"whatinvestigatorsleep
Pending Deletion"
So long, my non-friend. It was short but intense. In a bad way. Close the door after the kicking-out

 

this is the last time I will reply and I hope that the Mods will take care of you.

You are missing the point - you do NOT have the right to be disappointed about something that you are not entitled to have.

Mods, over to you....

 

That's it exactly. R2R has made easy for any legit owner to decrypt his libs and share it without worries.
They also imply they're big and expensive.

No need to reply him anymore. He's already been marked for ban.

 

Make sure to tell him "close the door on you way out".

 

Please don't twist the truth; the Monster Gong package wasn't released on Halloween, and the piano isn't the Monster Gong.

News from the Team R2R (2025.09.20):

"The halloween season is coming.
We are very sorry to announce the death of another huge legendary monster which never showed up before."

 

You know way too much about mixing to be making this kind of dumb comment. I don't mean the whole fake "everyone knows the plugins make the mix" which you typed out. UA analog emulation plugins do not remove the need for other high quality digital effects. Like Pro-C2 for a transparent compressor, or Pro-Q4/Sonnox Claro for a surgical EQ. Etc.

Analog emulations are never all you need. But bad analog emulation plugins can really screw you, unlike any other kinds of mixing plugins. You can spend way too much on something like Acustica pre-R2R, get maybe minimally better emulation plugins than UA (up for debate plugin by plugin) and find yourself on here asking where did your hard drive go? Since the one you had pre-installation is suddenly full today.
You can also get such subtle results per plugin that Giancarlo was on here telling people they probably just need new monitors; because sometimes that subtleness is actually what you are paying for. Stuff that will never be fixed, because the entire intent is a "flavor of the month club". Next, you can also end up adding excessive CPU usage by using emulation plugins from a developer who may have not work ethic to optimize as much as possible. Maybe giant file sizes due to using IRs. You may even hit the trifecta and end up with all of the above and even get some more.

Next, you can add the "confidence in the product" problem of all these random plugins. Instead of just firing up the same old UA 1176, you will test 6 others and then end up comparing them to UA anyway. That way you can say there are slight differences and the grab bag full of stuff you are using might still sound justifiable. On top of that, by not using the same one plugin over and over; you will get better results than by using slightly better but still random options. Instead of knowing the plugins you have are more than good enough to having been used on thousands of released albums, you develop the exact lack of confidence because your process has no consistency.

Instead, you are stuck with some "no excuses" plugins which are not separating you from good results. When you actually start to "use what you already have" is when you actually start hearing and learning the tiny aspects of what you are doing.

There is literally 0 downside to use them in that way, unless you want some more practice using Plugin Doctor to say the random thing you just downloaded is almost the exact same thing anyway. Best outcome in 99% of cases with 100% of the time invested trying to figure out the differences; before loading up your DAW and closing plugin doctor and barely hearing the difference anyway.

Instead of writing posts about new users who actually think that plugin brands make the mix, you could spend the time consoling yourself R2R did not release them again. For the fifth year after the arrival of Spark. Read that sentence carefully bfore saying I think they can't [k] them. I do not think there is a protection used for audio software that they can't crack and probably already have.

 

You probably expected UAD. It's likely due for a release by the end of the year. No concrete proof or insider info, but it seems reasonable to suppose so.

However, I have a hard time understanding your criticisms towards the group.

You didn't get what you wanted this time. Well, neither did I. So what? The ammount of time and effort that they've put into releases over the years is immeasurable. And they are charging you how much exactly? Zero.

I by no means subscribe to sycophancy, but you have to be fair and acknowledge their monumental contribution to this community that each and every one of us here gained from immensely.

Having a good opinion about providential agents can literally save your life.

 

Last edited: Nov 3, 2025 at 7:00 PM

The above is OBVIOUS to anyone and is all that needs to be said. Another redundant mediocre sampled piano and omni-3 are NOT "gongs" in the sense that the word has been defined here. Neither are "legendary". Again, it will be OBVIOUS if/when a "gong" drops. It may never drop (which is my opinion). Most of the sanctimonious fools that come into these threads just to tear down others opinions when they don't agree with their own should take heed.

