Brainworx bx_console AMEK 9099

[sl1200mk2]

The older Elysia stuff (again under the umbrella of Brainworx) was largely Michael Massberg of SPL Software for the modelling and programming. I believe it was SPL and Elysia that did the bulk of the work, but it was distributed by Brainworx as they had the sales and distribution channel for it.

Phil's Cascade was done by Reimund Dratwa and Roger Schult of Neold Audio, but again, released and distributed by Brainworx.

[SoftSynthLover99]

ay, my bad re: lindell.

Source regarding Elysia? They have a group of guys who work on the plugins as well. I remember seeing a video of it for Alpha Compressor way back. I wouldn’t be surprised if brainworx helped them but Elysia has people developing things in house as well. Hardware and software.

It’s not uncommon for teams to have people from multiple companies working on a single product. It’s not just “1 guy at brainworx making all plugins”.

For one, it's under Brainworx products lineup.

https://www.brainworx.audio/products.html

Can't complain about them either, i think they're fine plugins. (The elysia's. Phil's Cascade is one of my fav plugs, and if i didn't have so much disdain for PA i'd still have it)

A lot of brands are listed under brainworx like the ACME audio comp (which is fantastic) but was also developed by the guy at Fuse Audio Labs I believe. Universal Audio employs a similar strategy of getting a lot of talented developers under one brand to release plugins under them.

I’m not really sure why you have such disdain for people you’ve never met personally, but I (respectfully) think your perspective is not accurate to how the plugins are developed. I think you may have a lot of misinformation about the way PA actually works, and all the brands and developers who are apart of PA.

I mean it’s really in the name, Plugin ALLIANCE lol. An alliance with many brands and developers under one roof.

[Ploki]

Lot of good plugs by bx are by ray

@sl1200mk2
Thanks for the clarification, i wasnt aware of that. So brainworx was already “PA” before it was officially PA then

[Ploki]

I’m not really sure why you have such disdain for people you’ve never met personally, but I (respectfully) think your perspective is not accurate to how the plugins are developed. I think you may have a lot of misinformation about the way PA actually works, and all the brands and developers who are apart of PA.

I mean it’s really in the name, Plugin ALLIANCE lol. An alliance with many brands and developers under one roof.

I dont have disdain for developers - a lot of bx/pa plugs are coded inhouse - and even then i dont think the developers are bad.

They’re just obviously pushed to churn out many plugins as fast as possible. Not really developers fault, more marketing departments

[SoftSynthLover99]

I’m not really sure why you have such disdain for people you’ve never met personally, but I (respectfully) think your perspective is not accurate to how the plugins are developed. I think you may have a lot of misinformation about the way PA actually works, and all the brands and developers who are apart of PA.

I mean it’s really in the name, Plugin ALLIANCE lol. An alliance with many brands and developers under one roof.

I dont have disdain for developers - a lot of bx/pa plugs are coded inhouse - and even then i dont think the developers are bad.

They’re just obviously pushed to churn out many plugins as fast as possible. Not really developers fault, more marketing departments

You are assuming they are “pushed to churn out plugins as fast as possible”. You have no way to know that’s how the developers work at brainworx. I think that is a false perception you have of the company.

If you have disdain for the products PA release, then yes you do have disdain (and a lack of respect) for the developers behind the products. Saying “this product sucks or is not that good” in every new PA release thread is the same as saying “this developer of this plugin sucks and is not that good”.

You can’t spit in a guys face and then say “oh no, I like you, I’m just gonna continue to spit in your face every chance I get”.

[beely]

Plugin Alliance is a "distribution company" - they don't *develop* anything, they distribute, sell, provide a licensing and web shop infrastructure and marketing, make connections with third-parties to distribute their plugins via Plugin Alliance's site etc, and distribute the monies accordingly.

Brainworx are a software developer founded by Dirk (although they have divisions that do other audio related activities too), as are Lindell and many other companies that are distributed by PA.

Now, some brands under the PA umbrella are actually brands modelled by Brainworx developers, some even with Dirk managing those projects. This is likely companies that want to offered branded software versions of their hardware, but don't necessarily have software developers onboard to do it, so they have an arrangement with Brainworx who do the actual modelling, but the plugins come under the third-party brand name.

