Groove Blox Live Virtual Instrument - 30 day demo now available for download

[munchkin]

I had a go using PS and your new skin. I mainly tried to colour zone areas to distinguish them and used subtle 3D effects to make it look more dimensional.

[Hewitt Huntwork]

Love the new skin with the orange background (behind the waveforms). munchkin's use of colors in the mixer/mute/effect section is cool, too.

As far as the marketing discussion goes, I think it's great how receptive you've been to the suggestions you've received. In my opinion, the best thing any developer can do is to stay positive, always, on any public forums and in all public and private interactions. Everyone knows that isn't easy, especially when your customers and potential customers don't have to observe that same rule. But even the smallest indulgence in negativity can alienate potential customers, so I think it will be worth it to remain positive. You and your products both deserve to be seen at your best. Keep up the good work!

[Karmacomposer]

Love the new skin with the orange background (behind the waveforms). munchkin's use of colors in the mixer/mute/effect section is cool, too.

As far as the marketing discussion goes, I think it's great how receptive you've been to the suggestions you've received. In my opinion, the best thing any developer can do is to stay positive, always, on any public forums and in all public and private interactions. Everyone knows that isn't easy, especially when your customers and potential customers don't have to observe that same rule. But even the smallest indulgence in negativity can alienate potential customers, so I think it will be worth it to remain positive. You and your products both deserve to be seen at your best. Keep up the good work!

Thank you.

I genuinely want to hear everyone's feedback and although I can only use some of it since opinions vary and some may or may not mesh with my way of doing things, I am open to quality suggestions at all times.

So far it has panned out with the skin - I am MUCH happier with the new skin vs the older dark one.

I recorded a video demo, but my ceiling fan was on and the mic picked up too much of the wind noise so I will record a new one tomorrow morning with the fan off. As soon as it's done, I will post a link here for all to view.

Website should be done tomorrow and the demo is already ready to go, so I am finally wrapping this one up.

Mike

[Spitfire31]

I had a go using PS and your new skin. I mainly tried to colour zone areas to distinguish them and used subtle 3D effects to make it look more dimensional.

Well… With all due respect, I liked Mike's latest colour scheme better. It feels natural to me to have the waveform area in that warm, orange colour, I think.

And two complementary colour pairs (blue-yellow, green-magenta)? While I don't question the pedagogic value, I'd rather have the more discreet various shades of blue in Mike's version (blue/cyan complemented by yellow).

IMHO, FWIW and all that.

Best,

Joachim

[glokraw]

In any case, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but if you feel it is too harsh on the eyes, I can always go with my favorite color scheme - blues.

Mike

The new gui is quite nice. The Groove Blox watermark, being large and centered,
is a subtle distraction. I never see a vst gui and wonder 'why no watemark?'
Hopefully it can be optional.

A black T-shirt with a large silkscreen Prizm logo on back, and an embossed logo
on the front, would be nice to coincide with a future Prizm release, and would
make cool gifts. As would a cobalt or black mug with the logo.
Cheers

(also, I never thought Monstrous was ugly, seasonal as the gui maybe )

[coops2]

I would like to off my opinions too and I hope I do not cause offence as that is not intended in any way whatsoever.

I am sorry to say your products always appear very amateur. In part due to their GUI, the website, the marketing and in fact often the whole package. A GUI designer may not be cheap but if you want to be a professional developer then you need a professional product and professional marketing, website etc. You either need to go away and study a lot or work with other people.

Also, I don't know what the actual point of this VST is? What does it do that I cannot just do inside my host? If I liked the sound, I could just buy the samples and use them in my host without having to use your VST with its eight track limit, and use my own effects instead of your SE ones. To me, putting your samples in a cheap looking SE VST limits me and reduces their worth.

Take a look at how other companies work, e.g Sonic Couture. They sell awesome samples at a decent price. If they want to do more with the samples then they package them in a decent sampler such as Kontakt or Live's, not SE. They also style everything extremely well, everything about them, their products, website etc screams high quality. Yours say amateur and quickly knocked up at home in your spare time.

Sonic Couture also pick their product line extremely well. Time and time again they come up with very interesting ideas that stand out from the crowd. Your product line doesn't do that to me. It strike me as not being specifically designed and just a bunch of stuff thrown together in the hope that it covers as much ground as possible in the hope someone may buy it.

