T-Racks 3 Deluxe Group Buy.

[mharris]

Do you mean buy something cheap now, so you can crossgrade?

Exactly.

[regretfullySaid]

There was a 20$ audiomidi no-brainer on a t-racks limiter/comp last year, which does count.

Also saved over $1000 bucks buying 1 Nomad Factory Plug to get a huge discount on their whole bundle.

If audiomidi has a no-brainer deal from a big company, take advantage of it. Hell, maybe even Waves will do a group buy in a few years.

[twisted-space]

Do you mean buy something cheap now, so you can crossgrade?

Exactly.

yeah, esoundz has a deal where you buy one of their xpansion tanks (expansion for the free sampletank) for $10 and then you can use it to get the t-racks crossgrade for $99. not bad if you don't already have anything.

There you go.

That's T-Racks 3 Deluxe, White 2A and Black 76 for $109
You don't have to be in the states to buy from Esoundz or Audiomidi and they both accept paypal. NO VAT in the US

[Machinesworking]

Also saved over $1000 bucks buying 1 Nomad Factory Plug to get a huge discount on their whole bundle.

Yeah I have Integral Studio as well.
What are your favorites? Mine so far are the Retrology EQs (Puls Tech, Film music and Brittish etc.), Magnetic II, and the LM-662 compressor. Kinda like Max Warm and the Chorus as well.
Those are all worth it IMO.

The main complaint I have is the shear amount of what feels like repeats in the EQ's and that most of the compressors are brutal pumping beasts that can't be tamed.

[Sibanger]

There was a 20$ audiomidi no-brainer on a t-racks limiter/comp last year, which does count.

Also saved over $1000 bucks buying 1 Nomad Factory Plug to get a huge discount on their whole bundle.

If audiomidi has a no-brainer deal from a big company, take advantage of it. Hell, maybe even Waves will do a group buy in a few years.

Has FabFilter ever been known to have a Group Buy ??

[regretfullySaid]

The most I use out of it is the MCL-2269. I've toyed with MagneticII on mastering and I like it. I like the combination different models with the universal controls. I was thinking the Pulsec would be a staple but it's alot more transparent than I expected.

Most of the dynamics ones I think I'm going to take out for Live as they're early 2000 bread and butter imo; mostly E-series, the BT stuff brings some character, but not enough for staples.

The Echoes would be my 2nd Go-to, but there's still a staticness compared to if I used a Valhalla plug. Can't say I've given each one a thorough run-through, and I tested a few times over the years and didn't think much of them, but figured I'd get my moneys worth out of the whole bundle, even if it was just a few out of the whole bunch. I'd love it if I could get one of the Motown emu eq's to add something special to something but that's not doing much, either. To be fair, I've put a lot through their paces, and overall it's weak or not enough character/cold static digital imo yet I have this little hunch that more would work better with natural mic'd recordings.
From a technical standpoint it may not make a difference, but....ay /upinarmsshrug
maybe that's what I'm led to believe:p

More would have use surgically if the Live comparisons weren't already a better in the dynamics dept. I mean, I'm itching to find a compressor or 2 with external sidechain support just to have something different that Live's compressor, but it's enough to feel at home with. Otherwise I still use Silverline in the Chorus/Flanger/Reverb dept (though Lives reverb is stil very useful and versatile, but more in a clinical context)

Nomads Amp sim is pretty good but it's m/s is fucked up so that renders it useless. Even so, Live's native stuff w/ Silverline wins over it. Not that I'm fanboy with the Silverline, but I whittle down my selections. There's plenty of free plugs that are better than most of Nomads, at least in the BT/E-Series dept. I expected it's Stereo Imager to be like the Waves one, but even Utility is more useful. IIRC both it's reverbs suck. Tin can.

[fishmonkey]

There was a 20$ audiomidi no-brainer on a t-racks limiter/comp last year, which does count.

Also saved over $1000 bucks buying 1 Nomad Factory Plug to get a huge discount on their whole bundle.

If audiomidi has a no-brainer deal from a big company, take advantage of it. Hell, maybe even Waves will do a group buy in a few years.

Has FabFilter ever been known to have a Group Buy ??

they did a MacUpdate Bundle with Twin 2, Volcano 2 and Timeless 2 all for $99.99 a couple of years back...

[Machinesworking]

The most I use out of it is the MCL-2269. I've toyed with MagneticII on mastering and I like it. I like the combination different models with the universal controls. I was thinking the Pulsec would be a staple but it's alot more transparent than I expected.

Yeah the 2269 stood out at first for me as well, I still use it, but it's a wrecking ball compressor so mostly in cases where I want something drastic. The Puls Tech has become part of my mastering chain, across a full mix it adds a lot. Magnetic I use on vocals and drums, and specific synths I want to warm up or give a vintage vibe to. Funny I find all the EQs to be really coloring but I'm a fan of surgical EQs so ones with a heavy 'filter' presence seem imposing.

All in all I would say a good portion of the EQs and compressors are designed with recording real instruments in mind, and really do best on my vocal and live drum tracks.

[regretfullySaid]

Yeah, if I was using a daw where I didn't favor the native eq 95% of the time I'd probably get more out of them. I'm definitely going to try the Pulsec in the Master and Magnetic on the Drum buss.

