in defence of freebies

Oh no

I don't hate 'em, but once you've built up a decent collections that handles your workflow, I've rarely come across a freebie that does something better than what I already have. If you are just starting out, freebies are great to get started, though they become a time sink installing, testing and uninstalling the bloopers.
 
With so many good sales throughout the year, I'd just as soon get into a decent suite that is well supported and for which good tutorials exist. Not only do the tutorials teach the plugins, but they are also useful for teaching technique, IMO.
 
Regards,
Dan

dcumpian
I don't hate 'em, but once you've built up a decent collections that handles your workflow, I've rarely come across a freebie that does something better than what I already have. If you are just starting out, freebies are great to get started, though they become a time sink installing, testing and uninstalling the bloopers.
 
With so many good sales throughout the year, I'd just as soon get into a decent suite that is well supported and for which good tutorials exist. Not only do the tutorials teach the plugins, but they are also useful for teaching technique, IMO.
 
Regards,
Dan

+1

Azslow3,
 
With you on this one. Fully understand arguments for the benefits of a $500 reverb over an obscure free offering by some unknown renegade. But maybe we are too quick to piss off a free device as inferior because we have just dumped $500 on a pro Ilock plug. Human nature.
 
Broken record **** on my part, but after breaking the bank for decades on every conceivable state of the art increment, realized that it wasn't enhancing my musicianship. Wasn't enhancing creativity. Ended up with another week's groceries invested in a new echo unit that was forgotten a week after the thrill wore off. May be needed for external clients, but ultimately did nothing for me other than add to the hoard pile.
 
Doing an evaluation of my accumulated wasteland. Rain's advice about treating the DAW as hardware much appreciated. If it works and does what is needed, carve it in stone and move forward. Only so much technology can do to polish a...
 
John

To me it depends on your ear and your background. I'm an old radio guy who does some AV work to keep a bit of food on the table. A buddy recently suggested that a room was too boomy and to drop the EQ around 125. I went to all the EQs (way too many) that the engineer had set up and dropped them all just a touch at 125. It became less boomy and much better sounding. I couldn't care less what brand or make the EQs were as long as I could make the room sound better.
 
I'm the same with EQs, Compressors, etc... on my DAW. The ones that came with it, the Melda freebies and the NI ones from KU are perfectly fine by me. If I want to mess with convo reverb, the stuff in GR (Reflektor?) is fine by me. But I know a lot of you guys have great ears and great background in music and might want to recreate a certain Beatles sound with recreations of everything in Abbey Road Studios.
 
On the other hand I love listening to Pianos and the difference between Steinway, Yamaha, Baldwin, Bosendorfer, et all is huge to me. I love kicking up some old midis I found of Berlin / Porter / Gershwin medleys and listening to them with different pianos in my DAW just for my own pleasure. I downloaded all the PianoTeq old freebies of 1700s and 1800s pianos just for this reason. So is it any less different for me wanting lots of pianos and someone else wanting every EQ and Reverb he can find. Not really. He can hear each exquisite shade of difference in that expensive EQ, while I can fall in love with a digital recreation of a pianoforte or harpsichord that I could never afford in real life.