Amek is a brand owned by Dirk, again the modelling is done by the Brainworx team.

Other third-parties do their own code, and Brainworx just shares some framework code for them to bring the plugins into the PA world with general functionality, licensing and so on, but Brainworx don't maintain that code as such, it's the responsibility of the individual developers.

So it's a bit confusing, but Plugin Alliance was basically formed by the Brainworx management as a brand to distribute Brainworx plugins, and to bring other third-party brands on board and distribute those too to build a larger marketplace and portfolio than Brainworx alone could build.

Who does the actual coding varies from brand to brand.

Hope that clears some stuff up...

[Ploki]

You are assuming they are “pushed to churn out plugins as fast as possible”. You have no way to know that’s how the developers work at brainworx. I think that is a false perception you have of the company.

I'm assuming that by often oversight of obvious bugs of v1 releases, speed at which they fix bugs, how support responds to bugs, and how things like "mass ticket purge" happens, speed at which things like M1 support happens.
Developers aren't at fault for any of that really, they can't freely work on M1 support and bug fixes if management says "focus on the next gamechanger", they're paid by the company to do what the company says.
It's not an assumption i pulled out of my ass out of sheer boredom, it's an assumption based on direct communication and past product release.

Unfortunately i.e. UA support goes through PA as well, and even in the fb echo chamber there are recurring posts for long-standing bugs...

If you have disdain for the products PA release, then yes you do have disdain (and a lack of respect) for the developers behind the products. Saying “this product sucks or is not that good” in every new PA release thread is the same as saying “this developer of this plugin sucks and is not that good”.

You can’t spit in a guys face and then say “oh no, I like you, I’m just gonna continue to spit in your face every chance I get”.

That's unnecessarily absolutist.
I have disdain for PA (bx) product releases because they feel cheap af and things i outlined up. Again, that's not the developers fault, it's the management's fault for promoting them as such for allocating time as they do.

[escalona]

You are assuming they are “pushed to churn out plugins as fast as possible”. You have no way to know that’s how the developers work at brainworx. I think that is a false perception you have of the company.

I'm assuming that by often oversight of obvious bugs of v1 releases, speed at which they fix bugs, how support responds to bugs, and how things like "mass ticket purge" happens, speed at which things like M1 support happens.
Developers aren't at fault for any of that really, they can't freely work on M1 support and bug fixes if management says "focus on the next gamechanger", they're paid by the company to do what the company says.
It's not an assumption i pulled out of my ass out of sheer boredom, it's an assumption based on direct communication and past product release.

Unfortunately i.e. UA support goes through PA as well, and even in the fb echo chamber there are recurring posts for long-standing bugs...

@SoftSynthLover99, the fact that in 3 years (since 2018) PA public revenue has gone from $9.6M to $2M (this is public records, you can check it out yourself) could be a clue about the need to create a need for that new plugin every so often, and thus how fast it's coming out (and how careless). The gigantic disasters that started with Iron, the first Shadow hills, the dreadful monstrosity of that true peak limiter... it just shows very little care. They've just found a formula to excrete plugins at a certain pulse that keeps their fan base sustaining the revenue. Maintenance is barely existing and tickets about technical issues are quickly purged. Every now and then (quite often actually) they have all these sales to recoup any money they can from old digital waste (and I'm sure it also brings them new customers who don't know any better).
On top of this, all the new features you may have seen in the last few years (different zoom levels, true peak...) it all started with someone (a customer) asking for it and the Di*k basically laughing out loud about it (literally, the answers to request from customers received a "Nope, lol", "Not a fan of that", "Not happening, lol", "If you need that you need to see a doctor..."; I'm not making this up) until it was many people actually saying: it's about time for these (otherwise very pragmatic and easy to add... and obvious!) features. Finally, he gave in and quite possibly contracted out someone to code that (my guess: in the cheapest way possible). I'm sure in about a year or so those plugins may have finally have a gain match feature (depending on how much noise the fanbois make). I think a lot of people are already noticing that 4dB+ discrepancy on every A/B comparison they put on all videos, both their own and all the sponsored ones.
And disdain? For sure. Let me give you an example: a couple of years ago, I point out (on facebook and on a support ticket) a certain issue with a PA plugin. Result: my ticket never gets responded and Di*k insults me publicly on that facebook group (and bans me from it right after). About the same time, I pointed out another issues I encountered to a different company (can't say) and they thanked me and offered me to become a beta tester. I still am nowadays and they are always responsive to feedback.
There are two main ways to go about business: to work as hard as you can to make the best product... or to sell as much and as fast as you can. I have no respect for the latter.

