Poly-Ana 1.0 New VA softsynth. 1 week full functioning demo

VST, AU, AAX, CLAP, etc. Plugin Virtual Instruments Discussion
Post Reply New Topic
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

Thanks diverdee. And sorry for the agression (again, I felt a bit insulted by the language used) but please everybody keep in mind that I'm agressively trying to defend all of you from these unwarranted costs. (The advice above should save redshift over $3000.)

It just REALLY pisses me off that the industry is doing this to us. I'm just like all of you, I'm a consumer too, developers don't get free software or hardware -- so I have to spend that same $3000+ someday soon if I ever want to make a 64 bit OS version - and that's not including new development software! (You don't even wanna know. :cry: )

And no, it's not like any of this is news to me, I knew this was coming and I knew I'd be having to explain this over and over to people who believed the hype; I just think it's SO sleezy. I've tried to base this company on not doing any of the sleezy things that the big companies do -- crippled demos, dongles, charging for updates, marketing B.S. or flat out lying, high prices, poor or slow support, etc. If that's what professionalism is then I want no part of it! What my customers can expect from me is honesty, and as much support as they need, forever. (And maybe the odd swear word in this thread when the stress level gets too high.) I've even had a few customers where just the support hours alone leave me making less than $10 an hour from their purchase. But that's OK! I'm here for all of you, until the end of days... whether the company survives or not.

I thought these policies would attract a lot of attention, appreciation, and SALES. But as I've mentioned above, this operation barely fills my fridge, doesn't yet even pay my (very humble) rent, and certainly doesn't give me much hope for being able to buy a new 64 bit system (I need a new 32 bit system too), not to mention the two kinds of Macs. Some (I'm told) favorable magazine reviews are apparently coming soon, so maybe that'll kick this operation into viability. But if not, I'm going to have to get a job soon and do this in my spare time. That wouldn't be good for any of us who value these products.

So Poly-Ana, and Admiral Quality, may continue to grow. But that's only going to be through the help of all of you. (That is, all of you who haven't bought it already. Those of you who have, you're heroes! You've done enough. Save your pennies for the next AQ product! It's gonna be wicked! :) )

It was a very concious decision to keep Poly-Ana at VST 2.3. 2.4 is an abortion that will go away soon, so I'm ignoring it. I do expect that I'll migrate her to VST 3, just as soon as they share it with us (actually, make that about 3 months after they share it with us; once we've had a chance to find and fix all their bugs!)

I know 64 bit (OS) is coming, but I can't afford a new box yet, nor new development software. But I also know nobody has asked for one yet. (And in fact the only person who's mentioned the Cubase 4 issue was a magazine reviewer with an NFR license of Poly. He has C4 because he's a reviewer and has to keep up with new stuff whether he wants it or not. ;) But almost nobody else is running it yet. I would suspect for all the reasons I mentioned above.)

As far as 64 bit audio, I'll make Poly 64 bit audio compatible when it goes to VST 3 (so those two lines of code I mentioned will go into Poly-Ana instead of the host where they belong) but it'll still be the exact same 32 bit audio, just converted to 64 before its passed to the hosst. Bunch of useless zeros tacked on. This is what happens when management/marketing supersedes design/development (which sadly is the norm). To turn everything internal in Poly to 64 bit would drastically increase the CPU (and I have a feeling existing customers wouldn't like that ;) ) and would actually impact the sound, negatively, believe it or not.

You should all be as angry as me about it. Don't get me wrong, change has to happen. But they've made the situation worse than it has to be, on purpose, just to con us into buying the exact same stuff all over again. Sickening! I may be starving but at least I can look at myself in the mirror and not see a scumbag.

Oh and tech44, really sorry, but I assumed you weren't a customer because you said "I would pay for a different GUI". I thought you meant "If you do THIS I'll buy it". Which is another *great* way to piss me off because I've played that game before on this board and been burned every time. VERY SORRY! MY BAD! Your vote has been registered. No hard feelings? :hug:

(And this thread isn't customer support, email me for that. In here it's public relations! :lol:)

Post

It seems that all people are scared of getting stomped by the fan boys. But somebody has got to do the job.....
AQ, you are spamming this place like how long, months or so? There's no prob that you are your biggest fan. But then at least don't be such a foulmouthed sissy when someone voices sober criticism.

Post

No Soup For You!

