Singles’ day was last week and Black Friday is next week. If you don’t know what Singles’ day is it is Chinese version of Black Friday on eleventh of November. It isn’t that popular but few places try to introduce it to Finland. Don’t know if that is the case elsewhere. Price reductions were quite conservative in some places. Some had similar price drops as they have on other sales. Didn’t get anything because stuff I wanted was just released and is not in sale few weeks after the release.
I think same happens during Black Friday. There have been sales during November. I was curious about Softube’s sale. I have Softube Modular. They have “Modular ready” software on sale. Opened music computer first time in months to check how I like Softube Modular. Since building pedalboard for guitar and bass I haven’t opened music computer that often. I am learning to play guitar and bass better at the moment and I don’t need music computer for that.
Softube really need to spend week or two on Modular usability. It needs few usability tweaks which should be easy to do. First is you should be able to drop modules between other modules and other modules make room for new one when you do that. Now you need to move other modules first to make room and then move them back. This is just a simple change which is huge improvement to usability. Second is you should be able to see only modules you own and order them in way you want. Now you see everything. Modules you don’t own are greyed. You have to go through few lines of greyed modules before you get to DAW connectivity modules which usually are first ones you want to add. This doesn’t make me want to buy those modules or synths/effects they come from. This makes me use the synth less and makes me less likely to buy other modules.
Softube Modular sounds great and have few great modules but usability is really bad. Those changes would be huge improvements to usability. I don’t think those would be that hard to implement. Other problem was modules I don’t own come from synths I don’t want or have other better options for. I don’t want to buy synth just to have couple usable modules in software modular. Model 72 and Model 84’s modules would be interesting but I already have Native Instrument’s, Arturia’s and U-He’s versions of Moog Model D. Also one analog synth heavily inspired by it. Arturia and U-He have done good versions of Roland’s Juno synths and I have Roland Boutique version too. I have no need for other versions even if they sound marginally closer to original units. If Softube Modular was more usable then I might reconsider them for modules.
Softube Modular test made me update almost everything on music computer. Still need to do that for few companies’ plugins. It made me realize I have too many plugins. I probably just need to focus on few of them. U-He’s Dark Zebra can probably do most of what I want from synths. Exception being MPE. For that I have Equator 2 and Pigments. Arturia’s Collection V and U-He’s Diva manage vintage sounds. Current Kontakt libraries should be able all sampled instrument needs. For effects I have same situation except I don’t know which ones do all I need. I assume Valhalla DSP, iZotope, FabFilter and Unfiltered Audio have made few of those plugins. FabFilter Timeless 3 is interesting but after watching few demos it doesn’t inspire like some other plugins I have. On simple delays Valhalla Delay with EQ after it should give better results. Unfiltered Audio have plugins for crazy modulation.
There is probably use case where Timeless 3 is better than what I have but I don’t want to add more options. I want to limit options. Having too many option take me out of zone when I am trying to do something. Rather have fewer options which I know what they do. Pedalboard showed that. Before pedalboards I played to DAW and had many plugins to choose from. Now I play more when I have only what is on board. Next I do same to Daw and plugins. Maybe not delete plugin from computer but hide them in DAW so I have few option for delay, reverb and everything else and use only those. This means no more buying new plugins. This Black Friday might turn into buy nothing day for me.
There are two or three hardware synth I want to my setup but I need more room and money from them. There is need for more than four voice analog synth and Hydrasynth with polyphonic aftertouch is quite tempting. Third could be really versatile monophonic analog synth. Analog polyphonic synth is probably Arturia’s PolyBrute. Not sure if need versatile monophonic synth like MatrixBrute with it.