You show'em, shinyzen!

​

 

real!

 

Blah... Not really hoping/expecting much of anything. Not pining for UAD stuff. Just used it as an example because everyone seems to be talking about it.... Would just be nice to get a better class of stuff (in general) once in a while instead of years in between. Being one who tests released stuff, much of it is redundant. Makes one wonder where the shared stockpile of algorithms all these dev's use is located because much of the released stuff these days is just the same thing over and over again just slightly altered to maintain a veil of freshness. As far as noise makers go, especially when dealing with Kontakt libs, much of it is just sample packs with a front end kontakt interface.

RE: the competition - the "well known" brands have that rep for a reason. But we beggars can't be choosers in the realm of the scene, so we use what we can scrape up and its not necessarily quality a lot of the time... But then again, how many compressors, eq's, limiters, FX's, drone, cinematic, and audio twister kontakt libs does one really need? I have cut WAY down on the quantity of stuff downloaded anymore just due to the redundancy of it all.

 

Last edited: Oct 5, 2025 at 11:20 AM

The well known brands have that rep because they are ancient, first to market.I agree with you on the cutting back thing. I love using many different tools, so i keep a fair amount, but have slashed my stash in half or more over the last couple of years.

 

100% agree

R2R delivers great performance and true offline use without any dongles. R2R's Pro Tools 2021 was insane, and I feel lucky to have had the Pro Tools First license, which gave me the chance to use the R2R Pro version. I’d like to add the R2R's AAX UAD to my R2R Pro Tools 2021 setup.
Why? Because Avid is a trash company that demands monthly payments for an outdated DAW, while the R2R version works perfectly fine. I expect the same for R2R UAD — especially hoping they’ll remove the blurry loading screens for all their native VSTs.

By the way, speaking of UAD — I really love some of the "signature sound" and chains from different engineers. When I see Tchad Blake with a Neve preamp, I need that sound — same with the original SansAmp from Pro Tools.
Signature tones are what make me want UAD as my final peace of puzzle — purely for lab testing, of course. All of this matters to me because you have to go through it on your own; no one’s going to teach or guide you through it.

 

Last edited: Oct 5, 2025 at 2:01 PM

Many software synthesizer and effects developers jumped on the Pro Tools bandwagon because, back then, when there was no competition, you could make a lot of money with Pro Tools.

Avid has announced the Pro Tools Instrument Expansion Pack, described as "the ultimate professional virtual instrument collection for Pro Tools", featuring all five of Avid / Digidesign's virtual instruments - Structure, Strike, Velvet, Transfuser and Hybrid for $499.
www.kvraudio.com/news/avid-announces-pro-tools-instrument-expansion-pack-13480

In 2014 the market was saturated and Air Music released it as a VSTi for all DAWs...!
The AIR Instrument Expansion Pack is now available for $299.99
www.kvraudio.com/news/air-music-tech-enhances-air-instrument-expansion-pack---adds-hybrid-3-0-and-vst-au-and-aax-support-26318

 

UAD remembers me Cubase hype BECAUSE not cracked.

How many ppl REALLY use cubase ?
Same with Reaper : yes, it is nice but real users stats ?

"The top three DAW brands—Ableton, FL Studio, and Logic Pro—jointly account for nearly 58% of all users worldwide."
Compiled stats, funny isn't it ?

So it means all other DAWs share less than 50%.
That's the difference between hype and real world stats.

 

“I only believe statistics that I have falsified myself” or “I don't believe any statistics that I haven't falsified myself.”
Winston Churchill

In fact, we do not know what users actually install and use behind their front door

 

where did you get those stats?

 

This table is current and informative:

Sales Ranking: Sequencer Software and Virtual Studios - October 6, 2025

01. Steinberg Cubase Pro 14
02. Ableton Live 12 Standard
03. Avid Pro Tools Studio Perpetual
04. Ableton Live 12 Suite
05. Steinberg Cubase Elements 14
06. Steinberg Cubase Artist 14
07. Image-Line FL Studio Producer Edition
08. Presonus Studio One Pro 7
09. Presonus Studio One Pro 7 with 12M Pro+
10. Avid Pro Tools Ultimate
11. Reason Studios Reason 13
12. Avid Pro Tools Studio Annual Subsc.
13. Ableton Live 12 Intro

Source: www.thomann.de/de/cat_rank.html?ar=604021&gk=SWSQ

 

As the Acoustica community had imploded here, on Gear4 and elsewhere, it was quite enjoyable, especially seeing die-hard fanboys who had spent their lives on plugins at home trying to debunk the facts about bloatware and the numerous bugs that witches were highlighting regarding their graphical interfaces, etc., and the worst, I think, was the part explaining to internet users that Aquarius is a spy who records and studies several of your internal computer information. Many people were in denial, others opened their eyes and were shocked !


Honestly, if UAD is discovered, we will finally be able to tell professional and semi-professional brand marketers that the music made, mixed, recorded, and mastered with their tools has no added value compared to motivated and independent creators !

 

This table only includes software sold by Thomann, so is not accurate data regarding real-world user stats. If you only took into consideration Thomann sales data, Reaper users would equal 0%.

 

Conclusion: I've uploaded another image to pay tribute to Reaper. There are no exact figures because we don't know what's stopping users from actually installing and playing or deleting their apps.



A Study on the Adoption and Usage of Digital Audio Workstations
www.lim.di.unimi.it/dawsurvey/results/2023

https://imgur.com/a/2023-daw-survey-results-M7eZ5ty

 

Appart from the Epstein files (the Holly Grail), the only things which will make me get out of my bed are updates from Soundtoys, SSL and Softube.
I don't care about UAD, ProTools and everything else.
That's my own personal opinion, but I share it with great pleasure to everybody...

 

Last edited: Oct 5, 2025 at 5:59 PM

Imagine if everyone had the same job, ate the same food, and made the same music. That would be boring. Long live diversity.

 

The bloatware was undeniable, and they have at least "fixed" that, or started to, removing it in a lot of plugins. The bugs however were not black and white, as the versions released were trial versions, which did not receive the same updates as the official releases. There are some bugs in their official releases, but its nothing like was reported here. Aquarius also does not spy as much as made out to be. It looks in two locations, that being where the framework is installed, and the system plugin folder. As a test, I installed cracks alongside legit plugins by having the cracks in a custom vst location, anywhere on my computer. Aquarius didn't pick them up whatsoever.

 

How do you know it is from their internal sales data? They aren't exactly dumping SAP to give us numbers. And Thomann would probably be a somewhat skewed source anyway because of the territory they cover.

 

You've just described the world as I more or less feel it today...

 

Really? Ancient == reason for reputation hmmm.. Yeah, not buying that. There is something to be said for older "brands" having a rep. It's because they bring something to the table (still) sonically that the massive hoards of redundancy do not.

 

Alot more than you think there is millions of NON DANCE aka REAL MUSICIANS and those would never ever use Fruity Loops or Ableton and in Europe Cubase is REALLY big muh bigger than Logic.
And Reaper has millions of users and even DANCE aka NON MUSICIANS use Reaper.