FXpansion’s BFD Acquired by inMusic

[yellowmix]

The brain trust behind FXpansion, including the entire engineering department, will not stay at Roli to work on Cyber and Strobe, but instead head over to InMusic. "

So, that's end of the line for Cypher and Strobe, it seems?

Article is wrong, only the BFD team went to InMusic. Core FXpansion team responsible for Cypher and Strobe (and Geist) remains with Roli.

[digitalboytn]

Roli is knee deep in the hooplah and if Lumi doesn't work for them,then their financial position is only going to get worse...

I always get a little cautious when private equity funding is injected into a company and when those funds fail to have a positive outcome on the bottom line,the initial enthusiasm usually turns to desperation and things can get very nasty...

I wish Roli all the best and I hope that they can achieve the goals that they have set for themselves,because looking at the state of play,they are going to need nearly every coin flip to be the one they have called

[yellowmix]

Interesting excerpt from Matt Brennan's "Kick It: A Social History of the Drum Kit", p. 307:

In the United Kingdom, a company called FXpansion was founded in London in 1999 by software coder Angus Schulet [sic], who was approached at NAMM in 2001 by a sound designer and engineer named Steve Duda with an idea. Duda had worked with Trent Reznor among other industrial artists, and in the process had recorded samples of sounds from a high quality, multi-channel acoustic drum kit. According to Duda, `at the time the computer couldn't keep up with all the multi-mic disk streaming. So I approached FXpansion about managing and streaming all these samples'. Schulet then hired a talented software programmer (and keen fan of industrial music) named SKoT McDonald in 2002 to write the code for the company. The result was a software package called BFD, an acronym which stands for (what else?) Big f**king Drums, even though this was not made explicit on any of their marketing material. (When the company encountered trouble marketing their product in the bible belt [sic] of the USA due to its name, FXpansion staff occasionally explained that the acronym stood for `Big Friendly Drums', or even better, `Big Faithfully Recorded Drums', in order to persuade distributors.) According to McDonald, the company initially thought they might sell a few hundred copies of the software, but upon launching the product in 2003 they quickly started hitting their two-year sales target every month.

[...]

These digital innovations had a lasting impact on shaping not just the sound of the drum kit, but the definition of what comprised a drum kit [...]

Edit: added [sic], that is how it is spelled in the book itself. It's supposed to refer to Angus Hewlett.

[Amberience]

Who the hell is Angus Schulet?!

[Amberience]

https://futuremusic.com/2020/04/24/roli ... -keyboard/

"Next to go was FXpansion, the UK developer of the Strobe soft synth, and most notably BFD, a popular acoustic drum simulator that is enjoyed by studio engineers who relish it’s ability to augment recorded kits. InMusic is the lucky winner this time, the same conglomerate behind Akai, Numark, Alesis and M-Audio. The brain trust behind FXpansion, including the entire engineering department, will not stay at Roli to work on Cyber and Strobe, but instead head over to InMusic. "

So, that's end of the line for Cypher and Strobe, it seems?

To be clear - FXpansion was *NOT* sold. Only BFD. The BFD IP + team have gone to inMusic. Everything else to do with FXpansion remains with ROLI and Cypher2 and Strobe2 are still very much appreciated parts of the portfolio.

That article is wrong in what it says about FXpansion.

[revvy]

https://futuremusic.com/2020/04/24/roli ... -keyboard/

"Next to go was FXpansion, the UK developer of the Strobe soft synth, and most notably BFD, a popular acoustic drum simulator that is enjoyed by studio engineers who relish it’s ability to augment recorded kits. InMusic is the lucky winner this time, the same conglomerate behind Akai, Numark, Alesis and M-Audio. The brain trust behind FXpansion, including the entire engineering department, will not stay at Roli to work on Cyber and Strobe, but instead head over to InMusic. "

So, that's end of the line for Cypher and Strobe, it seems?

To be clear - FXpansion was *NOT* sold. Only BFD. The BFD IP + team have gone to inMusic. Everything else to do with FXpansion remains with ROLI and Cypher2 and Strobe2 are still very much appreciated parts of the portfolio.

That article is wrong in what it says about FXpansion.

So Geist is a non-appreciated part of the portfolio (sic)?

Lack of synergies possibly.

[Amberience]

https://futuremusic.com/2020/04/24/roli ... -keyboard/

"Next to go was FXpansion, the UK developer of the Strobe soft synth, and most notably BFD, a popular acoustic drum simulator that is enjoyed by studio engineers who relish it’s ability to augment recorded kits. InMusic is the lucky winner this time, the same conglomerate behind Akai, Numark, Alesis and M-Audio. The brain trust behind FXpansion, including the entire engineering department, will not stay at Roli to work on Cyber and Strobe, but instead head over to InMusic. "

So, that's end of the line for Cypher and Strobe, it seems?