Sorry

[Karmacomposer]

I would like to off my opinions too and I hope I do not cause offence as that is not intended in any way whatsoever.

I am sorry to say your products always appear very amateur. In part due to their GUI, the website, the marketing and in fact often the whole package. A GUI designer may not be cheap but if you want to be a professional developer then you need a professional product and professional marketing, website etc. You either need to go away and study a lot or work with other people.

Also, I don't know what the actual point of this VST is? What does it do that I cannot just do inside my host? If I liked the sound, I could just buy the samples and use them in my host without having to use your VST with its eight track limit, and use my own effects instead of your SE ones. To me, putting your samples in a cheap looking SE VST limits me and reduces their worth.

Take a look at how other companies work, e.g Sonic Couture. They sell awesome samples at a decent price. If they want to do more with the samples then they package them in a decent sampler such as Kontakt or Live's, not SE. They also style everything extremely well, everything about them, their products, website etc screams high quality. Yours say amateur and quickly knocked up at home in your spare time.

Sonic Couture also pick their product line extremely well. Time and time again they come up with very interesting ideas that stand out from the crowd. Your product line doesn't do that to me. It strike me as not being specifically designed and just a bunch of stuff thrown together in the hope that it covers as much ground as possible in the hope someone may buy it.

Sorry

So groove slicers and a performance tool is amateurish? It tires me to see product assassinations before they even have a chance to come out.

This is like saying "what's the point of stylus rmx?" I am sure NO ONE would actually utter those words, yet Groove Blox Live is a lot like Stylus RMX. It uses loopable grooves that you can use to layer one overall groove. You can easily assign each groove a MIDI channel and therefore sculpt it in your sequencer if you wish. It comes with effects for you to enhance the sound of the groove.

Unlike stylus rmx, each channel has groove slicers so you can chop up your beats. You are also not limited to my beats since it loads standard wave files. By the way, I am in no way putting down Stylus RMX, which I also own. It has consistently been one of my favorite products for use in productions, but even it has some limitations - cpu footprint being one of them. I created Klang Drum Machine and Groove Blox Live to use lightweight tools that serve a similar purpose and I decided to make them cost a LOT less.

Groove Blox Live was just not thrown together. It took me MONTHS and MONTHS to create SuperCore and then more months to tweak it into Klang Drum Machine and now Groove Blox Live, at all times revising and improving on the design.

I ask the same question - why must every other company release a analog synth - I mean, EVERY COMPANY. They all sound roughly the same. I owned original Korg analog gear. Superwave comes as close as you are going to get and it came out YEARS ago - so why every month - every week - a new one comes out?

How many groove slicing performance tools come out every week and every month? Very few. Yet, they are just as important and just as much fun and useful as an analog synth. For anyone that performs in public and wants an uncluttered simple-to-use interface, I think Groove Blox Live will be a real find for them. Unlike Stylus RMX, Groove Blox Live has a tiny CPU footprint, so you can use multiple instances of it without worry. You don't even have to use Groove Blox Live. Groove Blox is its own product and you can easily use that with or without Groove Blox Live - I just am giving people a new tool to have fun with.

As far as Sonic Couture and their samples - I am sure they are top notch. So are mine. Look at www.supersynths.com - I have a good number of soundsets that I have created over a long period of time and all of them have garnered acclaim from many people. I am not some fly by night dickhead trying to make a buck. My samples have been in some pretty nice synths and productions. I have clients that send me their work with my sounds in them and I am always impressed at how individuals can use them more creatively than I imagined they could.

I create every sound lovingly by hand and sample with top quality high end and expensive gear when field recording is needed. I employ a large cache of legally purchased software that cost me tens of thousands of dollars to allow me to do what I do and has taken me decades to master my craft.

I have nothing against analog synths (as I used in my analogy) and I also have nothing against solid criticism. However, to just come out and say my work is CRAP before anyone has a chance to even play with it is abusive and offensive.

Mike

[coops2]

Mike, I am very sorry if you take offense especially as I made it clear it was not an assassination but my personal opinion.

I said that they appear amateur and I stand by that. The GUI does not look like it has been designed by a professional and neither do your websites.

Also the plugin is made in SE which is not generally viewed as being as professional as cross-platform VSTs written in C++ or Kontakt/Kontakt player products.

