[peter]

Very cool, @plc69. I like it. As you and I discussed in OPEN MIC, we share a lot of similar influences. I love The Cure, Depeche Mode, Joy Division and other influences you mentioned. While I can hear those influences in your music, I think you and your band bring all of those influences together to create your own sound, which is immediately likable due to the strong melodies and great sounds the band brings together.

[EDIT]

Your post inspired me to figure out if I could embed BandCamp audio / your music here at LinkedMusicians and, after a little digging, I figured it out how to do exactly that and am now sharing your music for this week on the right-hand side bar — check it out. I want LinkedMusicians to be a platform for our members to share their music with others and try to shine a spotlight on members whose music I think our community will enjoy, and I think your music will absolutely appeal to a lot of our members, including me. I picked a favorite from your recent album, “Only In This Corner of the World.” Great job to you and the band!

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 3 days ago by LinkedMusicians.
• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 3 days ago by LinkedMusicians.
• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 3 days ago by LinkedMusicians.

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On Brian said

Very cool.  Just learning about the “PresetShare” site was worth the visit.  I don’t have the patience or brain capacity to build patches from scratch, and sifting through hundreds of presets is a buzz-kill.  Best to find something “close” and tweakable using a search like this.

Thanks for the feedback, Brian.

I love PresetShare, the site with the largest quantity of free presets, shared freely by community members. I go there regularly and download synth presets. I’ve been recommending it for years.

Like the other LinkedMusicians PowerSEARCH engines we’re rolling out this week, there are a lot of sites — or rather sections of sites — that are covered by these search engines. Much like how the LinkedMusicians best of lists curate the best free sample libraries, free soft synths, and free effects, the idea here is to focus these search engines purely on vetted sources, not everything. So, you’re only searching carefully vetted, very relevant content, not everything on the web. Basically, the idea is to get people to the best and most relevant content resources very quickly.

Others are in the works. One I’m presently putting a lot of effort into is the Mixing & Mastering Problem Solver PowerSEARCH. The idea for that one is a little different. You enter in the mixing or mastering problem you’re trying to solve and the search engine goes through an index of tens of thousands of pages of expert content to help you solve the problem.

And FTR, there’s no money in doing these projects. This is my passion project. The mentality of every online community is to create a walled garden — you’re trying to keep visitors at your site. These projects go against that idea. Why? Because the main mission of this passion project called LinkedMusician is to deliver real value to our community. Can other communities copy what we’re doing? Sure. But I doubt they will, because they’re not going to make money off of it.

Now the big challenge is making our community aware of these tools. They’re extremely useful, but people need to be aware of them, so I really am relying on our community to spread the word — tell others at the various sites you go to, via email, chat, in person, etc.

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1

[peter]

5 to 7 will make it in.

My picks:

• Jeff Buckley. 1 million percent. He was an incredible talent. And yes, I was a fan when he was alive and turned my wife on to his music shortly after we met. He passed away less than a year later.
• Joy Division / New Order. They were incredibly influential. Even Billy Corgan claims them as his greatest influence.
• Iron Maiden. I’m not big into metal, but Iron Maiden really should have been inducted long ago. It’s time to right that wrong.

I don’t feel strongly about any other band or artists. I loved Phil Collins 70s drumming, up to 1980 with Abacab actually. But his solo music? “One More Night,” “Susidio”… Beyond “In The Air” it’s not music that stood the test of time. I suppose Luther Vandros is worthy and probably Lauren Hill and possibly INXS. But I would consider INXS, Black Crowes, Oasis, and Melissa Ethridge talented artists, but not legendary, groundbreaking artists. But I realize that they induct bands like Go-Gos that are little more than gimmick bands, which is where I would put Billy Idol. You may get a kick out of his music, but it’s throwaway commercial pop.

Jeff Buckley was a remarkable talent whose work remains timeless. Joy Division was hugely influential. Iron Maiden was very influential in the metal world. Wu-Tang Clan was no doubt very influential too, but I don’t have the same level of knowledge with rap as rock, electronic pop, and metal. Those are the only bands/artists that have been nominated that I feel strongly about. How about you?

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2

[peter]

On jude77 said

I know I say this a lot, but it’s amazing what we are able to get for free.  For someone who is on a tight budget these are great days to be making music!

