You need an iLok2 just to demo it! So while other big time vendors stepped away from iLok towards the licenser software only, that's not enough Empirical Labs?! So my interest stops right there!

 

I bought the Sknote one 4 only $39.99 without iLok It's updated recently to a newer version btw! Extensive discussed @ GearS.

 

sorry but sknote is far far back this one . Not the same quality ...

 

Listening and watching the 2nd demo video so graciously provided by thantrax it seems to be pretty dang great and would be a fantastic tool for the drum buss. It sounds killer to me and from what I have heard affords tons of different colors to paint with. I have never used the hardware so cannot directly compare, but even if it strays, diverges far from its Moma's lineage, it still sounds like a powerful bit of kit. If it is as someone intonated, $350, lots of good folk will never have the pleasure or the benefit of this baby, for its lofty price tag will render it the golden carrot at the end of too long an iLok stick. There are other great compressors at way less cost that will do the job at hand, surely as well although of course a tad differently, and namely to sculpt sound in a pleasing and/or sometimes mangled, tortured kind of squishy way, eking and wringing out every last ounce of juice a hardware compressor emulation can deliver.

 

Even if the Sknote plug isn't a perfect emulation it is still a very good plug in its own right and worth the small price tag.

 

You are right but the Empirical Labs prices are far far ahead... our pockets.

 

agree with you

 

I might be crazy but would rather spend the bread for the hardware Distressor than lay out $350 for the emulation and buy an iLok thingy. The extra work to route the buss out, through the Distressor and back in again would be worth it to me. I need to get a patch bay one of these days. The Distressor would find a permanent home patched in and it will be no biggy then. I also want to get a Silver Bullet. They would become fast friends. Anybody out there like to get rid of a 5 or 10 thousand bucks that's gathering dust in their pocket?