Frankly impossible to take FXpansion seriously at this point.

[jancivil]

They don’t even take support serious. Roli replied to my support ticket with an automated e-mail:

‘After many years of maintenance we are no longer supporting the products you've mentioned as we focus on

That's what not supporting literally means. No further technical support of the product.

I've probably gone into this already in-thread, but hey...

I have a serious issue with BFD3. I took out a ticket. Idiot that I am, I forget to state the automation in VE Pro 6 issue was A BFD3 ISSUE in the report and I got a reply back telling me to contact VSL. So now I go ballistic and state how intolerable this is to merely pass the buck to the other party (I was nearly certain it was not VSL). Because I was developing the notion I was SOL as far as support anyway. And now I get a further reply engaging me on the issue. Very nice reply and I'm the asshole.

And he stayed with me for several more replies, testing everything I reported and replicating the bugs. There is one workaround which only works in the standalone, and saving that config is useless in VE Pro so there is no real help for it for the moment. But this individual took the job entirely seriously. This translating to fixing the bugginess is quite another matter, though.

[lnikj]

Whilst I have most of their products I'm just glad that I didn't buy anything from them for a long time. If I'd bought something the day before it was announced it was no longer going to be supported I'd be feeling pretty miffed.

As ever, software companies get to play by different rules to any other retail company. In the UK the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (and before it the Sale of Goods Act) entitles you to expect a product to continue to function for 6 years, fair wear and tear excepted.

I guess a software company would argue that if you make no changes to your computer, install no updates, security or otherwise, then their product will continue to function for those 6 years, but then that is just an example of where they get to play by different rules to everybody else, because that is not a realistic scenario.

I don't think they have handled this well at all. How about writing to all licence holders, apologising and explaining, maybe even offering them a small voucher against a future purchase etc etc. Instead, I've just added them to my list of crappy companies who won't be getting any more money from me.

[AdvancedFollower]

Tremor was an extremely promising product, and there's not much else like it on the market (purely synth-based drum sequencer). I used tremor all over the place in a zillion songs of mine, and I'm seriously wondering if, say, my next computer down the line will even be able to open it.

Agree about Tremor. Bought it when it came out. It's one of the most flexible and powerful drum/percussion synths, but I'm afraid to use it on anything, and I don't want to spend the time to really learn it since it's "discontinued" now.

I mean, they don't need to constantly add new features or improvements years after release, but cutting support completely is a bit harsh. If a new bug or incompatibility crops up, this would make the plug-in completely useless. Also makes me extremely wary of buying anything new from them. Who knows when they suddenly decide to cut support to focus on some new cash cow?

[Rastkovic]

Agree about Tremor. Bought it when it came out. It's one of the most flexible and powerful drum/percussion synths, but I'm afraid to use it on anything, and I don't want to spend the time to really learn it since it's "discontinued" now.

Learning is never useless, you can use the knowledge and ideas on other synths and seqs as well....

[gentleclockdivider]

fact that none of the Roli-fxpansion crew have joined the discussion says enough

[BERFAB]

I was unaware of these developments at FXpansion until stumbling into this thread. I own most of their products, and was particularly enamored with Geist and Tremor. Not a huge fan of the synth line, but that's not to say that they aren't great products too.
FXpansion was a gutsy little company. I will miss that spirit.

Cheers
-B

[perpetual3]

fact that none of the Roli-fxpansion crew have joined the discussion says enough

Exactly my thoughts as well.

[Rastkovic]

fact that none of the Roli-fxpansion crew have joined the discussion says enough

Well, they can only loose in this discussion....

[twisted-space]

fact that none of the Roli-fxpansion crew have joined the discussion says enough

Well, they can only loose in this discussion....

They will if they fail to engage with their customers.

[Aloysius]

Frankly Goes To Hollywood

[liquid234]

Hm, perhaps it is time for SynthOS. An operating system (e.g. based on a low latency Linux kernel) that just stays as is as a platform for synths. Without internet connection (so security fixes aren't necessary). Where plugins can be copied over from USB stick to the computer. That is supposed to be installed to a dedicated machine that is not used for anything else.