Exactly. I’ve spent a ton of time compiling the curated lists of the best free Kontakt and non-Kontakt sample libraries and sampled instruments, best free synths (okay, and the @lamia6 came along and did a better list, so I deleted mine! She has far more expertise with synths and stuff like guitar and amp sims, I think my forte is assessing sample libraries and sampled instruments), and best free effects plugins. I realized several years ago that if you could round up the different best of the best freebies — just the cream of the crop — after sifting through the mountain of meh, there’s some amazing free stuff. It’s far superior to what  was free a decade ago. The bar was raised.

I’ve been contemplating putting together a best of the best list for rock, folk, and singer/songwriter music producers, as I make music in each of those genres, or at least do a rock one to start. I have made some little demos to show people what you can do with free sample libraries. For effects, the shortcomings I see with the free stuff is that to get the state of the art AI mixing and mastering plugins, you almost always have to pay. For sampled instruments, the big differences are detailed sampling (AKA deep sampling) and round robins, stuff like a full, detailed, orchestral library isn’t feasible for free — those are extremely expensive to make and a great deal of work to create and program as sample libraries. But there are surprises, like SoundPaint’s free Steinway piano, which is also available in Kontakt for free. But a detailed, high qulaity, versatile guitar library with sophisticated scripting or the same for string libraries are what is still not available for free. But if you can live with less detailed libraries, there are options.  There are plenty of options for acoustic and electronic drum libraries and synths.

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[peter]

Some of you are naming multiple bands. So I’m not complaining — I just want to join in!

While my top rock band would be The Beatles, here are my other rock bands I would love to reunite for one show (this is pure fantasy, so that includes members who have passed on):

Jeff Buckley – he and his band were perfection, but I’ll take any combination with Jeff Buckley.

Kevin Gilbert – any combination.

Nick Drake – pure magic.

Led Zeppelin – the original lineup with Bonzo. The greatest hard rock band of all time, IMO.

Yes  – early 70s lineup with Anderson, Wakeman, Bruford, Squire, Howe).

Genesis – with Peter Gabriel on vocals and Phil Collins on drums.

Kansas – with Steve Walsh — one of my favorite rock singers — in his prime (70s until the very early 80s).

ELP – Keith Emerson was brilliant. My classical trained pianist / organist mother considered Emerson the greatest rock keyboardist of all time, and I still believe she was right. As a boy, my youngest sister told me she would take me to see any major rock band playing in town that year as a birthday gift — I think I was 12. I picked ELP, as I had fallen in love with the Trilogy album.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – it was before my time, but timeless genius.

Chicago – the original lineup with Terry Kath on guitar, and Danny Seraphine on drums. Back in the day, in my late teens and early 20s, I played in a band with a 3 piece horn section that performed a lot of Chicago songs, and it was a blast. Terry Kath was an underrated killer guitarist and Danny Seraphine did a great job on the drums for this very creative band.

Billy Joel’s classic 70s band lineup (The Stranger) – Joel’s songwriting was amazing and so was his band during the 70s. IMO, one of the greatest American pop songwriters of all tiime with one of the greatest American rock band lineups. They were just great together.

I’d add Steely Dan, but they were a bunch of studio musicians playing with Fagen and Becker. I suppose the lineup I would most want would be from the Aja album — an album I learned every drum part for back when I was a kid.

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[peter]

@mrfigg Have you done the trial of Analog Drift? If not, you have to! And then share your thoughts. Again, I realize this stop is very subjective, but I love it and I rarely use delays.

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[peter]

With all that’s going on with NI’s insolvency, I’m certain that many music producers will be researching alternatives like Soundbox, UVI/Falcon, HALion, SoundPaint, Musio, etc. It’s a very good time for these companies to step up their presence.

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[peter]

On jude77 said

I guess it depends.  If someone like OTS had a big sale I would be all over that.  Likewise if it was an obscure instrument I had always been looking for I’d be in (“Oh wow! Look here’s a model of a 1966 Farfisa organ with a dead middle C note just like John Lennon once kicked over”).  Otherwise I’ll hold off.  One the other hand I’ll probably still keep trawling places like Pianobook for free instruments.

As for Izotope and Brainworx, I’ll probably lay low until the smoke clears.

