Any Spectrasonics news?

[noiseboyuk]

This is just a release party for Eric's new album. Not to say that it isn't exciting. It just might not be what you are expecting.

Since when are gospel albums of developers released at NAMM?

If midihead is correct and Eric is presenting, there will be new stuff to show. It ties in with what Skippy said too. Add in their own tweet in December, and it's pretty convincing. If, in fact, the original info is wrong and he isn't presenting, then we all slope off under our rocks again of course. But allowing for all due cynicism, I think this is what we've been waiting for, the stars do seem to be aligning.

[beely]

And a plugin shall be born under a Spectrasky in a mangerbooth, when the stars align at Anaheim, thus unto the yeareth twenty ten and five. And so it is written. And so it shall be-eth good.

[Phorous]

This is just a release party for Eric's new album. Not to say that it isn't exciting. It just might not be what you are expecting.

Since when are gospel albums of developers released at NAMM?

Yeah at this point we have multiple sources who say something is going down with Spectrasonics at NAMM this year so I wouldn't be surprised it was the case.

[ezelkow1]

Well I wouldnt get all hopes up right away. It could be like a lot of their other events. Presenting another update to existing products that adds new functionality and more sounds. Like back when they added the ipad app and what not

[noiseboyuk]

Well I wouldnt get all hopes up right away. It could be like a lot of their other events. Presenting another update to existing products that adds new functionality and more sounds. Like back when they added the ipad app and what not

Something like that would be great - 1.5 was a huge update. More than that - even greater. The multi-year hiatus does of course raise expectation to an absurd level...

[gremlinmoon]

What if they are at NAMM just to give a "proof of life" and don't make any announcements besides, "we're looking forward to 2015?" On some level that would be perversely funny.

[Echoes in the Attic]

If Eric is presenting, it won't be on something that everyone has been familiar with for years. It will be the new updates.

[Kriminal]

What if they are at NAMM just to give a "proof of life" and don't make any announcements besides, "we're looking forward to 2015?" On some level that would be perversely funny.

...and on every other level, very boring.

[TonyVegas]

Maybe Eric just wants to have an opportunity to tell all their fans about the lord. Would that be so bad? Take a little time to spread the love and Good News to the people. Isn't that enough of an "update"? Me? I'm all for it.

[stikygum]

The standard Spectrasonics response is:

- We're all still here and really busy
- We're working really hard on awesome stuff
- We have no announcements at this time

Year after year after year... It undermines the confidence of the consumer when a company doesn't release any new products for years and years - the company is forgotten about and written off until something actually happens.

I realise that it's difficult writing complex software with limited resources and comprehensive sound design, but it almost feels to us like Spectrasonics are dead at this point. I thought finally late this year we'd get some announcements but no, *another* year has gone past and still nothing.

Their products are great, and no doubt when they finally do emerge from their product hibernation labs what they have will be really cool, but until then.... a big fat nothing... Even Eric doesn't seem to contribute to an online presence any more, partly due to being busy and I'm sure partly to avoid people asking what the heck is happening with them...

Isn't anybody in the least excited about this comment. They say they're working hard on cool stuff for the future. Omnisphere in itself can keep anyone busy for decades. That is one of the deepest synths you could ever imagine.

No one needs to know what they are working on. They don't need to tell us just because we're antsy and don't utilize what we have. They don't owe us anything except support for what we already bought. To say that they have turned their backs on us is beyond comprehension. A company should be allowed to surprise everyone however they want, like the old days. People think because there's the internet, unlike 20 years ago, that everyone should be talking online or else.... I like the business model of people like Dave Smith who will drop presents out of thin air. It can be quite painful when you know someone is working on something specific and it gets delayed for a really long time. It can kind of kill anything great that was accomplished in the product.

We all know Spectrasonics is a great company. We just need to keep on creating music/sounds and value what was put out already.

