What Did You Buy on Black Friday That You Never Heard of Before?

[dzilizzi]

Can you give me a link to Patchwork? I'm not familiar with it.

It's by Blue Cat. Not on sale often.

Blue Cat's PatchWork

Blue Cat's PatchWork is a universal plug-ins patchbay and multi FX that can host up to 64 VST, VST3, Audio Unit or built-in plug-ins into any Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) in a single instance, with both serial and parallel routing options. It is possible to chain effects in series or create...

www.bluecataudio.com

 

[Reid Rosefelt]

It's by Blue Cat. Not on sale often.

Blue Cat's PatchWork

Blue Cat's PatchWork is a universal plug-ins patchbay and multi FX that can host up to 64 VST, VST3, Audio Unit or built-in plug-ins into any Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) in a single instance, with both serial and parallel routing options. It is possible to chain effects in series or create...

www.bluecataudio.com

Yes, it looks like it does the same thing with a much more attractive and easy to use interface. But I never would buy it for $99. This was $30.

 

[dzilizzi]

Yes, it looks like it does the same thing with a much more attractive and easy to use interface. But I never would buy it for $99. This was $30.

Much better deal then. I didn't pay full price, but still more than $30. Bought it more for use with ProTools, but end up using it to test out new plugins.

 

[evilantal]

Spotfire British Drama Toolkit (upgrade to Ton bundle. I already had eDNA) and Polyverse Comet.

Had heard of them of course, but never thought I'd be buying them.

 

[motomotomoto]

I heard of ember tone walker D but really didn’t think I needed another piano. Grabbed the light one for 10 bucks played with it for an hour and then immediately went online and bought full version with 2 other mics. So playable and beautiful!

 

[shnootre]

VSL Andromeda
Morphestra
And Izotope’s Black Friday bundle.

Tonight I put Andromeda through Trash 2 and it was beyond divine.

 

[Uiroo]

Can you save a Kontakt preset that also loads a Pro-R, a Waves Compressor, a T-RackS EQ, and many other effects in a chain by various companies? I don't know how to do that, but maybe you can. But I know you couldn't stick 32-bit or AAX FX in there with your VSTs. If you have a host that won't take VST3s, then this will serve as a wrapper.

I admit I haven't had much luck saving user presets of non-kontakt instruments in Komplete Kontrol, but it is definitely high on my list of things to learn. If I can learn to do that, then maybe this will be less valuable, as I can sort through tagging in KK.

Yes.
You set up a track, wheter it's an audio, midi, or an instrument track. Then you add whatever vst you want (Kontakt, Zebra, LABS, whatever), put some third party plug-ins on it (for example Pro-R, as you mentioned). And just save the track as a preset (right click on the track name in the mixer).


Basically, every track you have in your project can be saved as a preset, even mutiple tracks in one preset. It saves fx, routing, cc assignments, practically everything.

This is for cubase, but I think many DAWs have this function. Hope this helps!

 

[LudovicVDP]

Fluffy Audio Simple Jazz Bass.

Always wanted a jazz bass but never really looked for it (I have a lot of other priorities).
But when I saw the pop up (or whatever ad or forum post...) and the price tag -> impulsive buy.

 

[Lindon]

I went into Black Friday with a meticulously compiled list of specific things I wanted. Fast forward to now, after all the dust settled, and I ended up with quite a bit more. Most of the unexpected add-ons were items I hadn't heard of before, including some newly announced products:

8dio: Blendstrument (2 flavors)
Soundiron: Sonespheres 3
Hidden path: Barrage
NoiseAsh: Vocal Finalizer
Strezov: Macabre Solo Strings
PluginGuru: Personal Flavours

that NoiseAsh is a winner...

 

[Zee]

I can't imagine needing another pipe organ

*laughs in Hauptwerk*

 

[Heledir]

I bought absolutely nothing!
Now that's unheard of.

 

[nolotrippen]

I bought absolutely nothing!
Now that's unheard of.

