# Play 4 and FX



## Kleven1111 (Jul 23, 2013)

So, after much time and rending of garments, I successfully installed SD3 and Play 4. It seems that the new SSL FX section only works with SD3 and is "unavailable" to only my other Play products now running in Play 4. Wasn't the whole idea of the pre-order that the SSL FX would be free on all Play products? This is very disappointing given the only reason I really bought SD3 early was to get Play 4 and the fx section.
Can anyone (Jay?) shed any light?

Keith


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 23, 2013)

Kleven1111 @ Tue Jul 23 said:


> So, after much time and rending of garments, I successfully installed SD3 and Play 4. It seems that the new SSL FX section only works with SD3 and is "unavailable" to only my other Play products now running in Play 4. Wasn't the whole idea of the pre-order that the SSL FX would be free on all Play products? This is very disappointing given the only reason I really bought SD3 early was to get Play 4 and the fx section.
> Can anyone (Jay?) shed any light?
> 
> Keith



Let me find out.


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## Kleven1111 (Jul 23, 2013)

Thanks, mucho.


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## MarkS_Comp (Jul 23, 2013)

I am curious about this as well.

Wrong forum, perhaps move it to ST?


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 23, 2013)

Kleven1111 @ Tue Jul 23 said:


> Thanks, mucho.



OK, this was just posted on the SOL forum:

"Hello,

We apologize for the current inconvenience. The SSL FX section for non SD3 libraries are currently unavailable in PLAY. We will be releasing a future PLAY update that will allow the FX section be available for all libraries."


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## Kleven1111 (Jul 23, 2013)

Jay,
Thanks for the info. Gotta say...pretty par for the course....


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 24, 2013)

Actually, the official word is that "it was intended to be released with the general release of Play 4, hopefully in the next week."


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## procreative (Jul 24, 2013)

Just to let everyone know for the avoidance of misinterpretation:

While the SSL FX will be useable in "legacy products" ie anything before SD3, note the Reverb section will not function fully for these "older" products.

So you will not be able to use the Reverb Send Knob at the top of each channel in the mixer page.

I was really hoping to use this for the Hollywood series as the East West Far Mics are some of the driest as they were not recorded in the position claimed as East West record in their studio which has no balcony unlike a concert hall.

I have experimented routing these Mics to a separate channel and dousing them in Spaces which does work. However as I am using VEP on a slave I either have to fork out for additional Spaces licenses or stream several stereo pairs from VEP!

Anyway above is what was told me by their Admin and that it was unlikely they would add it into older products at any stage soon.

PS As I already own the SSL EQ plugin, Play 4 is not so interesting anymore as for me the Mixer is less useful once you take out being able to apply reverb to Mics separately.

And I am not too hopeful its performance on a Mac is going to leap forward.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 24, 2013)

procreative @ Wed Jul 24 said:


> And I am not too hopeful its performance on a Mac is going to leap forward.



Yes. Admin was pretty clear that EW has done what it can do and further performance improvement is in the works by Apple with Mavericks and faster hardware. 

I have a friend who had a Hackintosh built for him that has SATA III with SSDs and has more powerful CPUl than any present Macs until the new Mac Pro comes out. He has Boot Camp installed., He says that when he boots into Windows 7 rather than OSX, ALL his audio apps, perform better and use less RAM.

For years and years, I was an Apple fan boy and I still think that for the things most people do, like social networking, listening to songs, posting pictures, ease of use, no mixing and matching hardware components etc., it is a more elegant solution but truly the only thing keeping me using a Mac right now for composing is that Logic Pro is not cross platform and I am a Logic guy.

Just an opinion, not going to argue with people over it,.


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## procreative (Jul 24, 2013)

I am also not hopeful that its performance on a Windows machine will be a huge leap either.

Again must say am disappointed the new FX section with its overhauled Reverb is wasted for older libraries, given many are not that old.

Are we to draw from this that EW have lost interest in orchestral libraries?

In my opinion these are the very libraries that would benefit from being able to apply reverb selectively, rather than the next percussion library.

This is where libraries with some baked in reverb drawn from the natural ambience begin to win as they sound better out of the box and the Far Mics actually sound "Far" and not slightly differently EQ'ed.


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## aaronnt1 (Jul 25, 2013)

Yeah, I must say that is a really strange choice not to allow the reverb for older libraries, especially the Hollywood libraries, I mean the Hollywood series (diamonds) are EW's flagship libraries and are a huge investment so this seems quite unfair. And what's more, assuming the upcoming Hollywood Percussion will have this functionality, it will be strange for the others in the series not to.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 25, 2013)

aaronnt1 @ Thu Jul 25 said:


> Yeah, I must say that is a really strange choice not to allow the reverb for older libraries, especially the Hollywood libraries, I mean the Hollywood series (diamonds) are EW's flagship libraries and are a huge investment so this seems quite unfair. And what's more, assuming the upcoming Hollywood Percussion will have this functionality, it will be strange for the others in the series not to.



Expect some news on this.


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## procreative (Jul 26, 2013)

Now that sounds promising! I hope it turns out to be good news as being able to apply the built-in Convo Verb would save a bundle on buying more Spaces licenses!

PS Jay saw your comment over at EW forum re Mics in HW Strings, my thoughts exactly. The extra positions definitely have more impact in the other libraries.

I thought my hearing was wrong, but at least I know I am not alone.


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