Fathom Synth Development Thread

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

possible ways to limit a free mono version.

only 2 oscillators at a time
only one filter at a time.
one fx only
3 modulations only
no preset saving

Sounds like a surefire way to ruin every last bit of fun and usefulness one might have gotten out of the synth.

Of course i cant speak for others, but with limitations like that, in a synth thats already limited to monophonic only, i wouldnt even bother downloading it because there are tons of synths both free and commercial that can do a lot more than that. And if i then cant even save any presets, what incentive could i possibly have to use this? It would be just a complete waste of time.


A time restricted demo or something, OK, thats something a lot of software devs do. Let the user check everything out in detail so they can make an informed decision as to whether it is something they really want. But to neuter the software until it is pretty much useless doesnt do anyone a favor, especially if the intent is to really provide something for free that everyone can use, which i thought the monophonic version was supposed to be.

I wasnt suggesting all at once. Just some ideas. I thought mono only was a limitation in itself. I bought poly after about 10 min because I could see the potential and I understand that a financially suppoerted project has a greater chance of continued development. I also believe that the majority of the people that downloaded mono and didn't continue to buy poly dont use it anyway. If you like it enough to use it upgrade to poly for peanuts. Either they didnt get it or they didn't like it or they are simply hording freebies for no reason.

[BlackWinny]

For the horizontal slides, it is a not a point about the host. All the hosts can do that. It is a question of level of CSS. To make that kind of effects, you must use what is named "responsive CSS" which is a very important part of the "Responsive web design". It is simply a question of level of the glossary of the syntax that you use in the CSS language. And one of the most efficient "responsive CSS methods", now accepted by all the browsers is... the "CSS Flexbox". Until around 2016 it remained some browsers which didn't accept this level of CSS language and the FlexBox syntax. But now, since 2016 all the browsers accept it, on Windows, Linux, OSX as well as on iOS and Android.

And the level of CSS hasn't any relation at all with the servers and hosts. It is only on the client side... meaning: on the browser.

So, don't worry, that question doesn't have any relation with the host service that you will choose.

And... all that is totally free.

And you can do that "handwritten", or you can use some development tools. Some of these tools (and even full development environments, as the worldwide known Atom Text Editor with its community of thousands of developers and hundreds of add-on makers*) are free, others are not, but those which are not free are not expensive either.

In fact, if you already like to use an excellent web development environment and are perfectly used to its meanders, you just have to learn the responsive web CSS methods, that's all, and preferably the FlexBox method which is the most modern one, with a syntax incredibly simple and with the fastest and most effective results.

*Note: The official website of Atom is here (but you can use any other editor or web development environment as soon as it allows you to directly write your CSS scripts):
https://atom.io/docs


The responsive web development is totally free... and without any relation with the hosts abilities.

In addition to all my links above, you can also read this page of introduction to the concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design

[yellowmix]

LICENSING
I just need a basic system for extracting someone’s machine name and mixing it with a password and then creating a machine specific password.

Why machine-based? This prevents people from installing it on a desktop and a laptop, and may cause problems with OS and computer upgrades. Especially when the current licensing is perceptually individually licensed? It seems like a radical escalation.

The serial can be based on the user's name or email or whatever. Do you need pointers for algorithms? It honestly doesn't matter because it will be cracked and/or keygened (and I don't think you want to invest in heavier checks). But like you said, enough to keep casual pirates out.

Does the serial generation and response have to be automated? Is the volume that high? If the volume were that high, you could write a bot to pick up Gmail via POP or IMAP and generate serials in response. As long as you have a machine that's on 24/7. But I'm not clear on how you validate purchases, which seems to be an integral part of this system.

[FathomSynth]

The license has to be machine based or people can share the license and won't buy the product.

A machine based license has nothing to do with the machine being a laptop, desktop or any other kind of device, it will work on any device.

The point is that it works on only one device, otherwise it can be shared.

If someone needs to upgrade their OS that can be handled on an individual bases.

I can no longer risk the entire project because one person might need a license on two machines.

[khanyz]

Check U-He or FabFilter for how Copy Protection works best.

IMO, You said you didn’t want overkill then went straight to it. Any kind of C/R is bad, particularly from small devs, because if the dev stops processing auths, the customer can no longer install. Also, only a single install per serial will put people off. I don’t know of another dev which is that restrictive.