[SoftSynthLover99]

You are assuming they are “pushed to churn out plugins as fast as possible”. You have no way to know that’s how the developers work at brainworx. I think that is a false perception you have of the company.

I'm assuming that by often oversight of obvious bugs of v1 releases, speed at which they fix bugs, how support responds to bugs, and how things like "mass ticket purge" happens, speed at which things like M1 support happens.
Developers aren't at fault for any of that really, they can't freely work on M1 support and bug fixes if management says "focus on the next gamechanger", they're paid by the company to do what the company says.
It's not an assumption i pulled out of my ass out of sheer boredom, it's an assumption based on direct communication and past product release.

Unfortunately i.e. UA support goes through PA as well, and even in the fb echo chamber there are recurring posts for long-standing bugs...

@SoftSynthLover99, the fact that in 3 years (since 2018) PA public revenue has gone from $9.6M to $2M (this is public records, you can check it out yourself) could be a clue about the need to create a need for that new plugin every so often, and thus how fast it's coming out (and how careless). The gigantic disasters that started with Iron, the first Shadow hills, the dreadful monstrosity of that true peak limiter... it just shows very little care. They've just found a formula to excrete plugins at a certain pulse that keeps their fan base sustaining the revenue. Maintenance is barely existing and tickets about technical issues are quickly purged. Every now and then (quite often actually) they have all these sales to recoup any money they can from old digital waste (and I'm sure it also brings them new customers who don't know any better).
On top of this, all the new features you may have seen in the last few years (different zoom levels, true peak...) it all started with someone (a customer) asking for it and the Di*k basically laughing out loud about it (literally, the answers to request from customers received a "Nope, lol", "Not a fan of that", "Not happening, lol", "If you need that you need to see a doctor..."; I'm not making this up) until it was many people actually saying: it's about time for these (otherwise very pragmatic and easy to add... and obvious!) features. Finally, he gave in and quite possibly contracted out someone to code that (my guess: in the cheapest way possible). I'm sure in about a year or so those plugins may have finally have a gain match feature (depending on how much noise the fanbois make). I think a lot of people are already noticing that 4dB+ discrepancy on every A/B comparison they put on all videos, both their own and all the sponsored ones.
And disdain? For sure. Let me give you an example: a couple of years ago, I point out (on facebook and on a support ticket) a certain issue with a PA plugin. Result: my ticket never gets responded and Di*k insults me publicly on that facebook group (and bans me from it right after). About the same time, I pointed out another issues I encountered to a different company (can't say) and they thanked me and offered me to become a beta tester. I still am nowadays and they are always responsive to feedback.
There are two main ways to go about business: to work as hard as you can to make the best product... or to sell as much and as fast as you can. I have no respect for the latter.

I actually respect Dirk more for responding to people in the way you describe! Especially people who think it’s ok to critique and bash a developer, but not ok for that developer to fire back some critiques of his own of your suggestions. These developers don’t owe you a thing and don’t have to add features to the products YOU want them to add. And just because YOU have issues with the plugins doesn’t mean others will.

I’ve used Brainworx, Lindell, Elysia, Unfiltered Audio, SPL, Maag Audio, Vertigo Sound and a bunch more and never had any crashes or bugs that broke my workflow. And a lot of them I used from V1.0 on initial release.

I have no interest to know how much money his company makes as it’s irrelevant. I’ve never felt like any of the plugins I use from PA were cheap, rushed or not polished. On the contrary I find the plugins I use from PA to be quite “premium” in the sound department. And I know a lot of professionals working in the industry who feel the same.

[jasonekratz]

...thank god for the "add foe" button...
Makes me want to hop on the kingoz "omega width" thread... lol

Yeah thank god we don’t have to see disagreement with our personal POV! The audacity!