 

Exactly....

 

The new Universal Audio Ocean Way Deluxe native, a long awaited classic in our native arsenal.

https://www.uaudio.com/products/ocean-way-studios-deluxe

 

Someone call the authorities! How dare R2R release something nobody specifically petitioned for? What a scandal! My standards are impossibly high I demand iLok 3 immediately, and my Wave Alchemy plugins are still ticking time bombs. Witches, you clearly need a lesson in excellence. Do make an effort to impress me properly next time

 

News from R2R headquarters: we are in the final stages of releasing the monster.
God willing, it will be out by Christmas at the latest.

Paiste 60" Symphonic Gong Wave played by Daniel Kizilirmak

 

What if iLok was hacked, and R2R just bought a few things on sale for Halloween to hack them? Now they'll wait for Black Friday to buy more and hack them too. We need to provide more licensed software. Looks like this is it.

iLok is that "huge" monster.

 

so basically they replaced the 10+ years old Ocean Way Studio plugin that runs on DSP only and replaced it with this deluxe 249$ instead of 99$ and made also Native, that's a huge jump (in price obviously)

 

Dude... not to distract from your otherwise spot on comment here, but methinks your sarcasm detector is broken. No way @shinyzen typed that out with a straight face.

Because it's you know... funny. Brand worship is stupid. Let your ears be the judge, let your fingers be the guide. The best tools are what you have and the sublime tools are those you know how to operate.

 

A half-assed attempt at a rage-bait troll. Good riddance. Those types of people are not only what's wrong with the scene, but with society at large.

 

Maybe I didn't expand upon it enough, but I absolutely know he did not say that seriously. The fake comment is probably best considered "mock irony". He's joking about people who actually do think they need some specific magic plugins to mix well. But in the context of this thread, there is only a couple reasons why you would need to make that kind of comment about such people who would say it.

The most obvious reason, is that you are in the same boat as them still. No UAD plugins. "but i'm not mad at ya, R2R". It's kind of like a veiled complaint about this piano plugin being released.

It may illustrate what is "wrong with the scene" in a way, but not in the more obvious sense. He said this: "If a group teases a big reveal for months and it turns out to be an niche piano plugin, that's a reasonable disappointment. Especially when the hype was self-generated."

R2R didn't tease a big reveal for months. People read a 2 line comment in an nfo file and twist that into "Oh, good. What am I getting out of the deal?". They didn't generate hype about anything but their network blocking .dll being needed for something they clearly said was months of testing away.

It's not trolling that is the problem, because that is what the ignore button is for, if you even care. The problem is the entitlement. Or the fact this exact same "disappointment" happens every single year.

 

Last edited: Nov 3, 2025 at 8:31 PM

I remember some where reading a moaning post, it may have been on here or on the sister site, about how all of the industry pro's only seem to use just a handful of the same plugins. The plugin that was specifically being moaned about was Pro Q3 /Q4 but there is a simple reason for that, those guys n gals (the industry pros) know these plugins inside out and they just work.

Remember, they are known as Industry Pros for a reason, some have worked of 100's of the best selling songs of all time
so when they share their knowledge online, maybe in a youtube video, take what they have shared and learn from it
because they will have forgotten more about their craft than you will ever know.

No brand of plugin is going to make mixes better than any other but the user does.

What I mean by this is instead of having 10 different EQ's, choose just one and really REALLY learn it, learn every nuisance, every subtlety.
Do the same for a compressor, a limiter, a EQ and so on, the essentials.

It does not matter what style of music is being produced - get the basics right first.

All songs of any type are simply a collection of sounds and frequencies, and if a person does not know or understand how something as basic as an EQ works then you may as well give up.

A carpenter does not blame his tools if his work is terrible, his tools will be fine but if he does not know how to use them
then his work will never be good.

Trust me when I say that I have built a 30+ year career on this advice and the epiphany came when I stopped thinking that I knew
everything, realized that I actually knew very little, and knuckled down and listened to those who did.

 

What are the chances we get to page 100 before the actual gong?