Minimal Audio Current…subscription

[martiu]

chill dude, it is just a synth

[liquidsound]

[ghettosynth]

I'm not advocating to crapware that works for subscription. But I think that subscription model deserves to be properly understood instead of just putting the label of 'Epic fail' to any software that has a subscription model.

You do you boo, but, you aren't the decider for other people. Nobody has to "understand" anything from your point of view to make a purchase decision for themselves.

Why is this thread still running? There's another thread with their re-release. This thread became stupid many pages ago.

[Jac459]

I'll just provide some synthesized case.

Let's consider you're a studio engineer and once some band comes to record a single. You did all your job well and got some money for your work. Some times after, they come again and ask you to make a remix for the single because the idea of the song has changed. And ask you to make it for free. 'Okay', you say, 'It won't take more than an hour for me, so I'll do that for free'. You finish your job and after that band mates go away happy with the remix. Some time after, they come to you again and ask to make a radio version of the song. And also for free. You grind with your teeth but quickly do the job for free and let them away. Some time ago they come to you and ask to make a new Album... for free... I think, your patience is now over and you ask a fair price for some thousands of bucks for the work. And then the band lead starts to shout: "Epic fail! It's a hard pass! You're kidding! Very disappointing! Shame on you! What a joke!" But they don't want to just go away. They brought their instruments and want to start recording, and you just want to kick them out because you don't work for just 'Thank your' or for the first single payment and you need to pay a rent for the studio, electricity, etc.

The similar situation is in software development. The software doesn't stay at the same point, it always evolves. It brings new features and fixes different problems which can suddenly happen on particular user machines. That's all the result of work of different people who are specialists in software development. I think, if you're so cool in audio production, you don't go to the studio and make your mixes on your own. If you are so cool in software development, then you can write your own plugin and use it, isn't it? By the other side, most of you aren't enterprise clients and don't have possibility to pay $40000 as it is asked by Oracle for the RDBMS solution for a single license per one physical CPU core on your machine (a good example of pricing for the enterprise solution).

And how to find the balance between the price the vendor should ask and a client should pay? From the one side, the client is interested to pay as less as possible. From the other side, there is a team of developers that also want to eat. If the money income for the company will fail, the product will be abandoned. A good alternative asking high price for a single license is providing subscriptions. The benefits are:
1. You can set reasonable low price for the software with the hope that people can try it and enjoy it.
2. The software becomes more affordable to the average user because of it's low price.
2. You can predict your money income for a pretty long period (years) and build the strategy for the future work of the company.

I'm not advocating to crapware that works for subscription. But I think that subscription model deserves to be properly understood instead of just putting the label of 'Epic fail' to any software that has a subscription model.

I strongly agree with the first part of your reasoning, being in the banking industry and in the situation of purchasing a lot of software, it is amazing how full of real crooks it is.
One example is Finastra. A real life story is that they sold a product for trade finance business, and now they are asking 50 millions euros to upgrade it. It isn't a made-up number, this is really what they are asking for. Just for an upgrade.
And frankly, this software is miles simpler than our DAW. Miles....

But going to your point. I don't think the solution to make developers sustainable is subscription.
Yes it has a ton of advantages for developers, but it has also a ton of disadvantages for customers.
A good commercial model for me is UVI and Falcon. Falcon is awesome value for money as it is basically upgraded constantly for free since a very very long time.
So from a practical standpoint, more and more people own it.
In parallel they are selling presets packs, sometimes looking as standalone products (like quadra for example) that are in fact just a layer on top of Falcon. This way they are able to sell a lot of presets at a high price.
Quite genius, and everybody is happy.

Same for Kilohearts. Their presets packs are more obviously just presets but the marketing around them is excellent.

[deejay2]

Hey everyone, our updated plans, perpetual option, and free trial are live! Please check out the new thread here: viewtopic.php?t=603478

when paypal option for $10/month ($120 a year) will be available?

[swilow11]

I've demoed it and enjoy it. Sound is good, it's easy to use, looks nice. But I've got a bunch of other synths that do the same sorts thing so at this stage, I'm not going to purchase it. Just wondering how I uninstall? I use Windows and it's not listed in my installed apps.

