Image Line Acquires UVI

[machinesworking]

A good example to demonstrate how silly many people are...

People were whining 20+ years about their wonky DAW timing and even nowadays Cubase isn´t able to trigger a synth from a Midi VST without timing issues... but that´s professional!

This is typical forum antics. MIDI jitter was a conversation for a while, that's about it. I don't use Cubase, I haven't heard anyone since jitter was addressed 20 years ago complain about DP and Logic other DAWs etc.

If somebody goes a different way which improves timing by a factor of minimum 100 but it isn´t suitable for some niche applications... that´s a toy!

Find the error!

The error is called a straw man, you've set up multiple ones. That MIDI was/is deeply flawed, that somehow that makes not having it better, that you didn't set up the argument in the first place by all of this.

I have no issues at all with FL, I personally like step sequencers, you did this whole thing of overblowing jitter concerns with MIDI 20 years ago because FL chose to go another way. My original post wasn't intended to knock FL, just to point out that FL's lack of MIDI (not to mention audio recording) is what set it up for people to act like it's a toy. Jazz, classical and other more "pro" musicians are super defensive and will make fun of electronic music, bleeps and bloops etc. IMO it's not good to reverse that and act like other DAWs are wonky etc. it's just unnecessary partisanship.

Btw... I am always again amazed and surprised how many people are writing their orchestral stuff in FLS which I personally consider as masochistic...
Nonetheless it seems to work...so it seems there is no need for Logic, DP and Cubase for such a task...

Yes, people will write in what they're comfortable in, it doesn't make it a good choice to, but in the end it doesn't matter if the music is good.

Second...taken your argument something like Ableton and Bitwig must be considered as well as toys as just a little amount of people are using it for "full orchestral scores"...

Again... find the error!

That was never my argument. You set up straw men because people were having fun pointing out FL stands for Fruity Loops, you acted like other DAWs were flawed in order to combat this I guess? I don't get it really, I don't give a rats ass what traditional musicians think of the tools I use, and whether it's a toy etc. if I enjoy using it.

[Muziksculp]

Interesting news.

I wonder if this is a positive event ? Will it speed up development of Falcon/UVI Workstation ? Add MPE ?

Have more developers use it to release their libraries/Virtual Instruments ?

[EvilDragon]

What’s the ratio at your place Win v macOS-based customers?

Way more on Win side here in Croatia at the very least.

[jules99]

Much of the younger music production audience would not go anywhere near forums like KVR. Their whole world is on Social Media. And there, beside FL, Arcade is king over just about any other software instrument, so their numbers might be quite high.

Hmmm, what kind of social media?

I still see the same picture on Youtube and Soundcloud. Where do these young musician folks hang out?

Anyhow. Curious stuff.

(Oi, on Instagram there's 155 hits for Output Arcade and only 55 for u-he Diva... we're onto something!)

Yes, IG and Tiktok is where they hang out, where they post, where they get their (oftentimes hilariously wrong) tutorials.

[machinesworking]

What’s the ratio at your place Win v macOS-based customers?

Way more on Win side here in Croatia at the very least.

Aren't you privy to international numbers for some plug ins? I mean the USA is 50/50 maybe even more Mac centric music production wise, but we're one country, not the entire planet and possible user base for FL, NI etc. obviously the same applies for Croatia.

[zerocrossing]

I think Image-Line is too. That's probably why they shorten it.

No, actually Kelloggs

FruityLoops was eventually renamed FL Studio for branding purposes and to avoid a prolonged trademark dispute in the United States with Kelloggs.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image-Lin ... istory_6-8)

Damn. There goes my idea for a reverb plugin called Frosty Flakes.

You and me both, buddy. My Captain Crunch saturation plugin will never see the light of day!

I guess my Sugar Smacks compressor is out of the question, too.

People were really gonna Dig’em!

Could do a Honeycomb Filter, though. Can’t copyright a standard word.

[martinjuenke]

I think Image-Line is too. That's probably why they shorten it.

No, actually Kelloggs

FruityLoops was eventually renamed FL Studio for branding purposes and to avoid a prolonged trademark dispute in the United States with Kelloggs.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image-Lin ... istory_6-8)

Damn. There goes my idea for a reverb plugin called Frosty Flakes.

You and me both, buddy. My Captain Crunch saturation plugin will never see the light of day!

I guess my Sugar Smacks compressor is out of the question, too.

People were really gonna Dig’em!

