GVST Kickstarter for Mac plugins (also x64 and new updates)

[xybre]

I searched the forum and didn't see anyone mention this.

I've been using the GVST plugins for years, hell, I didn't even know they were still maintained. But Graham has been keeping this plugins up to date with 64 bit versions and new updates as recent as yesterday. For those of you who care they are written in C++ and are not Synthedit or Synthmaker.

And yes, they're all still free, you can download them here:

http://www.gvst.co.uk/downloads.htm

He recently began a Kickstater to port his plugins to OSX, they will be released for free but he needs the funding to buy a Mac so he can develop, compile, and test for that platform.

He suggests that even if you are not using a Mac he'd "ask you to consider supporting [him] in this venture even though it might not be directly relevant to you. A wider user base should ultimately lead to better software all round."

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gy ... on-the-mac

Or if you prefer you can just donate to him directly here (the donations will be added to the Kickstarter at the end if needed):

http://www.gvst.co.uk/support.htm

[gy]

Thank you xybre! Posting here at KVR was on my to-do list for today, but it seems you've already done it for me. And I'd say you've done a better job than I would have too!

I only launched the appeal last night (UK time), so it's early days. I really hope it can go all the way, but I know it's a big ask.

If anybody was already considering making a donation, then the next few weeks would be a great time to do it.

While I'm here, there's a new formant/pitch shifter in the beta section. It's still a little rough, this one - I'm yet to polish the algorithm - but now would be a good time to get feedback.

Cheers,
Graham (GVST)

[sinkmusic]

GVST plugins are great.
I donated recently, Gclip is good, and Gloop is awesome

[djscorb]

Hi Graham

Just pledged £5

I am Mac only so haven't used your plugins before but GClip would be a useful addition to my toolbox. I hope you get the pledges needed. Can I suggest considering a Mac Mini rather than a Macbook? Less expensive, more powerful and you can use your existing monitor, keyboard etc etc.

Good luck!

Scorb

[fese]

Hi Graham,

would you rather prefer the kickstarter thingy at the moment (don't have an account yet) or are you OK with just donating via paypal? I am re-evaluating all your VSTs at the moment, and especially GClip is a keeper and worth a donation.

Oh, and are you open for a small bug report here? I discovered that with all your plugins I have the occasional noise/spikes/overload when the GUI is open. It seems to be triggered by moving the mouse over the gui fast, but not when clicking and dragging a knob. Cuase 5.5.3 32bit on Windows 7 64bit, just installed the latest versions of your plugs, but the effect was there with the older revision, too.

[whyterabbyt]

Hi Graham,

would you rather prefer the kickstarter thingy at the moment (don't have an account yet) or are you OK with just donating via paypal? I am re-evaluating all your VSTs at the moment, and especially GClip is a keeper and worth a donation.

As far as I know, Kickstarter only offer 'all or nothing' funding, ie if he doesnt make his goal, he gets none of the pledges. So if you want the Kickstarter venture to succeed, I'd suggest going for that now. If the Kickstarter subsequently fails, your pledge wont get cashed, so then donate directly.

BTW, to Graham; I know it sounds a bit odd given that these are free plugin, but I'd suggest you consider two things for your KS campaign;
the first is introducing more tiers (eg £15) in between the pledge levels you've got set, as its psychologically a big leap between £5 and £25.
the second is finding some way to offer some sort of reward for the higher pledges. I cant help but feeling that the standard expectation for KS is that people 'get' something special to them. Even if its just 'a mention in the help file and a postcard from Bognor Regis' it seems to be part of the culture. I could be wrong on that, but its just a thought.

[gy]

Thanks all.

@Scorb - I'm likely to be on the move while working on this, which was the reason for choosing a MacBook. Otherwise a Mac Mini would be perfect. I don't mind the loss of power at all, in fact I prefer to develop and test software from behind the cutting edge. It's sometimes easy to leave older machines behind when you do most of the work on the latest kit, and I like to try to support older setups that people are still happily using to make music. (When I upgraded to the latest Microsoft development tools a little while ago, I found they'd stopped supporting some older XP machines. I had to tweak the builds to restore functionality for some users).

@fese - I'm happy with either. Like whyterabbit says, a Kickstarter pledge is a conditional donation, so for those that only want to back this project it's a good way to go. If we get to the tail end of the appeal and I'm close to the target, I will route any donations I've received into the project anyway, so donations are still welcome. If people want to support the project but don't want to sign up to Kickstarter, then a donation would be the way to do that.

@whyterabbit - You're completely right. I thought a lot about what rewards to offer, or not offer, and ended up opting for this minimal approach, although it is a bit non-standard for KS. I'm certainly not against introducing some of the standard rewards though to inject some more fun into the project. I'll see how things look after a week or two - I might have to follow your advice then.

[sinkmusic]

By the way, is there any difference between Gmax and GsatMax (i mean : doesn't GSatmax does everything Gmax do and more, or are they using different algorythms) ?
And am I right by thinking that Gclip trims the waveform (like a clipper is supposed to do), while G(sat)Max adds harmonics ?

By the way, Gsnap keeps on looking better

[Bronto Scorpio]

A good and very simple to realize reward would be advertising space on your website.

I'm not talking about completely destroying your website here, just one small picture with a link or something. People would definitely pay for that.

Cheers
Dennis

[murnau]

happy donater here tho i dont like the gui - i love your stuff. maybe a simple straigt foward 2d gui with 3 or 4 colors like valahalla do could became an alternative one day.