[sl1200mk2]

I've demoed it and enjoy it. Sound is good, it's easy to use, looks nice. But I've got a bunch of other synths that do the same sorts thing so at this stage, I'm not going to purchase it. Just wondering how I uninstall? I use Windows and it's not listed in my installed apps.

https://www.minimal.audio/support

How can I uninstall your software?

macOS

Delete the Component, VST, and VST3 files in:
Mac HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components
Mac HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST
Mac HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3

Delete the Product's AAX file in:
Mac HD/Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins

Delete the Product's folders found in:
Mac HD/Library/Application Support/Minimal
Mac HD/Users/Shared/Minimal

Windows

Delete the Product's .dll (VST) file in:
C:\Program Files\VSTPlugins

Delete the Product's VST3 file in:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3

Delete the Product's AAX file in:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins

Delete the Product's folders found in:
C:\Program Files\Minimal
C:\ProgramData\Minimal (ProgramData is a hidden folder)

[Aiynzahev]

I like this synth quite a lot on first demo. Lots of cool features and they sound really good, however is there really no mod-matrix and no random note on source?

Edit - never mind I found the random LFO option.

Still Idk if I'd do this at $200, it's a little bit much. On sale though I think I might pick this up.

It feels like. a really good synth wrapped up in an annoying cloud preset system. I can ignore the latter part of it but I don't like that it's there

[Jac459]

I like this synth quite a lot on first demo. Lots of cool features and they sound really good, however is there really no mod-matrix and no random note on source?

Edit - never mind I found the random LFO option.

Still Idk if I'd do this at $200, it's a little bit much. On sale though I think I might pick this up.

I wouldn't consider current before having Phase Plant and Avenger 2. They are all 3 on the same "I am a modern digital synth and I don't try to be a VA" market segment but both Phase Plant and Avenger 2 are way way more powerful than Current...

Nevertheless, Current is a well done, fun wavetable synth with many tricks up its sleeves. Definitely worth it at 99 (if you already got pigments in this price range, that is, I don't see any reason to pick Current before Pigments).
At the 200USD price range, well PP and Avenger all the way, no contest.

[zerocrossing]

I like this synth quite a lot on first demo. Lots of cool features and they sound really good, however is there really no mod-matrix and no random note on source?

Edit - never mind I found the random LFO option.

Still Idk if I'd do this at $200, it's a little bit much. On sale though I think I might pick this up.

They’re a catch that’s not immediately obvious. You think you’re buying the synth your are demoing for $200. You are not. A lot of what is in the demo is not included unless you subscribe. I had my credit card out and ready to pay, and they hit you with the options page, then you find out the real deal. No thank you. That’s some shady shit.

[Aiynzahev]

I like this synth quite a lot on first demo. Lots of cool features and they sound really good, however is there really no mod-matrix and no random note on source?

Edit - never mind I found the random LFO option.

Still Idk if I'd do this at $200, it's a little bit much. On sale though I think I might pick this up.

I wouldn't consider current before having Phase Plant and Avenger 2. They are all 3 on the same "I am a modern digital synth and I don't try to be a VA" market segment but both Phase Plant and Avenger 2 are way way more powerful than Current...

Nevertheless, Current is a well done, fun wavetable synth with many tricks up its sleeves. Definitely worth it at 99 (if you already got pigments in this price range, that is, I don't see any reason to pick Current before Pigments).
At the 200USD price range, well PP and Avenger all the way, no contest.

I disagree though, I have pigments and phase plant, but I think the engine of current is quite different from those two, like it's filters are drastically different and there's a lot more available with morphing etc. Its FM is very good too as are its wavetable manipulation capabilities. On paper it looks like a SERUM clone but its approach to how it does it sounds very different to me.

EDIT - What's missing from the $200 synth compared to the demo? I imagine a lot of the wavetables? WOW an extra $120 to get all the wavetables

[Jac459]

I like this synth quite a lot on first demo. Lots of cool features and they sound really good, however is there really no mod-matrix and no random note on source?

Edit - never mind I found the random LFO option.

Still Idk if I'd do this at $200, it's a little bit much. On sale though I think I might pick this up.

They’re a catch that’s not immediately obvious. You think you’re buying the synth your are demoing for $200. You are not. A lot of what is in the demo is not included unless you subscribe. I had my credit card out and ready to pay, and they hit you with the options page, then you find out the real deal. No thank you. That’s some shady shit.