:lol:

Post

AdmiralQuality wrote: Oh and tech44, really sorry, but I assumed you weren't a customer because you said "I would pay for a different GUI". I thought you meant "If you do THIS I'll buy it". Which is another *great* way to piss me off because I've played that game before on this board and been burned every time. VERY SORRY! MY BAD! Your vote has been registered. No hard feelings? :hug:

(And this thread isn't customer support, email me for that. In here it's public relations! :lol:)
Yeah, I meant in addition to the current GUI. Actually I should have quoted you, because my comment was in response to this:
AdmiralQuality wrote: But I think there's a good likelihood there'll be another GUI option someday, I get enough comments about it.
No hard feelings.

Post

moppel wrote:It seems that all people are scared of getting stomped by the fan boys. But somebody has got to do the job.....
AQ, you are spamming this place like how long, months or so? There's no prob that you are your biggest fan. But then at least don't be such a foulmouthed sissy when someone voices sober criticism.
There was no sober criticism voiced. Just misinformation and orders. The misinformation has been corrected (and again, I saved the guy $3000+) and the orders have been stuck back where they belong.

You're welcome.

Post

moppel wrote:It seems that all people
So you speak for all people on kvr now? :roll:

Oh, and Mike? Shame on you for forcing poor moppel to read this thread. I assume that you are using large calibre persuaders?

:lol:
Last edited by Improv on Sun Apr 29, 2007 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Post

Improv wrote:
moppel wrote:It seems that all people
So you speak for all people on kvr now? :roll:
At least *not only* for himself. I'd vote for AQ getting himself an own forum corner so that those who are bothered have a chance to filter him out.

My 2 cents.
aka rktic. demoscener (Farbrausch, Holon, MFX, Still), sound designer, ux-dude, sth @AudioRealism, human synthesizer—not necessarily in that order.

Post

Ronny Pries wrote:
Improv wrote:
moppel wrote:It seems that all people
So you speak for all people on kvr now? :roll:
At least *not only* for himself.
Party of two, down front! :roll:

Hears a fab idea-if you don't like the thread-don't read it. I don't like cabbage, but I don't eat it just so that I have something to complain enlessly and aimlessly about. Back on mute/ignore you go! :roll:

Post

bduffy wrote:
AdmiralQuality wrote:
bduffy wrote:I want to make big Canadian New Wave rock on this... :love:
Image

:love: *Removes hat and does the secret Canadian handshake with bduffy.*
*fumbles with beer, spills on keyboard, makes the shake!* :D

I have a sudden urge to listen to Chalk Circle...
Men Without Hats? Haywire? Not Loverboy? :o
(Where's the EEK! icon when you need it! :hihi: )

Post

Improv wrote:
Ronny Pries wrote:
Improv wrote:
moppel wrote:It seems that all people
So you speak for all people on kvr now? :roll:
At least *not only* for himself.
Party of two, down front! :roll:

Hears a fab idea-if you don't like the thread-don't read it. I don't like cabbage, but I don't eat it just so that I have something to complain enlessly and aimlessly about. Back on mute/ignore you go! :roll:
Well, i managed to ignore the thread for a long time but the "full frontal nudity" attitude of AQ made me check out his synth again. I did have some remarks on the quality of his synth which he refused to understand.

What is left is the feeling that some companies take the proper way and pay for advertisements here at KVR while AQ prefers to market his product in an unappropriate way (or why does the threadname changes once per day?). IF there would be no doubt about the quality of Poly-Ana, i'd just join the chant. For now i consider this approach beeing guerilla marketing at its best. And that should be a no-go.

My 2 cent.

Ronny
aka rktic. demoscener (Farbrausch, Holon, MFX, Still), sound designer, ux-dude, sth @AudioRealism, human synthesizer—not necessarily in that order.

Post

moppel wrote:It seems that all people are scared of getting stomped by the fan boys. But somebody has got to do the job.....
AQ, you are spamming this place like how long, months or so? There's no prob that you are your biggest fan. But then at least don't be such a foulmouthed sissy when someone voices sober criticism.

hahahaha!
Do not lick the fablanky

Post

AdmiralQuality wrote:If you don't own a 64 bit CPU (and you probably don't) then you can't address more than 4 Gig. So isn't that great, yet more money for you to spend! You can be first on your block to have a DAW with almost no software available to plug into it.
I do own a 64-bit CPU, and have for over a year. It's dualcore, too, which is good, because I need one core just to run Poly-Ana. It has 4gb of RAM, but only 2.95 are addressable by 32-bit Windows.
AdmiralQuality wrote: I'll never understand you people who seem to think that just because I have something to sell, that it's my obligation to kiss your asses regardless of how wrong or insulting you are to me. Telling me what to do is insulting. Especially when you clearly misunderstand the issue.

