Those are really things that other people should judge, but I'll have a go.

Strengths: Wanting absolutely nothing at all to do first hand with the media circus and all the attendant garbage.
Ideas...lots of them (as long as I don't try)
Hopefully a sense of humour.
Sometimes reasonable arrangement ideas.
Few areas of music not interested in.
Led to believe I'm good as a catalyst.

Weaknesses: Incapable of being a 'musician.' Not much better than tone-deaf. Totally lacking the facility to master all but basic musical theory.
Reluctance to playing live. I have done it, but only enjoy it if it seems 'fresh'. Doubt I could do anything resembling a tour.
Weak voice, definitely need to find interested vocalists.
Poor programming skills. Am learning, but it's slow.
Indecisive. Need to meet people who are technically good but creatively lacking, perhaps, so as to point out rudimentary errors I miss.
Short on time. I'm a full time carer, so anything I do is tempered timewise by that.
Reasonably untrusting. Been shafted too many times.
Mercurial. Only likely to do something when don't have to or by accident.

Can't see anyone queuing up really..........................

Well, I really like the Buxom Betty. It has serious grunt. I'll be picking it up

Anyone else finding Xils Lab PolyM for £58.13 a little too tempting?

Curious to where you are seeing it at this price? I have only found it for £69/$89

Tried it out last night and it does sound good... will be purchasing down the line.

fwiw, I had one of the first edition buxom betty combo's with 6L6’s for about a month and it was one of the biggest, loudest and cleanest combo amps I’ve ever played through... I probably would have purchased if it weren’t for the 6L6’s... now they are made with EL34’s, which is reflected in the plugin.

https://www.pluginboutique.com/produ...nth/3784-PolyM

It does have some low end grunt the other two Friedman's that PA sells don't have with the controls dimed. Just a shame I can't seem to find identical recording chains in all three amps.

Those names, right? So uncool and politically incorrect, it kind of makes me want to throw up a little or slash that guy's tires. Not even in a good way, just bad.

But the amps are great. Buxom Betty (ugh) is to date, the only good amp sim on the UAD platform in my opinion. UAD amps are terrible. This one is good.

So anyway I bought it. And I picked up two of the Ampegs (SVT, B15), with my $50 voucher, that's $13.33 per amp which I'm OK with. I own the Ampegs on UAD but I don't own an Apollo so they're useless to me, now I have native versions! Been waiting for this day.

I wish I could do it twice, there's more PA amps I would get. But that's enough for now.

I used my $25 voucher this month for the Buxom Betty and the GK 800RB. I really enjoyed the latter when I was demoing it, think it'll be nice on synths as well as bass. Not the lowest price I ever got on PA sims - I got some screaming deals with the Pete Suhr $29 coupon that applied to all amp sims automatically alongside Halloween sale vouchers and they got multi-plugin discounts, ended up with all of them that I liked at the time and skipped the rest - but under the transfer cost and under $35 for both is fine for my needs right now.

As far as the names, they're all like that right? AT5 has the Pink Taco 20w sim, then we got Dirty Shirley and Hairy Brown Eye... Are these made by an especially talented 11 year old electronics prodigy who is trying to crack up the local delinquent kids? I tease, I tease. Nice sounding amps, regardless.

I used to work with Dave when he was doing custom guitar racks In the late 80’s... that’s just his humor... basically a good guy, just a bit twisted.

Just purchased ssl flexverb at PB.... cool verb, but up to 17% cpu munch... although I knew this going in... it’s still a significant munch.

Yeah I was thinking that when I was typing that post, too much of a reaction. I guess that's what he's going for LOL!

I checked PA_EXT page on the PA site. They aren’t presently showing any PA-EXT store offers that I could find. The Mellowmuse SATV was offered a couple back, before Mok Filtryg and NoiseAsh Ruletec, but when I clicked the link, it just says the page doesn’t exist. I have been getting emails for the prior PA_EXT offers all along but didn’t get one on this. PA has done one or maybe two repeat offers but just not seeing anything on this. Did you get an email or see it somewhere else (if you can say). Thanks!

The main thing is you sound grounded and honest as to your capabilities and you know what you need if you collaborate which always helps. These are the most important things to establish when trying to take the next step.

It was up on the site a few hours ago, but it's not there now. Probably a mistake...

