End of development: There will be no new Tone2 products

[briefcasemanx]

I think if he would not try to do everything himself, and got others to handle things like marketing, website art design, UI art design, and customer interaction and support. My sense is that there's a specific sort of inflexibility at play here that is likely good for engineering but is less useful in some of these other tasks and makes them harder and more stressful than they need be, and it feels like some priorities are out of whack. I think getting someone to do customer interaction and support would make him happier, and getting someone to do art design work and especially marketing would net way, way more money which would (probably?) make him happier.

My 2 cents.

[mevla]

I think if he would not try to do everything himself, and got others to handle things like marketing, website art design, UI art design, and customer interaction and support. My sense is that there's a specific sort of inflexibility at play here that is likely good for engineering but is less useful in some of these other tasks and makes them harder and more stressful than they need be, and it feels like some priorities are out of whack. I think getting someone to do customer interaction and support would make him happier, and getting someone to do art design work and especially marketing would net way, way more money which would (probably?) make him happier.

My 2 cents.

The marketing is a bit out-of-touch regarding the trends, can be a bit too much 'hit' oriented when a lot of the customers in this market are simply hobbyists and will never make any money with their creations. Not because of the capabilities of these innovative synths. These synths can cover a wide range of textures, sounds and atmospheres and not only what the marketing largely focuses upon. A more 'underground' feeling of marketing could perhaps reach more customers.

This said, as for support I got several email answers by someone else than Markus, so he's not the only one in there. And if I'm not mistaken there are parts of the development which were done with others.

For the GUIs I find they are spot on for easy to access while dealing with complexity (Gladiator has a more complex UI).

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

No empty spaces in universe...
99% ready a set for Warlock with working title Atmosphere,full with 128 amazing pads - if somebody is interested write me for info,price will be 15 euro.
Cheers:)

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Right......

Let's not forget that Markus has dealt out his fair share of attitude over the last two decades so whoever is without sin cast the first stone. As a football coach once told me "there is no sympathy for self inflicted wounds".

There was a time when Tone 2 was on my no-buy list because of Markus' abrasive attitude but in recent years he's changed his stance so I gave him and his company another chance and attempted to put the past behind. I recently purchased Icarus and it's become one of my favorite synths. Warlock has also been a joy to own and Gladiator is on my to-buy list.

The bottom line is running a business is hard....very hard....and that's whether you're online or brick and mortar. Some people just don't have the stomach for the drama that will inevitably come when running a business. When you start a business you should know going in that it won't be all rainbows and puppy dogs. There is a good chance the next customer that walks in the door will be an arsehole but you can't let it get to you if you want paying customers to keep walking through that door.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There is a bit of a mixed message:

Summary:
- We can guarantee that all products will continue to work also in the future

finally made decide to quit today.

So I don't think you can "quit" and still continue developing so I think what we're seeing in Markus' post is someone who is severely burned out.

Everything I've written up to this point was from the perspective of a consumer reacting to the owner of a business but now I'll say this as one human being to another:

Markus, you're obviously a brilliant coder and synth designer so don't let anyone (especially on the internet) take that away from you.

Take some time and get your mental and physical health in order. Spend time with the kids, recharge the batteries.

But don't throw away two decades of hard work building your business because you're feeling burned out and stressed right now. Step away, take a deep breath, and take all the time you need before making a life changing decision.

I sincerely hope you can heal mentally and physically but don't punish yourself because of the words of others. Think it through, if not for yourself then for the future of your children.

Last week i quit the sound design,this week a prepare a soundset with 4000 presets inside,realizing that i disappoint mostly myself by quiting and wanna make something better :):)
So lets wait a week or a month to see where things go with tone2 :):)
If it's permanent ,there is another developers which will fill the space with new toys
Live is heavy,only strong survive.
Cheers.

[mevla]

Well, there's RayBlaster3 in the works. The demo is promising GUI-wise. Saying that from the point of view of a Bitwig Linux user where the software part of updating the waves was way too slow up to now with the releases. Worked fine for the sound generation but was not tempting to fiddle with the IMS parameters that much. This changes with the upcoming version 3.

[briefcasemanx]

I think if he would not try to do everything himself, and got others to handle things like marketing, website art design, UI art design, and customer interaction and support. My sense is that there's a specific sort of inflexibility at play here that is likely good for engineering but is less useful in some of these other tasks and makes them harder and more stressful than they need be, and it feels like some priorities are out of whack. I think getting someone to do customer interaction and support would make him happier, and getting someone to do art design work and especially marketing would net way, way more money which would (probably?) make him happier.

My 2 cents.

The marketing is a bit out-of-touch regarding the trends, can be a bit too much 'hit' oriented when a lot of the customers in this market are simply hobbyists and will never make any money with their creations. Not because of the capabilities of these innovative synths. These synths can cover a wide range of textures, sounds and atmospheres and not only what the marketing largely focuses upon. A more 'underground' feeling of marketing could perhaps reach more customers.

This said, as for support I got several email answers by someone else than Markus, so he's not the only one in there. And if I'm not mistaken there are parts of the development which were done with others.

For the GUIs I find they are spot on for easy to access while dealing with complexity (Gladiator has a more complex UI).