If you're wrong, I'm going to tell you. It's my job to be RIGHT, not nice. Nice doesn't make the synth sound good. My "attitude" is good for the products.

And I'm nice to my customers, just ask them. Indeed, it's them I'm trying to DEFEND from this bullshit. And this is the thanks I get. Misinformed idiots bossing me around.
You're the one who wants people to give you their money. There are a lot of products out there to choose from, and not any of it is necessary. You are your only salesman, so you should act like it. I, as a potential customer, have concerns about your product working as I need it to: namely in Cubase 4 on Windows Vista 64-bit, and I wanted those concerns addressed. An attitude like yours doesn't win you any fans, and fans are what you need to sell products. People buy software like yours because they want to support the independent developer. You should strive to be the sort of person they want to support, because buying your software is optional and at their discretion. One can only guess how many people see you interacting with potential customers poorly like this and say "that's not someone I ever want to do business with." That's money you've lost for yourself. But I'm not here to argue with you or try to give you lessons in life. You're obviously pretty young, and haven't yet figured it out. Unfortunately, that most likely won't be until you're working for someone else and AQ is but a distant memory. I've seen a lot of hot-headed upstart developers just like you come and go over the years, same for musicians. It's always the same story. You over-estimate your own worth, you think you and what you do is 'special', and you're angry at the world for not recognizing your 'genius'. It's a Shakespearean tragedy as old as time, and it always ends the same.
AdmiralQuality wrote:Oops, looks like you have to re-buy EVERY PLUGIN YOU FORMERLY OWNED when you upgrade to your (I still don't know if you want 64 bit audio, or address space. And speaking of address space, who really needs more than 4 GB of samples? Especially with every decent sampler having direct from disk features these days.)
Apparently you don't get out of the forum here to the news section, because if you did then you'd know there are FREE upgrade announcements from other developers daily that include VST 2.4 support in the new features list. As stated, my goal is to have everything I need working natively in 64-bit Vista, without "Windows on Windows" emulation. That means all software native 64-bit. I run out of RAM all the time. It's hard to avoid with the sort of work I do. Windows doesn't have 4GB available. That's the top theoretical limit of a 32-bit system. In reality Windows only has just shy of 3GBs, even with 4GB installed.
AdmiralQuality wrote:The advice above should save redshift over $3000.
Can you itemize my savings? I already own a 64-bit computer, and all new computers for the past year have been 64-bit. So other than telling me not to pay for a Steinberg upgrade or bother buying your product, what money have you "saved" me? And since when has limiting a consumer's choices equated "saving" money, anyways?
AdmiralQuality wrote:It just REALLY pisses me off that the industry is doing this to us.
It's called progress. Are you also pissed off that Cubase no longer runs on a 486? This industry exists for professionals who are willing to spend money for what they need, not whiny college kids "out to change the system."
AdmiralQuality wrote:I do expect that I'll migrate her to VST 3, just as soon as they share it with us
Well finally, a straight forward answer I was looking for. Why did I have to read through several pages of rants to get to it? You really could have saved us both a lot of time, and minimized the damage to your reputation.

Post

can a programmers reputation really be damaged? arent the rest of us just apes that cant make fire by comparison?

Post

wow this was a fun read

RonC

Post

AdmiralQuality wrote:
redshift factor wrote:
AdmiralQuality wrote:Has anyone had any difficulty loading Poly-Ana in Cubase 4? I've got a Cubase 4 user who says he can load and play the effect version normally (Poly-AnaFX), but the instrument version (Poly-Ana) doesn't appear in his Instruments list.

:?:

The plot thickens... He sees BOTH the synth and effect versions of Poly-Ana listed as effects, and can load and run both as effects (you can play the synth as an effect, it just ignores any audio that might be being input and outputs synth sounds as normal.)

But in the instruments list, there's no synth version showing up. (Both are checked enabled in the VST Plugins list.)

He does see other VST 2.3 plugin instruments in the list.

