GROUP BUY: Ocean Way & Drum Masters Ultimate Studio Drum Bundle!

[zedd]

Personally I am happy to be a "beta" tester if it means getting stuff sooner than later. I love this stuff and I am eager to use it, organize it and play with it.

Good for you! But, what's your point? That you actually LIKE going back and forth because you are anxious to get sounds?

I am 100 % with blueman here.

My point is that installing a few minor fixes on this material is really rather painless, and I am grateful to have to material asap, because I am excited about it and using it. Most if it is flawless and ready to go. It takes less effort and time to redownload and install an update than it does to post a message in this thread.

But obviously we all have different workflows and different needs for the material. Blueman, if you are not going to start auditioning the kits until the client is in the room and you are in an important recording session then I can understand why you would want all the problems ironed out before you start using the libraries.

I would imagine that most of us, however, are auditioning this material (at least once) before a major recording session so that we know what you've got and what would work with the project at hand.

I have no doubt that eSoundz will send out an e-mail announcing that all the delivery is complete and that all the stuff (with fixes) is in the download area. So all you guys have to do is wait, if you are willing.

[tropicalontour]

Zedd, I think the counterpoint is that some people struggle to carve out time for music making from their other commitments and the prospect of downloading a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time product means that they are faced with the terrible choice of spending lots more of their limited music making time going to and from esoundz.com and kvraudio.com looking for updates, or else risk installing the product once and only once, and having to live with the minor wrinkles for all eternity.

If you have the time to re-download and update and check for these things, I envy you. If not, every new patch just steals time. I know Squids and Co have put in more than their fair share of donated time throughout this release (and we're not quite done yet) and attempting to pull off something like this was highly ambitious (if not down right crazy), but I still have faith that the results will be good when all is ironed out. I just don't know exactly when that will be and wish I did, so that I could plan my install time.

Just a small point, but some of us are corporate refugees that make music solely to stay sane, whenever a spare hour can be found. I humbly request that people respect that. I'd love to go pro, but with my talents I'd starve The upside of being a wage slave is that you can afford group buys, though

[2busdriver]

$99/24 kits?(so far)= $4.125ea

[tropicalontour]

I know. It costs less than buying beer for my actual real life drummer friends

[Wiz_oz]

I too would like to just be notified when the dust has settled and its all good to go...


cheers

Wiz

[Squids]

No problem either way. It is actually good that some people wait because the servers are overloaded a lot of the times and if it is spread out that makes it better for everyone. It's not expiring in your account so you can download when you want to.

Just to make sure it is clear to everyone, there are a number of minor setting issues mainly. It's nothing someone couldn't do in two seconds if they learn how to navigate their way around the interface which we recommend and if you can't figure it out on your own we will help explain it thoroughly (and only NAMM is in the middle of this month which delays the video manuals which are forthcoming). It's really very intuitive though.

For those that wait, the patches will be updated into the zips themselves. You don't have to follow anything. Wait a week or 2 if you prefer. You won't have to backtrack and figure out what steps you missed.

However, for those that HAVE downloaded it already that's even better because you have the kits now to play with - enjoy - and we're going to have an "ALL PATCH" update that is TINY to download and in one SWOOP all the listed issues will be solved. I'll probably have that on Monday or sooner. And even then these are just things being assigned to slots or articulations set for GM... no major issues. As Zedd said the kits are fine. I think some people get an impression that it's all messed up and really not ready for mass consumption... apart from some hitch with the graphics file (just a bad file from NI which they replaced right away) the rest of it IS ready for prime time. You gotta understand that after all the months and months coding and testing the scripts, months and even years preparing all of these samples - that is MOST of the work. The final stages of settings in the patch - okay we had a lot of them to do custom for this group buy in particular and we had rushed so there's some human error to fix - but that's not much! Nothing to worry about or anything. Not a show stopper and certainly nothing that would prevent anyone from using and enjoying these kits right now!

But like I said, I have no problem with people waiting. I even think it's a good thing that some people do for other's sake. I just don't want people thinking that it's messed up. It's FAR from that. A TON of work went into this that is right on target and quite cutting edge. It's a significant jump from version 1 as many people have noticed as well.