I never said the sounds were bad or your products are crap or you are fly-by-night, just that they do not give a good impression based on the way they look and are marketed.

I really wouldn't start comparing yourself with Stylus RMX as they will win on every feature. It is a fantastic product put together by some of the best people in the business. Glen's coding with Eric's sound design is an awesome combination. Notice how they have great graphics, great website, well differentiated unique products that really stand out.

ps I agree with you about the glut of VA synths, there are far too many soundalikes but they generally fail and disappear while people like Urs Heckmann, Spectrasonics etc succeed because they have unique, original products. The market will eventually decide and since you freely admit sales are lacklustre while other people are doing okay then there must be a reason for it and in my opinions it is because of those reasons I have stated.

[Karmacomposer]

Mike, I am very sorry if you take offense especially as I made it clear it was not an assassination but my personal opinion.

I said that they appear amateur and I stand by that. The GUI does not look like it has been designed by a professional and neither do your websites.

Also the plugin is made in SE which is not generally viewed as being as professional as cross-platform VSTs written in C++ or Kontakt/Kontakt player products.

I never said the sounds were bad or your products are crap or you are fly-by-night, just that they do not give a good impression based on the way they look and are marketed.

I really wouldn't start comparing yourself with Stylus RMX as they will win on every feature. It is a fantastic product put together by some of the best people in the business. Glen's coding with Eric's sound design is an awesome combination. Notice how they have great graphics, great website, well differentiated unique products that really stand out.

ps I agree with you about the glut of VA synths, there are far too many soundalikes but they generally fail and disappear while people like Urs Heckmann, Spectrasonics etc succeed because they have unique, original products. The market will eventually decide and since you freely admit sales are lacklustre while other people are doing okay then there must be a reason for it and in my opinions it is because of those reasons I have stated.

Fair enough, but realize that some of the better and more iconic virtual instruments ever made were made in Synthedit - you just may not know it. You may just hate anything made in Synthedit - what do I know?

I would LOVE to use a professional artist to create the background graphics, buttons, knobs and sliders. I believe the current skin is not so bad.

Oh, and I am not putting myself in the same league as Eric Persing and crew - they are uber talented and come out with awe-inspiring products. However, when I use Groove Blox Live, you know what I say to myself as I am having fun with it? "Wow, this sounds a lot like Stylus RMX".

That's all I meant.

While it may be made in the LOWLY Synthedit (not everyone is a c++ coder - personally, if I could afford Delphi, I would buy it in a heart beat since I can code in Pascal, but I HATE the unstable free versions of it - and create my synths that way - then I wouldn't be so damn limited), it is not a bad virtual instrument.

Lastly, not everyone is a zillionaire and can afford a full staff (man, that would be nice), but I do not charge mega corporation prices either. When I can afford a full staff of pro sound designers, coders and artists, then I will charge $350 per product and create stuff never before heard by man or beast (yeah, right).

Until then, Synthedit is the way i'll go till something better comes along.

I am re-designing my website today. You are right, as EVERYONE else has let me know, it sucks. I am going to go for a clean, uncluttered "less is more" style.

Mike

[glokraw]

How in the world, does using Synthedit lessen the quality of sound samples?
If products designed with Synthedit enable musicians to manipulate sound in
desirable ways, rock on.

Hosts have under-used features, but have well earned the under-use.
Plugin designers focus on specific solutions, and buyers buy them.

I honestly couldn't recall the visual details of any plugin or host
sales website. I don't wander the net looking for classy looking websites,
in hopes that finding one, will somehow insure there are
quality products for sale. I listen before I buy. Its SOUND!

And the most awesome synth sounds I have ever heard, come from an old
synthedit instrument, which boasts one of the most grotesque interfaces
known to man. Followed closely in sound quality by zynaddsubfx,
which gets very few rave reviews over the gui, to say the least.

[munchkin]

I had a go using PS and your new skin. I mainly tried to colour zone areas to distinguish them and used subtle 3D effects to make it look more dimensional.

Well… With all due respect, I liked Mike's latest colour scheme better. It feels natural to me to have the waveform area in that warm, orange colour, I think.

And two complementary colour pairs (blue-yellow, green-magenta)? While I don't question the pedagogic value, I'd rather have the more discreet various shades of blue in Mike's version (blue/cyan complemented by yellow).

