Melda Production vs Sound Radix quality?

[Magnut]

Yet another thread with nearly the same Melda content. There recently was a pretty funny discussion in the comment section of a big audio engineering facebook group. Someone wanted to sell his creative bundle before christmas and one asked about the pros & cons of it. Then it began... In conclusion: the admin had to deactivate the comment section (interests had to write a pm then) and the opinions about Melda were quite uniform and included everything that gets discussed frequently on kvr, gearslutz, aes (UI tweakable but sucks, complex, mainly made for special fx content, many modulation possibilities if needed at all, not for quick everyday use, pop ups, dev is stubborn and very egocentric, shittalking, quick updates, installer directories and av warnings, recreation of other plugins even with their names, license transfer fee, many but also too similar plugins, weekly discount sale).

In my opinion Melda has a few good plugins but the ones you're interested in are not part of them. Like some already said dealing with the dev is a bit of a hassle and hypocrite. Every dev has to be a bit narcisstic but he's exaggerating it. Maybe just a marketing strategy since people are talking about it.

The plugins are cheap and there are many of them. A sad thing about them is they aren't self explaining most of the time. You need to watch tutorials, read manuals or ask the community (which is really responsible and helpful). But I think if you've mastered them you have the knowledge to be able to code your own plugins XD

From my experience you have to really love them or you just won't use them. Try them and find out.

[akeia]

Setting up a pitch tracking EQ that does what surfer EQ is pretty easy in any of the 8 or so Melda equalizers in the Melda bundle.

I can confirm that. But you need to know how to do it. My sad observation is that the "one button" approach is taking over to make it sound great again

[.jon]

So much bad talk about the Melda dev and meta shit that doesn't really affect the use of plugins in any way. The size of his ego is of no concern for me, neither is the total number of available plugins etc. I find the GUI great, they are very clear and fast to use because they are all basically laid out the same. I use plugins and utilities from the upgraded Free bundle and the multiband convolution in every project, and for these are no viable alternatives available at all, or much more expensive or lacking the highly useful Melda core features.

[DocSnyder]

There are discussions about the devs of Slate, Waves or u-he too so it must be something customers are interested in I can understand that because eventually you have to deal with the dev for example if you need support. Anyways enough said.

[Scotty]

I am in awe of Melda's rapid update and roll out schedule. His coding must be incredibly modular and well thought out. I have a 3 of their bundles and every 3 to 5 months another plugin is added to at least one of the suites. I agree, their user interfaces are deep and it does take a bit of getting used to but their are consistencies across the plugins that once you wrap your head around a few plugin categories, you've pretty much got it figured out. Resizable guis, analyzers and AGC are
just fantastic features to have when you need them.

I find his engagement direct and he is proud of his products for sure. He also revisits his decisions as there have been several examples where he expressed that a requested feature was impractical but turned around and found a way to do it. If we wasn't listening that woudn't happen.

He is a hugely talented developer with a very deep catalog. There is going to be overlap and some confusion that I think he has been trying to clear up by changing some plugin naming conventions. But overlap is true of the 80+ UA plugins I own as well which seldom get updated.

I'd love to see him team up with a great GUI designer and start to look at workflow but for me the design is manageable (not ideal but manageable) for the most part. Where it is less than desireable or another developer has an exceptionally well thought out gui, I have bought the competitor's plugin.

[DPhil]

I initially came to melda by their free bundle, upgraded to the paid version (which is kind of ridiculous if you think about it) but then didn't use it anymore Didn't made fun and the more I had to deal with them in serious projectd the more I got f**** up. So I sold it again and I'm not regretting it. Of course you can find alternatives for everything and the daws get more modulation possiblities too (just to mention Ableton or Bitwig or the MultiFX plugins). The melda dev is a special kind and if you talk to him you often need to bring him down to earth again. But if you can handle that you're getting valueable input and support too. As you mentioned their graphics are a big downside and you have to get used to it. Personally I can get quicker results with other plugins (that may have many parameters and options too) because the workflow is more direct and thought through and directed to a particular problem.

/edit yes soundradix autoalign works better than mautoalign. I think mautoAlign got tested with special perfect testcases but soundradix with real life examples. I don't know what exactly you mean with quality. They all cook with water To me the quality is part of workflow improvement and I didn't get that with meldaproduction.

