Musicians Production Toolkit

[shanabit]

For those of you that HAVE IT, is it(was it) worth the purchase in your opinion?
The full beat detective and 48 tracks looks cool. Your thoughts.

thanks

[sunburst79]

I thought so.

A lot of folks have purcased it it for one or two plugins and then sold the rest of the kit on ebay and recovered most or all of thier money.

[therecordinghouse]

i was forced in to buying it cuz one of my projects exceeded the 32 track limit. i grumbled all the way to the store. as it turns out, it isnt too bad an investment. tl space and smack are really nice. i mainly use hardware reverb, but it is nice to have a good software reverb that i am not afraid to use. smack is a very versital compressor. on top of that, the mp3 option saves me time importing in to itunes to convert to mp3 when i need to convert. i used multitrack beat detective a few times already. MUCH easier than the workarounds that have been posted for the stereo track only version. used sound replacer once to create some sub bass for a kick drum. basically, it has a bunch of stuff i didnt think i needed, but life with pt is much easier now.


check out altomusic.com

lowest price around $399

[lwilliam]

I don't own it, but I go back and forth on it myself...

If I run into the 32 track limit, I end up bouncing some background vox or something. It would be nice not to worry about that.

I already own DINR and Altiverb, as well as Waves L1, L2, and L3. Is Smack as good as L2? I can't believe that TL Space is better than Altiverb, but I'm open...

I don't record live drums, so multi-track BD and sound replacer isn't a big deal although at times I've had to mix multitrack drums brought in...maybe...

However, the Hybrid synth might be interesting (is it similar to the ES2 in Logic?), and I agree it's a pain to import to iTunes for mp3s, so the mp3 option would be nice. You used to be able to purchase the mp3 option separately. Is that still available?

So for me on a purely subjective basis (what I'd pay), I'd break down the value like this since the other options aren't important to me:
1. Hybrid Synth - $200 (maybe?)
2. mp3 option - $25
3. Multi-track BD - $75
4. 48 tracks - $100
Total: $400

That's a little shy of the $480 or so street price. However, if you need TL Space and Smack!, I would think it's a no-brainer. I didn't know you could sell the plugins separately on ebay.

[Shawn Simpson]

Maybe this is a relevant enough discussion to mention to those who have attended a Digidesign Training and Education Program course that you have access to the education store. In the education store, there is a signifigant discount to be had on all this stuff.

[Barry Johns]

I bought mine for 435.00 from West LA Music.

[sky88dd]

In response to the certification and training, I'm currently going through the program and get 50% off softwares.
At $250, I think its a great deal.
Smack and TL Reverb are a big upgrade from d-verb and compressor that comes with PT.
The noise reduction plug in is a welcome addition and hybrid is pretty cool too.
Multitrack beat detective, mp3....I mean they are all useful stuff in my opinion.
I think for somebody who only has stock plug ins from PT and are looking into music production, the toolkit is a great addition.

[lwilliam]

$435 is a better price than I've seen on the 'net. I'll talk to the WLA guys...thanks!

[John J.]

For me, the additional tracks and TL Space alone was worth it.

- John

[Slim Shady]

$435 is a better price than I've seen on the 'net. I'll talk to the WLA guys...thanks!

Call Alto Music, I got it for less than $400 through them.

I find the most value in Sound Replacer and the extra tracks. I like TL Space a lot, it's pretty clean, and Smack is definitely useful, but I'm still trying to figure out if Hybrid is supposed to be a joke, don't know what they were thinking with that one. I feel like it's a pretty good deal for the money though despite the synth clunker, a nice way to expand a setup pretty cheaply.