[Intro pricing extended] Available now: T-RackS Sunset Sound Studio Reverb

[Squids]

I was actually interested in this reverb but, what a toxic thread. Damn!

Is it? I can see you've joined in 2016. For some of us who go back to 2002 this is nothing. We've seen way way worse. But, hopefully you can see past the distractions and get some useful info here. A lot has been shared. It's not all toxic. However, if it bugs you I suggest simply ignoring it and downloading the demo when it's available. If you're actually interested in the reverb then try it and if you find it useful to you that speaks a million times more than what any of us have to say. The only thing that really matters is in the end is what each person thinks of it. Everything else is useful or not useful info. Once you have it and are making music or mixing with it all of our banter will hopefully be an irrelevant distant memory. Unless a good tip was shared that is.

I’ll definitely be downloading the demo. I feel for Peter having to deal with the shit he gets, he’s a very patient man.

Peter in person is a very mild mannered likable guy too. It is truly amazing how patient he is! I don't envy his job either. But, he can handle it. He's been doing this for so many years now. Over 15 with IK I think. Time flies!

[songshark]

Okay! Finally get to answer your post Songshark! Sorry for the wait I got a little distracted...

Thanks for remembering to follow up!

Some of those Brainworx plug-ins I got for $50 too were normally $300 or more... and yeah if you want them at the lower price you have to do the pick pack thing or wait until it's on sale and hope that it will be.

Virtually every Brainworx plugin gets there and relatively soon after release (if you have their loyalty vouchers -- which, btw, I find MUCH more useful and generous than IK Jam Points). Hard to imagine anyone ever paying full price at Plugin Alliance so I don't consider those list prices remotely real. (Same w/Waves.) So -- I think it is a fair "apples to apples" comparison. YMMV.

BTW, Squids, I'm shocked you don't get everything for free. I had imagined you developers all knew each other and just gave each other comps!

Anyway -- even if I were to like Sunset Sound -- I'll probably just wait for a sale or maybe a group buy or something. But I'll keep an open mind -- largely based on your additional descriptions and enthusiasm -- which I take to be genuine and sincere.

and if space on the hard drive is a concern I suppose one can just trash the app after it's used and download again if/when needed

That would be easy enough, but as I recall -- when you install one demo or purchase -- it INSTALLS all the T-racks plugins -- and then you have to delete each plugin individually which is not so quick and effortless. Again -- not the end of the world -- if you have a fast connection and plenty of drive space (much more precious on SSD.)

But also not very customer-friendly of IK. It creates a lot of ill will on the forums -- and, to my mind, creates a sense of not being responsive to the customer base.

Gavin Lurssen is a longtime friend of mine and I've used his services mastering some of my albums. At his studio he has this amazing chain of analog gear they use there for mastering that was made from years of experience working with Mastering Labs guru Doug Sax. So, the LMC was primarily designed to recreate that set up and the modeling wasn't just of the individual components but also of the whole thing studying and measuring and recreating how it sounds when run in certain series and other aspects that go deeper than I can even convey myself. All I can say is that when I mastered with them I felt like half the benefit I was getting was simply from running my tracks through their analog chain. In fact, I remember one time Gavin was busy mastering Eric Clapton or The Foo Fighters (higher priority than me understandably) and he said "look, Dave, we're slammed right now but if you want we can just run your tracks through the console which will get you at least that glue, presence and loudness you're looking for". So, he was going to do this for me as a favor and that's when I thought "hmmmm..." and a few years later this plug-in was made after I made the introduction. In a similar way to Sunset Sound Studio Reverb, I just wanted the product to exist so I could use it! I figured if I can use it so could a lot of people.

Interesting -- thanks for sharing.

Good news, the right developers DID see your request and even though I'm not sure I personally fully understand what you're asking for, I think I'm asking for the same thing but with even more control under the hood. I imagine in a future update we'll get these things so we just have to be patient is all

.

Now that's great to hear!!

Thank you.

