Yeah, those days where studios would download cracked versions and nasty old Waves would sue them. Despicable!


Thing about PA is, yes they produce some fantastic plugins but they price them ridiculously so they can then heavily discount them in sales. No different to Waves. Who would buy, say, bx_boom at $79? Heck, I didn't even buy it when it was $9 (even if it's "one knob = countless background teaks I'd rather make myself").

I also think PA shot themselves in the foot with the voucher fiasco. Whether or not it was a bug in their system that caused vouchers to be sent out based on lifetime spend rather than the previous 12 months, people got used to getting a voucher every month. Suddenly (and it was sudden) nearly everyone either got no voucher, or a voucher worth substantially less than they had been used to. When you take something away from a customer, it will always leave a sour taste in their mouth. I mean, who would buy Waves at full price now when we're all used to paying $29? If Waves said that's it, no more sales, full price or nothing, nearly all of us would choose "nothing" I'm sure. And not just that, their cheapest sale prices now seem to be $49 rather than $29 of the last year. Speaking for myself, I had gotten used to paying $4 for decent plugins. No way am I now going to start paying $49 for plugins now because I had gotten used to that $4 price point. Which is a shame because I would agree that PA's plugins are of very quality.

It's not that they were simply protecting their business but that they were making studio bookings and demanding waves bundles which lead some studios to cracking their plugins to meet the demand, which is 100% wrong, I agree, however it's entrapment and that's just dirty business. I don't agree with it and I'm not trying to convince anyone to agree with me, just sharing my opinion and why I like one company and not another.

I have had waves licenses expire in the past and have never considered the company ever again, so perhaps things have changed since then but those are the things that drove me to find other vendors and developers who I'm very happy with.

Sure bx_boom is a simple interface but it's so simple that you know exactly what it's doing when you tweak it. Compare that to something like Pusher from Waves and tell me you know what those tweaks are doing to your audio. That's not a professional tool to me, and note I said to me, so you have every right to have a different opinion to mine.

PA is great stuff, but that pricing is way too all over the place when so much of your market doesn't really need much. Waves runs $29 specials a lot because they know most of their market is mature. At that price, people will buy stuff they don't really need. PA probably loses a lot of sales with so many things listed at $149-$299 so much of the time. Then they have these extremely short flash sales out of the blue. I used my voucher on a TE-100 thinking there was a real low chance the VSM-3 goes on sale. Then a couple weeks later the VSM-3 woulda been $29 for me if I hadn't gotten the TE-100. Sometimes they announce a flash sale in advance. Lately they have not. This makes me a little hesitant to spend knowing that I could miss something else a week or two later. At this point, everything they're selling that I don't have feels more like a "nice to have" instead of a "must have", so, I can wait around. Prices can't go up because I just don't think the market is there.

I miss my vouchers and made a lot of purchases based on them. Mostly impulse buys but some real keepers also.......

They sure are. It's not a coincidence that UAD have some of their emulations made by Brainworks. And by Softube.

Absolute dedication for the VSC-2 Since the offer one year ago my go-to comp on piano. Preset piano +4dB sounds insanely great, and give the piano sound a really good character. Could not live without...

The Elysia's are excellent, alpha and nvelope especially.

BAX EQ, BX Digital V3, Vertigo VSM-3

Another fellow Aussie recommendation here!! Yeah, go ahead, grab it. Its a bloody beauty...

What am I recommending?!?

I use Millenia and Vertigo Compressor with the Special Magical Maag EQ !!

Compressors are fine but the EQ is really a stand-out one !! you must try it

Yeah that Millenia and Vertigo is great on the mix buss too. I especially love the Millenia harmonics

You have to go a bit extreme on the settings for the harmonics to shine !

Cripes, didn't realise you're one of us, Simon. Go you good thing, mate.

OK, serious question now:

Does anyone know what the two free plugins are that you're "rewarded" with if you follow the link titled "Opt-in for 2 Awesome FREE Plugins Here" in the email "We regret to inform you..."?