[gy]

@sinkmusic - GSatMax is based on GMax, so they're largely the same, but GSatMax adds some wave-shaping that can help to boost overall volume. GSatMax with "Drive" at 0 is basically identical to GMax. Wave-shaping is just distortion though, so it's not going to suit everything. There's a fine line between warmth and mud. And yes, GClip trims and GMax limits. Limiters aims to boost volume without clipping. I sometimes used GClip to trim excessive peaks before dynamic processing - usually on rougher sources like distorted electric guitar rather than smooth sounds.

@Dennis - I had a walk to the local shops since my last post (the weather's horrible here, by the way), and was thinking of something along the lines of your suggestion. It sounds like a nice idea to me. I could give backers the opportunity to submit a graphic or a message with a URL to be displayed on the site. I'll give it some thought. Thanks!

@murnau - Thank you! The GVST GUIs used to be very simple across the board - you might already know that. Grymmjack did a great job of re-skinning the plugs some years ago, and his GUIs were more popular than the originals in terms of downloads. When I added the 64-bit builds I needed to simplify things because two builds with two skins each was getting a bit much, so I created one new look based on the more popular Grymmjack designs. And that's where we are now. As a matter of fact, the plugs are all skinnable - the mechanism is pretty usable, I think, but it's not bullet-proof so I've not publicised it.

4 backers now and 1% funded. Seems reasonable for the first 24 hours.

[xybre]

Thank you xybre! Posting here at KVR was on my to-do list for today, but it seems you've already done it for me. And I'd say you've done a better job than I would have too!

I only launched the appeal last night (UK time), so it's early days. I really hope it can go all the way, but I know it's a big ask.

I just happened to notice someone mention one of your plugs so I went to check up and see what was going on, I didn't even realize you had just launched the Kickstarter the day before. So congrats, and thank you for the tools!

I used GGgate since probably 2006 before I finally ended up with Pro-G last year, and your plugin is still simpler to use. GTune has always been useful for me as well (I've often used it to determine the fundamental note of kick samples). There's plenty of other useful tools in your collection as well, and I'm going to go through them all again today.

BTW, to Graham; I know it sounds a bit odd given that these are free plugin, but I'd suggest you consider two things for your KS campaign;
the first is introducing more tiers (eg £15) in between the pledge levels you've got set, as its psychologically a big leap between £5 and £25.
the second is finding some way to offer some sort of reward for the higher pledges. I cant help but feeling that the standard expectation for KS is that people 'get' something special to them. Even if its just 'a mention in the help file and a postcard from Bognor Regis' it seems to be part of the culture. I could be wrong on that, but its just a thought.

I wholeheartedly agree, I noticed the same thing. I've donated to a few successful Kickstarters, and there really is a culture of "incentives", its important to make people feel special or feel like they are being appreciated after the Kickstarter has completed successfully, maybe its just pavlovian psychology but from personal experience it makes a difference and it does feel good.

--- edit:

happy donater here tho i dont like the gui - i love your stuff. maybe a simple straigt foward 2d gui with 3 or 4 colors like valahalla do could became an alternative one day.

While I don't think the GUIs are terrible and they're quite functional, if you do collect enough from this push, it might be nice to see a designer take a whack at them again, at least enough to generate style guide.

[Agreed]

Thank you xybre! Posting here at KVR was on my to-do list for today, but it seems you've already done it for me. And I'd say you've done a better job than I would have too!

I only launched the appeal last night (UK time), so it's early days. I really hope it can go all the way, but I know it's a big ask.

If anybody was already considering making a donation, then the next few weeks would be a great time to do it.

While I'm here, there's a new formant/pitch shifter in the beta section. It's still a little rough, this one - I'm yet to polish the algorithm - but now would be a good time to get feedback.

Cheers,
Graham (GVST)

Next paycheck, you're getting a donation for sure. I've had so much utility out of your plugin collection over the years, I would feel absurd if I didn't support you. As far as how you use the money, I look at a kickstarter donation as just that - a total, hands off, do what you feel is best, trust the person you're giving money to donation. If you want to use it just to make them Mac compatible and get yourself a nice Mac, that's fine with me I wouldn't benefit directly, but a lot of people would, and I have had such good use from your software that I have zero problem spreading the word, as it were.

I think your GUIs are fine, too, by the way. They're not GORGEOUS, or anything, but I don't think the "G" in "GVST" stands for "Gorgeous VSTs," hehe. Their functionality is top notch and you have absolutely some of the best sounding, most useful freeware plugins around. It's thanks to you that I have not needed to buy certain plugins for a very long time, and only recently have some things come along in the commercial space that made me think "I can retire that GVST plugin now." I still use your plugins very often.

Thank you for all that you've done to contribute to tracking and mixing in-the-box. You're a champion of freeware in my book!

[gy]

Thanks xybre. I'll definitely be looking at adding an incentive in the next week or two.

And thank you Agreed for the kind words. You're right, the "G" doesn't stand for "gorgeous", it actually stands for "awesome"... No, that's a lie. It actually, genuinely stands for "Graham", which seems a bit pathetic really. I guess I'm just an egomaniac at heart.

If anybody's interested in skinning one of the plugs, then let me know. I'm happy to share the secret recipe.

[robenestobenz]

Backed. Fingers crossed for some lucky Maccers!