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BF2018: The cigarette after it. How do you feel?

Well I bought a few bits:

Upgraded Studio One v3 to v4.
Not my main DAW, but for less than £ 50 I didn't need to think about it too hard.

Spitfire Solo Strings.
This ended up costing me £ 200 as I had everything else in one of their collections. I'm still playing with it, but the Virtuoso Violin Total Performance patch is very good. Need more time with it but very pleased with it so far. I'm working on a piece with a front and centre Violin Solo, so I have great hopes for this one.

I have nearly all of Mike Verta's Masterclasses and I listen to them a lot as I travel a great deal. They are unique in that many of them can be absorbed without having to watch them - you just need to listen - which makes them ideal for me. It's amazing all the little things you pick up on the 2nd and 3rd listening. I'm going to go through the ones I have to see if I'm missing any, as with 40% off their normal price of $30 it almost feels like theft.

I also bought the Orchestrating the Line course from Scoreclub. This will be the second course I've had from Alain, and he is very good indeed. The thing I find is that the more I learn, the more I discover that I don't know. It's a bit terrifying really.

The OT Berlin sales was initially quite tempting, as it is a series of libraries that I have always admired and has never been discounted like this before. But I simply don't need it, at least not now, and I have a terrific wife, three amazing children and the most incredible 18th month old Grandson to spoil this Christmas. In addition, my wife breeds labrador puppies for a hobby, and we have a litter due shortly, so we will have a houseful of puppies over Christmas, which is always exciting. The last time we had pups over Christmas our house was pretty much a re-enactment of the movie Gremlins. (it was great, but a little fraught).

So a much more restrained BF than last year where I made a big purchase into Spitfire. In fact I get the impression that BF this year was a lot lower key. It would be interesting to hear what the developers thought.

I was also impressed, though not terribly surprised, that Christian Henson from Spitfire gave away his old Mac Pro Coffee grinder to one of their customers who had a really low end MacBook and was struggling to run their libraries. What a great thing to do - but I've always thought highly of him and Paul.

It's a shame that we don't see more of them here, and HZ seems to have disappeared too. I found all the contributions of great value. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get them to post here a bit more....

Anyway, I've started to ramble.....
 
I had a plan to get Premier Sound Factory's Shakuhachi and Koto, but they weren't on sale. I was also hoping to pick up Nashville Sampling Co's Rich Redmond Modern Country Drums but they weren't on sale either. I was also hoping I might see a better sale price on Indigisounds (not to be confused with Indiginus) Steelpans, but it remained at it's perpetual sale price.

That left SonicCouture's Nyckelharpas (bought) and Muletone Audio's Brazilian Drums (bought)...

Did battle with some unexpected deals (Cinesamples 90s Retro Trumpets, Chocolate Audio Glissando Harp upgrade, Organic Samples Ethnic Inspiration) and prevailed, but succumbed to Cinematic Studio Strings (bought)

So all in all 3 libraries bought. My most restrained Black Friday yet...

of course some Black Friday sales aren't over yet... Heavyocity Novo and Forzo keep calling me, keep on calling me... and Redrum Audio have them fiddles coming, and Cinematic Studio Brass is coming as wel, and e-instruments Wurli is still on intro sale til mid-December, and Orange Tree have some interesting things in the pipeline...
 
I have nearly all of Mike Verta's Masterclasses and I listen to them a lot as I travel a great deal. They are unique in that many of them can be absorbed without having to watch them - you just need to listen - which makes them ideal for me. It's amazing all the little things you pick up on the 2nd and 3rd listening.

I've relistened to Themenator while playing a mindless game (Path of Exile) and thought that I must have got more info out of it than from "focused watching" without doing anything else while watching. I have trouble concentrating for long on this type of video (although they are great and entertaining) and it seems that this is easier for me to absorb if I keep my hands busy while listening. Gonna go through all that I have a second time I think.
 
