SM 2.0.x still works fine, just SM itself will never have VST 2.4/3.x, 64bit support, etc.

There is a debate on SM's forum right now why $800 is a nasty upgrade cost & they have no new features for FS-SM except being able to program VSTs with what SM has now, + Ruby for non-DSP code (eg GUI).
http://synthmaker.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11619
Problem is, it is from DSP Robotics' marketing/sales guy, which NO ONE on SM ever heard of. It is also painfully obvious that he never read any of the forum posts, & knows little to nothing about the VST/audio market. No VST 2.4/3.x, 64bit VST or audio, FFT DSP, etc was mentioned by him, & he seems to be brushing off what SM-ers have been asking for the last 5+ years. Of course OSX is not even mentioned either.

==

There may be a workaround, esp for SM users:
1) Do 95% of your editing in SM then rent FS3.0 for only the month you want to export to VST/EXE & need the extra features.
2) Do 80% of the work in the free FS3.0 on the modules (they are like functions for other languages), then rent for 1 month as you collate all the modules into a complete export.

So, this "rental" for $15USD might backfire; when SM users might have been happy to cough up $100 or even $200 for an upgrade, DSP Robotics might only get $15-45.

When SM was still in beta, there were 2.5 devs that were active on their board, & the SM user-community was more focused there, as opposed to SE's at the time which was everywere. Neither are true anymore, & SE has had better support by far the last few years.

You can write some DSP in SM with either ASM or their own pseudo-Code. The merge with FS will add Ruby. But now looking at it, SE's C++ SDK is much better for VST creators, since you can port easier to OSX than FS-SM users can. Unless you write well in ASM B)

Otherwise, you have a perfect analogy!
You did forget Max/MSP+Gen though

I was a very early adopter of Synthmaker. I quickly found it to be limiting and lacking in many important features, but for the early adopter price I justified it as an investment in future development. It never really did mature to the point I would have hoped for, and eventually they wanted me to pay again to upgrade, even though I had never been able to make anything particularly usable with it. I've had it sitting on my hard drive, virtually unused, for years. And now they want me to pay by the month? Ha! Lots of luck with that...

SE has always been better
especially for those who chose to use the SDK and make their own modules
SM-made vsts tend to look the same way (a bit virtually polished) as if that's the default skin in SM or something

+1
and there was no way to sell it...waste of money

And the GUI alone of one synth made with Synthmaker can make your CPU boiling over...

With respect to some use cases, yes, but I do think that you have to qualify why you think that it's better. I still think SM is better for dsp algorighm exploration if for no other reason than it eliminates the compile cycle during exploration, it's simply more immediate.

Shit happens. Let's be honnest here. I've been a consumer of SynthMaker since 2006. Flowstone seams to be nice, but the upgrade cost of $800 is not worth it for me. That's just not gonna happen. Not by a longshot! That is unless Outsim keeps VST development inside Flowstone. And I would seriously hesitate to throw that ammount of cash on a product that I hardly will use 5% of. That's just not worth it. So, Outsim. If you want us long time customers to join you on Flowstone then you just have to get us a better offer.


Let's honnestly hope so. And besides. Why would I fork out $800 for Flowstone when I already own Reaktor 5.7?

I've tried Reaktor, & here is what I found:
- As many bugs as SM
- yet another system to learn; might as well learn C++ then << why I didn't switch
+ larger community
+ NI provides an ecosystem to sell Reaktor patches to those lucky few
+ OSX

Reaktor might be best for those starting out & have Komplete anyhow. But FS Free is still free to play with.

The hilarity of this situation goes on and on, the CEO has now been caught posting pretending to be a user "Freerideskier"
How ridiculous can you get haha

I was an early adopter too, expected great things but they never really happened... Hard to believe six or seven years later they still haven't sorted the 'green timing' stability out (I know there's workarounds but hardly intuitive). Shame because the audio engine with it's one sample (?) latency makes it great for designs incorporating feedback etc.

Shouldn't grumble though, SM was instrumental in me gaining 28th place in DC2007,

I'm not grumbling either since I got a place in DC'06 with my Synthmaker plugin / exe.

Huh? With what goal?

Allegedly to put the developers in a better light.

It it's true then they must have hijacked a real users profile to do it as I don't think they posted something like this 3 years ahead of time to give it more credibility.

http://synthmaker.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8555

I'd say it's more likely a mistake -- the IP address of this poster supposed to be the same as the Admin account.

There's a near paranoia going on at the forum but this Carl guy largely has himself to blame as he has handled the original outcry, that should have been anticipated, really badly.

That is solved with FS3.x with them having Ruby process MIDI, which is a good idea I think. A bit backwards for a GUI-based programming language to need a text language to get something core with VSTs done, but I imagine it would work OK.

Seems that they also expect to process streaming audio with Ruby, which is fail from the start.