Heads up! Great VST deals spotted

[Owen]

I have almost been sucked into the QC vortex several times. This will let me mess with the concept before dropping more than my car is worth on something to put on the floor. 

[Mcgiver69]

Ampeg Bass Suite (By AMPEG) going for £61

 

contains 3 bass heads and all their cab versions with a very good variety of microphones.

 

https://shop-ww.ampeg.com/software/

 

 

[Owen]

I "need" some pedal steel for a track. I have tried to fabricate it but it just sounds lame. Does anyone know of any half decent virtual pedal steel plugins? I would happily pay up to about £50. 

[Mcgiver69]

Guys Focusrite has declared their Midnight and Scarlett plugin suites as legacy so therefore they are now free to download and use.

 

Just go here and download any or all if you prefer. Once downloaded and installed, open your DAW and call one plugin of each suite, click on "Activate", this will download an activation file, then click on the button below to find your downloaded activation file. Repeat this process for each suite and ensure you rename each file for future use.

- Midnight Suite contains a compressor and EQ.

- Scarlett contains a compressor, EQ, Gate and Reverb.

 

https://downloads.focusrite.com/focusrite/focusrite-plug-ins

 

Enjoy!!

Edited April 11, 2023 by Mcgiver69

[lowdown]

11 hours ago, Owen said:

I "need" some pedal steel for a track. I have tried to fabricate it but it just sounds lame. Does anyone know of any half decent virtual pedal steel plugins? I would happily pay up to about £50. 

  

When you say 'Plugin' are you talking about a VST'i ? If so, there is a page over on VI Control with links to quite a few threads. It's worth having a look at what's available out there.

Quite a few options with varying prices.

 

1)    https://vi-control.net/community/threads/folk-instruments-banjo-fiddle-mando-steel-what-do-you-like.132458/

 

2)    https://vi-control.net/community/search/1884076/?q=Pedal+steel&o=relevance

 

 

My oldest has The Impact Soundworks Pedal Steel VST'i, so I use that if I need one. The only trouble...it's $179. Although, he got it in one of the seasonal sales.

This runs in the Kontakt free player.

 

https://impactsoundworks.com/product/pedal-steel/

 

 

There is also the 'Wavelore Pedal Steel'. But again at $99, probably more than you want to spend.

Certainly a good 'un, but does require the Kontakt full version.

 

https://www.wavelore.com/products.php?product=WLPS

 

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by lowdown

[Owen]

Thanks. Yes, when I said plugins I was trying to write sample packs!

[BigRedX]

My experience of trying to emulate real instruments is that getting the playing technique/style right is probably more important than the actual sound. Therefore what you need to think about is how the slide and pedals/knee levers are used and hopefully you'll be able to emulate that on a guitar patch. You might need to treat each string as a separate track to achieve the correct string bending and note sliding effects.

[Owen]

I tried to do thw individual string thing on a guitar with a raised nut and a pedal steel bar. It was very far from being great I just need samples of some grown up playing it properly!

[Dad3353]

27 minutes ago, Owen said:

...I just need samples of some grown up playing it properly!

 

There are pedal steels with BIAB (Band In A Box...), which sound fine, in various genres. If you have a chord sequence and a tempo in mind, I could create a demo for you. Here's a pedal-steel track from a song in 'G', chosen at random ...

... and the pedal steel on its own ...

 

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Dad3353

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, Owen said:

I tried to do thw individual string thing on a guitar with a raised nut and a pedal steel bar. It was very far from being great I just need samples of some grown up playing it properly!

 

But the slide is only part of it. The pedals and knee levers are a big part of the sound, because they only affect some strings and not always by the same amount. That's why knowledge of the instrument is fairly important for getting a realistic sound out of a VST or samples.

[Owen]

Yep, I did clusters string by string and "bent" individual notes. The theory was great. The reality was.....underwhelming.

[Naigewron]

Anyone know of a free or inexpensive B3-ish organ VST that supports a sustain pedal?

 

I play a bit of synths and organ with my band, but I need to be able to sustain a chord when transitioning from keys to bass. WIth all my synth tones, I do this by pressing the sustain pedal while I move my hands to the bass and turn the volume knob to get ready for the bass section, but none of the organ VSTs I've found support sustain pedals (or they just map the sustain pedal to the rotary speed).

[BigRedX]

This is the problem with accurate reproductions of instruments they have all the limitations of the originals and since most organs don't have a sustain pedal, neither do the plug-in equivalents. Are you running the organ as a stand alone application or inside a DAW? If it's inside a DAW you may find that one of the other MIDI CCs can be mapped onto a function that mimics having a sustain pedal. You'll need to do a bit of digging in the MIDI implementation chart for the Organ plug-in and maybe some lateral thinking about MIDI functions within your DAW.

[paul_5]

On 16/04/2023 at 18:01, Naigewron said:

Anyone know of a free or inexpensive B3-ish organ VST that supports a sustain pedal?

