Bargain Center: discussion, gossip, etc.

[glokraw]

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/stupid/?src=BNMFGEN

Epiphone Les Paul Plustop PRO/FX reduced from $699 to $399

[Artgiver]

URS has a typical summer sale on for August (see bargains thread) and i was thinking about buying Saturator, but someone mentioned the company's slack in its responsibilities to its (would be) customers. Do they upgrade/update their plugs often, are they 64-bit yet, and are they really worthy of the hype? Thx for any info that would help me make a quality decision!!

Tim

[noiseboyuk]

Thanks to Vestapol in the main thread I've just picked up Toontrack's The Classic for £22 from the Florida Music Co - awesome! I've never ordered from the company before - I have my receipt ok and it says "digital download", but there's no clue as to how to get it. Is the download email separate? Does it usually take a while to come through from this company? I'm used to it being instant - thanks for any heads up.

EDIT - doh, just found my own answer:

This product is available as a Digital Download through the Toontrack Virtual Stock Software Distribution system. You can choose the Download option from the drop-down box above (see below for important details). Download and registration info will be emailed once we process your order (During Office Hours). For regular orders, choose the Retail Box option.
Important! Please Note: If you choose the Download option, we can ONLY accept Paypal payments from a confirmed and verified Paypal account.

Cool. Great bargain, more than happy to wait.

[blizzard]

VInsanity SALE! $49.95 each for 3 IK Virtual Instruments or all 3 for $99.95!

Sonik Synth 2:
http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?Prod ... e=NL110804

SampleMoog:
http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?Prod ... e=NL110804

SampleTron:
http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?Prod ... e=NL110804

TRIO:
http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?Prod ... e=NL110804

I already entered their Group Buy by buying T-Racks 3 Deluxe and while selecting the first freebie I was thinking about choosing any of these but finally i went for Amplitube and I'm glad cause now I could bought all these!

[VSTJuNkiE]

For those interested in the Studio One Artist deal:

As you may/may not know it doesn't support vst(i)'s, but apparently there is a work around.

"Yeah, S1 Artist doesn't have official VST support but it does ship with 2 VST's - Kore Player and EZ Drummer, so we (the community) worked out that what it does is use a hardwired VST plugin path and whitelist of those 2 VST names. So instead of those two you can add any plugin if you just replace them with a plugin with the same name in the internal plugin folder (inside the S1 main directory). If it's a "chainer" style plugin (ie any plugin that works as a mini host for other plugins such as the full Kore, Energy XT or Chainer) then you can load any plugins on your system through it."

Have not tried this as of yet, but any1 who has, feel free to chime in.

HTH

[chokehold]

Works.
And also works with "small" and free VST chainers.

But it's really annoying to have a project with 150 instances of "Guitar Rig 3" insert fx opened, when none of them actually ARE Guitar Rig 3.
It can be a bugger trying to remember, whether on a track you put the harmonics plugin before or after the channel strip and which one of the 5 insert FX actually IS the harmonics plugin...

IMO, you can't work productively like that.

[VSTJuNkiE]

But it's really annoying to have a project with 150 instances of "Guitar Rig 3" insert fx opened, when none of them actually ARE Guitar Rig 3.
It can be a bugger trying to remember, whether on a track you put the harmonics plugin before or after the channel strip and which one of the 5 insert FX actually IS the harmonics plugin...

Point taken...

[munchkin]

It's f**king shocking that this PreSonus "deal" lists for $249 and doesn't have VST support. How the hell can they justify this when $50 entry level DAWS have VST support? I recommend avoiding this "deal" like the plague so they get the message not to sell crippled software.

That's unless you can buy this for $20 and then upgrade to the VST version for a pittance. Anyone know if this is possible?

I just checked and they want £157 for an upgrade. To hell with them! I'd rather give the $20 to charidy.

[chokehold]

It's f**king shocking

+1

How the hell can they justify this

I guess they want you to use their own bundled plugins.
...which I don't doubt are superb. But still, "I have my tools", and to pay a ridiculous Crossgrade price or NOT be able to use what I know, what I already paid for and what I am used to ... no thanks.

buy this for $20 and then upgrade to the VST version for a pittance

Not possible. Crossgrade from Reaper/FL Studio and many others is $299, the upgrade from S1A to S1 Pro is $199.

To hell with them!

I wouldn't say something this harsh. After all, the full S1 Pro is competitively priced against other major full-featured Sequencers. And without doubt is it "good", otherwise there weren't as many fanboys around as there are.