That would be AIR Hybrid 3 and SoundSpot Nebula Monkey Dude.

T

What email Nicky?

That would be the one from pluginboutique.com Jack...


T

Yeah, the one who's title I said was "We regret to inform you...".

What's strange about it to me is that we're all subscribed anyway, or else we'd not have received this. I s'pose I could re-subscribe, but now they want my birthday & first name (which PA probably has anyway), but I don't know... I don't feel comfortable about this.

Hey, thanks Lunar Dude.

Pretty sure I've got Hybrid, but is SoundSpot Nebula worth having IYO, mate?

EDIT:
Just realised that it's not PA, so sorry about that. You did mention it was from PB, LA, but I read it as PA, being the silly creature of habit I am.

This is related to the EU General Data Protection Regulation which comes into effect on May 25th. Pluginboutique is a UK registered company and in order to comply with the new law they need your explicit permission to use your data. Hence the email.


You're welcome Monkey Mate. Nebula is a modular Modulation/Delay kind of deal. It's nice and I may find some use for it at some point but I don't see me using it a lot...

T

True, you can always parallel it, but tend like just that subtle harmonic infusion, as I usually have loads of harmonics introduced by other processes. By that stage, subtle is all I need.

I tend to opt for several, subtle moves, as opposed to one bigger move.

Thank you, Mr. T!

OK, PA's just dropped a sale schedule for the month of June on us. Check your email.

I'm keen to hear recommendations as there's quite a lot of good-looking stuff to choose from this month...

Possibilities for me:
week 3 and either the Lindell 354 or SPL Transient Designer PLus

or wait for week 5 as they have some $299 list plugins dropping to $89-99. I'm thinking those might be the SSL channel strips

A quick word of warning about Pickpack...

If you cancel your Pickpack during the billing cycle they're expiring the plugins right away, even though the email you get from them states "As requested, we have cancelled your Plugin Alliance PickPack. The plugin licenses in your PickPack will remain usable until the end of your current billing cycle."

PA Support's response was "Canceling your PickPack effectively cancels and disables your plugins."

So yeah, not very happy about this.



p.s. UAD are selling Elysia Alpha Compressor for £69, mpressor for £59...

The support response was pretty much what PA said all along. To me PP was a bridge too far......

Looks like I will finally be able to swing the Black Box with my voucher. I already have the Lindell 354 , I really like to use it on the mix bus along with Weiss limiter to get a big full clear mix. I have so many channel strips though I probably wont be picking up the emulations if they show up at the end of the month.

This month I'll get the Black Box, or the Vertigo VSC-2, if that is one of the secret plugins.

Anyone knows if all the promotions will come back at the end of the month?

I would think they will come back. It's a regular enough occurrence that it would surprise me more if they didn't

In the close to two years I've been buying from them I think there was only once (last year) that the sales didn't come back at the end of the month. I'm hoping they do because there's a couple of things that I could combine and get a bundle discount that is cheaper than buying a single plugin (combined with my voucher). It's how I got the digital v3 eq and Passeq for less than the discounted price of the digital v3 itself when I used my voucher.

Just opened the email and hows the XL v2 for limiter, might grb that one and the vsc-2 when it goes on sale too, then ill be done.

There are better limiters out there. I demoed it a few months back when it was on sale and if you want to trash your sound then go for it. That ain't my bag. I like the Brainworx bx_limiter for heavier stuff. My overall favorite limiter is the Fabfilter Pro L2 - can get more level and cleaner to boot. I have the Waves LL limiters and quite frankly I wonder why I purchased them.

I have the VSC2 and if you want a VCA type compressor this is a good one to get. The controls can be fiddly to get a good sound but when you do it's golden. It's one of three 2-bus compressors I use; the other two are the Elysia Alpha and Fabfilter Pro C2.

They really tightened up the voucher program with Paypick which is what I was afraid of. Honestly I have so many plugins the vouchers were helpful. That on top of a sale, made me buy a few that I wouldn’t have. Great company, huge Vertigo fan!