I thought I’d switch to my Peter username for this, as ideally, I want to use the LM account to share information and more official positions and put posts more in the realm of opinion with my name, especially for non members sake. After delving into the financial situation with NI and seeing the incredible amount of debt that they have, I think it’s fair to say that there are many scenarios that are possible.

My instinct and experience lead me to suspect that creditors will want to sell of all of the non-core business that NI has, encompassing their acquisitions like Plugin Alliance and Brainworx and their DJ line and let NI focus on Kontakt, sample libraries, and the Kontakt ecosystem. Now that doesn’t mean that will happen, but I think that’s a likely scenario. I think it makes sense because creditors — and they really are the ones calling ths shots now — are going to want to maximize how much money they can get back, and a fire sale is going to mean a very small fraction of what’s owed, whereas selling off non-core business and having NI focus on the core business can potentially give them the most return. However, there’s also the possibility that the administrator finds a very attractive offer for Kontakt and creditors decide it’s the best option.

But as for iZotope, Plugin Alliance and Brainworx, I suspect those companies or their products are almost certainly going to be sold off, so, personally, I would not buy any new licenses from these companies at the moment. The product could be eliminated in 2026 or be sold to a company that goes in a different direction, or subscription only.  It also could be sold as assets, the way Cakewalk was sold to BandLab, where the buyer has no obligation to honor existing customer contracts. Things are in limbo right now for every product affiliated with NI. My take is that the least risk of everything NI touches are Kontakt libraries and the most risk are every other NI product — especially hardware products — plus iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx products.

Now, I would be less concerned about third-party Kontakt libraries from trusted developers like Orange Tree Samples (and disclosure, but I think most of you know it; I have done paid consulting to Orange Tree Samples and am friends with its founder). I’m 100 percent confident that OTS will remain dedicated to their customer base regardless of what happens with NI. I’ve also consulted and am friends with the leadership over at 8Dio / SoundPaint, and I think they’re very well positioned to handle this situation for their customers. If the worst case scenario happened and Kontakt ceased to exist — which I seriously doubt would ever happen because it’s a very successful and profitable product — 8Dio is in the position — like Cinesamples — of having their own sampler that their 8Dio customers can transition over to.

I think the more realistic concern is that if creditors (and that would mean the administrator) decide to sell of Kontakt, it could  be bought by a company that only offers it subscription only, like Apple or BandLab. That to me, would be a scenario I, as a longtime Kontakt user, would  not like.

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4

[peter]

@fretman I’ve had developers and pro musicians tell me about various issues with sample libraries on the market. I can’t say which ones told me about various libraries, but problems are not that rare. Although I will share one because of the developer’s ethically problematic practices of using his contractors to attack his competitors and make shill posts over at VI-Control. Impact Soundworks Shreddage. I was told from a well-respected expert that there is a Shreddage library where you can hear a television on in the background in the samples. The other library that I’ve been told from multiple pros — including a pro musician and a developer — that it is an unredeemable mess on multiple levels — sampling, velocity layers, and scripting is Aria’s string library. Consequently, you won’t see me post deals from that developer. I don’t know the developer. I’ve never interacted with them. It’s nothing personal, I just have enough input from experts who don’t know one another that I don’t want to lead people into buying sample libraries that I know are not very good.

If I know a developer doesn’t make very good sample libraries or, like Fluffy Audio, Impact Soundworks, and Realitone, engages in practices that I — and pretty much anyone who cares about ethics — find problematic, I won’t even post their sales. I have severely limited what I post from Karanyi and — beyond being spammed — I haven’t had a single issue with their products or customer support. I just witnessed how poorly they treated one of our members, @jorge.

This place is about basic values of decency, respect for others, kindness, and ethics. That encompasses how people treat each other, integrity, and transparency. Those values are really pretty simple. Treat others with respect and try to help one another. When I know a developer’s products or support isn’t up to expectations, I won’t simply give them a pass. I don’t even care if it’s a developer I had a pre-existing relationship with. When a person starts a business, they have an obligation to deliver on promises, expectations, and hold to basic ethical standards. The reality in this space is that the forums, the blogs, and the subreddits are little more than a money grab. I realize that I’m using affiliate links to pay the bills, but they’ll never result in censoring people from sharing honest experiences — and smart, ethical developers respect that. Of course, as I’ve shared, there is a small group of developers that don’t respect that — and their fellow developers know it.