[Ah_Dziz]

I get not liking the GUIs, but the quality is just fine, and the modulation and the ability to jam it all into mxxx makes it all worth it to me. Also the complexity that everyone is referring to is universal across his whole range of plugins. So once you figure it in one then you know how to do it in all of them.

[DPhil]

I understand that but please also understand that this is just not everyones cup of tea.

[Apratim]

LOL seeing guys talking regarding which dev/plugin dev is the best for the op is quite funny

ok strictly speaking

melda plugins are like reaktor(modular as f**k,complex as f**k,ugly as f**k,cheap as f**k,and sometimes good at f**king cpu)

sound radix plugins are like fabfilter(straight as f**k,simple as f**k,preety as f**k,expensive as f**k,and sometimes good at f**king cpu)

there you go tahts all i would say

[Scotty]

You need to work on your presentation but your technical points are sound. A little like Melda

LOL seeing guys talking regarding which dev/plugin dev is the best for the op is quite funny

ok strictly speaking

melda plugins are like reaktor(modular as f**k,complex as f**k,ugly as f**k,cheap as f**k,and sometimes good at f**king cpu)

sound radix plugins are like fabfilter(straight as f**k,simple as f**k,preety as f**k,expensive as f**k,and sometimes good at f**king cpu)

there you go tahts all i would say

[Ah_Dziz]

I understand that but please also understand that this is just not everyones cup of tea.

I get ya. It's still worth someone's time to demo it and see if they like working with the plugins. Even some of his "rip offs" are easier for me to use than what they were based off of because I know my way around his plugins so well. Some of them are not actually doing even remotely the same thing as what they were inspired by. MMorph is using a pretty simple fft transfer between the two inputs while Zynaptic morph is doing something different which is why in Zynaptic the morph form A to B sound completely different than the morph from B to A. This isn't the case with MMorph but it still does neat things on lots of source with the added bonus of far less CPU, the neat modulation system, configurable fft size etc. I find most of his "knockoffs" are actually pretty different than what they are seeking to compete with. The grossbeat/ rhythmizer idea has been done up by lots of people since and I seem to see far less complaining that cableguys or whoever ripped off image line. Anyhow. Try out some demos. They aren't for everyone, but they are definitely useful.

[nichttuntun]

I cannot say anything concerning the Sound Radix quality but discussion went another way anyway.

I just wanted to state that I appreciate such a developer as MELDA more and more as I delve deeper in his VSTs and dig them more and more. I always looked for creative sound design tools and therefor I just love Melda tools plus they have superb sound quality. These two facts combined plus the great UI-design (rezizable and editable) is heaven for me. Put dongle-free, no online plugin registration and constant free updates and a veeery good support behavior in the pot ... what is there left to wish for? Or better asked why are there so many people complaining? There is nothing to complain when you are willing to really spent time to learn Meldas products. Concerning the possibilities and the sound qualtity combined together, even the prices per VST are superb! For me they are up on the same level with on of my favorite developer (U-HE) and they are far ahead compared to maaany other devs who provide creative sound-design VSTs.

Thanks Melda!

[Jake Free]

I really hope he won't copy (again. and again) SR's POWAIR.

It would REALLY piss me off.

Because it will be SOOOO lame and disrespectful that I wouldn't even know how to begin to describe it.

Judging by the time that went by since their last update, I'm afraid that is the case.

I say : why bother calling your plugs M<place your plug name here> when you can just call them M<Original_Idea_stolen_and_copied_from_elsewhere_and_now_it_is_MINE_and_it_is_BETTER_and_CHEAPER>

Regarding "quality" : there is no such thing (and even if there is, it is irrelevant)

ALL plugs (well, the most important majority of them) are applicable and useful. the main difference is GUI, user experience and the generated community hype.

Some of them, though, possess of some radical notions (no pun intended...with regards to SR ) which kind of defies common practices.
that's where SoundRadix come into the picture (IMO). and that's where they OBVIOUSLY win.
If one copies THEIR idea and calls it "his own" and "better sounding" he's just being lame, disrespectful and outright LIER.

[_al_]

Ok, talking of Vojetech's ego, you have to understand that when he first released these plugins, there was literally nothing else on the market that could even come close to them. It was like a quantum leap in flexibilty. like having a set of plugins, each with their own DAW built in. That's why the melda motto is "impossible is nothing".
This is why don't let it bother me when he says things like "The most advanced plugins ever made" because i know that to an extent, he's entitled to say it.

