I mean, these days everyone and their hairstylist are making VSTs, so why should I even bother releasing this thing I worked on for ages? Should I even bother going through the process of getting the proper licenses, setting up the business, incorporate, get certifications...etc. If nobody would give a shit... Does everyone just give the stuff away for free?
I think my synth is cool, basically can do all the cool Royksopp basslines and has an out of this world sequencer. Pretty much ready to go, compiled for win, mac, linux; standalone, vst3, au, clap, lv2, the works. Have a site, a licensing system, everything. Just working on more presets right now to have good demos.
What is the general consensus these days?
Also, anyone interested in beta testing this thing? Hit me up.

Was thinking a one time price of $29, 2 activations.

Hopefully this is appropriate for this sub, as this may pertain to a good number of people here who use this company's plugins.

Welp. Andrew Aversa, CEO of Impact Soundworks, sent an email this morning (for me) that some bad actors likely got hold of some of my personally identifying information. They claim that it's not things like credit card numbers or passwords, but more things like name, IP address, order history, company (if indicated).

I haven't purchased anything from them in a while (I bought Shreddage 3 Serpent like a decade ago atp) and so a lot of the info ISW has on file about me in that database is severely outdated, but still. Yikes.

I’m trying to find a vst that gives really warm, soft pads without needing a ton of processing.
I’ve tried a few free ones and some sound good, but they still feel a bit thin in the mix.

What are your go to pad synths these days
And do you think it’s better to layer multiple vst pads or focus on one solid plugin?

My Shreddage 3 Hydra keeps loading like this into Kontakt 8 and isnt usable at all. Is there a way to fix this issue?

Saw this on Bluesky. White line: free AI coded plugin, blue line: Fabfilter

Original source with more screenshots: https://bsky.app/profile/tildesounds.bsky.social/post/3mnwpzhczcs2h

I just ran a test in one of my projects where I have many instances of AmpliTube 5.

With VST3 instances, Ableton 12’s CPU meter was hovering around 57–58% when idle, whereas the exact same setup using VST2 instances was hovering around 15–17% when idle.

I also ran another test with 50 audio tracks and 50 instances of AmpliTube:
VST3: 80% when idle - 84% when playing (average)
VST2: 6% when idle - 80% when playing (average)

A third test with 50 audio tracks and 50 instances of H910 Harmonizer from Eventide:
VST3: 19% when idle - 20-24% when playing
VST2: 6% when idle - 20-24% when playing

And a fourth test with 50 audio tracks and 50 instances of Butch Vig Vocals (Stereo) from Waves:
VST3: 32% when idle - 33% when playing
VST2: 6% when idle - 36-38% when playing

What is going on here? I was under the impression that one of the main advantages of VST3 was the ability to “shut off” when not processing audio. If this is related to Ableton’s CPU meter—which apparently isn’t a true CPU meter—then why do the VST2 instances seem to shut off when not in use?

Can anyone shed some light on this?

System info:
Amplitube 5 v5.10.8
Ableton 12.3.6
Windows 10

So I just had an internet outage and I couldn't work on my project because Ilok just crashed my whole daw because I wasn't connected. I checked if the licences are activated online or on my PC and all of them are activated on my PC. So why can't I use them without an internet connection?

The only solution I had was to open Ilok licence manager at least once when booting up my PC which is quite inconvenient.

And no, I won't buy a dongle because I don't see why I should buy an overpriced dongle just to use plugins I've already paid for.

I've had a Hammer 88 for about 7 years now. It came with several instrument VSTs, including the SoniVox Eighty Eight 2. On the Hammer 88 website, "Eighty Eight" is still listed under "Included Software."

At the time, I created my M-Audio account, registered my Hammer 88, and was able to generate activation codes for these VSTs no problem.

Recently, the Eighty Eight VST seemed to have lost its "registered" status and stopped working. I went to log in to my M-Audio account, and found that they've migrated to InMusic. So I followed the steps to migrate my M-Audio account to InMusic, but I still had to re-register my Hammer 88 via serial number.

Once I did that, I could get activation codes for VSTs made by AiR, but the Sonivox Eighty Eight was not listed anywhere.

I contacted InMusic support, and they told me Eighty Eight was discontinued and no longer offered.

But I was ALREADY registered for this VST, I just need it back. I even still have the VST installed, I just need my key back.

Any advice? I feel like I'm getting screwed here.

Windows 11, Ableton Live 12 Standard, Updated drivers, Tried restarting, Tried FACTORY RESETTING, and now i am getting desperate. the standalone works but not the VST. what the heck!!

Yeah so I'm trying to use Unreal Instrument's guitar SFZs real bad and for some reason Sforzando only plays some slide samples on Metal GTX, and some fret hits and a few other things on Standard Guitar as opposed to you know, strings and notes and stuff. Reinstalled Sforzando a couple of times, reinstalled the SFZs, messed with all the settings on Sforzando, tried opening the program on it's own instead of inside of a DAW, nothing changed. Any help is appreciated, I'm a complete and total beginner when it comes to production, I don't have a midi controller or fancy software, I'm using FL studio free trial and LMMS with keyboard and mouse. I was gonna post videos showing it but apparently I can't, sorry. Basically the only keys that do anything are C2 through A2 and they only play muted notes and slide samples, everything else does nothing no matter the setting, what sfz is loaded or the switches.

i wonder if there is any piano midi or vst sample where the piano keys are perfectly harmonicly tuned or in nerdy term 100 percent partially...it is not possible with actual piano but i wonder someone ever had the same question and made a piano vst sound where the keys are perfectly tuned.