My wallet died during this BF.

Hardware:
2x27" curved WQHD Samsung monitors.
Alexa Echo Dot to reminds me to go to sleep sometimes

Software:
Cubase Pro 10 (crossgrade)
Vienna Ensemble Pro 6

Libraries/plugin:
All Photosynthesis collection from Audio Imperia
Embertone Walker 1955 Concert D (Regular version)
Abbey Road TG Mastering Chain
Brauer Motion
 
I didn't take advantage of any BF sale this year. I really wanted Ark2 and Balkan Ethnic Orchestra but neither went on sale. I ended up buying Balkan anyway because I wanted to treat myself to something and I've been really itching to make some Balkan/gypsy style music.
 
I spent whooping 35 EUR for Toontrack's Metal Foundry SDX and bought few courses from Udemy.
I had a budget ready, but nothing really interesting came up.
 
I didn't take advantage of any BF sale this year. I really wanted Ark2 and Balkan Ethnic Orchestra but neither went on sale. I ended up buying Balkan anyway because I wanted to treat myself to something and I've been really itching to make some Balkan/gypsy style music.
I really wanted Balkan too, but it didn’t go on sale so I passed. Something about libraries that are a year old not being discounted? Fair enough. That’s a great policy actually. But I went back and checked the release and it was September 2017 so a little more than a year?
 
Spent less than normal on software.
Cubase 10 upgrade, meant I knew I wasn't going to spend much.

Freebie off Waves.

Toontrack - NY Studios 3 SDX
A few drum midi packs
A few EXKeys midi packs.

8DIO - Clocks, because you can never have enough ticking things.

Couple $1 plugins I didn't really want, but since my writing partner has them, we can now both use them in songs.

Looked at a few sales and downloaded their freebie kontakt instruments.

Mainly, bought new bits for an animation PC I'm building. (which may become my music PC, when / if I get bored of animation, since my music PC is now 8 years old, but still works).
 
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I wasn't going to buy anything, but OT sales surprised me. I bought Berlin Percussion. And today I bought Genesis. I think that's all for me during this year's BF.. :grin::rolleyes:

I was going to buy Olafur Arnalds Chamber Evolutions as my last buy...then checked out Genesis. Who needs more strings anyway? Genesis is AWEsome.
 
East West Hollywood Strings Diamond

Cinematic Strings 2

Modwheel Lowdown v2

Fabfilter Pro-R
EaReckon - EAReverb
TC Electronics - VSS3

Soundtoys - Decapitator

A few Udemy courses


Oops

Add,

Heavyocity Rhythmic Textures

Samsung EVO 970 2tb

RME Babyfacepro

And 2 Best Service Freebies:

Halls of Fame 3 - Lexicon 224XL & 300
These are actually pretty cool.
 
Was firmly in the "I've got enough" camp, determined not to get anything this year. Ended up getting Embertone's Herring Clarinet because it satisfies a real need I have. I'm a little proud of my restraint this year.
 
I really wanted Balkan too, but it didn’t go on sale so I passed. Something about libraries that are a year old not being discounted? Fair enough. That’s a great policy actually. But I went back and checked the release and it was September 2017 so a little more than a year?

Yes I saw the "one year rule" mentioned somewhere as well. I wanted to get it a year ago but held off due to certain concerns which led me to believe that the library was not really worth full price. After playing around with it I can see my concerns were justified so it does leave me with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth. Some of the patches are really fantastic, but other ones are ... well ... somewhat unusable. Nonetheless that hasn't stopped me from just about nearly wrapping up a really cool new gypsy style piece in the last day or so. So there's that.

IMO if the lib didn't have certain issues it would justify the $400 price tag. As is though I'd say it's worth more like $250 (to me).
 