Some stuff f the GUI's are extremely rough. Some are okay but have a few rough edges. Some are fine. Note that I said GUI art design, not functionality design. Functionality is general okay, I think. A lot of their stuff, including website, it very dated. Very 2007 looking.

I have to say Warlock GUI is really good though IMO. Very easy on the eyes. It was my first Tone2 synth and the beautiful GUI and price almost forced me to buy it.

If Warlock didn't have a great GUI I might not have bought it, and buying that was a gateway to buying other Tone2 synths. Visual appeal is very important for the GUI as well as the website. That humans operate on such an aesthetic level (myself included, admittedly) is very unfortunate, but that's the reality we live in.

[mevla]

Some stuff f the GUI's are extremely rough. Some are okay but have a few rough edges. Some are fine. Note that I said GUI art design, not functionality design. Functionality is general okay, I think. A lot of their stuff, including website, it very dated. Very 2007 looking.

I have to say Warlock GUI is really good though IMO. Very easy on the eyes. It was my first Tone2 synth and the beautiful GUI and price almost forced me to buy it.

If Warlock didn't have a great GUI I might not have bought it, and buying that was a gateway to buying other Tone2 synths. Visual appeal is very important for the GUI as well as the website. That humans operate on such an aesthetic level (myself included, admittedly) is very unfortunate, but that's the reality we live in.

I'm sure there are objective, measured, behavourial-studied, ways to analyze GUIs although for most of us it's rather objective and as such we can discuss our perception differences endlessly.

For instance, for some reason (I think I thought Warlock was an analog synth like Saurus and I already have u-he's Repro which are excellent) I haven't really looked into Warlock. Now that you mention it, I got the demo. It's a nicely capable synth on its own for the price asked. While the UI is nicely 'square', I find that the Electra UI is more relaxing. That's a subjective part.

Indeed the visual appeal is quite important although it can be wrapped in a conceptual way. A retro look might not make the best laid out UI but if customers are getting into the concept it can be just fine. That depends on the projected customer base. If Markus gets back into the whole thing in a creative way there ought to be a whole design 'make over' including all aspects of the (new) products and its marketing.

[TS-12]

Why do such bad things have to happen to greatest companies and people ?

[egbert101]

Why do such bad things have to happen to greatest companies and people ?

Life?

[egbert101]

Got my eye on one particular synth from Tone2 but agree about the sentiments about the GUI. Feels a bit dated and I keep wanting to resize it from the bottom right corner! The sound is genius though.

[jules99]

many very over-emotional/nasty/drunken/high customers, bullshit in forums, harassment, piracy, defamation and trolling.

And yet, no one at KVR seems to question themselves or the whole culture of this forum. The amount of snarky comments, angry users (no demo?!, does not run in my WinXP system?! ilOKE WHY?!) any dev has to face on here combined with comments on social media can be taxing.

Yet many users in this thread try to find blame in Marcus' decision. Or don't believe him. Or question his motives. Or advise him what he should or shouldn't do.

Tone2 won't be the last to quit because of this. Many devs have stopped engaging here because of this.

Yet no one seems to reflect on it.

[WordClock]

The Tone2 plugins really have that hardware synth quality to them that my other sound plugins don't have of almost all of them for some reason. I used a few pre-made loops from Electra3 and they gave me wonderful ideas to finish songs with more inspiration. Trendy and hip and special and cute stuff I made that I may share some day because there's no carreer coming for me in music. I named my new album "Kent Thrax" about Clark Kent supermans rack of thingamajigs. The cover is a toothy man grinning in the south pole smoking a cigar. It's super fun. I have a load of projects to do and originally wasn't sure if I wanted more Tone2 than just Warlock. I recently bought Icarus in addition to Electra and Warlock. Love 'em. Come back some day Tone2 we'll miss new major upgrades! Right?

[DrGonzo]

And yet, no one at KVR seems to question themselves or the whole culture of this forum. The amount of snarky comments, angry users (no demo?!, does not run in my WinXP system?! ilOKE WHY?!) any dev has to face on here combined with comments on social media can be taxing.

The problem is much much bigger than that. It's everywhere.

The internet have become the number one place to vent ones frustrations in life. The solution is moderation with no mercy. Not like here where some people can say anything and others say the same and get warned or even banned.

/C

[4damind]

Tone2 always had a very dubious reputation, starting with copy protection, where some information was allegedly encoded into the audio signal, to tricks to make it sound analogue even though it was not an analogue emulation. The whole business model and the way Markus also dealt with criticism was always a bit strange. The resulting stress with users, forums etc. was always home-made. But I can understand that even as a developer, at some point you think about whether it makes sense to keep developing, especially if it doesn't reflect well on your life.

I don't currently use any Tone2 products, even though I still have a licence for the Saurus. But it's good that there is at least still support. But I'll be honest... Personally, I'm not very interested in Tone2 products and even if development were to stop completely, I wouldn't really care.

[egbert101]

So I found myself disappointed with Synplant 2, not being enough quality to justify the price tag. And so that's when Icarus caught my eye. It can do resynthesis so much better. But it's not just that, the sound is very very current (as compared to another synth named current). I think it may be something special, but of course, I want the development to continue and improvements made, because it costs a lot of money (as are all the additional sound banks).