I hope that Skybox will work on resolving this issue. Please follow up on it! I own one of their libraries (Wurly 145B) and really like it.

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[peter]

On fretman said

These guys are really scratching the old skool jazz itch. Their demos really sound great, IMHO. If I understood jazz, I’d be all over these.

I absolutely love jazz. I haven’t released some jazz-y stuff I’ve recorded. Attempting to pull off triplet-based stuff like shuffles and jazz drumming — especially to a click track — is the most challenging drumming for me with my tendonitis and two decades of not playing/practicing. Their demos do sound great, but one of their customers — I forget who it was — had posted that this developer tends to use a lot of loops in their demos, not created from playing the sample library. It all sounds great, but I prefer to play parts rather than use loops. If I can’t pull it off, I don’t do it.

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[peter]

On Jaap Visser said

I should not have read your follow up post first haha, now I can’t unhear it! But enjoyed your cover Peter, it’s one of my favorite tracks from the Beatles. For a raw take you have already a solid foundation. The voice and the instrumental parts sounded a bit “disconnected” mix wise. They don’t sound for me like they are 100% in the same room/atmosphere. That is a thing that I noticed while listening the first time.

Thanks for the kind remarks and feedback. I make no secret about really not knowing much about mixing and mastering (I worked professionally as a drummer for around 12 years, but learned very little about mixing and nothing about mastering), so I very much can learn from your advice. Are there any specific actions you could recommend that I could take to make the voice and instrumental parts sound more connected? I’m guessing pulling back on the reverb on the vocals is one step, right? Anything else?

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[peter]

This video covers the amp modeler included with Fender Studio Pro.

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1

[peter]

Continuing down the strategy analysis path, Fender is clearly trying to take market share from BandLab. But BandLab has one of the most difficult strengths to displace, the social ecosystem they’ve built. While they’ve done a terrible job on the DAW end, my guess is that they’ll soon bail on Cakewalk Sonar and buy an established DAW to grab the technology and user base. Plain and simple, Sonar is a very obvious product failure and its not managed like an important product for BandLab.

They’re simply not going to get there on the path they’re on. A $450 million valued software / social media company with an obvious product failure that’s simply not on par with the category to the point that even the CEO’s own music publication doesn’t even mention Sonar when it does an article on the best DAWs available today (granted, sometimes it puts in a plug for Sonar, other times it doesn’t — but it’s very clear that Sonar only gets a plug because it’s owned by the same company; plugin developers, reviewers, producers, and influencers rarely mention Sonar).

But BandLab can afford to buy a successful DAW. I think the greater challenge is for another player, like Fender, to attempt to duplicate BandLab’s ecosystem — especially with Gen Z. I’m surprised Apple hasn’t tried that yet (of course, Apple lacks a presence on Android and Windows).

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2

[peter]

I can use some advice on this one. I use Analog Lab Intro and have bought a bunch of expansions. I’ve been waiting for _Ambient Explorations to go on sale — and I absolutley love what I’ve heard in the demos. I could upgrade up to AnalogLab V / Pro for just $39, but I’m questioning if the factory sounds are all just basic bread and butter sounds and I’m better off buying more preset packs. I’m interested in more ambient sounds, like Ambient Explorations and like the Thom Yorke presets.

I’d love to hear form anyone who owns Analog Lab V / Pro on this. From listening to all of the demos, Pigments is clearly the Arturia synth that most appeals to me.

 

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[peter]

I might pop in from time to time, but it’s time to commit myself to my family. Unless something significant appears in my inbox, I won’t be posting more deals. Whatever you celebrate, I wish you the best and hope you spend some quality time with people who love you, whether they’re family by blood, or family by choice. I want to again thank everyone here for every moment of kindness. For every moment of helpfulness. For every moment of sharing a little about yourself, For every moment of sharing your love and passion for music.

Did anyone else here grow up playing holiday music this time of year?

