2012 purchase regrets?

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BERFAB wrote:If the one you got was set up to spec, then why the wide variance in quality?

Cars, clothes and musical instruments: Stuff you have to try first hand before purchasing, in my experience. :hihi:

Cheers
-B
Of course, following the numbers alone does not make a masterpiece. :)

I've played many Gibsons - in different stores - and they vary noticeably in quality. Rarely found a great one.

Every Gibson I pulled off the shelf at the 5-Star Dealer was superlative. Strikingly so.

The shop had only recently been upgraded to 5-Star status. I chatted with the owner about that. He confided that with the upgrade, Gibson was now sending him what he described as "the good stuff", adding that the pieces they got before were not at the same level. This comports with my first-hand experience. YMMV.
"Time makes fools of us all. Our only comfort is that greater shall come after us." Eric Temple Bell

http://thetomorrowfile.bandcamp.com/

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Well that's just ridiculous. Why would any brand of note want to signal to the world that its products are so unreliable that they need to designate a "5-star" haven where only the good versions of those products will be sent?

Shouldn't their goal be "Every Gibson is a 5-Star instrument?"

If I was a Gibson customer, I'd be pissed. [Actually, this may be the reason that I'm not a Gibson customer.]

Awful business ethic, to be sure.

-B
Berfab
So many plugins, so little time...

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BERFAB wrote:Well that's just ridiculous. Why would any brand of note want to signal to the world that its products are so unreliable that they need to designate a "5-star" haven where only the good versions of those products will be sent?

Shouldn't their goal be "Every Gibson is a 5-Star instrument?"

If I was a Gibson customer, I'd be pissed. [Actually, this may be the reason that I'm not a Gibson customer.]

Awful business ethic, to be sure.

-B
+1 I had the same thought. Thus, the love-hate many people feel for modern day Gibson.
"Time makes fools of us all. Our only comfort is that greater shall come after us." Eric Temple Bell

http://thetomorrowfile.bandcamp.com/

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(replying to OP)

Almost everything.

Over the past month I've really reconsidered the way I write music. ...Or, perhaps more succinctly, the way I DON'T write music because every time I sit down to do so, I end up tweaking synth patches instead. My new year's resolution, such as it were, is to simplify: find the tonality I really in my stuff and stick to them. As a result, I've found myself gradually setting aside almost *all* of the shiny new synths I bought last year... and there were quite a few!

I bought the FabFilter mixing bundle... and I find the only two I actually use are Timeless and Pro-C... and, honestly, for what I do, I could happily live without Pro-C. I should have just gotten Timeless (which is mightily impressive, I must say). I expected to like Saturn, but don't find myself using it... ever. [shrug] Perhaps my overdriven days are over... uhhh... excepting of course filter drives, which I adore. :) ...I do wish synths allowed us to load VSTs for FX (including filter drive), so you can modulate and route them in-synth. Maybe that will dawn on them this year.

I bought ElectraX, and, while I really did love it, I kinda wish I'd saved the money 'cause I plan on ponying up for a Virus this year and I doubt I'll continue to use it after that.

I bought Diva. I love it, and will continue to use it. No regrets there.

I bought Tremor. I... like it. But it's absurdly heavy on the CPU and I find I'm not really getting as much out of it as I thought I would. I bought it as a poor man's Machinedrum, and now wish I hadn't.

I bought Komplete early last year, despite already owning an older version of Their "Synths" package. I regret it: all I use is the synths I already had, plus Reflektor. Kontakt didn't impress: sampling is not my cup of tea and in general it just can't compare to Omnisphere. Reaktor is a neat idea, but just doesn't sound as rich as more modern synths and I guess I'm not looking for that ultra-minimal euro-electric sound that it does so well. ...I will say that I really love Reflektor, though! It is now the only reverb I load anymore, despite the overhead of Guitar Rig. ...Speaking of: the rest of Guitar Rig is fine... I mean... it's multi-FX, which is always fun, but I just don't use too many FX anymore other than the six or seven core FX that I can get anywhere else, and NI's FX don't sound as good (ie: Timeless, or Diva's chorus, or a Virus' phaser).

In trying to cut down on the synths I'm using, I challenged myself to get down to four and only four: a virus, Maschine, Diva, and Omnisphere.

...I haven't gotten quite that bold yet, and I'm not sure I'll make it that far. I can't seem to get away from Surge (leads), Massive (pads), and Largo (plucks): they each have a strong personality that I keep coming back for. They're like old friends. And every time I play with D.CAM thinking I'm going to get rid of it, I end up walking away shaking my head in disbelief at how good it is. It really is an awesome synth... Not as warm as Diva, but it has more... pleasant unpredictability.

