KVR Audio

festeringheap · Post by **festeringheap** » Sat May 13, 2017 2:30 pm

What is the best deal you have seen/bought on a VST?

I’m a cheapskate, I admit it. I am always on the lookout for a GOOD DEAL. Some people seem to have unlimited amounts of money to spend, but I’m not one of those when it comes to music toys. I look for bargains in hardware and software. My savings are spent on other fun things.

I will never buy software at full price - stuff always goes on sale sometime during the year. I can be patient and wait it out. I have other musical hardware/software to amuse me in the meantime.

So, in the interests of saving everyone (and me) money (to spend on other fun things), I am interested in seeing the range of possibilities in the software world from full price to extreme sale price, and how often it has hit the extreme lows, so as to gauge what is a decent current deal.

For example, I have:

*bought RP-Delay for 10 dollars from $69 - though I think the delay goes for 49 now - from audiomidi.com a few years back. It was some No-Brainer deal. (Price probably never to be seen again - since AM don’t seem to be around any more!)
*seen KiloHearts One synth Rack Extension for 19 dollars from 99. Mid-end Dec 2016.
*bought EZDrummer from Toontrack.com for 19 dollars around Xmas a few years back. It was a cross grade form EZlite which I had hanging around doing nothing. Toontrack also had a $105 crossgrade to Superior Drummer that ended last week, that I mulled over, but passed on.

Software deals should probably be limited to what you have bought/seen in the past, say, 5-7 years. And new, not used/licence transfer.

What’s the lowest Native Instruments offerings that you have seen? How often do they go in sale?
Any other devs VSTs that never go on sale?

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Sat May 13, 2017 2:39 pm

Cakewalk's Z3TA 2 is often on sale. I was able to pick it up for the price of a magazine, which had Z3TA 1 on the DVD, and for the update price of a blazing 25 € back in the days.

Then i got Spire as a gift for a Beat magazine subscription for a year, for 69 €. That was the absolute no-brainer. Other good deals i have seen :75 € for Waldorf Largo, and other Waldorf synths (again, no-brainer), the ongoing Eventide sale, UltraReverb last week, for 70 % of or so, and now Blackhole too (available until tomorrow, be quick if you wanna go for that). Ok deals: Sylenth1 for 99 € last year before new year's eve, same for Dune 2 (for 95 € i think). NI has great 50 % offerings too sometimes. Focusrite offers great stuff for free monthly ATM, if you have a Focusrite hardware product, and on black friday, a lot of companies and vendors have very special prices.

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Sat May 13, 2017 2:42 pm

festeringheap wrote:I’m a cheapskate, I admit it. I am always on the lookout for a GOOD DEAL.

And so am I

There are so many good deals, just this week I picked up Renoise Redux for just $30 second hand. A fantastic sampler

surreal · Post by **surreal** » Sat May 13, 2017 2:46 pm

I bought a boxed retail version of Stienberg "The Grand2" at a clearance sale for $7.... the salesman did not know the mistake he made when he put the sticker on the box as it was stil a current product...

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Sat May 13, 2017 2:59 pm

surreal wrote:I bought a boxed retail version of Stienberg "The Grand2" at a clearance sale for $7.... the salesman did not know the mistake he made when he put the sticker on the box as it was stil a current product...

You know what i already dreamt about? Strolling around a flea market, and suddenly finding a Waldorf Q, or a Virus which someone silly found on an attic, and he sells it for 100 bucks or so, because he doesn't know what it is, or whether it is broken or not.

Oh well, will never happen, but, imagine you're that lucky.

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Sat May 13, 2017 3:03 pm

At one point I came across a DJ mixer in a flea market, at very good price.

But when I came home, it turned out it was faulty, and doing repairs would set me back as much as buying a new one.

So in the end not a good deal.

festeringheap · Post by **festeringheap** » Sat May 13, 2017 3:28 pm

chk071 wrote:Then i got Spire as a gift for a Beat magazine subscription for a year, for 69 €. That was the absolute no-brainer.

An especially good deal if you can read German.

Beat offered Dune a while back which I picked up. It has the effects section (unlike the CM edition). It's on my old computer, and I'm not sure what limitations are in it maybe it was 32 bit and mono, I don't recall...

chk071 wrote: the ongoing Eventide sale, UltraReverb last week, for 70 % of or so, and now Blackhole too (available until tomorrow, be quick if you wanna go for that).

Just remembered that I picked up Eventide UltraChannel for free. Really nice for thickening. It may go on sale soon as well. A decent plug. Likely never to be free again though...

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Sat May 13, 2017 3:29 pm

I picked up Unfiltered Audio's Sandman and Gate for only $19.99 each when they were first released.

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Sat May 13, 2017 5:01 pm

I think it was getting Sampletron, Samplemoog, and a couple of other IKM instruments that escape my memory right now. It was about €20 per instrument. I'll never buy anything new from them again, lol. I'll just wait for the group buy.

donkey tugger · Post by **donkey tugger** » Sat May 13, 2017 5:13 pm

Sonivox Orchestral Companion Strings for £1.

Living in Yorkshire I still tried to beat them down to 50p.

simmo75 · Post by **simmo75** » Sat May 13, 2017 5:16 pm

Got Unfiltered Audio's Sandman for free with a PA voucher.

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Sat May 13, 2017 5:22 pm

I bought Harmor on Black Friday sale with extra discount code from JRR Shop, for about 1/3 of price in total.

Daimonicon · Post by **Daimonicon** » Sat May 13, 2017 5:36 pm

I had only heard of Largo vst, probably about 5 years ago. Went into a music shop and saw a basket full of CD's for sale cheap and picked up Largo and the price? 22.49$/20.71 euro.

Jafo · Post by **Jafo** » Sat May 13, 2017 5:57 pm

My fave was IL Harmless for $10; 'twas an intro offer back in the day, methinketh. Surprisingly excellent synth, with an impressive array of dynamic sound-sculpting options (especially velocity tracking -- louder should sound different than softer, as with acoustic instruments). I'd loathed most synths for the longest time, and it turns out their lacking this feature was why. Static bleeps and bloops? Yuck. Even R2D2 made that stuff sound alive, almost human. It's all about expression and responsiveness to touch, and Harmless has/does it.

EdSevered · Post by **EdSevered** » Sat May 13, 2017 6:03 pm

I felt like I stole Bitwig 2.0 at $149 in a recent Looploft 50% off sale.