Music was an important part of my life since my earliest memories. I started piano lessons from my music teacher mother at age 3, and by the time I was 4, my three siblings, who all passed on early, decided to start a band and as my sisters were talented and experienced keyboardists and I was the youngest kid — and showed natural abilities with the drums — they decided that I would be the drummer in the band. I really had no choice in the matter! We recall our playing Christmas music at events this time of year. This morning, I was telling my wife and kids about this one gig we had at a nursing home when I was around 5 years old. We were dragging in our equipment to a nursing home to perform Christmas music. As I dragged in a snare drum, a cymbal and bag with percussion instruments and my brushes, the manager of the nursing home said sternly, “Where do you think you’re going with that?!” I told her that I played drums in the band. She told me, “No drums!” She explained that drums were too noisy for the elderly patients. I explained that I would use brushes, which are quiet. She sternly repeated, “No drums!” However, she did let me bring in bongos, a tambourine, and shakers.

For some reason, I always remember that pre-show experience, as meaningless as it was. It wasn’t traumatizing or anything in the least. I was annoyed that she refused to understand that brushes don’t make a lot of noise. It was just a little silly. But I had fun with the bongos and percussion. My parents divorced when I was young. My father was of 100 percent Italian lineage, so when we’d celebrate Christmas, everyone would ask me to play the organ — which I was trained on with a different teacher than my mother. I’d play American Christmas standards and the Italian song, Santa Lucia — which I always believe should give me some Italian cred.

So the point of this story is that playing music was a big part of my and my siblings’ childhoods. I also played concerts with the school band as a percussionist. Primarily on the snare drum, but I once got to fill in on glockenspiel, and found that I enjoyed that more, but the spot never opened up permanently. So, if you’ve heard a lof of glockenspiel in my songs I’ve recorded and shared, it was played on the keys, but I own a glockenspiel. My own kids always either played in school band, and in my daughter’s case, she stopped playing in the band, and moved over to the choir, and it turns out, she is the first very talented singer in my family that I’m aware of. (My mother, siblings and I were all musicians, none of us were very good singers, as anyone who has heard the music I’ve shared already knows!)

I’d love to hear stories from any of our members who grew up performing holiday music with their family or for their family as a kid. FTR, this thread is not public; it’s members only, so we’re the only ones seeing these posts. I like to keep the personal stories within our community.

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4

[peter]

On Magic Pill Music said

Brian Auger

Bill Payne

Billy Powell

Chuck Leavell

Bob Mayo

This may surprise you from my doing so many Beatles covers (that’s because I love their music and it’s super easy to play) and my picks being very prog-y, but I was mulling over whether or not to put Billy Powell on the list. My tastes in music are extremely diverse. And yes, they include Southern rock from my childhood like Skynyrd, Allman Brothers, etc. As a kid, I was in love with the piano solo on “I Know a Little.”

[Edit: To be clear, I still love that piano solo! It’s short, but it is total perfection. So tasty!]

• This reply was modified 3 months ago by peter.

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1

[peter]

To be really candid and show that while that stuff does bother me, I have perspective and always maintain a sense of humor, I was going to title this thread: MusicMan mistakes Christmas for Festivus.

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2

[peter]

@patrickwichrowski I’ve seen every keyboardist on your list except for Vangelis.

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[peter]

I liked the first version of Rosewood Grand, but it wasn’t one of my top favorite grand piano sample libraries.

The second version, which is literally two new sample libraries, the regular piano samples plus a new felt piano library, tied with my longtime favorite grand piano sample library, NI Noire. And it does what Noire doesn’t. It cuts through rock mixes. I love playing both Noire and Rosewood Grand solo. Both sound gorgeous and both have regular and felt piano patches. However, Rosewood Grand cuts through rock mixes much better than Noire.

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[peter]

I installed this and tried it out last night and really like it. There are straight tongue drum samples, there are sound design patches, there are synth pads they made, and there are arps. It’s a great freebie and it would easily have been worthwhile if they charged for it too.

Just a reminder, it works with the free Kontakt Player, so you don’t need to own the full / paid version of Kontakt to use it.

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[peter]

Same here @jeffdrawscommics

I picked up Solo Harp. I fell in love with the tremolo swells and immediately thought of how they would work well in a song I wrote long ago that I have half-recorded. I think Orchestral Tools has a ton of beautiful sample libraries. I own a bunch of them and look forward to their Christmas credit this time of year, when I have picked up libraries that I might not have otherwise bought.

https://www.orchestraltools.com/salu?t=instruments

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by peter.