Could you expound on the Dominus? What were you expecting and what felt like it fell sorry to you?
I guess I had hoped it was a little more flexible than it is. I still feel like it's very ambient-y, even with the close mics. And even with the pre-roll on, nothing lands on the beat. And the word builder works well, though I find it a little odd to make up random Latin words. I knew that was how it's done, but when I'm doing it just feels wrong. But it's still a great sound.
 
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I've been keeping my eye on Dominus, too, because it has such a unique sound. It seems to be suited more for soundscapes and movie scores, so I don't know if it would ever fit into any of my productions, but at the Black Friday price, I'm considering buying it just to noodle around with it!
I think it has a decent range of application, and it sounds gorgeous. What surprised me was that it was how composition with it is so bound to the word. It sings each word wonderfully—indeed almost magically—so that's not exactly a detriment, but for me that makes it more of a niche choir, really good at doing this one thing, and I'm not quite sure yet how it will work in practice as I'm sketching things out.

I should add that I stumbled on and picked up your (@Polkasound's) full bundle of accordions in the waning hours of the BF sale, so I can add that to my BF list. I'm really looking forward to exploring those instruments.
 
I guess I had hoped it was a little more flexible than it is. I still feel like it's very ambient-y, even with the close mics. And even with the pre-roll on, nothing lands on the beat. And the word builder works well, though I find it a little odd to make up random Latin words. I knew that was how it's done, but when I'm doing it just feels wrong. But it's still a great sound.
Hello. Actually Dominus was made to be able to sync on the beat. So you have these options:
1) to turn the Preroll OFF and play on the beat
2) turn Preroll ON and play the word with a slight anticipation according to the consonant (CRI or STA are longer than CO or KI)
3) turn Preroll ON and word quantize on and you just have to play in advance (random anticipation) to have the word perfectly on the beat.

The system is done to automatically do the change on the selected beat.
I usually prefer option 2 because it's much more controllable and sounds better. Option 1 cuts the longer consonants to have a snappier attack (the attack is always on the vowel part) while option 3 is quite rigid, since are stuck to the quantization you have set.

With option two, just make sure that compound syllables like CRI or SPI or ones beginning with a soft consonant (L,S,F) are played in advance. Usually it's about 300 for compound consonants and 150 for soft consonants. When you hear the vowel, that's should be on the beat.

So case:
1) you just play on the beat and the choir is on the beat. The starting consonant will be a bit cut, however.
2) Case 2 can sound beautiful, but you just have to think about how a choir interprets the chanting. If you are going to sing a word like Cristus, you will realize that it's the I that's on the beat. Everything that will follow will be synced according to the first I sound.
3) Case 3 keeps the musicality of the singing intact but forces you to play a bit before the grid size.

(Side note: you can make words consisting in single vowels to make a typical aaahh patch)
 
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Picked up Kontakt 6 and Spitfire's "The Ton".

Really liking the Evo 3, Glass and Steel, and Hybrid Keys from Kontakt.
 
Picked up Presonus Studio One 4 Pro on Thursday.
Managed to wait anything else out until today, but then got 2018 Core Collection from Spitfire (Solo Strings, Chamber Strings, British Drama) for a nice discount since I already had British Drama.

I've been bad.

Also got 4 more of the Mike Verta courses.
 
Big haul for me this time around:

VSL
MIR Pro upgrade from MIR24 - long awaited, I was always counting tracks
Synchron Power drums - on a whim, sounds good
Synchron CFX - still exploring having the integrated room

OT
This was the major unplanned bit. Given the 40% off, went from only having First Chairs to getting the whole Berlin strings/ww/brass/perc main suite. This could be a new basis lib. I hope they follow up with a xmas sale on the expansions. (Did I just say that?, I mean, "now I'm done buying libs forever" :)

Spitfire
SSS - completing SSO for me. My only somewhat remorse item, as I got this first, but now am more excited about Berlin. Anyway, when in Air...

Hardware
External TB3 NVMe drive - Tiny little thing, with 2TB in it, can go to 8TB.
 
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