If you worry too much about piracy, at the expense of the customer experience, you will lose customers. You are not going to stop it without considerable effort which will hamper actual product development. You can’t equate pirates with customers either, potential or otherwise, without adversely affecting your customers. Tracking/Disabling which license(s) has been shared, and modifying the algorithm to counter keygens may be the best you can do, and still develop products.

Watermarking the binary/software fingerprinting, NOT the audio, is also an option. There are articles and code examples online. Altered/Corrupted binary detection is also fairly easy. With these it is better to disrupt/pad user interaction parts of the code than affecting the efficiency of data (audio) processing, remembering that VST allows alternate/GUIless editing. Randomising the CP code location, between versions, is preferable (to me at least). Per user compilation is a possiblility, as it can be scripted, but the required infrastructure may be excessive.

All IMHO and I am biased after being burned by devs going out of business. However, I have developed CP systems before, including CR, so have experience.

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

For all the would be pirates out there...

This is your art, your craft and with any luck your business.Why would you want you express yoursrlf with stolen tools. It inherently shines a negative light on you and your art. Karma is a MF.

[skyscape]

If you worry too much about piracy, at the expense of the customer experience, you will lose customers. You are not going to stop it without considerable effort which will hamper actual product development. You can’t equate pirates with customers either, potential or otherwise, without adversely affecting your customers. Tracking/Disabling which license(s) has been shared, and modifying the algorithm to counter keygens may be the best you can do, and still develop products.

I think this is a good point, as a paying customer I've had/continue to have big problems with companies such as AIR, Waves and Steinberg to name a few and it's always due to some kind of measure they've implemented to try to combat piracy. I can see all sorts of problems in the future trying to load up old tracks that use these plugins too, and it worries me. I can imagine it's probably extremely disheartening to a dev to see their product pirated hundreds or maybe thousands more times than it sells, but really those aren't lost sales. The pirates weren't going to buy it anyway. I think some kind of rudimentary copy protection is probably good, but going extreme will likely start to alienate some of your paying customers - better to focus on quality updates and reaching the right audience, that will pay for the synth.

[ENV1]

It’s great to have you aboard. Sorry I was a bit blunt in my last comments.

Like i said, no sweat. No offense taken.

I admit the modulation is a bit intimidating to start with. But I went that direction from the begginning due to my own frustrations with other synths that are easy when you start and then you find out that you can’t really do anything complex.

I didnt find it intimidating, i just didnt find the controls necessary to change the mode because the button used to access them showed an X which made it look like a standard close button. And since i didnt want to delete the module i (obviously) didnt click it. Thats also why it didnt occur to me to check the manual, because to me it looked like there is no option to set a mode. Of course i would have found the modes eventually because at some point i would have clicked the X button to delete a module, which i thought was its actual purpose. But i didnt get to that yet because like i said i had only tried these 3 things and since the modules had vanished after re-loading the .fxp i couldnt continue, and since it was already 1:30 or thereabouts in the morning i figured i quickly post my findings, hit the sack, and give it another spin the next day.

So no, i didnt find it intimidating. Compared with other stuff im doing i find patching a modular an easy task. To give you an example, take a look at my latest plugin. (Can control other plugins (or hardware) via MIDI and also CV, which as you know has like a gazillion times better resolution.) What you see on the structure screenshot is about 20% of the whole thing. Each container with a green box in the upper right corner contains another structure which again consists of many modules. And there are lots of containers nested within containers too. It certainly is a lot of work, but intimidating, no, not at all, to me its just good fun.

Clipboard01.png

Clipboard02.gif

Is the problem continuing or was it just that one time?

Its persistent.

I tried 5 or 6 times and it was always the same.

Sound would be recalled properly but no modules on the UI.

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

If you worry too much about piracy, at the expense of the customer experience, you will lose customers. You are not going to stop it without considerable effort which will hamper actual product development. You can’t equate pirates with customers either, potential or otherwise, without adversely affecting your customers. Tracking/Disabling which license(s) has been shared, and modifying the algorithm to counter keygens may be the best you can do, and still develop products.

I think this is a good point, as a paying customer I've had/continue to have big problems with companies such as AIR, Waves and Steinberg to name a few and it's always due to some kind of measure they've implemented to try to combat piracy. I can see all sorts of problems in the future trying to load up old tracks that use these plugins too, and it worries me. I can imagine it's probably extremely disheartening to a dev to see their product pirated hundreds or maybe thousands more times than it sells, but really those aren't lost sales. The pirates weren't going to buy it anyway. I think some kind of rudimentary copy protection is probably good, but going extreme will likely start to alienate some of your paying customers - better to focus on quality updates and reaching the right audience, that will pay for the synth.