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[peter]

Darn.I was hoping that they’d have something I really wanted in this sale. They really focus hard on metal, and seem to do a great job with it. But as a rock guy, I didn’t find the EZXs in the sale very appealing. @pseudopop knows why I didn’t find today’s EZX of interest (I sold him my license for Funkmaster last month).

Hopefully, they’ll do something else before the end of year.

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[peter]

@bluescat and @fleer When you guys get it, please post your thoughts. As hard as it is for me to do for a Wurly, I’m not going to get it until I see a killer deal.

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[peter]

1. Keith Emerson – While Emerson’s chops were clearly rooted in classical piano, he was clearly a genius rock keyboardist.

2. Rick Wakeman – Yes, Elton John, David Bowie, solo, The Srawbs, Cat Stevens… I saw Rick with his solo band twice. He is a rock keyboardist master.

3. David Sancious – He is as tasteful as it gets. He has the ability to make even the simplest progressions interesting and beautiful. He’s played with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Sting, Peter Gabriel, etc. I especially love his live playing with Sting.

4. Tony Banks – He may not have the skills of Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman, but his creativity is second to none.

5. Jan Hammer – I realize some might disagree with classifying Jan Hammer as a rock keyboardist, but beyond his playing with the Jeff Beck Group he also played with Santana, Mick Jager and other rockers.

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31

[peter]

On lastcall said

I can’t even create an account.

What’s the problem?

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[peter]

It appears that this is a restructuring of the company’s debt, basically like the US equivalent of a Chapt 11. Do you know anything more, @Bapu? I’d hate to see them go under.

I LOVE the Hofner 500/1 bass (of course, that’s due to growing up a huge fan of Paul McCartney and The Beatles). It has an absolutely beautiful tone. I’m guessing that you own one. Am I right?

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[peter]

On Brian said

Great deal.  I got the Charango a while back and it is certainly worth the $9 by itself.

Thanks for weighing in (AKA enabling my sample library hoarding!), @bluescat. That’s good enough for me for $9! I have contemplated buying this developer’s libraries before, as the demos sound really good to my ears. But this deal is pretty much irresistible for me.

Just some advice for all of you kids out there: if you’re trying to curb your sample library and plugin spending, do not start an online community with a forum dedicated to deals on sample libraries and plugins. Who could have ever guessed??? Surely no one. 😉

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2

[peter]

I’m back. I had picked up my son from college for the holiday break and it’s also a family member’s birthday. You know, life stuff! But I just caught a fantastic deal I have to post on F’em before I head to bed.

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[peter]

I pinned this thread and added the free Synthmaster One freebie to the Best 2025 Holiday Deals and Freebies Roundup thread. I own all of the Synthmaster synths and highly recommend them. I especially love Synthmaster 3.

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[peter]

Years of speech therapy as a kid and still, it sounds like I sang, “lead me to your DAW.”

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1

[peter]

Well, just know that the idea of time-limited email alerts is just an idea I have. It would not be easy to execute. But the daily email digest is coming soon. As far as subscribing to email alerts as they are today, you just need to go to the top of any thread you want to subscribe to and press subscribe or you can go to the top level of the deals forums to subscribe to the entire forum. It’s a pretty standard way email alerts work for forums. I think that works for a forum that doesn’t have a lot of posts, but for our deals forum, I think it can be overwhelming. That’s why I think the daily email digest is perfect.

When the daily digest email option is available, I’ll do a little graphic for it on the column on the right (which I use to alert everyone about important content like the Best Holiday Deals and Freebies Roundup Graphic and stuff like our members’ music). I’ll also do a post about it.

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1

[peter]

Hi @swijaya. Your post made me think about something I’ve contemplated since I first built the site. I would greatly appreciate your honest thoughts on an idea I have — whether or not you would find a feature I’m proposing useful.