Just to try to clarify for your sake -- what I (and SO many others) have been asking for us uber-simple! A way to bypass the plugin with one mouse click without the level changing! (So we can hear what it's doing without the bias of level increase.) Whether that be an automated gain-compensated bypass like Ozone ( my preference) -- or simply a gain control one can set on the plug-in -- to match input level -- doesn't matter.

TOTALLY SIMPLE AND LOGICAL -- and NECESSARY function...wouldn't you agree?

I can only ask!

Understood -- and thank you.

You've been heard and I would say the chances are good that your feature requests will be considered. Thanks!

Thank YOU again -- I do sincerely appreciate hearing that -- and I assure you I'm not the only one.
Hope it will translate to a result before too long.

And again -- welcome back. Thanks for the time and effort you put into responding. I'll look forward to your continuing participation.

[Squids]

Songshark, I hear what you're saying. Regarding the regular price and sales, you can see it however you want of course but there's apples to apples on the actual manufacturer's regular price and then there's comparisons of how companies do sales. They really are two separate things and as much as I love buying when there's a sale (and no unfortunately I don't get everything for free. I wish! haha. Sometimes but most of the time no and in the case of Waves and Brainworx I've always had to just pay like everyone else and, sure, I like those sales too) there's a part of me that thinks it's unfortunate when some companies do so many sales that people start to think the sale price is the regular price. It's not supposed to be but... anyway... not all companies do that and if they have something you want and they don't do crazy sales... like say Fab Filter or Melodyne or other things that are IMO "must-haves" then you have to decide if you're willing to part with the money to have it instead of waiting/hoping it'll be on sale. You know what I mean.

It also just depends on how badly you want something and what you can afford. Everyone has their threshold. Mine is around $200 or less I sometimes just go ahead and buy it without waiting for it to be one sale because I want to start using it. I think I did that for the Oaksound Spiff plug-in and it helped me on a mix so it was totally worth it. But, if it's $249 or more I might wait (if I can) until it's on sale... especially if I know a company does it often. That said, I gotta tell ya, I recently had to pay $1,500 for DTSX software because I'm mixing some surround sound concert videos this year and there was no sale whatsoever. No discount and THAT, to me, is a very high price. Perhaps that also factors into how I feel about something selling for 10 times less. I can come up with $150 on a regular basis. But, $1,500? Damn that one hurt. Although I'm glad I have it and now I can do high quality DTS HD Master Audio encoding... and can probably even get some side gigs encoding for people who don't want to pay that kind of money so... everything's relative I guess.

Regarding your request for LMC, now I do understand and actually discussed it with the developers and I think it's likely a feature like this will be included in the future. Although, apparently there was a philosophy behind why it is this way and I was right that it's more accurate to how Gavin's system is in hardware. But, my opinion about that is that it's nice to also offer features people ask for and that one makes sense to me even if there is a reason behind it being how it is. Sorry I don't know enough about why to explain that reason accurately. In any case, it's looking good for whenever the next update will be... and I think you'll like my other requests if they're implemented but I don't want to reveal that until it's a reality.

[cprompt]

I wish there was a "like" button on this forum because there are some people here, and I'm looking at you specifically, Squids, whose input, comments, thoughts, feedback and general comments are gold-dust. I'm just some middle-aged, talentless nobody who likes to play at being a musician now and then and so I really appreciate the time and effort real musicians and people in the industry put in to writing genuinely helpful and insightful posts.

Ta!

[glokraw]

what I (and SO many others) have been asking for us uber-simple! A way to bypass the plugin with one mouse click without the level changing! (So we can hear what it's doing without the bias of level increase.)

This presupposes that a plugin is boosting the gainstage
for no good reason, when more likely it's the users choices
that account for loudness and perceived loudness differences,
and what user doesn't want to accurately hear the sum total
of their choices?

If someone overcranks the gain, drive, wet/dry, filter and other
controls, a bypass that compensates for those choices
might be easy on the ears, but how will you learn
to get the optimum settings if you don't hear those
that are less than optimum?
Cheers

[Squids]

I wish there was a "like" button on this forum because there are some people here, and I'm looking at you specifically, Squids, whose input, comments, thoughts, feedback and general comments are gold-dust. I'm just some middle-aged, talentless nobody who likes to play at being a musician now and then and so I really appreciate the time and effort real musicians and people in the industry put in to writing genuinely helpful and insightful posts.