 

I play a bit of synths and organ with my band, but I need to be able to sustain a chord when transitioning from keys to bass. WIth all my synth tones, I do this by pressing the sustain pedal while I move my hands to the bass and turn the volume knob to get ready for the bass section, but none of the organ VSTs I've found support sustain pedals (or they just map the sustain pedal to the rotary speed).

There's a HaNon B7 that's available for nothing, as well as the ColaB3. A quick google should find legitimate links.

[Naigewron]

31 minutes ago, paul_5 said:

There's a HaNon B7 that's available for nothing, as well as the ColaB3. A quick google should find legitimate links.

 

Yeah, tried them both, none of them support a sustain pedal. That's why I'm asking for specific experiences; I really don't want to hunt down every single organ VST to see if I can use a sustain pedal with it.

 

I'll happily use an organ that's part of a bigger keyboards package too; it doesn't have to be a dedicated organ VST. Too bad there's not a B3-ish organ in the LABS collection  

[Naigewron]

17 minutes ago, Naigewron said:

 

Yeah, tried them both, none of them support a sustain pedal. That's why I'm asking for specific experiences; I really don't want to hunt down every single organ VST to see if I can use a sustain pedal with it.

 

I'll happily use an organ that's part of a bigger keyboards package too; it doesn't have to be a dedicated organ VST. Too bad there's not a B3-ish organ in the LABS collection  

 

Well, scratch all that, I just found what I needed. The Jazz Organ in the Komplete Kontrol freebie pack does what I want, and sounds cool too.

[lowdown]

43 minutes ago, Naigewron said:

 

Well, scratch all that, I just found what I needed. The Jazz Organ in the Komplete Kontrol freebie pack does what I want, and sounds cool too.

 

I was just about to suggest that. In my full version of Kontakt 7, there are some decent Organ patches in the supplied library. You can use a sustain pedal as well.

The Komplete Kontrol freebie library has some selected patches from the full library, and like you say, The Jazz Organ is one of them:

 

 

[lowdown]

The excellent, free 'TAL Vocoder', has just been updated:

 

https://tal-software.com/products/tal-vocoder

 

 

A review:

 

https://synthanatomy.com/2023/04/tal-vocoder-3-0-free-vocoder-plugin-with-new-features-and-ui.html?fbclid=IwAR1SuLyOFWIXjhHgZygIFiCDBG0945DbTMBzC6_PqNs1wNuRAOqZELvdQYk

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by lowdown

[Mcgiver69]

Audio Assault is having their Cinco de Mayo sale, almost all their plugins for just $5 each.

 

https://audioassault.mx/collections/plugins

 

 

[rubis]

On 04/05/2023 at 19:55, Mcgiver69 said:

Audio Assault is having their Cinco de Mayo sale, almost all their plugins for just $5 each.

 

https://audioassault.mx/collections/plugins

 

 

Thanks Mcgiver69

                                 I just got their IR loader and the Vox IR's to use with the free NAM vst. 

It all works very nicely

[Mcgiver69]

On 07/05/2023 at 10:20, rubis said:

Thanks Mcgiver69

                                 I just got their IR loader and the Vox IR's to use with the free NAM vst. 

It all works very nicely

Yes that IR Loader is great and the best is you can create your own IR's from your settings. I got it too.

[lowdown]

If anyone is after a free Convolution Reverb - This offering from 'Wave Arts' is excellent. It comes with a very good selection of IR'S.

 

https://wavearts.com/products/plugins/convology

 

Here is a link for some tutorial videos that are well well worth a watch:

 

https://impulserecord.com/convology-xt-getting-started/

 

 

 

If you want more free IR's to load up, try these two sites:

 

https://samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impulse-response-files/

 

 

[lowdown]

Although a bit pricey, Strezov Sampling release some of the best sample libraries out there.

However, from time to time they release some freebies. And as usual with their libraries, they are excellent.

 

The link below has the freebies up for grabs. The top line of Libs displayed will run in the Kontakt free players. The bottom line needs the full version of Kontakt.

 

https://www.strezov-sampling.com/products/17/Freebies.html

[Guest]

SSL Native Vocalstrip 2 is on sale at GBP 11.99, used to cost GBP 179.99.

 

https://store.solidstatelogic.com/plug-ins/ssl-native-vocalstrip-2?SubmitCurrency=1&id_currency=1

 

To be honest I have no use for it myself, but as I've appreciated and used deals posted by others in this thread I thought some on here might want it.

 

ps. an Ilok account is required.

 

 

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by HornetPinata
Forgot to mention Ilok. I know some find it a hassle.

[Owen]

Further to my pedal steel search I caved and bought the https://impactsoundworks.com/product/pedal-steel/ Thanks for the offer of putting something together Dad, the problem was that I did not know what I wanted.

 

It has worked for what I wanted and I have had a lovely day using it. This is unmixed, but seeing as many of you chipped in with offers of help, here is a work in progress.