Can anybody on Cubase 4 verify this?
This probably goes without saying, but you really need to make all of your plugins VST 2.4 compliant. Being that the VST 2.4 standard has been out for nearly a year and a half, there's no real good reason that Poly-Ana wasn't developed as a VST 2.4 plugin from the start. As I'm sure you know, there are going to be VST 2.3 and earlier plugins which will work fine within Cubase 4, but not all will. Obviously, Poly-Ana is one of those plugins which doesn't fully work with VST 2.4+ hosts. There is also no guarantee that plugins prior to VST 2.4 that currently work in Cubase 4 will continue to work in the next update, since it only supports VST 2.4 and 3.0. This is because VST 2.4 and later enables 64-bit support.
It doesn't "go without saying". You're completely wrong-minded on this issue.

Do you have C4 and are volunteering to help? Or are you just being an asshole? Do you LIKE spending money on purchasing the same things again? Do you own Poly-Ana? If you did, how would you feel if I released Poly-Ana 2.0 next week and charged for the upgrade like your corporate masters do?
I'd like to mention that by the time I read only this far, I was certain I was in for an amusing read for the rest of the thread ... and I wasn't disappointed.
AdmiralQuality wrote:VST 2.4 wasn't out when I started Poly-Ana's development (it appeared a few months into it) and I wasn't about to tear up a working, well tested codebase just because Steinberg wants to trick people into buying the same software yet again.

It's not MY fault that there's some backward compatibility issues in C4. (And yet, of course, I'm trying to fix it... and you have the nerve to give me shit about it?) Are you seriously suggesting that it's the plugin developers fault that Steinberg released a host that has problems with the majority of existing plugins? It's their own f**king standard, if they had competent programmers working for them they'd not have broken it. (Or the other posibility is they have competent programmers but evil management. I suspect it's both.)

VST 2.4 was buggy, I refused (and still refuse) to use it. They put it on us 3rd party developers to fix their shoddy work for them and took several revs to fix (yet it has the exact same version number to obfuscate to you end-users how badly they were f**king up). AND 2.4 is soon to be usurped by VST 3 (if they ever release it). NOTHING new was added in either of these new VST versions that couldn't have been accomplished before -- they say there's new features but all the "new" stuff could have been done transparently to the plugin -- anything new is a host-side feature and there's absolutely no justification to any of it. It's just Steinberg's way of forcing everyone buy the same thing yet again, and I don't and won't EVER play that game. Its sleezy and disgusting.
Oh boy, where do I start :hihi:

Firstly, redshift factor is raising a perfectly valid point that I would have raised as well - C4 says quite clearly that it only supports VST2.4 and upwards, and any older plugs that still work do so because of luck of the draw. I don't like it either, but thats the way it is and expecting Steinborg to support VST1.0 forever is silly. The only reason I don't like it, actually, is because VST2.4 hasn't been out that long, and dropping support for pre-2.4 this soon is somewhat stupid. Had they done this with C5 or whatever, I would have had no complains about it (others would have, of course, but then again, I'm not a Cubase user).

Its not like Steinberg did this silently either - they made it quite clear that C4 does not go out of its way to support pre-2.4 plugins, so everybody knew and everybody knows how things are (unlike the silent drop of DX support .. that was just so typically :borg: of Steinberg)

Regarding the bugs ... software has bugs. Thats just the way it is. Steinberg can't go out there and test a source compile with everything to see if it works - they test as long as they find reasonable (or as long as it takes for them to get lazy), release, then fix bugs that appear that they didn't find during testing. thats just the way things are. Of course we should all strive to make less bugs and use better practices to find bugs quicker but its never going to happen.

Jumping on redshift factor's behind like that was completely unjustified.
AdmiralQuality wrote:Anyway, 2.3 plugins are SUPPOSED to run fine in C4.
No they're not. At least not explicitly.
AdmiralQuality wrote: And many do.
By luck of the draw.
AdmiralQuality wrote: There's just something special about this one, amd that's what I'm trying to determine. As many other 2.3 plugins are apparently OK in C4, I just want to find out what's different about mine that's causing the problem.