Yes, I forgot to mention that... With Phase Plant and Pigments, you got companies with awesome track records in terms of customer support. VPS is not far behind.
Minimal Audio hasn't this reputation...

[Aiynzahev]

I like this synth quite a lot on first demo. Lots of cool features and they sound really good, however is there really no mod-matrix and no random note on source?

Edit - never mind I found the random LFO option.

Still Idk if I'd do this at $200, it's a little bit much. On sale though I think I might pick this up.

They’re a catch that’s not immediately obvious. You think you’re buying the synth your are demoing for $200. You are not. A lot of what is in the demo is not included unless you subscribe. I had my credit card out and ready to pay, and they hit you with the options page, then you find out the real deal. No thank you. That’s some shady shit.

Yes, I forgot to mention that... With Phase Plant and Pigments, you got companies with awesome track records in terms of customer support. VPS is not far behind.
Minimal Audio hasn't this reputation...

Yes that's a concern too. It also seems to get pretty CPU intensive at times. But I will say, the more I explore the effects section just for example, it's got a hell of a lot of features and they fundamentally sound great.

I really dislike the approach they have taken with this though, like some modern video game approach where the game is just a skin for a micro-transaction machine.

[Jac459]

I wouldn't consider current before having Phase Plant and Avenger 2. They are all 3 on the same "I am a modern digital synth and I don't try to be a VA" market segment but both Phase Plant and Avenger 2 are way way more powerful than Current...

Nevertheless, Current is a well done, fun wavetable synth with many tricks up its sleeves. Definitely worth it at 99 (if you already got pigments in this price range, that is, I don't see any reason to pick Current before Pigments).
At the 200USD price range, well PP and Avenger all the way, no contest.

I disagree though, I have pigments and phase plant, but I think the engine of current is quite different from those two, like it's filters are drastically different and there's a lot more available with morphing etc. Its FM is very good too as are its wavetable manipulation capabilities. On paper it looks like a SERUM clone but its approach to how it does it sounds very different to me.

EDIT - What's missing from the $200 synth compared to the demo? I imagine a lot of the wavetables?

Good we disagree , that's the essence of a good forum.

Actually you are right, the modifiers of Current are awesome, I like the spectral processing and the wave shaping you can put. Also the filters are quite good.
But that's all go to my mention of "fun wavetable synth with many tricks up its sleeves".

But if you take for example Phase Plant, the architecture is totally open, in terms of FM, AM, RM, PM, it beats Current to a pulp, you can modulate everything at audio rate, once you start playing with that, you are in a different world.
Then talking about the effects. Sure, Current use minimal audio effects that are quite nice. But actually they are not that practical to do simple things. Then you only have one effect bus. In phase plant you have 3. Then in Phase Plant you can also set your effect bus to be ... polyphonic !!! That is just nuts... You can nest effects inside your bus with band passing. It is a night mare to do that in Current.
Overall, I personally feel than the amount of power and potential at your finger tips is just on another level.

[Jac459]

I like this synth quite a lot on first demo. Lots of cool features and they sound really good, however is there really no mod-matrix and no random note on source?

Edit - never mind I found the random LFO option.

Still Idk if I'd do this at $200, it's a little bit much. On sale though I think I might pick this up.

They’re a catch that’s not immediately obvious. You think you’re buying the synth your are demoing for $200. You are not. A lot of what is in the demo is not included unless you subscribe. I had my credit card out and ready to pay, and they hit you with the options page, then you find out the real deal. No thank you. That’s some shady shit.

Yes, I forgot to mention that... With Phase Plant and Pigments, you got companies with awesome track records in terms of customer support. VPS is not far behind.
Minimal Audio hasn't this reputation...

Yes that's a concern too. It also seems to get pretty CPU intensive at times. But I will say, the more I explore the effects section just for example, it's got a hell of a lot of features and they fundamentally sound great.

I really dislike the approach they have taken with this though, like some modern video game approach where the game is just a skin for a micro-transaction machine.

Actually, I see you are a sound designer (which I am not) so don't you feel that the FX section of Phase Plant is just way way more powerful? (provided that you have the ultimate pack with snapheap and multiples)