Yes, but was it on sale when you didn't buy it?

 

[Guy Rowland]

I'd never heard of XLN's XO until about a week before Black Friday - does that count?

Probably the most fun plugin I own, can't reccomend it highly enough. And since yet another year has passed without Stylus RMX Redux, this will fill that Spectrasonics-rhythm-shaped-hole in its own wonderfully idiosyncratic way.

 

[Voider]

Strezov Samplings Tupans X3M and Novo Essentials by Heavyocity. I only carefully buy new stuff, each year 1-2 new products, can't wait to make us of these two I think it will bring me a lot ahead since I've been focusing a lot of synthesizers and electronic percussion until now.

Edit: Wops, I read "what you never had before" in the title. I mean, that's an odd sentence, but I didn't question it.

 

[Reid Rosefelt]

Much better deal then. I didn't pay full price, but still more than $30. Bought it more for use with ProTools, but end up using it to test out new plugins.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'm going to study it because I can immediately see it is a much better plugin. Sometimes there are silly sales where good things sell for very cheap. For the right price, I might get it.

 

[2chris]

Logic can do it this. It's like Kontakt's quickload, but includes all instrument and effects plugins as well as their settings.

I do this in Ableton Live as well, you can save a rack that has a mix of included fx/instruments with external AU/VST2/VST3 and you can even make macro knobs to tweak certain parts of the chain. I got Cubase 10 this year and I'm still not great with it. I need to figure out how to do this in Cubase now that I'm thinking about it.

 

[RobbertZH]

Native Instruments Straylight, a granular synth.
Apparently it exists already for some time, but never heard from it until it was mentioned in one of the black Friday posts a few weeks ago.
I am really happy with this one. It is different sound-wise from my other synth plugins and has many impressive (but also more delicate) sounds.

Besides, I also bought (through loopmasters) the wav file library "Ambience" from the Sound Effects Bible series. It contains lots of 1 minute wav files with all kinds of ambience recordings (streets, cities, stations, weather, forests, etc, etc).

 

[CWELLINGTON]

Solo Violin by Artist, Taylor Davis (CineSamples)

I know of Cinesamples and went there to see what sales they had. Ultimately, I decided to go the Spitfire Albion ONE route for an orchestral library. However, I am always looking for good, dedicated, specialized solo instrument libraries to work with on top of bundles. I wanted to bite on buying Tina Guo's cello for a year now. I finally did, but then also noticed they had a solo violin. Since it was 50% off, I purchased it with the feeling that it can't be that bad for the price and based on how well Tina's cello turns out. I'm about to try them today.

 

[jbuhler]

I bought absolutely nothing!
Now that's unheard of.

This is just a humble brag for having snagged an elusive copy of N.

 

[Reid Rosefelt]

Yes.
You set up a track, wheter it's an audio, midi, or an instrument track. Then you add whatever vst you want (Kontakt, Zebra, LABS, whatever), put some third party plug-ins on it (for example Pro-R, as you mentioned). And just save the track as a preset (right click on the track name in the mixer).


Basically, every track you have in your project can be saved as a preset, even mutiple tracks in one preset. It saves fx, routing, cc assignments, practically everything.

This is for cubase, but I think many DAWs have this function. Hope this helps!

Of course. Many DAWs have this function. But once I make a preset in this, I can load it up in Komplete Kontrol, Sonar, Ableton, VE Pro, Acid, Cantabile, Vegas... anything I own now or will ever own that uses VSTs. Like maybe I will try Studio One or Reaper someday. And it won't matter if any of these hosts can work with VST3s, which a lot still don't. For example I can use Reason Rack in the old version of Ableton that I have. Otherwise I would have to pay $$$ to get the newest version.

But of course, there are reasons for using track presets and templates, particularly with the new features in 10.5. Every composer has to work out the systems that work best for their particular workflow. I believe this will be a useful addition to my toolbox. Maybe not for you.