Reply To: All Audio Plugin Deals in One Spot – Which Do You Think Are the Best?

[LinkedMusicians]

@swijaya It’s fine to summarize what the poster stated. As I recall is was that the Vivid Strings library wasn’t very good, right? A warning not to buy it.

BTW, to cynics who wonder if I’ll shill for a retailer or sample library developer when we have affiliate links, look no further than this. When I have enough information that I don’t think a developer’s libraries or plugins are good, I won’t post them OR I’ll post them with a note sharing what I know. Of course, that’s not going to help a store sell that product, and I’ll be totally transparent that as a marketing professional, I’m well aware that my habit of being outspoken like that may end some affiliate relationships — which are the only thing really helping me pay for the site at this point. But I would rather shut this site down than be censored. If I think that a sample library or plugin isn’t good, I’m going to write that and I want every member to feel comfortable sharing that too — as long as we’re all respectful, it’s healthy and it helps people make decisions when we share our knowledge and experience, even when it’s, “Hey, I don’t think this product is really very good.”

In the case of Vivid Strings, I did consider buying one of the libraries when it was first released. But Audio Plugin Deals was so light on sharing the background of creating the sample libraries that I suspected that they’re licensing them from a developer and repackaging them. I suspected it could have been from Aria, which has a reputation for making less than good sample libraries (which is also the reason that I am hesitant to post sales for Aira stuff when APD has them and if I do post a sale for a product that I suspect or know isn’t very good, I’ll write that, and, of course, APD or any other retailer or developer doesn’t appreciate that, so it’s not great for the relationship, so I’m more prone just not to post sample libraries and plugins I think there’s strong evidence are not very good — like Aira’s string sample library). But since the Vivid Strings product line has come out, I haven’t seen much discussion or anything positive about it, so I’ve stayed away.

If anyone here has it, please share your thoughts — positive, negative, or somewhere in between. It would be valuable to get insights from a regular user as opposed to an influencer promoting products.

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