was already so deep into buying the plugins that I was getting $75 monthly vouchers and many other reduced price offers, otherwise I might have given it a more serious look.


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## Buddy (Jul 10, 2020)

How are you guys getting these vouchers?! I own a fair bit of PA stuff, but haven't received a voucher that I can remember.


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## easyrider (Jul 10, 2020)

Buddy said:


> How are you guys getting these vouchers?! I own a fair bit of PA stuff, but haven't received a voucher that I can remember.











Plugin Alliance - Monthly Voucher Codes


Sign up for our email newsletter and get the BEST deals every month!




www.plugin-alliance.com


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## Dr.Quest (Jul 10, 2020)

blackzeroaudio said:


> The nice thing about the Plugin Alliance subscription however is that if you get the annual pass for $250, you get a $250 voucher that you can use to buy any plugins that you like when they go on sale.
> 
> Something to at least consider.


Yes, this is the big plus. With the vouchers you can then buy the ones you like and let the sub go.


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## AllanH (Jul 11, 2020)

I don't like subscriptions, and only every had the Cakewalk annual subscription.

I thought the Cakewalk model excellent as it essentially was a 12 months of monthly updates and I got to keep the last of the version "as is" without any expectations of future updates.

That being said: From a developer's perspective with never-ending OS upgrades (e.g. Catalina) and an implied expectation that plugins get updated "forever", is problematic with a one-time payment. Then there is the same expectation as DAWs are upgraded.


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## rrichard63 (Jul 11, 2020)

blackzeroaudio said:


> The nice thing about the Plugin Alliance subscription however is that if you get the annual pass for $250, you get a $250 voucher that you can use to buy any plugins that you like when they go on sale.


Agreed, although I would add that you have to use the whole $250 voucher in one transaction. Usually that's not a major problem because PA has at least two store-wide sales every year. It just takes a little planning and self-discipline.


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## chocobitz825 (Jul 15, 2020)

rrichard63 said:


> Agreed, although I would add that you have to use the whole $250 voucher in one transaction. Usually that's not a major problem because PA has at least two store-wide sales every year. It just takes a little planning and self-discipline.



just used my voucher yesterday to pick up 3 plugins I use often. It’s kind of a great deal. I don’t use everything, but what I do use I’m sure I want to own. Having a year to really try stuff out, and then buying them with vouchers is a nice rent-to-own alternative to the average subscription plans other companies have. I have to say they nailed this for me.


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## rrichard63 (Jul 16, 2020)

chocobitz825 said:


> just used my voucher yesterday to pick up 3 plugins I use often. It’s kind of a great deal. I don’t use everything, but what I do use I’m sure I want to own. Having a year to really try stuff out, and then buying them with vouchers is a nice rent-to-own alternative to the average subscription plans other companies have. I have to say they nailed this for me.


Yes, PA is the only subscription plan I have signed up for. Whether I renew for a second year depends on whether I am interested in owning enough of the newer products that I don't already own.


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