LinPlug RM IV vs. Stylus RMX (serious decition)

[aaastronomer]

Dear musician colleagues.
So NI with Battery get's a kick cause NI was always CPU intensive to me, not to mention that I know that the included Battery packs are a bit...limited.

try battery 2...more extensive drum kits...a little heavy on the cpu, but not that bad...the filter does some serious mangling in conjunction with the bit resolution control...also, you can drop any wav file in a cell and thus do more with battery than just 'drumming'...

[spectrum]

The fact that Spectrasonics does not have an audio demo up is inexcusable. I mean it'd be like buying a car and instead of being able to see what it looks like they say "well, trust us on this one".

I'm just dumbfounded by their marketing. Obviously with the thousands of songs that have already used RMX it's not exactly hard to create a sound demo, but yet it's ESSENTIAL.

Their marketing team or whoever is in charge of that should be fired for pure laziness.

Heh-heh...that would be me!

BUT, I will say that it's an excellent product. I bought it because I had used the original Stylus and every Spectrasonics product is good.

Thanks!

But I don't know how they expect anyone that doesn't frequent message boards and are in the "know" to purchase their product. It really boggles my mind.

We'll be marketing RMX for a long time. We're just doing it in phases and the demos page is one of the next phases to come.

We've been working on the RMX demos page for quite a while actually. I think you guys will be impressed with it....there will be over 50 demo songs in a lot of different styles....it's really close to being finished.

The main reason we've not posted the demos page yet is because RMX is so versatile musically, that it is really important to show how it can be used in tons of different styles by different kinds of musicians...so I haven't wanted to rush it out there until we had a solid representation across a really wide range of genres and users.

To demo the instrument itself, you need to go to a shop...too big to download for a demo and you really need to check out the full version.

Lots of good stuff to come....

spectrum

[Cyprus]

We'll be marketing RMX for a long time. We're just doing it in phases and the demos page is one of the next phases to come.

But in the meantime you're losing customers who are purchasing other products because of the lack of demos.

It just seems to me that it would make a lot more sense to just upload what you have and say "more to come" and then deal with it. Because even though you might get a few customers that say "well it doesn't really fit my style" because some genres were left out since you're not finished, but you have a lot MORE customers right now that say "well crap...I don't even know what it sounds like".

So again, it just doesn't make any sense to me. You're losing customers probably every day, upload what you have and then finish all the demos when you can.

And I have no motive other than trying to help you guys in saying that. Stylus RMX is a great product, but if I had just been some average user completely oblivious to what's good or what isn't I would have NEVER purchased Stylus RMX. There's just no way, because right now it's all blind purchases going purely on word of mouth and trusting Spectrasonics would deliver.

So upload what you have...seriously.

[Compyfox]

Even though you might have audio demos, spectrum... that still doesn't show me how the program runs, how I can implement it, how it responds to my setup, my CPU/RAM and stuff. In short terms: I wanna test it. And this goes only by a demo.

I'm really not one of those who buys the "cat in the hat" or watches video demos only. Either I can test it, or the desired tool falls out of the list. Or even worse (what all you plugin producers want to prevent): those who want to have it or "just take a look at it" (excuse) use warez and stick to warez. Cause they say "okay, there's no demo so I snagged it - then why should I buy it".

Circle is closing itself, really. And like Cyprus said... put out what you have. RMX is out for a couple of months now (last year december?!) and still no demo?! If I'd produce a plugin like this, I'd also push out a demo. Hell even the e-lab REX player "Perfection" and "Obsession" (with a similar ideas) have featured demos on KEYS germany and on their homepage!


Of course the demo should be interesting too. Not that it is like the EastWest/Zero-G Demo CD that came out via soundsonline which was actually a 800MB (unzipped) bunch of crap. Please don't take this wrong. But as possible future customer I feel totally lost and if I wouldn't be so patient or wouldn't have that less of time at the moment, I'd stick to another tool for sure.


PS: Things I hate about demos the most...
- 30day trials and after that a lockdown that isn't resetable. Sometimes you just don't have the time to test it intensive, deinstall it and try it again after like 1 month - then the whole demo is locked forever. (happened to me with NTONIX "Orchestrator", if I want to test it, I have to buy it now! Which is crap)

- Audio switch off after 1-5 minute of testing. If I want to test something, then I want to test it in an arrangement. And this takes time.

