Is crowdfunding an option for my sound design tool?

[MackTuesday]

I've made a leap of faith and moved to part time work in order to have more time to develop a sound design idea that doesn't seem to exist*. I think it's definitely marketable.

Making money part time isn't working as well as I'd hoped. I'm living like a monk, and that's fine, but I've had to take on more work to make ends meet. I'm working about 12 hours a day and I simply don't have time to work on my project.

If I could get some support as I'm working on it, it would help a lot. Is crowdfunding worth an attempt? Where might be the best place(s) to introduce it?

*So here's the idea. Applications like Sound Forge are very goal oriented. Their features are chosen for getting certain tasks done. There's nothing in there for experimentation and getting unusual results. The good ones are also quite expensive. We have Fscape, whose experimental disposition is refreshing, but the interface is rudimentary and the documentation lacks enough information about the algorithms to empower the user to make good use of them.

I have effects that give weird but sonically viable results. For example, I have a spectral decomposition algorithm that separates sounds into sinusoidal partials, noise, and transients, but also components with intermediate time/frequency localization. Furthermore, it's designed so resynthesis gives you sample-accurate reconstruction if you don't alter the analysis components. The same can't be said of McAulay-Quatieri or traditional bandwidth-enhanced methods, which throw away the original sound and rely on the fidelity of the resynthesis engine to get good output.

I have another decomposition algorithm based loosely on Hilbert-Huang that separates a sound into sonically useful but unusual pieces that can also be sample-accurately reconstructed. I have never seen its like in other sound design tools.

I'm also working on an idea inspired by attempts at circuit emulation that allows users to explore systems of differential equations. The trick with this idea is in the interface, which makes the process intuitive. Because who wants to tweak individual functions and hope the system is stable?

I would pack this tool with other such strange but useful oddities as well as the usual editing functions.

[fmr]

This sounds really interesting. What platform are you going to develop to? I see myself supporting a project like this.

[Miles1981]

Crowd funding works if you have already 50% of the people that will pay you (through ML, forum...). Kickstarter or other platforms will never bring 100% of the people, so you need to keep this in mind.

[MackTuesday]

This sounds really interesting. What platform are you going to develop to? I see myself supporting a project like this.

I'm doing it in Java, so it would be cross-platform. Support would have to be for Windows and maybe Linux because I don't have a Mac for testing :/

Laptop/desktop architecture would be the target at first. They're generally faster than mobile devices, and the interface would be hard to fit on a 5-inch screen.

[MackTuesday]

Crowd funding works if you have already 50% of the people that will pay you (through ML, forum...). Kickstarter or other platforms will never bring 100% of the people, so you need to keep this in mind.

Thanks for the input. What does ML stand for?

[Xenakios]

I don't have a Mac for testing :/

Not having working/tested Mac builds is going to be an issue. I know that's a tough situation because in order to build for Mac OS, you in principle need a Mac computer, which costs money which you don't have in the first place. (There are of course "options" to deal with that, but it's not really a discussion to be had here.)

[stratum]

Seems like you have a very specific idea in mind. If not, don't try to spend time on anything vague, you will just be tired in the end.

[sonicpowa]

Interesting tool definitely, do you have sound examples of the algorithms?

[cron]

This sounds very interesting. Heavy FScape and CDP user here. Been waiting for a binary version of Fscape Next for what seems like forever!

I think the problem with crowdfunding is that you need to be reasonably far along already before it becomes feasible. Most people want something they can play with now when they back a project. At the very least they want to be able to hear what the software is going to do, what the GUI is going to look like, what the shipping date is and what the finalised feature set is going to be.

Obviously there are some people who are happy to back you on a promise, but when the project you're working on is already quite niche that pool might be a little too small to being decent money in.

Best of luck!

[fmr]

This sounds really interesting. What platform are you going to develop to? I see myself supporting a project like this.

I'm doing it in Java, so it would be cross-platform. Support would have to be for Windows and maybe Linux because I don't have a Mac for testing :/

I don't think Java is the best choice for what you want to do... And it would be advisable to support Mac too, of course.

[Xenakios]

I don't think Java is the best choice for what you want to do...

Java for the GUI and standards compliant non-platform specific C or C++ for the low level DSP could be reasonable. (Personally I would just use C++ and JUCE for everything.)

C or C++ for the DSP would also open up the possibility to license the DSP to other parties. I don't think people would be too interested in licensing Java DSP code...

[fmr]

I don't think Java is the best choice for what you want to do...

(Personally I would just use C++ and JUCE for everything.)

C or C++ for the DSP would also open up the possibility to license the DSP to other parties. I don't think people would be too interested in licensing Java DSP code...

Exactly...

[Miles1981]

Crowd funding works if you have already 50% of the people that will pay you (through ML, forum...). Kickstarter or other platforms will never bring 100% of the people, so you need to keep this in mind.

Thanks for the input. What does ML stand for?

Mailing lists, sorry, it can indeed be confused with other things like Machine Learning!

[Scotty]

This sounds like a project that needs to bake a little longer before it was put on a kickstarter type project.

I'd see this as part of a Master's or Doctoral thesis where you emerge with a good working prototypes, whitepapers otherwise only needing a good shell and coding optimizations. You would also emerge with even more DSP credentials which might be worth the time investment.

I have supported Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns previously but I would want something somewhat more tangible than this in order to take the risk.

[cron]

I have effects that give weird but sonically viable results. For example, I have a spectral decomposition algorithm that separates sounds into sinusoidal partials, noise, and transients, but also components with intermediate time/frequency localization. Furthermore, it's designed so resynthesis gives you sample-accurate reconstruction if you don't alter the analysis components. The same can't be said of McAulay-Quatieri or traditional bandwidth-enhanced methods, which throw away the original sound and rely on the fidelity of the resynthesis engine to get good output.

I have another decomposition algorithm based loosely on Hilbert-Huang that separates a sound into sonically useful but unusual pieces that can also be sample-accurately reconstructed. I have never seen its like in other sound design tools.

These processes sound similar to dictionary-based/matching pursuit granular processes. Kinda like the granular equivalent of resynthesis where resynthesis is achieved by selecting and scaling elements from a dictionary of 'atoms'. Any similarities there? I'm not a DSP guy - just going by descriptions in Roads latest book and elsewhere. I'd love to play with these processes, but it seems like nothing has escaped university labs for public use just yet.