interesting granular delay for FSU and lush glitchy stuff… on sale for $20
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nobody using this, is it really anygood?.. still on sale until July 31st
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on sale until July 7th
Cloudmax 2 on sale for $35
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Slate+Ash Cycles is currently 50% off. Even with that discount it’s still pretty pricey for a plugin.
Currently using Granite for granular sample looping. Would this do anything I couldn’t achieve with that or, for that matter, my Digitakt MK II? I wonder.
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I have Cycles and yeah it is pricey. The main benefit I’ve seen from Cycles is the ability to throw a loop in and then use the presets for the various parameters to quickly arrive at an interesting rhythmic texture of some sort. The GUI being abstract to me is why it’s more of a playful tool because it’s not always obvious what’s going on (though I quite like that personally.)
To achieve something similar to the sequencer part, the thing that jumps out is to use a sampler on slice mode and then put a sequencer like MDD Snake in front of it which can modulate the slice played as well as pitch/volume. The granular engine is nice too but there are plenty of those out there. Again though it’s the preset patterns you layer over your own material that makes it interesting/worthwhile. For me it’s that aspect that appeals but given the cost I can only say to watch as many videos as humanly possible before deciding.
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You can sequence/LFO modulate slices on Digitakt and achieve a similar effect, no? Or am I misunderstanding?
Basically just trying to understand if I’m buying a $125 plugin who’s function is already covered by my hardware (albeit differently). That said yeah I’m going to watch a lot of videos!
The main aspect of Cycles (if I understand it correctly) is that it’s based on the idea of a Cartesian sequencer. Not sure if DT has a mode like that as I don’t have one. I did a search for that type of sequencer based on the Make Noise René, and didn’t find a lot. But to your point any sequencer with an element of randomness could do something similar potentially.
You definitely cannot achieve a similar effect to Cycles on the Digitakt, maybe some parts of it, but Cycles does a lot more (granular, unique effects, unique sequencing approach). You can definitely technically achieve what it does with some combination of sequencers, sampler/granular generator and effects, but the whole selling point to me is that it’s all in one, with a beautiful playful UI (if you like more abstract interfaces) and lots of amazing samples and presets included. You can make amazing sounds without really thinking about what you’re doing, whereas doing it manually would feel much more deliberate to me.
It’s a really inspiring instrument IMO. I picked it up in the sale and don’t regret it at all. Honestly for me, the main downside is that it’s a little clunky because it’s a Kontakt instrument (this means e.g. long preset load times, and each category of sample is divided into its own instrument rather than all in one, I guess for memory usage reasons), but you forget this once you start using it. I’ve lost hours playing around making beautiful textures.
I was writing up a longer post in the thread on Cycles explaining what it does a bit better, as I wasn’t really clear when I bought it. I’ll try to finish it today if you’re interested. One thing which pushed me to buy it is that I emailed Slate+Ash, and they said that if I wasn’t happy after a month or so, they’d refund me. So if you email them to check they’ll do that for you, it’s a lower risk purchase. Honestly, if you’re interested in making interesting textured soundscapes, and you like more playful experiences, I don’t think you’ll regret it… if you value lots of knobs and absolute control over everything it might not be for you.
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Said it better than I could. Especially the idea that as you say you could put together a series of other instruments that do the same thing on paper, but it still wouldn’t give you Cycles. And as you say the “no brainer” factor is a big draw, you just play which I think is a big plus.
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Couldn’t help myself with the slate and ash cycles deal …. Had my eye on that for a few years … and having sold all my Eurorack its a smidge easier to justify …… VCV loops in you go !
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Also impulse bought the cycles, even never wanted it before, always fall for 50% deals 
even got bitwig when it was on 50% even i was already happy with logic…
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Maybe not a “deal” as it’s free, but a new spectral sampler thing from Steinberg: New: Free X-Stream Spectral Synthesizer | Steinberg
More info at Free, ultra-deep spectral synth from Steinberg: X-Stream - CDM Create Digital Music. It does require installing like three installer/update tools lol so if you’re sensitive to that kinda thing, avoid. Sounds quite nice though.
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Wow this may be the worst software experience I’ve had in a very long time. I can’t even get the Download Assistant to work.
Too bad, X-Stream looks interesting.
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Yeah it’s rough lol. It did work for me but I was amazed how many different steps it had to go through. Not sure if it’s worth too much stress to install it 
Just to tag on to the free X-Stream deal, HALion 7 is updated to 7.1 (including X-Stream) and is also 50% off
I agree the copy protection/installer system is a PITA, perhaps a bit more worth the trouble for HALion…I guess its al a throw back to not needing e-licence now, which is something at least.
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More of a deal than a sale, but you can get UAD’s Pultec emulation free when signing up to Loopcloud.
As always fair warning with UAD stuff is the always on software, that launches if you launch the plugins. The one thing I’ve not figured out is whether an internet connection is required to run the plugins at all, or if it’s just phoning home but you can use offline?
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You can use the UAD plugins locally if you have an iLok dongle, and if you rename the UA Connect app file. In Windows, this is found here by default:
“C:\Program Files\UA Connect”
Just rename the UA Connect.exe to something like UA Connect~.exe, and it will no longer start when your plugins start. Doesn’t affect operation of the plugins at all, as far as I can tell.
edit: their Pultec EQs are excellent
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It’s a bit of a strange system. I don’t know if it’s just something they’ve done without thinking about.
There was a recent discovery that the new Spitfire Labs won’t work offline. I get that phoning home can be a bit odd, but for me the main thing is that the plugin works offline otherwise it’s a bit of a losing battle if the net goes down. So if this works via iLok and allows the app to be off then that’s a workaround that might be do-able, and as you say the actual plugins are pretty great.
Do you just need to re-instate it to do updates and check for new versions etc? (Thinking on mac here eg: sonoma etc)
On the pricing though I notice that after the LA-2A released for free, as well as Polymax, this is the third freebie from their Essentials bundle. I kinda wonder if we’ll see them drop a plugin from it every 6 months or so as teasers for the rest of the collecion.
If you update UA Connect, it’ll re-instate the default filename upon updating. Otherwise, it still seems to function as normal - you can still update your plug-ins, you just have to start it manually. The UA plug-ins are actually what made me cave and pick up an iLok dongle - I ended up getting their LA-2A freebie and picked up the Pultec EQs separately, since then I’ve picked up a few other goodies and they’ve all been great.
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I ended up selling my copy because i get better results with ableton simpler autoslices sequenced by the torso t1 with some modulated effects in the chain.
Nice piece of software for the sound design crowd who is laptop based though.
And on Mac I renamed UAD connect app to a more obscene name and it never loads up anymore, thankfully.
I really really like their distressor and api compressor a lot. I worked a lot in studios with the hardware distressor and the plugin is incredibly accurate.
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