Hi everyone! I’m trying to use the OB-Xd synth in FL Studio, but every time I open the plugin, it shows up completely black, with no interface at all. I also get an error saying:

“Assets not found / requires assets / assets could not be found, please reinstall the application.”

I’ve tried reinstalling it, but when I search my PC for “OB-Xd”, I only find: • one .exe file (the application) • some .fxp preset files

There is no .dll or .vst3 anywhere, and no “assets” folder. The installer also doesn’t let me choose an installation folder — it just installs automatically, and then FL Studio can’t find the interface files at all.

Summary of the problem: • OB-Xd opens as a black screen in FL Studio • “assets not found” error • I only have the .exe and .fxp presets • No .dll, no .vst3, no “assets” folder • Installer doesn’t let me choose install location

Has anyone dealt with this before? How do I properly install OB-Xd with the full assets folder and the correct .dll so FL Studio can load the plugin normally? (I’m not very experienced).

Any help is appreciated 💗

Hopefully this is the right place to put this...

You can see the keyswitches above. I have tried this with latching and non-latching mode. For this specific part, I want to have muted notes as it's right before the chorus drops. So I am using e0 as you can see from this screenshot:

But those two power chords are ringing out like normal notes and not being muted. I've also tried to use some of the keyswitches on the left like down pick and they don't work either, it's just stuck on alt pick permanently. Am I doing something wrong here? I've tried multiple guitar presets as well and that didn't change anything. It seems like many of the keyswitches are greyed out for some reason but even trying to switch to tremelo mode didn't work.

:/

I hope this has not been asked before. I recently started dabbling in music production after a ~10 years break. I bought some stuff a couple of months ago (Arturia mainly preowned).

Now all of the companies have these great deals (90%?) and a huge ecosystem around these deals is built (websites, youtube etc.). Has it been like this every year? Are there more sales than Black Friday? It seems stupid for me to ever buy anything outside these deals. Does anybody ever buy this stuff at a regular price?

This BF will make me poor!

Hi all

I’ve been thinking about creating a custom VST instrument using samples from a real Juno-106 my friend owns. I want to capture the sound of the actual hardware and make a playable plugin version that works in any DAW.

Right now, my plan is something like:

• Record every note (or at least every few semitones) from the Juno, ideally with a few different velocity layers.
• Clean up the samples, trim them, normalize, fade in/out if needed.
• Use something like JUCE or HISE to build a simple VST that loads and plays those samples.
• Eventually give it a basic UI — filter, ADSR, maybe a couple effects.

I’ve done some light plugin dev before but nothing sample-based. I’m mainly trying to figure out:

• Is JUCE worth the learning curve for this, or should I just use something like HISE?
• What’s a smart way to organize velocity layers and keep the sample size reasonable?
• Also — anyone done this with a Juno before and run into weird quirks?

Open to any advice, tools, or general tips. Thanks!

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that 90% of the companies making plugins don't actually offer refunds?

I've been brushing it off for awhile as it only happened a couple times where the product I bought either didn't work the way it was advertised or it wasn't as good as the advertisement. I spent less than $10 so I let it go, stopped using it and moved on.

Back in March, same thing happened again. I bought a sample pack pack for a drum sampler plugin (I wanted to try something different than EZDrummer for once) because I thought it sounded really good, it did but the problem is that it kept crashing my DAW despite having a very strong computer for audio and video production (it didn't crash with the default samples). Of course, no refunds available, I wasted $30.

The other day I bought an IR pack that I thought sounded really good and had positive reviews on YouTube as well as convincing advertising. I tried the IRs on a few of my projects and they are not good at all. Again, no refunds.

I get that VSTs are non-tangible digital goods but there should be a way, within reason, that allows customers to get their money back if the product either isn't as advertised or doesn't perform as it should causing issues for the customer.

Is this an unreasonable expectation to have from these companies as paying customers? I would be happy with having just 7 day window to request a refund which I think it's enough time to figure it out.

I bought several plugins in the past that unfortunately didn't offer a free trial (luckily they ended up being as good as advertised and met all my expectations). The point is it shouldn't feel like a gamble when buying plugins.

I was talking to a friend of mine who's also an hobbyist like me and he said he usually downloads cracked plugins to demo them, if they work as intended he buys them, if not he can just delete them, no harm to the wallet. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this but if this is the only way to properly demo a plugin, who's to say people actually skip the part where they eventually buy the plugin rather than keep using the cracked ones?

I've never really seen this topic being talked about before, I wanted to start a conversation and see other people's perspective.

I cant find them in data folder

So since im trying to set up my windows 11 again from scratch because my pc got super slow i wanted to transfer my license to my laptop so can get them back later. I stored them on my pc and every tutorial says i have to deactivate them on my pc so i can activate them on an other system. Problem is for these plugins i can‘t and they also won‘t get into the cloud storage. Also after i deactivated one, it‘s gone missing and i don‘t remember which one it was or where it went.

Also, do i have to buy that memory stick from ilok now?? What a damn scam man

p.s. I HATE ILOK

I'm looking for more, 'cuz I'm sure I'm missing some and want to learn.

Like basically, a 🎲/🔀 button you click, and it instantly calls up a preset, bypassing the need to dig boring A-Z. Could provide a jolt of inspiration and serendipity.

If you're like "WTH why would I even bother, what does this do for ME?!" I have some background-context here.