Ta!

I'm glad to hear this and thank you for sharing your thoughts. I haven't posted on KVR like this in a long time. I used to do it regularly years ago. It does take up some time to get into it and it's not something I need to do. I like to share my perspective on these tools as both someone who has been involved in product development (although just as an engineer and sound designer... I don't code or anything) and in respected professional music productions. This especially if I had something to do with a product but not only. Also, I rave about the products I like. I have close ties with IK but I'm happy to say that I like IK products and really do use them. But, I also use a variety of plug-ins and interfaces from other companies too and often share that. Since I've been granted access to IK's Instagram (rubs hands together muahahaha) I've been posting things you wouldn't expect to see! Like, say, my UAD Apollo Twin with the new Z-Tone DI! I like that little guy although not as much as my RME interfaces... and yes of course I have an AXE IO interface which I love and use as well. It depends where I am and what I'm doing. But, there are all kinds of possibilities for recording guitar with Z-Tone as a separate box. I enjoy sparking people's ideas and inspiring them to get products like this and use it in ways they perhaps hadn't thought of. I feel like that's a nice balance of contributing to the success of the company and contributing to people's music making possibilities at the same time. Just the fact that I do it on my own without it being my job, like Peter, and it's my personal time, say at night or on a weekend, shows where I'm coming from. I don't hide that I'm connected to the company and a marketing hype type of person or "selling", but I'm not actually ringing anyone up for commission and there's no plan behind what I'm saying. It's genuine excitement and that's the only thing I like to talk about... things I know. You won't hear me say "this is the best darn box for the latest Hip Hop style" because I'd be out of my elements (you like that one Peter? haha). I don't talk about anything I'm not genuinely excited about.

But, I know that some people like you do recognize that and welcome it. Some people are afraid of anything that smells of "sales and marketing", but either way it's all just information one can take with a grain of salt. My goal is to help the people a product is made for find it and get ideas on how to use it. When it comes to the Sunset Sound Studio Reverb, I myself am going through a bit of a revelation because I've often just used digital algorithm-based reverbs in my mixes. Nothing wrong with that. I sometimes use Altiverb. In fact, I've been using a 5.1 concert hall for a 5.1 concert video and it worked great for that. But, what I don't get to use is a REAL Plate and Echo Chamber. However, since I've had the chance to hear my songs at Sunset Sound, in each of the three studios (which would otherwise be a luxury that even the famous artists who have recorded there probably don't take... it's not like they're so picky they bounce from studio to studio to hear what every ambience is like... although I could imagine Prince doing that! haha) I feel like I've been missing something. So, even though I wanted this plug-in to exist just knowing that this aspect of a classic studio is desirable, it went to a whole new level of appreciation (and desire) when I actually did this at the studio on my own music. That's why I'm even more thrilled to use it than I was to begin with when it was just an idea.

Those who know me know that I like a combination of "the real thing" in hardware/real life physical (like vintage analog gear, real studio spaces and real live drummers) and at the same time I appreciate and use (and sometimes help create) virtual instruments, sound libraries and modeled effects. If I could afford it, I would prefer to record AT Sunset Sound Recorders all the time like Joe Chiccarelli who's personal studio is right there! (btw I'm working with him and also Mark Linett on some cool things... trying to get hold of tracks from Smile or Pet Sounds! We'll see. Finger's crossed on that one). I'd use a real chamber over a plug-in if I could or a real plate. But, those are two things I don't have in my studio and while some IR in Altiverb would do the trick, since I fell in love with Sunset Sound, this dedicated plug-in has become a new staple piece in my studio. Makes sense right? We want something that exists physically but we can't afford to have that luxury so we get a nice flavor virtually via software. Same could be said for an orchestral sound library for someone who can't afford to record with an orchestra everyday (or at all). Those are the kind of products I'm personally into... ones that let me do things sonically I wouldn't ordinarily be able to do.