[Squids]

I too would like to just be notified when the dust has settled and its all good to go...

cheers

Wiz

We are doing a sweep through all known issues and will notify everyone on Monday that it is ready to go for everyone. Obviously if any issues are reported after that then we'll deal with it and update everyone. But these issues so far are very minor as I described above. Mostly patch settings - there are a lot of them when doing GM, iMap and V-Drum - which are all very different from each other.

[tropicalontour]

Just curious, but what is the ETA for Phase 3?

[hydemusic]

Just curious, but what is the ETA for Phase 3?

Don't take this the wrong way, but 2 minutes ago were you not sort of demanding a perfect Phase 2 fix and now before that's over you're asking for a Phase 3 release? That's an oxymoron. It can't be both ways. Maybe this perspective might help. Warehouse clubs such as Costco, BJ's, Sam's, etc. are popular because their cheap, no sales help, you load them in a cart and pay for them and everyone's happy right? Why should this be any different? The difference's the customer service here that you don't get at Warehouse club prices. If this were offered retail with packaging, DVD. yadiyada, I'm sure at least 3 times what you paid for it. I don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

[Squids]

It's just different than the norm. The norm would be you buy a product off the shelf, you get a good deal and you're happy. That's what most people are used to. On the other hand though... this is pretty cool! I mean, okay, it's brand spankin' new and we had a few hiccups and delays but nothing too terrible. In fact, the downloads have been going relatively smooth considering how many people and the deliverables... well, I think people are generally overwhelmed with what they got for the money (considering a kit can sell for $39 each like this and this is 10 times less than that). So it's to be looked at differently. A little more hassle to go here and there to get this and that, the phases of delivery but... look what you get!

But the group buy is over - the product is available for just a little bit longer for those that are coming by or deciding at the last minute. Then we'll be back to normal. The new Drum Masters 2 products will be how you'd normally expect them to be. Not so custom shop oriented. But the good thing is that many of the requests from users here will be implemented in that final product. You all had a say and that's rare! I think it's cool and I hope most of you do too. Plus it was fun and everyone won.

Now, phase 3 is probably going to be Monday but if it is possible to start it tomorrow night then we'll do that. I want to try to implement some requests that are a pretty heavy amount of work that I'll have to do myself here but... I don't mind. It took us YEARS just to have this product so if there's something we can do to make it even better then I am for it.

[duojet]

the reverb impulses will be part of phase 3 right? Can you give any idea about how many there are and whether they can be used outside of kontakt?

[Squids]

the reverb impulses will be part of phase 3 right? Can you give any idea about how many there are and whether they can be used outside of kontakt?

Yes they are. 25 and I believe they can be used outside of Kontakt but they were designed specifically for these drums in Kontakt.

[yarimurray]

I have a question regarding the hybrid kits. As I understand it these kits will use some kit pieces from already completed kits and have some new pieces. Since I'm currently away from my home studio (and my large hard drives) with a laptop I'm not planning to load all of the kits (don't have the space).

That being said I'm wondering if there will be a listing of kit pieces each hybrid kit uses from other kits versus unique kit pieces. I'm afraid if I try to use the hybrid kits and I haven't downloaded a particular kit and it's pieces that I will run into trouble.

Does that make sense?

Michael

P.S. Despite my ridiculous Internet service I've been able to download and use a couple of kits and I'm very happy I got in on this. Great work Squids and crew!

[Squids]

It's really designed to be a bundle. If you want to use the hybrid kits you really have to have all of the samples or it won't work consistently. Tracing back each kit piece is a lot of extra work for you and for me. They can be modified quite a bit as well and a lot of crossover between different kit pieces. I think if you want to load less than the whole thing you have to stick with the non-hybrid kits. Or experiment and see what loads with what you have and what doesn't. I hadn't thought of someone not just having all of it on a hard drive. That's really what it is for - an external hard drive with everything there. If you don't have something there you could be missing out. These days hard drive space is so inexpensive that I can't imagine someone not having 20 gigs of free space for this. Plus you paid for it!

Anyway if you like the idea of hybrid kits then by all means download and keep all of the material together. That's what is recommended.

[dblock]

So now that I have the infinite player for the drums can I now buy other sounds from the esoundz site for it or is this player a special version that's only meant for the group buy drums?