FabFilter Pro-R 2 -> Released Thursday November 2, 2023

[MrJubbly]

Fabfilter is also an excellent developer. To me, they aren't that customer friendly but why would they? Their products are so good.

I could also name U-He... Expansive and paid updates but very cool products...

Yet at the end of the day, my personal choice is that it I have to choose where to put my money I will favor an UVI, Kilohearts or Arturia because of their customer centric approach.

First time I've heard someone suggest that Fabfilter were not "customer friendly."

In my personal experience, Fabfilter are one of the most "customer friendly" developers around. Both in terms of their products' useability and also in terms of their personal interactions with customers in their product support and their feedback forum.

Kilohearts and u-he are likewise right up there on the customer friendliness and 'fairness' charts.

I've never been a UVI customer, so cannot comment. Although, I don't personally find Arturia quite as attractive as an ex-customer of several of their products such as V Collection and Pigments.

But, Fabfilter are good dudes and I have to disagree with the statement that they are not "customer friendly." If you're talking only about the price point of their products, then that is a separate issue, to which each person can attribute their own assessment regarding "value for money." But, I have no complaints.

[MrJubbly]

It makes a lot more sense to generate high sales at a low price rather than low sales at a high price, when you’re selling an unlimited resource like software.

Yes, exactly - I don't feel bad at all when I shell out 30bucks for something I don't actually have any need for...

Personally, I'd rather pay $300 for something I'd use all the time, than for ten $30 products, I don't often utilize.

But it's swings and roundabouts and if there is a cheaper alternative, that a user can utilize as much as the more expensive option, then all power to them.

[Funky40]

Decay-EQ , thats all CC mappable btw.

Indeed, and pretty much ALL the controls are butter smooth when automating them. There should be no sudden pops and clicks (except perhaps if you rapidly change filter shapes).

we work much likely very different you and i.
But we might do similar things.
I use quasi exclusively GigPerformer as my host only. No sequenzing, just realtime-play.
I create morphs, and would manipulate parateres by hand in realtime. You automate in the DAW.

I much think, doing so ( creating 1-2 knob morph setups), will bring the features of the pro-R / pro-R2 to a completly different level, compared to the competition.
With what the pro-R2 delivers now, are morphs/one-knob control setups possible......i see no other Reverb in my bin, to be taken "there". (well, alots of what i intend to do was much likely allready possible bevore, with pro-R)

For me, ALOTS lies within how a Reverb would decay.
I do not necessarily care much for the "sound" itself.

[MrJubbly]

Whats also seems too much to ask for is drag and drop for the IR´s in 2023(i really hope its only not working for me,they cant forget sth that simple like drag and drop, right? ).

This feature request has been made on FF's forum.

Just a quick update on said feature request...

... actually, this is already on our wish list and we will probably add this in a future minor update!

Floris (FabFilter) — Nov 3, 2023

...See what I mean, about the "customer friendliness" of Fabfilter with their customers?

[Funky40]

Personally, I'd rather pay $300 for something I'd use all the time, than for ten $30 products, I don't often utilize.

make it $200-250 and i´m in.
but how would i know upfront ?


I can reduce down the software i :::really::: use, dramatically !
Ther market would have seen less than 20% of what i spent.
With what i know today, could it be taken down to even lesser edit: below 10%

Who lost ? The Hardware Market !

[jens]

It makes a lot more sense to generate high sales at a low price rather than low sales at a high price, when you’re selling an unlimited resource like software.

Yes, exactly - I don't feel bad at all when I shell out 30bucks for something I don't actually have any need for...

Personally, I'd rather pay $300 for something I'd use all the time, than for ten $30 products, I don't often utilize.

But it's swings and roundabouts and if there is a cheaper alternative, that a user can utilize as much as the more expensive option, then all power to them.

But I don't think the industry could survive on that alone... I'm pretty sure I paid way more than 1000€ for tsofware reverbs alone already... and one or two of them at most should be enough.

[Ploki]

Should i request a refund and buy it in 4 weeks for 25% less? is that their usual discounts?
That amounts to like 15€.
Almost feels like wasting everyone's time for 15€.
I bought a delivery pizza for 15€ today.

+ the gave me Twin3 for free although i was a bit over grace period.

I guess it's a moral question at this point.

I highly encourage you to experiment with Vintage algo, it has a gorgeous shimmer at longer decays. Very useful but subtle.
Also there's a few things it does like no other reverb, i.e. extending drum sounds. It's really easy to make it resonate and only add short "tails" to things, it's my fav kick drum "fattener". It sounds really natural.

[bmanic]

Indeed! It's excellent for drum enhancing. I made a bunch of specific presets for this very thing. You can find them in the "small" category in a separate (and unfortunately easily unnoticeable!) folder called "Drums". The folder is right at the top of the preset list when you select the "small" category. There's a preset there for basically any miked kick drum that helps extend the kick in a very nice natural way.

[Jac459]

Fabfilter is also an excellent developer. To me, they aren't that customer friendly but why would they? Their products are so good.

I could also name U-He... Expansive and paid updates but very cool products...

Yet at the end of the day, my personal choice is that it I have to choose where to put my money I will favor an UVI, Kilohearts or Arturia because of their customer centric approach.

First time I've heard someone suggest that Fabfilter were not "customer friendly."

In my personal experience, Fabfilter are one of the most "customer friendly" developers around. Both in terms of their products' useability and also in terms of their personal interactions with customers in their product support and their feedback forum.

Kilohearts and u-he are likewise right up there on the customer friendliness and 'fairness' charts.