[imrae]

If someone overcranks the gain, drive, wet/dry, filter and other controls, a bypass that compensates for those choices might be easy on the ears, but how will you learn
to get the optimum settings if you don't hear those that are less than optimum?

It's a lot easier to hear that those settings are "less than optimum" if you aren't being misled by "louder is better".

I can't quite believe that this needs explaining.

[Symphony Sid]

removed for the sake of brevity

Anyone with direct ties to the company that claims they haven't been sent by them strains credulity.
It is quite a coincidence that your interest in posting here again happened when multiple IK reps were struggling to explain why these IR are worth what IK is asking. You're verbose postings have sufficently buried that fact. Since the reps were unable to, perhaps you could give greater detail (in 10,000 words or less) why these are supposedly more than mere IR's??

[mholloway]

Abbey Road Plates (just the plates) regular non-sale price is $249. The Chambers another $199. So, Sunset Sound Studio Reverb with both Plates and Chambers AND the live rooms AND the iso booths AND the spring reverb for reg price $249 with an intro price of $150 is arguably NOT "over-priced" as some people are saying, relative to comparable products made officially with legendary studios.

Oh please. Everybody that owns Abbey Road Plates and/or Chambers paid TWENTY-NINE BUCKS EACH for them, and you damn well know it. You've just killed any dignity the rest of your defense might have had, leading with BS like that.

[Squids]

removed for the sake of brevity

Anyone with direct ties to the company that claims they haven't been sent by them strains credulity.
It is quite a coincidence that your interest in posting here again happened when multiple IK reps were struggling to explain why these IR are worth what IK is asking. You're verbose postings have sufficently buried that fact. Since the reps were unable to, perhaps you could give greater detail (in 10,000 words or less) why these are supposedly more than mere IR's??

The reason I post here in this thread by my own free will is because I was involved in the making of this plug-in (I was the one who wanted this to exist to use in my own music productions and convinced the studio and IK to do it). I was curious what people were saying about it and since I've been a member of KVR since 2002 I decided to chime in and offer my perspective (which many people have said they appreciate). I'll repeat what I said which is that no one sent me and no one can because it's not my job. That's Peter's job. I'm my own boss. But, those who know me around here know that and those who don't can guess. It doesn't really matter. I don't hide the fact that I have an affiliation with IK (and also other companies). It's understandable that anyone can think I am biased and I don't claim not to be. So, it's up to each person to take what someone like me says with a grain of salt or to ignore me or just listen and pick up whatever they can from it. I certainly do know more about the product than you do. It's not even out! Haha.

Ok, brevity is not my strong suit I admit so I'll just bullet point answers to your question as to what makes it "more than just some IRs"

• It's a convolution reverb plug-in that plays those IRs (and more)
• It includes modeling of the equipment at Sunset Sound that is part of the character of the sound as you'd hear those ambiences in the studio
• It includes a 360 graphic representation of the room
• It has additional sound shaping features/parameters in the plug-in
• The way all the audio and visual content was obtained and experimented with and tested is much deeper because of the actual official cooperation of the studio. Different mics, mic positions, A/B tests with music recorded there and not recorded there, multiple IR captures and other things under the hood that aren't shared publicly (not all aspects of every product from every company is made public... plus I'm not the actual developer so some things I couldn't even explain properly anyway).

The difference between someone grabbing an IR in a space where they don't actually allow it vs. capturing it in multiple ways with their full cooperation and creating a plug-in design to not only play those IR but complete the picture in terms of recreating the experience of being in the studio behind a modified API console or vintage Neve is significant enough for a product to exist such as this. I can tell you unequivocally (whether you believe me or not), this is a product I would definitely buy and that's why I wanted it made. I have purchased products like it from other companies (I mentioned Waves' Abbey Road ambient plug-ins for example). I'm sure there are some Abbey Road IR floating around too and I do have Altiverb to play them. But, I like when a company goes the extra mile beyond just some IR to load into a convolution reverb. I like when it has some additional modeling involved and extra effort, time, custom graphics and other benefits of an official collaboration.