So I'm struggling, still. But, really, this is the year. I can feel it! I'm going to stop obsessing about synths and start obsessing about electronic music.

[tries to maintain serious face]

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I regret all of it :cry:

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@Introspective: Nice post and the VST-inside-VSTi idea is very good.

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Cubase 7 update :(

I think, it's a step in the wrong direction. :roll:

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I have to add the iPod touch to the list. Beautiful device, but quite fragile (things happen to fall to the ground, sooner or later).
Shit, I just damaged one of the angles (on the metal enclosure, the glass is still ok and it works fine)! :(

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I took what I was going to post here and spent the afternoon knocking it around. It does have its merits and it's not a regrettable purchase anymore. (Though it is still buggy.)

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you know it seems without trying to sound like a jerk that imageline got a lot of us good with there end of the world sale. theres alot of complaints here about impulse buys from imageline. it sucks, but we cant even sell them. disappointed i am.

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AstralExistence wrote:you know it seems without trying to sound like a jerk that imageline got a lot of us good with there end of the world sale. theres alot of complaints here about impulse buys from imageline. it sucks, but we cant even sell them. disappointed i am.
Well, I bought Harmor for $45 and I am thrilled with my purchase. If I hadn't already spent far too much in 2012, I would have picked up a couple more plugins. I suppose the difference for me is that it wasn't really an impulse buy. I thought long and hard about what to buy in the Xmas/EndOfYear sales so I didn't really have any buyer's remorse after.
This space has been unintentionally left blank.

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Astralp wrote:
Ben H wrote:Translator Pro.

I was hoping that since it had now reached "version 6" that it wouldn't be such a buggy piece of crap, like the old version was.

Bad news. It's still a buggy piece of crap, but it looks prettier.

I submitted a few bug reports of reproducable errors and heard back the first couple of times, then nothing. No response, no acknowledgements, no requests for more info, nothing.

I have a pile more bugs I've uncovered, but I'm not feeling motivated to bother sending them if they aren't even going to be read or worked on.

Oh well, I got it at half price. I guess I should be grateful.
Ditto, complete waste of money and especially time... ESC is far superior,it doesn't support as many formats unfortunately but at least it does what it claims and doesn't crash every 2 minutes. Yep, I still have anger issues over this one, I've even uninstalled it to stop myself from giving it one more try... :x
Yeah, it's such a shame that Wlod dissappeared. :(
My main tools: Kontakt, Omnisphere, Samplemodeling + Audio Modeling. Akai VIP = godsend. Tari's libraries also rock.

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JJBiener wrote:
AstralExistence wrote:you know it seems without trying to sound like a jerk that imageline got a lot of us good with there end of the world sale. theres alot of complaints here about impulse buys from imageline. it sucks, but we cant even sell them. disappointed i am.
Well, I bought Harmor for $45 and I am thrilled with my purchase. If I hadn't already spent far too much in 2012, I would have picked up a couple more plugins. I suppose the difference for me is that it wasn't really an impulse buy. I thought long and hard about what to buy in the Xmas/EndOfYear sales so I didn't really have any buyer's remorse after.
Harmor is such a great synth. I wonder why it's not talked about more on forums like these. Glad to hear you like it too!

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As for me I bought a few things last year, some of which were (off the top of my head - I'll probably forget a couple of things):

Sonodyne SM100AK monitors (great!)
SampleLogic Morphestra
SampleLogic WaterHarp
SampleLogic Synergy X (actually, that was earlier this month)
IK Multimedia ARC
Roland VP-550 Vocoder (best vocoder I've ever used)
Nord Modular (second time I own one, they still rock)
Some room treatment (I need more - the acoustics in here are not great)
U-he DIVA
Native Instruments Maschine
Vintage something & Transistor something Maschine expansions
ImageLine Harmor
A few Zebra soundsets
East West Quantum Leap Silk
Slate VCC
Cakewalk Rapture & Dimension Pro (these guys are actually very capable synths, and I paid almost nothing for them)
LinPlug CRX4
Heavyocity Damage
Native Instruments Balinese Gamelan

I've been trying to think of something I regret having purchased, but I honestly can't come up with anything! I'm happy I got all these things - they're all great quality in my opinion, and all of them suit what I do musically quite well. Although some sound libraries will of course have some stuff that I'll never use, overall I'm very happy with the ones I've purchased in recent years (both the SampleLogic and Heavyocity is stuff great, btw - highly recommended for anyone in need of those kinds of sounds). I didn't find the Balinese Gamelan library to be that great value for money, though - there could probably have been a little more in there IMO. Still a worthwhile purchase for me as I needed those sounds, though.

2012 was a good year for me in terms of shopping! ;)

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I don't have any regrets about purchases this year.
...although my personal regrets are many.

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