So, since you like spending money so much, how about spend some on my product then maybe I can afford to waste 3 months making a bunch of changes that will add ZERO new functionality.
Lets see... according to your site, you're not compiling for MacOSX, which could have caused the only complication. That means you're windows only. That means, unless you did some severely huge fuckups in your code, you can just unzip 2.4, change the paths in the VS project, and you should be able to compile and run just fine (unless you use a deprecated method, but even that is just a define or ... not using the deprecated method). Try it. ;)
AdmiralQuality wrote:I've tried to base this company on not doing any of the sleezy things that the big companies do -- crippled demos, dongles, charging for updates, marketing B.S. or flat out lying, high prices, poor or slow support, etc.
Aah, let me quote again
AdmiralQuality wrote:marketing B.S. or flat out lying
You're just as guilty as everybody. Don't be delusional.
AdmiralQuality wrote:It was a very concious decision to keep Poly-Ana at VST 2.3. 2.4 is an abortion that will go away soon, so I'm ignoring it. I do expect that I'll migrate her to VST 3, just as soon as they share it with us (actually, make that about 3 months after they share it with us; once we've had a chance to find and fix all their bugs!)
Funny ... you're not willing to upgrade to 2.4 which should be 5 minutes more than a simple recompile at worst, yet you do want to upgrade to VST3 which is likely to require plenty source changes. Interesting. :hihi:
AdmiralQuality wrote: As far as 64 bit audio, I'll make Poly 64 bit audio compatible when it goes to VST 3 (so those two lines of code I mentioned will go into Poly-Ana instead of the host where they belong) but it'll still be the exact same 32 bit audio, just converted to 64 before its passed to the hosst.
What the hell are you talking about? Did you even LOOK at VST 2.4 before you went on your hating binge? Its maybe 10 additional lines of code to do 64 bit the cheap way like you just described. You wouldn't even need to allocate any extra buffers with a little bit of thinking (ask me and I'll share how ... its a neat trick ;)).
AdmiralQuality wrote:To turn everything internal in Poly to 64 bit would drastically increase the CPU (and I have a feeling existing customers wouldn't like that ;) ) and would actually impact the sound, negatively, believe it or not.
Unless you're using some sort of chaos function (and i mean that mathematically) that depend on rounding errors (which I find highly unlikely), I call a big fat BULLSHIT. 8)

AdmiralQuality wrote: I'll never understand you people who seem to think that just because I have something to sell, that it's my obligation to kiss your asses regardless of how wrong or insulting you are to me. Telling me what to do is insulting. Especially when you clearly misunderstand the issue.

If you're wrong, I'm going to tell you. It's my job to be RIGHT, not nice. Nice doesn't make the synth sound good. My "attitude" is good for the products. And I'm nice to my customers, just ask them. Indeed, it's them I'm trying to DEFEND from this bullshit. And this is the thanks I get. Misinformed idiots bossing me around.
Nobody is telling you what to do. I didn't tell you to bandlimit your square LFO or at least smoothen it somewhere between LFO and filter, instead I suggested it because it would be better. redshift factor didn't tell you to use VST2.4, he just said that he thinks you need to if you want to be C4 compliant.
AdmiralQuality wrote:Oops, looks like you have to re-buy EVERY PLUGIN YOU FORMERLY OWNED when you upgrade to your (I still don't know if you want 64 bit audio, or address space.
Says who? I can imagine a few vendors requiring a paid upgrade but I doubt anybody would force a complete rebuy just for that, especially since nearly all plugins already work without requiring change.
AdmiralQuality wrote:And speaking of address space, who really needs more than 4 GB of samples?
25 years ago we were told that 640k is enough for anyone. 25 years from now we'll be looking back, while using Windows Strawberry at 67TB and Ooboontoo Linux with the 4.11.69 kernel clocking in at 92TB.

Tony Ostinato wrote:can a programmers reputation really be damaged?
Yes, it can, even among other programmers. AdmiralQuality is quite the laughing stock in several circles.
Tony Ostinato wrote:arent the rest of us just apes that cant make fire by comparison
We coders aren't as high and mighty as we'd sometimes like others to believe :hihi:. However, just because you can plop out some C++ doesn't mean you're a programmer either - what I mean is you could call somebody that learned how to write in school an author, because he knows how to write an essay, but you couldn't compare him to, say, Shakespeare, or Nathaniel Hawthorne. The same applies here ... you've got plenty of people at highschool graduate status, but few that approach the likes of John Carmack, Donald Knuth, etc.

Queue Kingston coming in to tell me I'm out of my depth again...
Cakewalk by Bandlab / FL Studio
Squire Stratocaster / Chapman ML3 Modern V2 / Fender Precision Bass

Formerly known as arke, VladimirDimitrievich, bslf, and ctmg. Yep, those bans were deserved.

Post Reply

Return to “Instruments”