SWAY - a synth modeled after the Yamaha SY77

[cslevine]

i am just thinking about the problem of releasing a 1st beta.
This could lead to some uncontrollable spread or usage, if the beta works near fine, and what about, then, selling a gold release.

i just hope, dear Sheaf, that you manage secure with saving and have lots of secure places for your sources, devkits, or, i guess, project files. Hours and years of tweaking each FM parameter. The only secure way to secure any work, is... physical CD o DVD, despite all said about these supports : much better than hard drives or SSD or flash. Classical hard drive can still many, many years ( maybe 30 or + ), Flash memory can still... about 5 / 8 years ! not much more... Cloud is... for months or some couple years until X or Y service change their minds. ( Pcloud seam to be very interesting. They annonce 99 years lifetime one shot paiment. )

Maybe, when thinking of beta testing, there should be interesting of writing names and coordinates of beta users into the main EXE or DLL, displaying "beta testing to NAME + date" in the main GUI, and with maybe some date ending... or demo mode with white noise in ALL beta versions... And if this works fine : we buy for the full. White noise would be hard coded into all beta, and not a function which is not active with the good serial + name of purchase.
Or, for example, some speaking "beta" coded into each PCM sample, and no possibility to load custom ROM, or save preset... or so on.
Only loading SYS EX would be active, to be sure of good patches interpretations.


Take ALL your time, to think about these aspects,
and save your work : maybe would this be all to do list for now ?

[oldmica]

I think Sheaf has everything under control, and I would expect a date restriction along with the other things that developers normally do when releasing beta software.

I for one (if I'm chosen to be in the beta test group) will never release anything to the wild without permission.

[Caesarg86]

IMO Sway will definitely put FM synthesis back in the limelight. I remember when I purchased my first DX-7 and subsequently the TX81Z, TG-77, and SY-99. What an exciting time it was for the synth community. The sound of FM was amazing and its eventual growth when combining it with samples made it an almost perfect expressive instrument. Seems SWAY may follow the logical progression of this process...

[EvilDragon]

The only secure way to secure any work, is... physical CD o DVD

Definitely NOT. I've had some very expensive (said to last 100 years) CDs and DVDs burned with a good writer, that petered out readability-wise after 7-8 years. Bullcrap.

SSDs are way better longevity-wise I'd say. And just... multiple redundant backups, for really critical stuff.

[Teksonik]

I just loaded a crappy "Imation" CD-RW from 2001 and all the data is still intact. So YMMV....


Anyway is there a release date for this SY-77 yet or? Not that I'm in a hurry just curious.

[oscillik]

I've had disc rot occur within the timespan EvilDragon has mentioned, on multiple occasions. The UK wasn't a ridiculously hot place (at least at the time, early-mid 2000s) so it won't have been temperature related. But I've had many discs, from many different manufacturers suffer from disc rot.

And in any case, YMMV is certainly not classified as "secure", not by anyones standards.

[IvyBirds]

The only secure way to secure any work, is... physical CD o DVD, despite all said about these supports : much better than hard drives or SSD or flash.

The most secure way is multiple redundant systems and methods both locally on multiple media types, off sight storage on physical media and cloud based or remote network storage

CD/DVD ROMs can experience disk rot but can also easily experience physical damage from fire, flood or other natural disasters as can local hard drives so it's not wise to have them be your only source of backup

[Teksonik]

I've had disc rot occur within the timespan EvilDragon has mentioned, on multiple occasions. The UK wasn't a ridiculously hot place (at least at the time, early-mid 2000s) so it won't have been temperature related. But I've had many discs, from many different manufacturers suffer from disc rot.
And in any case, YMMV is certainly not classified as "secure", not by anyones standards.

I live in the desert where it's always hot so temperature is not an issue.

Disk storage has been secure here over two and a half decades so it's certainly a viable storage option. Nothing is bullet proof in perpetuity.

Of course multiple backups on different media in different locations is preferred. I keep thumb drives in my bank safety deposit box with all my projects and presets that I switch out every month or so.

At any rate if this guy is writing his own plugin I doubt he needs advice from us on how to safely backup his code.

[oldmica]

At any rate if this guy is writing his own plugin I doubt he needs advice from us on how to safely backup his code.

+1. @Sheaf you rock and you do you!

[jdnz]

The only secure way to secure any work, is... physical CD o DVD

Definitely NOT. I've had some very expensive (said to last 100 years) CDs and DVDs burned with a good writer, that petered out readability-wise after 7-8 years. Bullcrap.

SSDs are way better longevity-wise I'd say. And just... multiple redundant backups, for really critical stuff.

I too have been burned by 'archival quality' optical media rotting

SSDs - you need to be aware of the data retention period powered off - if you dig in the specs you'll find that retention is rated at only a handful of years without power - so ok for 'cold' storage ( espec since longevity on ssd is normally directly proportional to write rate ) but not so great for true archival storage

basically the only thing I really trust for true archiving ( as in lock it in a vault and still be able to read it in 50 years time ) is tape - and then you run into the fun of finding a system with a working tape drive still at that scale ( which is why I still have a spare DLT drive and controller sitting in storage ).

Paper tape anyone?

[DanielKonopka]

If you ask me, I bet my money on blu-ray discs + a handful of SSDs (heavy duty, high endurance ones, with a TBW rating > 3000) from a reputable brand, like Micron. I'd just go with either two (or more) of good 'ole SATA3 USB external cases (with S. M. A. R. T. reporting, UASP etc.) or use some fancy kind of those USB RAID dual cases. That, and probably something like TrueCrypt, on top.

[Aloysius]

Hammer and chisel. Works every time.

[DanielKonopka]

Or laser engraving in a polished granite stone. Should outlast each one of us here. How to read that, though?

[whassup]

Hammer and chisel. Works every time.

Write rate is a bit low and the error correction is not up to snuff. But yeah...

[Aloysius]