I've never been a UVI customer, so cannot comment. Although, I don't personally find Arturia quite as attractive as an ex-customer of several of their products such as V Collection and Pigments.

But, Fabfilter are good dudes and I have to disagree with the statement that they are not "customer friendly." If you're talking only about the price point of their products, then that is a separate issue, to which each person can attribute their own assessment regarding "value for money." But, I have no complaints.

I don't disagree mate, I chose "customer friendly" because I didn't find a better wording as I am not Native English but I was certainly not talking about their support or the quality of their products.
It was strictly in the context of their pricing and selling strategy.

That's why I mentioned Arturia even if, like you, I generally prefer fabfilter products.

[Robmobius]

It was strictly in the context of their pricing and selling strategy.

What is wrong with their pricing & selling strategy as a matter of interest?
I mean, once you're on the ladder so to speak their products are pretty reasonable. Especially when you consider that they are one of the best and most consistent developers (in terms of industry-leading quality).

Christ! The only thing I hold against them is Dan Worral who gives me ear cancer.

[Jac459]

It was strictly in the context of their pricing and selling strategy.

What is wrong with their pricing & selling strategy as a matter of interest?
I mean, once you're on the ladder so to speak their products are pretty reasonable. Especially when you consider that they are one of the best and most consistent developers (in terms of industry-leading quality).

Christ! The only thing I hold against them is Dan Worral who gives me ear cancer.

Well, we discussed that at length already so I won't reopen the whole point but basically I don't find normal that the update from ProR is 69 euros, it is basically like the cost of ownership to have an up to date reverb was 250 euros.
That's a lot.
In the same month UVI released Falcon 3 which is a super rich and fantastically powerful synth for ... Free.
K331 will release synthmaster 3 for free, Arturia, Kilohearts do the same all the time.
Maybe it is them being fantastic and not fabfilter being bad but still, I am relatively new to fabfilter and yet I own now all their creative products and pro q3, this aspect of their commercial strategy is an aspect I am discovering and definitely going forward I will think twice before buying more products from them. It is just too expansive for me on the long run.

[DashOfLime]

I just tried the demo and they cleverly redesigned(some parts) of the UI to make it all look shiny and new, when in fact, most buttons do the same as in Pro-R1 and there is actually not much new stuff that would justify a 50$+ upgrade price (at least for me).

Vastly improved UI.
Two new algorithms.
Dolby Atomos.
The IR import thing.
Thickness
Ducking
Auto Gate
Freeze
Decay Rate EQ

Yeah such a small list. Cant f**king believe the nerve charging $50.

This place kills me.

lol...


By the way: since you've not been a Pro-R V1 user anyway, where do your apparently strong feelings regarding this stem from?

Not sure who you're referring to but I've owned Pro-R for years. Not sure about the other guy.

Lol


You listed "Decay Rate EQ" as a new feature and I can't imagine anyone who's got any kind of familiarity with the thing to make a mistake like that...
that was one of - if not THE - biggest selling feature of V1...
( even I know that am I am not a user at all...)

I assume you had a look at the listed new features at their site where they say
"- improved Gorgeous Retina interface with large interactive reverb display featuring Decay Rate EQ and Post EQ curves"

but the improvement is not the addition of Decay Rate EQ and Post EQ curves...

Yeah drag me into the street and shoot me for copying and pasting in haste in a forum argument. A bigger crime was never committed. I also said vastly improved interface which technically isnt "new" either. You didnt seem to mind that one tho.

[DashOfLime]

You took time to answer by quoting part by part my post but apparently you didn't took much time doing your homework.
Pigments, THE flagship of Arturia: all the new versions are free !!! And they brought to us over time little features like MPE, an additive oscillator, plenty of new audio effects, new filters, GUI rework...
All that for free....

V Collection is free? Oh wait no its not. They charge every time for new instruments. FX Collection? Oh yeah not free either when they add new effects. Youll argue of course that those are just bundles. But new instruments or effects are new features to new versions of the bundle and theyre not free. Yeah Pigments has been free. Very generous of them.

As later you say "same for all of them" when I am saying that for Fabfilter they don't add new features for free, I guess you think that all new version of software are paid...
It is not the case.
I need to remind you that Phase Plant 2 was a free update and all the new ones since then, same for Falcon 3, free updates.... K331 Synthmaster, the version 3 is coming and it will be f....g awesome. And it is a free update.

Yep. All nice things. Know what wasnt free? Massive X. Kontakt. Pianoteq. Geforce stuff. Synapse DUNE. U-He Hive. The list could go on and on.

Again, I don't blame Fabfilter, they can do whatever they want, but in term of value for money, it has to be taken into account...

Why? They gave 5 years of minor updates for Pro-R. V2 has a lot of value for the money theyre asking. Personally I think Kilohearts are nuts for not charging upgrade fees. I'd note that Kilohearts also started offering a subscription plan. Not sure how many are using it but could be those users are subsidizing the free updates. UVI has a huge product catalog AND a subscription plan. Arturia makes money from various things, including lots of hardware now, and that is probably why they can afford to give free updates to Pigments. FabFilter has none of those things. They have a small catalog of effects and charge fair prices for upgrades. The more you own the cheaper they get. No subscriptions either.

[c1c2]

Their mistake is that they want money for their work. What a shame.

[jens]

V Collection is free? Oh wait no its not. They charge every time for new instruments. FX Collection? Oh yeah not free either when they add new effects. Youll argue of course that those are just bundles. But new instruments or effects are new features to new versions of the bundle and theyre not free. Yeah Pigments has been free. Very generous of them.

You really should stop talking about stuff you obviously have not the faintest clue about...