Synapse Orion DAW being discontinued after latest public beta 8.6!?

[v1o]

Arturia Storm, Cakewalk Project 5, Fruity Loops, Rebirth 338, Orion Platinum and Reason 3 - they were the great hexad! Those were great times to be alive and making music.

I'm actually thinking of building a period appropriate vintage PC just to run old music making software and hardware PCI based DSP cards (eg Korg Oasys PCI, Powercore Access Virus, Creamware and Ensoniq Paris). Even though the technical specifications were less back then, the sound was better subjectively. That's a dream summer project for me.

[chk071]

Isn't Reaper developed by one man?

Almost. I think the team consist of 2 or 3, while Justin Frankel is the only one working full time on it (I think).

[Eclectrophonic]

Isn't Reaper developed by one man? The thing is, though, I don't think Rich ever wanted to make a "full-featured DAW", those just became the expectations of the market. It was always a "virtual studio" and that's all he wanted it to be, I think - a sequencer, a mixer and an array of instruments and effects. None of the other stuff - audio tracks, automation and stuff, interested him. I'm pretty sure he'd have been happy adding new and better instruments and effects for as long as it kept selling. The problem was/is that most of the market is made up of idiots with no idea what they are doing or what they need to get it done, so sales were/are all about the feature list. If you can't tick enough boxes, no-one was/is going to be interested.

Reaper is coded by just 2 people - Justin Frankel and John Schwartz. I personally would love to see Orion resurrected. Might even e-mail Synapse.

I'd use it for my house stuff. The Pro 9 and Monobass are great and that Sonic Pad (the sampler default patch) is a fantastic patch. There is one very similar if not the same in Dune 3.

Surely working with existing code would be better than starting from scratch?

If Richard has no plans to resurrect this daw, I wish he'd let someone else do it like possibly (Bandlab) or just employ another coder (if not 2) and then with his input too he could resurrect it and divide his time 60 / 40 (Orion) between his plug-ins and Orion.

[BONES]

The thing is, before DUNE I am pretty sure he wasn't earning enough to work on Synapse Audio stuff full-time. He seemed to often be off doing other paid work. I think Orion was always a labour of love, not a viable business.

[chk071]

I think it's safe to say that Orion won't be resurrected.

[lessera]

I think it's safe to say that Orion won't be resurrected.

Which is too bad, as it was a very enjoyable 'pattern-based' sequencer to use. As a long-time user of FT2 and Jeskola Buzz, I found it's workflow to be a good bridge-in to the piano-roll sequencers of today. For me, it struck a fine balance between being 'fun' and 'productive.'

[vurt]

. I personally would love to see Orion resurrected. Might even e-mail Synapse.

probably have more luck hiring a necromancer or building a time machine

[Teksonik]

None of the other stuff - audio tracks, automation and stuff, interested him. I'm pretty sure he'd have been happy adding new and better instruments and effects for as long as it kept selling.

The problem is Orion didn't sell whether you call it a DAW or a Virtual Studio.

Rich posted they sold more copies of their little kick plugin EKS Pro.

I'm going to say it was the slow pace of development and constant push back against new feature requests that killed Orion and you'll say it was a lack of advertising. Round and round we go....

[Teksonik]

If Richard has no plans to resurrect this daw, I wish he'd let someone else do it like possibly (Bandlab) or just employ another coder (if not 2) and then with his input too he could resurrect it and divide his time 60 / 40 (Orion) between his plug-ins and Orion.

People have been suggesting this since the day Orion was discontinued five years ago. It's not likely to ever happen now.

Orion is just too far behind now. Rich recently posted...."to make Orion competitive again, it would probably require 3-4 people working at least a year or two".

I think Orion was always a labour of love, not a viable business.

It always seemed like creating synths is Rich's true passion. It shows in the results and he really should stick with it.......

[Teksonik]

. I personally would love to see Orion resurrected. Might even e-mail Synapse.

probably have more luck hiring a necromancer or building a time machine

Every scheme you could think of has been brought up over the years including someone claiming they could raise $300,000 to bring Orion back. He then turned up here begging for money to get his car fixed.

[BONES]

The problem is Orion didn't sell whether you call it a DAW or a Virtual Studio.

It's not about what you call it, it was about the scope Rich had envisioned for it. I don't think he ever wanted it to be a full-featured DAW solution but that became the expectation of the market. For example, he probably would never have added audio tracks if it wasn't for pressure from customers.

