Native Instruments' Kontakt 8 has just been reduced from a good 300 to just under 150 bucks

[Master Mi]

...including a 50% price reduction for various other Native Instruments content.

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/

And even better for me.
I can get Kontakt 8 for just around €80 in an additional special offer on top of the already exaggeratedly good Black Friday deal, because I get an extra discount since I already own a Kontakt sample library called Shevannai (which lets you play some mystical elf singing voices with the keyboard or any other similar MIDI controller).

I would have been athrilled if they had reduced the price of the Kontakt 8 to 200 euros.
With my seemingly endless patience, I waited for it like a snapping turtle lying in wait for its prey.
But this way, it's practically a gift.

Quite the happiest Mi ever. ))

Now I can get started right away next week finally reinstall my DAW (composition software) on the new 4 TB SSD hard drive running Windows 10 Pro, while I completely wiped the old Windows 7 Pro off the old hard drive and installed Linux Mint version 22.2 as a stable, fast, and secure backup system instead, and experimented a little with the new Linux operating system.

After a short period of adjustment, Linux Mint is so incredibly good that I don't want to go back to Windows anymore:
- Extremely user-friendly design, where all important processes such as driver installation run automatically at the beginning - and only when you want them to...
- A thoroughly modular and freely customizable system where Microsoft doesn't tell you how to use your operating system...
- No annoying online registrations and no shady background programs that transfer data to Microsoft and Co. and tap into your PC's performance resources...
- No annoying, forced software frills like on Windows, which once again cannot be uninstalled in newer Windows versions and sometimes cause problems...

Unfortunately, there is currently no reliable way that I am aware of to get my rather complex composition software, Samplitude Pro X4 Suite, to work fully under Linux, even though I was able to initiate an (albeit incomplete) installation process for my DAW software on Linux using PortProton, despite my beginner Linux skills.
But I'll write about my extremely positive first impression of Linux Mint in a separate post.

...

If everything continues to go according to plan, I'll be working on another musical project before Christmas and, in addition to the wide range of great VST instruments in Kontakt 8, I'll finally be able to try out and make full use of my new legendary VST instruments from 8Dio, such as the really beautiful Caribbean steel drum, the harmonica, the nice whistling VSTi, and the awesomre Zeus drum kit as VST instruments in my DAW Samplitude Pro X4 Suite and make full use of them.

I'm really looking forward to it. ))

Edited 33 minutes ago by Master Mi