IMHO, FWIW and all that.

Best,

Joachim

No problem and thanks for the feedback. It was a first attempt to edit the photo of the all blue skin and not the skin itself. When I photoshopped this Mike hadn't created the orange wave interface yet. I'd suggested making the wave interface orange so I thought I'd try something different to that. Without having access to the actual skin files there isn't a lot that can be done even in PS. I like colour a lot and the all blue skin looked too dead and its component parts seemed too difficult to distinguish clearly to me. It was inspired a bit by this:



The new orange wave interface is an improvement but I still think the whole look could be improved a lot more. Without a bit of experimentation an interesting and unique style is less likely to develop. Some ideas are going to work a lot better than others and that's part of the design process. I think the more people who get involved in trying out new designs the better.

But I feel I'm getting mixed messages from Mike because on the one hand he asks for ideas but when they're offered becomes defensive. He suggested that others have a go at creating skins in exchange for synths but there is no access to the GUI files for any significant editing to be possible. I attempted this as a learning experience not for some kind of payback. If my designs don't inspire then I appreciate the feedback because I can then go away and experiment some more. The more input from others including new designs the more chance of coming up with something that works.

[glokraw]

The green is hideous, followed by the pink/sienna accents. The PlasticCZ
example, has decent color complements. Choosing neutral tones instead of
bright green, and the smaller elements without clashing colors, would
enhance the overall concept. Girls and GUIs that slap, don't get a
second date.

[munchkin]

The green is hideous, followed by the pink/sienna accents. The PlasticCZ
example, has decent color complements. Choosing neutral tones instead of
bright green, and the smaller elements without clashing colors, would
enhance the overall concept. Girls and GUIs that slap, don't get a
second date.

I quite like the green. The GUI designer who created Plasticz would have either created the GUI files from scratch or had access to prototypes - they wouldn't be trying to Photoshop an image downloaded from a thread. Trying to offer some help without proper access to the files together with the reluctance of the developer doesn't seem very encouraging or inspiring. Perhaps that's why no one else is bothering.

[Karmacomposer]

The green is hideous, followed by the pink/sienna accents. The PlasticCZ
example, has decent color complements. Choosing neutral tones instead of
bright green, and the smaller elements without clashing colors, would
enhance the overall concept. Girls and GUIs that slap, don't get a
second date.

I quite like the green. The GUI designer who created Plasticz would have either created the GUI files from scratch or had access to prototypes - they wouldn't be trying to Photoshop an image downloaded from a thread. Trying to offer some help without proper access to the files together with the reluctance of the developer doesn't seem very encouraging or inspiring. Perhaps that's why no one else is bothering.

Munchkin,

Sorry - no mixed signals and no reluctance. If you would have PMd me, I would have given you the files. Simply put, no one asked.

Anyway. I am using Skinman - so download and install that if you have not (it's a GREAT program to create skins - a lot like photoshop and corel combined) and I will make the project file freely available.

Here they are:

http://www.mfelkerco.com/skins/grooveblox_skins.rar

I look forward to seeing what people can do with these.

If anyone wants to take the design a skin challenge seriously and create something top notch, I will give all of my products to up to five individuals that do so.

To make it interesting, if over 5 people take this challenge on, I will host a public poll here and the top 5 get the entire enchilada and my total gratitude.

Mike

[Karmacomposer]

I had a go using PS and your new skin. I mainly tried to colour zone areas to distinguish them and used subtle 3D effects to make it look more dimensional.

Well… With all due respect, I liked Mike's latest colour scheme better. It feels natural to me to have the waveform area in that warm, orange colour, I think.

And two complementary colour pairs (blue-yellow, green-magenta)? While I don't question the pedagogic value, I'd rather have the more discreet various shades of blue in Mike's version (blue/cyan complemented by yellow).

IMHO, FWIW and all that.

Best,

Joachim

Just to put my 2 cents in - too colorful for me. I like things a bit more subtle. I, myself, cannot create realistic looking artwork, but that is always my 1st preference. If I could pay a top quality artist what they are worth, I would ask them to design a photo-realistic background, knobs, buttons and sliders.

But I can't, so I won't.

Either way, thank you for your work. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder.

Mike