Email alerts were sent out for this deal to everyone who subscribes to the Deals Forum — they received those emails shortly after the deal was posted. However, I realize that LM has dozens of deals each day and not everyone wants dozens of deal emails from LinkedMusicians forum each day (being candid, I personally wouldn’t if I weren’t running the site). However, that is the way the site’s forum email alert script works and there’s no way to change it besides having a developer custom write a script / plugin. One of our members, @lamia6, is a talented developer who did exactly that. She built a custom script/plugin so that we’re soon going to rolling out, so that everyone who wants it can receive a daily deal summary from LinkedMusicians. That should roll out within the next 30 days.

However, I’ve long contemplated that it would be IDEAL (I’m not saying practical!) if our members could sign up for alerts on very time-sensitive deals like this one or glitch sales. If we had that option, would you subscribe to it?

And yes, I realize that I’m off topic! I will do another thread about this in the future, but I just thought this situation is exactly why I think my proposed email alert would be super useful. But please, if you disagree, be really candid! I want your honest thoughts.

Thanks!

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

1

[peter]

I think you know @pseudopop that SD3 is my go-to for acoustic drum samples. But Toontrack rarely has the SDXs that interest me on deep discounts like this. Rock Warehouse SDX is one that I have been interested in. I don’t recall my take on the two Roots SDXs — I need to check those out. I already own Custom & Vintage, which I find kind of meh compared to Toontrack’s more recent SDXs.

Do you own either of the SDXs, @pseudopop? If so, I’d love to get your thoughts. Otherwise, I’m going to check this stuff out. (I get these emails, but candidly, I have my daughter’s birthday coming up and am preparing for a bunch of family things (picking up my son from college for the holiday break) and didn’t notice the email until AFTER I caught your post. So thanks for posting this!

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

[peter]

These are my picks:

• Grand Piano: Orange Tree Samples Evolution Rosewood Grand
  While I came up with the question, this is a really difficult one for me to answer, because I own a lot of piano sample libraries and plugins. I love NI Noire for gentle music and especially for its felt piano samples. However, it isn’t great at cutting through loud rock band arrangements, which I love to do. Evolution Rosewood Grand sounds great for gentle / quieter arrangements. It has a felt piano that sounds great. So, it’s more versatile. I recently picked up IK Pianoverse, which I quickly fell in love with, especially the Hamburg grand piano, but there are other Pianoverse pianos that I also love nearly as much. Weighing versatility — because the idea is that I can only choose one piano, I would want that piano to be versatile enough to work in a wide variety of situations, so I am choosing Evolution Rosewood Grand.
• Upright Piano: EZkeys Upright Piano
  This is another very difficult choice. I can’t say that I have a single upright piano sample library that I use as a go-to, but I use EZkeys Upright Piano a lot. I also use their Vintage Upright a lot. Other upright piano libraries I often turn to include e-instruments Upright Piano, NI Gentleman, and Sampletekk Rain Piano. I may change this later, but offhand, I’m going to go with the EZkeys Upright Piano.
• Prepared Piano: Xperimenta Preperata Free
  I have several prepared sample libraries that I love almost equally. Xperimenta Preperato Free, Production Voices Death Piano Free and 8Dio Prepared Piano. It’s hard to believe how good Preperato and Death Piano are for free. The truth is, I could pick any one of those three libraries.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

[peter]

On psionx said

On peter said

On fretman said

<p>If I have the Hollywood and Fantasy OPUS collections, any reason to get this one, too?</p>

<p>Yes, plugin / sample library hoarding; it’s what we do! 😉</p>
<p>Okay, I don’t own it. I couldn’t resist.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>

<p>LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.</p>
<p>Check out my music. </p>

<br>

@peter how does it compare to Musio 1 libraries?

While I own Musio 1, I don’t own it Eastwest Symphonic Orchestra. I’d love to hear a comparison. But personally, as I only use strings, brass, and woodwind for rock and folk rock arrangements and would never attempt to  play an orchestral piece of music — my tendinitis keeps from playing anything complex anyhow — not that I ever had the skills to perform complex orchestral music, I didn’t. I have several years of piano and organ lessons, but never performed any serious classical pieces. I’m happy to just play rock! And Musio 1 does a great job with what I need, along with several other string libraries, especially Abbey Road 2 Iconic Strings from Spitfire, which I love for getting that George Martin kind of string sound, which is really all I ever wanted. I turn to Musio 1 for most everything else.

@Thor Do you own this Eastwest library? And do you also own Musio1 or the subscription?

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

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