Fathom Synth Development Thread

[BlackWinny]

ENV1, Goodness I had no idea you were so advanced.

We are several in the same case, Everett, making plugins, and sometimes very complex of this kind, for public distributions or for personal purposes.




And however... we also like to buy plugins, sometimes whatever their price as long as they are very original and of great quality. And the fact of being oneself plugin developer is probably a very good reason to know how complex (and sometimes nightmarish) can be the developments for someone else, and it is certainly also a very good reason to encourage the other humble one-man developers as you, friend.

[Tj Shredder]

Some thoughts on copy protection...
In general its a hassle for both, the paying customer and the programmer. It has to be the least annoying...
I usually can live with two ways, though I do live with more than 2...; - )
The machine specific is fine, if it allows to have more than one machine authorized. And has a reasonable way to get additional installs if a computer breaks or burns or gets stolen. Never had a problem getting needed authorisations with my Max/MSP. A single mail to the support and I got it...
I do like the way Madrona Labs is doing it. The full version isn't copy protected, but personalized. If you download the plug or an update, it will be somehow marked as belonging to customer x. Now, if that would appear in the wild on a warez site, the customer would loose that license and would have to buy a new one to get further updates. This scheme does not encourage hackers to crack it, it would make the customers being careful to not get it stolen. I would not give it to friend, because I can never be sure that she wouldn't give it away or even pay attention... That there is a free monophonic version does help. I would always recommend to use that...
Of course if it appears as pirated version, that won't go away. Unless you check from time to time on the internet if that copy is on a black list, and if, it could pull up a nag screen an turn itself into the monophonic version. But to be honest I wouldn't do it, its not safely testable and you don't want to go through any possible hassle, not even mentioning the resources you waiste to implement it... I would rather live with whatever happens...

I think both ways are managable on the programmers point of view, and I would be fine with it. Being active on a forum like KVR, where it is common sense to pay your licenses is helping to fight pirating more than any copy protection can do...

I could also imagine to go completely open source and have transparent goals for what you need to implement feature x or fight bug y and make a living. Ardour is doing that, they say we need 6000$ for this month, and show how much of that is reached. Wikipedia is also successfully doing their donation rounds... But I have no idea if such a modell would work with a synth plug-in within a saturated market...

[RPH]

Good point on personalising the pro version.

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

Good point on personalising the pro version.

Agreed

[FathomSynth]

TJ, Thanks for your thoughts.

I'll keep this in mind as I search for a solution.

[ThomasHelzle]

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.

Try contacting u-he. I don't know if it's still the case but Urs had an interesting system that worked with a simple serial but still kept him in the good zone. He used to be happy to share how he does it too.
For me it's the best copy protection scheme I know and has some clever added benefits built in.
I'm not as adverse to C/R or dongles as many others on KVR but still u-he is my favorite.

If you go machine-locked then it pays to directly have a system where customers can move a license from one machine to another themselves via some webinterface or built into the plugin. I use some professional 3D software that works that way and find this much faster when in the middle of a project than contacting the dev each time.

Best of luck!

Cheers,

Tom

[bftucker]

I have no recommendations for copy protections. I do however recommend you take care of yourself. I worry sometimes that you work so hard that you may burn yourself out.

[martinjuenke]

I have no recommendations for copy protections. I do however recommend you take care of yourself. I worry sometimes that you work so hard that you may burn yourself out.

+1

[FathomSynth]

ThomasHelzle, Thanks so much, that is really helpful.

Perhaps he would be willing to give me some advice.

bftucker, Yes, it's true I work long hours. But I'm very lucky to be able to spend all day on my passion, and I always take time off to work on my own music to relax.

[] Peter:H []

Talking about marketing...I think ThomasHelzle is one of the Bitwig guys
Probably it could be a way to add a "basic" Version of Fathom bundled to some DAW...
just talking what comes to my mind...
About copy protection. I've stumbled across a tool that will only work when online.
A lot of users complain about this and say they won't purchase such a tool
regardless how powerful it might be. Just want to stress that copy protection should be "offline" capable.
Apart from that: If I can help Everett, please let me know. I've already tried to "advertise" fathom in some german forums, but it's hard to get attention in that somewhat overheated market...there's so many crazy stuff...
...and fathom is crazy too, but it needs some time to get familiar with and be able to see the full potential...
Anyway: Please keep up the good work!