Isn't it odd that for all the convoluted crap Waves uses , their entire catalog is up on PB days after a significant update.

[FathomSynth]

ENV1, Goodness I had no idea you were so advanced. What is that flow chart? Is it from a program of your own creation. Are you a programmer?

Is there any chance you could make a video of the objects disapearing. I thought I had that problem fixed a long time ago. It’s difficult to picture at what point it could possibly be happning.

khanyz

Any kind of C/R is bad? I’m sorry, being new to copy protection, what is C/R?

OK, I need to respond this issue for everyone.

Khanyz, I agree with everything you are saying, and I am the first one to admit that it is truly a sad and disappointing day that Fathom will require more robust protection. My initial hope that this would never be necessary turned out to be naïve.

Also, please do not assume that just because I said machine specific, that I meant complicated, overly restrictive or unable to give users multiple licenses.

If someone needs three licenses and requests them, as long as their email matches the email of a purchased product they will get them.

The problem is that Fathom’s current protect is so lax that it is actually an incentive for perfectly normal people who are not pirates to go around it, probably intending to eventually pay for it and then forgetting.

It does not take a software pirate to fall into the easy temptation of getting Fathom mono and then calling their friend Fred, and saying “Hey Fred, I left my wallet in your car, what was that Fathom unzip password?”.

The situation has to change or there will be no Fathom. The copy protection has to be machine specific. This is not negotiable.

If there is great weeping and grinding of collective teeth, sorry, tough luck. We have tried the easy protection for over a year now, and interestingly Fathom's web traffic has increased during this time by a factor of 10, feature additions have gone up by a factor of 10, and sales have gone down by a factor of 10.

Just be happy I’m not moving to a hardware usb port like many music software companies.

Also, please bear in mind that this is not anyone's fault but my own, so I'm not pointing the finger at anyone but myself.

If you know of a simple and user friendly way to make copy protection linked to the machine ID without it being a pain for the user, now is your chance to recommend something.

That being said, I'm lucky to have every customer so your opinion does matter, which is why I'm open to suggestions.

[RPH]

ENV1, Goodness I had no idea you were so advanced. What is that flow chart? Is it from a program of your own creation. Are you a programmer?

He uses synthedit.

[khanyz]

C/R is challenge/response. It means on install, first use or regularly, the software sends a token to the dev’s server (such as a machine id) and gets back a response which authorises it. This can be an automatic or manual process. If the dev’s server is offline, the software can’t be authorised (so reverts to demo or is unusable).

Since you are comitted to this, I’m not going to help further. I’ll continue to use the version I paid for, but will not upgrade.

[RPH]

If you know of a simple and user friendly way to make copy protection linked to the machine ID without it being a pain for the user, now is your chance to recommend something.

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=472847&hilit=copy+protection#wrap

Read the third post by U-he, that should give some fun pointers.

( Personally I have zero problems with iLok (soft) or Gobbler )

[ENV1]

ENV1, Goodness I had no idea you were so advanced. What is that flow chart? Is it from a program of your own creation. Are you a programmer?

Is there any chance you could make a video of the objects disapearing. I thought I had that problem fixed a long time ago. It’s difficult to picture at what point it could possibly be happning.

Like RPH said, thats SynthEdit by Jeff McClintock. Its a fully modular environment and great for developing ideas/concepts or just trying things out. Since you can also export your work to VST/VSTi you can also make your own plugins, complete with your own UI and all. Jeff also provides an SDK so anyone can write their own modules and use them in SE. (And no, i cant code worth a damn, i did some BASIC on the Commodore VIC-20 and C-64 and also the Intellivision, but that was like a hundret years ago. Im good at concepts though and i know how to make a usable UI too, so thats what i stick to these days.)


As to the vanishing modules thing; its not that they visibly vanish, its that they dont reappear in the first place when i load the .fxp preset. So making a video wouldnt help you any because you would only see the UI remaining in its initial state. You could still try it yourself though, i had attached the .fxp in question to my post yesterday but its not been downloaded yet. So grab it and see what happens on your end, if its the same as here then the sound will load but the modules used to make it wont be visible. Anything else i can do, just let me know.

[FathomSynth]

Yeah, sorry, I just don't see any other way.

Unless some piece of information from the target machine is embedded in the code, then the code can be shared.