Could do a Honeycomb Filter, though. Can’t copyright a standard word.

There's even a version for Logic Pro:

52351473-693D-45D0-86B6-D9CB92FBC400.jpeg

[machinesworking]

I think Image-Line is too. That's probably why they shorten it.

No, actually Kelloggs

FruityLoops was eventually renamed FL Studio for branding purposes and to avoid a prolonged trademark dispute in the United States with Kelloggs.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image-Lin ... istory_6-8)

Damn. There goes my idea for a reverb plugin called Frosty Flakes.

You and me both, buddy. My Captain Crunch saturation plugin will never see the light of day!

I guess my Sugar Smacks compressor is out of the question, too.

People were really gonna Dig’em!

Could do a Honeycomb Filter, though. Can’t copyright a standard word.

Don't tell that to Monster cables.

[osiris]

I'd believe the copyright thing. We can't buy British chocolate anymore (in stores at least), because Hershey's sued claiming the European version of KIt-Kat was outselling the U.S. version because people were being 'confused' by the label. Can't buy Yorkies either because they claimed people would confuse it with York Peppermint Patty, even though the labels are different colors and the bars are different shapes. Never underestimate the sheer greed of U.S. companies.

[Image-Line]

Image-line adopted a 'challenge response' product activation system last year. The interests of corporate bean counters was placed above user friendly keyfile activation.

That was 100% my decision, and came because account sharing was exploding. Among other things, I manage the IP and Trust and Safety aspects of our business.

Notice this problem is affecting Netflix and others too. Its the new 'piracy'.

Our Regkey unlock system was completely open for abuse, and was. To be clear, since we have Lifetime Free Updates, and only get to sell FL Studio once to each customer, we are particularly sensitive to account fraud and sharing. This included:

• Sub-leasing their licenses.
• Sharing them with friends
• Reselling multiple copies (shops on Ebay, Amazon, FB etc devoted to it)

The numbers were staggering in come cases, one guy had a network of users in the 100's.

We have seen Regkeys in use in the 10,000's numbers also.

Pirates could take a key, bundle it with a version of FL Studio that didn't phone home and voilà!. Almost effort free crack.

So not just sharing with your best friend, but outright fraud, possible because Regkey licenses were not restricted in the number of installs in any way.

So, put yourself in my position, what would you have done?

You are talking to Scott Fisher (COO).

[jamcat]

Considering the lame name, non-professional reputation, and poorly conceived lifetime update policy, I would have done what Cakewalk did, and started a new DAW with a better name and a paid upgrade policy.

I then would have made Fruity Loops freeware and ceased new development.

[Image-Line]

poorly conceived lifetime update policy

Why do you think it was a poorly conceived policy?

FL Studio is now one of the worlds most popular DAWs - by sales.

Last time I looked Cakewalk failed its user base.

[Double Tap]

The numbers were staggering in come cases, one guy had a network of users in the 100's.

We have seen Regkeys in use in the 10,000's numbers also.

Pirates could take a key, bundle it with a version of FL Studio that didn't phone home and voilà!. Almost effort free crack.

That is mental. 10,000 copies…

Did you see a change in sales after the new system? In other words is there any sign people with cracked copies went out and bought legal ones? Or even just new users buying legit copies.

[Image-Line]

Did you see a change in sales after the new system?

Yes. Every time we tighten anti-piracy at any level. We see a boost in sales.

Particularly when we release new versions that are not cracked, and can't be shared.

Data drives everything on this topic.

Perhaps I should not be surprised, but people often fail to take the perspective of a business trying to sell software, which by its nature is vulnerable to piracy.

It's bad actors who ruin it for everyone else. If people were honest, you would still have access to the old FLRegkey.Reg system. This has always been an arms-race between software companies and and criminals or at least badly behaving teens. Account-sharing is the new Piracy, as I said.

The amount of organized crime surrounding software piracy is staggering. All those torrent servers are not being run for free and by people of good will.

Criminals will pay crackers so they can get something to sell/attract people with.

Recent example - https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/s ... -creators/

Examples of impersonated software that contain malicious YTStealer installers include OBS Studio, Adobe Premiere Pro, FL Studio, Ableton Live, Antares Auto-Tune Pro, and Filmora.


You can see this in operation, here is todays haul from that malware...



These are all fake phishing links.

[revvy]

What’s the ratio at your place Win v macOS-based customers?

Way more on Win side here in Croatia at the very least.

Thanks for the reply.

I meant NI rather than a specific country.