After some years a new edition of SynthOS might come out. Then people shouldn't "update" but just keep their SynthOS2018 machine and buy a new one for SynthOS2025 which they can use side by side with the old one.
This would combine the benefits of "hardware" and software synths - new features could be added fast like for software and if the inevitable point in time is reached where it isn't feasible for the dev anymore to further maintain the plugin it wouldn't stop people from further using it. (You don't throw your CS80 into the dust bin just because Yamaha stops selling them).

To further make sure the platform's "immortality", protection should just be serials or watermarked binaries etc. So if the machine dies you can revive it as long as you still get some hardware that is compatible with that SynthOS version. (Chances are good - you can still get any computer generation off ebay).
People would have to stay strong and not buy anything (for that SynthOS platform) that binds the software to a particular piece of hardware and requires active support from the dev for re-activation. Then it won't be an option for devs that threatens to thwart the basic idea behind the concept. E.g. the well-being of u-he and others convinces me that activation/dongles etc. are not a financial necessity. If the plugin is great then enough people will pay for it.
And if some companies don't want that - fine, it's quality over quantity anyways.

Similar regarding "eternal betas" - there it's in the hands of the buyers to tell the devs about our priorities with our pockets. Not buying anything on that platform without a demo, neither buying anything whose demo is buggy - but actively telling the dev that you are interested, but not buying yet because of bug xyz.
As long as people buy stuff no matter what they send the message to the devs that investing into stability isn't lucrative, so there is less incentive for them to invest into making things stable instead of adding new features that make money again.

I could imagine that plugins could be first released to the usual OSes.
And if a really stable version is reached this is released to the stability-and-longevity sensitive SynthOS people. That could mean that not each and every version of a plugin is available for that platform and that it might be somewhat more expensive than the same plugin for other platforms (extra stability iterations cost money).
That would imho be ok!

Brilliant idea. No idea if anyone is working on it, but it would quietly revolutionize computer music production. The specific nuts and bolts are debatable, but I cannot imagine anyone here that would not at least be interested in the possibility of a SynthOS. Have to assume it would be much more stable for performance as well.

[Vertion]

Sure, a virtual machine that runs on everything, with a scripting language with special speed ups for dsp. It woild have to be public oprn source. All discontinued products (and companies) would become instant freeware. Let's call it VST 4 Free Planet.

You know, Blue Cat has a product like this I think.

[Grizzellda]

About "SynthOS"...sounds fantastic!!!

Hey, jancivil...nice to near you got support. It would be super cool if they merged Tremor (or quite frankly alot of the stuff from the discontinued plugs) into Geist, or made some new, modern product that integrates with Roli hardware.

Of course it would be delightful to get a post from them on this forum, they should be here.

[zerocrossing]

What really happened is that FXPansion is dead. Roli killed it for the instruments they were interested in. What they should do is sell off the other plugins they don’t care about to another developer.

It might be that they couldn‘t, even if they want.
I could say the same about some other tools (like my beloved P900). Abandoned and a shame that others can‘t work further on such nice DSP.
However, life goes on, earth still rotate and new developers growing as well...
Don‘t look back!

P900 is abandoned? I’m a Windows guy for music, so I’ve not been paying attention, but the site still works.

[Cinebient]

What really happened is that FXPansion is dead. Roli killed it for the instruments they were interested in. What they should do is sell off the other plugins they don’t care about to another developer.

It might be that they couldn‘t, even if they want.
I could say the same about some other tools (like my beloved P900). Abandoned and a shame that others can‘t work further on such nice DSP.
However, life goes on, earth still rotate and new developers growing as well...
Don‘t look back!

P900 is abandoned? I’m a Windows guy for music, so I’ve not been paying attention, but the site still works.

Bugs get not solved after a year and there is no sign of further developement since a year in general.
There won‘t be the planned windows version anytime soon or new modules.... i doubt even bug fixes at this point.
The good news, it still works the same on macOS Mojave and Logic 10.4.2 and i still find it personally the best sounding synth but i have to accept that this synth could break with the next os update and the developer seems to left this project in the dust and i have to live with it as is, including some bugs (some i would call not small like giant peak outbreaks which are even dangerous if you forgot to use a limiter and killing the audio that i have to restart the DAW sometimes).