[jasonekratz]

But I do trust Michael White and he does reviews (Plugin of the week) of certain plugins. What I like about his videos is that he goes in depth (usually 20-30min videos) testing it and showing what it can do. For AMEK 9099 there isn't a video, but most likely he's testing it.

Michael White’s vids are fantastic.

[Ploki]

I actually respect Dirk more for responding to people in the way you describe! Especially people who think it’s ok to critique and bash a developer, but not ok for that developer to fire back some critiques of his own of your suggestions.

Are you okay?
First, dirk is not a developer. Second - you think it's okay for a someone offering you goods and services, that you give your money to - respond to you with personal attacks and scolds you?

If someone pays me for a service and they ask for an improvement or critiques it, i don't lose my shit and start yelling at them and tell them to "get a life". It's unprofessional.
There are plenty of developers even on KVR that are confident and don't agree with everything users say, but they keep things professional and polite and don't descend into personal tirades... (i.e. Urs (u-he), Alexey (Voxengo), Markus (tone2).

If you respect people for being disrespectful to you (or others) for absolutely no reason except for their egoism, you may have some shit to rethink...
I have the same experience as escalona - got invited into the beta team of a well established software company for showing same diligence towards software as i did towards PA. Got a ban from dirk. Every ticket i opened simply disappeared.

Smart developers know that tech savvy users who are nosy, report bugs that make their work easier, not harder. But maybe because Dirk isn't really one, he doesn't.

These developers don’t owe you a thing and don’t have to add features to the products YOU want them to add. And just because YOU have issues with the plugins doesn’t mean others will.

If you slap on a claim on a product and that claim is not full-filled it's called false advertising.
Developers owe you what's stated in their EULA.
Which, as i just read theirs, is one of the worst EULAs ever... You practically owe them according to EULA.
So you're right, PA doesn't owe you shit. They can actually terminate your license at their discretion for any reason whatsoever. If you don't update at their discretion, they can terminate your license.

I’ve used Brainworx, Lindell, Elysia, Unfiltered Audio, SPL, Maag Audio, Vertigo Sound and a bunch more and never had any crashes or bugs that broke my workflow. And a lot of them I used from V1.0 on initial release.

- Knifonium aliased like hell on v1 (got fixed rather quick, in two weeks. There's another bug they keep ignoring)
- bx console ssl had broken metering on v1 (took them two years, and dirk got in a fight with half of gearspace over it)
- bx true peak lags so much its practically unusable on big sur. (wasnt fixed for 3+months)

Some, like IRON, are simply poorly executed (truncating and aliasing that never got addressed, while dirk simply lied that IRON oversamples)

I have no interest to know how much money his company makes as it’s irrelevant. I’ve never felt like any of the plugins I use from PA were cheap, rushed or not polished. On the contrary I find the plugins I use from PA to be quite “premium” in the sound department.

Maybe you do, but given that you also respect people who needlessly personally attack their customers more, i'll take your opinion with a grain of salt.
I don't think that someone berating me is a premium service.
Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of fine things in their catalogue, but it's mostly older bx stuff and non-bx offerings...

And I know a lot of professionals working in the industry who feel the same.

And i know a lot who don't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

[SoftSynthLover99]

@Ploki You clearly have a perspective that will not be changed regarding Plugin Alliance. Fine by me!

[bmanic]

You are assuming they are “pushed to churn out plugins as fast as possible”. You have no way to know that’s how the developers work at brainworx. I think that is a false perception you have of the company.

I'm assuming that by often oversight of obvious bugs of v1 releases, speed at which they fix bugs, how support responds to bugs, and how things like "mass ticket purge" happens, speed at which things like M1 support happens.
Developers aren't at fault for any of that really, they can't freely work on M1 support and bug fixes if management says "focus on the next gamechanger", they're paid by the company to do what the company says.
It's not an assumption i pulled out of my ass out of sheer boredom, it's an assumption based on direct communication and past product release.

Unfortunately i.e. UA support goes through PA as well, and even in the fb echo chamber there are recurring posts for long-standing bugs...

