www.soundsonline.com

They offer access to every play instrument on top of exclusive drumkits and mixing tutorials for 30 bucks a month or 339 bucks a year.

After reading it seems that you actually download the software to your pc and can work offline. On a monthly plan you only have to go online once a month to validate your membership and be able to continue use. On a yearly plan, once a year. I'm not to familiar with the play engine as I'm a kontakt horder, but do you guys like this idea?

 

Looks good to me. I think I will try for a month, is better than to buy all those libraries one by one.

 

I was interested at the beginning but this subscription concept is killing it for me because at the end of the day the software is not yours and this is just some kind of renting.

 

it looks interesting when u wanna pay a demo to try (like they did for a video game ehem )
I wish I can test the hollywood libs !

With my way to compose ( only when i have mood) it's not good to rent these libs,
it's good if u are active everyday

I don't really understand why it's called Cloud-Online if u have to download the lib ?!
which is no surprising coz i can't imagine playing vst with samples hosted in a cloud, the latency would be wow lol .
but still, u download then when u stop paying what happens?

 

Imagine if every company did this, suddenly your only $30 dollar a month outlay becomes 20 or 30 or 40 times $30 a month, i.e. $7,200 - $14,400 per year.

My philosophy is to not even start going down this road.

 

I like this idea for special projects outside of day to day production but for me the thought of using Kontakt and 10 year old technology is a huge drawback .

 

If you use them every day and on every project, I don't think it's worth it.

If you want to use them on a track and render or on an one-off project and render or for something very specific and time-limited, then I guess it'd be worth it... And possibly rent it again if you desperately need to get back to something.

For 2 years worth of subscription you'd be able to get the Composer's Collection (which is still not all the libs but if you want specific ones or few of them, it's way better value); if you can wait and save up to it that is. The Hollywood Orchestra was recently up again for around 500$, including the harp. So, if you want only that, it's even less than two years of subscription.

If you don't need much else and can sustain paying it like a bill, then go for it. Maybe you'd stop using it before the year is over, who knows?

Btw, their euro-site is messed up. I'd seen they were planning on closing it down and keeping only the US one but I don't know what's up with that. And they seem to have removed the CCC from it...

Get one month to try (if it's stable on your system, which libs you want and stuff) and see from there...

Edit: Lol, sorry, it seems they've removed the CCC from the US one, too (they keep altering their offerings lately). And they've added a yearly plus HD version on the cloud for 700$ (...) per year (...). Normal subscription includes the Gold versions (1 main mic and less articulations for orchestral libs) and this one seems to be the platinum (full). For the same amount you could get the CCC Pro with a few libs but with permanent licenses. Bad... So, yeah, need new calculations now. I'd mainly refer to Zenarcist's point.

Edit 2: OMG, CCC 3 is still up though (broken!): http://www.soundsonline.com/CCC3-PRO
( And Europe OLD, also broken: http://www.soundsonline-europe.com/OLD-Complete-Composers-Collection )

What a mess, goddamn!!

 

Last edited: Mar 12, 2016

Tried to purchase, it ended around 32.40 euros (37 dollars) per month, but no Paypal accepted. Dafuq

 

Play engine is rubbish, and EW is desperately trying to come up with ways to sell their stuff. Kontakt all the way. They do make great samples, but Play ruins it.