However... i do think he took it a bit far with MTurbo verb, calling it "the best reverb ever made". That really did make me think, no Vojtech, what are you doing. That's just making you look like a cheap spammer. But then when i read a bit more, i realised, what he actually meant, was "the best reverb NEVER made", as this vst actually lets you build you're own reverb, and i think Vojtech believes that this verb is able to emulate any other reverb that has been created (don't own it, so no comment".
But still, i think it was a bad move saying that.

About the gui.
I think vojtech has a vision. You know when you watch sci-fi movies, and the guy is sweeping his hands around in mid air, moving semi transparent computer screens that are floating in mid air? I think this is where vojtech lives. This is his vision, and he is just waiting for the world to catch up with him lol.
This is why realistic analogue knobs and buttons just don't cut it with him. When he opens one of his plugins, he wants to see a limitless matrix of information and possibility.

I guess i'm sounding like a bit of a fanboi writing all this, but honestly, i was always one of the first to complain when i didn't like something. And yes, he has used ideas from other people. Look at his standard EQ, and look at the PEQ2 in FL Studio. The EQ nodes in the graphical section are almost identical, even down to the way they are coloured. It's natural to assume he did this on purpose, for whatever reason.

So for me, there is more positive than negative with this company. If i need a delay or phaser, i use the melda, simply because i've been caught out too many times in the past, using a shiny good-looking plugin, and thinking "argh, if only i could just have this sound drop some of it's lows in every 8th bar and go silent on the last beat", but then i just put up with it, because it's a shiny good-looking plugin that everyone respects, and the problem must be me.

I think the bottom line is, what do you actually want from a plugin. Melda is for people who are confident in their ideas, and just need a tool that is able to follow them to wherever they want to go.
i guess most people don't need that sort of flexibility though.

[nichttuntun]

@al: nice explaination

@Jake Free:
I don´t think there are really new ideas in music or music production tools. Maybe a kind of new mixture of already known architectures and techniques, comfort-achievments, re-designs and workflow-layouts or those "one-button" tools which make plugging many tools in a row obsolete. Therefore I think talking about inspiration is a good choice and talking about stealing is not so good.

I don´t see anything wrong in combining some of the good stuff and place it into a totally new environment. Maybe Melda can be understood as a work-station like a DAW (are the many DAW devs and especially the newer ones stealing too in your opinion?) where you have everything you need and NO wishes left. I don´t think spending immense sums of money for one "special new" idea and still having enough wishes left is a considerable good idea.

For example I bought the MPowerSynth by Melda although I already have ALL the U-he Synth and three of Wolfangs Palm PPG Synths. And after delving in for 5 hours (just into the OSC-Section) I am already totally amazed of the power this section alone provides. It is totally over the top and simply amazing for a sound designer and goes way deeper than every Synth I owned since the early 90th (and I startet back in the days with the Additive Synthesis wonder-Synth Kawai K5). It is eating for example my BLOWFELD for lunch in that category...and BLO is a design monster also.
BUT
The point I want to show is, when it comes to the efx-matrix of MPowerSynth the layout there is inspired (overtaken) by U-HEs ZEBRA. I am also quite shure there have been such layouts long time before ZEBRA. Matrix-schemes of any kind are out in this world for hundred of years.
BUT
Melda implented into MPowersynth nearly every efx-processor they ever made including the Mgranular and MTurboReverb to name just 2 out of a list of 40! And that´s Melda...Absolutely no wishes left. Pure sound-design heaven. Even if it had the ugliest OSC- and filters base-sound ever (what it hasn´t) it would be one of the greatest and most complete felt design-tools out there right at the moment. As I own and love ZEBRA I don´t see the slightest way to be upset about that layout in MPowerSynths efx-matrix. In fact I am glad they made it that way cause I already know how to handle it. But does someone really care? Finally I think no matter what kind of matrix-layout they would have done, it would always be MELDA in its original package-core and its original MELDA-vision. It´s software (or better "environment" for sound-freaks, geeks and nerds and as such a one and a keyboard/piano player I think it´s all about making sound and not words. So I am not shooked off by Vojtechs slogans or the visual similarities...I just soly care for his deeds and for the lifetime free updates of his already fantastic and powerful working environment.

So relax, have a joyful and neverending creative time.