To be clear - FXpansion was *NOT* sold. Only BFD. The BFD IP + team have gone to inMusic. Everything else to do with FXpansion remains with ROLI and Cypher2 and Strobe2 are still very much appreciated parts of the portfolio.

That article is wrong in what it says about FXpansion.

So Geist is a non-appreciated part of the portfolio (sic)?

Lack of synergies possibly.

My skin bubbles with fire and I look like an angry Chucky doll whenever I read that word.

I wouldn't say Geist is not appreciated. I think there are internal moves to do something with it, but I don't really know much beyond that.

[revvy]

https://futuremusic.com/2020/04/24/roli ... -keyboard/

"Next to go was FXpansion, the UK developer of the Strobe soft synth, and most notably BFD, a popular acoustic drum simulator that is enjoyed by studio engineers who relish it’s ability to augment recorded kits. InMusic is the lucky winner this time, the same conglomerate behind Akai, Numark, Alesis and M-Audio. The brain trust behind FXpansion, including the entire engineering department, will not stay at Roli to work on Cyber and Strobe, but instead head over to InMusic. "

So, that's end of the line for Cypher and Strobe, it seems?

To be clear - FXpansion was *NOT* sold. Only BFD. The BFD IP + team have gone to inMusic. Everything else to do with FXpansion remains with ROLI and Cypher2 and Strobe2 are still very much appreciated parts of the portfolio.

That article is wrong in what it says about FXpansion.

So Geist is a non-appreciated part of the portfolio (sic)?

Lack of synergies possibly.

My skin bubbles with fire and I look like an angry Chucky doll whenever I read that word.

I wouldn't say Geist is not appreciated. I think there are internal moves to do something with it, but I don't really know much beyond that.

Fair enough, Geist is not your area, I understand that.

FXp (Angus?) said in a thread a few months back it was safe, be interesting to hear from them about it now.

[triggerthehorizon]

Any news on when the BFD3 maintenance update will be released to fix some of the grooves not appearing in the pane on the bottom left of the grooves page

[elxsound]

https://futuremusic.com/2020/04/24/roli ... -keyboard/

"Next to go was FXpansion, the UK developer of the Strobe soft synth, and most notably BFD, a popular acoustic drum simulator that is enjoyed by studio engineers who relish it’s ability to augment recorded kits. InMusic is the lucky winner this time, the same conglomerate behind Akai, Numark, Alesis and M-Audio. The brain trust behind FXpansion, including the entire engineering department, will not stay at Roli to work on Cyber and Strobe, but instead head over to InMusic. "

So, that's end of the line for Cypher and Strobe, it seems?

To be clear - FXpansion was *NOT* sold. Only BFD. The BFD IP + team have gone to inMusic. Everything else to do with FXpansion remains with ROLI and Cypher2 and Strobe2 are still very much appreciated parts of the portfolio.

That article is wrong in what it says about FXpansion.

So Geist is a non-appreciated part of the portfolio (sic)?

Lack of synergies possibly.

My skin bubbles with fire and I look like an angry Chucky doll whenever I read that word.

I wouldn't say Geist is not appreciated. I think there are internal moves to do something with it, but I don't really know much beyond that.

You'd have to have either been through more than one merger/takeover or heard this word too often from just the one experience. Either way sir, you have my sympathies and I know you're pain!!

[Angus_FX]

Geist2 is safe - it just had a significant maintenance update in February.

That FutureMusic (USA) article is chock full of obvious errors. ROLI has reached out to request corrections. (The more well known Future Music you may be familiar with, the long-established magazine title, is an entirely different entity and is hosted at https://www.musicradar.com/futuremusic )

Cypher2 & Strobe2 are still being maintained and form a key part of ROLI Studio Player. ROLI Studio Drums is based on the same engine (which is neither Geist nor Tremor, but a cousin of those).

[revvy]

Geist2 is safe - it just had a significant maintenance update in February.

That FutureMusic (USA) article is chock full of obvious errors. ROLI has reached out to request corrections. (The more well known Future Music you may be familiar with, the long-established magazine title, is an entirely different entity and is hosted at https://www.musicradar.com/futuremusic )

Cypher2 & Strobe2 are still being maintained and form a key part of ROLI Studio Player. ROLI Studio Drums is based on the same engine (which is neither Geist nor Tremor, but a cousin of those).

Thanks Angus. Love Geist2.

Good luck with all!

[triggerthehorizon]

Duplicate post.

[triggerthehorizon]

So how will my FXpansion account look in a few months from now?

Will Cypher and Strobe be moved over to a Roli account?
BFD3 and all related expansions and legacy versions moved over to an InMusic account
and then Geist and all the legacy FXpansion stuff will remain in an FXpansion account?

[triggerthehorizon]

Does anyone know what kind of anti-piracy InMusic use for their stuff? Will BFD now require an ILOK?