[ThomasHelzle]

Talking about marketing...I think ThomasHelzle is one of the Bitwig guys
Probably it could be a way to add a "basic" Version of Fathom bundled to some DAW...
just talking what comes to my mind...

Not really.
Yes, I worked freelance for Bitwig (and for u-he before that) for a while right after the release of Bitwig Studio 1.0 and I'm in contact with the BWS team every now and then, but I'm not involved with any current developments other than as a (paying) user of the DAW.

I'm not sure how much merit the idea has, the market is simply saturated way over capacity and without GAS as a major factor, nobody would sell any synth or effect in any meaningful number anymore. So you market more towards GAS than need, more shiny GUI and fancy videos than pure capability, more dream than reality...
Which also leads to selling too cheap, spoiled and often unhappy users ("this thing didn't fix my need either") and other things one can witness on KVR regularly.

Not the easiest thing to get right...

Cheers and best of luck,

Tom

[teacue]

I'm not sure how much merit the idea has, the market is simply saturated way over capacity and without GAS as a major factor, nobody would sell any synth or effect in any meaningful number anymore. So you market more towards GAS than need, more shiny GUI and fancy videos than pure capability, more dream than reality...
Which also leads to selling too cheap, spoiled and often unhappy users ("this thing didn't fix my need either") and other things one can witness on KVR regularly.

Not the easiest thing to get right...

Tom

Wow, what a remarkable (bemerkenswerte) analysis!
Sorry for being off topic but I find your statement very well described.

[FathomSynth]

Tom, Thanks so much for responding directly in the thread.

I'm very interested in what you said because it confirms my suspicion that the market is simply over saturated.

I'm actually in the process of revamping the GUI to add more bling factor.

Either way I will keep the project alive in one form or another and continue to support it.

Also, question to anyone, sorry I'm a bit of a neophyte in this regard but what is "GAS"?

[] Peter:H []

Tom, Thanks so much for responding directly in the thread.

I'm very interested in what you said because it confirms my suspicion that the market is simply over saturated.

I'm actually in the process of revamping the GUI to add more bling factor.

Either way I will keep the project alive in one form or another and continue to support it.

Also, question to anyone, sorry I'm a bit of a neophyte in this regard but what is "GAS"?

GAS = Gear Aquisition Syndrom

[ThomasHelzle]

Like Peter says, G.A.S. is Gear Akquisition Syndrome.
Basically the whole Music-Gear Industry lives off this form of addiction where people basically hope that the next guitar, synth, effect, DAW, controller, sound library, sample set etc. "does it" for them. You buy stuff in the hope that your sound will get better, that you will be more inspired, that you will be able to do things musically that you couldn't before, that you will get seen, be loved, maybe even become famous...

This addiction is fueled by bold marketing promising amazing things for even the most boring EQ you already have in 50 versions.
If some popstar or producer says good things about it, maybe it will colour off on you?...
And if it looks cool, it maybe helps too?...

And sales of course are the final triggers. Many companies offer their stuff for very high prices and then have more or less continuous sales going on that push people over the threshold. They buy stuff they normally would never buy, they know they don't need it, but "the price is too good to say no". So "nobrainer" has this additional meaning of no brain being involved and it's all glands that do the deciding.

And like with any drug, after the kick there is the down, you realise you spent too much, the thing just sits there on your HD like all the other stuff that didn't actually make you happy or creative and you get "buyers remorse" or start to work out your frustration in public forums like KVR, where you might argue with devs about silly details, get into endless discussions about the perfect DAW, synth, effect or abuse other users and become a professional troll...


Of course it's mostly hogwash.
Humans get actually creative by restriction, not by being flooded with options, so GAS for many rather creates stagnating creativity and they think back of the times when they "had nothing but a tape recorder" but somehow the creative juices flowed...

If you read KVR, you would think the Beatles could never have got anything done with the crap equipment they had.
But they did.

So welcome to basically being the equivalent of a drug dealer

Cheers,

Tom