Collage

[billinder33]

Really interesting plugin. I want this, but I don't NEED it. Especially at $129/$179. At $50 it would be a no-brainer.

But the iLok is a deal killer for me. I'm down to just a few remaining iLok plugins and ultimately want to get that number to zero. Not trying to start an iLok flame war, it's just not for me, especially for a one-off plugin.

[aMUSEd]

Well, I tracked down the Creative Director of Kalide through LinkedIn to his own personal site and sent an email to him there. Feels very stalker-ish but I guess this is how these things are done online nowadays. I failed to mention anything sexy, though. I figured it was too soon for that.

Yes, much too soon. I may be a little old-fashioned, but you should at least offer to super-size his fries first... then move onto eye contact. Don't put the cart before the horse.

That's cool that you were able to get a reply, so nice detective work/stalking skills. And thanks for putting in the effort to get some answers. I remember this coming out, but never really looked into it past a first glance. It looks like a plug-in that you could easily spend hours and hours experimenting with, and a ton of customizing. I'll keep an eye out for the new plug-in.

It really is fun to play with. It's good for more right-brained people like me that sees these modern plugins with a million parameters and my eyes start to glaze over.

It's only $49 right now even though it says $129.

Have I missed that?

[parma]

Well, I tracked down the Creative Director of Kalide through LinkedIn to his own personal site and sent an email to him there. Feels very stalker-ish but I guess this is how these things are done online nowadays. I failed to mention anything sexy, though. I figured it was too soon for that.

Yes, much too soon. I may be a little old-fashioned, but you should at least offer to super-size his fries first... then move onto eye contact. Don't put the cart before the horse.

That's cool that you were able to get a reply, so nice detective work/stalking skills. And thanks for putting in the effort to get some answers. I remember this coming out, but never really looked into it past a first glance. It looks like a plug-in that you could easily spend hours and hours experimenting with, and a ton of customizing. I'll keep an eye out for the new plug-in.

It really is fun to play with. It's good for more right-brained people like me that sees these modern plugins with a million parameters and my eyes start to glaze over.

It's only $49 right now even though it says $129.

Have I missed that?

Looks that way

I don't even know if the $49 price was intentional. It has always said $129 on the buy button but in the cart it was $49.

[billinder33]

Really interesting plugin. I want this, but I don't NEED it. Especially at $129/$179. At $50 it would be a no-brainer.

But the iLok is a deal killer for me. I'm down to just a few remaining iLok plugins and ultimately want to get that number to zero. Not trying to start an iLok flame war, it's just not for me, especially for a one-off plugin.

I did end up trying out this plugin last night. It was on a list of plugins that I wanted to try, and I totally forgot that it was iLok-dependent until I started installing it. Oh well, full speed ahead...

My initial thoughts from watching all the YouTube demos was that this would be a nice multi-effect for adding some cool time, modulation, and filtering effects to a track without completely mangling the signal. On that front, the plugin met expectations. It does have some nice FX modules and a unique overall 'vibe' to the sounds it produces. But while I felt this plugin was great in concept, the execution was a bit disappointing.

I didn't love the slider controllers (in a few cases it they were hard to see and dial in), and in many cases I felt the scaling of certain parameters wasn't right. Maybe knobs and an improved color scheme would have been better. The 'macro' controller setup is kind of gimmicky, and I would have rather have had those functions on the same page as the configs for the individual effects. And the overall aesthetic and color scheme got tiresome to look at after a few minutes.

The effects modules and models themselves ran the gamut from interesting to novel to bleh to unusable but on the whole there's enough of variety to make the plugin very versatile. It invites experimentation. One thing I really missed was some some visual feedback in each module. Also, In many cases there were parameters that I wanted (filters on certain verb models and diffusions on certain delay models, etc.) that didn't exist. The distortion module (Colossis) models had radically different output levels - some kind of built in auto gain adjustment would make flipping through the models much easier on the ears. I think I ran into a bug where I tried use the randomize function and the entire plugin entered bypass and I had to unload and reload the plugin. In another case, a wet/dry slider didn't seem to work.

At $129 (sale) and $179 (regular), IMO it's a bit pricy for what it is. It's probably most comparable to Serato Hex FX, but HexFX IMO is a much better plugin overall and covers most of the territory Collage does. Improved parameter control, scaling, some visuals, and a more common modulation/macro setup would really help this plugin meet it's potential. And there's no reason for a plugin to require iLok in 2025.

Would love to see the developer put some work into improvements and release a second version in the future.