Exponential Audio Excalibur

[sqigls]

Looks cool!
I hope EA can make a "hard drive" authorisation for their plugins.
I rarely get to use Phoenix or R2 as they need the USB sticking out of my laptop when i'm on the move, which is not going to happen. I use UVI Sparkverb all the time now, simply because it has the 'hard drive' auth… and it sounds good

[Michael Carnes]

No hard drive authorizations, I'm afraid. Ilok only.

[jens]

Oh, it requires Ilok? Where does it say it? I think the website should state it clearly* - otherwise you are just wasting people's time... my apologies if it is obvious and I somehow overlooked it.







(* actually I think there should be a law demanding a mandatory "WARNING. ILok required!!!"-sticker on top of every qualifying product's page)

[whyterabbyt]

Oh, it requires Ilok? Where does it say it?

In the product FAQ.

[jens]

Oh yes - found it now that I know it's there - two thirds down the faq - almost hidden, one could say.

b.t.w.: I really managed to accidentally buy an ILok-only plugin once - could as well have just burnt the money.

[Daags]

hmmm... audio demos aren't doing much for me in terms of sound design... sounds like some vanilla fx for 'traditional' guitar/bass/drum type production .... 'piano in a bottle' is the only one I found vaguely interesting.

I think exponential audio should elevate their understanding of sound design somewhat, and represent it in the demos... you know, get some abstract soundscapes and fx on the go and put those in the audio demos. I'm sure it's bound to be possible with this plugin, but it's just not represented in the audio demos.

interest fading.

Personally I find this type of bread and butter demos highly appropriate - "abstract soundscapes and fx" do nothing for me and I guess for the bulk of potential customers neither... I however think the quality of some of the demos leaves something to be desired... namely the "wide vocal fattener" and the "talking bass 2" are rather weak (perfomance-wise, production-wise and in regards to the actual Excalibur preset that is being showcased). Others are very good - in fact good enough that I am already relatively certain that I'll have to get myself a license...

sure, a whole list of samey sounding ambient soundscapes would be the other extreme. it's just the idea of this being a sound designers dream 'swiss army' plugin is thrown around a few times in the advertising copy and imo there's nothing representing it's sound design potential in the demos. piano in a bottle comes closest, imo.

the quality of the individual chorus/reverb modules etc notwithstanding. I'll demo of course, and weigh it up against the price, but in this day and age I think it behooves a dev who uses terms like 'sound design' in a manner such as this...should display some actual sound design. not bread and butter guitar/bass/drums examples. imo. ymmv.

[jens]

From the website:

"System Specification

Any Intel computer running at 2GHz or above. Multiple cores strongly recommended. Display of at least 1024 x 768. You'll also need at least 1GB of RAM. These are minimal requirements. Most computers of the last five years have been much more powerful than this.

Excalibur is quite efficient and even gives you ways to control the processor load. It automatically stops processing when it's not doing anything--in any workstation."


I think it should mentioned the ILok right there - the type of copy protection is of course your choice really, Michael - but please don't beat around the bush about it.

[Michael Carnes]

I think it should mentioned the ILok right there - the type of copy protection is of course your choice really, Michael - but please don't beat around the bush about it.

Sorry, but different people rank priorities differently. For some--you perhaps--the iLok is the critical thing. For others, iLok is just part of the studio and they don't give it a second thought. There's really no way to have an ideal ordering in a FAQ. The critical thing is to present the information so that it can be found.

[jens]

Yes, I get your point - some sort of ordering would probably make sense with a big FAQ like this - that would make it easier to find stuff - I thought I had been reading through the whole FAQ earlier today and I somehow still managed to overlook it...

but besides I really think it should be mentioned amongst the hardware requirements as it is a hardware requirement.


edit:

That way people who (like me) avoid ILok like the plague can stay out of this instead of messing up your threads, as I happen to do now.

[jens]

sure, a whole list of samey sounding ambient soundscapes would be the other extreme. it's just the idea of this being a sound designers dream 'swiss army' plugin is thrown around a few times in the advertising copy and imo there's nothing representing it's sound design potential in the demos. piano in a bottle comes closest, imo.

the quality of the individual chorus/reverb modules etc notwithstanding. I'll demo of course, and weigh it up against the price, but in this day and age I think it behooves a dev who uses terms like 'sound design' in a manner such as this...should display some actual sound design. not bread and butter guitar/bass/drums examples. imo. ymmv.

While I get your point, I think there are some nice examples of more unvonventional "sound design" in there as well, e.g. the "piano in a bottle" one.

[Daags]

While I get your point, I think there are some nice examples of more unvonventional "sound design" in there as well, e.g. the "piano in a bottle" one.

indeed. that's why i've mentioned it twice already ; )

my point is it's the only solitary example, imo, of what i would consider actual sound design ... the rest is just to plain and vanilla. And since the advertising copy makes pointed reference to sound design potential, and sound design swiss army knife, etc etc, I would expect many more examples of the plugin being used like this...not just one solitary sound design demo embedded amongst a bunch of bread and butter guitar/bass/drums examples. imo. ymmv. (third time's a charm..)

[sidrat]

I think it should mentioned the ILok right there - the type of copy protection is of course your choice really, Michael - but please don't beat around the bush about it.

Sorry, but different people rank priorities differently. For some--you perhaps--the iLok is the critical thing. For others, iLok is just part of the studio and they don't give it a second thought. There's really no way to have an ideal ordering in a FAQ. The critical thing is to present the information so that it can be found.

Hi, Michael. I guess I'm one of those people who works on their laptop alot and hates having to use an iLok.

Some iLok software (Eventide, Soundtoys, Metric Halo, etc) allows hard drive authorizations rather than having to use the physical dongle. Is Excalibur going to offer an iLok hard drive authorization? Seems like a reasonable compromise to me...

[Michael Carnes]

Some iLok software (Eventide, Soundtoys, Metric Halo, etc) allows hard drive authorizations rather than having to use the physical dongle. Is Excalibur going to offer an iLok hard drive authorization? Seems like a reasonable compromise to me...

I'm quite aware of what other vendors do and I have spoken to PACE a number of times (most recently just about 3 weeks ago). I know both the benefits and drawbacks of this system and I have decided not to adopt it. I use a couple of iLoks on my own laptop when I'm doing demos and such, and I really feel that the inconvenience is overstated.

[midi sentinel]

Got interested, then saw iLok2 requirement on product page.

Pity

[valerian_777]

Got interested, then saw iLok2 requirement on product page.

Pity

Wait, they still keep using Ilok2 protection like they always did? Unbelievable!