[AstralExistence]

I like the business model of people like Dave Smith who will drop presents out of thin air. It can be quite painful when you know someone is working on something specific and it gets delayed for a really long time. .

presents or presence? cause if hes dropping presents they sure as hell aren't free. those are some expensive presents

[hibidy]

@being excited: No. Until something actually happens, that is a standard letter and quite frankly it scares me a little as an owner because I feel I've seen this pattern in the past.

[midihead]

If midihead is correct and Eric is presenting, there will be new stuff to show. It ties in with what Skippy said too. Add in their own tweet in December, and it's pretty convincing. If, in fact, the original info is wrong and he isn't presenting, then we all slope off under our rocks again of course. But allowing for all due cynicism, I think this is what we've been waiting for, the stars do seem to be aligning.

Like I said, "Thunderstruck"... didn't anyone catch that I was playing around?

BTW, for those posting the NAMM floorplan here's a little bit of info: Spectrasonics has always had their name in that spot on all previous NAMM floorplans. That's because even when they've not been personally presenting something, they've been represented by ILIO (their US distributor). Everybody calm down. Nobody knows anything definitive but Spectrasonics.

[hibidy]

[noiseboyuk]

BTW, for those posting the NAMM floorplan here's a little bit of info: Spectrasonics has always had their name in that spot on all previous NAMM floorplans. That's because even when they've not been personally presenting something, they've been represented by ILIO (their US distributor). Everybody calm down. Nobody knows anything definitive but Spectrasonics.

Indeed - the most compelling piece of info is from midihead. It's not just that they're represented there, he seems to have info that Eric will be presenting. If that's not correct, then the whole thing might evaporate pretty quick. But it does tie in with all the other info - the Christmas tweet, Skippy's comment etc.

Here's another perspective. They informally said they'd be doing something in 2013, and then 2014. In fact, I seem to remember Eric posting at least one of those was definite - can't remember the exact wording, but he implied they'd be very disappointed in themselves if they didn't. He also said that they'd been looking at ways to not have such a long haitus in the future. Since those dates have passed, he's withdrawn from all forum posting.

Now either he was making all that up, or - just a thought - events overtook them and things proved to be more complicated than he'd bargained for, so the date kept slipping. Which is precisely the reason he'd said he didn't want to announce any more dates - as seems to be the way with practically all developers, those release dates seem elusive as things invariably prove more complex than the developer hopes. Everyone handles that differently - some endlessly tease, some announce things that never show up (are we nearly at 10 years for East West Forbidden Planet?). But for most of my favourite devs, they've increasingly taken a vow of silence. A good recent example is Audiobro. Silent for years, took all the flack, anger and taunting. Then released LADD with about a fortnight's notice - mature on release, best in class, new features no-one else has been doing. That's the pay off.

I'm expecting something similar now with Spectrasonics. This has been an incredibly long break. My guess - and it's nothing more than that - is that internally at some stage they decided to switch 95% of their development energies into new products or major versions. Once that was done, they couldn't then easily spend time / money doing smaller updates on their current versions. Other then the Omni browser revision where 3rd party libs were partitioned off and 64 bit AAX, it has to be over 3 years since their products had an update. The neat explanation is that all their time and energy is in versions which can't so easily be reverse engineered back into the current versions. They'd figured that at least some of those products would be ready to ship a long time ago, but it always ran away from them. But at some stage it all pays off, and the expectation is that not only does it pay off, it arrives pretty much fully formed and ready to go. Just like LADD did (not to say that LADD won't expand and get tweaked, it will, but 1.0 is pretty damn amazing).

So in summary - yes, nobody knows anything definitive, and no, I'm not calming down. 12 more sleeps!

(final thought - I remember posting actual retailer pack shots of Cubase 8 in December, due for release within days / hours. To me it was clear as day that the info was legit, but there were posters confidently saying it was all photoshopped and a scam, and didn't they look clever being all calm and not hoodwinked. Well no, they actually looked pretty silly on release day. Confidence here isn't at that level of course, but although something has taken a while to arrive with missteps on the way, someday the product will eventually show up - ahem, well, Alchemy 2 excepted....)