But "to hell with" S1 Artist, which had a fantasy price of 250$ made up for it, so that Presonus would look "generous" in the eyes of people buying Presonus hardware that has S1A bundled and to make everybody not-think about it, when deals like this one come along.

To me, S1A is well worth its 20$. If you're not yet used to how "free" and unlimited other Sequencers are, and if you're just beginning to "grow into" a Sequencer.
The integrated plugins are more than just usable, although not very special and not everybody's taste.

But if you're used to another Sequencer worth 250$ ... you probably shouldn't get S1A, because you'll have to invest another ADDITIONAL 200 to 300 bucks before you have the full-blown environment you initially wanted.

Just for the sake of completeness:
Presonus only started issuing ALL the plugins together with S1 Artist because users were constantly complaining.
When S1 came out, only S1 Pro had the full set of plugins. S1 Artist had a limited set, and IIRC it didn't even include a Gate, which IMO is a VERY essential plugin.
So when users all over the world threw fits of ranting, they started putting ALL the S1 Pro plugins in S1 Artist - but limiting them to 32-bit internal precision.

I'd rather give the $20 to charidy.

This, of course, would always be a noble alternative. If you need my PayPal details, PM me.

[GeorgeZ]

The integrated plugins are more than just usable, although not very special and not everybody's taste.

Do you know if the bundled plug are installed in the default VST folder... ie. can they be utilized by other hosts?

[chokehold]

Do you know if the bundled plug are installed in the default VST folder... ie. can they be utilized by other hosts?

You really want to like Presonus, don't you?

I honestly can't remember. Been a long time since I had S1A installed. Just not worth it, when you already have the big bad R running.
But IIRC it was like with Samplitude, they're VSTs in the heart, but they still need the appropriate host to run. (Anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong.)

[GeorgeZ]

Yup, just wanting to make sure my $20 will go far... really silly though I guess as I have Sonar X1 Prod and FL Sig. and have been thinking about splurging ( ) on the evil R 60 skins for v4 really doesn't seem much, but I'm not sure if it'll do anything for me that X1 and FL doesn't do already... I guess I've just always wanted it, but really need to justify it to myself (sometimes I'm my worst enemy ).

[chokehold]

I just had a look.

There are no .DLL VSTs in the "\Program Files\PreSonus\Studio One" folder and/or sub-folders. There are also no .DLLs in the "\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\PreSonus" location.

But there IS a file called "studioeffects.dll" in the "\...\Studio One\Plugins" folder, which has a little more than 11MB of size.
I guess that's where the internal processors are stored, so I'm rather convinced to say: no, you can't use the S1A internal FX as VST in other hosts.

EDIT:
I just copied "studioeffects.dll" into Reaper's plugin folder and tried loading it, which resulted in an error dialog telling me that a file called "ccltext.dll" is not installed on my system.
So I copied the "ccltext.dll" from Studio One's program folder into Reaper's root plugin folder, that got rid of the error message on startup - but still no PreSonus plugins to be found, not even after clearing the cache and re-scanning.

So now I'm not only rather convinced, but totally convinced.

[ZINO]

someone mentioned the company's slack in its responsibilities to its (would be) customers. Do they upgrade/update their plugs often, are they 64-bit yet, and are they really worthy of the hype?

I was the one, so here we go again (as an owner of saturation, console strip pro, N12 and BLT) the answers to your questions are:

"no", "no" and "probably some years ago", so "no" again

[GeorgeZ]

I just had a look.

There are no .DLL VSTs in the "\Program Files\PreSonus\Studio One" folder and/or sub-folders. There are also no .DLLs in the "\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\PreSonus" location.

But there IS a file called "studioeffects.dll" in the "\...\Studio One\Plugins" folder, which has a little more than 11MB of size.
I guess that's where the internal processors are stored, so I'm rather convinced to say: no, you can't use the S1A internal FX as VST in other hosts.

EDIT:
I just copied "studioeffects.dll" into Reaper's plugin folder and tried loading it, which resulted in an error dialog telling me that a file called "ccltext.dll" is not installed on my system.
So I copied the "ccltext.dll" from Studio One's program folder into Reaper's root plugin folder, that got rid of the error message on startup - but still no PreSonus plugins to be found, not even after clearing the cache and re-scanning.

So now I'm not only rather convinced, but totally convinced.

Legend mate, cheers...and pass