Luckily, they revised the terms after getting a lot of grief. I won’t bore you with the details which can be found on their site, but they stated:
“It has come to our attention that the terms and conditions for Life by XLN Audio could be misinterpreted as giving rights for recordings and music produced over to XLN Audio - this is not the case. This was never our intention and as a response we have reworded our Terms & Conditions as of Dec 8, 2023.”
The Life software is innovative, inspiring, and a great creative tool. I would recommend the free trial to see if it works for you. If XLN Audio ever does use my music as they please, they will probably go bankrupt as my music sounds like a chorus of frogs puking in a bucket.
Totally agree on Stutter Edit 2 - there’s an excellent fx unit buried under an awful interface. I tend to stick to using the simple “trap hats” preset (I know…) because it’s good for regular stuttering without blowing up the output as most of the other presets do. I’d love to make my own bank of gestures, but the idea of spending that much time with the interface in order to do so is a big turn-off.
Hits:
XLN XO - hard to overstate the impact it’s having on my recordings. As somebody that’s been collecting samples since about 1999, you can imagine how happy it makes me to be able to instantly use the sounds I have. And just dragging the MIDI to the track is so clutch. Because I can do that and then use the Stream Deck script I mention next…
Elgato Stream Deck XL - OK technically hardware, but sitting down and setting this thing up for use with Ableton Live and Nuendo has been a next-level tool. Mining YouTube for some help when I got stuck I came across a channel by a psytrance producer named Dash Glitch who made some Cubase macros, and that has been an incredible find. I now have it set up using his method to, with one button press on the Stream Deck, randomize the velocity of notes in MIDI parts and automatically mute anything less than 60. It instantly creates either polyrhythms of synth lines or variations of drum parts. Don’t like the results? Press the key again. Rinse and repeat, it’s a cheat code.
Pluginfo - this is a Mac app that analyzes your plugins and presents all pertinent info. I think it was $1US through the App Store. You can export the info as a .XLS. It’ll give you the info you need to know about your plugins like versioning.
LetiMix GainMatch - This takes a lot of the snake oil out of plugins - in particular those plugins that make your signal louder, tricking your ears into thinking it’s better. Put an instance before your plugin and an instance after and it matches the gain. Well worth the $20.
VPS Avenger 2 - I’ve only had it like a week, and never used the original Avenger. The genre-specific expansions are so much fun, especially if you’re an 80s New Beat/Italo Disco freak like I am.
MIsses:
Pulsar Massive - When I got it I was super excited to have a Manley Massive Passive EQ in plugin format. Maybe I need to dive a little deeper but I don’t use it enough to justify the cost. It’s not he first EQ I grab when I’m entering the master phase.
Minimal Audio Morph EQ - this relies a lot on writing automation to get crazy with it since most things are linked to macro knobs. I love their other stuff - Rift and Cluster Delay are great. Maybe like Pulsar Massive I just need to sit with it for a bit more time to figure it out.
ADSR Sample Manager - like I mentioned earlier I have a ton of samples, and a lot of loops. I thought I’d be using this a lot more than I am! Tough to bag on a free tool but I think it’s a good sign I’m largely ignoring loops as a crutch anyway.
Actually…Just mapping some knobs to an LFO in Live has made this thing a beast. So, I did just need to spend a little more time figuring out how to use it.
…my only softinvestments of 23…third time refreshing bitwigs upgrade plan…as always in august…
and recently, sonic charges syntplant2, of course…
and maybeeee, i’ll get my hands dirty with xln’s life for this xmas…still undecided…it won’t change my life that drastically as xo did, last year…that much i know…
…just saw the lateast update to sonibles smart eq4 is out…
i, personally got the smart collection in quite a while now…
smart reverb leaves me a bit cold and maybe too smart for me to really dig any advantaes from it…
while smart compressor is pretty impressing on all sorts of accoustic material…
from smart eq3 on the other hand, i expected a lot, but so far, i’m not too impressed…
but it’s the last one, that does not really work like their latest smart compress and smart limit sonically and gui wise, which do both a pretty decent job here…
so, i’ll gonna get me that upgrade to version 4 of smart eq, since it’s only 29 bux for me anyways, and hope, this time it will really end up as my common place to go, whenever i feel like, i might need an audio assistent for further clarity in overall demudding and proper interactive frequencyspectrum dance around…
anybofy else here experienced with it already…?
and since i’m a huuuuge cableguys/shaperbox user, i’ll defenitly get the latest reverb addition to it, too…