@SoftSynthLover99, the fact that in 3 years (since 2018) PA public revenue has gone from $9.6M to $2M (this is public records, you can check it out yourself) could be a clue about the need to create a need for that new plugin every so often, and thus how fast it's coming out (and how careless). The gigantic disasters that started with Iron, the first Shadow hills, the dreadful monstrosity of that true peak limiter... it just shows very little care. They've just found a formula to excrete plugins at a certain pulse that keeps their fan base sustaining the revenue. Maintenance is barely existing and tickets about technical issues are quickly purged. Every now and then (quite often actually) they have all these sales to recoup any money they can from old digital waste (and I'm sure it also brings them new customers who don't know any better).
On top of this, all the new features you may have seen in the last few years (different zoom levels, true peak...) it all started with someone (a customer) asking for it and the Di*k basically laughing out loud about it (literally, the answers to request from customers received a "Nope, lol", "Not a fan of that", "Not happening, lol", "If you need that you need to see a doctor..."; I'm not making this up) until it was many people actually saying: it's about time for these (otherwise very pragmatic and easy to add... and obvious!) features. Finally, he gave in and quite possibly contracted out someone to code that (my guess: in the cheapest way possible). I'm sure in about a year or so those plugins may have finally have a gain match feature (depending on how much noise the fanbois make). I think a lot of people are already noticing that 4dB+ discrepancy on every A/B comparison they put on all videos, both their own and all the sponsored ones.
And disdain? For sure. Let me give you an example: a couple of years ago, I point out (on facebook and on a support ticket) a certain issue with a PA plugin. Result: my ticket never gets responded and Di*k insults me publicly on that facebook group (and bans me from it right after). About the same time, I pointed out another issues I encountered to a different company (can't say) and they thanked me and offered me to become a beta tester. I still am nowadays and they are always responsive to feedback.
There are two main ways to go about business: to work as hard as you can to make the best product... or to sell as much and as fast as you can. I have no respect for the latter.

I actually respect Dirk more for responding to people in the way you describe! Especially people who think it’s ok to critique and bash a developer, but not ok for that developer to fire back some critiques of his own of your suggestions. These developers don’t owe you a thing and don’t have to add features to the products YOU want them to add. And just because YOU have issues with the plugins doesn’t mean others will.

I’ve used Brainworx, Lindell, Elysia, Unfiltered Audio, SPL, Maag Audio, Vertigo Sound and a bunch more and never had any crashes or bugs that broke my workflow. And a lot of them I used from V1.0 on initial release.

I have no interest to know how much money his company makes as it’s irrelevant. I’ve never felt like any of the plugins I use from PA were cheap, rushed or not polished. On the contrary I find the plugins I use from PA to be quite “premium” in the sound department. And I know a lot of professionals working in the industry who feel the same.

So you are basically okay with an echo chamber? It is one of THE most destructive forces in any kind of development environment (or political one). Surrounding yourself with yes-men is a very bad idea.. but it is often what weak individuals do.

There are 3 companies that I am aware of who have artificially created and maintain 100% complete echo-chambers on facebook and the ironic thing is, it shows in their products quality (in terms of bugs and innovation). It also shows the weakness of some of their users who are happily ignorant of some of the issues.. sometimes even aggressively defending completely objectively bad decisions and actions of the company just to stay with the flock and be praised by "dear leader".

PA gets a lot of critique and at least from my point of view, it is very much deserved.

There's a big difference in a developer desperately trying to silence all critique and ridicule paying customers versus a developer calmly (or even aggressively) explaining why something will not be implemented because of XYZ. Dirk definitely falls into the first category and that is 100% harmful and absolutely not at all constructive in any way.

Dirk also has a way of making people hate his products and attitude simply by being brutal about marketing. Remember in the old days here on KvR when he boldly tried to claim that Brainworx "invented" mid/side processing? Yeah.. stuff like that will make anybody with even a modicum of knowledge have some sour thoughts about the company and it's motivations.

[bmanic]

...thank god for the "add foe" button...
Makes me want to hop on the kingoz "omega width" thread... lol

Yeah thank god we don’t have to see disagreement with our personal POV! The audacity!

Exactly. Echo-chamber is what many people seem to gravitate towards automatically. I don't really understand the drive for this. To me it makes no logical sense at all. Having somebody challenge your point of view is extremely valuable.