- If there has to be a testtone in it, then not uber loud

Short said:
I prefer demos without limitations (just the usual stuff like "No import, no usage of the full gallery, no settings save or so). Just as SampleTank did with SampleTank Free and their other Sample Players. Or LinPlug with "Alpha Free", "RM 2" and stuff.

This would be really great. Else I really have to say "nah thanks, I get another tool - sorry". So... yeah.

[spectrum]

I appreciate you guys sharing your points of view and concerns...even if we don't agree on everything. We're actually not losing huge numbers of sales...in fact, I'm happy to say that the reality is quite the opposite!

I totally understand that some people need to have more to go on before they buy a product, so rest assured that it won't be long before there's way more demos on the site than most people will even want to listen to...and this issue will be a moot point.

Thanks again for the feedback and Happy Easter!

spectrum

[Compyfox]

Like I said... without a "usable" demo, RMX will drop out of my list. A pity, it seemed so comfortable towards making music and having tons of single stabs too.

[spectrum]

Yeah...there's really no good way to do that properly yet as a download. It's a bit like trying to figure out what a Minimoog is like with only half the oscillators waveforms.

I'd encourage you to check RMX out at a dealer or friend's place at some point. I think you'll find our instruments are well worth the extra effort to check them out fully.

Also, for those desperate to hear something of Stylus RMX, there are lots of examples of the "Classic" part of the RMX core library on the Atmosphere and Trilogy demos pages:

http://www.spectrasonics.net/instrument ... demos.html
http://www.spectrasonics.net/instrument ... demos.html

You can also do a search for RMX on kvr and find a lot of good user demos that have been posted already.

All the best,

spectrum

[Compyfox]

Like I said... shrink the libary to a 100MB demo or so balanced out with single stabs and loops, remove the import functions, remove multible outs and that's it. More enough of a demo.


Regarding a music shop. Well we have two in our town, but the only one who presents VSTi needs a "Shop Key" and this is always a pain in the ass for him to get (hell he didn't even have a SX3 key for a shop yet in february!) and is also very discouraging. I can ask him again within the week but I guess I won't have any luck. And those among my friends who already have RMX live overseas. So yeah.

I'll take a listen to the Keys demos from issue 2/2005, perhaps this is a bit more interesting but it still isn't a demo that I'd really prefer to look at. Demos are usually a reflection of the "common used sound" of the artist. And then you can't tell if the demo was made out of single stabs or loops, etc.

Can't be helped though. Guess I really have to do it like with MusicLab RealGuitar... demo was meh, couldn't test a full version anywhere and bought it "by chance". Which wasn't a bad deal (still want a clean strato or humbucker stringset for wild electric stuff though - like a lot of other users too). But then again... 250€ is a lot of money, just as any other drumsampler/loop tools in the same pricerange. Especially if you're on a budget/without job/student.

Thanks anyway


On a sidenote:
Is "Spectrasonics" perhaps at "Musikmesse 2005" in Frankfurt, Germany? Would be great, then I even have some live feedback from the creators.

[spectrum]

Like I said... shrink the libary to a 100MB demo or so balanced out with single stabs and loops, remove the import functions, remove multible outs and that's it. More enough of a demo.

I understand that concept, but you've got to realize that shinking an 8gb instrument down to 100mb is not a possible task. Especially when the instrument is designed to appeal to musicians across the musical spectrum. The limited sound set we would choose to have as a demo for a hi-hop producer, a film composer, a rock guitarist, a dance remixer or a country-pop songwriter would be totally different for each one. We have alot of customers in each genre (and many others too), so you can see the problem. It's easier when a module is very genre specific like some of the other examples you gave, but impossible with a product like RMX which is designed to be extremely versatile in a wide range of styles.

On a sidenote:
Is "Spectrasonics" perhaps at "Musikmesse 2005" in Frankfurt, Germany? Would be great, then I even have some live feedback from the creators.

Absolutely! Come by our Musikmesse booth (we are right across from Steinberg) and you can check it out in person.

We'll also have a booth at Sounds Expo in London too for all the local kvr brits

All the best,

spectrum