No, I didn't get an email, and there's nothing about it on Facebook. Probably just someone at PA hit the button labelled "do not press this button"...

Well I followed today’s amp link to see how long the offer was on for to help musicman691 out ( 14th of feb it appears on FB don’t do tat..) and scrolled down on the PA site, under new products next to the deesser was this mellowmuse. Down from $49 to $39.

I demoed via mellowmuse and decided against using my $25 voucher.
Now it looks like I dreamt it
But I did copy the lineage and paste, so it was there

If you don’t have distinct! Yet, get that for $10 at plugin boutique. That was probably the tip of the scales that stopped my buying a particular channel strip at $79 the other day. With the “odd” saturation on Distinct! you can get quite a similar sound as the amp pre. I couldn’t find that sound with anything else I had...Culture vulture, Kelvin, etc possibly something ish with decapitator.

How about the Pink Taco?

Edit: already beaten to it!

There’s a new release of a twin cab coming next week
“Two Timing Ted “

I am 99% convinced that at this point in the plugin game, the UI can make or break a plug... and it’s as simple as... the good looking plug gets the attention and sales and the ugly plug gets largely ignored... with the actual sound taking a back seat to the looks.... at first anyways.

I know it’s mostly this way for me.

Which one are you specifically referring to ?

All newer plugs.

you can replace these with a pair of those, but you have to adjust grid bias voltage, right?

Yup

I think he might have tweaked the voicing a bit as well.

Uhmm...SATV has a lot of class, I love the tape mode. I usually use it on the New York bus after the compressor, tightening it almost to the maximum and it gives me an incredible tone on drums or bass, sometimes I use something to control the transients later. Transformer mode It's also cool on vocals or into something you need to push forward in a mix. I like to take it to the extreme in parallel in general, great tones.

I DO use it. Initially, I discovered Plugin Alliance via a bundle offered with Focusrite Clarett interfaces at a time when I started to get really tired with almost all plugins by any brand , not because of their sound, but because of their protection systems that appear to me as a nightmare for the end user. Waves, Softube, and the others, all tried and eventually given up because of this. Too much hassle for a simple man who just wants to be able to use what he has paid for after all.

In my case, I have a 3 computers on 3 different locations setup, and the various dongles, authorizations systems and whatever get me absolutely crazy all the times. To use a metaphor, it seems to me like buying a secure home system with reinforced doors and alarms that only make the homeowner's everyday life incredibly difficult only for himself.

In addition to that, upon upgrading/changing computers, the plugins do not recognize your system anymore and the nightmare of getting authorizations starts over and over. Really not for me.

And then I discovered Plug in Alliance ! Very good quality products, affordable bundles, and the most important thing for me : activations work for 3 or more computers, they are stable, do not ask you to re-authorize for some strange reasons, really "plug (in) and play " (pun of course intended) sort of product that have really got me back to plug-ins. Very important also, one single website to remember and favorite link to get access to. Exactly what I have been dreaming of for years.

Yes I am sure it does and I thought tape was good + that was the lowest cpu consumption out of the models on my system I was testing on. However if you had seen my previous post I have far too many options and have added about 4 distortion plugs in far less than as many weeks. Thus in no way was it a reflection of the product but more my personal situation.
Good to know your experience on this one

Sorry which plugin are you talking about with such authorisation difficulties ?

Well, I have Waves and Softube in mind among others.

Ah I thought you were either talking about satv or distinct!

Softube has an installer app + uses ilok licences which seem fine in my experience.

Waves has their installer app which once understood, I find to be fine. But you need the current wup to use on 2 computers unless using licences on a USB key.....

I only have 2 computers so I guess it’s a little easier. With some authorisations you need to remove from the old computer in order to move to another. Some companies like presonus are pretty easy just to delete the seat via your account....

PA has a pretty straightforward way and many (4) authorisations and a well oiled system of installing etc.

The most difficult I find is doing a Time machine reset and having to bring in support from Reasonstudios to sort it out step by step....

But I do like and agree with your analogy about not being able to get into your very secure house ?
That is a problem of being a bonafide paying patron, it seems !

hmm so thanks to rating all my purchases and converting the tokens (thanks everyone for the pointers!) I have a tenner at pb - now, should I get distinct for free or put in an actual £20 and get trackspacer.... hmmmmmm

Both !