2269 is a wrecking ball and not so much a go-to; but now that I think of it I do like the character some of them bring when you load em just at default. I agree about thinking they'd work better on live/real instruments. When it comes to warm/vintage on synths and drums, I like redopter and/or decimator or just the Sonitex STX-1260 which I think should get more props.
When it comes to guitar for bread'n'butter I've been happy using Amp, the compressor, Fazortan/Syntorus, then Echoes.

I haven't updated my b'n'b for bass, but it won't be far from how it is with guitar. Last time I was fiddling with Recabinet2 using 2 or 3 combos of different impulses using Voxengo Boogex, then Recabinet 3 came out and either way it was just overall meh for me, but I was forcing myself to get my moneys worth.
Cabs are not my thing, but I think they'd be useful with some other instruments just to have them fit or sit better in a mix with that character. Actually a pad going through a cab and then a heavy long reverb after that sounds interesting....
For the most part I've been keeping things mostly dry (so when there are effects they have more impact) and clean, but not sterile. Pretty minimal with dynamics and eq.

[Machinesworking]

Yeah I often wonder why electronic musicians buy so many compressors for instance. A typical synth has little dynamics to begin with, and you usually carve the timbre and EQ of the instrument out when you tweak the actual synth parameters.

Honestly I can't say enough good things about Magnetic though. I don't give a rats ass whether it sounds like the tape and tubes it's supposed to emulate, it's just really useful in terms of coloring a sound to sit in a mix, I've used it for various reasons on just about everything except cymbals. Also good as a dirty limiting compressor.
Max Warm for much of the same reasons.

Live's compressor I use, mostly the rest I don't use that often though. Nomad and PSP for compression and EQ, Ohm Force for FX. I think you go through a phase with a HUGE bundle like the Nomad one where you think it's all so so because not every one of the 50+ plug ins are useful for you etc. and it takes years to get a handle on what each one is capable of etc. Of the 50 or so I find I use about 15 of them on a regular basis, another 20 at times and about 15 of them I think are repeats or superseded by their own newer plug ins.

[djadonis206]

I'm interested in this. However, I'm curious, T-Racks or Ozone 5?

I've read good things about Ozone, not such good things about T-Racks. I'm not looking for these to "professionally" master my tracks. I'm really looking for limiters and maximizers. I'm trying to get my tracks as loud as possible and pump as much as possible, while sounding clean and clear.

[Machinesworking]

T-Racks had/has problems with Ableton Live, Ozone doesn't.

Ozone is more universally applauded, but it's not cheap.

[regretfullySaid]

You don't have to get a bundle if you just want limiters and maximizers...I would go through the plug-in database at KvR and test from there. I wouldn't think of either of those specifically just for Limit/Max.

I think T-racks has problems it's an IK plug and Ozone is Izotope. Personally I haven't had problems with the few times I've used Amplitube 3 since around 8.0.? At some early point in 8 Amplitube2Live would crash every single time.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

I need to experiment with the LM-662 more. I think I made an early assumption that it was a dumbed down 2269. With so many compressors each with their own character I can see why some stockpile. Same for reverbs, delays and filters. I have a thing for spring reverbs and they're sorely lacking in the plug-in dept so I might make my own cheap one. Have you used Marquis compressor at all? I can imagine it's the motherload once you know the advanced stuff. I only demoed it back when it was in beta, but I've learned a lot since then. I'm going to look for a compressor with external s/c support for my main buss; something like Stillwell Bombardier, but I'd also like to setup an m/s compression rack with the native compressors, separate controls and algos between m & s...sounds like fun:)

I might try Magnetic on vocals this weekend actually, I bet it's so tasty...it really is worth the price on it's own. Most of the controls just need a nudge for drastic results, and I don't mind that at all. I keep my finger on Ctrl 90% of the time in Live anyway.
Max Warm hasn't gotten much love yet.

Now that I think of it the Papen Delay and Distortion haven't gotten that much love, either. I think it's the combination of GUI and routing issues. Specifically, you have to use 3 tracks to use midi control on them. Yet if Ohmboyz had exactly the same code, I'd be much more inclined to use it; it just seems like less work. And Quad Frohmage...omg. I've been waiting for Cytomic to release The Drop for too long now.

[dazzer]

I'm interested in this. However, I'm curious, T-Racks or Ozone 5?

I've read good things about Ozone, not such good things about T-Racks. I'm not looking for these to "professionally" master my tracks. I'm really looking for limiters and maximizers. I'm trying to get my tracks as loud as possible and pump as much as possible, while sounding clean and clear.

Had the same thought. Bought Ozone. Happy now (although I'd probably also be delighted with this deal too, in terms of value for money).

You can also get Ozone cheaper than full price from one of those discount online resellers, can't remember which one.

EDIT: Here for example http://plugindiscounts.com/izotope.html

EDIT2: For just getting tracks loud I was using DDMF NoLimts which is great and a great price. Now I've got Ozone I sold NoLimits and realise that a lot of the modules in Ozone are VERY usable, not just the maximiser.

[Machinesworking]

Yeah pretty much everything from Ohm Force is amazing!
I bought the All All bundle during a sale and haven't had a chance to us Quad Frohmage as much as I would like because I've been stuck in mixer/producer/mastering engineer mode for about 5 months.
Looking forward to live shows and writing again!