I'm going to say it was the slow pace of development and constant push back against new feature requests that killed Orion and you'll say it was a lack of advertising. Round and round we go....

No, I having been saying exactly the same thing - Rich didn't want Orion to be what customers expected it to be so he wasn't all that interested in doing what users were requesting, unless it fit his vision for the product. But to suggest that development was slow is a long way from the reality of the situation. It may not have progressed at the break-neck pace of Reaper or Fruityloops but it got solid upgrades on a fairly regular basis. It far outstripped Reason, for example, which was probably closest to Orion in concept.

Market presence was definitely an issue at times. e.g. Orion had VSTi support from v1.0, a while before Fruityloops did but even then, Fruityloops outsold it 10:1 because people knew about Fruityloops but nobody knew about Orion. Ditto with Reason - Orion was better than Reason when Reason launched but Reason had a huge marketing push that gave it a massive advantage. Also the fact that you could buy Fruityloops and Reason at your local music store helped them to gain a profile in the pro market, where Orion never managed to get a foothold.

It always seemed like creating synths is Rich's true passion.

Absolutely, which is why he prioritised new and upgraded instruments and effects over bolting on layers of unnecessary complication to keep users off his case. He was also focused on sound quality and resisted users who wanted him to implement features that might have affected that.

[Teksonik]

over bolting on layers of unnecessary complication to keep users off his case. He was also focused on sound quality and resisted users who wanted him to implement features that might have affected that.

And that in a nutshell is what killed Orion. One user's opinion of "unnecessary complications" only served to retard the growth of Orion.

It had a chance to compete with other software but couldn't.

Which is why it's been dead for five years and is not likely to ever rise from the grave.

Yes it's a shame but such is the the nature of business. Compete or be left behind.

[schpaeckulum]

I'd say by 2015 his code was obsolete and in need of rewrites, which is a death sentence because difficult and doesn't pay off. Same with other 'semi-pro' apps originally developed for XP and WindowsNT, such as AudioMulch, EnergyXT 1, etc.

Don't see what's so great about the built-in Orion synths, IMO they all sounded meh even by 2005 standards.

[BONES]

Nothing sounds better than the filters and the way they modulate in Wasp. Nothing. I can get close in DUNE or ArcSyn but not all the way there. It's an almost irreplaceable sound that has defined our music for 15 years. I can render out some examples if you're skeptical and you can see how hard or easy it is to replicate what Wasp is capable of.

It had a chance to compete with other software but couldn't.

That's a matter of perspective because from mine it was the other way around - nothing else could compete with Orion's super-slick workflow or it's sound quality. That's why for 16 or 17 years I never so much as tried any other host. I looked at Ableton, Reaper, Reason, Traktion, etc. when they were released but, like the established players, they had nothing to interest me in the slightest. They all tried to do too much, to be all things to all people, which got in the way of getting things done.

Even now, after 18 months or so full-time on Cubase, I'd go back to Orion in a heartbeat if it would run reliably. There is nothing Cubase has that I would miss if I went back. Not a single thing that ever made me think "this would be handy in Orion", just a whole heap of krap taking up room in the GUI that I have no use for. Studio One seems like a definite improvement over Cubase, although it's early days, but again, it's fundamentally held back by its GUI and will never do for me what Orion can. They tout their drag'n'drop ethos, without realising that when you are forced to work that way, it means you need two windows to drag from/to, one of which is taking up space that could be better utilised. The browsers in Cubase, Bitwig and FL Studio are sort of the same. I work with the browser closed, using right-click and drop-down menus to do things as much as possible.

Ditto for the inspector panels, which just duplicate info and function from other parts of the GUI. In fact, have a look at any of the big hosts and see how much information is presented multiple times in different places. It will blow your mind. OTOH, the only things I can think of that are duplicated in Orion are the Mute/Solo buttons that appear on both the Playlist and the instrument toolbar. It's an example of the efficiency of the Orion GUI/workflow that those are the only elements that need to appear in more than one place.

[schpaeckulum]

Nothing sounds better than the filters and the way they modulate in Wasp. Nothing.

That same synth is available in Fruity Loops, or am I wrong? I'll try it on my own, just have to dig out the installer and run it. Problem is, I'd use a synthesizer for a lot more than simple filter sweeps, and there's a lot Wasp can not do.

Even now, after 18 months or so full-time on Cubase, I'd go back to Orion in a heartbeat if it would run reliably.

Windows 7. I've been running it since forever, don't plan to switch to a newer platform at all.