[Squids]

Abbey Road Plates (just the plates) regular non-sale price is $249. The Chambers another $199. So, Sunset Sound Studio Reverb with both Plates and Chambers AND the live rooms AND the iso booths AND the spring reverb for reg price $249 with an intro price of $150 is arguably NOT "over-priced" as some people are saying, relative to comparable products made officially with legendary studios.

Oh please. Everybody that owns Abbey Road Plates and/or Chambers paid TWENTY-NINE BUCKS EACH for them, and you damn well know it. You've just killed any dignity the rest of your defense might have had, leading with BS like that.

As I said, I think it's a shame when a company puts things on sale so often that people start to think the sale price IS the price. I understand but the reality is that they ARE two separate things. One is the MSRP and the other has to do with how a company does sales. They're VERY aggressive with those sales and when they do it I buy them too. I'm sure I paid $29 as well. Why not? If a company offers it by all means take it. But, if they didn't offer that much of a discount I actually would pay $100-200 to have Abbey Road stuff like that... and believe me I have paid a lot more than that to have the Chandler/EMI gear in hardware! My "discount" for a Curve Bender in hardware was $4,000 instead of $5,000!

Anyway, I know I have not killed any dignity (that was quite dramatic haha). If you compare apples with apples then you look at the regular price of products as one thing and then the types of sales they do as another thing. I'm sure there are people who did pay regular price when they needed it right then and there and it wasn't on sale. I've been in that situation a few times where I couldn't afford to wait for it to be on sale. Some Brainworx plug-ins I bought that way and probably Waves and others. But, IK has sales too. In fact, I just saw that the full T-RackS 5 MAX is 50% off this month. Considering that the MAX bundle already reduces the cost of all the plug-ins included in that bundle I think adding 50% off on top of that makes each plug-in probably less than $29! I don't have time to do the math. But, if I did it would be fun to see that reality. However, even with that deal or other deals like Group Buys, they may be pretty darn good but not every company is as aggressive on sales as each other. Take a look at Fab Filter or Melodyne (two examples I mentioned before). I don't see their prices getting slashed too often. Myself and others have had to pay full pop for plug-ins like that but... if you use them and you make money from music then it's worth it. A lot of people I work with spend thousands on UA plug-ins and Diamond bundles. I'm actually a little more conservative myself and only buy the stuff I feel I need or can't resist.

Anyway... as I said, I know that to some people $150 seems like a lot and to others it doesn't. To me, it's not that bad of a price (even though of course I love it when plug-ins are $29... I just don't expect them all to be). I would pay $150 for it because I wouldn't want to have to wait until it's on sale, not even knowing how much less it would be or when. But, I may be in a different situation than you in that I can see an immediate use for it. In fact, I'm producing an album right now that relies heavily on those character sounds so there's no question it's worth it to me (but of course I get it for free and even have the beta version already... but you can believe me or not believe that I really would buy it if it was from another company and I had no choice but to buy it for $150. It's worth more to me now to use it than it would be to maybe save a few bucks on it later if it's on sale or part of a group buy).

[songshark]

what I (and SO many others) have been asking for us uber-simple! A way to bypass the plugin with one mouse click without the level changing! (So we can hear what it's doing without the bias of level increase.)

This presupposes that a plugin is boosting the gainstage
for no good reason, when more likely it's the users choices
that account for loudness and perceived loudness differences,
and what user doesn't want to accurately hear the sum total
of their choices?

If someone overcranks the gain, drive, wet/dry, filter and other
controls, a bypass that compensates for those choices
might be easy on the ears, but how will you learn
to get the optimum settings if you don't hear those
that are less than optimum?
Cheers

I don't know if you use Lurssen or not -- I'll bet you don't. It's not a question of the user overcranking the gain. The plugin itself --strongly boosts the gain --even at its minimum settings -- and there is no simple way to set it up to use 1-click to A-B the results at an equal level and compare details of what the plugin is actually doing beyond making it louder. There is a "process bypass" switch -- but it brings the level way down -- and that level change makes it pointless for A-B purposes. If you DO use Lurrsen and this doesn't bother you, than your mileage has varied from many of us.

