Ugo - New site: All Plugins and Presets Now Free

[ianweb123]

Thank you for releasing the plugins as freeware.. I fully understand the decision to move away from Synthedit development. The energy has very much gone out of it for me too. The last two Krakli plugins were very flawed and I feel (although this may sound conceited) that the age of the Synthedit developer has run its course.. Good luck with your new ventures.

[zerocrossing]

http://www.ugoaudio.com

My new site is finally live and it is now an artist site representing my music, sound design, and photography - rather than being focused primarily on my plugins, like my last few sites were. As part of this change, all my plugins and presets are now freeware.

(Note: it may take a bit for the change to be visible everywhere, and a refresh may also help.)

It hardly comes as a surprise to most to hear that I have not had any time for plugin design in SynthEdit for many years. At this point, my old synths and effects are all quite out of date as far as system compatibility goes and I haven't the time to do all that would be needed to update them. As a result, I feel it is time to let them be free to all who wish to use them.

My oldest plugins are no longer on the site though, due to the false positives they trigger in antivirus programs. I still have the files though, so If anyone needs them then just let me know.

Going forward, I am planning to spend more time on sound design - particularly for Alchemy, but possibly in other ways too. So eventually you may find some new items to download at the site.

I must say I own a number of your plug ins and I aways found them to be great. I think the only one I don't have is the new Rez and Spawn... anyway, great gift to the world.

I do have a little suggestion. The site looks pretty, but to the curious a mystery UI can be frustrating. Small text under each icon could go a long way toward clarity.

[crimsonwarlock]

... certainly let me know if you write something with them. I'm always interested to hear what people create with my plugins.

I suggested M-theory for the KVR OSC

[Mutant]

Wow ! Thank you very much for everything

[ugo]

Hello ugo,
i´ve read somewhere that you use renoise. Why not to develop some instruments for V3 and not for Alchemy?
Thank you.

Actually, I've yet to get into trackers. I use Live these days, and have considered learning M4L but unfortunately I haven't had the time to try that.

I spent 35 dollars on stuff that is now free.

I realize that my decision to give away my plugins may not be happy news for those who have purchased from me over the years, and I apologize for this.

After I came to accept that I would not have time to work on designing in SE anymore, I eventually felt that it would be best to officially discontinue my plugins. Leaving discontinued, and increasingly incompatible, products for sale on the site didn't seem right - so this left me with two options: either take them off the site, or give them away.

Either approach would kill the 2nd hand value. Used copies of my plugins tended to go for around half of their new cost, and they were not particularly high priced to begin with. Discontinuing them would result in an even greater hit to the value, leaving little to gain from selling them.

However, giving them away could potentially be beneficial for people. Most who had purchased from me over the years did not own all of my plugins, so now they can get the rest for free. Everyone who was previously interested, but not enough to buy, can now see if they like them without having to deal with the demo restrictions. Also, even though they are getting old, I think the plugins are still fun and sound cool so it seemed a shame to just have them disappear without giving people the option of using them.

In the end, I felt the best approach would be to give them away. This way, maybe they might inspire some more songs to be written.

Thank you for releasing the plugins as freeware.. I fully understand the decision to move away from Synthedit development. The energy has very much gone out of it for me too. The last two Krakli plugins were very flawed and I feel (although this may sound conceited) that the age of the Synthedit developer has run its course.. Good luck with your new ventures.

Thanks, Ian. I did enjoy working in SE and might still be doing so if I had the time. Back when I was at the peak of my SE design days I was single and worked a job that wasn't always full time. So I applied pretty much all of my considerable free time to working in SE. My life has changed quite dramatically for the better since then, but it does mean that I no longer have anywhere near the amount of free time I used to. So I've decided to spend what little free time I do have on sound design, and music. (And when I go somewhere, then photography too.)

I do have a little suggestion. The site looks pretty, but to the curious a mystery UI can be frustrating. Small text under each icon could go a long way toward clarity.

While designing the site, I tried adding text under the icons but I didn't like how it looked. I also tried rollovers but decided against them since they would not be helpful on mobile devices. When my site was focused on selling things, I was much more concerned with usability and SEO. However, once I decided to just make this a portfolio site (which comparatively few will visit, and no one would buy from) I allowed myself to tip the balance in favor of my visual preferences.

Lately I've been digging some of the minimalist, exploration encouraging, icon-based design out there (particularly in the iOS app world) so I thought I'd try working with those ideas. I also wanted to challenge myself to stray away from the sterile design styles that I often lean toward and instead go for something more colorful.

[Numanoid]

However, giving them away could potentially be beneficial for people.

Yes, I hope there can be some silver lining for older users of the plugs, in that more users now get access can for example lead to releases of new soundsets for the synths

Obviously M-Theory would be a good candidate for a KVR One Synth Challenge

[kinwie]

I spent 35 dollars on stuff that is now free.

Hope to see some new free soundsets in the future too.

same here, but that's okay...

thanks a lot Ugo...always your big fans!

[HunterKiller]

Ugo where can we get Rez 2 at the moment?

[BERFAB]

As a longtime UGO fan and customer, I wish you well.

Looking forward to see what you do for Alchemy.

And, if I may be so bold, might I suggest also looking into doing patches for Synthmaster? I only suggest this because I've always felt the Synthmaster vibe was similar to your own creations.

Regardless, best of luck in all your future ventures!

Cheers
-B

[bpblog]

thanks for the free software Ugo!

[ugo]

Ugo where can we get Rez 2 at the moment?

PM sent.

[idfpower]

Too bad Rez 2 is not directly skinnable...I would have loved trying to make a skin for it - to my ears it still sounds very good I like visually Rez 3 a lot, but V2 somehow sounds thicker and with more low end to my ears - so I still keep it loaded in spite on its "cinderella outfit" GUI That, plus the presets are not compatible with V3 so I'd lose some nice sounds...pff... decisions, decisions...


PS: I've tried making a few presets for "Dualism" but for some reason they don't sound the same when reloaded...shame, it's a quirky but fun plugin

[ugo]

I like visually Rez 3 a lot, but V2 somehow sounds thicker and with more low end to my ears

Agreed - v3 has a more hi-fi tone, but v2 had a thicker, meatier tone.

PS: I've tried making a few presets for "Dualism" but for some reason they don't sound the same when reloaded...shame, it's a quirky but fun plugin

Odd - I don't remember ever having run into that problem. I'm not sure what would cause that, outside of perhaps a sequencer sync problem. If you haven't already, try programming your presets while your host is running, save the preset, reload it, restart playback on your host, and see if the pattern sounds the same now.

[idfpower]

If you haven't already, try programming your presets while your host is running, save the preset, reload it, restart playback on your host, and see if the pattern sounds the same now.

Yeah, already did that - that's how I discovered the issue...ah well, no biggie, the plugin comes packed with crazy patterns already, it will take me a while to figure out how I can use them in a creative way In fact that's something I've noticed about your plugins: they all have a bit of craziness & randomness factor in them (in the good sense) - it doesn't take much to make them go wild

[mridlen]

I've been using Rez occasionally for jamming (I haven't recorded anything with it that I can recall), so I look forward to trying out your others! Thanks a ton!