Could you live with one DAW and one developer’s bundle?

[Michael L]

Pure Data

[gentleclockdivider]

Renoise and Native Instruments Reaktor, i dont even need their whole bundle

This !
And throw in the marvelous renoise lua tool for ‘composers desktop pro ‘ for out of this world sample mangling -spectral processing

[gentleclockdivider]

Pure Data

Supercollider >

[Jac459]

I think most people (or maybe just me) start out curating a pick and mix of the “best” (in other words our favourite) plugs from different devs. Then we get sucked in by the bundle offers with a “I’m sure I’ll use them all at some point” justification. Then you end up with a large (potentially huge) collection of stuff with duplicate functionality. We (I) then justify this because the duplicates are subtly different but we end up using our favourites most of the time anyway.
So from a cost point of view and the potential distraction factor and the hassle of maintaining updates across multiple accounts, licensing systems and installation managers you could argue this doesn’t make a lot of sense.
So the obvious answer is to go back to step one a curate a smaller collection of your favourites. My thought experiment was just to ask the question are any of the bundles on offer comprehensive enough to keep me happy or does each dev really only have one or two gems in their portfolio compared to others.
Taking Arturia as an example, the collection is huge now and probably covers most bases and I do like the idea of being able to manage updates etc through one installation manager. I am a big fan of U-he synths but had forgotten how comprehensive their effects collection is. I like UVIs effects collection but hadn’t considered that Falcon might cover everything else as someone has suggested.

None of this is important of course but it’s always interesting to hear other peoples thoughts and suggestions.

I think you make a very interesting point.
But having a bundle also means staying with one vendor and getting a unity of approach, logic and overall user experience.
Also you can make sure that they are themselves paying attention not to duplicate features.
So you may end-up with a more coherent set of plugins....

But of course it is not always simple. For example I always opposed Output Effects and the fabfilter creative bundle. Because on paper they do the same.
Finally I bought both (because I am a gasholic and they are both freaking awesome) and I discovered that both are very important and totally not overlaping. I am using them on every song and I know exactly when I want to use thermal for example and when i should use saturn 2.

[felis]

Cubase for a DAW.
I have multiple synth/fx bundles, with only a couple individual favorites from most of them.
In an ideal world, you'd be able to make your own bundle by combining your favorites from several developers.
But I can't see that happening for quite a while.

[BONES]

So the obvious answer is to go back to step one a curate a smaller collection of your favourites.

I try that ever year and it rarely works out. First and most obvious is that if you have used something in a song, then you need to keep installing it if you want to keep playing that song. Sometimes I'll try and replace a synth we've only ever used once with something else and, very occasionally, I might just render a stem and use that instead. Most of the time, though, the easiest thing is to install the bloody thing and be done with it.

My thought experiment was just to ask the question are any of the bundles on offer comprehensive enough to keep me happy or does each dev really only have one or two gems in their portfolio compared to others.

For me it comes down to horses for courses and there aren't too many vendors who cover all my needs. NI is probably the only one who does but who wants to rely on them for everything?

None of this is important of course but it’s always interesting to hear other peoples thoughts and suggestions.

It is, indeed. With a gun to my head, I reckon I could get by with maybe two - Heavyocity for sample-based stuff and Synapse for synths - but it would involve a fair bit of compromise. OTOH, I could easily get by with the stock effects in Orion or Studio One.

[BBFG#]

Thinking that about a year ago I would have said Steinberg as the whole answer. For awhile I considered it my desert island system. But then they updated and upgraded it to a point where moving forward with them means rebuilding from scratch. And NI just effectively did the same.
Glad I had more than one or two that I could just scratch them for now and move on to what looks like what does and will continue to still work.
Longevity in a single DAW/developer seems to be a myth to me now. The real answer for them is "yes", I could live with one DAW/one bundle. But knowing what companies those are places a dependency on them I'm no longer willing to declare. I have my favorites for now, but I know that anything can happen.

[pocvecem]

Honestly, I could live with Ableton Live Suite only. But life is so much better also having Zebra, Diva, Pigments, Kontakt, microtoniq and Valhalla fx.
If I could only have one of these I'd pick ZebraHZ as my only synth.

[martiu]

life is more interesting having options but sometimes is better to stick to the basics, especially if you have writer's block

[pocvecem]

life is more interesting having options but sometimes is better to stick to the basics, especially if you have writer's block

That's so true. The named plugins are the only ones installed on my daw. 80% of the time reaching for Zebra. Pigments only for granular sounds.

Then there are three hardware synths (Polybrute, Matrixbrute, MicrowaveXT) and my eurorack. Operator, Simpler, Drumrack and some Valhalla (Delay/Ubermod/Room).

That's all and I am happy.

Not long ago I had more than 20 hardware synths (also vintage stuff) and all the NI, Arturia and so on stuff. In the end it became a nightmare.

Now I know my musical tools well and wrting music or sound research is a charm.

[Jac459]

Honestly, I could live with Ableton Live Suite only. But life is so much better also having Zebra, Diva, Pigments, Kontakt, microtoniq and Valhalla fx.
If I could only have one of these I'd pick ZebraHZ as my only synth.

You should consider Phase Plant....

[pocvecem]

You should consider Phase Plant....

Thanks, but tried it and don't really like it. Doesn't click with me.

[Jac459]

You should consider Phase Plant....

Thanks, but tried it and don't really like it. Doesn't click with me.

Then it is good... I was just suggesting you try it....

[SHall1000]

So the obvious answer is to go back to step one a curate a smaller collection of your favourites.

I try that ever year and it rarely works out. First and most obvious is that if you have used something in a song, then you need to keep installing it if you want to keep playing that song. Sometimes I'll try and replace a synth we've only ever used once with something else and, very occasionally, I might just render a stem and use that instead. Most of the time, though, the easiest thing is to install the bloody thing and be done with it.

Yes, been there! Fortunately being a hobbyist I have only a handful of tracks I am proud enough of to want to revisit/keep so I am trying to get into the habit of printing stuff I like. However, going forward my thinking is the smaller the number of plugins I use the less of a problem this is.

Longevity in a single DAW/developer seems to be a myth to me now. The real answer for them is "yes", I could live with one DAW/one bundle. But knowing what companies those are places a dependency on them I'm no longer willing to declare. I have my favorites for now, but I know that anything can happen.

Yes, potential longevity or lack of it is another factor to consider. I started a thread on that topic a while ago https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtop ... =Longevity

I think I could go with Ableton and stock plugins alone.

I’ve never really got on with the Ableton synths. They sound great but are fiddly to use and for some reason I find the preset system off putting. I’d prefer it actually in the synth.

[El°HYM]

MuLab with Voxengo.