[songshark]

Songshark, I hear what you're saying. Regarding the regular price and sales, you can see it however you want of course but there's apples to apples on the actual manufacturer's regular price and then there's comparisons of how companies do sales. They really are two separate things and as much as I love buying when there's a sale (and no unfortunately I don't get everything for free. I wish! haha. Sometimes but most of the time no and in the case of Waves and Brainworx I've always had to just pay like everyone else and, sure, I like those sales too) there's a part of me that thinks it's unfortunate when some companies do so many sales that people start to think the sale price is the regular price. It's not supposed to be but... anyway... not all companies do that and if they have something you want and they don't do crazy sales... like say Fab Filter or Melodyne or other things that are IMO "must-haves" then you have to decide if you're willing to part with the money to have it instead of waiting/hoping it'll be on sale. You know what I mean.

It also just depends on how badly you want something and what you can afford. Everyone has their threshold. Mine is around $200 or less I sometimes just go ahead and buy it without waiting for it to be one sale because I want to start using it. I think I did that for the Oaksound Spiff plug-in and it helped me on a mix so it was totally worth it. But, if it's $249 or more I might wait (if I can) until it's on sale... especially if I know a company does it often. That said, I gotta tell ya, I recently had to pay $1,500 for DTSX software because I'm mixing some surround sound concert videos this year and there was no sale whatsoever. No discount and THAT, to me, is a very high price. Perhaps that also factors into how I feel about something selling for 10 times less. I can come up with $150 on a regular basis. But, $1,500? Damn that one hurt. Although I'm glad I have it and now I can do high quality DTS HD Master Audio encoding... and can probably even get some side gigs encoding for people who don't want to pay that kind of money so... everything's relative I guess.

Regarding your request for LMC, now I do understand and actually discussed it with the developers and I think it's likely a feature like this will be included in the future. Although, apparently there was a philosophy behind why it is this way and I was right that it's more accurate to how Gavin's system is in hardware. But, my opinion about that is that it's nice to also offer features people ask for and that one makes sense to me even if there is a reason behind it being how it is. Sorry I don't know enough about why to explain that reason accurately. In any case, it's looking good for whenever the next update will be... and I think you'll like my other requests if they're implemented but I don't want to reveal that until it's a reality.

Squids. Thanks for the discussion re: prices. You're clealry at a $ level many multiples higher than I am!

And thanks again for your efforts re: Lurrsen. As I've said -- I like the plugin a lot and it will be FAR more useful with a simple means to level-match for comparison purposes-- so I hope you're right -- and I hope it's not too long in coming!

[Squids]

Squids. Thanks for the discussion re: prices. You're clealry at a $ level many multiples higher than I am!

And thanks again for your efforts re: Lurrsen. As I've said -- I like the plugin a lot and it will be FAR more useful with a simple means to level-match for comparison purposes-- so I hope you're right -- and I hope it's not too long in coming!

Thanks Songshark. These days I spend half my time in the musical instrument industry world and half my time making music and performing live (in fact, coming up next month I'll be performing with my band along side Yes, Steve Hackett and others on Cruise To The Edge). I'm in the Progressive Rock genre so it's niche and doesn't make a ton of money BUT even if that's all I did I could earn a good living from making music and that does give me the justifiable funds to purchase plug-ins or other studio gear... tools of the trade. That's why I don't mind paying for something I feel I can really use. It's a cost of doing business (even though that DTSX software at $1,500 with no sale, no discount was brutal... but it'll at least pay for itself after I've released a bunch of Blu-Rays this year).

Anyway, I totally agree with you on that feature. I'd want a quick way to do that too. Same level but getting to hear the dynamic and timbral differences without being confused by the level change. It's a nice feature and I'm confident that will be included in an update.

[dmbaer]

These days I spend half my time in the musical instrument industry world and half my time making music and performing live (in fact, coming up next month I'll be performing with my band along side Yes, Steve Hackett and others on Cruise To The Edge). I'm in the Progressive Rock genre ...

So, does your band have albums recorded or is the one you're currently working of your band? You have stimulated my curiosity (plus prog rock is my preferred genre of "pop" music).